School work

Elements of Humour in Pygmalion

This is a timed essay that I wrote on the elements of humour in George Bernard Shaw’s Pygmalion a couple of weeks ago. My teacher’s paraphrased comments in the bottom of this post.

Discuss the elements of humour within the play

There are many theories about George Bernard Shaw’s intention with Pygmalion, his famous play. Many suggest that the theme is feminism, socialism or the class system dividing the population. However, there is one element that appears throughout the play: humour.

My thesis is taht Shaw has written Pygmalion in an attempt to entertain. This theory is supported by the fact that the play is still being read today, despite the drastic changes in the general population’s views of feminism and socialism.

Still, these elements are present in thep lay. In fact, they play an integral role in the usage of humour: Shaw is consistent in using satire to entertain. Feminism, socialism and the class system are easy victims for this. However, the paly is not completely unserious — the author utilizes satire to draw attention to real issues, such as those previously mentioned.

Although not evident, Shaw’s work is filled with examples of this. The most apparent one is located near the end of the act where Eliza is given her first chance in social life with mrs. Higgins’s friends: Clara, Freddy andmrs. Eynsford Hill. Their dialogue is scattered with sarcasm. The first occurring example is when Eliza is asked how the weather is, and she replies with the day’s weather forecast, perfectly pronounced. Higgins had earlier pointed out that it would be easy to teatch his apprentice how to say the words, but difficult to teach her which words to say.

If Eliza did this mistake consciously, the reader would have thought of it as a tounge-in-cheek insult aimed towards the upper class. Eliza did not; Shaw did. This is why the line is so amusing: he is making fun of the exaggerated “small talk” — the persistend discussion about the wheather and each other’s health. Shaw makes his point clear by including another example of this with Higgins remarking the absurdity in their shallow and narrow dialogues while limiting Eliza to the two very same topics.

More linguistics-related examples occur later in that act, when Freddy offers Eliza to accompany her. “Not bloody likely”, is the answer he gets along with an explanation that she’d rather go by taxi. Mrs. Eynsford Hill is very surprised by Eliza’s vocabulary: she breaks the norms for that kind of meeting. Here, Shaw has utilized satire as a tool for showing that the upper-class seldom is inedependent. Clara, on the other hand, isfascinated when she is told that this is the new “small talk”. Shaw once again uses sarcasm, and with the same purpose as the last time: to convey upon the reader that Clara isn’t independent, either. She only wants to follow the stream.

Anti-feminism, which was publicly accepted as the right way when the play was written, is also attacked by Shaw’s satire. When Eliza andFreddy had revealed their mutual love for each other, they decided to take a taxi home. Freddy had brought no money with himself, and so Eliza offered to pay. This would have been unthinkable contemporarily with the play. This kind of unexpected andstereotype-breaking events is naturally amusing.

From this, you can conclude that Shaw does in fact focus on issues such as women’s rights and political ideologies, though he uses sarcasm as a tool in order to achieve his goals.

In criterion A (response to the question) and B (presentation), I got 7 and 7-8, respectively. I should have treated more examples of humour, such as some related to Alfred Doolittle (Eliza’s father) and Nepommuck (Higgins’s prior student), which would have raised both grades. In criterion C, language, I got 10 with the comment that I should have used the word “satire” instead of “sarcasm” (this was changed in this version). Sarcasm is used more when the intent is to hurt someone’s feelings. The closing paragraph was apparently good, too.

Price Elasticity of Demand and Supply for Oil

This is my first commentary written for my economics portfolio. It is a commentary on the article Low investment level to keep oil prices rising by Business Day.

The price elasticity of demand (PED) is the relation between the change in the quantity demanded of a good and the change in the price of that good. The PED for oil is very low, since a major increase in price is required for the demand of oil to be significantly, moved. This situation is caused by consumer, such as plastic industries and almost every car-owner, being nigh-dependent on oil. In the same way, the demand will not rise a lot if the price is reduced, because consumers need only meet their own, limited needs. This low PED is partially caused by oil lacking a close substitute. There are of course substitutes to oil – e.g. electricity and synthetic oil – but these substitutes would require a substantial initial investment from the consumers, which is why the oil prices need soar before the demand is affected. Note also that in the long run, the PED for oil is probably higher, since consumers will be able to invest in the one-time cost for adapting to other sources of energy, e.g. electric cars.

