Proletariat Fiction free essay sample

Compares novels as proletariat fiction depicting social reality, the American Dream, youth, identity, alienation, womens roles. The Grapes Of Wrath, (John Steinbeck ) Maggie ( Stephen Crane ) The two great American classics, Stephen Cranes Maggie: Girl of the Streets (1893) and John Steinbecks Grapes of Wrath (1939), emerge as pioneers works within this countrys literary tradition. Maggie scandalized the late Victorian world with its frank depiction of a young woman forced into prostitution. The Grapes of Wrath with its vivid depiction of the poverty of migrant farm workers attempting to eek out a living in the midst of the dustbowl of the 1930s. Notorious within their respective eras, these two works have emerged as classics due to their authors great storytelling abilities and the universality of the stories told. Maggie and the Joad family emerge as memorable American literary figures who struggle with such dominant themes as eternal youth or naivete, the American dream, identity

Free Essays on Challenger Nasa

January 28, 1986, the Space Shuttle Challenger the 25th space shuttle mission, was set to be launched from Kennedy Space Center in Florida at, 11:38am. Originally the launch was scheduled for January 22, at 3:43pm but had been set back several times due to bad weather. Hopes ran high the anticipation for the lift off was tremendous. This was to be one of the greatest missions ever. It would be a first for many things. The most publicized was that it would be the first time a schoolteacher was allowed to travel in space. The crew was picked and they were anxiously awaiting the countdown. On board the space shuttle that fateful day was.. Crew of the Challenger Michael J. Smith (Pilot) Francis R. Scobee (Commander) Judith A. Resnik (Mission Specialist 1) Ellison S. Onizuka (Mission Specialist 2) Ronald E. McNair (Mission Specialist 3) Gregory B. Jarvis (Payload Specialist 1) Sharon Christa McAuliffe (Payload Specialist 2) 3,2,1..Lift off..The 10th flight of the Space Shuttle Challenger and the twenty-fifth space shuttle mission, the Challenger had been launched from Pad 39B at 11:38am EST. Hopes ran high as many were lined outside to watch the Challenger being launched, the lift-off was being watched live on television for those who couldn't make it to the Kennedy Space Center. As the Challenger climbed higher and higher something that wasn't expected occurred. Seventy-three seconds after lift-off the Space Shuttle Challenger exploded, killing all 7 crewmembers. The United States was devastated. Many people thought this would be one of the greatest missions ever. So what really happened? Many factors contributed to the explosion of the space shuttle. The temperature was 36Â °F at the launching site. After the Solid Rocket Boosters a.k.a. SRB was ignited a thundering noise was heard. Pictures and video showed black smoke coming from the bottom field joint of the right Solid Rocket Booster. That suggested that an O ring was ... Free Essays on Challenger Nasa Free Essays on Challenger Nasa January 28, 1986, the Space Shuttle Challenger the 25th space shuttle mission, was set to be launched from Kennedy Space Center in Florida at, 11:38am. Originally the launch was scheduled for January 22, at 3:43pm but had been set back several times due to bad weather. Hopes ran high the anticipation for the lift off was tremendous. This was to be one of the greatest missions ever. It would be a first for many things. The most publicized was that it would be the first time a schoolteacher was allowed to travel in space. The crew was picked and they were anxiously awaiting the countdown. On board the space shuttle that fateful day was.. Crew of the Challenger Michael J. Smith (Pilot) Francis R. Scobee (Commander) Judith A. Resnik (Mission Specialist 1) Ellison S. Onizuka (Mission Specialist 2) Ronald E. McNair (Mission Specialist 3) Gregory B. Jarvis (Payload Specialist 1) Sharon Christa McAuliffe (Payload Specialist 2) 3,2,1..Lift off..The 10th flight of the Space Shuttle Challenger and the twenty-fifth space shuttle mission, the Challenger had been launched from Pad 39B at 11:38am EST. Hopes ran high as many were lined outside to watch the Challenger being launched, the lift-off was being watched live on television for those who couldn't make it to the Kennedy Space Center. As the Challenger climbed higher and higher something that wasn't expected occurred. Seventy-three seconds after lift-off the Space Shuttle Challenger exploded, killing all 7 crewmembers. The United States was devastated. Many people thought this would be one of the greatest missions ever. So what really happened? Many factors contributed to the explosion of the space shuttle. The temperature was 36Â °F at the launching site. After the Solid Rocket Boosters a.k.a. SRB was ignited a thundering noise was heard. Pictures and video showed black smoke coming from the bottom field joint of the right Solid Rocket Booster. That suggested that an O ring was ...

Personal Learning Lournal Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 750 words

Personal Learning Lournal - Essay Example As Maslow has rightly pointed out in his theory, the motivation of an employee depends on the level of need that they are on. Hence only if the needs at the particular level are met will the employee show some kind of improvement in performance. In the meeting the CEO has been performing miserably, and it is clear from the previous meetings that she lacks leadership skills to a great extent. Although, I have been making efforts to try and contribute to the growth of the company, it is clear that the CEO has completely different ideas. All the meetings in the past have been rushed, last minute and with one or more of the members missing. This shows a clear lack of commitment and also a lack of authority on the CEO’s part. The CEO to a great extent has been assertive and has shown a very poor performance. I have been overloaded with tasks at the end moment, almost three to five hours before the lecture and am asked to complete others pending work. Due to my submissive nature, I have been giving in to all this and have been working although I have completed my part of the work way ahead of time. There is a clear lack of understanding on the side of the CEO that the group members have their personal lives as well which they are required to attend too. The diversity within the group has also been increasing the issues due to cultural differences. There is an obvious teaming up of people from the same country and an understanding only within them. This is very harmful for the group as the secret to the success of this project lies in team work and hard work. The CEO has been working with the intention that the group only requires to be led and has been extremely partial based on the cultural backgrounds of the people. Her style of leadership is mostly an authoritative style, where she has missed out on understanding the group dynamics and has focused on just giving orders to the group members. There has been a clear lack of

Final Cultural Research Paper Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 1750 words

