What Is Net Worth Complete Guide

What Is Net Worth Complete Guide SAT / ACT Prep Online Guides and Tips If you’ve ever analyzed your personal finances, you may have come across the term â€Å"net worth.† Simply put, your net worth is what you have minus what you owe. While net worth is a useful way to evaluate your financial situation, it also has some major flaws. Let’s define the concept of net worth, and then look at some key adjustments you can make to assess your finances and plan for the future even better. What Is Net Worth? A Hard Definition You just read a simple definition of net worth: what you have minus what you owe. Let’s rename â€Å"what you have† as assets and â€Å"what you owe† as liabilities. Let’s say your major asset is a $10 lemonade stand. Your major liability? The $4 you owe to your mom for sugar and lemons. Overall, your net worth is $6. Not bad for a 7-year-old budding entrepreneur. Twenty-five years later, your assets and liabilities probably look a little different. You lost the lemonade stand, but you collected other assets, like a savings and checking account, a car, a sweet road bike, and several rare Beanie Babies that you had the foresight to save. While you’ve paid off that $4 debt to mom, you’ve amassed some other liabilities: namely a hefty car loan and an even heftier student loan. Your net worth is the total value of all your assets minus the total value of all your liabilities. Using this example, let’s break down the steps to calculating your net worth. Calculating Net Worth: An Example Considering our 32-year-old friend who, sadly, did not grow up to run a lemonade stand empire (let’s call him Joe) we can list out all his assets and liabilities. Next to each one, we assign their current market worth. All of Joe’s assets together add up to $27,000. Again, these values represent the current market worth; who knows what the volatile Beanie Baby market is going to look like tomorrow? His liabilities total $35,000. The chart below shows the breakdown of Joe’s assets and liabilities beside their current values. Assets Current Market Worth Liabilities Current Market Worth Checking account $2,000 Car loan $5,000 Savings account $6,500 Student loan $30,000 Car $15,000 Road bike $1,000 Beanie Babies $2,500 Total: $27,000 $35,000 Net worth = assets - liabilities = $27,000 - $35,000 = - $8,000 After subtracting his liabilities from his assets, Joe is left with a negative net worth totaling $8,000 in debt. While ending up with a negative net worth isn’t ideal, it’s not actually unusual or even necessarily a bad thing, especially at certain points in life. In fact, Joe looks like he’s in a pretty good financial spot, especially if he keeps making consistent payments toward his car and student loans. So how can you calculate your own net worth? Read on for each step of the process. How to Calculate Your Net Worth: 6 Steps To calculate your own net worth, you need to go through the same process as Joe. There are six steps: Step 1: List Out All of Your Assets These could be tangible things like houses, cars, motorcycles, bicycles, land, pleasure yachts, baseball cards, rare coin collections, Basquiat paintings, fur stoles, gemstone-encrusted goblets...you know, the usual. They could also be intangibles, like stocks or other investments. Step 2: Determine Current Market Worth Once you’ve identified your assets, determine their current market worth. Don’t value your car at the amount for which you bought it, for example. Instead, find out what you could sell it for now. Step 3: List All Your Liabilities These could be student loans, personal loans, car loans, mortgages, or credit card debt that you amassed paying for all those pleasure yachts. Step 4: Determine Your Debts As you did with your assets, assign the amount of money that you currently owe to each liability. Step 5: Subtract Assets from Liabilities Figuring out your net worth is a simple subtraction problem: total value of assets minus total value of liabilities. Then you have your net worth! If you end up with a negative net worth like our friend Joe, it isn’t necessarily a bad thing. Lots of recent graduates, for instance, will be in this position thanks to ever-growing student loans. Your net worth doesn’t account for changes in your earning and spending over time, which is one of its major limitations. I’ll discuss the pros and cons of net worth in more detail below, so if you’re only interested in the hard definition of net worth, you should stop reading here. If you want to know how to make a more realistic assessment of your finances in both the short and long term, though, then you should keep scrolling. Before getting deeper into net worth, a quick note about my background in finance and economics. My Background in Finance and Economics I’ve invested my higher educational life to studying the ins and outs of economics. At Harvard, I got my Bachelor’s in Math, Master’s in Statistics, and Ph.D. in Economics. Eager to put theory to good use, I started a personal finance circle in my community to help struggling neighbors get on the path to financial independence. Along the way, I’ve deftly managed my business PrepScholar’s cash flow and my own personal finances. For many of us, school teaches us a lot about critical thinking, but very little about how to manage our money. With my background, I sincerely hope to assist others in developing solid financial planning skills. Now that you know a little about me, let’s return to the topic at hand: net worth, why it’s a useful metric for understanding your personal finances, and where it falls short. Why Is Net Worth Useful? 2 Main Reasons Calculating your net worth is a traditional approach to measuring your financial standing. It’s relatively easy to calculate, and it shows you the balance between your assets and your debts. If you calculate your net worth several times throughout the year, then it also suggests a pattern in your financial worth. Let’s take a closer look at the two main uses for this framework of net worth. Reason #1: Net Worth Reveals Your Current Financial Standing Net worth gives you a big picture view of your financial profile at a specific point in time. It makes you take stock of what you have and what you owe. If you were to sell off everything you owned and put it all toward paying off what you owe, you’d have your net worth left over- whether it’s cash in your pocket or remaining debt. Realistically, you’re probably not going to trade in all of your earthly positions, move into a log cabin, and pull a Henry David Thoreau, but you do know what your safety net looks like if you were to experience a big financial change, like getting laid off. Calculating net worth gets you to identify your assets and liabilities, connect the dots between them, and understand your financial standing at a particular moment in time. Reason #2: Net Worth Shows Patterns Over Time A one-time calculation of net worth only tells you about the present, but comparing your net worth over time reveals patterns in your earning, saving, and spending. If you were to determine your net worth three times over a year, then you could see how it changes. Imagine your net worth as a see-saw with assets at one end and liabilities at the other. If the see-saw tilts down toward debts, then you can consider ways to level it off over time, perhaps by reducing your monthly spending. If it’s starting on the upswing toward assets, then you can strategize about how to keep that progress going. By calculating your net worth several times over a set period, you can identify patterns in your finances. As a result, you can think about lifestyle changes that would help you yield a higher net worth the next time you sit down with your calculator. All that being said, there are also some major flaws in the concept of net worth. It contains some big blind spots, and it’s important to know what these are so you don’t miss the forest for the trees. Read on to learn how net worth paints the big picture, but overlooks some of its most important details. How Is Net Worth Limited? 