Percy Jackson and the Lightning Theif Essay Example for Free

Percy Jackson and the Lightning Theif Essay Percy Jackson and the Lightning Thief is an amazing book (in my opinion) that was created by Rick Riordan. I enjoyed this book a lot because of all the detain that Mr. Riordan had put into the book and with all of the facts about Ancient Greek myths, I picked it out in the first place because I had became really interested in finding out about different cultures which included Greece . The main character, Percy Jackson, lives in New York city with his mother, Sally Jackson his lazy step-father, Gabe Ugliano. Later on in the story, Percy finds himself living in Camp Half-Blood with his best friend, Grover Underwood. Camp Half-Blood is for children with Greek Godly parents. All children who go to the camp have ADHD Dyslexia. The camp is on Long Island Sound and is funded by a strawberry farm that the camp takes care of. I think that the book is placed in the modern days. You can figure it out because in the camp, you are forbidden from bringing any electronics, such as cell phones since it can easily attract monsters. One of the main events in the book is when Percy and his class are on a field trip to the Museum of Natural History. As his history teacher, Mr.  Brunner babbles on about the museum, Ms. Dodds (a teacher who came along) pulls Percy away from the group and into the Roman Greek center. Just after entering the room (no one else is in there), Ms. Dodds turns into this hideous monster with glowing red eyes, wings long fingers. Obviously, she wasnt human. Ms. Dodds lunges at Percy (who was still confused and shocked) until Mr. Brunner comes running into the room. The history teacher throws a pen at Percy and out comes a sword that Mr. Brunner used in class during special events. Percy kills Ms.  Dodds after that (she turns into gold dust) and later returns to the school bus. Nobody in his class remembers Ms. Dodds when Percy asked Grover, he looked very nervous before replying. Obviously, something was going on. A second major event is when Percy and his mom go to Montauk stay in a cabin at the beach where his mother and father had met. Later at night, a hurricane is starting to form Grover suddenly shows up with (as Percy describes it) Shag carpet pants on . Grover urges Percy and his mom to leave immediately the three of them hop into Sallys car. Percy soon learns that Grover is actually a satyr though he had called him a half-goat at first which offended Grover. As their car speeds away from the cabin, a strike of lightening hits the car which makes the car swivel into a ditch giving them an image of a beast of some sort charging towards their car. The three of them escape the car and run (Though Grover was unconscious). The beast was actually a minotaur (half-man, half-bull) and it kills Sally. Percy builds up his strength and pulls out its horn and stabs it, turning it into dust. He soon passes out. That event gave Percy the urge to go rescue is mother from the Underworld. . Later in the story, Percy finds out who his father really is. The camp decides to play capture the flag. Percy is assigned to patrol a small creek by Annabeth Chase (daughter of Athena) is suddenly attacked by a group of Ares children, Clarisse La Rue her siblings. They came back for revenge because he had humiliated her and her siblings by shooting toilet water in their faces just as Clarisse was about to shove his face into the toilet. Clarisse charges at Percy with her electric spear given to her as a gift and Percy stumbles into the creek. Instead of feeling weak, he suddenly feels a sudden surge of power go through his r his head. Poseidon. . . Earth shaker, Storm binger, Father of horses, Hail Perseus Jackson. son of the Sea God. body. But then something happened. The water seemed to wake my senses, as if Id just had a bag of my moms double-espresso jelly beans . Percy, suddenly feeling a lot of strength, fights back against Clarisse her siblings until they are all defeated. Percy even snaps Clarisses spear in half. Luke Castellan (son of Hermes) captures the flag for Percys team Percy tries to step out of the water, suddenly feeling weak again. Suddenly, a black hound the size of a rhino, with lava-red eyes and fangs like daggers appears out of nowhere and attacks Percy, ripping through his armour. Chiron (Aka: Mr. Brunner and centaur) shoots several arrows at it and Percy staggers back into the water and an image of a trident appears ove Another main event is when Percy finds out who had stolen Zeus Master Hades Helm of Darkness before returning to camp half-blood, Percy had