Monday, August 24, 2020

Knife crime Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 1500 words

Blade wrongdoing - Essay Example 4. Prologue to the Research Topic (300 words) Knife conveying In this segment you ought to give some foundation to the examination point and depict why you believe your exploration to be significant. Blade conveying among American youth is a reason for worry for instructors and municipal managers the same. Blade conveying, alongside different weapons, for example, firearms, are critical supporters of youth wrongdoing in the nation. Late scenes of youth wrongdoing and viciousness in our schools have incited many school overseers and clinicians to look for clarifications for savagery submitted by understudies. Indeed, even broad research ventures have been embraced toward recognizing hazard variables and practices related with blade conveying by youth. Starting at now, the connection between savage acts and blade conveying is immovably settled. Without a doubt, â€Å"carryingâ a weapon has been related with physical savagery), and all by itself is a high-chance conduct that worries p artners who are attempting to keep schools safe.† (Malecki and Demaray, 2003, p.172) Moreover, presentation to cut wrongdoing and firearm brutality significantly influences the brain research of casualties, regardless of whether it influences them just in a roundabout way. For instance, introduction to brutality can desensitize youngsters to the utilization of viciousness as a way to compromise. In the social circle, conveying knifes and seeing/taking an interest in wrongdoings can restrict an individual’s capacity to create significant relational connections. There is likewise the threat of physical mischief. Similarly significant is the way that kids who are presented to rough wrongdoings do ineffectively in school and hold little trust in a gainful and satisfying future for themselves. Further, such individuals can incite the pattern of introduction to brutality once more with regards to their own youngsters. Thus, the subject of blade conveying is of incredible affe ctability and pertinence to lawmakers, guardians and instructors. Upon its fruitful goals lie the possibilities for an amicable society. (Garbarino, et.al, 2002, p.73) The motivation behind this exploration practice is to become familiar with the issue by considering distributed writing just as social occasion data through direct research. After examining the data amassed subsequently, useful recommendations can be given to Metropolitan Police Departments, to the young and to the publicists, with the goal that our general public capacities in a progressively serene way. Unique consideration is additionally given to cases of 1.self-safeguard as the essential inspiration driving blade conveying, 2. the convenience of stop-n-search activities and 3. the adequacy of commercials in controling this conduct. There is a generous assemblage of insightful writing distributed on the issue of weapon-conveying, in spite of the fact that reviews concentrating solely on blade conveying are very fe w. This presents a defense for this exploration venture, which is expected to fill that void. 5. Writing Review (800 words) In this segment you ought to talk about what scholarly research and discussions have gone on around there and what ends and remarks were made by those. If it's not too much trouble in this area reference everything and from writing audit, (date. Page, year) 1. Discover writing survey on blade conveying for what reason do youth convey weapon? 2. Discover writing audit on stop and search 3. Discover writing audit on promotion with respect to cut conveying At last reference all that you have done research and reference in Harvard Surveying more extensive writing regarding the matter, we comprehend that youths in the United States are conveying

Saturday, August 22, 2020

Shakespeares great novels essay Example For Students

Shakespeares incredible books article In all of Shakespeares incredible books there are numerous encounters, grievous or in any case that one can gain from. Shakespeares tale Othello isn't a special case this standard. All through Othello there are numerous instances of slip-ups made by the characters that a peruser can gain from. Gaining from the defects of others is one way that one can learn structure Shakespeares Othello. In the novel Othello there are a significant number of these defects all through the story. There are numerous ways one can gain from the novel Othello. The significant subject all through Othello is that a man named Othello has wrongly let his feelings hinder his thinking. In the novel the primary character Othello is a smart, knowledgeable, common man that ought not have let his feelings outdo him. This is one case of a learning experience that is raised in Othello that shows how one ought not let feelings overwhelm thinking. The subject all through Othello is by all accounts that the astute Othello has let his feelings outwit him. A character named Iago has worked up Othellos feelings. Iago was appeared all through the novel disclosing to Othello lies about his significant other and companions. Othello began to consider this to be reality. Othello was apparently programmed by Iago, into accepting that his better half was unfaithful and his companions had double-crossed him. This is another case of a learning experience that was delivered in the novel Othello. The lamentable defect that Othello had was the mix of these two blemishes. This is the thing that Shakespeare appears to communicate as the most significant good experience that happened in Othello. The mix of feelings, for example, envy and doubt settled on Othello settle on brutal choices dependent on feeling. These feelings were welcomed on by the character Iago driving his lies on to Othello. Shakespeare appears through these experience Othellos imperfections as well as one of keeps an eye on own terrible blemishes. Another less significant blemish that was Shakespeare presented in his novel Othello was the issue of racing into things. Othello and Desdemona hurrying into marriage show this. This again is a case of feeling. The demonstration of eloping is by all accounts done when the two are in the warmth of energy. Again Othello has let his feelings bamboozle him. In Shakespeares Othello, there are numerous instances of slip-ups made as a result of crude feelings. Othello has numerous flaws that are appeared over the span of the novel. Despite the fact that Othello appears to have a significant number of these flaws his significant issue is that he lets his feelings outwit him. Shakespeare investigates the way that feelings outdo individuals in his play. The significant learning experienced all through the play is that one must control ones feelings. Shakespeare shows that even an apparently extraordinary man, for example, Othello can let feelings direct what he will do. This is the thing that one can gain from Othello.

