Monday, December 30, 2019

Soviets Change the Calendar

When the Soviets took over Russia during the October Revolution of 1917, their goal was to drastically change society. One way they attempted to do this was by changing the calendar. In 1929, they created the Soviet Eternal Calendar, which changed the structure of the week, month, and the year. History of the Calendar For thousands of years, people have been working to create an accurate calendar. One of the first types of calendars was based on lunar months. However, while lunar months were easy to calculate because the moons phases were clearly visible to all, they have no correlation with the solar year. This posed a problem for both hunters and gatherers - and even more so for farmers - who needed an accurate way to predict seasons. Ancient Egyptians, although not necessarily known for their skills in mathematics, were the first to calculate a solar year. Perhaps they were the first because of their dependence on the natural rhythm of the Nile, whose rising and flooding was closely tied to seasons. As early as 4241 BCE, the Egyptians had created a calendar made up of 12 months of 30 days, plus five extra days at the end of the year. This 365-day calendar was amazingly accurate for a people who still did not know the Earth revolved around the sun. Of course, since the actual solar year is 365.2424 days long, this ancient Egyptian calendar was not perfect. Over time, seasons would gradually shift through all twelve months, making it through the entire year in 1,460 years. Caesar Makes Reforms In 46 BCE, Julius Caesar, aided by Alexandrian astronomer Sosigenes, revamped the calendar. In what is now known as the Julian calendar, Caesar created a yearly calendar of 365 days, divided into 12 months. Realizing that a solar year was closer to 365 1/4 days rather than just 365, Caesar added one extra day to the calendar every four years. Although the Julian calendar was much more accurate than the Egyptian calendar, it was longer than the actual solar year by 11 minutes and 14 seconds. That may not seem like much, but over several centuries, the miscalculation became noticeable. Catholic Change to the Calendar In 1582 CE, Pope Gregory XIII ordered a small reform to the Julian calendar. He established that every centennial year (such as 1800, 1900, etc.) would not be a leap year (like it otherwise would have been in the Julian calendar), except if the centennial year could be divided by 400. (This is why the year 2000 was a leap year.) Included in the new calendar was a one-time readjustment of the date. Pope Gregory XIII ordered that in 1582, October 4 would be followed by October 15 to fix the missing time created by the Julian calendar. However, since this new calendar reform was created by a Catholic pope, not every country jumped to make the change. While England and the American colonies finally switched over to what became known as the Gregorian calendar in 1752, Japan didnt accept it until 1873, Egypt until 1875, and China in 1912. Lenins Changes Although there had been discussion and petitions in Russia to switch to the new calendar, the tsar never approved its adoption.  After the Soviets successfully took over Russia in 1917, V.I. Lenin agreed that the Soviet Union should join the rest of the world in using the Gregorian calendar. In addition, to fix the date, the Soviets ordered that February 1, 1918, would actually become February 14, 1918. (This change of date still causes some confusion; for example, the Soviet takeover of Russia, known as the October Revolution, took place in November in the new calendar.) The Soviet Eternal Calendar This was not the last time the Soviets were to change their calendar. Analyzing every aspect of society, the Soviets looked closely at the calendar. Although each day is based on daylight and nighttime, each month could be correlated to the lunar cycle, and each year is based on the time the Earth takes to circumnavigate the sun, the idea of a week was a purely arbitrary amount of time. The seven-day week has a long history, which the Soviets identified with religion since the Bible states that God worked for six days and then took the seventh day to rest. In 1929, the Soviets created a new calendar, known as the Soviet Eternal Calendar. Although keeping the 365-day year, the Soviets created a five-day week, with every six weeks equaling a month. To account for the missing five days (or six in a leap year), there were five (or six) holidays placed throughout the year.   A Five-Day Week The five-day week consisted of four days of work and one day off. However, the day off was not the same for everyone. Intending to keep factories running continuously, workers would take staggered days off. Each individual was assigned a color (yellow, pink, red, purple, or green), which corresponded with which of the five days of the week they would take off. Unfortunately, this did not increase productivity. In part because it ruined family life since many family members would have different days off from work. Also, the machines could not handle constant use and would often break down. It Didnt Work In December 1931, the Soviets switched to a six-day week in which everyone received the same day off. Although this helped rid the country of the religious Sunday concept and allowed families to spend time together on their day off, it did not increase efficiency. In 1940, the Soviets restored the seven-day week.

