25 ways to use a brick! (other 25 ways will be tomorrow)

1. Build a house

2. Kill a person

3. Lock the door

4. Break it into small pieces and make a bracelet

5. Test acid on it

6. Break nuts

7. Break it into small pieces and then throw it into birds or squirells

8. Paint it, put it into a box and give somebody as a present

9. Draw a face on it and play with it like with a doll

10. Drop it on someone's foot

11. Talk to a brick as if it's your best friend

12. Take two bricks, but a desk on them and use the construction as a small table

13. Throw it into windows

14. Put it on some papers, so the wind won't blow them away

15. Train you karate on it

16. Use it to sharpen knifes

17. Put it into liquid gold, then wait when it becomes solid and sell it

18. Put it secretly in someone's bag and see how the person is trying to carry that bag

19. Tell everybody that it's a magic brick and sell it

20. When your roommate is using a nailpolish and you can't stand the smell, just show her a brick and she will be so scared that she will never ever do something that you don't like

21. Tell everybody that a brick is your boyfriend or girlfriend and nobody will never be bothering you with asking out on a date

22. In  rush-hour enter a bus with a brick in your hand. I guarantee that no-one would dare to stump on your foot or accidentally kick you. (maybe you won't even need to pay for a bus ride)

23. Give a brick to someone

24. When your roommate is snoring so loudly just drop a brick near her bed and pretend that you are sleeping. She will never ever dare to snore again

25. Use a brick as a model and draw it in details (good drawing practise)

Economics homework.. kinda

"But for all the suffering, someone’s got to be benefiting from the crisis, right? That is the nature of the market game.

Consider, for instance:

1. The software company Autonomy, jointly based in Cambridge (U.K.) and San Francisco, whose stock price and profits are climbing because “most of the world’s leading banks were considering using its software to prepare for lawsuits related to the U.S. subprime mortgage crisis.”

2. The attorneys who will be participating in those suits. 

3. Prime borrowers who have seen mortgage rates fall to the lowest rates since 2005, and especially borrowers who may see the ceiling for “jumbo” rates rise by more than $300,000. Also, of course, first-time home buyers who have been waiting for prices to fall.

4. People who have spent the past 5 or 10 years stocking up on gold."

from here. 

saw that some other guys are copypasting instead of actually writing a homework.. I though that sometimes I could do that as well. (:

Sociology homework. Topic 2.

Explain the Feminist view of housework

If we are talking about socialist and marxist feminisms, they say that housework devalues women as a part of society and enables them to fully realise themselves as sufficient individuals.  Women are doomed to do housework, look after children and be dependent on men because of a patriarchal system of views existing in the society, which doesn't let them work and make a career. Social inequality between men and women is clearly seen and undeniable because even nowadays the so called 'traditional family' consists of a male-breadwinner and a dependent wife. However, the situation has improved a lot since 20s when women didn't even have rights to vote and take part in a variety of social activities. 

We cannot blame any particular system/religion for promoting inequalities between men and women, because this promotion existed even in ancient times. Women were doing housework and were exploited a lot by men, so this has continued through the centuries, having some changes but still carrying the main idea: men are working, women are doing dumb housework.

In some societies inequalities in rights for men and women still exist, but these inequalies are mostly based on religious reasons. The idea 'women were created to do housework and look after children' is just a stereotype which is very difficult to destroy. Feminists are still trying to do it, though.

ps, I hate housework. If I ever going to get married (I doubt a lot, hehe), my husband will have to hire someone to do the housework.

Sociology homework. Topic 1.

ok, lets start with my blog topics (I have 11 of them)

Explanation of Talcott Parsons' (1955) functionalist model of the family.

Talcott Parsons is a famous American sociologist and functionalist, as he has produced a general system for analysis of society, the so called structural functionalism.

He also wanted to create the so called 'grand theory' of society. He started examinating people and their actions and behaviour. Not surprising that when invistigating those, he created a functualist model of the family.