Thursday, July 23, 2020

The Best Books We Read In August

The Best Books We Read In August We asked our contributors to share the best book they read this month. We’ve got fiction, nonfiction, YA, and much, much more- there are book recommendations for everyone here! Some are old, some are new, and some aren’t even out yet. Enjoy and tell us about the highlight of your reading month in the comments. Alex + Ada, Vol. 3 by Jonathan Luna and Sarah Vaughn I really like to include both the first and second volumes of Alex + Ada too, since I re-read them in anticipation of this final volume coming out. Alex is a human who makes the decision to “unlock” his android, Ada, so she can experience life as a sentient being. In the third volume, Alex and Ada are on the run from government authorities concerned about the power and potential danger of sentient artificial intelligence. Although the concluding chapters felt a little rushed, I just adored this unique and touching love story.   Kim Ukura Annihilation by Jeff Vandermeer So I’m finally getting to this one after all the buzz has died down a little, and holy smokes, this book really is a mind trip and a half. For anyone who doesn’t know, Annihilation is presented as the journal of a biologist on an expedition into a mysterious Area X, a pristine wilderness that apparently just suddenly appeared one day and from whence people rarely return unaltered (if they return at all). It’s a creeping, eerie story with atmospheric prose and a narrator who is cold yet compelling, observant yet unreliable. This was also an excellent marriage of book and reading setting. I read Annihilation in two parts: first, as a parade raged several blocks from my house with the muffled sounds of shrieks and thumping bass filtering in off the street, and second, plagued by insomnia in the wee, pre-dawn hours of morning when the light is at its eeriest and everything is a little too still. It was perfect. Maddie Rodriguez The Assassination of Margaret Thatcher by Hilary Mantel I’m not always one for a short story collection, but this was not a title my bleeding liberal heart could resist picking up. I loved Wolf Hall, so I knew I would enjoy the writing in Mantel’s collection if nothing else. I didn’t except the heart-rending honesty of the domestic portraits, from a woman struggling with undiagnosed endometriosis to a man struggling with his moment of infidelity. The breezily-constructed stories are deceptive: quick and deliberate, easily consumed but difficult to forget. And the eponymous story? That’s one that will haunt you in ways compelling and troubling. Read it if you loved Thatcher; read it if you hated Thatcher; read it if you’ve never thought twice about Thatcher. It forces a reconsideration of political ideals and zealotry, but also what it means to be a bystander and all the ways we enable the behaviours around us. I read The Assassination of Margaret Thatcher in one sitting, sprawled out on a rocky beach while the ocean roared. Take one last breath of summer and do the same. Brenna Clarke Gray Between The World And Me by Ta-Nehisi Coates This one feels so important, it is overwhelming. A series of essays about being black in the U.S. reveal the unbelievably crisp, deep writing of Coates. It is heartbreaking in some points as you would expect, particularly when Coates writes to his son directly. Other points show a self awareness that is incredible and makes me really wish that more people could train themselves to realize the expectations and demands of the body in society. We never ask enough questions. In fact, Coates’s work will make me try to be more self aware and aware of others around me. I rarely come across books like this one that inspire such introspection. Jessi Lewis Biogenesis by Tatsuaki Ishiguro, translated by Brian Watson and James Balzer This book of four science fiction tales is about as science-y as you can get. Written like reports, these stories focus on individuals who are drawn into tantalizing and difficult scientific problems, whether it’s the bizarre extinction of the winged mouse species, or a plant that thrives on human blood. Ishiguro asks us to consider where we should draw the line between objective investigation and personal quest, and if that line is even useful. Highly recommended. Rachel Cordasco Bodymap by Leah Lakshmi Piepzna-Samarasinha I don’t read a lot of poetry, but it’s collections like this that make me realize I should correct that. Bodymap deals with race, sexuality, class, and disability, always handling with these topics as intersecting aspects of everyday life, not as abstract theories. Piepzna-Samarasinha plays with tone and form throughout, but it says grounded and accessible. I spent most of Bodymap impatient to be rereading it, because I know that I’m going to get more out of it every time. I read this as an ebook, but I’ll be buying a physical copy and probably at least one more copy to give away. This is the sort of poetry that punches you in the gut, which is exactly the best kind. Danika Ellis Cinder (Lunar Chronicles, Book 1) by Marissa Meyer The opening scene of this book involves a sixteen-year-old cyborg named Cinder installing a new robotic footonto herself. This book is a futuristic take on the classic Cinderella story involving a deadly international plague, an evil queen from the republic of Luna (the moon!), and of course, a pumpkin-colored Volkswagen beetle. It’s the first of a series involving a mega life-or-death situation between Earth and Luna that could end in war if Cinder and friends don’t step up to the plate. Besides being an awesome work of steampunk-esque fantasy, Cinder is funny, quirky and fast-paced. Meyer had said that the book was inspired by her own Sailor Moon fandom, and interestingly some of her first beta readers were friends from the SM fan group she was part of online. I hated to see Cinder end, but luckily for all of us Meyer is still writing short stories set in her world. Mateeka Quinn Daughters Unto Devils by Amy Lukavics It’s late summer, the time of year when I read all the horror novels I can in anticipation of the fall rush. This one is definitely the scariest, the creepiest, the most riveting I’ve found this year. While it’s YA, it’s scarier than plenty of adult horror I’ve read. Take Little House on the Prairie, add religious mania, rural isolation, demons, ghost babies, the scariest cabin in the woods of all time, and you’ve got yourself a book you really shouldn’t read alone at night. Jessica Woodbury Dumplin’ by Julie Murphy (Balzer + Bray, September 15) Earlier this summer, I talked about fat phobia in YA and noted that I hadn’t yet read Dumplin’ but had read a lot of positive reviews of it. It’s everything I wanted and more. This is a book where Willowdean, a fat girl who knows she’s fat and owns her body as such, but it’s a story about grief, about family, and about Dolly Parton impersonators. There is a sweet relationship that develops here, and I thought the experiences Willowdean had as a fat girl were realistic, honest, and vulnerable a key element that so many of these books lack. Willowdean has a real voice, and her voice isnt 100% confident all the time. Despite being comfortable in her own skin, she has moments of absolutely feeling crushed beneath the expectations the world around her has for her and her body. And those things rang so painfully, authentically true. We rarely get stories where the fat girl gets to be funny, have friendships, have romances, and have challenges unrelated to her body/health of her body. More, we rarely get them where the voice is key. And thats because as a society, we silence fat people. We make them invisible. We make them make themselves disappear (and I say this as someone who has certainly seen the looks people give when you are climbing into an airplane seat or a bus seat and are made to shrink yourself, as to not take up space that you paid for and can fit perfectly within). So that Murphy gives Willowdean that voice? Thats powerful as hell, and teen girls who read this.FAT teen girls who read thiswill see that they matter. That they are seen. That THEIR lives matter and are important and they are welcome and encouraged to take up all the space in their lives that they need to. I only wish I could hand this book to my high school self. But I’m so glad it’s there for today’s readers. Kelly Jensen The Fifth Season by N.K. Jemisin I love N.K. Jemisin’s work, but this book sat on my nightstand for a few nights because I could pick it up, for two reasons: 1) I’m a fan of Inheritance, so I was a little worried that I wouldn’t enjoy Fifth Season as much, and 2) because, as the summary says, the novel starts with a mother coming home to find that her three-year-old has been murdered by her husband. I have a toddler, and I didn’t think I could handle that. But eventually I did start reading and found that worry #1 was completely off-base. I love the world Jemisin has created in this new book, and in fact, I think it’s a more compelling world than the one in the Inheritance trilogy. As for worry #2, well, those scenes (and all the other child endangerment scenes) are hard to take, but they are necessary and deserve the reader’s full attention.   