gotten into fight with Ares, the God of War. The war God had given Percy a backpack in the beginning of his quest inside of it was Zeus bolt the entire time. Ares confesses that he stole the Helm of Darkness and Lightning Bolt from the original thief, planning on making a war between Hades Zeus. Percy and Ares get into a fight Percy eventually wins, earning the Helm of Darkness, A helmet of Hades that was stolen from him. Percy, Annabeth Grover fly to New York from California to return the bolt to Mt. Olympus on the top of Empire State Building. Percy returns the lightning bolt alone while Annabeth Grover go back to the camp. After returning the bolt, Percy meets his father and who had acknowledged him as his son. Percy returns to Camp Half-Blood as a hero at the end of summer, Luke Castellan confesses to Percy that he had stolen the bolt helm before attempting to kill him with a scorpion. Luke runs away while Percy is saved by a group of wood nymphs . The main character is of course, Percy Jackson . He is described fairly tall, good looking with bright green eyes and jet black hair. Percy is introduced as a troubled twelve year old. His green eyes often remind his mother of his father. Percy is considered very troubled. He gets irritated when called by his first name which is Perseus and has been expelled from every single school that he had been to. Throughout the book, Percy becomes stronger in both physical and mental ways. He becomes more brave, confident, and learns that he is a natural leader. Percy is also very willing to risk his life for others. He showed that trait by journeying to the underworld to get his mother back. Percy hopes that he can bring back Zeus Master Bolt get his mother back before its too late. Percy is described the protagonist in the book while the antagonist isnt exactly shown until later in the book. While Percy, Annabeth and Grover do the best they can while out on the quest, Luke Castellan was the unsuspecting villain. Luke always acted nice towards Percy, trying to get close. When he had given Percy flying shoes to help him in the quest, Luke had meant it to lead Percy to his death. Overall, I enjoyed this book a lot and I give it a nine out of ten. The book is filled with lots of adventure (theres never a dull moment) comedy things that people now a days would consider, fake or untrue even though it is very interesting. I recommend this book to all ages but a bit more to people ages 10 to 12, even teenagers. I recommend it around that age because thats around the age where you start to become more curious about things out there in the world. You start to become more open and realize what you really are interested in and Percy Jackson and The Lightning Thief is a great book to realize what types of book genre youre interested in it helps show you that there is always a hidden potential inside of you.

The Ethics Concerning Space Debris Essays -- Outerspace Essays

The Ethics Concerning Space Debris In more than 40 years of space activities some 3800 launches led to about 25000 observable space objects larger than 10 cm of which 8300 were still in orbit by September 1997. Only 6% of the catalogued orbit population are operational spacecraft, while 50% is said to be due to "decommissioned satellites," spent upper stages, and objects such as launch adapter and lens covers, which are mission related. The other 44% is originating from 140 on-orbit fragmentations. These events have been the main source that has generated a population of objects larger than 1cm on the order of 70000 to 150000. Efforts to provide a definitive assessment of this problem have been directed toward analyzing the hazard level presented by particular debris populations and predicting how this hazard level will change with time. Much less effort has been directed toward satellite design and strategies to minimize the short-term and long-term effects of debris deposition.[9] Larger pieces of debris can cause catastrophic collisions with both manned and unmanned spacecraft. Currently, manned missions are planned around known pieces of space debris, "continuation of present design and operational practices and procedures ensures that the probability of collision will increase and will eventually reach unacceptable levels, perhaps within a decade." As stated by the AIAA the space debris issue should be faced by all space users, and coordinated action should be taken immediately if the future use of space is not to be seriously restricted. "There is an immediate need for an international dialog to be initiated on the space debris issue, with the goal of forming responsible