Sunday, December 22, 2019

The Marketing Model Canvas As An Analytical Framework

Critique Our group has used the Business Model Canvas as an analytical framework to evaluate The Fun Center and generate recommendations to further improve the delivery of its value proposition. The Fun Center aims to provide children with an exciting and safe place to have fun by providing an array of arcade games, food and beverages, and event hosting. We made no changes to the general premise of the Business Plan, but rather we fine-tuned the aspects we felt lacked clarity. The gaps that we originally identified in the first version of the Business Plan were minor and posed little threat to the company’s overall success. However, we felt that The Fun Center’s lack of distinctiveness would limit the company in terms of potential growth.†¦show more content†¦Recommendation 1: Market to Children and Parents Our analysis of the Business Model Canvas has revealed a minor hole in the channels section. We feel as though the company’s business plan failed to account for a very significant customer segment: kids. Currently, marketing is directed towards arcade enthusiasts and middle to upper class adults. The hope is that parents will be intrigued by the company’s value and bring their children to the arcade. However, considering that the value proposition seeks to serve children ages 5-12 as a target customer segment, the Business Model Canvas would suggest that a channel should exist to directly connect The Fun Center’s value to children. In addition to advertising to adults with traditional methods, we recommend that The Fun Center also market directly to children in order to improve reputation and garner more interest. For example, advertising The Fun Center on children’s shows and radio stations will communicate to children in ways that are already familiar an d comfortable to them. According to small business advice from Hearst newspapers, it would cost 200 to 1,500 dollar to commercially advertise The Fun Center on a local station, a small investment for a large long term benefit (Wagner, 2015). In in the same way they react to new toys and cereal, they will ask their parents to bring them to The Fun Center. Further, to partner with local elementary