A.J. O’Connell Fuse by Julianna Baggott Fuse is the middle book in Baggott’s Pure trilogy, which is a post-apocalyptic exploration of scientific madness, the abuse of power and riches, and the complications of acting as a hero. Fuse concentrates heavily on those living outside of the Dome, a massive structure with its own ecosystem that was designed to survive total destructionand did. Pressia, its heroine, and Bradwell, her maybe-love interest, lead a small, determined band of “Wretches,” those who survived the blast from outside the Dome, though with altered DNA and bits of material objects fused to them. (Apparently that’s a real thingit’s just one of those horrific details we choose to omit from discussions of Hiroshima.) Their mission is to reverse the horrors wrought by those in the Dome, utilizing the science of those who undermine it from within. This is not technically my genre; it’s a little darker than I typically go for; but I’m reading the series slowly, and am not looking forward to its end.   Michelle Anne Schingler Gabi, A Girl in Pieces by Isabel Quintero I read 20 books this monthincluding Between the World and Me, The Book of Unknown Americans, Everything I Never Told Youso rather than driving myself insane trying to pick the best/favorite I went with the one I wanted to hug immediately after I finished reading it. Super scientific, I know. But after watching Gabi navigate through her senior year of high school, her dad’s drug addiction, a friend’s coming out, a friend’s pregnancy, dating… I’m left wanting not only to befriend this smart, witty, unique and amazing character but I’d also like to meet her again in her twenties, thirties, fortiesâ€"basically every decade of her life. I loved every single thing about this book and would have no qualms about running up to strangers and tossing copies at them shouting “And you get a fantastic book! Jamie Canaves H is for Hawk by Helen MacDonald At the outset, H is for Hawk looks like it would be something like My Side of a Mountain, the survival story about a boy and his hawk, except this would be, you know, about a grown woman and her hawk. And, I guess, in a way, it is a survival story. Helen is a literature professor who recently and suddenly lost her father, and she loses her moorings in life. To try to find her way back, she returns to one of her old loves: falconry. H is for Hawk is rope made of three interwoven stories: the story of MacDonald’s grief, the story of a young Helen falling in love with falconry, and in an unexpected twist, T.H. White’s life story. White, an amatur falconer, wrote a book about falconry early in his career. MacDonald revisits his book through her own. This is a beautiful, sad, wild, but carefully restrained book. You grieve with MacDonald, but are distracted from your grief by the falconry history and technique. I listened to the audio, which is read by MacDonald. I always shy away fro m books read by the author, but MacDonald has a deep, clear, trained voice, and actually I would like her to read all audiobooks from now on. (Just a note, since this was something I’m sensitive to and was worried about: there is some animal violence, but not as much as you would expect from what is essentially a hunting memoir. If you’re very squeamish, skip this one.) Jesse Doogan The Handmaid’s Tale by Margaret Atwood I’m shamefully late to the party on this one, but better late than never. I had high expectations, but was still completely blown away and couldn’t put it down. I think the genius of this book is that the dystopian society it portrays is so foreign and yet eerily familiar. Thematic elements from our cultural experience are woven into the story in such a way as to give the reader the unsettling feeling that maybe Atwood’s Republic of Gilead isn’t as far removed from modern Western society as we would like to think. Kate Scott Happy City by Charles Montgomery Have you seen the terrific scathing TED talk of professional urban design gadfly James Howard Kunstler “The Ghastly Tragedy of The Suburbs,” in which he outlines all that is wrong with malls, suburban housing developments, and modern life, generally? I loved it because I frequently weep in the aisle of my minimall’s big box store buying back-to-school supplies and wonder why can’t we all live in the so-called “blue zones” (the places in the world where people live longest and are the happiest) with strong communities and great architecture and gelato. Happy City   happily, optimistically outlines how the design of our shared urban spaces can be humanized and changed for the better.   We have evolved to enjoy looking at softly branching and overlapping trees, views, and “bodies of clear, still water,” not asphalt and the sharp edges of empty atriums in dead mall.   Elizabeth Bastos If You Find Me by Emily Murdoch There is still an teary eyeliner stain on my pillow, and it’s Emily Murdoch that should pay my laundry bill. Taken to live off the grid in the woods by their unreliable mother, two sisters scrape by on beans and old books, until social services intervene. This book deals with a lot of issues and could have felt Dr Phil special, but lead character Carey’s voice never lets that happen. I was rooting for her from start to tear-stained finish. Rachel Weber In the Heart of the Sea: The Tragedy of the Whaleship Essex by Nathaniel Philbrick This book has it all: shipwrecks, sharks, and cannibalism. And it’s all true! The Essex is the whaleship that inspired Herman Melville’s classic (and one of my favorite books), Moby-Dick, and its real-life tale is stranger than fiction. After an 80 ton sperm whale repeatedly rammed and sank their ship, 20 crew members were left stranded in three tiny boats in the middle of the ocean. Spoiler: not everyone makes it. This book is a doozy of a page-turner, and Philbrick does an incredible job digging into all of the nuances of life before, during, and after surviving such a mind-boggling tragedy. In the Heart of the Sea is a perfect companion piece to Moby-Dick, or a great stand-alone read for anyone who’s ever wanted to read Moby-Dick but can do without all that riveting whale taxonomy.   Rachel Smalter Hall In The Light Of What We Know by Zia Haider Rahman Where to begin? It’s a fitting question to ask when trying to describe a book that itself struggles with the same query. Do you start with the War on Terror or the 2008 banking crisis? Do you begin amidst the raping and carnage of 1971 Bangladesh or the storied privilege of Oxbridge and the Ivy League? Or do you simply start with an interrupted friendship or a toxic love story? Rahman’s debut novel, the recent winner of this year’s James Tait Black Prize for Fiction, questions whether we can know any of our stories’ origins. It begins, as it technically must, with the reunion of two university friends. As they fill in the gaps of their relationship, an epic tale unfolds, which hopscotches through the major geopolitical events of the last several decades. The conversational style suits Rahman’s love of a good digression. Pages on cognitive psychology, short stories set in World War Two, cartography’s political biases, high mathematics and much, much more pepper the novel, giving it an odd, elliptical but always fascinating, appeal. It is unapologetically Melvillian in its ambition. No wonder that after reading it, James Wood wrote an equally sprawling New Yorker piece on its myriad themes. It’s an angry book too, raging against class systems and the blundering, thick-fingered actions of NGOs. But at it’s heart is an aching love story. Rahman argues that all the accumulated knowledge in the world can’t predict how you will act when you’re in love. The title is ironic, then. After more than 500 incredibly rich pages, you will feel less certain about knowing anything, even yourself. Edd McCracken Nova by Margaret Fortune Lia Johansen is just one of hundreds of POWs who find themselves on New Sol Space Station. For most, they are just waiting for transportation back to their home worlds. For a few, like Lia, there’s no home to go to. But even in this small group, Lia stands alone. She doesn’t intend to return home. She never intends to leave the station. She is a genetically-engineered bomb, and she’s been sent to destroy New Sol and everyone on it. There are, of course, a few complications. First, her identity used to belong to someone else and that someone else was the childhood best friend of Michael Sorenson, who lives on the station with his sister and grandmother.   