I do believe that religion has a place in society today but only a small part compared to centuries before. I feel the more we adapt to technology and the introduction of globalization we find it harder and harder to get any modern meaning out of religion and can only see the conflicts it causes nowadays. Its important to realize that religion has been around for so long that it must have been some benefit in the past, and that the most obvious effect it has on people is answered their big questions about life and its meaning giving peace of mind and a purpose. Another question it addresses to its followers is the issue of afterlife but its always answered based on perception of that one particular person so religion doesn't really satisfy that question. Is it really believable that as soon as you died you would go to a fluffy white palace where your every want is met and you mingled with famous deceased people....? If its all about perception to answer this gem then wouldn't one persons perception differ than yours. Would you be more willing to risk it all to have a good time without cares or responsibilities if you could be sure that would wouldn't be punished. However on the other hand maybe you wouldn't take those risks but concentrate on the greater goods and selfless acts of good deeds such as helping the elderly and the sick but surely a non-religious person thinks about this issue also so its nothing got to do with religion but just the human conscience. So the route I've taken is the human conscience and how it is independent of religion. I believe that people's behavior is independent of religion due to the fact that religious people don't behave any better than non-religious folk, that the difference between good vs evil has nothing to do with religion but the conscience of a human being. In my opinion I think that religion serves only one aspect to human nature in modern times and that is that people feel reassured by the ides that there is a presence up above looking out for them and giving them guidance when needed. I dont judge a person upon there religion if anything I ask the blunt straight forward questions however I actually despise those the are so deeply involved in their religion that they judge pity and try and change others to their religion.
So here is my low down with this NAMA explainations... politicians take note... The reason why the government is setting up the National Asset Management Agency is because its the best option of ensuring the stability of the financial system, the protection of depositors and ensuring that banks were freed up to lend to the real economy. The government's advisers were the Central Bank, the Financial Regulator and the NTMA and came up with this way to deal with the riskiest loan portfolios on the balance sheets of Irish banks. NAMA will buy the riskiest loans in the banks portfolios from the participating banks. This will ease pressures on the banks giving them access to cash and assets like they had before. NAMA have the commercial powers of a financial asset management company to establish subsidiaries, to operate through agents, to buy and sell assets, to manage loans and work with borrowers, and to take full and determined action in relation to debts owed. The report goes into more detail and boring jargon but the following are the main aims:
Total lending to the SME sector by the banks which participated in the review remained at €34.5 billionRequests for new credit were predominantly for working capital/ cashflow reasons to address reductions in revenue.The review concluded that formal lending policies have not changed but that the application of policies on the ground has resulted in a more cautious approach to lending.The cost of new credit to SMEs decreased in the period reflecting reductions in base rates. For more boring information see: http://www.nama.ie/Publications/2009/NAMAFAQs.pdf
What has my mother and the online sex industry have in common?
well in short they are both pioneers.... of course in very different contexts.....
When I told my mother that we are doing a topic on the online adult industry, words like "oh lord", "that's disgraceful" and "what will they teach yous next"and when I told her that she had something in common with the topic I had to calm her down with a glass of water(as she doesn't drink-pioneer) and explain that the online adult industry are pioneers as well and she wouldn't have her VHS to tape corrie or be able to watch Brad Pitt on the DVD Player without their product innovations. The following facts show that without the business and technology aspects created by this industry, the world wide web would never of grown so big.
Easy-to-use payment systems, sign-ups, fee -based subscriptions and online security
The next time my mum does her grocery shopping on Tesco online she will notice the easy and quick the process of the conversion-based performance systems is, allowing Tesco to serve their customers through secure e-business models without them ever leaving the home. All of these technology innovations were developed by the adult online industry due to the fact that most of these entrepreneurs concentrate on profit ,cost cutting innovations and serving the customer's desires. The adult sites learned to use the minimum amount of technology to deliver their product. Thus what follows is the more mainstream websites adapting the same business models to reduce their customers acquisition costs. For example Oxendales,Ticketmaster and The Irish Times. The e-business payment systems that are so common today would still be in the early stages of developing,security and highly unstable.