3 Major Flaws The idea of net worth misses a few major parts of your life. When it talks about assets and liabilities, for instance, it misses a pretty major one: you! Net worth completely overlooks all the money that you’re making and spending now and in the future. By focusing solely on assets and liabilities, it fails to take into account the human element. Net worth also doesn’t distinguish between types of assets. Some assets get more valuable over time, while others are like a slowly sinking pleasure yacht. Let’s take a closer look at net worth’s three major flaws, and then discuss some excellent ways to fix them. Flaw #1: Net Worth Misses One Huge Asset Don’t take it personally, but net worth completely overlooks you as an asset. It focuses on things that you possess, but it ignores your labor income now and in the future. Let’s say you make $30K a year. If you maintain that income, then you’ll bring in $300K over the next ten years. Realistically, you’ll probably bring in even more as your skills, experience, and earning potential grow over time. Net worth overlooks all of this income. Consider a second example. Alex has $10k saved and no debt. Britney, though, is $100K in debt. According to the traditional net worth definition, Britney is in a way worse financial position than Alex. However, Alex makes $20K a year, while Britney, who’s in debt because she went to medical school, just got a guaranteed $200K per year job! It’s Britney, ultimately, who’s in the superior financial position. The traditional net worth formula, though, doesn’t show it. For many people, especially those in their 20s and 30s, labor income is their primary asset and thus the most important metric when analyzing personal finances. I don’t have a wide array of tangible assets, like a collection of antique motorcycles or Renaissance art. My human capital is, by far, the most relevant asset when assessing my financial standing. If I only used the traditional equation of net worth to measure my finances, I would be overlooking my most important asset. Flaw #2: Net Worth Doesn’t Include Baseline Spending Just as net worth ignores you as an asset, it also overlooks you as a liability (no offense). Your basic consumption- groceries, shopping, climbing gym membership- accounts for major drains on your budget. If you need $20k of baseline spending per year, then you’ll be spending $200k over ten years. Like your income, your basic consumption has a huge influence on your finances. Net worth takes into account big liabilities, like mortgages, student loans, and credit card debts, but it doesn’t acknowledge smaller ones that add up over time. It doesn’t incorporate your baseline spending, which might be a much more relevant metric to lots of people than, say, a bulky mortgage on a farmhouse in upstate New York. Flaw #3: Net Worth Doesn’t Distinguish Between Types of Assets Finally, net worth is a static measure that doesn’t account for the fluctuating values of your assets. Let’s say you have a $20K yacht and $20K in a stock index. When calculating your net worth, these two assets look exactly the same. If you sold everything off that day, both would give you $20K each in your pocket. If you’re trying to make a realistic and forward-thinking assessment of your finances, though, should these two assets really be considered on an equal level? I would answer with a hard no. The boat costs $4K a year to maintain. Your investment is likely to get $1K or more in returns. Since it’s sapping money and losing value over time, the boat is a consumption asset. The investment, on the other hand, is a productive asset. Distinguishing between consumption and productive assets is one way to fix this flaw in the net worth system. Read on for a full breakdown of how to calculate net worth in a way that’s more realistic and useful for your long-term planning. How to Calculate Your Net Worth Better Now that I’ve exposed net worth’s flaws, let’s talk solutions. There are two main adjustments you can make to improve this assessment, the â€Å"Total Net Asset† fix and the â€Å"Productive Net Worth† fix. Let’s look at both in more detail. Fix #1: Total Net Asset Fix As you read above, the standard analysis overlooks you completely. It doesn’t account for the two largest levers to improve yourself: increasing your earning power and decreasing your spending habit, two important topics that I’ll explore in other articles. To fix this oversight, you should estimate the next 10 years of your earnings and baseline spending. Ten years is long enough to give you a good idea of your finances, while short enough that you can make a realistic prediction. If you make somewhere in the range of $40K a year, then you could estimate that your income over the next ten years will add up to $400K. If your annual baseline spending adds up to $20K, then you’ll be spending at least $200K over the next decade. Of course, changes in your income and spending will happen; that’s the whole point. This long-term projection lets you take control of your personal and professional choices, because it reveals just how much a raise in salary or cut in spending could affect your long-term net worth. The Total Net Asset fix gives you better insight into your finances, and it lets you think in a more forward-thinking way about your choices. You can play around with a few estimates to see how changes, both small and big, could increase your worth over time. Fix #2: Productive Net Worth Fix The second solution, which I’m calling the Productive Net Worth fix, helps distinguish between productive assets that gain value over time and consumption assets that lose value over time. I would suggest a somewhat radical departure from the traditional net worth equation. Instead of counting all of your assets, only count your productive assets. These might be money in your bank accounts, cash, stocks, and any investment properties. The consumption assets you’d leave out include a house, car, or boat. The way you use these consumption assets on a day-to-day basis (to live, drive, or throw lavish pirate-themed parties, respectively) is their primary value. Since they both cost money and depreciate over time, they should be left out of the net worth equation. (Side note: you might wonder if a house should be counted as a productive asset. Robert Kiyosaki, author of Rich Dad, Poor Dad, gives a convincing argument on the house-as-liability side. According to Kiyosaki, a liability is â€Å"anything that takes money out of your pocket.