Second, her timer malfunctions and when she’s set to go NOVA nothing happens. She begins to question her entire existence, fighting to regain her memories from before her arrival on the station. Once she does, she’ll need the help of those around her to do the right thing and, just maybe, save humanity.   Did I mention that Lia is a teenager?   And that she’s a badass?   ‘Cause she is.   This book definitely scratched my kick-ass teen heroine itch, and it did it in SPACE. That’s a perfect combo if I’ve seen one.   Cassandra Neace Rat Queens, Vol. 1: Sass Sorcery by Kurtis J. Wiebe and Roc Upchurch I’d been seeing Rat Queens pop up roughly forever on my social media feeds thanks to my dear friend sj, and I was always like, “dang, that looks hilarious and I love the art.” Why I did not immediately acquire it is beyond me, but I’m glad I finally did; it’s a great mix of fantasy and humor and quests and ass-kicking. I can’t even pick a favorite character because I want them all to be my favorite. Susie Rodarme The Scorpion Rules by Erin Bowman (September 22nd, Margaret K. McElderry Books) Oh my goodness, this hit every single mark on my checklist of what I love in a Young Adult book. Dystopian setting? Check. Epically high stakes? Check. Lil’ bit o’ romance? Check. Political intrigue? Check check check. Set in a future where peace is only maintained due to the world leaders’ children being held hostage and will be killed by an A.I. that controls the Earth’s weapons (what!), The Scorpion Rules has a seriously dark sci-fi setup, that pulled me in immediately and refused to let go. Highly recommend. Sequel now, please. Eric Smith Scrum: The Art of Doing Twice the Work in Half the Time by Jeff Sutherland Scrum started as a system for organizing software creation, born out of ideas from Toyota. It is intended to help those making software to work in teams to make prototypes faster and then iterate in response to reviews and feedback. This way, the software created faster and, once delivered, has fewer bugs and cost less. And it turns out, you can use Scrum for a lot of things. If the creators of Scrum are right (and they make a convincing argument) the companies that don’t use Scrum will simply be left in the dust by their Scrum-using competitors. The book really does a great job of both convincing us of Scrum’s value to a business, and of explaining how to implement it. If you work in a business and you feel that things are taking too long or costing too much, this is one of those rare times that a book may actually change your life. Trust me. Johann Thorsson The Serpent King by Jeff Zentner  (Crown, March 8th, 2016) The son of a snake-handling preacher (daddys in jail right now for possession of child porn), a too-smart-for-her-small-town fashion blogger, and a linebacker-sized, fantasy-novel-obsessed kid who carries a staff like Gandalf embark on their senior year of high school in rural Tennessee. Theres tragedy, broken families, all the big questions teenagers ask themselves, light teenage vandalism, and characters who are quirky and odd without ever being stock or foolish (and the adults arent all stupid or clueless, which I suddenly appreciate since I rounded 30 and had kids of my own). When I finished the book, I immediately tweeted that its a warm summer night and fireflies and heartache in book form, and I stand by it Zentner combines the melancholy of being 17 with the melancholy present in the best of Southern fiction and gives us a novel that will fill the infinite space that was left in your chest after you finished  The Perks of Being a Wallflower.   Amanda Nelson Sister Mine by Nalo Hopkinson I came out of The Library at Mount Char with a craving for contemporary demigod fantasy and missing father misadventures and, as luck would have it, I picked up a copy of Sister Mine. This is a book about gods but, moreover, its about dysfunctional families. First of all, I am all about family dysfunction (in fiction); secondly, I have an older sister so the tense muscle of sibling rivalry that runs through this book spoke to my childhood and the close yet snarling relationship I shared with my big sis. I mean, I never had to search for my missing mojo even as I searched for an identity apart from my sister, but still. Theres drama and fighting with sharp words and vegetation, a lively cast of characters to outshine any Greek myth, sarcasm like I never dreamed, and descriptions of food that made me want to find a local Caribbean restaurant. I had a blast reading this one. S. Zainab Williams Slade House by David Mitchell (October 27th, Random House) This David Mitchell book caused an awful lot of excitement for me before I had even read a single word of it. For one thing, it came out pretty quick after his last book, a hefty tome called The Bone Clocks, so I figured I had a couple-plus years to wait for the next one. But no! Then I learned that it would be a David Mitchell take on a haunted house novel, my very favoritest sort of story? The top of my head unscrewed and fell off and a rainbow of pure joy shot out (It was weird for everyone). Anyhow, it’s fortunate that the book held up to all my giddy expectations for it. Early on, I described it for someone as being like The Secret Garden mixed with Salem’s Lot, and that holds up pretty wellbut only to a point, because mostly it’s like a David Mitchell book. Also, like most of his books, it had stuff in it that made me drastically reconsider bits in earlier books. So I read it in a rush, and was left over with lots to think about. Top-notch effort from him, I think. Well w orth your time. Peter Damien Sorcerer to the Crown by Zen Cho For reasons unknown to the sorcerers of Great Britain, Fairyland has cut off their supply of magic. Zacharias Wythe, the Sorcerer Royal, finds his position threatened and sets off to visit Fairyland on a mission to bring magic back. Along the way, he meets Prunella Gentleman, a young woman whose powers are so remarkable that they force him to acknowledge that suppressing women’s magic is harmful not just to women but to the overall state of magic. So Zacharias adds a second objective to his quest: he will campaign to reform magical education and extend the rights and privileges that male sorcerers enjoy to girls and women, tradition and old-school laws be damned. Zacharias and Prunella make quite the odd couple, and Cho plays it up to maximal effect. This is a fast-paced, funny novel with a gloriously diverse cast and undeniably rad female characters (elements that are all too often absent from fantasy). It’s EVERYTHING I want from a fantasy story (not to mention everything I wis h Jonathan Strange and Mr. Norrell had been), and I only wish there were a million more pages of it. Rebecca Joines Schinsky The Sorcerer of the Wildeeps by Kai Ashante Wilson The first in the Tor.com Publishing’s line of novellas, The Sorcerer of the Wildeeps by the inimitable and powerful Kai Ashante Wilson is the story equivalent of the shot heard around the world. A rich, immersive, heartbreaking study in the character of Demane, one of the last grandchildren of the gods, and the mysterious, beautiful Captain, Wilson’s world is full of characters that honestly reflect the world we live, each with their own language and homeland and life, that they bring with them on the caravan they’re protecting through the magical and malevolent Wildeeps. Mixing up the language and imagery of epic fantasy and science fiction with the shorthand and vernacular of our own modern day, Wilson writes achingly beautiful prose through this vibrant story, where there is magic in the everyday, and mysteries centuries old that turn the world. Demane’s struggle between his nascent godhood and mortal life are the throughline of the tale, but there is so much more going on that I’ll need to reread this three or four times to really grasp everything. It’s a dense read for a novella, but rewarding, asking of the reader the same concentration and focus as the Captain does of his men. But I guarantee, if you give this novella the time and attention it absolutely deserves, you’re going to come away changed. Please, please read this, and share it, and enjoy your time with Demane and the Captain. Marty Cahill SuperMutant Magic Academy by Jillian Tamaki I love boarding school settings, magic, and the kinds of stories that make you feel smart/confused/amused all at once. SuperMutant Magic Academy hit all these notes and it’s a comic book. The strip, now anthologized, follows a number of students at a school for paranormal teensâ€" and mostly they have the same issues as “normal” teenagers (boring classes, unrequited crushes, fears of an unknowable future), despite being able to cast spells, disappear, and fly. Tamaki’s balance of the mundane high school experience with fantastical powers was endlessly fascinating and hilarious.   