Final Cultural - Research Paper Example Development has led society to modified modern foragers who supplement their gathering and hunting with wages, trade, horticulture agriculture and many more forms of survival. Gatherers are becoming extinct in some cultures. However, in other cultures, gatherers remain relevant. For instance, the Mikea of Madagascar is a famous group of foragers. Foragers have different kinds of relationship with their environment than most of other societies. A good example is the Zulu tribe. They interrelate well among themselves and spend most of their leisure time together in conversations, listening to music and dances (Haviland, 2009). Among the Zulu, women are the primary gatherers who gather fruits and can at times kill small animals for food. They live in small groups, determined by availability of food. They do not believe in material wealth, but most of animals they keep are for purposes of food. They live their life in the present, and they never worry of what they do not have. They live in temporary homes that could be made of wood or other material gathered. The group believes that by sharing they expect nothing in return. Values and belief diversity differs from one group of gatherers to the other but this could be due to time, ethnicity, and pattern of their cultural behavior (Leonard, 2010). The zulu have well established political systems. They were governed by a powerful king called shaka. The king had an army that was responsible for protecting the tribe from any likely aggressors. For instance, Shaka’s army fought against British rule during the scramble and partition of Africa. The kingdom was established in the early 1800s and it was as a result of the union of the various clans thereby forming a powerful kingdom (Axel-Ivar, 1976). Horticulture is the science of cultivation of plants. It includes the use of seedlings to produce plants. Economically viable countries show a high potential of a variety of farming activities. The Zulu, like most of

Deliberate Stereotyping Through Language of Various Groups Research Paper

Deliberate Stereotyping Through Language of Various Groups - Research Paper Example The average American lady works instead of just lazily sleeping all day (Leszczak 163). The two girls do not represent a small group of American ladies who prefer to wait for their handsome prince to sweep them off their feet into a world of house chores. Some girls prefer to wait for a rich suitor to marry them. After marriage, the ladies prefer to stay at home and care for the family. Caring for the family includes taking care of the children’s physical and emotional needs. Taking care of the children includes taking care of the love, care, and emotional needs of the busy working husband (Leszczak 163). Additionally, the cartoon television series The Simpsons show how the typical family life in America. The television show often shows common family issues that crop up in the average American family’s life. The television show also shows how the typical family resolves issues of misunderstanding among the family members. The same cartoon series shows how the average Fa mily resolves conflicts with the average American neighbor. Similarly, the same Simpson show indicates how the typical American family honors special holidays like Christmas day, Valentine’s Day, Mother’s Day, Father’s Day, and Thanksgiving Day (Gray 41). African American Stereotyping American television stereotyping does not spare the African Americans from being one of the popular topics. In the 1915 Griffith film, Birth of a Nation, the film depicted the average African Americans as Toms, Coons, brutal bucks, tragic mulattoes or Mammies. The African American stereotype was infused into the 1974 Good Times television series. The same African American stereo was included in the creation of the 1993 South Central comedy television series. The African American audiences loved... This paper approves that all the above television series are not notoriety deserved. The concepts on the above works do not use offensive language. Some of the conversations of the above television series can be taking as curtailed irony. Consequently, we should not take all the stereotyping issues at face value. Rather, the stereotypes should be regarded as a small portion of the entire culture or outcome. Some television series deliberately stereotype children as eager learning individuals. The children’s television series cater to the cartoon television story needs of the children television audiences. The children would be happy to watch children’s television series. This report makes a conclusion that there are some lessons we can learn from the offensive language. First, we should censor the offensive language. Censorship means changing the language to milder or more tactful ones. The above television series are considered entertainment that adds lessons, morals, or values to the television audiences. The above television series clearly shows restraint in the use of offensive language. The offensive language rarely occurs in the entire television series. Based on the above discussion, deliberate stereotyping happens by focusing on the use of language of different groups (especially white people) in mainstream television shows. Some television series portray Asians and African Americans differently from White Americans. Other television shows portray women differently from men. Evidently, the research shows that most television series show a wrong image or stereotype of certain groups deliberately.