† Because of all the upkeep and repairs they require, houses can often be considered a consumption, rather than a productive, asset.) Now that we’ve gone over both adjustments, the Total Net Asset and Productive Net Worth fix, let’s put both of them together to see how you can make the most realistic assessment of your financial worth both now and in the years to come. Measuring Net Worth: A More Realistic Assessment Let’s bid farewell to Joe and consider a new exemplar, Stacy. Stacy has a $20K car, $10K in savings, a $5K student loan, and a $1K personal loan. Here’s her list of assets and liabilities alongside their current market values: Assets Current Market Value Liabilities Current Market Value Car $20,000 Student loan $5,000 Savings $10,000 Personal loan $1,000 Total: $30,000 $6,000 Using the traditional calculation, Stacy has a net worth of $24,000 ($30K - $6K). Based purely on the hard definition of net worth, Stacy could theoretically raise her net worth by upgrading her car. Since we now know that a car is a consumption asset that both costs money and loses value over time, this approach would be a questionable one. The traditional definition of net worth is trying to lead Stacy astray! Let’s fix that. Using our Productive Net Worth fix, let’s eliminate the car completely from our assessment. Then we’ll apply the Total Net Asset fix and add in Stacy’s projected income and baseline spending over the next ten years. We estimate that her income will be $300K, and her spending will add up to $200K. Assets Current Market Value Liabilities Current Market Value Savings $10,000 Student loan $5,000 Projected income $300,000 Personal loan $1,000 Projected baseline spending $200,000 Total: $310,000 $206,000 Stacy’s new net worth over 10 years is $104K. Rather than giving her a one time balance of her assets and liabilities, this â€Å"fixed† net worth assessment helps Stacy figure out her finances over the long-term while incorporating her most important asset and liability, her own labor income and spending. With this estimate, Stacy can begin to think more realistically about her long-term value and how to improve her position. What can she do to yield a net worth higher than $104K over the next ten years? Some strategies for increasing net worth over the long-term are all fodder for another article, but a few key ones include, Improving her earning potential through education and skills training, Making cuts to baseline costs, Eliminating debts, and Avoiding the purchase of consumption assets. Sorry, Stacy, but you probably shouldn’t buy that state-of-the-art Jetski with your current balance of $24K; it’s only going to eat away at your long-term net worth. In closing, let’s review the key points you need to remember about net worth, its traditional definition, and the adjustments you can make to get an even more realistic assessment of your long-term financial profile. Calculating Your Net Worth: What You Need to Remember The concept of net worth helps you balance your assets and debts and evaluate your financial standing. The traditional formula has you simply subtract the sum of your debts from the sum of your assets. While this approach has some uses, it’s not nuanced enough to truly help individuals with their personal finances. Nor does it apply to lots of people whose primary asset is their own labor income. In fact, the net worth formula is a vestige of corporate accounting and much more relevant to businesses than to you or me. By making a few adjustments- namely, by estimating future cash flow and distinguishing between consumption and productive assets- we can make the net worth formula work much better for us. Then we can use this analysis to inform our financial choices. Rather than solely looking at little-picture changes, like cutting out morning lattes at Starbucks, we can focus on big-picture changes that have a great long-term effect, e.g. increasing our earning potential with a new degree, paying off high-interest credit card debt, and resisting the urge to buy a boat. With a couple key fixes to the traditional formula of net worth, we can look outside the present moment and gain a long-term idea of our economic worth. The result? Smart financial choices now that will benefit us substantially in years to come.

Emerging Technology 2 Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 1000 words

Emerging Technology 2 - Essay Example There are basically two different ways in which green computing can be looked at. One of these is by considering the hardware that is being used in the processes. The other is by considering the software. Hardware in this case will mostly look at such things as the efficiency of data processing and the design of data centers. Software considers such aspects as cloud computing and algorithm tweaks that minimize power consumption improving efficiency (Harris 2008 23). Hardware One of the more recent technologies in this space is that of cloud computing. This allows large companies to basically distribute the costs of handling their data to a single company. This reduces the amount of data centers required to hold the numerous amounts of data. They also provide companies with the opportunity to consolidate their resources and hence minimize power usage and increase efficiency. One concern though that has been raised by this technology is that of the security of the data. This is from wh ere there is increased risk of the transfer of secure data from the companies to the data centers. There is the virtualization of both software and hardware. A good example is the running of two or more logical computers from a single set of hardware. This leads to the consolidation of resources that increases the efficiencies of running computer systems (Soomro & Sarwar 2012 539). Software One of the software green computing technologies that is begin applied is that of the utilization of green scheduling techniques and green compilers. Green compilers work through various processes to analyze the programs that a software is running on and then to reshape the source code of the software. They reshape the software by applying certain green aspects. A green scheduler on the hand works on how to allocate the resources to a program and how well to utilize these resources so as to make it more efficient. The concerns that are raised with these two modes of software engineering are that they require a balance between efficiency and effectiveness of the machine (Fakha, Javed, Rasool, Malik & Zulfiqar 2012). Conclusion There have been great improvements in the making of green computing systems. The current improvements are limited by the available hardware at the moment. It has been predicted that we are a few years away from deriving the maximum efficiency out of silicon based chips. A better scheduler is also required to improve the efficiency and effectiveness of the various green compliers currently available. Intelligent systems Abstract Intelligent systems are commonly used to refer to systems with artificial intelligence. It is difficult to generally classify these but they can be broadly classed as diagnostic, knowledge and expert. All these different categories apply three basic principles that have their various limitations. The major limitation is in the replication of human knowledge. This is a limitation that at present has greatly limited the developmen t of artificial intelligent systems. Introduction There has been a contention with how to think about intelligent systems with their being a variety of definitions. The one that may be used to explain an intelligent system may be that it is â€Å"