Emma Nichols Sweet, Filthy Boy by Christina Lauren Christina Lauren (a team of two women, by the way Christina Hobbs and Lauren Billings) is much loved in the romance community with both the Beautiful and Wild Seasons series. And finally, after much cajoling and coaxing, I gave my first Lauren a try. I tend to shy away from authors that have very large and positive followings because I always wind up being that person, the one who just doesn’t get what everyone loves and it really stinks. But not this time. Though the original premise of a drunken, Vegas wedding seems silly, I can assure that it’s only part of the story. Full of emotion and growth, this romance took me pleasantly by surprise. The sexy parts certainly aren’t half bad either. After finishing the book, I dropped a significant amount of money on creating my own little Christina Lauren library. I foresee a binge reading in the near future. Amanda Diehl A Taste of Heaven by Penny Watson (Self-published, September 14th) If you love foodie romances, I think it’s practically guaranteed you’ll love this book. Sophia Brown, lonely widow, is pushed into entering a Top Chef-esque cooking competition by her daughters. The good news is she’s a pretty amazing amateur cook; the bad news is she’s paired with Chef Elliott Adamson, a grumpy Scot who makes Gordon Ramsay seem soft-spoken and open-minded. Who doesn’t love grumpy chefs, though, amirite? A Taste of Heaven is an absolutely charming story about trust and family. I do wish there’d been more food descriptionsâ€"it was hard to appreciate a loss or win when I had only the vaguest idea of what Sophie and Elliot’s competition was cookingâ€"but otherwise this book was pretty perfect. Watson may even have convinced me to try haggis. At some point. In the unforeseeable future. Tasha Brandstatter An Untamed State by Roxane Gay I had been kind of scared to read this book for a while, because I knew it was going to be tough to read. I’d already heard that, although the writing is brilliant and depictions of awful things weren’t gratuitous, it’s still an uncomfortable subject to willingly jump into when so much of my reading is to find new things that’ll make me happy, or filled with wonder. All that said though, I can’t stress enough that if this book is on your radar and you’re curious but hesitant, definitely go for it. It isn’t a constant barrage of awful, it’s also a steady stream of flashbacks to happier times, and a lot of sadness, but also a lot of hope. I didn’t feel too drained after finishing the book, either I was able to jump right into my next read without too bad a book hangover. I wish I had read it sooner. Kristina Pino The Warmth of Other Suns: The Epic Story of Americas Great Migration by Isabel Wilkerson How does one read this and not feel humbled, infuriated, and enriched, all at the same time? In a feat of investigative journalism and oral history documentation, Wilkerson traces the dangerous north and westward journeys of various African-American individuals yearning to create a future that is unfettered by the dehumanizing effects of Jim Crow. This silent, half a century-long revolution created giants such as Mahalia Jackson, Louis Armstrong, James Baldwin, Richard Wright, and its effects continue to echo in today’s society. The book ties the human story of the migration with news reports on white supremacist violence in the US South, sociological studies on the emergence of economically depressed tenements in Northern cities, and rhetoric from politicians and intellectuals in their attempt to address the phenomenon. Just tremendous. Kristel Autencio The Water Knife by Paolo Bacigalupi I’ve been telling everyone I know to get to their closest bookstore or library so they can read this book. Better yet, listen to it, because the audio by Almarie Guerra is so well-done I couldn’t stop listening. Set a few decades in the future, The Water Knife imagines a United States in which states have their own militias and flight each other, refugees flee their drought-ridden homes, and entire states have become uninhabitable all because of the lack of enough fresh water to sustain the Western half of the US. It’s a dark story about three unforgettable characters: Angel Velasquez, a Las Vegas Water Knife, or a soldier who fights for water rights, Lucy Monroe, a journalist documenting the decline of Phoenix, and Maria Villarosa, a Texas refugee just trying to survive. Part noir and part speculative fiction, The Water Knife is a book you can’t forget. Leslie Fannon The Wind City by Summer Wigmore Imagine a quirkier Rivers of London. Or a darker Gods Behaving Badly. Or a more complex and queerer Neverwhere. Or a more earth-bound (well, earth-set) Perdido Street Station.   Now take that, put it in a Wellington, New Zealand, populated with Maori atua. Have you done that? Okay, then you have just a hint of the awesome weirdness that is Summer Wigmore’s The Wind City. The book is urban fantasy of the highest orderâ€"fun, smart, surprising, textured, morally ambiguousâ€"and definitely worth a read. Derek Attig The Witch of Duva by Leigh Bardugo I’ve missed the Grisha universe since Ruin and Rising came out last year, and I only discovered this short story/novella floating around in my local library’s ebook collection a few weeks ago. The prose is reminiscent of Catherynne Valente’s Deathless, one of my favourite books (and a title I never really shut up about): Bardugo leads the reader into the village of Duva and its woods with a careful hand, wrapping them in words until they don’t realize how dangerous the village really is. Nadya’s perspective is a tense one, with doubt and distrust in every thought. It is hard to trust any of the characters in the story, which I absolutely loved. I didn’t bother to try guessing why the girls were disappearing, because I trusted the text from the start to bring a satisfying and powerful conclusion to the story. I’m happy to report that it did, and I’ve since reread The Witch of Duva several times to pick it apart and study how and why it works. Angel Cruz The Wonderful Wizard of Oz by L. Frank Baum   I have never ever read this book! So when I spied a cute paperback copy in a random store while on vacation in Pismo Beach, it seemed like the perfect beachy escape read. And it isâ€"I even learned stuff from reading it. Like, did you know that in the book it’s a cyclone that hits Kansas? And that poor little Dorothy, with her non-affection showing Aunt, is just desperate for any pop of color, after a long, dry Kansas summer? It actually sounded just like drought-stricken California right now, so when we did arrive in colorful Oz, I was just about as happy as our heroine. And reading this with the ‘hindsight’ of the Wicked books just gives everything that extra ‘aw’ feeling. An excellent flashback, new-to-me pick. Alison Peters Yes, Chef by Marcus Samuelsson This is the memoir of chef Marcus Samuelsson, Ethiopian-born but adopted at age three by Swedish parents when his mother passed away from tuberculosis. As Samuelsson grew up, he nurtured a love of flavors in his Swedish grandmother’s kitchen where he helped her cook pan-fried herring and roast chicken. Later in his life he stepped out of that kitchen and into the kitchens of the most demanding and innovative chefs in the world, from Switzerland to cruise ships to France to the White House to New York City. His stories are rich with flavors, loud with the crash of cookware, and steady and strong in his perseverance to pursue excellence. Karina Glaser You Too Can Have a Body Like Mine by Alexandra Kleeman I love this book so much, I wanted to punch myself in the face out of sheer joy while I read it. It’s brilliant and biting and so, so strange. I clung to it like a spider monkey. Here’s what happens: A lives a fairly unsatisfactory life in an unnamed city, with her roommate, B, who is clingy and jealous at the best of times. A B live in unusual times. Their neighbors across the street seem to have gotten themselves mixed up in a weird religion that’s sweeping the nation (it’s like the Heaven’s Gate cult meets It’s the Great Pumpkin, Charlie Brown), middle class fathers are disappearing without a trace, and the media’s new darling is a man who almost killed someone with veal. On top of these odd occurrences, A’s boyfriend, C, wants her to join him on a ridiculous reality show called That’s My Partner! where the losing couples are no longer legally able to contact their significant others. This book is bonkers! Kleeman holds up a big mirror to the world and what shin es back is over the top and scary, mostly because it’s stomach-churningly familiar. I loved it with the heat of a thousand suns. Liberty Hardy