The New Brutalist Architecture Anthropology Essay

The New Brutalist Architecture Anthropology Essay New Brutalist architecture is the outcome of a British architectural ethic named New Brutalism. According to Peter and Alice Smithson, the term was coined from a newspaper paragraph heading which, by poor translation of French, called the Marseilles Unità © by Le Corbusier Brutalism in architecture[1]. The Smithsons anointed their own British brand of Modernism by adding New both because they came after Le Corbusier and also in response to the style of the Architectural Review which at the start of the 1950s sunned many articles on the New Monumentality, the New Empiricism, the New Sentimentality etc.[2] Thus, New Brutalism was set to up be the direct line development of the Modern Movement. According to Banham (1966), whilst the terms Brutalism and New Brutalism are often used interchangeably, it is important to distinguish the meanings of the two terms as this paper will be focusing on the latter. Brutalism, though a British term, refers to an architectural aesthetic that is characterised by sticking repetitive angular geometries, and where concrete is used. A building without concrete can achieve a Brutalist character through a rough blocky appearance, and the expression of its structural materials, forms and services on its exterior. Another common theme is the exposure of the buildings functions in the exterior of the building. Banham (1966) summarises the key characteristics of Brutalist architecture as formal legibility of plan, clear exhibition of structure, direct and honest use of materials and clear exhibition of services. Thus, Brutalism casts back in time to include Le Corbusier as one of its important contributors. On the other hand, New Brutalism was coined before any New Brutalist architecture was built. It is an ethic, not aesthetic and is associated with socialist utopian ideology supported by Peter and Alison Smithson and the Team 10 group of architects amongst which they belonged. It is more related to the theoretical reform in urban theory proposed by CIAM than to bà ©ton brut. Thus, having originated from entirely different, organic theoretical doctrines, the British brand of Brutalism has considerable differences to Brutalist architecture from the continent. New Brutalism was born in the post-war era, almost exclusively in the Architects Department of the London County Council (LCC) the only place where young graduated architects such as Peter and Alison Smithson and many   from the Architectural Association school (AA) could find work in London. Many architects who have returned from the world had fought to make the world safe but the economic terms of the price of victory was heavy and the country faced long periods of austerity resulting in shortages, a shortfall in housing and social services. It was a time of benevolent socialism and commitment to the welfare state following the election of the Labour Government in 1945. The government had assumed responsibility for the welfare of the people in a way that would have been unthinkable in the 1930s.[3] Many houses of the working class poor that were in the centre of large industrial cities such as London, Liverpool, Manchester and Birmingham have been destroyed. In London, Abercromb ie and Forshaw published the County of London Plan which described the challenge faced by the government. The report recognised that there is abundant evidence that for families with children, houses are preferred to flats. They provide a private garden and yard at the same level as the main rooms of the dwelling, and fit the English temperament.[4] But, to put everyone in houses would result in the displacement of two-thirds to three-quarters of the people. The planners wished to minimise the out-movement of jobs. They settled on 136 persons per acre which based on the research they did put one third of the people in houses, and some 60 per cent in eight- and ten- storey flats; about half of families with two children will go into flats, but even this density meant the overspill of 4 in 10 of all people living in this zone in 1939. Furthermore, there was the sense of lesprit nouveau of making a fresh start after the cleansing effect of the war. The London architectural debate was fractionized; largely between the student generation and practicing establishment architects. The Establishment architects tended towards Socialist political alignment, with the welfare state architecture of Sweden as the architectural paradigm. For the whole generation of graduating architects from the AA were strongly influenced by the ideas of Le Corbusier and Mies van der Rohe; the Ville Radieuse and the Unità © dHabitation suggested a model to be applied by good hard socialist principles in good hard modernist materials.[5] They felt the Establishment architects were tending towards what they saw as a softer and more humanist Modernism, a retreat from the pre-war, heroic form of Modernism[6]. The Architects Department at the LCC provided a model in the early years; it had an unusually free hand, because the Ministrys ordinary co st sanctions did not apply to it[7]. It first produced the great Corbusian slabs which culminated in the only true realisation of the Radiant City in the world the Alton West estate in Roehampton[8]. The New Brutalists concept of order is not classical but topological: its implementation on a site could have involved judging the case on its merits (i.e. land form, accommodation required, finance available) rather than in accordance with a pre-established classical or picturesque schema.[9] Thus, they distinguish themselves from the earlier Brutalists such as Le Corbusier who proposed in his 1925 Plan Voisin to bulldoze most of central Paris north of the Seine in order to replace it with a hard of identical sixty-story towers. The Swiss architect was working in an inter-war Paris of exuberant, chaotic and often sordid everyday life[10] when the city was racked by disease and slums. He believed in centralising order (The design of cities was too important to be left to citizens[11]). His plans always relied on his famous paradox: we must decongest the centres of our cities by increasing their density; in addition, we must improve circulation and increase the amount of open space. T he paradox could be resolved by building high on a small part of total ground area[12]. This vision required clearing entire sites (WE MUST BUILD ON A CLEAR SITE! The city of today is dying because it is not constructed geometrically[13]). In war-torn London, the New Brutalists had the luxury of bomb-cleared sites but they also had a greater awareness for the historical fabric of the place-the designers of the Barbican estate built around St Giles church which survived the bombing and designers of Park Hill in Sheffield preserved old street names from the slum for their elevated walkways. Le Corbusier developed his principles of planning most fully in La Ville Contemporaine (1922) and La Ville Radieuse(1932). The plans differed in their recommendation for social distribution. The Contemporary Citys clearly differentiated spatial structure was designed to reflect a specific, segregated social structure: ones dwelling depended on ones job[14]. The residential areas would be of two types: six-storey luxury apartments for professional white collar workers (e.g. industrialists, scientists and artisits), and more modest accommodation for workers, built around courtyards, with less open space. These apartments would be mass-produced for mass-living. The apartments would all be uniform, contain standard furniture and be collectively serviced much like a hotel. Le Corbusier also designed entertainment and cultural complexes close to the middle-class in the centre of the city. The blue collar workers would not live like this. They would live in garden apartments within satellit e units. A different and appropriate sort of green space, sports facilities and entertainments would be available for these residents. Many aspects of New Brutalist architecture echo ideas from the Contemporary City. Income segregation has been practiced to different extents; the Barbican estates apartments vary between elaborate and fashionable layouts on the affluent south side (where the tenants were mainly city workers) and simpler layouts and designs on north side where social housing is concentrated[15]. Furthermore, whole out of town social housing estates such as Thamesmead have been built to resemble Le Corbusiers satellite units. By the time of the Radiant City, though the tenets of the Corbusian religion remained unchanged, there were important theological variations.   