Domestic Violence is a Serious Public Health Issue Essay

Domestic Violence is a Serious Public Health Issue - Essay Example Thus, focusing on the theory of mindful space, this essay will illustrate how domestic violence can be prevented, if not at least avoided, by focusing on its primary victim - women. Domestic violence is a serious public health issue that often leads to fatality for victims or serious emotional, psychological, and mental problems for survivors. However as research illustrates, such occurrence is not the result of a single isolated event, but the product of a continuing pattern of abuse that usually "escalates through time in severity and frequency", such that women usually ignore lesser acts of violence until it becomes destructive and unpreventable (cited in Health, 1998, p.1468). In this respect, domestic violence can be prevented if its would-be victims can detect the lesser forms of aggression and employ effective measures even before domestic violence becomes destructive. Such approach, however, is difficult to achieve given the definition that today's literature attaches to viol ence. As Burlae (2004) points out, most definitions identify violence only after it has begun, making it difficult for victims to stop them. Hence, by understanding violence in terms of intimidation, coercion, and emotional, physical, and sexual abuse, women tend to ignore the lesser and less noticeable forms of aggression, allowing the aggression to escalate and become destructive. Such reactions from women can be attributed to today's patriarchal society where cultural norms, impose on them certain roles that make them vulnerable to these acts of violence. Using Virginia Woolf's phrase "angel in the house" description, Burlae explains that the roles women take within the family setting of being charming, sympathetic, selfless, and mindful of others illustrate "characteristics that are antithetical to the possession of one's own territory", making them vulnerable to acts of aggression (2004, p.87). Awareness, in this respect, requires more than disseminating information on what is domestic violence, but instead, re-orienting the victims', especially women, a perception of what constitutes violence. In this respect, Burlae proposes the "theory of mindful space" to help women identify cues early on and help them respond accordingly. As Burlae suggests, violence should be understood as an invasion of one's bodily, personal and cognitive spaces (2004, pp.94-97), which although not always violent per se can be damaging and destructive if left unchecked. Thus, while a husband being passive aggressive to his wife may not be violent itself, it is a violation of his wife's cognitive space, which could escalate to more violent behavior if allowed to persist repeatedly. Hence, he suggests being attentive to such violations of space and setting limits to determine when it is time to seek help, take action, or disengage from a relationship. In this respect, clinicians and social workers play an integral role in helping would-be victims identify invasions of space and craf t preventive strategies.  Ã‚  

Competencies of the Effective Healthcare Leader

Competencies of the Effective Healthcare Leader The analysis of a top down change process in my organisation has led me to a critical understanding of processes, my own place within these organisational processes and the effects my role and competence can have on the professional experiences of others. (Please see appendix for summary of scenario). Kerfoot (2004) suggests that one role of leaders is to synthesise information and then channel it to improve aspects of the organisation, placing interpersonal communication at the forefront of leadership activity (Chambers, 2002). In this instance, information is power, and one fault of the process describe below is that information was not shared in a timely or inclusive fashion. Kerfoot (2004) describes information as leaders’ primary resource, but I would argue that the primary power of bad leaders lies in their ability to control that information. Grossman (2007) describes communication as one of the key competencies of the effective leader, but there are a number of other dimensions of leadership which are equally as important. This scenario highlights communication as a major negative factor in the implementation of change. However, there are other aspects of leadership which could be employed to ameliorate the situation: conflict management; collaboration and networking; teamworking; decision-making and troubleshooting; the ability to understand and so work with (or manipulate) the organisational culture (Grossman, 2007). They should also be proactive, manage negative situations and emotions cognitively and have a degree of emotional intelligence (Jooste, 2004). It is obvious of that the employment of these competencies might have prevented the challenges which arose from the process described below. Transformational leadership (Thyer, 2003) would allow for improved multi-way communication, by allowing the leader to establi sh new and different lines of communication with and between staff at different levels (McCarthy, 2006). Transformational leadership may also address the staffing issues associated with this challenging scenario (Thyer, 2003). Healthcare professionals, particularly nursing staff, engage with, develop and reinforce such behaviours constantly as fundamental competencies for effective patient care. Grossman (2007) argues that good leaders must have demonstrated efficacy in patient communication, which suggests that all nurses have such abilities. Nurses also have unique insider knowledge, which should have informed a full system analysis (McCarthy, 2006) prior to the implementation of the change. Including the staff in this process might also facilitate both the change the process by engaging the staff in meaningful, change-related communication and activity from the outset (McCarthy, 2006). Chambers (2002) suggests that the mark of a true leader might be someone who can se the vision, share it with others and lead them on the journey that makes it happen. The lack of such a guide, a true leader is both evident in this scenario and indicative of an area of future need, where the existing resources of those who already translate organisational conceptualisation of service delivery in to the pragmatic and practical aspects of quality patient care should be utilised rather than wasted. Senior nurses, such as myself, possess these qualities and should be enabled to express them. References Chambers, N. (2002) Nursing leadership: the time has come to just do it. Journal of Nursing Management. 10 127-128. Grossman, S. (2007) Assisting Critical Care Nurses in Acquiring Leadership Skills. Dimensions of Critical Care Nursing 26 (2) 57-65. Jooste, K. (2004). Leadership: a new perspective. Journal of Nursing Management 12 27-223. Kerfoot, K. (2004) Leaders and windshields: the art of deflecting essential information. Dermatology Nursing 16 (6) 545-546, 568. McCarthy, J. (2006) Five more concepts for creating change. Nursing Management September 2005 Available from: www.nursingmanagement.com. Accessed 17-7-07. Thyer, G.L. (2003) Dare to be different: transformational leadership may hold the key to the nursing shortage. Journal of Nursing Management 11 73-79.