Annoying Spam
The adult online industry perfected the spam culture turning it into a profitable business through the following ways: advertising,banner ads,ads associated with words,traffic for cash ads and pay per click ads as well as performance based advertising and pop-up and pop-unders console advertising windows that I have to say are so annoying but highly effective marketing and mouse-trappings. The adult industry would go to great lengths to keep their customers and potential customers on their site for a long a possible by distracting them with new offers. This business model is used quite a lot with the more mainstream website as they realize that their competition is only a click away and its better to have the customers stay on their site than leave so upon crossing the entry and exit of a website a visitor will undoubtedly find it difficult to leave due to the site taking control of the visitor's browsers to deliver ads to replace each one the user has closed. For example Yahoo! ,Excite and Alta Vista.
Streaming Videos
Forget YouTube, TV Shack and OV guide with their video streaming even though mum hasn't a clue of what those are, in fact she thinks that bebo(which she calls eBay) is the entire Internet and people can see her through the web cam unless its facing the wall!!!!anyway these X-rated sites were perfecting the techniques of streaming videos as well as other things has brought about businesses using this method giving their customers the latest information and entertainment. The adult online industry was the first to use streaming that did not require a browser plug -in which brought about the Adobe bought flash video and RTE real player. To think that global breaking news wouldn't be as current as it is now with out this product innovation from this industry.
Live Chats,Web cam/video conferencing
This era of the Internet has brought a more interactive and humanistic approach to online businesses, like before this all stemmed from the online adult industry. They broke down the barriers and limitations of watching adult videos to actually being able to chat and interact using the most up-to-date technology. This drove the development of real-time chat, web based videoconferencing and live Web cams, thus in turn created a huge profit for this industry. Upon this spark other industries adapted this to suit their needs and the most recent technology developed is the VOIP(voice over Internet protocol) examples Skype and MSN.
Web Analysis software and optimization
The adult online industry should be praised where praise is due, as the businesses all joined together and aimed each to build massive site traffic by sharing top sites links, linking customers to generate traffic and were the first to develop an affiliate revenue-sharing model among themselves, resulting in the industry being highly profitably and successful rivaling others. The adult sites are the pioneers of a multimedia site,Geo- location software and adult check age verification systems so....
......Like it or not the online adult industry is big and here to stay and it will continue to shape the non porn people lives and technologies for the future PS. My mum still isn't convinced ah well cant win every debate.
Tim Berners-Lee created the World Wide Webafter graduating from Oxford University in England in 1976. Among rag weeks and student nights he managed to build his first computer out of a television(x factor wasn't invented then). TBL didnt stop there in 1994 he founded the W3C which creates web standards and improves the quality of the web especially for people with disabilities. This selfless man made this idea free (no patent/no royalties) so that it can be easily used by everyone.
What I find fascinating about my good friend TBL, because lets face it we would be still discovering the wheel withour him, is the way he looks at life... "told how essential it was to believe in all kinds of unbelievable things" (sourse: Wikipedia)
I do believe that religion has a place in society today but only a small part compared to centuries before. I feel the more we adapt to technology and the introduction of globalization we find it harder and harder to get any modern meaning out of religion and can only see the conflicts it causes nowadays. Its important to realize that religion has been around for so long that it must have been some benefit in the past, and that the most obvious effect it has on people is answered their big questions about life and its meaning giving peace of mind and a purpose. Another question it addresses to its followers is the issue of afterlife but its always answered based on perception of that one particular person so religion doesn't really satisfy that question. Is it really believable that as soon as you died you would go to a fluffy white palace where your every want is met and you mingled with famous deceased people....? If its all about perception to answer this gem then wouldn't one persons perception differ than yours. Would you be more willing to risk it all to have a good time without cares or responsibilities if you could be sure that would wouldn't be punished. However on the other hand maybe you wouldn't take those risks but concentrate on the greater goods and selfless acts of good deeds such as helping the elderly and the sick but surely a non-religious person thinks about this issue also so its nothing got to do with religion but just the human conscience. So the route I've taken is the human conscience and how it is independent of religion. I believe that people's behavior is independent of religion due to the fact that religious people don't behave any better than non-religious folk, that the difference between good vs evil has nothing to do with religion but the conscience of a human being.