Everyone will be equally collectivised and live in giant apartments called Unità ©s. Every family will get an apartment not according to the breadwinners job, but according to rigid space norms: no one will get anything more or less than the minimum necessary for efficient existence. Everyone will enjoy collective services such as cooking, cleaning and childcare. Similarly, New Brutalist architects have tried to logically work from basic human needs in order to distinguish the necessary from the unnecessary and thereby simplifying existing architectural conventions to create an efficient living or working space[16]. However, rarely have they attempted to create truly mixed-income neighbourhoods, having concentrated on social housing estates. Although the recent redevelopment of Park Hill estate in Sheffied is mixing affordable and commerci al residential housing in the Brutalist estate, it cannot be said that mixed-income communities were a tenet of New Brutalism. Brutalist architecture quickly became the official architecture of the Welfare State. Criticisms of its severe problems took a very long time to come. In order to see why, it is important to appreciate how bad were the original dense rows of smoke-blackened slums that the towers replaced. Six years of war had reduced those parts of London and the great provincial cities to a sinister squalor. For two decades, any social disbenefits of modernist planning and its transformation of the town passed largely unremarked[17]. Criticisms rapidly became deafening in the 1970s after the subsidy system had been recast and local authorities were already phasing out their high-rise blocks. Though the outburst was triggered by the collapse of a building in a gas explosion, the majority of the complaints were eloquently summarised by Kenneth Campbell, who was in charge of housing design at the LCC and GLC from 1959 to 1974, to be the lifts (too few, too small, too slow), the children (too many), and the management (too little)[18]. Most importantly, critics like to point out that the true cause of all such problems, of which Corbusier is a fully culpable as any of his followers, was that the middle-class designers had no real feeling for the way a working-class family lived[19]; in their world [children] are not hanging around the landing or playing with the dustbin lids[20]. Chapter Two Dreams v Reality Inside the Minds of Brutalist Architects The sin of Corbusier and the Corbusians thus lay not in their designs, but in the mindless arrogance whereby they were imposed on people who could not take them and could never, given a modicum of thought, ever have been expected to take them[21] Corbusian Brutalism and New Brutalism suffered very much similar design failures, and the two have often been combined or confused in ridicule. However, this chapter points out that New Brutalism should not be indiscriminately blamed for deigning solely for the ideals of the middle-class, or that the designers similarly imposed the designs upon such unwitting residents without considering their social-economic needs and lifestyle. With ambition for a new approach to modernist architecture, the New Brutalists sought to exploit the low cost and pragmatism of mass produced materials and pre-fabricated components[22], mixing uses instead of segregation (as in Le Corbusiers design of La Ville Radieuse), designing specific to location and purpose and to use their signature elevated walkways which they named streets in the air. A satisfactory analysis of the architecture would evaluate the performance of such design features one by one, in essence performing an autopsy and separating the healthy organs, from the moderately healthy and the failed. After the procedure is over the pathologist may wonder why certain failed organs were designed in a way that may have been responsible for putting them in the line of trouble. To understand this we will look at what the architects were trying to achieve and the sources that influenced them. Peter and Alice Smithson wished to achieve the Virgilian dream the peace of the countryside enjoyed with the self-consciousness of the city dweller into the notion of the city itself[23]. Thus, unlike Ebenezer Howard who created the garden cities to combine the benefits of the countryside with the utility of city services, the Smithsons wished to take the garden city back into the city. They sought control and calm as key qualities in the modern city. They were also inspired by the flood of new consumer technologies and advertising. The Smithsons felt Le Corbusier was the first to put together the world of popular and fine arts towards the end of his life in Unità © dHabitation in Marseilles. They felt he viewed historic art possibly the classical origins of heroic architectural principles not as a stylistic source but as a pattern of organisation, and a source of social reform and technological revolution[24]. The Smithsons themselves recognised that advertising was making a bigger contribution to the visual climate of the 1950s than any of the fine arts. Advertising was selling products as a natural accessory to life and is packed with information for the average man it had taken over from fine art as the definition of what is fine and desirable by society. They recognised that the mass produced consumer goods had revolutionised the house without the intervention of the architect. However, they also felt that pre-fabricated buildings built for utility and not aesthetics (e.g. schools and garages) have adapted to the built environment a lot better to the existing built environment than buildings designed by fine art architects. Thus, in context of the desire to create calm and safe dwellings for the city dweller, architectural should be developed for the machine-served city. As with the majority of architects of their age, the Smithsons were profoundly influenced by the architecture of Mies van der Rohe. The Smithsons in particular stated that they were profoundly changed by two of Rohes themes: 1. To make a thing well is not only a moral imperative, but it is also the absolute base of the pleasure of use 2. The machine-calm city. No rhetoric, just ordering of elements to effect a gentle, live, equipoise ordinary quality. Neoclassicism.[25] The first point touches on the material aspect of Rohes love for perfection of detail and the use of the finest quality of materials, with the greatest care. The Smithsons felt Rohe had a special feeling for materials as luxury the observer is made aware of the essence of each material[26] Interestingly, this focus on the existential qualities of concrete and the keenness to use the material for its physical characteristic has enjoyed a recent revival in architecture. Conversely, there is debate with regards to the reason why the Smithsons and the Modernist architects before 1980s used the material so liberally. Sarah Williams Goldhagen believed that the Smithson did employ concrete for its physical properties whereas Adrian Forty argues that such conclusions are misguided in part because the Smithsons themselves tried to appeal to a later audience by discussing their earlier works in a new light in their publications. Forty believes that the Modernist architects of per-1980s were p rimarily interested in the form of their structures; further that in the ordinariness of their forms and the unremarkable, smooth and grey expanse of concrete they sought to achieve an abstract formlessness, as if literally urging the structure to disappear with irrelevance. Thus, concrete was not chosen because it was concrete, but rather because it had the properties the architects desired. The latter explanation seems to be the case of the Smithsons in 1974 when they wrote that many old cities the feeling of control is derived from the repetition of the use of materials on every roof, the roofs having been built at the same pitch, with similar roof lights etc. This suggests that perhaps the repeated use of concrete in so many parts of the building was not motivated by its suitability but by the need to repeat and extend control. The Smithsons were keen for their repetition of elements to seem to derive from the intention of the whole, rather than seeming to have been designed as one separate entity which is then repeated. They found that a repetition with subtle differences used by Rohe in creating a large at-the-whole-community-scale central open space was life-including[27]. They also felt that a building is more interesting if it is more than itself if it changes the space around it with connective possibilities but by a quietness that until now our sensibilities could not recognise as architecture at all. They felt a sense of wellbeing can be found if the built-form and the counterpart space are locked together[28]. The recognition that a building is not alone, that it exerts an influence on its surroundings and needs to interact with it to be successful seems now far off from the emphasis of todays planning policies for high quality, inclusive design which should integrate into existing urban form and the natural and built environments[29]. However, what sounded similar is very different in practice as we can see in Robin Hood Gardens, a project by the Smithsons where they consciously incorporated their vision of inclusive design. We can see that the buildings were definitely designed with the central space in mind they are even curved according to the landscape features. However, the estate does not integrate with buildings of the surrounding areas very well in terms of scale or layout. Critics state that it failed to come to terms that existing spatial fabrics held memory and value[30]. People adapt slowly to change a building that nods to the original fabric will aid the adaptation process . This design fails to be inclusive for the surrounding areas that are outside the architects control and thus does not fall into the broader scope of todays standard of good design. However, an earlier project by the Smithsons was a widely held success for integrating well within and introducing variations to the City of London. This was the Economist Plaza which was completed in 1964. A group of three office towers built on a picturesque piazza to allow pedestrian movement independent of the road system with street level access to services and shops, it broke the London tradition of the closed block, and may be considered the precursor of later office developments such as Broadgate[31]. However, its success was also attributed to restraint that was sensitive to context, by the use of stone instead of concrete to assimilate choice of material of older buildings nearby, and designing on the basis of an ancient Greek acropolis plan to maintain with the scale and governing lines of tr adition-bound St Jeremys Street. The successful features of this project also marked a retreat from Brutalism to the restrained Classicism of