According to Parsons, people tend to get along with each other and cooperate because they want to contribute to the functions of the society. As a family is one of the society's most important institutions, people create families to feel more secure and make sure that socium functionalises well. The functionalist model of the family by Talcott Parsons presents a family as a part of a big system, society, where every part must perform well otherwise a failure appears. To perform well, any part os the system should come to a consensus, that explains why people DO actually cooperate and create new families, cultures etc.

However, some critics say that there is nothing perfect in the world, so the ideal functionality of society according to Parsons cannot be achieved as well as a consensus. To me, not achieving a full consensus in a functionalist model of the family means divorce (late stage) or a break up (early stage).  

Outstanding homework BS, Economics and Sociology - parts 24-28 out of 28

Homework (Economics). Parts 1-4 out of 4.

Part 1:

Government policy homework will be presented on our economics lesson on 23rd of January, this Friday

Part 2:

it is here

Part 3:

was done in Unit 2 Economics class together with Dima and David week ago or so

Part 4:

My dipity timeline

Outstanding homework BS, Economics and Sociology - parts 14-24 out of 28

Homework (Sociology). Parts 1-11 out of 11.

What I've done:

- read the following articles:

• Pets as Kin 

This was an extract from some study about human-pets relationships, or, in other words, a kinship of pets. The results of the carried research has shown that people tend to call pets a part of their families. Pets are also substitutes of children for some people. This research studied socially constructed boundary between nature and culture.

• Goths as a subculture

uh, I thought that this one would be unteresting.. I was wrong. So, according to the research of people referring to any subculture, their being involved in a subculture affects their individuality, tastes and style. The goth example is music tastes, as goths prefer to listen to some 'dark' depressive music. 

However, goth tend to exaggerate different things such as the importance and extent of their stylistic difference from the others and the matters of social pressures on an individuality. 

Some features of the subculture:

1) it has a range of acceptable artefacts

2) an adaption from beyond the established stylistic boundaries

3) the importance of time and place

• To Buy or Not to Buy

This is a study of children from high income families and low income families. The main idea of the extract: social changes contribute to new forms of consumption and new experience in childhood

- read through GCSE and GCE Sociology notes. helpful.

- looked at the site internet sociologist, which explains how to use the internet effectively to get an access to more sociology data and how to apply your internet surfing skills to simplify the process of looking for some sociological data.

I liked the tour, as I found some helpful sites ('Electronic Journal of Sociology' and 'Economic and Social Data Service' are quite nice)

- looked through some sites on Economics + Sociology, really liked globalisationguide.org - a very interesting topic.

- looked at 6 sociology forums. My analisys of their capacity:

1) a medium size forum/has a wide range of different topics, though quite poor in sociology/small audience (<700)/undeveloped>

2) badly structurised/totally undeveloped/ almost impossible to find information/ very small and the average replies number per post is not more than 10

3) society for applied Sociology. hey, is this a forum? I think that's just a set of articles on sociology

4) really interesting one, with a developed section for sociology - people DO reply and discuss, exchange links and latest news, give each other advice

5) link doesn't work

6) I love TSR not only for its Sociology section. But it's very good, yes. It has many people who contribute and owns a great database on every subject (not only sociology!) gathered by the users. very gooooood.

- looked through powerpoints (they are boring, I hate powerpoints)

- now I will be daily reading one sociology blog (the osl one)

- wathed the videos (what is sociology, the experiment)

- prepared the 4 topics for tomorrow's test.

YEEEEEES I FINALLY FINISHED IT!

Outstanding homework BS, Economics and Sociology - parts 11, 12 and 13 out of 28

Homework (Business Studies). Parts 11, 12 and 13 out of 13.

Part 11:

Evaluation questions on my blog:

1

2

3

4

5

Part 12:

did a dipity timeline :)

Part 13:

So, something must be done. The question is - what?

Just put the hardworking ones in one group and lazy loosers in another, and everything will be ok. If someone 'gifted' starts to bring the dynamic group down, just send him to Torquay the second group. If someone realises how miserable he is and starts to work hard, he can be moved to the enthusiastic group. ^^

Outstanding homework BS, Economics and Sociology - parts 8, 9 and 10 out of 28

Homework (Business Studies). Parts 8, 9 and 10 out of 13.