The price elasticity of supply (PES) measures the responsiveness in the supplied quantity of a good to the change in its price. Just as the demand for oil, the supply is very inelastic. This is because the main factor of the price elasticity of supply for a good is the close substitutes which the producer can produce instead of the initial good. When it comes to oil, there are no substitutes: the oil platforms cannot be changed to drill for milk instead. The only way for producers to change their production according to price is to expand or diminish production. If more oil platforms and drills are built and maintained, more oil will be extracted, which increases the supply. This way of increasing supply, however, does only have any effect in the long run, since building more platforms takes time.

The article states that the demand for oil is increasing rapidly, and that we will probably not see an investment in oil fields of the size required. First, this is yet another proof that the PES for oil is low: as demand increases, supply does not increase much. Second, this will entail a big increase in the oil prices. Because the demand is greater than the supply is, there is a shortage of oil. Shortage will lead to an increase in price, since the producers do not lose anything in doing so, as they would have done if there was an equilibrium in the market. Thus, the equilibrium is re-instated – however, it is so on a higher price than before.

In the article, it is also stated that countries with oil reserves which are being used by other countries are actively seeking to get more out of the affair. The barrier of entry for the oil market is high due to the required technology, which means that those countries are unlikely to start extracting their oil by themselves. Thus, they will probably demand an even larger amount of money from the countries which are already extracting their oil. If this happens, the companies extracting the oil will find less gain in doing so, which means that supply will sink even more. With the supply sinking, the prices will rise even more.

Determination of the Molar Mass of Magnesium

Introduction

The aim of this investigation is to find the molar mass of magnesium by making magnesium and hydrochloric acid react and then apply the ideal gas equation.

The independent variable of this experiment is the amount used of each substance. However, these were not not be varied. The dependent variable is the amount of hydrogen gas which is formed. The controlled variables are the pressure and temperature in the room, and the width (and thereby weight) of the magnesium ribbon.

Materials and Methods

Materials used:

• Magnesium (Mg) ribbon
• Hydrochloric acid (HCl), 35% concentrated
• Copper (Cu) wire
• Eudiometer
• Thermometer
• Barometer
• Measuring cylinder (2000 cm³)

Method:

• 50 mm of the Mg ribbon was weighed.
• 10 cm³ of HCl was poured into the eudiometer.
• The rest of the eudiometer was filled with water.
• The Mg ribbon was wrapped around the Cu wire and hung in the eudiometer cork.
• The measuring cylinder was filled with water.
• The eudiometer was put upside-down in the measuring cylinder.
• After the reaction between HCl and Mg was complete, the eudiometer was allowed to cool down to reach room temperature.
• The eudiometer was arranged so that the gas inside had the same pressure as the air pressure outside the room.
• The molar mass of magnesium was calculated using

In order to ensure that the investigation resulted in valid results, the experiment was conducted four times.

Results

These were the measured values:

The mean volume is then 64.75 ml.

The ideal gas equation will be used to calculate the number of moles:

n = (PV)/(RT)
n = (9.81 * 64.75) / (8.31 * 293 ) = 2.61

Thus, we have 2.61 moles of H₂. The reaction carried out should be:

Mg + 2HCl => MgCl₂ + H₂

For every mole of Mg, we will have one mole of H₂. Therefore, we know that we will also have 2.61 moles of Mg. This is the formula for molar mass:

M = m/n = 64.75 / 2.61 = 24.8

The molar mass of magnesium must then be 24.8 g.

Conclusion

From this, we can conclude that the average magnesium atom has 24.8 protons. According to Wikipedia, the molar mass of magnesium is 24.3 g, which is close to our result.

Evaluation

This investigation could have been performed better in an environment where we could control the pressure more accurately, such as in a pressure chamber.

Things Fall Apart: Alternate Shooting Scene

This is a short story about the shooting scene in Chinua Achebe’s Things Fall Apart, where Okonkwo accidentally fires his gun and kills a young man in the tribe, but in a modern setting.

The crowd suddenly went quiet, and a fizzle was heard throughout the silent field. A dangerous rocket plunged towards the dark night-sky, and a sudden boom was followed by a glowing rain falling over the mesmerized spectators. A few shattered shouts of amazement could be heard. Everyone tensely watched the falling sparks fade away to the dark void, awaiting what everyone knew would follow. After a short moment of complete silence, the sky exploded in the colours of the rainbow, and shouts drowned the whole field.

Okonkwo, too, intoxicated by the ardent starfalls. This year, he had brought his own rockets. As he watched the fireworks with awe and a bit of jealousy, he assembled the set. Just as another missile flew skywards, Okonkwo lit the fuse. While he rose to step back, he stumbled over the leg of another, as ferocious celebrator.