Mies van der Rohe[32]. The Economist Plaza is an example of how the Smithsons usually go about the designing process they conducted length research into the working practices of the journalists of the Economist magazine in order to create the most efficient structure. Their aim was for their buildings to be specific to their location and purpose[33]. They also took inspiration from the works of others. At the time when the Smithsons were compiling their entry to the Golden Lane housing competition between 1951 and 1953, they had contact with the Hendersons who were conducting social studies in the East End of London. This steered their reading of the city towards a form which reflected the structure of human association. This led to their radical suggestion that the street and housing blocks might multiply in a random and biological way to form a network overlaid on the existing city in a way reminiscent of molecular patterns or fractals. Thus, the topography or the context of a specific site would mould the disposition of the project. The idea of a network is based on the Smithsons belief that a community cannot be created by geographic isolation which, they feel, was the mistake made by English neighbourhood planning (through grouping around an infant school, community centre or group of shops), and the Unità © concept of Le Corbusier[34]. They aspire to aid social cohesion through the looseness of grouping and ease of communication. They felt the quintessential role of the planner is to create a sense of place by encouraging the creation of non-arbitrary groupings and effective communication, making possible groupings based on the family, street, district, region and city apparent. To maintain the looseness of grouping and the ease of communication, density must increase as population increases. The Smithsons believed that we must build high to avoid eating up farmland and creating congestion and increasing travel time on the roads. The architects recognised that high-rise living led to problems such as deprivation of outdoor life, the ineffectiveness of vertical communication, and difficulty in forming friendships for the lack of horizontal communication at the same level[35]. And so they proposed an ambitions vision of a multi-layered, city, leaving on the ground the support networks such as freight and utilities. In large cities, such things as light industries, workshops, clinics, shopping centres and small hotels could easily be located on raised levels: integrated with the deck-dwelling pattern the hope is that the advantage of close physical proximity will draw people to the clearly different districts of the city cause an urban revival a new city in which the home will be very much the centre of all activities[36]. The council house in the UK should be capable of being put together with others in a similar sort, so as to form bigger and equally comprehensive elements which can be added to existing villages and towns in such a way as to revitalise the traditional hierarchies, and not destroy them. The architects felt that building imitation market towns both inside and outside cities deny them the right to be urban forms because they do not engage with the pre-existing community to which they have been attached. The architects were also interested in achieving clarity between private and public space, much like Le Corbusiers Unità © which preserved the individual in seclusion while giving expression to the communal life and faith of the Order with a double-height collective space, and links through the balconies with the world outside. The interior street provides an enclosed world of neighbours whilst the shopping arcade and the roof space belong to and give expression to the total community.[37] The Smithsons were keen to preserve this divide: From the moment the man or child steps outside his dwelling our responsibility starts for the individual has not got the control over his extended environment that he has over his house[38].     Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚   The Smithsons entry for Golden Lane failed but their design laid the foundations for the development of streets in the air. The streets in the air are a reinterpretation of East End bye-law streets because the Smithsons saw that such traditional streets in the East End function well as a main public forum for communication, as a playground for children and provide open space for public gatherings and large scale sociability in working class Britain. To fulfil these functions in a Brutalist apartment block, Le Corbusiers rue intà ©rieure-the double-loaded, long, dark corridor on the inside of the building will need to be moved to the exterior. They will be 12 foot wide, continuous and reach every part of the development. At Park Hill estate, Sheffied, the architects even made sure that original Victorian street names were kept and neighbours from the original slum area where the estate replaced were housed next to eachother. This contributed to the initial popularity of the estate b ut it could not stop problems of crime and dilapidation following. It is interesting to compare the fates of Robin Hood Gardens and Park Hill. The vertical circulation system and access from streets in the air were said to make the Robin Hood estate unpopular[39]. However, it was also blamed for disagreeing with the Smithsons idea at Golden Lane of housing elements forming networks or clusters and the Team 10 premise that a buildings first duty is to the fabric in which it stands by having been divided into two building blocks. They do not demonstrate, by combining into a longer entity the potential for a city wide pedestrian network[40]. On the other hand, Park Hill estate does join up into a large entity but its 12 foot decks were in turn blamed for providing quick getaways for burglars and other criminals. Neither building realised the dream of the elevated community utopia. Does this suggest that streets in the air in actuality never got off the ground? The Barbican estate offers safe and secluded elevated decks with beautiful views over the e state but it does not serve as a social gathering place for the residents nor a playground for the children. It seems somehow it is extremely difficult to recapture the East End feel in the Smithsons signature design feature. At the CIAM conference in 1953, they attacked the decades-old dogma propounded by Le Corbusier and others that cities should be zoned into specific areas for living, working, leisure and transport, and that urban housing should consist of tall, widely spaced towers[41]. The Smithsons ideal city would combine different activities within the same areas. However, the legacy of CIAM and of Le Corbusier was a significant burden and will take time to wear off[42]. By the close of 1960s, there was a shift from the raw Brutalism of the 50s to a gentler and more refined form of architectural language[43]. Team 10s urban productions were marked by a distinct retreat from the early mobility-driven solutions to solutions based on the metamorphosis of inherent qualities of existing urban structures where large open sites were concerned; or rehabilitation and reuse of existing structures combined with new small-scale interventions, were existing structures are concerned. In effect, many of the so called Post-Modern revolutions of 1970s, including participation, rehabilitation, restoration, preservation, and political reorganisation, had been pre-dated by Team 10s thinking during 1960s.[44] Does this suggest that the New Brutalists finally acknowledged the mistakes of their designs and retreated? Such an interpretation would have ignored the context of 1950s where a quick solution was needed to re-house many people from bombed out regions in the centre of industrial cities and putrid slums. However, haste is a lazy excuse for questionable design. It cannot be ignored that the hard concrete aesthetic and morphological autonomy in part alienated Brutalist works from their residents and ended up forming ghettos for housing for the lower classes. In fairness, many estates in Britain were brought off the peg by local authorities too lazy or unimaginative to hire architects and planners of their own[45] that resulted in appalling dimness and dullness[46]. But, the original designs from New Brutalist architects also proved to be design disasters. Despite their efforts to accommodate the working class into their towers, they designed buildings with features that were highly uns uitable for such residents and eventually drove them away. Chapter 3 Design Failures According to R. K. Jarvis[47], Le Corbusiers urban design principles belong to the artistic tradition in urban design, sharing the umbrella term with Camillo Sitte, Gordon Cullen, Roy Worskett and the Ministry for Housing and Local Government in London which designed the post-war British towns and villages. From first appearances, such principles could not be more different. Sittes emphasis artistic principles in city building is the direct aesthetic antithesis to modernists conception of Order by pure geometry; and neither would have tolerated the rows of front-and-back garden semi-detached houses of post-war England. Martin Kreigers Review of Large Scale Planning[48] sets out three binds the set of limitations of particular attitudes that are common with all urban designers of the artistic tradition. Firstly, the desire for a formal, general model which will provide a scientific foundation for planning analysis and proposals can be seen just as clearly beneath Sittes sensual and overwhelmingly visual impressions as Le Corbusiers utilitarian explanations of the benefits of international-style living. Guidelines, whether calling for That the centre of plazas be kept free or WE MUST BUILD ON A CLEAR SITE!