groups to coordinate research ... .../ [5] Rossi, A., "Long Term Evolution of Earth Orbiting Objects," [Online Document], 1996 Mar 12, [cited 2000 November 17], Available HTTP: http://apollo.cnuce.cnr.it/~rossi/publications/oslo/oslo.html [6] Goldstein, R.M., and S.J. Goldstein Jr., "On the Flux of Millimetric Space Debris," [Online Technical Document], Jet Propulsion Laboratory, 1994. [7] Baker, Howard A., Space Debris: Legal and Policy Implications. The Netherlands: Martinus Nijhoff Publishers, 1989. [8] Christol, Carl Q., International Liability for Damage Caused by Space Objects. American Journal of International Law, Vol 74, Num 3, April 1980. Available: JSTOR Journal Storage. [9] AIAA "Position Paper prepared by the AIAA Technical Committee on Space Systems" [Online document], July 1981 [Cited 2000 November 17], Availab HTTP:http://www.aiaa.org/policy/papers/space-debris.html

Life of Gangsters

â€Å"Quick a coppers coming!† said Dominic, Ringleader of the robbers. † I can't get this crap to start up!† said Vincent. (Vinc) â€Å"Oi stop in the name of the law!† yelled the police officer. At this point the police officer was running after the Hi-Jackers like a bullet. He was so eager to apprehend the law-binding criminals. â€Å"Yes it's started,† shouted Vinc. â€Å"Run him over, he's trying to mess us around!† Cried Dominic at the top of his voice. The Car backed up like the speed of lightning and hit the Police officer leaving him crippled like a boneless dog. â€Å"Bingo! Nice aim huh? Asked Vinc. The robbers had a good getaway leaving the policeman behind. The sun was setting and the view was beautiful. The robbers were cruising towards an urban area. â€Å"Dom where do you want to go now?† asked Vinc. â€Å"Lets go and see Dred, I need announce of weed.† Replied Clyde. They pulled up at an old wrecked garage. The garage was like a rusty old skip there was a sign that said â€Å"Dred Motor Company.† The sign was about to fall off it was hanging vertically. The robbers went inside and saw a big huge figure. â€Å"Yo what do you need today boys?† asked the huge figure. â€Å"I just need an ounce of weed,† said Dom. Dred pulled out a small transparent bag with some cannabis inside it. â€Å"Is this enough ma boy Dom?† asked Dred. â€Å"Yeah that's enough,† said Dom Dom was about to grab the bag, but Dred demanded for some money first â€Å"Money First† said Dred. Dom went towards the car and pulled out a machine gun. â€Å"Gimme the Flipin weed before I blow yo big ass off permanently!† Said Dom â€Å"Yo Dom you know im just messing around with you here take it its all yours† said Dred in a discreet voice. Vincent and Dominic drove off leaving not a footprint in sight. Dom was busy rolling up a spliff when Vinc pulled up at a petrol station. Bonnie filled the tank up to the maximum amount of petrol. He was about to drive off when the shopkeeper came out and threatened to shoot if they drove off. Dom came outside with his machinegun and shot the innocent shopkeeper in his head. As soon as they were about to drive off, 10 police cars and 3 riot vans surrounded the exits. Clyde shot four of the police officers. It was a narrow getaway, but they made it. Riot vans and police cars were chasing them. With Vincent's Skilful driving the pair lost the cops. Hey Dom this car is mashed man! We need to boost another car. Then do it, but make sure no cops are involved. They approached a little quite area and saw a Nissan skyline. Dom this will do us nicely. Within a minute they drove off in a Nissan Skyline without anyone knowing. There, nice new car and no cops, but we are broke. â€Å"How fast does this baby go?† asked Dominic. This one will do over 170mph. Great! I know some one who organises street races. If we enter this car into a race we are sure to win! Dominic took out his mobile phone and phoned a guy called Hector. â€Å"Hector its me Dominic, I need some cash. Are there any races going on?† asked Dominic â€Å"It's a good job you phoned me there is one today. Why what car you got?† asked Hector. â€Å"I got a Nissan R34 Skyline.† â€Å"Meet me at the cafà ¯Ã‚ ¿Ã‚ ½ seven o'clock sharp.† Said Hector. Dominic and Vincent just arrive at the cafà ¯Ã‚ ¿Ã‚ ½, and meet Hector. â€Å"Hey Dom long time no see and who's the other guy?† asked Hector. This is my man Vinc. Vinc this is Hector. Hector, Vinc is going to drive. Right then, let's roll! There are three other guys who you are going to be racing with. As soon as Vinc took a right the cops were on their tail. They caught Dominic and Vinc And arrested them on murder, grand theft auto and possession of drugs. They were sentenced life and both died in prison.