His eyes caught a glimpse of fire. He fumbled with the explosive rocket. The fizzling sound rose for a moment, and a red bolt burnt through the wild crowd. A piercing screech halted the slightest movement. Okonkwo sat with the scorched rod from his firework in his hands. In front of him lay a child. Dead.

Determination of the Empirical Formula of Copper Sulfide

Introduction

The aim of this experiment is to determine the empirical formula of copper sulfide, which is formed when copper and sulfur are heated together. The independent variables are the amount of copper and sulfur, but they will not be varied. The dependent variable is the amount of copper sulfide formed. The controlled variables were among other the size of the beaker and the temperature that the experiment was conducted in.

Materials and Methods

Materials used:

• Copper (Cu)
• Sulfur (S)
• Bunsen burner
• Clay triangle
• Crucible
• Crucible tong
• Scale
• Spoon

First, the copper was weighed on the scale. The copper was then heated together with the sulfur over the Bunsen burner, after which the newly formed copper sulfide was weighed.

Results

First, the Cu was weighed on the scale. Its weight can be found in Table 1: Measured Values.

The weight of the substance was measured after the reaction had occurred. The substance, which probably was copper sulfide, weighed 62 g. Because there was initially 49 g of Cu, there must be 13 g of S.

We will use the following formula to calculate the amounts of the mentioned substances in moles:

n = m / M

Where n is the amount of substance in moles, m is the mass of the substance, and M is the molar mass of it. The values of molar mass are according the elements’ respective Wikipedia articles.

Conclusion

The amount of copper, 0.0077 mol, is approximately double the amount of sulfur, 0.0041 mol. From this, we can conclude that the amount of copper in copper sulfide is twice as large as the amount of sulfur. This means that the empirical formula of copper sulfide is
Cu₂S.

Since the amount of sulfur was not exactly half the amount of copper, we had an error somewhere. Probably, not all sulfur reacted with the copper and left some pure sulfur.

Evaluation

The method for making the copper and sulfur react is flawed, because it is not given that all sulfur will react. This is difficult to improve in a standard lab, though.

Another flaw is that the experiment was only conducted once, which means that errors are difficult to spot. We should have performed it at least thrice.

The Pearl: Rewritten Beginning

Here is an alternate beginning of John Steinbeck’s The Pearl.

Rewritten beginning

Suddenly Kino awoke from his sleep, as if on instinct. His eyes surveyed the dark realm in which he had slept. A piece of coal burnt dankly and secretly as his wife rapidly fanned it alive, spawning a vicious fire licking the atmosphere with its long flames.

To avoid the ardent spears which the fire spew, Kino turned his head to Coyotito, his innocent son laying in a seemingly safe vessel. The child’s harmless face kept Kino’s gaze for a while, when the Utopian moment was suddenly disturbed.

The tranquil silence slowly mixed into the sound of tripping feet. A minor movement stole Kino’s focus. In the light of the fire’s fierce flames, a scorpion lead astray was climbing the rope hanging above Coyotito’s vessel.

His mind clouded with ferocity and love for his child, Kino viciously threw his paw against the poisonous insect threatening what he held so dearly. Too early slipped the vile threat, and it struck as it fell upon the child’s soft neck.

Enraged, Kino smashed the scorpion against the dirty ground of his hay shelter, stomping and crushing it into oblivion. Meanwhile his wife tried to draw the secrete from Coyotito’s wound, but it was too late. The venom was spreading in his helpless body.

Rationale

In order to make the story seem more interesting, I started the introduction with an event, ignoring unnecessary adjectives describing the setting, since the setting will be revealed throughout the story anyway.

The word “suddenly” is charged with a certain feeling, feelings of ferocity, haste and to an extent recklessness. By introducing the story with such a mood, I make the reader alert and awake. The main character’s name is used very early, which indicates that he is important for the plot. Conveniently, Kino is a primitive name that leads one’s thought to barbarism, village-dwelling and low-developed tools.

Since I want Kino to be portrayed as a vicious and primitive beast in the beginning, I associate the words “instinct”, “survey” and “sleep” with him. To emphasize the primitive setting, the room in which Kino awakes is dark, and he sees only the tiny flame which Juana is reviving.

All that is associated with danger keeps one awake and interested, which is why I choose to put focus on the fire. Aggressive adjectives and personifications are utilized to describe the fire and its flames. Because of the personifications, the reader is required to think, and therefore stays interested as long as they are not too far-fetched.

The second paragraph consists of a transition between danger and safety – it first continues the danger theme with “ardent spears”, and switches to a safer vocabulary with words such as “safe”, “child” and “harmless”. Emphasizing this safety too much would result in boring the reader, and therefore the paragraph is abruptly canceled with a cliffhanger.