Friday, May 22, 2020

The World Of The Roaring Twenties A Decade Of Jazz And...

Place yourself in the roaring twenties. A decade of jazz and gin, of invention and discovery, and of conformism and materialism. The American man believed America could be going in no other direction but forward, with the advent of radio and television broadcasting, various household appliances, and important medicines like Penicillin and Insulin, among others. Renowned author, Aldous Huxley, lived during this roaring age and saw something different. He feared for America’s future. Although he had trouble admitting and determining this fear, many traces of this fear can be found in Brave New World, his utopian novel depicting the foreseeable future. blah blah blah In Brave New World, many influences from its time can be seen. Henry Ford’s philosophy is one of the most predominant ideas implemented into the novel, and is seen being applied extensively in the first three chapters when you abruptly enter the World State. The assembly line concept is noticeable in the hatch ery, where â€Å"social predestination becomes reality† (gupea). This is where humans from the World State are manufactured technically to be developed into specific castes. Depending on which caste the human is to be born into, the workers would create it in differing ways. Such differentiation can be seen when â€Å"the Alphas and Betas [go] back to the incubators, while the Gammas, the Deltas, and the Epsilons were brought out again [...] to undergo the Boskonovsky’s process† (Huxley, Ch. 1). In Ford’s case, he is

Thursday, May 7, 2020

Essay about The American Civil War Was Inevitable

America’s transformation into the country we live in today has been formed through numerous events during its short history but the event that will split the United States into North versus South is truly one of the most defining events in American history. Through numerous events leading up to the start of the Civil War, I will attempt to show how the United States was destined for conflict and that the Civil War was inevitable. The first way I will show how the war could not be avoided will deal with the issue of slavery. Slavery should be the first mentioned because many conflicts within the United States leading up to the Civil War and the division of the United States dealt with slavery. The Missouri Compromise should also be talked†¦show more content†¦Many of the people in the North that were of the Protestant faith believed in a different set of moral codes than the people of the South. In an excerpt taken from the textbook American Promise, the authors sum up what it was to be a Protestant at the time. â€Å"Not content with individual perfection, many of these people sought to perfect society as well, by defining excessive alcohol consumption, non-martial sex, and slavery as three major evils of modern life in need of correction† (page 376). The Protestant ideal helped form many groups that fought for the abolishment of slavery, among them the abolitionist movement. The Protestants felt that all men were created equal and this was in direct conflict with many Southern people. Many of the Northern reform groups â€Å"found their initial inspiration in Protestantism’s dual message: Salvation was open to all, and society needed to be perfected† (page 385). The North’s economy was based on textiles, shipping, and skilled trades. Their climate was not suited for the same type of agricultural products that the South produced like cotton, sugar, rice and tobacco. Northern states like New England manufactured and shipped goods like guns, clocks, plows and axes (page 399). One reason for the South’s dependence on slavery is because their economy relied on the existence of slave labor. For example, the cultivation of cotton depended largely on slave labor, with 75% of the crop grown on plantations,Show MoreRelatedWas The American Civil War An Inevitable?1390 Words   |  6 PagesSabrina Scovino Was the American Civil War an inevitable consequence of the American Revolution? The American Revolution marked significant changes in the political, social, and economic status of the Americans. For a long, time the lives of the Americans were darkened by the British colonial rule. The British government passed several intolerable Acts. For instance, the Massachusetts Government Act was a restriction to town meetings. As a result, the American opponents began collective actionsRead MoreThe American Civil War Was Inevitable1975 Words   |  8 Pagesitself cannot stand were the words of Abraham Lincoln in a republican convention on June 17,1858 in Illinois. The inevitable debate over slavery, popular sovereignty, the publishing of Uncle Toms Cabin, and Lincolns election would eventually have brothers versus brothers fighting each other in a bloody war. Religion, economics and the lost of power made the civil war an inevitable one. Popular sovereignty is the ideal that people could choose their laws such ideal Lewis Cass first broughtRead MoreWas the American Civil War Inevitable?2559 Words   |  11 PagesWas the American civil war inevitable? The civil war was inevitable, only however, after one key event; the cotton gin made the civil war inevitable. The invention of the cotton gin in 1793 was the key element which enabled the south to have sufficient vested interest in their traditional lifestyle in order to feel the need to defend it at all costs even from their Northern countrymen. The core argument of this essay centres around the evidence which clearly defines their being in existence twoRead MoreThe American Civil War Was Inevitable Essay1641 Words   |  7 PagesThe Civil War was inevitable in many reasons. The economic and industrial evolution was mainly in the North side of the United States while the South was just a cotton kingdom, Slave Empire. Also both were completely opposites of one another when it was about freeing the slaves or hiring more. With many debates there has to be sides that would be separated especially if the president has so much hate from the people. With that being said, since many want opposing ideas, the Civil War becomes muchRead MoreEssay on The American Civil War Was Inevitable1930 Words   |  8 PagesThe Civil War: one of the most pivotal and significant moments in the history of the United States of America. The dividing of a newly birthed nation upon itself - the turmoil created threatened to collapse a unified yearning for independence. A nation once united by the solace of solidarity, once tread on by the tyranny of a motherland, once triumphant in a fight for freedom, became segregated by principle. Power and greed fueled a dichotomy between color and people which repercussions lingeredRead MoreThe American Civil War Was Inevitable Essay1653 Words   |  7 PagesThe Civil War between the North and South was the result of two cultures that economically, morally, and legally clashed on almost all levels. The steadily growing conflict between the two parts of the union makes it hard to pinpoint the origin or the cause of the resulting war. The conflict a rose from a nation thats geographical areas had slowly grown apart in their ideals and also their source of income, which is often the cause of strife between battling regions. This rift driven between the twoRead MoreThe War Of The American Civil War960 Words   |  4 Pagesslavery even if it meant war caused peace in this nation. Slavery was the vital cause of the American Civil War. The north and the south both had their differences on how to run the country. People in the North believed in unity and that slavery should not exist because â€Å"all men are created equally.† On the other hand, the South believed in continuing slavery. People tried to talk it out and come to a middle ground after both sides compromising, however that didn’t work and caused war. Ideological differencesRead MoreSlavery as the Cause of the American Civil War Essay1733 Words   |  7 PagesThe American Civil War was the bloodiest military conflict in American history leaving over 500 tho usand dead and over 300 thousand wounded (Roark 543-543). One might ask, what caused such internal tension within the most powerful nation in the world? During the nineteenth century, America was an infant nation, but toppling the entire world with its social, political, and economic innovations. In addition, immigrants were migrating from their native land to live the American dream (Roark 405-407)Read MoreThe Civil War Was Inevitable1399 Words   |  6 PagesThe American Civil War took place from April 12, 1861 to May 9, 1865. The simple answer is yes: the Civil War was completely inevitable, but there were many events, documents and people before its beginning that certainly had a large bearing on the war itself. The most divisive political issue in the United States in the mid-1800s was the expansion of slavery, and slavery is certainly the common denominator of the events leading up to the Civil War. People from the North were abolitionists, lookingRead MoreThe American Revolu tion And The Civil War1567 Words   |  7 Pages In the eyes of most, the American Revolution was a momentous event that shaped not only what would now be the America we know today but the whole world as well. However, this event had ramifications that affected the history of America for many years to come. In fact, many of those same ramifications led to what we know as the American Civil War. While it may be difficult to distinguish whether or not the Civil War was an inevitable consequence of the American Revolution due to lack of correlating