Part 8:

I have looked through the one of the Business and Management introduction topics and read about business culture here.

12 factors that affect business culture:

- the influence of a dominant leader – the vision, management style and personality of the founder or leader in a business often has a significant influence on the values that the business tries to promote; 
- the history and tradition of the business – how things have always been done (and why); 
the type of technology used by the business and the types of goods and/or services it produces; 
- which industry or sector the business is in, and how much and what type of competition it faces; 
- the customers of the business – who they are and what they expect; 
- company expectations – based to a large extent on past performance; 
- the types of information and control systems used; 
- the legislation and wider business environment; 
- the procedures and policies within the business – ever-evolving, but often a good indicator of underlying values;
- the reward systems and the measurement of performance; 
- how the business is organised and resourced; 
- goals, values and beliefs – reflected in objects, actions and language, that is, in Trice and Beyer's symbols.

Part 9:

check this out

and this

and this

Part 10:

Question 29 from (RRRBRB) Robin Rinat Red Bull Revision Blog:

What is the percentage difference between the £12,000 a week asked for and the average Championship wage?

they usually get 3.000-4.000, which are 25-33.3% of 12.000. therefore, the difference is 67.7-75%

What is the annual salary of someone on £12,000 a week?

52 weeks. 52x12.000 = 624.000

Calculate the hourly wage of someone on £3000 a week assuming a 24-hour day.

7x24=168

3000/168 = 17.85 per hour

Outstanding homework BS, Economics and Sociology - parts 4, 5, 6 and 7 out of 28

Homework (Business Studies). Parts 4, 5, 6 and 7 out of 13.

Part 4: 

I have read this aricle about using an alternative of factoring - invoice discounting, where debts to supplier are paid but under the supervision of a bank manager. I didn't quite get it, but, as I see it, banks buy supplyer's goods with a discount and then sell it to a consumer at a full price. So, if a consumer doesn't pay, suppliers will still get money.. something like this. 

Part 5:

i dun like giving my coordinates to unknown websites like this.

Part 6:

I have tried listening to 49 minutes (!!!) podcast, but then understood that it's not necessary as I got the main idea right. So, this podcast was an interview with a successful blogger Alborz Fallah, who started with nothing, but now his blog is valued more than 5 million dollars. His CarsAdvice blog is really popular in Australia and even competes with some australian media giants! This guy earns a lot of money on this blog, and he does his blog despite he has a full-time job.

So, in this interview he was talking about differents things: what topic for blog to choose, how to blog successfully, some details and general advice..

but seriously, that guy earned some money just because he was paid by the guys who placed advertisements on his blog. I mean come on - car advice blog.. hey, it's just because all men are crazy about cars.. pff.

Part 7:

revised all the AQA BS Unit 1 on tutor2u BS blog here.

Outstanding homework BS, Economics and Sociology - part 3 out of 27..uh, now 28!

Homework (Business Studies). Part 3 out of 12.

Mnemonics

S - PPP - LL (types of pricing) - SPPP(E)LL

Skimming - penetration - predatory - psychological - loss leader

 

Outstanding homework BS, Economics and Sociology - part 2 out of 27

Homework (Business Studies). Part 2 out of 12.

Generation Y and their motivation. 

Times are changing, so do people and their views on this world. Uh, and the world never stays the same! Your mental priorities and stereotypes depend on the enviroment that brought you up. People who were born between 1977 and 1994 are now ready to help Generation X and are slowly becoming the main body of the process of the world's development. They are 20% of the world's population and they were born in the times of global changes, new technolgies and new philosophies. They will never be the same as their parents and it's natural - as their parents never were simlar to previous generation.

This generation Y, or the Millenials, are now looking for a job and seeking ways to express themselves in the society. They value their time, their technology and will never deal with something that does not match with their opinion. As Generation X is still having the main top jobs, they need to motivate and help the Generation Y.