“The sound of tripping feet” is often associated with harmless insects, which is why I use it in this manner – the reader is surprised when the scorpion is revealed, which makes them even more awake. By mixing the fire with the scorpion, an inherently dangerous creature, a very tensed atmosphere is achieved.

A vocabulary hinting of anger and recklessness is still being used (”clouded”, “ferocity”, “viciously”), but it is blended with words of secrecy and lethality, such as “poisonous”, “vile” and “venom”. This makes the reader further think of Kino as a vicious beast, an effect which is also achieved by using the metaphor “paw”.

Coyotito is portrayed as innocent by words like “helpless”, since this amplifies the effect of him being the victim of the scorpion’s poison.

The Role of Social Classes in Pygmalion

In Pygmalion by Bernard Shaw, the importance of different social classes is used to great extent. In fact, the whole play is based on the difference between social classes: If they did not exist, Mr. Higgins’ and Colonel Pickering’s bet would never have taken place. The whole plot is based on Eliza Doolittle’s ascension from a “draggletailed guttersnipe” (Higgins) to a full-fledged duchess and princess.

Throughout the play, there is a clear distinction in the ways and manners between people from different social classes. The obvious example is in the beginning of act 1, when Eliza’s accent is transcribed: “Theres menners f’yer!” (The Flower Girl). Another poor accent is that of Eliza’s father: The H is omitted in his lines (”Iggins”). This is in contrast to the accents of the ladies and gentlemen, which are transcribed just like regular, written English.

I believe that it is important to note how the professor’s transformation of Eliza is reflected in the manuscript: The change in her accent — which is even pointed out as being too good for a native speaker — is much more emphasized than the change in her manners and her looks, for only the first day is it mentioned that she takes a bath, and only once are the jewels decorating her during the garden party at the Buckingham Palace mentioned.

Morals, however, are completely independent of social class. Shaw shows us both types of personalities in both classes: Eliza, the good girl despite her being very poor, and her father, who ruthlessly touches rich gentlemen in order to make them aid him economically. The Colonel is very generous and gentle, even if Mr. Higgins is not always so.

My conclusion is that the social classes in Pygmalion are deeply emphasized and of great importance to the play. However, there are human qualities that not even social class can change.1100 tracfones ringtone nokia6102 nokia ringtonenokia 6255i ringtonefree ringtone 3310 nokia codenokia ringtone 3588i free phoneringtone converter 445 downloadringtone for 4600 mobileringtone blackberry 8700 Mapaccredited collection agencydiploma online school accredited highschools accredited online in canadafinancial tools union america first creditrealestate corrispondance a courses creditedfinancial solution planners accreditedcanada in training accreditedexterior 2007 tax door credit for Map

The Luxury of Longer Life

In the article “Survey on the Economics of Aging: The luxury of longer life”, demographics are presented that show the world population structure is getting more old people than young. The author predicts the old people to be a plurality in most parts of the world in the year 2030: People older than 60 will constitute 30% of the population in OECD countries.

This will have a significant impact on the market. Since the venerable are a plurality, companies will focus their services on them, because the companies need a large base of customers. Because of this, they will also adapt advertisement. Advertisement has today a very large influence on children and teenagers, which results in a raised demand among youngsters.

Because of this risen will to buy, they go greater lengths in order to gain money to fulfill their demands, as seen in teenagers taking jobs during the summer holidays. When advertising is focused on the older part of our population, this mentality might move from the youngsters to the elders, which would greatly affect our society.

Demanding more money, the old will continue working despite their pension. At the same time, teenagers will not leech as much of their parents’ income anymore, since they no longer have such large demands to fulfill. The conclusion we can draw from this is that the older people – who then would be the plurality of the population — will work, while the teenagers — who then would become a minority – not would work as much anymore.

Clearly, society would benefit from such a transformation, since it would result in more workers.

The problem emphasized in the article “Survey on the Economics of Aging: The luxury of longer life” is that governments cannot afford to pay for the venerable. This problem might, though, solve itself. Since more will work, the government’s income will raise because of the taxes. This monetary boost might not be enough to supply the old ones, but this is not a problem.

