Computers and Homeland Security Essay -- Terrorist Terrorism September

Computers and Homeland Security After the terrorist attacks on September 11, 2001 security became a major concern for citizens and of course lawmakers. Unsure of what could happen next we were all afraid. Homeland Security encompasses policies, laws, organizations, and procedures designed to protect the rights and freedoms inherent in the US Constitution. Homeland defense which is sometime interchanged with Homeland Security deals with extra-territorial threats and preemptive operations (Parons & Oja, 51). Governments in many countries are devoting significant resources to combat this growing threat. In the United Stats, the Department of Homeland Security, or DHS is responsible for reducing America?s vulnerability to terrorism and leading a unified national effort to prevent terrorist attacks on American citizens and assets. The DHS mission statement is: ?We will lead the unified national effort to secure America. We will prevent and deter terrorist attacks and protect against and respond to threats an d hazards to the nation. We will ensure safe and secure borders, welcome lawful immigrants and visitors, and promote free-slow of commerce? (www.dhs.gov). Technology is a key component of DHS. A part of the PROTECT system uses a computer program to depict the dispersion of toxic materials. On October 26, 2001 the President of the United States signed the Patriot Act, which was designed to define terrorist activities and provide la enforcement officials with legal tools for finding, catching, and prosecuted terrorists (Parons & Oja, 51). Computer systems assist efforts to identify terrorists among the millions of people who travel into and within U.S. borders. Terrorists might use cell hones or e-mail t... ...ments and have become more sophisticated at this task thanks to research for ordinary text-to speech and voice recognition technologies. Computers are a huge part of homeland security, without them we would all be at a greater risk for terrorism. Computers are prominent in each and every one of our lives, and they help us in many ways. Works Cited Arnone, Michael. "Internet security 'back to the Stone Age'." 22 Nov. 2005. 30 Nov. 2005 . "DHS Organization." Department of Homeland Security. DHS. 12 Nov. 2005 . National Security Agency Central Security Sevice. National Security Agency. 12 Nov. 2005 . United States Computer Emergency Readiness Team. US-CERT. 12 Nov. 2005 .

How I Learned to Play the Guitar

How I Learned to Play the Guitar Guitar is one of the most popular musical instruments to learn because of its versatility and portability. When I was in high school, I had an abundance of leisure time. I wanted to do something meaningful and fun instead of wasting time on playing video games, so I decided to learn a musical instrument. Honestly speaking, I was a good singer; however, singing without a musical instrument to accompany me seemed strange. That is why I made up my mind to learn to play the guitar.Now I realize that I made a wise decision. To learn to play the guitar, I bought a guitar and a guitar pick. In addition, like playing other instruments, learning to play the guitar requires the love of music, perseverance, and patience. I learned some basic knowledge about the guitar and how to tune it. To illustrate, the neck of the guitar is divided by the strings from the left to the right and by the frets into sections from the top to the bottom. Moreover, every guitar has six strings and each string has a different size and note value.Each time before playing, I need to tune the strings. The tuning process is important for getting the right sound when I play. Next, I began to learn to play the chords, which are made up of different combination of notes. Each time I played the chords, a unique sound was created. The knowledge of the function of the frets and strings helped me identify the chords’ locations easily. There are a lot of chords on the guitar, but I could only memorize the most common chords.I could search for other chords online when I needed them. Now I can play the most important and fundamental five ‘major’ chords. I spend more than 30 minutes every day practicing without looking at the diagram of chords. At first, I strummed the strings slowly to see if all the strings rang clearly. When I could naturally play different chords, I would switch my fingers from one chord to another as quickly and precisely as possible. In this way, I could connect several chords together to make a song.There are many different types of scales, each with different characteristics, note patterns and musical qualities on the guitar. Playing improvisation means playing the scales in different orders. I also learned some techniques to enrich improvising, like mute, vibrato technique, advanced bend and so on. All the different techniques made improvisation fun and diverse. With the encouragement of my professor, I became very enthusiastic about playing the guitar. I carried my guitar everywhere and strummed notes whenever I was free.Before long, my fingertips developed calluses and the pain abated. Also, the more flexible and the stronger my fingers became, the easier I could play the chords. My fingers’ flexibility and strength turned out to be essential for improvisation on the guitar scales. At last, after learning to play the guitar for three months, I could play one of my favorite songs, ‘Time of Your Life’ by Green Day and some other songs with simple tunes. Then I quit my class and decided to learn to play the guitar by myself.Because I knew, practice makes perfect, in order to be a better and more skillful player, I had to practice more. I began to search music scores and videos online, and I followed them to learn new songs. Many uploaded videos on YouTube teach how to play different songs, and I benefited greatly from them. It took me some time to learn a new song, but the process was always fun and enjoyable. Even though I stopped going to the guitar class, I knew what to do and where to go to improve my skills. The most important lesson I learned about playing the guitar is that practice makes perfect.The only way to become a good guitar player is to practice every day. It has been said that professional guitar players practice 8 hours a day, so I knew there was a long way for me to go to become a good player. I am very delighted to say that I can play and sing qui te a few songs at the same time. It has been rewarding to learn to play the acoustic guitar, as it has opened up a whole new universe of expression, conversation and real pleasure. It also has been a great way to make friends, so it was worth making the effort to learn it.

tempmagic Prosperos Magic in Shakespeares The Tempest...

Prosperos Magic in The Tempest In Shakespeares The Tempest, Prosperos magic is the means that Prospero teaches his lessons to the plays various characters. Whether or not those lessons were learned or not is irrelevant. The main issue is that Prosperos character is indeed a complex one, and one that deserves much attention. Two essays that look at the complexity of Prospero and his magic are Stephen Mikos Tempest, and Barbara Mowats Prospero, Agrippa, and Hocus Pocus. Both of these essays, in dealing with Prospero and his magic reveal things about Prospero that only enhance the mystery of his character. Mowats article deals more with the nature of Prosperos magic, and the type of character that it makes him.†¦show more content†¦There is more to his character, however, as is seen by the other two positions offered by Mowat. The second that she offers is that the magic that Prospero controls only allows him control of the physical world. Since he cannot directly influence the thoughts and beliefs of others, he is limited to mostly trickery, albeit impressive trickery. He has the power to conjure spirits, control the weather and raise the dead, but for all this earthly power, he cannot change the basic tenets of men. He has to use his powers to attempt to make the characters of the play change themselves. This sometimes works, and sometimes does not. This interpretation of Prospero is in contrast with the last tenet. Prospero appears at the beginning, according to his own words, to be only interested in gains beyond the world, yet his magic is limited to only things in the world (assuming that spirits are also physical in nature, and not outside the realm of reality.) This means that he is restricted to using earthly means to attain a goal above earthly gains. He is a strangely hypocritical person here. H e rejects the world in pursuit of his studies, yet he is restricted by that same earthly limitation. This adds to the dimension of his character. Perhaps he is not as simplistic as he seems. This allows him the possibility of having conflicting goals within the play, as he seems to have. Mowats third tenet is what rounds out Prospero: the