How to build a computer Essay

Every fully functioning computer is made of the same basic components and here I’ll walk through the basic hardware you’ll need for your first build. There are several components a computer. However, it’s important to first understand what each component does. The processor (CPU) is like the brain of a computer, the thing that carries out the tasks you give it. Better CPUs can perform more tasks at once, and perform them faster. Not everyone takes full advantage of their processor’s full speed, so the high-end processers are only really needed if you’re performing intensive things like gaming or video editing. It’s also one of the most expensive parts of a computer, so if you aren’t doing these types of things, you don’t need to buy the latest and greatest. Another expensive part is the motherboard connects all the other components to each other, and is the physical base that you build everything else onto. It contains a lot of your machine’s core features, like the number of USB ports, the number of expansion cards you can put in (like video, sound, and Wi-Fi), and also determines how big your computer will be. The motherboard you buy will depend on the type of user you are. The case holds all of your computer’s parts together. For the most part, a case is less about features that affect how your computer runs and more about features that affect you and your home. Still, it’s an important consideration that is dependent on your other choices, so you might want to think about everything before buying one. Make sure the case buy will hold motherboard. RAM, or Random Access Memory, is like your computer’s short-term memory. It stores data your computer needs quick access to help your programs run faster, and help you run more programs at one time. That basically means the more you want to do at once the more RAM you’ll need. The graphics card, or GPU, is a processor designed to handle graphics. It’s what you hook your monitor up to, and it’s what draws your desktop and your windows on the screen. Some motherboards come with a GPU already integrated, which is enough to manage your desktop, but not enough for watching high definition video or playing games. Your hard drives are what store all of your data, ranging from your operating system to your documents, music, and movies. If the RAM is your computer’s short-term memory, your hard drive is the long-term memory. It stores the things you want to keep around for a while. An optical drive, more commonly known as a CD or DVD drive is what you’ll use to read CDs, DVDs, and even Blu-Ray discs. Not everyone needs an optical drive in his/her computer, but you’ll need one to install anything from a disc. The final major component you’ll need is the power supply. This does just as the name implies, it powers the computer. Depending on what you plan on using the computer for will determine the â€Å"size† of power supply you’ll need. Just as I said with picking the case, wait to pick this out until you figure out how much power you’ll need. Now that I’ve told you about all the components that make up a computer it’s time to start deciding which to use. While deciding make sure you read everything because you’ll need to make sure everything is compatible. Now that you’ve bought all your components, it’s time for the moment of truth: You’re ready to actually put together the machine. Assembling your computer can seem daunting, but it’s actually pretty easy. Here’s what you need to do. To start, open up your case’s box, take out the case, and open it up. Usually this involves unscrewing a few thumb screws on the back of your case and sliding the side panels off. Take a good look around your case and get acquainted; note where the hard drive bays are, where your CD drive will go, whether the power supply mounts on the top or the bottom, and so on. There should also be a bag of screws inside your case; grab that now and set it aside because we’ll need it in a few minutes. Open up your motherboard box and take out the I/O shield, which is the metal plate that protects the ports on the back of your motherboard. You should see a rectangular space in the back of your case where this should go. Snap it into place. This takes quite a bit of force, so make sure all four sides are snapped in securely. Next, pull out your motherboard and line up the ports on the back with the I/O shield. You should see that the holes on your motherboard line up with screw holes on the bottom of your case. There are probably more holes on your case than there are on your motherboard, so note which ones these are, and grab your motherboard standoffs from your bag of screws (they have a male screw end on one side, and a female screw hole on the other side). Screw the standoffs into those holes, and set your motherboard on top of them. Screw your motherboard screws into the standoffs so the motherboard is snugly mounted. Open up your processor’s box and gently take it out. Your processor is one of the more breakable parts, so this is one step in which you’ll want to be careful. Find the corner of your processor that has a gold arrow on it, and then look at your motherboard’s processor socket for a similar arrowed corner. Line these two arrows up; this is the direction your processor will go into the socket. Lift up the lever on the processor socket and put your processor in (Intel motherboards might also have a cover you have to lift up first). Pull the lever down to lock it into place. Again, do this gently—it shouldn’t require any feats of strength on your part, so if it isn’t falling into place easily, something’s wrong. Take it out and try re-setting it, make sure your two arrows are lined up, and of course, double check that your motherboard and processor are of the same socket type. Once your processor’s in, grab the cooler that came with your processor (remember, if you got an OEM processor you have to buy a cooler separately). It should already have some silver thermal paste on the bottom. If not, you’ll need to pick some up from the computer store and put a very thin line on your processor. Installing RAM is very simple. Find the RAM sockets on your motherboard, and pull the two clips on the side down. Line up the notch in your RAM stick with the notch in the socket, and press the RAM down into place. This might take a bit of pressure, so don’t worry about being overly gentle. The clips should snap back into place when the RAM is fully in the socket. For your video card (or any other PCI expansion card), find the topmost slot that fits your card and match that up with its plate on the back of the case. Remove that plate and slide the PCI card’s bracket in its place. The card should then be sitting on top of the socket, and all you need to do is press down to lock it into place. Then screw the bracket onto the case. Every case is a little bit different in how they install hard drives. Generally, there are two methods: on some cases, you have to pull out a hard drive tray, put the drive in, screw it in securely, and then slide the tray back in. Other motherboards just require you to slide the bare drive into the bay and then screw it in snug after the fact. Check your case’s manual for more detailed instructions on this case. The optical drive should be pretty self-explanatory. Just pull out the plastic cover on one of your 5. 25†³ drive bays and slide in your optical drive. Screw it into place if necessary. Once everything else is in, it’s time to install your power supply and plug everything in. (Note that if your case came with a power supply, you can skip this step, as it’ll already be installed). It should be pretty obvious where your power supply goes, as there will be a big rectangular hole on the back of your case. Some power supplies mount on the top, while some sit on the bottom of the case. Generally, they mount with the fan facing away from the edge of the case, unless that case has enough space in between the power supply mount and the end of the case to allow for airflow. Now that you have built your computer it’s time to plug it in and power it. From here it’s time to install an operating system (OS). There are several OS to pick from. The more common are Microsoft Windows and Linux. Each OS installs differently and each user has their own preference. Once you pick an OS read the instructions provided to install it. Now that you have installed the OS you now have a fully functioning computer that you’ve built.