Saturday, December 14, 2019

Part Four Chapter VI Free Essays

VI The next Parish Council meeting, the first since Barry had died, would be crucial in the ongoing battle over the Fields. Howard had refused to postpone the votes on the future of Bellchapel Addiction Clinic, or the town’s wish to transfer jurisdiction of the estate to Yarvil. Parminder therefore suggested that she, Colin and Kay ought to meet up the evening before the meeting to discuss strategy. We will write a custom essay sample on Part Four Chapter VI or any similar topic only for you Order Now ‘Pagford can’t unilaterally decide to alter the parish boundary, can it?’ asked Kay. ‘No,’ said Parminder patiently (Kay could not help being a newcomer), ‘but the District Council has asked for Pagford’s opinion, and Howard’s determined to make sure it’s his opinion that gets passed on.’ They were holding their meeting in the Walls’ sitting room, because Tessa had put subtle pressure on Colin to invite the other two where she could listen in. Tessa handed around glasses of wine, put a large bowl of crisps on the coffee table, then sat back in silence, while the other three talked. She was exhausted and angry. The anonymous post about Colin had brought on one of his most debilitating attacks of acute anxiety, so severe that he had been unable to go to school. Parminder knew how ill he was – she had signed him off work – yet she invited him to participate in this pre-meeting, not caring, it seemed, what fresh effusions of paranoia and distress Tessa would have to deal with tonight. ‘There’s definitely resentment out there about the way the Mollisons are handling things,’ Colin was saying, in the lofty, knowledgeable tone he sometimes adopted when pretending to be a stranger to fear and paranoia. ‘I think it’s starting to get up people’s noses, the way they think that they can speak for the town. I’ve got that impression, you know, while I’ve been canvassing.’ It would have been nice, thought Tessa bitterly, if Colin could have summoned these powers of dissimulation for her benefit occasionally. Once, long ago, she had liked being Colin’s sole confidante, the only repository of his terrors and the font of all reassurance, but she no longer found it flattering. He had kept her awake from two o’clock until half-past three that morning, rocking backwards and forwards on the edge of the bed, moaning and crying, saying that he wished he were dead, that he could not take it, that he wished he had never stood for the seat, that he was ruined †¦ Tessa heard Fats on the stairs, and tensed, but her son passed the open door on his way to the kitchen with nothing worse than a scathing glance at Colin, who was perched in front of the fire on a leather pouffe, his knees level with his chest. ‘Maybe Miles’ standing for the empty seat will really antagonize people – even the Mollisons’ natural supporters?’ said Kay hopefully. ‘I think it might,’ said Colin, nodding. Kay turned to Parminder. ‘D’you think the council will really vote to force Bellchapel out of their building? I know people get uptight about discarded needles, and addicts hanging around the neighbourhood, but the clinic’s miles away †¦ why does Pagford care?’ ‘Howard and Aubrey are scratching each other’s backs,’ explained Parminder, whose face was taut, with dark brown patches under her eyes. (It was she who would have to attend the council meeting the next day, and fight Howard Mollison and his cronies without Barry by her side.) ‘They need to make cuts in spending at District level. If Howard turfs the clinic out of its cheap building, it’ll be much more expensive to run and Fawley can say the costs have increased, and justify cutting council funding. Then Fawley will do his best to make sure that the Fields get reassigned to Yarvil.’ Tired of explaining, Parminder pretended to examine the new stack of papers about Bellchapel that Kay had brought with her, easing herself out of the conversation. Why am I doing this? she asked herself. She could have been sitting at home with Vikram, who had been watching comedy on television with Jaswant and Rajpal as she left. The sound of their laughter had jarred on her; when had she last laughed? Why was she here, drinking nasty warm wine, fighting for a clinic that she would never need and a housing development inhabited by people she would probably dislike if she met them? She was not Bhai Kanhaiya, who could not see a difference between the souls of allies and enemies; she saw no light of God shining from Howard Mollison. She derived more pleasure from the thought of Howard losing, than from the thought of Fields children continuing to attend St Thomas’s, or from Fields people being able to break their addictions at Bellchapel, although, in a distant and dispassionate way, she thought that these were good things †¦ (But she knew why she was doing it, really. She wanted to win for Barry. He had told her all about coming to St Thomas’s. His classmates had invited him home to play; he, who had been living in a caravan with his mother and two brothers, had relished the neat and comfortable houses of Hope Street, and been awed by the big Victorian houses on Church Row. He had even attended a birthday party in that very cow-faced house that he had subsequently bought, and where he had raised his four children. He had fallen in love with Pagford, with the river and the fields and the solid-walled houses. He had fantasized about having a garden to play in, a tree from which to hang a swing, space and greenness everywhere. He had collected conkers and taken them back to the Fields. After shining at St Thomas’s, top of his class, Barry had gone on to be the first in his family to go to university. Love and hate, Parminder thought, a little frightened by her own honesty. Love and hate, that’s why I’m here †¦ ) She turned over a page of Kay’s documents, feigning concentration. Kay was pleased that the doctor was scrutinizing her papers so carefully, because she had put a lot of time and thought into them. She could not believe that anybody reading her material would not be convinced that the Bellchapel clinic ought to remain in situ. But through all the statistics, the anonymous case studies and first-person testimonies, Kay really thought of the clinic in terms of only one patient: Terri Weedon. There had been a change in Terri, Kay could feel it, and it made her both proud and frightened. Terri was showing faint glimmerings of an awakened sense of control over her life. Twice lately, Terri had said to Kay, ‘They ain’ takin’ Robbie, I won’ lerrem,’ and these had not been impotent railings against fate, but statements of intent. ‘I took ‘im ter nursery yest’day,’ she told Kay, who had made the mistake of looking astonished. ‘Why’s tha’ so fuckin’ shockin’? Aren’ I good enough ter go ter the fuckin’ nurs’ry?’ If Bellchapel’s door was slammed shut against Terri, Kay was sure it would blow to pieces that delicate structure they were trying to build out of the wreckage of a life. Terri seemed to have a visceral fear of Pagford that Kay did not understand. ‘I ‘ate that fuckin’ place,’ she had said, when Kay had mentioned it in passing. Beyond the fact that her dead grandmother had lived there, Kay knew nothing of Terri’s history with the town, but she was afraid that if Terri was asked to travel there weekly for her methadone her self-control would crumble, and with it the family’s fragile new safety. Colin had taken over from Parminder, explaining the history of the Fields; Kay nodded, bored, and said ‘mm’, but her thoughts were a long way away. Colin was deeply flattered by the way this attractive young woman was hanging on his every word. He felt calmer tonight than at any point since he had read that awful post, which was gone from the website. None of the cataclysms that Colin had imagined in the small hours had come to pass. He was not sacked. There was no angry mob outside his front door. Nobody on the Pagford Council website, or indeed anywhere else on the internet (he had performed several Google searches), was demanding his arrest or incarceration. Fats walked back past the open door, spooning yoghurt into his mouth as he went. He glanced into the room, and for a fleeting moment met Colin’s gaze. Colin immediately lost the thread of what he had been saying. ‘†¦ and †¦ yes, well, that’s it in a nutshell,’ he finished lamely. He glanced towards Tessa for reassurance, but his wife was staring stonily into space. Colin was a little hurt; he would have thought that Tessa would be glad to see him feeling so much better, so much more in control, after their wretched, sleepless night. Dreadful swooping sensations of dread were agitating his stomach, but he drew much comfort from the proximity of his fellow underdog and scapegoat Parminder, and from the sympathetic attention of the attractive social worker. Unlike Kay, Tessa had listened to every word that Colin had just said about the Fields’ right to remain joined to Pagford. There was, in her opinion, no conviction behind his words. He wanted to believe what Barry had believed, and he wanted to defeat the Mollisons, because that was what Barry had wanted. Colin did not like Krystal Weedon, but Barry had liked her, so he assumed that there was more worth in her than he could see. Tessa knew her husband to be a strange mixture of arrogance and humility, of unshakeable conviction and insecurity. They’re completely deluded, Tessa thought, looking at the other three, who were poring over some graph that Parminder had extracted from Kay’s notes. They think they’ll reverse sixty years of anger and resentment with a few sheets of statistics. None of them was Barry. He had been a living example of what they proposed in theory: the advancement, through education from poverty to affluence, from powerlessness and dependency to valuable contributor to society. Did they not see what hopeless advocates they were, compared to the man who had died? ‘People are definitely getting irritable with the Mollisons trying to run everything,’ Colin was saying. ‘I do think,’ said Kay, ‘that they’ll be hard-pushed, if they read this stuff, to pretend that the clinic isn’t doing crucial work.’ ‘Not everybody’s forgotten Barry, on the council,’ said Parminder, in a slightly shaky voice. Tessa realized that her greasy fingers were groping vainly in space. While the others had talked, she had single-handedly finished the entire bowl of crisps. How to cite Part Four Chapter VI, Essay examples