This article presents the analisys of the Generation Y. Their main characteristics are enthusiasm, creativity, intelligence, ambitious and hign motivation. It's very important for them to be accepted by the socium and elder people, and, as they believe that they are very gifted and talented, they should be higly valued to be motivated.

The main rules of managing the Gen Y are:

- let them feel being involved in the main process (in other words, level 4 of Maslow's hierarchy of needs)

- motivation should be simple

- give more responsibility (as it shows that you trust and value them)

- reward them (by more responsibility given, I suppose)

- create comfortable enviroment (Hertzberg's motivators/demotivators)

Small notes that I did listening to the podcast about the Gen Y:

They had very interesting teenagehood. That's very important because most of the concepts are set up at this age stage. They grew up getting different kinds of unexpected and absolutely rendom information, and heard a lot about terrorism and things like that - that's why they have this phrase in mind - "live today". They are impatient and everything that they do should be meaningful and enjoyable.

The one of the differences between gen Y and gen X is their relationships with relatives. Gen X are more independent and gen Y tend to listen to what their parents say (but parents of gen Y don't know that hehehe))) That's why when a gen Y is applaing for a job it is also important to impress her or his parents. The company should provide career opportunities for that gen Y representative, to show the parents that their child will have an opprtunity of growing and developing as a working and independent individium. As for the gen Y themselves, they like to be challenged, their favourite job is the one that they have no idea how to do. They like to figure things out. DO NOT overstructure their work - it will make it boring. Just give them the goal and a few tools, you will be surprised. There should be a feedback, it's very important for gen Y - they like to be taught something new, how to do even better than they do now? However, they are VERY ambitious - they need and money, and prestige, and promotion! 

Their advantages - advanced and developed view on all. It's because of their time spent near the technologies like cell phones and computers, they made gen Y to think and act differently.

Their main disandvantage - they can be totally unmanagable!

And as for me, I can't stop thinking that when McGregor was creating his X-Y theory, he based on these two generations. As gen Y needs responsibily as well as an Y-worker in McGregor's administration theory.

Outstanding homework BS, Economics and Sociology - part 1 out of 27

watch and learn)

Homework (Business Studies). Part 1 out of 12.

Is Internet Explorer a monopoly?

Monopoly is when a company owns more than 25% of the market. Yes, Internet Explorer is a browser monopoly, as in this article it is said that IE dominated 80% of the market.

How do Firefox compete?

Firefox is a creation of Mozilla company, which has a very strong companion and investor - Google inc. Google supported Firefox as a browser, and up to 85% of Mozilla's revenue was due to its partnership with Google. However now, when Google introduced its own browser, Chrome, Mozilla and Google inc still have a new agreement and  Google will do further investments in Mozilla.

Hey yeah, Google Chrome is a good competitor which will easily overcome the barriers to entry in the browser market, however, I doubt in its ability to beat IE's monopoly.

PS, Opera is the best!!!

What are they going to do with no-so-improving economic situation in the UK?

Yes, it's time to update my blog.

No, I haven't come back to Russia. 

So..

I have read both articles on which we should comment as a homework.

The UK, as well as many other countries in the world, felt the whole destroying power of credit crunch on it's economy. The UK Government is trying to fix the situation, and even said in November that the situation will be stabiliased in the second half of 2009. Now it's obvious that it won't happen.

The government is trying to somehow control all those things that happen because of credit crunch but not so successfully. People are still loosing jobs, every week companies are collapsing (my favourite Zavvi!!! :((((( ), banks have no idea what to do.

A variety of methods that were supposed to help have been introduced not so long ago, some of them have already been put in action (the ad valorem tax cut from 17.5% to 15%). The chancellor, Mr Darling, cannot deny that the times are 'difficult'. A number of fiscal policies has worked very well, taxes seem to help the situations, but what is happening about monetary policies?