Marketing Creates Customer Needs Essay

Marketing creates customer needs. The following paper will elucidate how consumers are made not born. Marketing entices customers to try new products or do new things that they may never have thought of before. Commercialism is everywhere you turn. From the glossy ads, pop ups on their computer screen, billboards, emails, tweets, radio, television, telemarketers, etc. You can’t get away from advertising wherever you go. The marketers would not be continuing if it was not so successful in getting people to buy more of what they are selling. The following paragraphs will give examples of successful marketing advertisement campaigns and how they were effective. According to Forbes, for advertising to be effective it needs to be: memorable, connect with the consumer by delivering a person meaningful message that tells them how their product would make their life a better place, stand for values beyond the product itself, and be intricately tied to the brand not to be confused with the competitor. (Greewald, 2014). The article gives several examples of successful ad campaigns. First, the Red Bull gives you wings campaign. The ads are inspirational telling consumers if you use our product you will do everything better from studying to doing your job better. It empowers people and gets them to relate to the product. Next, the Beats Dr. Dre advertising campaign. The advertisements tell the consumer that by wearing these headphones you will be able to overcome your critics and be empowered to believe in yourself. They depict athlete Kevin Garnett blocking out his critics and allowing him to focus on positive thoughts and the music he loves. Both advertisements connect with the consumer on a psychological level. They focus on you relating to our needs to do better and finding greatness in ourselves. It is what most of us  tell ourselves every day- don’t listen to the people that are our critics and believe in yourself. Find greatness and believe in yourself sounds more like a motivational s peaker however it works to connect the consumer to the product. According to Forbes both campaigns met all the aspects to be effective. Both these products are not necessary for humans to survive. Both products are considered a want not a need. The advertisers have convinced students far and wide to drink Red Bull because it will help you concentrate more and be successful. We all survived before without these products. They have successfully changed the mindset of consumers who now believe the opposite that they now can’t survive without them. One of the most successful marketing campaigns has been Apples’ I Phones. Hundreds of people stand in line when their newest product becomes available. Everywhere you look people have an I Phone. It is a sign of stature to have the state-of-the- art technology which includes the latest and greatest that Apple has to offer. It has become an item people can’t live without. I lost my I phone for 24 hours and thought I was going to have an anxiety attack. All my personal information, contacts, bank card information is all in the one little phone. I can’t remember any of my important phone numbers anymore because I don’t need to – they are all in the phone. They have made it irreplaceable in our day to day living. This is the ultimate in marketing and sales of a product. I lived 36 years without ever having a cellular phone and survived just fine. Now I see 8 year olds with I phones calling their friends and tweeting! Marketing provides a value to business in that it helps showcase their products and engage consumers in purchasing them. The value to society is that some of these products may make our lives easier and we can benefit from them. In conclusion, I believe that marketing creates a need we didn’t know existed until they showed us their fabulous products. They connect with us, make us believe that what they are offering will improve our lives and are necessary for our existence. I agree that marketers encourage consumers to spend money they do not have on non-essential items. So many Americans have credit card debt. The average American household has nearly $7000 of credit card debt as of December 2013. (Credit Card Debt Statistics, 2013). We continue to spend money on things we don’t really need with money we don’t have. It is a vicious cycle for many Americans that leave them broke and in some instances homeless. References: Credit Card Debt Statistics. (2013). Credit Card Debt Statistics. Money-Zine.com: http://www.money-zine.com/financial-planning/debt-consolidation/credit-card-debt-statistics). Greewald, M. (2014, July 10). Secrets of 7 of the Most Effective Ad Campaigns. Forbes.com: http://www.forbes.com/sites/michellegreenwald/2014/07/10/secrets-of-7-of-the-most-effective-ad-campaigns/

Roles of Women in the Nineteenth Century - Free Essay Example

Sample details Pages: 9 Words: 2600 Downloads: 7 Date added: 2019/04/04 Category Literature Essay Level High school Topics: Frankenstein Essay Did you like this example? Abstract This paper examines some theories of feminist views on Mary Shelleys Frankenstein. It analyzes the depictions of women in the story in relation to men. Moreover, it takes into account Mary Shelleys life to understand the roles of women in the nineteenth century. Don’t waste time! Our writers will create an original "Roles of Women in the Nineteenth Century" essay for you Create order The analysis draws upon Anne Mellors On Feminist Utopia, Ellen Moerss Female Gothic, and Johanna M. Smiths ?Cooped Up with ?Sad Trash: Domesticity and the Sciences in Frankenstein. It also contains the introduction of Mary Shelley in the second published edition. While analyzing, the coincidence between the novel and Mary Shelleys life is taken into consideration. Main As some feminist movements, such as the Me Too movement, are going strong, there have been more and more feminist literary works. However, it is not the case two centuries ago when women were suppressed and treated worse than their male counterparts. Yes, it is true that while rich women might have had better lives than poor men. However, rich women were less respected than rich men, as poor men were more respected than poor women. One of the rare works is Mary Wollstonecrafts A Vindication of the Rights of Women, which voices the need for gender equality in the society. Her daughter, Mary Shelley, although was not publicly known for being a feminist, her book Frankenstein was considered a feminist work by some scholars. The fact that women in Britain in the nineteenth century lived in their domestic sphere, and dependent on men is demonstrated in not only the novel Frankenstein itself but also in Mary Shelleys life. To understand Frankenstein as a novel, I think it would be necessary to understand Mary Shelley as a person and how she came across the ideas for Frankenstein. Mary Shelley, or Mary Godwin, was the daughter of William Godwin and Mary Wollstonecraft, who were well-known for their writings. Since she was young, she was different from other girls in her time in that she