Friday, December 6, 2019

Law of Consideration in Contract †Free Samples to Students

Question: Discuss about the Law of Consideration in Contract. Answer: Introduction: The main aim of contract law is to enable the self-governing parties to have the power to use contracts to advance their shared objectives. The principle of formation of contract has been interpreted through various elements. The formation of a contract entails a process that is objectively viewed.[1] This means that a small child or a mentally incompetent person does not have the capacity to appreciate and truly understand the obligation and promise of a contract. Capacity as an element of a contract is the ability of the parties to join legally binding contracts. Legal incompetence and incapacity are employed as legal doctrines to protect the parties that lack the ability to understand the agreement terms. Besides, a contract joined by a person that does not have legal capacity is deemed void and only enforceable at the preference of the party that the law aims to protect. Contrastingly, a void contract cannot be enforced since it does not exist in the view of the law. Legal incapacity can be determined from insanity, drunkenness, infancy, and the contractual powerlessness of corporations. Mental incapacity and infancy have the same law regarding the voidability of contracts. In case of insanity before the contract formation then the contract is absolutely void. However, when the party was not legally insane at the time of the contract formation the contract might not be deemed voidable. As for corporations, they have implicit power to enter in contracts as long as it relates to the accomplishments of the stated purpose of the corporation. Hence, a contract can only be considered legally valid if both parties had the capacity to comprehend the details of the contract. The consideration element of the principle of contract formation is also as important as capacity. Each party of a contract should be able to give and receive something of value. Consideration is the value given by each member of a contract which can be a promise, an act, or a forbearance of a legal relation. Consideration should have adequacy and sufficiency.[2] However, there is a difference between the two factors whereby adequacy indicates that the amount paid is the appropriate value and sufficiency shows that the consideration should be legally valid. Conversely, a contract can be binding if the promissory receives in return a consideration that is legally sufficient and the return consideration should be legally detrimental to the person who offers. A consideration detriment is usually mostly benefits the other party. There is also the mutuality of obligation which ensures that both parties are bound by the contract. The consideration given to another party should be legally sufficient for the individual to be obligated. Giving up a right and promising future performance constitutes of valid considerations. Nevertheless, past acts of contractors that do not have legal obligation such as those done as favors may not be viewed as consideration for the present promises.[3] A party who voluntarily did something to the other party as a favor cannot claim it as consideration. Hence, the exchange of consideration is what differentiates a contract from a promise making it a vital element of contract formation. References: Klass, G. (2018). Interpretation and Construction in Contract Law.SSRN Electronic Journal. Mughal, M. (2012). Law of Consideration in Contract.SSRN Electronic Journal. Ibid.