The interest rates have been cut recently and now they are at the point of 1.5% - the lowest rate in the whole history of Bank of England (established in 1694). Many economists comment on this action negatively, telling that it will bring the UK's economy into the new level of disaster. Seriously, I cannot see the point it this critical cuts of the rate of interest! Yes, people need to be encouraged to spend more as now they seem to save all that they have. But what about confidence? What about revenue for banks? 

Or another idea - printing more money. First of all, this will have a huge affect on the pound competitiveness in the international trade. No doubt that the pound is really weak now - more currency printed means even a weakier position. In the nearest future euro will be more expensive then pound.. hey, how the UK's goverment can be talking about improving the situation?

A well-planned regulation is needed. Fiscal policy is working, but those manipulations with interest rates and money printing should be reviewed or.. who knows what will happen tomorrow.

In 6 hours I will be in Oxford.

At the moment I'm waiting for the boarding on my plane.

goodbye, Russia.

BS Revision time! ^__^

ok, I've become sooooo lazy for the last couple of days! I sleep almost 15 hours a day -___-
need to do some work. I have already done some maths stuff but it was obviously not enough.
New Year is coming! yaaay! I love New Year! (: I need to buy some presents for you guys (:

okok, now moving on with my BS revision.
Here is Top 20 Terms for A grade BS Revision:

1. Analyse - to break a topic down into it's component parts. This should help to identify the causes and effects of the issue and to explain the process whereby the causes bring about the effects. This encourages more depth of study. It implies a writing style that uses continious prose in fully developed paragraphs. Bear in mind the word "why?" when analysing.

2. Bias - a facto that causes data or an argument to be weighted towards one side. Statical bias occurs when a sample has - by chance or by mistake - an overweighting towards one subgroup (e.g. too many pensioners within a research sample). Personal bias occurs when a decision-maker consciously or subconsciously favours one side over another. Scientific decision-making methods such as investment appraisal or decision trees are supposed to avoid bias. In fact, the results they produce will depend upon the assumptions made, which may be biased.

3. Business cycle - the regular pattern of upturns and downturns in demand and output within the economy that tend to repeat themselves every five years or so.

4. Capacity utilisation is the extent to which the maximum capacity of the firm is being used, i.e. actual output as a percentage of maximum potential output.
FORMULA: (actual output per period/full capacity output per period)*100

5. Change - a constant feature of business activity. (ohh, there is a lot to retype.. uhh.. see page 33 in your A-Z BS books)

6. Corporate objectives - the goals of the whole enterprise. Among the most common corporate objectives are:
to ensure long-term, stable growth in real terms

• to spread risk and achieve griwth through diversification
• to concentrate upon the firm's core skills
• to maximise market standing
• to add value through continious technological innovation
• to achieve profit maximisation in the short to medium term

7. Evaluate - this vital term means to weight up evidence in order to reac judgement. In the context of an essay, you will have to present that evidence (pros and cons, perhaps) before reaching a conclusion. As the term invites yout judgement, do be willing to state your opinion within the conclusion, e.g. "In my view..". It can be helpful to keep in mind the phrase 'to what extent...?' 

8. Market economy - an economy which allows markets to determine the allocation of resources through supply and demamd.

9. Marketing - the all-embracing function that links the company with customer tastes to get the right product to the right place at the right time. Marketing decisions are made through the marketing model, based on the findings of market research, and carried out through the marketing mix. At all stages in the marketing process, the firm needs to work closely with the production department and research and development, to ensure that what is promised is delivered. 

10. Marketing model - a framework for making marketing decisions in a scientific manner. It is derived from Taylor's method of basing decisions on scientifically gathered research evidence. The model has five stages:

1) Set the marketing objective (usually based on the company's objectives)

2) Gather data (quantative and qualitive data is required)

3) Form hypotheses, theories about how best to achieve the objective

4) Test the hypotheses (through market research or by test marketing). After results are evaluated, a decision can be reached on how to proceed 

5) Control and review (the means of implementation will be via the marketing mix)

11. Objectives - the medium to long-term targets that can give sense of direction to a managerm department or whole organisation. Objectives form the basis for decisions on strategy. 