Elders now survive a long time thanks to their easy-going life-style – no work, only free care, medicinal services and apartments. According to my theory, the old ones will now continue working in order to maintain their needs. This will, in turn, decrease their life span, making teenagers the new plurality. Probably, our society is stuck in an infinite commercial loop of money.Best Casinos 2.872 Online Casino Reviews PayoutsForum Internet Free 2.7949 Casino Online2.4867 story online viagra2.35429 Accredited Distance Schools Compare Online DegreesTid 2 15 Mg Xanax1.6512 100 Tramadol1.89 Accredited Ovline Degrees1.5301 paint Map

Grand Paradigms Case Study: The Harmony of the Spheres

If I were to encounter an alien, and I were capable of communicating with it, the questions which I would ask could be split into two categories. Some of the questions would be technical, demanding knowledge of techniques unknown to Mankind and theories yet to be discovered. The answers to this kind of questions would certainly be useful to the human race, putting us ahead in time.

There is another kind of questions, however, which would be much more interesting to hear answers to: Philosophical queries. The chance that this alien race would have developed separately from the life on Earth is extremely probable, which entails that its thinkers would have come to different conclusions than those of Mankind.

A plausible approach would be to pose the traditional philosophical questions, comparing the answers to those of our philosophers. The questions could be along the lines of “How did life start?”, “Where do we come from?”, “Is there a supreme being?”, “What is good and what is evil?”, “Are our lives set?”, and ultimately “What is the meaning of life?”.

Since it is highly unlikely that these questions have set answers, the questions are posed in order to provoke a discussion. Another species’ perspective on several of the mentioned questions could certainly help our own philosophers. For example, this alien race might strongly believe that the meaning of life is to reproduce, to expand their empire, to serve one’s superior or to have fun. In the answer to this question, we would probably also see how their civilization shaped after this view on life, and we might even be able to see how the beliefs of our race have characterized the civilizations of Earth.

If the alien race is superior in technology and knowledge, there are some questions which I would never as. These are problems which are philosophical on our level, but might have been solved with the extraterrestrial technologies. Imagine asking if our two places are the only inhabited ones in the Universe, and receiving a definite answer. Whatever the reply, it would frighten me. Same goes for questions such as “Is there a supreme being?” and “Is there a meaning of life?”

If it was revealed that life lacked a meaning and living was pointless, the human race would plunge to misery as no-one would retain their will to fight on knowing that what they fought for and whatever they achieved would make no difference in the end.movies tgpaza moviesfight bum moviemovies shot free cumclips lexington movie steelemovies tits freemovies amateur sapphicdownload xxx movie free Mapamauteur pornamautur pornporn free videos amayureporn amazing freeamazing maria ozawa pornsgallery amazing pornoamazon porn cartoonporn women strong amazon Map

Verifying Newton’s Second Law of Motion

Introduction

The aim with this investigation is to verify Newton’s second law of motion by exerting a force on a body and measuring its acceleration. The independent variables in this experiment are the force exerted and the mass of the body. Acceleration is the dependent variable.

Materials and Methods

An object was put on an apparatus which creates a near-frictionless surface. A force was applied to the object. We measured the object’s momentaneous velocity on two points along the surface, as well as the time elapsed during traveling between those two points.

The independent variables, the mass of the weight and the mass of the glider’, are varied throughout the experiment. The experiment was conducted four times with every set of independent variables.

Results

The distance measured on t₁ and t₂ was 1 dm.

No anomalous results were recorded.

The acceleration was calculated twice for every set of data: First the estimated acceleration, calculated with Newton’s second law of motion, and then the real acceleration, calculated with the data from the photocells. This is an example calculation for the first set of data:

Acceleration Calculated with Newton’s Second Law of Motion

F_net = m_weight X G = 0.01kg X 9.82ms^-2 = 0.0982N

F_net = a X m => a = F_net / m

=> a = 0.0982N / 0.370kg = 0.265ms^-2

Acceleration Measured

a = (x_change) / t = ( d/t₁ - d/t₂ ) / t

=> a = ( 0.581 - 0.279 )ms^-1 / 1.277s

=> a = 0.236ms^-2

The distance in the first row is the distance that the photocells measured time of. It was equal to 0.1 m.

Calculated Values

Conclusion

The calculated values are clearly related to the measured values: they are around 10% higher in the majority of the cases. This means that Newton’s second law of motion probably is correct, but there might be a systematic error. That error is omission of friction. The so-called frictionless surface was not entirely frictionless, which also explains why the error margin is greater if the glider passed the photocells late in its course rather than early.

Evaluation

This method is fairly viable, but it has one weaknesses: Friction is not accounted for, neither to the surface nor to the air, which affects both the weight and the glider. This could be fixed by performing the investigation on an entirely frictionless surface in vacuum. However, this is difficult to achieve.
The effect of this problem can also be decreased by using a heavier weight and a lighter glider.