Wednesday, May 6, 2020

Weather Forecasting Free Essays

Faculty of Electrical Engineering and Computing, University of Zagreb, Unska 3, 10000 Zagreb, Croatia (2) Croatian Meteorological and Hydrological Service, Gri 3, 10000 Zagreb, Croatia (3) Pliva d. d. , Vukovarska 49, 10000 Zagreb, Croatia mario. We will write a custom essay sample on Weather Forecasting or any similar topic only for you Order Now zagar@fer. hr ABSTRACT: The paper presents a new method of weather forecast presentation, which was developed as a project during the course of postgraduate study. So far, the use of mobile phones in the presentation of weather forecasts was limited and noninteractive. This application provides an interactive access to meteorological products in Croatia. It has been developed in the MicroJava programming language and successfully tested in an emulator and on real mobile devices. The rapid development of mobile technologies will allow for intensive application of such products. Key words: Java, weather forecast, MIDlet, J2ME, MicroJava, mobile device, wireless, GPRS 1.Introduction This paper describes a new method of weather forecast presentation based on modern mobile communication technologies – at the moment the fastest-growing industry in the world. Recent studies show that every fifth person in the world owns a mobile device, and in Croatia more than 80 percent of households have at least one; at the same time, only 37 percent have a personal computer (GFK, 2003). 2. Technology In June 1999, Sun Microsystems announced a new edition of the Java 2 platform: the Java 2 Micro Edition -J2ME (Muchow, 2002).The purpose of the Micro Edition is to enable Java applications to run on computing devices with limited computer power, memory and display, such as mobile phones, PDAs, pagers, etc. It is based on the popular Java programming language, and the application is called MIDlet. MIDlet is an abbreviation composed of two words: MID for Mobile Information Device, and â€Å"let† is the suffix of â€Å"applet†, which means mobile application (Piroumann, 2002). Over time, this technology has become standard with the new generation mobile devices, so that almost all new models support it, independently of who produces them.Thanks to the Java technology, mobile phone features can be enhanced through interactive, dynamic applications which can be downloaded and stored in a mobile phone. And when a user does not need them any more, they can be easily erased. Examples of different Java applications include interactive games, utilities, organisation and travel programmes, etc. 3. Application in weather forecast In Croatia, as well as abroad, current technologies (radio, TV, newspaper) have been exploiting weather forecast presentations for a long time already so that there are limited possibilities left of further development (specialised TV-stations etc. In the last decade, the rapid development of mobile technology has introduced a significantly new way of communication and living. So far, the weather forecast in mobile devices was mainly presented through SMS (short message service) and MMS (multimedia message service), WAP pages etc. The disadvantage of such an approach is that the user always gets the same product. The Java technology, on the other hand, allows the building of software that provides interactive access through the intuitive interface, at any desired time and in every place.Besides weather forecasts, users can also retrieve real-time information, such as data from automatic synop stations, radar and satellite images (every 15 and 30 minutes, respectively), special warnings, nowcastings etc. As the application uses data from the Internet, independently of the mobile provider, users can access the desired information no matter where they are, whether in Croatia or abroad. 4. Presentation A MIDlet, named CroWeather, with a complete weather forecast, has been created as a University project.Forecasts are given for the present and the following day, textually and in picture format. As for actual data, besides satellite and radar images, this MIDlet also provides textual data on current weather conditions as temperature, pressure, humidity etc. Users can choose among different Croatian cities and the main regions. The programme is a so-called MIDlet application. It should be installed on Javaenabled mobile devices, and is written in the MicroJava programming language. The server side scripts providing files and data are written partly in PHP and Fortran 90, mainly in a Unix environment.The application was developed using Sun’s Wireless Toolkit (-, Java 2 Micro Edition, 2000) that emulates Java-enabled mobile devices, and was successfully tested on several mobile phones (Nokia 7650, Nokia 3650) In 2001, mobile phones of the 2,5 generation were just being introduced to the Croatian market. At first, it was difficult to find a mobile phone that would comply with the features required (Java-enabled, GPRS, colour display desirable), so that at the time only one type actually matched our criteria.Although the application worked successfully on the emulator, we experienced some difficulties when testing it on a real device . Insufficient implementation of Java in the actual device (during http requests the application would stop and would not work in a single thread, so we used multithreading), and the mobile provider did not support the transfer of data files larger than 5 kB. As every other, this Java MIDLet also consists of two files. One with a . jar extension (Java archive), which is the actual MIDlet, and another with a . ad extension (Java application description), a plain text file that contains some general data about the application, version, authors, producer etc. The total size of the files is cca 30 kB, so they can be easily downloaded to a mobile phone via an IR (infrared) or Bluetooth connection, or otherwise directly from the WAP pages (OTA – over the air). Once the files are downloaded, users can simply install the MIDlet through the Java application manager, depending on the mobile device type (Topley, 2002). The following presentation consists of screenshots taken on the Nokia 7650 mobile phone. Features: Figure 1. Textual information about current weather conditions in 32 Croatian continental and coastal cities (weather description, temperature, humidity, pressure, time change of pressure, wind, sea temperature, snow height – all updated hourly) Figure 2. Textual forecasts for Croatia and the city of Zagreb for the present and the following day Figure 3. Textual forecasts for the Adriatic for the next 12 hours in 4 languages: English, German, Italian and Croatian, updated at 6. 0 and 13. 00 hours Figure 4. Radar image – current picture, last 4 animated pictures, last 8 animated pictures Figure 5. Satellite image – current picture, last 4 animated pictures, last 8 animated pictures Figure 6. Graphic forecasts for 6 Croatian regions for the present and the following day. Figure 7. About box. Besides general information about the application, authors etc, users can check if there is a new version of the programme and download it 5. Conclusion CroWeather for Java-enabled mobile devices has been successfully tested on several types of devices. The application is small and is not computer-expensive, which makes installation and usage relatively easy. Modern wireless technology combined with Java technology provides advanced usage of products such as weather forecasts, so that the user can selectively and interactively access the desired data, no matter where he is. The authors believe that this and similar solutions, and their applications, will play a dominant role in modern weather forecast presentation, especially with regard to the newcoming generations of mobile devices.References -, Java 2 Micro Edition, Wireless Toolkit User’ Guide, Release 1. 0. Palo Alto, CA: Sun s Microsystems, November 2000. ukman, T. , 1997: Java. Alfej, Zagreb, 520 pp. GFK, 2003 – http://www. gfk. hr/press/hitech. htm Muchow, J. V, 2002: Core J2ME Technology and MIDP. Prentice Hall PTR, NJ (The Sun Microsystem Press, Palo Alto), 710 pp. Piroumann, V. , 2002: Wireless J2ME Platform Programming, Prentice Hall PTR, NJ, 400 pp Susanj, D. , 1997: Java: Programiranje za Internet i World Wide Web. Znak, Zagreb, 722 pp. Topley, K. , 2002: J2ME in a Nutshell, O’ Reilly, 478 pp How to cite Weather Forecasting, Papers