Can The Sectors With The Most Employment Opportunities Be Defined - Free Essay Example

Sample details Pages: 9 Words: 2698 Downloads: 3 Date added: 2017/06/26 Category Sociology Essay Type Research paper Level High school Did you like this example? Part One of Four: Building skills. Can the sectors with the most employment opportunities be defined in order to better target skills training or retraining? The following briefing paper is written for the Minister for Skills, using data taken from ONS reports and with SPSS output included both here and in the appendix. Even a cursory analysis of employment rates by sector will demonstrate that patterns of industry will have an impact on employability, according to the skills of the jobseeker. Don’t waste time! Our writers will create an original "Can The Sectors With The Most Employment Opportunities Be Defined" essay for you Create order An analysis of employment rates in the manufacturing and service employment sectors between 1978 and 2000 shows that there has been a clear trend towards increasing employment in the services sector, and a less marked but nevertheless clear reduction in manufacturing employment in this country (see Figure 1). The average (mean) employment rate for the manufacturing sector over the 22 years in question was 5,153,520 people, compared to 18,284,300 on average in the services sector, see Table 1. Statistic Std. Error manufacturing employment (000s) Mean 5153.52 175.619 95% Confidence Interval for Mean Lower Bound 4789.31 Upper Bound 5517.73 services employment (000s) Mean 18284.30 380.118 95% Confidence Interval for Mean Lower Bound 17495.99 Upper Bound 19072.62 Table 1, SPSS out put of ONS employment data by sector. The data, taken from ONS reports, cannot of course explain the causes of the difference, but the patterns are difficult to ignore when considering the provision of skills training. From these data, it might be assumed that someone with service sector skills would have a higher chance of employment than someone with manufacturing sector skill, all other things being equal. In fact, the scatterplot (see Figure 2) and its line of best fit show a strong negative correlation between employment levels in the services and manufacturing sectors. This is further backed up by calculation of the Pearson Correlation coefficient, which suggests a negative correlation of 0.852 between the two variables (significant at the 0.01 level). It is important then to also consider this potential relationship when forming skills policy. A further decline in manufacturing employment could, without implying causation, happen at the same time as a further increase in service sector employment and vice-versa. If we were to assume the continuation of the current trend, this places even more focus on services sector, as opposed to manufacturing, skills, although the likelihood of the continuation of this trend should be examined. These findings are supported by the recent government Skills Strategy, which found: In common with other OECD economies, there has been a broad shift in the shares of both output and employment towards services and away from manufacturing (BIS, 2009). Other studies have emphasised the scale of this shift. For example, in their article on the impact of low wage economies on employment levels in the UK manufacturing sector, Hine and Wright describe the large scale job losses seen by the manufacturing sector, and the difficulties faced particularly by unskilled manufacturing workers to obtain re-employment (Hine and Wright, 1998). The focussing of skills training and re-training t owards sectors with the highest levels of employment seems a pragmatic approach, in order to make the most of available opportunities and avoid the costs, risks and necessity of retraining those unable to find employment. The present analysis is limited by its comparison of only two sectors of employment. The picture of services and manufacturing sector employment levels compared with other areas of business and industry are not known. This limited analysis suggests that skills relevant to the services sector would give an individual a greater change of obtaining a job than skills in the manufacturing sector would. Part Two of Four: What are the main criticisms that philosophers of science have made of positivism? In its prime, positivism held the respect of many minds as a way of furthering scientific enquiry into the social world. Positivism holds that we can only know that which we have experienced. It was first espoused by Comte (1855, p26), who observed that theory and observation in science hold a circular dependence. However, it has been largely abandoned as an epistemological perspective by mainstream social scientists as too limited and assumptive, both of other research methodologies and of the nature of scientific research itself. Jurgen Habermas (1990) warned that positivism may be more like an ideology than a science, because of its unwavering trust in the truth of observed facts. Philosophers of science such as Habermas have seen that there may be many opportunities for unscientific bias to creep into a project of observation, and that what one person may consider an objective fact may seem a subjective inference to a second person. Further, the nature of the subje ct matter being examined by social scientists is such that a comparative understanding of language and history may be just as, if not more, important to the study of societies than the examination of observable facts, such as (for psychologists) behaviours. This is a similar criticism to that which is levelled against scientism, with which positivism is often associated, and which proposes that the methods of the natural sciences (such as biology, chemistry and physics) can be applied to all research studies, including those of philosophy and the social sciences. Along with this, the apparent infallibility lent to positivism