received an education. She then had a romantic relationship with a married Percy Bysshe Shelley and became his mistress. In her teenaged time, Mary Godwin was impregnated with Percy Shelleys daughter, who later died from premature birth. After the death of Shelleys first wife, Godwin and Shelley got married. The couple later had three more children, two of whom also died. Her husband passed away in a boat sink, leaving her a widow. Several decades later, she was killed from illness. During her time, she was never as well-known as her parents or her husband, yet her most famous work, which was Frankenstein, also known as The Modern Prometheus, was a phenomenon in British literature as it left a huge and lasting impact until today. Mary Shelley came across the ideas for Frankenstein by chance. In the summer of 1816, she and Percy Shelley came to Switzerland and became neighbors and friends with John Polidori and Lord Byron, who during that time was extremely famous for his works (Shelley 166). The group read a German book of ghost stories called History of the Inconstant Lover, which left an impression on Mary Shelley as she had never read such kinds of stories but they made her feel like she had read them for a long time (167). Lord Byron suggested each person write a ghost story. Shelley wanted to write a story that would speak to the mysterious fears of our nature, and awaken thrilling horror and would make the reader dread to look round, to curdle the blood, and quicken the beatings of the heart (167). She listened to Lord Byron and her husbands conversation about the nature and principle of life as well as Erasmus Darwins experiments. Erasmus Darwin was the grandson of Charles Darwin, the father of evolution. She was inspired by the ideas of the re-animation of a corpse and the manufacturing of component parts of a creature (168). One night, she dreamed about a scientist fearfully running away from his creature. When she woke up from the nightmare, she was still horrified and haunted by the idea of a creature scaring its creator. This was when she decided to write the story (168). At first, she only wanted to write it as a short story; however, her husband encouraged her to develop the idea at a greater length (169). The novel had two major editions during Shelleys time, one was in 1818 and the other was in 1831. There were some minor changes in the second one. It is also noticeable that when she first published Frankenstein, she published it anonymously. She only came out as the author of the story in the second edition. Frankenstein is a story told from three narrators: Robert Walton, Victor Frankenstein, and the Creature. Walton, a traveller and a scientist, finds Frankenstein fainting in the North Pole and rescues him. After recovery, Frankenstein tells Walton his story as well as the miseries he has gone through. Frankenstein was born in a noble family which he is the eldest of the three sons. When he was a child, his parents adopted two orphans, Elizabeth and Justine. Elizabeth was then appointed to be Victors future wife while Justine was assigned as a servant. After the death of his mother, due to his grief over her death as well as his obsession with chemistry and electricity, Victor creates a creature from different body parts of dead people in hope of resurrecting dead people and taking controls of life. However, he is scared of the Creature and abandons it when he first sees it. While wandering around the village, the Creature is estranged by the villagers although it makes attempts to be friends with them. It later kills Williams, Victors youngest brother. Justine, who has become Williams nanny, is accused of the murder and executed. The Creature then asks Victor for a female partner; otherwise, it will kill Victors loved ones. Victor, in fear of creating another monster, refuses. On Victors wedding night, the Creature kills Victors friend Henry, Victors father Alphonse, and Victors bride Elizabeth and disappears. Victor tries to chase after the Creature, became exhausted and later found by Walton. Since the novel was first published, there have been interpretations with different theories. Some popular theories are those of a feminist perspective. Feminist critics analyze literary texts, examine how female characters are portrayed and uncover the patriarchal doctrine. They also attempt to analyze the texts in terms of the authors lives. In doing so, they illustrate the male-dominant tradition that is engraved in both societal and literary systems. A feminist theory, according to Anne K. Mellor, is inherently utopian, that is a theory that is grounded on the assumption of gender equality, a social equality between the sexes which has never existed in the historical past, and seeks to analyze and eliminate discrimination on the basis of gender (243). Some feminist interpretations link the story to Mary Shelleys life as well as to the society she lived in. According to Ellen Moers, although Frankenstein has no heroine and no main female victim as other Gothic novels have, it is still able to portray the life of its author better than other novels (79). Mary Shelleys experiences were so unusually traumatizing that they were transferred into her work. Three of her four children died, one of whom remained nameless. Birth and death were as hideously intermixed in the life of Mary Shelley as in Frankensteins workshop of filthy creation (84). Moers sees that Mary Shelley transformed the standard Romantic matter of incest, infanticide, and patricide into a phantasmagoria of the nursery (87). Different from other Romantic works, Frankenstein has the elements of motherhood, of infants, and of life creations. They are things that are associated with female. Moreover, Johanna M. Smith also points out that Mary Shelley was torn between the public sphere and private sphere (345). As a woman writer, she had to refrain herself from going public due to her responsibility to care for her family (315). Her writer identity was suppressed by her woman identity. In the nineteenth century, it was still very unusual for a woman to have an education. Feminists suggested that womens natural abilities were obstructed by the bad education women received at that time (316). It was believed that everything a woman wrote was characterized as femininely expressed and categorized as women writings. Therefore, had Mary Shelley not published Frankenstein anonymously, her novel would be characterized as a feminine expression rather than a masculine understanding (316). We all know this might still be the case if Mary Shelley lived in the twentieth and twenty-first centuries although women started to get proper educations in these two centuries. Feminists get criticized for condemning male privileges and was characterized as biased. By publishing Frankenstein anonymously, she was able to avoid destructive criticisms that might come up during her time. Furthermore, Smith points out that the fact that Mary Shelley was willing to have her husband heavily edit and revise the novel shows the tensions of performing gender (317). It is