Weather Forecasting Free Essays

Faculty of Electrical Engineering and Computing, University of Zagreb, Unska 3, 10000 Zagreb, Croatia (2) Croatian Meteorological and Hydrological Service, Gri 3, 10000 Zagreb, Croatia (3) Pliva d. d. , Vukovarska 49, 10000 Zagreb, Croatia mario. We will write a custom essay sample on Weather Forecasting or any similar topic only for you Order Now zagar@fer. hr ABSTRACT: The paper presents a new method of weather forecast presentation, which was developed as a project during the course of postgraduate study. So far, the use of mobile phones in the presentation of weather forecasts was limited and noninteractive. This application provides an interactive access to meteorological products in Croatia. It has been developed in the MicroJava programming language and successfully tested in an emulator and on real mobile devices. The rapid development of mobile technologies will allow for intensive application of such products. Key words: Java, weather forecast, MIDlet, J2ME, MicroJava, mobile device, wireless, GPRS 1.Introduction This paper describes a new method of weather forecast presentation based on modern mobile communication technologies – at the moment the fastest-growing industry in the world. Recent studies show that every fifth person in the world owns a mobile device, and in Croatia more than 80 percent of households have at least one; at the same time, only 37 percent have a personal computer (GFK, 2003). 2. Technology In June 1999, Sun Microsystems announced a new edition of the Java 2 platform: the Java 2 Micro Edition -J2ME (Muchow, 2002).The purpose of the Micro Edition is to enable Java applications to run on computing devices with limited computer power, memory and display, such as mobile phones, PDAs, pagers, etc. It is based on the popular Java programming language, and the application is called MIDlet. MIDlet is an abbreviation composed of two words: MID for Mobile Information Device, and â€Å"let† is the suffix of â€Å"applet†, which means mobile application (Piroumann, 2002). Over time, this technology has become standard with the new generation mobile devices, so that almost all new models support it, independently of who produces them.Thanks to the Java technology, mobile phone features can be enhanced through interactive, dynamic applications which can be downloaded and stored in a mobile phone. And when a user does not need them any more, they can be easily erased. Examples of different Java applications include interactive games, utilities, organisation and travel programmes, etc. 3. Application in weather forecast In Croatia, as well as abroad, current technologies (radio, TV, newspaper) have been exploiting weather forecast presentations for a long time already so that there are limited possibilities left of further development (specialised TV-stations etc. In the last decade, the rapid development of mobile technology has introduced a significantly new way of communication and living. So far, the weather forecast in mobile devices was mainly presented through SMS (short message service) and MMS (multimedia message service), WAP pages etc. The disadvantage of such an approach is that the user always gets the same product. The Java technology, on the other hand, allows the building of software that provides interactive access through the intuitive interface, at any desired time and in every place.Besides weather forecasts, users can also retrieve real-time information, such as data from automatic synop stations, radar and satellite images (every 15 and 30 minutes, respectively), special warnings, nowcastings etc. As the application uses data from the Internet, independently of the mobile provider, users can access the desired information no matter where they are, whether in Croatia or abroad. 4. Presentation A MIDlet, named CroWeather, with a complete weather forecast, has been created as a University project.Forecasts are given for the present and the following day, textually and in picture format. As for actual data, besides satellite and radar images, this MIDlet also provides textual data on current weather conditions as temperature, pressure, humidity etc. Users can choose among different Croatian cities and the main regions. The programme is a so-called MIDlet application. It should be installed on Javaenabled mobile devices, and is written in the MicroJava programming language. The server side scripts providing files and data are written partly in PHP and Fortran 90, mainly in a Unix environment.The application was developed using Sun’s Wireless Toolkit (-, Java 2 Micro Edition, 2000) that emulates Java-enabled mobile devices, and was successfully tested on several mobile phones (Nokia 7650, Nokia 3650) In 2001, mobile phones of the 2,5 generation were just being introduced to the Croatian market. At first, it was difficult to find a mobile phone that would comply with the features required (Java-enabled, GPRS, colour display desirable), so that at the time only one type actually matched our criteria.Although the application worked successfully on the emulator, we experienced some difficulties when testing it on a real device . Insufficient implementation of Java in the actual device (during http requests the application would stop and would not work in a single thread, so we used multithreading), and the mobile provider did not support the transfer of data files larger than 5 kB. As every other, this Java MIDLet also consists of two files. One with a . jar extension (Java archive), which is the actual MIDlet, and another with a . ad extension (Java application description), a plain text file that contains some general data about the application, version, authors, producer etc. The total size of the files is cca 30 kB, so they can be easily downloaded to a mobile phone via an IR (infrared) or Bluetooth connection, or otherwise directly from the WAP pages (OTA – over the air). Once the files are downloaded, users can simply install the MIDlet through the Java application manager, depending on the mobile device type (Topley, 2002). The following presentation consists of screenshots taken on the Nokia 7650 mobile phone. Features: Figure 1. Textual information about current weather conditions in 32 Croatian continental and coastal cities (weather description, temperature, humidity, pressure, time change of pressure, wind, sea temperature, snow height – all updated hourly) Figure 2. Textual forecasts for Croatia and the city of Zagreb for the present and the following day Figure 3. Textual forecasts for the Adriatic for the next 12 hours in 4 languages: English, German, Italian and Croatian, updated at 6. 0 and 13. 00 hours Figure 4. Radar image – current picture, last 4 animated pictures, last 8 animated pictures Figure 5. Satellite image – current picture, last 4 animated pictures, last 8 animated pictures Figure 6. Graphic forecasts for 6 Croatian regions for the present and the following day. Figure 7. About box. Besides general information about the application, authors etc, users can check if there is a new version of the programme and download it 5. Conclusion CroWeather for Java-enabled mobile devices has been successfully tested on several types of devices. The application is small and is not computer-expensive, which makes installation and usage relatively easy. Modern wireless technology combined with Java technology provides advanced usage of products such as weather forecasts, so that the user can selectively and interactively access the desired data, no matter where he is. The authors believe that this and similar solutions, and their applications, will play a dominant role in modern weather forecast presentation, especially with regard to the newcoming generations of mobile devices.References -, Java 2 Micro Edition, Wireless Toolkit User’ Guide, Release 1. 0. Palo Alto, CA: Sun s Microsystems, November 2000. ukman, T. , 1997: Java. Alfej, Zagreb, 520 pp. GFK, 2003 – http://www. gfk. hr/press/hitech. htm Muchow, J. V, 2002: Core J2ME Technology and MIDP. Prentice Hall PTR, NJ (The Sun Microsystem Press, Palo Alto), 710 pp. Piroumann, V. , 2002: Wireless J2ME Platform Programming, Prentice Hall PTR, NJ, 400 pp Susanj, D. , 1997: Java: Programiranje za Internet i World Wide Web. Znak, Zagreb, 722 pp. Topley, K. , 2002: J2ME in a Nutshell, O’ Reilly, 478 pp How to cite Weather Forecasting, Papers