A Deconstruction of Erich Maria Remarques All Quiet on the Western Fro

A Deconstruction of Erich Maria Remarque's All Quiet on the Western Front The young soldiers depicted in Erich Maria Remarque's text All Quiet on the Western Front represent a generation without precedent, constancy, or forethought. The men, answering their elders' calls to become national heroes, have lost their innocence on the battlefield and remain forever altered in belief and spirit. Remarque contrasts the cold realities of war in the present to the tranquility of the past in order to illustrate the psychological transformation of the men stationed on the frontlines. The soldiers appear trapped in the present and alienated from their pasts; however, deconstruction of the text rejects the present and past as opposing states of time and identity, and reveals them as related conditions that are intimately and permanently intertwined. Much of the critical literature regarding All Quiet on the Western Front concerns the binary relationship between the symbols of present and past. For example, critics Barker and Last assert: "This rupture with the past is one of the most dominant themes of Remarque's work, the discontinuity of life, this jolting from one place of existence to another, for which man is completely unprepared" (54). This opposition is represented in Remarque's descriptions of the contrasting environments of present and past.? The present is depicted as a state of unpredictability, uncertainty, and impermanence in which the soldiers merely exist on the edge of life. The narrator, Paul Baumer, imparts the dismal desperation of the front: "Shells, gas clouds, and flotillas of tanks--shattering, corroding, death. Dysentery, influenza, typhus‑scalding, choking, death" (Remarque 283). In contrast, the past is... ...between the present and the past. Defining symbols, customs, and allegations of the past, both real and perceived, provoke a human battle between rival notions of an ideal present. Literary deconstruction approaches a text in much the same manner, confronting and dismantling fixed signs, traditions, and assertions. Yet like war, a deconstructive reading does not provide a final answer or the ultimate truth. Works Cited Barker, Christine, and R.W. Last. Erich Maria Remarque. London: Oswald, 1979. Culler, Jonathan. On Deconstruction. New York: Cornell University Press, 1982. Leitch, Vincent. Deconstructive Criticism. New York: Columbia University Press, 1983. Remarque, Erich Maria. All Quiet on the Western Front. New York: Ballantine, (1928)1958. Wagener, Hans. Understanding Erich Maria Remarque. Columbia: University of South Carolina Press, 1991.

Budgeting issues in criminal justice systems Essay

One of the reasons why jails still exist despite overcrowding is the budget allotted for the criminal justice administration. But the sudden rise in the number of prisoners posed a problem when it comes to budgeting. The article on policies and procedures of correctional facilities operated by the Multnomah County clearly shows that it has been experiencing financial shortage due to faulty budgeting. The article shows that it is very expensive to accommodate a prisoner, which costs $157/day in Multnomah County. This is expensive compared to the rate of jail systems in other counties. This was attributed to the labor contracts which resulted to raised labor costs, extraordinarily high medical costs which led to high cost of the overall system in jail, ineffective jail staffing pattern, abuse of sick leave, overtime and compensatory time and increase in the Sheriff’s budget. Aside from all of these, the Multnomah County has a very expensive juvenile detention facility. It costs $401/day to accommodate a juvenile. The article further shows that the Sheriff’s Office has practiced budgeting techniques which hid the management practices of the organization. This resulted to difficulty of finding out the different organization functions. Even the district attorney’s office has to seek the help of a financial analyst to make sense of the financial outline of the jail system. What the county requires is a program called â€Å"priority-based budgeting. Each department of the jail system must present program offers for the county commissioners to fund. However, some of these program offers are rejected. The Sheriff’s office has a total of 66 funding program offers that the county commission has approved. The priority-based budgeting was applied so that the commissioners can make an informed decision from an accurate financial picture of the different programs. This enabled the commissioners to be knowledgeable in whether funding or rejecting a particular program. The article concluded that the outside help of a financial consultant was necessary to analyze the Sheriff’s costs and budgets. It was noted that â€Å"it is a natural and understandable inclination of a government agency† to do the budgeting practices discussed in the article. The DA’s office thought that similar practices have been done by other government agencies in the county. It was suggested that the commission should collaborate more with the Sheriff. The county commissioners should understand the operations that they fund so that the problems might not occur again. The workgroup of the jail systems should focus on the Sheriff’s cost reporting and budgeting practices so that they can partake in any decisions to make. The commission should also found a work group that will inspect the jails and report frequently to the commissioners. This work group must consist of representatives from the law enforcement agencies in the county, the County Chair, the County Commissioner, the United States Attorney, the administrator for the federal facility at Sheridan, representatives from the business community, a representative from the medical community, the Department of Corrections, an independent financial analyst and the District Attorney. The law also requires that the county should include the state Department of Corrections in every operation of the local jails. However, whatever responsibilities the Department of Corrections is assigned by the law should not be carried out by the Sheriff’s Association. The article strongly advises that a healthy relationship must be established between the county Sheriff and the Board of Commissioners. Any solution to the problems must start from this perspective since all other problems stemmed from a breakdown to that relationship. The other article addressing budgeting issue is titled â€Å"Will part-time prison cut crime or costs? † by Nick Morrison. The article says that British Home Secretary David Blunkett proposed that some inmates be given freedom on weekends to relieve the growing population of prisoners in jails. Those inmates who are dangerous could be provided with electronic tags and they could stay out of jail for a month. They could also work during the week and spend the weekend in jail. Many questioned this proposal whether it is a way to fight the crimes or to cut costs, particularly Norman Brennan, director of the Victims of Crime Trust. He sees this proposal as the government’s admission to defeat in solving crimes, even though Blunkett promised to be tough on car-jackers and phone thieves. Brennan thinks that it has to do with money problems and not reducing crime why Blunkett allowed this kind of arrangement for the prisoners. It was hard for the government to spend a lot of money in keeping prisoners. Moreover, Brennan argued that it is more important to keep the prisoners in jails and out of the streets to protect the victims of crimes and the public, even though it is expensive to do so. Apparently, Blunkett’s proposal did not make this possible. Criminals were allowed on the loose, and they could strike again since they have freedom. With the growing population of prisoners in jails, Brennan says that the criminal justice system is no longer effective. A crisis in the criminal justice system has to appear before people do something to solve it. He recognizes that the problems will be harder to solve later on. Even more, there were less police officers on the beat to prevent crimes even though these crimes have been getting worse for many years now. The government also has not done something to reduce crime. He couldn’t see how Blunkett’s proposal could solve any of the problems. Brennan mentions that the country has more people inside prisons than any countries in Europe. He says it is so because there are more crimes here than anywhere else. The government, he adds, has resorted to different measures to solve the rising number of crimes. Sadly, none of these measures worked, and this showed a â€Å"disgraceful record on crime and law and order. † On the other hand, the Howard League for Penal Reform agreed with Blunkett’s proposal. The spokeswoman says that â€Å"anything †¦to reduce the prison population is a good thing. † She added that the programs set to keep the prisoners with a two or three months term away from their criminal behavior are not often available, that’s why they offend the second time after they are released. The article recommends that a community penalty is more effective as a form of punishment for the prisoners than sending them over to prison. The article quotes Brennan recommending that the government should deal with the crimes head on rather than making lots of promises and pledges that it cannot meet. People should also be aware of these problems and how serious they are so that they can be a part in solving them. Brennan is correct in saying that criminals should be sent to prison whether it is expensive or not. The most important thing to consider here is the protection of the public from these offenders. The government should look more into these problems because this is getting worse every year and it has bad records of crime. The government should also look into the budgeting systems of the federal and local governments. It should consider that budgeting systems can be a part of the ineffective services it offers to the public. Changes in budgeting systems should be an important part in reform. REFERENCES Morrison, Nick. (2002, February 05). Will part-time prison cut crime or costs? Newsquest (North East Ltd. , p. 8. Available at: http://yukon. actx. edu:2083/libweb/curriculum/do/document? set=topic&groupid=1&requestid=conquesttopic&resultid=48&ts=57673F035D3E975120F685A75E3514BA_1187860483640&urn=urn%3Abigchalk%3AUS%3BBCLib%3Bdocument%3B76740234. The Multnomah County District Attorney’s Office. (2006). Independent review of policies and procedures of correctional facilities operated by the Multnomah County Sheriff’s Office. Available at: http://www. mcda. us/articles/GJ_CORRECTIONAL_FACILITIES_2006. pdf.