analogous to the women in the novel who are oppressed by men and live their lives in accordance with mens lives. It also illustrates t he fact of the nineteenth century that women are influenced by men and have to get mens approval in order to get recognized. Some feminist critics undermine the role of women by viewing the society in Frankenstein as a dystopia. The insignificant role of women and tragedies in Frankenstein are analyzed as cause and consequence. As Mellor argues, a society filled with vengeful and brutal humans and monsters is a result of man trying to control life through science, to impose a male-favored sexual division of labor and to separate love and work (245). Victor Frankenstein tries to create a life without the involvement of a woman, which is against the nature of life. He views Elizabeth not as an object of affection but as someone taking care of his family. He also refuses the creatures request for a female partner as he thinks that the female creature would cause troubles like the male creature. In the end, both Frankenstein and his creature turn into beings full of hatred. In the current world, there are men who try to belittle women and view women as an option, not as a must-have. They would try to limit the involvement of women and instead use women to fulfill their purposes. Women are seen as catalysts and weapons for the competitiveness between men. Women in the novel, specifically Elizabeth and the monsterette, are just means for the tension between Victor and the monster (Smith 323). The female characters devote their lives to service the needs of others illness and afflictions, but never of sufficient significance to be protected fully (Wright 108). Catherine and Elizabeth sacrifices their whole lives to devote into taking care of the whole Frankenstein family. The cycle of the female submissive role is maintained in the Frankenstein family. Caroline, when young, works and takes care of her father. After getting married to Alphonse, she continues taking care of her family. Even when she is dying, she only wants to Elizabeth to continue her role as a caregiver. Elizabeth subsequently became the replacement for Caroline. Justine takes the execution for a crime that is committed by a male being. Women do not play significant roles in the society, which can be seen through the lack of impacts from female characters as well as their negative fates. Women, both now and then, have been viewed as subordinate to men and their sole responsibility is to serve men. Johanna M. Smith links the nineteenth-century ideology of separate spheres with the roles of the female characters in the story (313). She shows that the domestic relationships in the novel characterize the negotiations between public and private spheres, between masculine understanding and feminine expression, and between domestic ideology and domestic practice (317). While feminine passivity and masculine activity were portrayed as opposition between separate gendered spheres in the novel published in 1818, they were portrayed as complementary difference in the novel published in 1831 (318). The creature, directly and indirectly, only kills the people who are most closely associated with the conventional femininity (321). William is associated with femininity because he lives under Elizabeths and Justines care. Justine personifies gendered domestic subordination since she loyally serves Caroline and Elizabeth. Henry is an example of a combination of both masculine and feminine traits since he took care of Victor when he was sick. Elizabeth takes on all feminine roles in the Frankenstein family. Alphonse, Victors father, embodies feminine patriarch. The feminization of Alphonse is depicted through his active roles of being father in the female domestic sphere (317). Alphonse characterizes feminine patriarch, as opposed to paternal tyranny. The gendered sphere is such a common concept in the nineteenth society that it continues to penetrate in todays world. Although there have been some households that do not or try to not follow the concept of gendered sphere, the notion of women staying at home and doing housework is still dominant in mainstream cultures. In the process of evaluating the novel in terms of feminist perspectives, some authors analyze the book as a genre of science fiction. Many scholars have argued that Frankenstein is the first science fiction novel. Brian Aldiss was the first writer to argue that Frankenstein is the first work of science fiction. Mellor claimed that science fiction was created by a womans attempt to evaluate scientific and technological advancements within a male-driven society (244). However, there are still scholars who disagree and refuse to acknowledge that Mary Shelley invented science fiction. There are many people who do not know about Mary Shelley and her relationship to science fiction That Mary Shelley was not credited for her contribution to science fiction, a genre that dominates the literature scene, shows how difficult for women writers or women in any field are acknowledged for their accomplishments. That women are not acknowledged for their achievements and have their achievements taken away by men are not uncommon in today society. In the twentieth century, a similar scenario was also seen in Rosalind Franklin and her discovery of the DNA, an opening door to and a critical part of the modern world of biology. Her images of DNA structures were accessed without her knowledge or consent by two male scientists, James Watson and Francis Crick. In the end, Watson and Crick were awarded the Nobel Prize but Franklin was not. Mary Shelleys novel Frankenstein depicts the domestic role of women in the nineteenth century and how science can be used to take away womens gifted ability in reproduction and to deny womens existence in the society. Mary Shelleys life also reflects sexist aspects of the society in the nineteenth century, some of which can still be seen today. Patriarchal ideology is intrinsic to most societies. Even though there are movements against patriarchy and for gender equality, the society is still male-favored in some aspects. Works Cited Mellor, Anne. On Feminist Utopias. Womens Studies. Volume 99. Issue 4. 1982. pp. 241-262. Moers, Ellen. Female Gothic: The Monsters Mother. Frankenstein: The 1818 Text Contexts Criticism. Edited by J. Paul Hunter. Second Edition W. W. Norton and Company, New York, 2012. Shelley, Mary. Introduction to Frankenstein. Frankenstein: The 1818 Text Contexts Criticism. Edited by J. Paul Hunter. Second Edition. W. W. Norton and Company, New York, 2012. Smith, Johanna M. ?Copped Up with ?Sad Trash: Domesticity and the Sciences of Frankenstein. Frankenstein : Complete, Authoritative Text with Biographical and Historical Contexts, Critical History, and Essays from Five Contemporary Critical Perspectives. Edited by Johanna M. Smith. Boston: Bedford Books of St. Martins Press, Boston, 1992. Wright, Angela. The Female Gothic. The Cambridge Companion to Frankenstein. Edited by Andrew Smith. Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, 2016.