12. Operational gearing - measures the extent to which a firm's costs are fixed in relation to output. If fixed costs form a high proportion of total costs, the firm has high operational gearing. This is risky because a fall in demand and therefore revenue will have little impact on costs. Therefore, profit can turn to loss quickly. 

13. Opportunity cost measures costs in terms of the next best highest-valued alternative foregone.  

14. Productivity is a measurement of the efficiency with which a firm turns production inputs into output. The most common measure is labour productivity, i.e. output per worker. This is important because output per worker has a direct effect in labour costs per unit. The higher the productivity, the lower the labour cost per unit.

15. Product life cycle - the theory that all  products follow a similar course of conception, birth, growth, maturity and decline, although products pass these stages at different speeds.

16. Short-termism - a phrase describing the state of mind of managers for whom rapid results are the top priority. Such an approach can be contrasted with the Japanese pursuit of long-term goals such as total quality and technological superiority. 

17. State your assumptions - in a numerical question, tell the examiner the decisions you have made when there has been some uncertainty about the correct figures. To gain a mark, your assumption must be based on uncertainty and must be logical. Do not confuse an assumption with a conclusion. 

18. Strategy - a medium- to long-term plan for how to achieve an objective. The plan itself would include not only what is to be done, but also the financial, production and personnel resources required.

19. Tactics - the measures adopted to deal with a short-term opprotunity or threat. Although managers would want to adopt tactics that fit in with the long-term strategy, there may be occasions when this is not possible. 

20. Uncertainty - the situation that underlies every business decision. This is because decision-making concerns changes that will have an effect in the future, and the future can never be predicted with certainty. An important issue is that stems from this is that uncertainty increases over time. In other words, a forecast of next year's sales or costs has a lower chance of accuracy than an estimate of the figures for next week. Therefore decisions that rely upon circumstances in the distant future are subject to very great uncertainty. Examples of this include commercial failures such as supersonic aircraft and nuclear power.

everything is taken from A-Z BS book. -__-

a helpful resource

hey guys I found an interesting revision resource on BS and Eco. it's not for a specific exam board but covers all the topics needed (and even more!)

enjoy

yeah, I would like to motivate you guys a little bit

check this out
I've been predicted 4A's for A2 Maths and all three sciences, having obtained 5A's for AS, applied for mech engineering to Imperial (AAA), KCL (AAB), UCL (ABB), Warwick (ABB) and Bath (AAA)..and ALL have rejected!! not even an interview

in brackets he wrote usual conditional offers from those unis. so, officially, only 3 A2s needed to get there. that guy is taking 4 A2s and still is rejected

GCSE's were all A* and A's. As for my personal statement, I did get it checked by my tutor as well as my study skills mentor who made us draft about 5 times over. EC's included things like being in the cricket team, playing for local tennis club and done some karting in my junior years.

some universities like to check GCSE's (they are years 10 and 11, i think, before A-levels, which are years 12 (AS) and 13 (A2)). I heard that LSE wants at least 7 A's at GSCE. no doubt oxbridge is taking them into account as well. you can enclose your equivalent grades into your UCAS applications if you want to, though it's not necessary; however, some unis can give you a rejection if you don't mention your GSCE's in some subjects.
Personal Statements are extremely important. I wonder when we are going to write ours, because some of us are applying to oxbridge, so we need those to be finished by 15th of October 2009. That guy is saying, that his PS was Ok and I believe him. Even if he failed to write something outstanding (i doubt that he did), he still has many other advantages and he mentioned sports interest, which is also a good thing in an application!

he could have got at least one offer, but I think his mistake was that he picked only top unis. well, maybe he thought that Kings College Uni and Warwick were good insurance.. that's the point - it's really dangerous to send off applications only to top unis, you need to have real insurance.

still not convincing?
read this

only A's. rejection from Cambridge, Nottingham (!!) and Bristol (!!!).


have a nice day (:

one more!

based on this article.

another pre-budget report mind map

this time based on this article

the return of the Mind Maps!

a mind map based on this article