by its adherents, who believed it could be applied to any scientific enterprise and was the only reliable method of study, has caused philosophers to pause over this universality and instead to conclude that observed facts, while pivotal to the study of social science, have only a partial role in the full understanding of that discipline. However, over time philosophers of science have taken the best of positivist thought and honed the nuances of the reasoning. Emile Durkheim, for example, adopted sociological positivism and developed a foundation by which it could be used to contribute to social research. Perhaps his best known use of this methodology is his work on suicide rates, when he used police statistics to compare the frequency of suicides in Catholic as opposed to Protestant communities, and to draw conclusions from this (Durkheim, 2000). In the main, however, positivism has been widely discredited. Well known philosophers of science and social science who have led criticism include Thomas Kuhn, Max Weber, who expounded sociology to be about social action rather than social science (Weber, 1998) and Georg Simmel, who focused on the associations of actors as fundamentally important to understanding society, rather than the isolated behaviours of particular actors (Simmel, 1971). These men fully rejected the more strict elements of the positivist perspective and à ¢Ã¢â€š ¬Ã¢â‚¬Å" indeed à ¢Ã¢â€š ¬Ã¢â‚¬Å" went further in their rejection by proposing an antipositivist sociology, which describes any simplistic account of science and the scientific method as deductivist (Kuhn, 1977). Positivism is now generally considered to be a building block of modern social science research, important for its role in the development of the discipline and an understanding of its history and origins, but no longer credibly held as an epistemological stance. Part Three of Four: Has the discipline of school pupils deteriorated over the last twenty years? An evaluation of a pilot interview with a teacher. This semi-structured interview gave a useful perspective of the research issue in question. The question being explored was: Has the discipline of school pupils deteriorated over the last twenty years? In order to answer this question the researcher carried out a face-to-face interview with a school teacher who had been working in schools for 23 years. The interview, which was set up through a personal connection with the school, was undertaken with a volunteer teacher on condition of anonymity both of the school and the individual teacher concerned. The researcher was obliged not to relate any findings from the interview to other members of staff/authorities at the school. This was particularly relevant because of the subject matter being discussed, which could have professional connotations for the teacher and the school, and also in the interests of any pupils who came up in discussion, to ensure that their identity could not become known. The most important thing at the beginning of the interview was to create an atmosphere and an empathetic relationship between subject and interviewer, in which the interviewer came across as non-judgemental yet interested in the subjects comments. Reflexive questioning was helpful in this regard, allowing the interviewer to remain distanced from the discussion whilst also conveying their interest and engagement with the comments and allowing further probing of the issues. It was difficult to fully maintain an empathetic manner while taking notes during the interview. It is frequently acknowledged by researchers that while a recording of the conversation may allow a more free-flowing discussion to develop, this is balanced by the greater unease that the subject may feel at being recorded and at the use the interviewer may be able to make of note taking to prompt their own memory on further questions to ask and ensuring all the important areas had been covered. In one example cited by Rafaeli (Rafael i et al., 1997), two out of twenty five interviews could not be recorded because of technical failure or subject refusal, and it may well be that the at least some of the other subjects remained aware and potentially anxious about being recorded, which could have an effect on the extent of any useful information gathered. At one stage in the semi-structured pilot interview, the subject asked the researchers opinion on something that had been discussed. The subject had been describing a particular incident in class, where a pupil had stood up at their desk and verbally threatened the teacher. Though not shaken by the recollection, the subject was clearly still unsure about what the best way might have been to handle the situation and asked the researcher what they would have done. The researcher found it difficult at this point to remain empathetic in response without being drawn too far into the discussion. Instead, the researcher commented that the situation was clearly di fficult and that there must have been several things passing through the subjects mind, and then passed another question back to the subject, asking if they had considered approaching another staff member for help. The interview could then continue on the same terms as before. The interview, while useful for gaining information on the thoughts and feelings of one staff member with copious experience in the subject area being discussed, it would not be possible to extrapolate these findings even to other staff members in the same school, still less to staff members in other schools. Therefore, it would be most helpful to build a picture of the national experience using quantitative analysis of a national dataset on school discipline or teacher experiences, and to use the findings of the interview to more fully explain the implications for particular teachers, such as to examine the emotional journey that a teacher undergoes whilst facing poor discipline or to look at the