INDUSTRY STUDIES Essays - Educational Psychology, Pedagogy

INDUSTRY STUDIES Essays - Educational Psychology, Pedagogy INDUSTRY STUDIES QUESTION 1. (a) Student -centred learning could be described as student-independence learning. The student has to some degree the ability to choose the time and place of study, the methods and order of studies and can vary his pace of study as well as the length of his studies to suit his needs. Student-centred learning puts the students needs to a large extent first. Having a learner-centred approach gives students options in the pace of study, the method of delivery of courses (e.g satellite, mixed mode, tutorial support classes), order of study, composition of courses to suit individual needs. Open by dictionary definition means: unconfined, without barriers, accessible. By broadening student input to learning under the guidance of teachers and the industry assisting students to make informed decisions the system is ?opened? and can provide the following benefits: Access is no longer confined to a narrowly defined group The time and place and mode of study are determined by the student The student knows progressively how he is going and what his weak points are (competency-based assessment). The student largely determines what is studied and how learning occurs as he is given more learning responsibility. (Student is urged to: seek out reference material, ask further questions, relate principles to his circumstances, try different styles of answering questions) Recognition of prior learning both as industry experience and other outside studies will enhance Oten courses as feedback from student to teacher in answering questions will refine existing courses. Student ?centred learning must be incorporated to remove traditional barriers and hence allow an Open Learning environment to flourish. The more a student becomes involved in his learning process the more likely he is to stick at it. Open learning is about being available to everyone no matter what his or her disposition! (b) There are many factors, which will determine to what extent student-centred learning can be achieved within an institution. The material being studied- Many courses requiring licensing, the meeting of industry standards or courses leading to tertiary qualifications such as the Higher School Certificate offer limited open learning possibilities. Industry- The willingness of industry to be more flexible so that curriculum requirements can be met by a variety of pathways. The teachers- their ability to guide, nurture and advise students on appropriate matters such as: urging students to seek out reference material, prompting additional responses from students by asking questions additional to the assignment, communicating well with students to the point where specific principles of a lesson can be related to the specific circumstances of the unit. Resources- Student-centred learning will inevitably require a higher ratio of teachers to students (as compared to face to face teaching). These teachers have to be available in the numbers required and be suitably qualified. Existing courses- Many of Oten?s courses are adaptations of courses originally designed for face-to-face teaching. Some will require mixed mode delivery because of either the complexity of a particular subject or certain aids required to complete a particular course. (e.g Networked computers may be required for certain computer strands) Enrolments- Obviously to fully open up courses it would be ideal for many students to enroll for courses at any time throughout the year. This however would make forward planning as to staff requirements and the availability of facilities such as examination centres, tutorial classes etc virtually impossible. Students- A high degree of student-centered learning requires students with a high level of training and teachers with a high level of expertise so that students can be guided into making informed decisions. As the object of Open learning is to make courses more accessible then students with varying levels of expertise, experience and training will be undertaking these courses. By accepting such a variety of students the degree of student centred learning will be limited by the students ability to take on board such principles and the skills of the teachers in developing and encouraging these principles. QUESTION 2. (a) Here are as I see it some of the major differences in tools, aids and techniques used in face-to-face and external teaching. Face-to-face teaching Tangible items can be shown and demonstrated in class (e.g firefighting equipment, smoke detectors, fire installation panels) to reinforce learning. Blackboards, whiteboards, overheads and other visual aids can be used to to clarify principles. Feedback is rapid.