imp act of poor discipline on the mental health and wellbeing of teachers. Part Four of Four. The philosophical and methodological underpinnings of interview-based research. All social science research sits on the foundation of assumptions about the world, how the interaction of the world works, and the best ways of gaining a better understanding of it. It seems artificial, however, to base the research methodology of a particular project entirely on epistemological belief. In practice then, most researchers begin their study with a research question, and then make decisions about how to tackle the research methodology on the basis of the requirements of properly examining the question. For concision here, I will address the two major areas of research practice and the broad differences between them: quantitative research, which often requires a statistical analysis of large datasets and seeks to discover relationships between variables that might, because of their statistical significance, imply causality. The second is qualitative research, which may use a variety of methods to examine the words and thoughts of those with a role in the issue s raised by the research question. This method, while not able to make broad population-based conclusions, may lead to a more precise understanding of the interaction of the factors at work. In the case of the semi-structured interview described above, the attempt was not to address the cause of any deterioration in discipline, but to discover the fact or fiction of that deterioration. This is because the research question sought to gain evidence for the historical situation, rather than to ask why it had happened. Often, such a situation would mean that qualitative methods such as interview techniques are inadequate to answer the research question: broad assumptions about the increase across a whole population or even community cannot be made, and the researcher cannot even extrapolate the findings here to other teachers within the same school, as the issue of discipline often varies from one classroom to another. However, in this case there is a lack of reliable and fu lly informative quantitative data that would give any idea of how the situation in the classroom has changed over the last 20 years. The best statistics available might be, for example, data on the number of pupils excluded from school. There may be many other reasons for changes in this sort of data though, such as changes to headteachers motivation for or against excluding pupils and perhaps a change in teachers attitudes to solving discipline problems with exclusion. So since we have no way of satisfactorily examining the question using quantitative methods, qualitative interviewing might at least give an indication of the interacting factors and areas in which quantitative data is required to fully address the general question. Along the way, it is likely that we will discover an understanding of specific cases. In this way, the two styles, though so often approached as distant cousins, for practical purposes imply each other (Becker, 1996). It is probable that a r esearcher using tentative statistics, such as the exclusion figures mentioned above, would need to attempt to draw conclusions from their findings. Herbert Blumer (1969) said that all social scientists attribute a point of view and interpretations to the people whose actions they analyse, whether implicitly or explicitly. It may be that this kind of qualitative interview is the best way of ensuring that the point of view of the subject is accurately attributed. However, many would argue that any results of the semi-structured interview are meaningless at a community level without a foundation of quantitative research. So while the results of the interview above were interesting from the point of view of that teachers perspective, nothing can be said about the experience of other teachers in the light of this unless more is first known about those other teachers experiences. There is such a diversity of research methods now operating within the social sciences that the div ision I have made here between quantitative and qualitative methods is almost redundant. However, the principles and discussions still apply, and the methodology of each project should be assessed according to its own research question, availability of information sources, resources and projected outcomes. In the end, the important thing is the validity of the research and its findings. References Becker, H., 1996. The Epistemology of Quantitative Research. In R. Jessor, A.Colby, and R. Schweder, eds. Essays on Ethnography and Human Development. Chicago: University of Chicago Press. Blumer, H., 1969. Symbolic interactionism: Perspective and method. New Jersey: Prentice-Hall. Comte, A.,1855. The Positive Philosophy of Auguste Comte. Translated by Harriet Martineau. New York: Calvin Blanchard. Department for Business, Innovation and Skills. Skills for Growth: Analytical Paper, 2009. London: DBIS Durkheim, E,. 2000. Suicide: A study in Sociology. Translated by Spaulding, JA and Simson, G. London: Routledge Habermas, J., 1990. On the Logic of the Social Sciences. Translated by Nicholsen, S W and Stark, JA. London: MIT Press Hine, RC and Wright, PW., 1998. Trade with Low Wage Economies, Employment and Productivity in UK Manufacturing. The Economic Journal, 108 pp1500-1510. Kuhn, T., 1977., Concepts of Cause in the development of Physics, in The Essential Ten sion, Chicago: University of Chicago Press. Rafaeli, A., Dutton, J E., Harquail, CV., and Lewis, S., 1997. Navigating by attire: The use of dress by female administrative employees. Academy of Management Journal, 40:1 pp9-45. Runciman, WG. ed., 1998. Weber: selections in translation. Translated by Eric Matthews. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Simmel, G., 1971. On Individuality and Social Forms, edited by Levine, D. Chicago: University of Chicago Pres