The Freedom Concept

The Freedom Concept The concept of freedom is often discussed and debated by philosophers, political scientists, or lawyers. It is viewed as one of unalienable rights of a person; yet, it can be restricted due to some reasons or purposes. This paper is aimed at showing that freedom is impossible without some responsibility for ones actions and some restrictions are inevitable.Advertising We will write a custom term paper sample on The Freedom Concept specifically for you for only $16.05 $11/page Learn More Without these restrictions, the very existence of society can be threatened. On the whole, this issue can be important for individuals, communities, and states. The way in which people understand the notion of freedom affects criminal laws, international relations, and the moral principles of an individual. This is why various aspects of freedom are still worth examining, even though many thinkers have discussed them. First of all, one can ask whether freedom is always a good thing. At first glance, this question may seem outrageous or ludicrous because people usually regard individual liberty as something indispensible for a human being. However, this view can be disputed because under some circumstances the freedom of an individual has to be limited. For instance, criminals are deprived of their right to freedom, because they can pose a threat to other people. Additionally, one can mention traffic rules that are familiar to every person. They are taken for granted even though they do limit personal freedom. Even the most severe critics of the state cannot deny the necessity of such restrictions. Therefore, freedom may not be a good thing if a person completely disregards the interests of other people. Overall, this issue has been discussed by many prominent philosophers. In his classical work Leviathan Thomas Hobbes points out that people who are not bound by any rules, will inevitably enter into conflict in which only the strongest can prevail (Hobbe s, 1976, p. 86). He believes that the life of such people will be â€Å"poor, nasty, brutish, and short† (Hobbes, 1976, p. 86). Thus, it is possible to say that absolute freedom is hardly possible, because it can be interpreted as ability to anything that a person wants to. There were people who possessed almost absolute freedom, for example, one can mention the dictators of the twentieth century like Hitler or Stalin, but it was based on the use of coercion and violence. This is why people seek not to be free, especially they want to be protected by the law or the state. The very idea of social contract is based on the premise that people forfeit some of their rights in order to create a peaceful community. This necessity to limit ones freedom was discussed in the works of Jean-Jacques Rousseau (2008) who believed that state should act as an arbiter and enforcer of the social contract (p. 39). The existence of such a contract implies that people consent to follow some rules that limit their freedom.Advertising Looking for term paper on philosophy? Let's see if we can help you! Get your first paper with 15% OFF Learn More The philosophical and ethical aspects of freedom are important for international relations. Very often political leaders talk about the necessity to free other societies. In many cases, such actions may involve military intervention. The question arises whether this intrusion into the life of a sovereign state can be justified on rational or moral grounds. The thing is that there are societies in which the individual freedom of a person is practically non-existent, for instance, one can mention North Korea (Forsythe, 2009, p. 333). In such cases, political pressure seems to be ethically acceptable. However, one cannot say the same thing about military intervention that usually threatens the lives of people have nothing to do with the policies of the state. As a rule, they are the victims of this state. Certainly , one can say that the economic, military pressure on a certain sovereign state is not permissible, because the laws of the country have been adopted by the majority of people living in this community. However, such an argument can be disputed, because in many totalitarian societies citizens are afraid of expressing their discontent. Thus, the concept of freedom should not be excluded from international relations. Additionally, it is quite reasonable to ask whether people living in the United States can be called free. This issue is also worth discussing since America is often regarded as the most democratic and liberal country. Overall, it is impossible to speak about absolute or unrestricted freedom, but as it has been mentioned before, this unrestricted freedom cannot exist in the civic society. Yet, if we are speaking about economic or political liberties, the United States can certainly be regarded a free country. Again, this idea can be better illustrated by comparing America to other countries such North Korea or Afghanistan in which the political rights of people are not recognized or upheld by the state. Despite the fact that the concept of freedom has been discussed in many philosophical, legal or political works, it continues to attract attention of many people. This notion shapes almost every form of relation within the societies and at an international level. This paper suggests that freedom inevitably involves some degree of restriction; otherwise it can hardly exist. This is the main point that should be taken into consideration. Reference List Forsythe, D. (2009). Encyclopedia of Human Rights. Oxford: Oxford University Press.Advertising We will write a custom term paper sample on The Freedom Concept specifically for you for only $16.05 $11/page Learn More Hobbes, T. (1976). Leviathan. New York: Forgotten Books. Rousseau, J. (2008). The Social Contract. London: Cosimo.

The Jamestown Fiasco Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 1000 words

The Jamestown Fiasco - Essay Example When the settlers arrived they were not aware of all the troubles that they were going to face. They did not make a wise decision in choosing their location because it was surrounded by a swampy area and it did not provide them access to proper water and also they did not realize that the area that they had chosen was not occupied by Indians but still they could easily reach there. The settlers did not have a very high opinion of the Indians from the beginning and they thought that they did not deserve any rights because they were uncivilized people with no religion. So even before they had set a firm ground in Jamestown they had no plans of proper negotiations with the Indians. The Indians had a different thought about the settlers. They wanted to cooperate with them and in return get access to modern weapons and tools for themselves. The colonists should have realized that to make a good place for themselves they should have availed the opportunity and they should have shaken hands with the Indians and worked in collaboration with them giving the Indians what they needed and taking from them the things required by them. The Indians soon realized that the motive of the settlers was to get hold of their land. As soon as the Indians got to know of their ill plans they started attacking the settlers. Thus the death toll of the colonists rose and within a few moths their number decreased to less than half. 2. Why were the Jamestown settlers unable and/or unwilling to feed themselves. During the time period when everything was under John Smith the relations between the Indians and the colonists took a very good turn. At first when John Smith took over he also used oppressive means against the Indians but soon he was advised by Ocanindge who was an Indian associate to think about the outcome if the Indians would stop working on their fields. He advised him to work in collaboration with the Indians for the betterment of both the communities. The turning point actually came when John smith and some of his fellows came under the attack of the Indians. In this attack most of the men who accompanied John Smith were killed and he was made captive by the Indians. The leader of the Indians who was Powhatan ordered the killing of John Smith but he was saved by the leader's daughter Pocahontas and following this event many things changed for the good. The Indians in return for modernized tools from the English provided them with crops and food for them. This helped both the parties to enjoy the benefits of each others services and this essay would further describe these events. This did not last for a very long time because in 1609 when the area was hit by harsh winter the Indians were not able to provide the settlers with crops. The Indians knew about such conditions and they had kept food reserves for themselves. Thus now they became unable to supply the settlers with food and the relations between the two sides became tense again. The settlers used oppressive forces against the Indians and the Indians replied in a similar manner. This continued for a long time until the supplies were sent to the settlers. The settlers had stayed there for a very long t

Markerting fundamentals Nintendo DSL polar white Essay

Markerting fundamentals Nintendo DSL polar white - Essay Example It has launched in various markets within a short span and hence the political disturbance in any one market will not affect its overall sales. While Sony and Microsoft, its main competitors spent extravagantly on fast chips, graphics, and cutting edge disk technology but Nintendo designers use energy-saving chips and a standard optical disk player to lower product costs (Bremner, 2007). Others in the industry like Atari failed because they did not have high-quality software and games to sell the hardware (Marketing Week, 2006). Video game is a cyclical industry in which new consoles are launched every five or six years. With each cycle the power of the hardware increases with better graphics and more powerful games (The Economist, 2006). Nevertheless, Nintendo felt that industry has reached a crossroad and games are not designed for non-gamers. This undermines the prospects for future growth. With this in mind, the new Nintendo DS was launched making it easier to learn and play. It launched a different color of the product that was unique to each region/country. For instance, in Europe it launched the black version in addition to the white color which it launched initially in Japan. In Australia and North America, they launched online white and renamed it Polar White. The current market leaders being Sony and Microsoft concentrate on 16- to 24-year-old males market, which is core to the gaming industry. Nintendo DS are easier to learn and play and is aimed at the younger, female segment (Marketing Week, 2006). They have very strategically taken this step as they are unable to cope with the market leaders. The games for the core market are becoming dull and similar and hence Nintendo expects to create a market for Nintendo DS with this strategy of segmentation. Since every five or six years new launches take place, Nintendo DS has been launched at a very strategic time because the