If Microsoft and Yahoo are amalgamated into one

If I am a Googler, I will not worry about the merge of Microsoft and Yahoo. In fact, if I am an executive of Google, I will happy to see the Microsoft-Yahoo! deal; moreover, I will try to raise the buyout by encouraging the other potential buyer in oder to increase the financial burden of Microsoft. Why I am saying that for the following reasons. First, both Microsoft and Yahoo! run their Internet businesses very similarly and not very well. Microsoft and Yahoo! have two not-bad consumer brands, two so-so online-advertising systems, and two all-right search engines. Together, they will still have all those things, plus the added nightmare of intergrating. Second, if the future of Internet is ad-centered era. Google has stood on a better position than either Microsoft or Yahoo, or the combination of both of them. According to statistics in December 2007, Google owned 62% of all Web search wordwide. Yahoo! and Microsoft had only 16% combined. The worse news is both of them are not very good at the online advertising industry. Two less talented childs can not figure out smarter plans. Internet advertising is about size and smarts, and both of them have nothing, only traffic. Google has both. So releax and no worries.

Source:
Economist.com (Feb 7th 2008). Microsoft, Yahoo! and Google Giants in combat

Differences between Google and Yahoo

Google and Yahoo, both of which are Internet giants, have some differences in their businesses and services. Google, whose mission is to connect worldwide information and users, provides a portfolio of searching services—such as web search, image search, news search, scholar search, video search, map search, book search, and mobile search—to fulfill its commitment. Yahoo, on the other hand, whose strategy is to be a portal site for the user, provides a portfolio of channel services—such as the news channel, finance channel, movie channel, music channel, answer channel, shopping channel and auction channel—to maintain its portal site. Unlike Yahoo, which expects users to stay at its web site as long as possible, Google expects users to leave its web site as quickly as possible when they find what they want. Whereas Yahoo makes money by selling banner advertisements, Google earns money by selling key-word search advertisements. Google's strategy is to organize more content; in contrast, Yahoo's is to control more content. Since Yahoo tries to control content in its web site, Google applies more flexible strategies than Yahoo does to cooperate with other web sites and thus earns more money through its alliances. For example, Google's key-word search advertisements can be found on millions of blogger's web sites through its AdSense program, in contrast to Yahoo's banner advertisement, which can be found only on its web site. Therefore, Google is more attractive than Yahoo for advertisers.

BTW, please refer the billboard of Yahoo! "Yahoo! a nice place to stay on the Internet"

Similarities between Coffee Plants and Tea Plants

There are many similarities between coffee plants and tea plants not only in their appearance but also in their cultivation. First of all, coffee plants are similar to tea plants in their appearance. Both coffee plants and tea plants are evergreen plants. Coffee plants can grow to a height of 3 to 5 meters, just as tea plants can. Like tea, coffee is a bush. Also, coffee plants, just like tea plants, have white flowers with five petals. In addition to appearance, coffee plants are similar to tea plants in their cultivation. Neither coffee plants nor tea plants are productive until they are three years old. Coffee plants are cropped to keep them short; tea plants are too. Coffee plants grow best at high elevations; tea plants do also. Coffee plants and tea plants require heavy rainfall. Finally, coffee plants are similar to tea plants growing best in volcanic soil rich in potash.

Manufacturing Coffee

Coffee, which is a widely consumed beverage in the modern society, is prepared from roasted seeds, commonly called beans. Coffee berries, which are known as ‘cherries’, are produced by several species of small evergreen bush of the genus Coffee. Coffea arabica and Coffea canephora, which are the two main cultivated species of the coffee plant, are cultivated in Latin America, Africa, and Southeast Asia. Coffee beans from different countries usually have different characteristics such as flavor, aroma, body, and acidity. These taste characteristics are dependent not only on the coffee's growing region, but also on the process of manufacturing coffee. The process of manufacturing coffee has several steps.

First of all, the coffee berries, each of which contains two coffee beans, are picked by hand. After coffee berries are picked, the flesh of the berry is removed and the beans are squeezed out in pulping machines. After that, the beans are slightly fermented in tanks for 24 hours. When the slight fermentation is finished, the beans are washed in a washing canal with large quantities of fresh water to remove the fermentation residue. Then the beans are spread on the ground and turned over regularly by hand for two to three weeks until the beans are dried completely. When the beans are dried, they are hulled and polished with hulling machines to remove remaining outer skin. After the beans are hulled and polished, they are sorted for size and graded; following that, they are loaded onto ships and exported to other countries. Arriving in these countries, the green beans are unloaded from ships and taken for roasting by roaster companies. The final step in the process is that the roasted beans are ground with coffee grinders before they are sold.

In conclusion, the process of manufacturing coffee contains a series of steps: picking, pulping, fermenting, washing, drying, hulling and polishing, sorting and grading, loading and exporting, unloading and roasting, and grinding. Among these steps, the roasting process is the most important step to decide the taste of the coffee.

Summary of Alex Garland's first novel, The Beach

The Beach, Alex Garland's first novel, which was published in 1996 and won a prize in 1997, describes the main character, Richard, a young backpacker from England. Not wanting to be an ordinary tourist, Richard wants to find experience outside the textual authority of the guidebook and to have an adventure in Thailand. After Daffy Duck leaves behind a carefully drawn map of a remote island, Richard travels with Etienne and Francoise, the two French travelers he shares the map with and takes with him on his journey south. After they eventually arrive on the secret island, they are all captivated by the utopian world, living and enjoying themselves on the idyllic beach. However, as the book progresses, the idyllic beach becomes a living hell, turning out to be a dystopian nightmare world. The standard elements of utopia and dystopia that Mr. Garland employed in this novel consist of the location, the lifestyle, humanity, and death.

The first two are standard elements of utopia. First, Garland's beach, similar to Sir Thomas More's fictional island in the Atlantic Ocean, is on a secret island somewhere in the Gulf of Thailand. According to Mr. Duck's map, the secret island is in a national marine park west of Ko Samui and Ko PhaNgan (The Beach 5). Unlike Ko Samui and Ko PhaNgan, the secret island is unspoiled because tourists are not allowed to visit the islands in the national marine park. As the book describes, it is “…a lagoon hidden from the sea and passing boats by a high, curving wall of rock…idyllic white sands and coral gardens...waterfalls surrounded by thick jungle…On the white sands, fishing in the coral gardens, is a select group of travelers” (The Beach 12). It sounds like paradise on earth. The second standard element of utopia is the lifestyle. The lifestyle on the secret island is in a primitive and simple state, but full of hedonistic possibilities, happiness, and fulfillment. As Sal, the leader of the camp, says, “[People] come here to relax by a beautiful beach but it isn't a beach resort because [people are] trying to get away from those sorts of places” (The Beach 22). The beach people's demands are few and their desires are limited. Both are easily satisfied by the natural environment, such as fish, fruit, vegetables, and dope. They work in the morning, have dinner at four o'clock, and get stoned after dark. Also, they live like a big family and say good night to someone different in turn until everyone has been mentioned. “No one's name was ever forgotten,” the book states (The Beach 27).

Another standard element of dystopia in this book is three qualities of humanity: selfishness, fear and weakness. The first quality of humanity is selfishness. Francoise, for instance, behaves selfishly when she knows about the secret beach. She is unwilling to share the secret with others, so she warns Richard, “[He] shouldn't tell people about [their] beach” (The Beach 10). The second quality of humanity is fear. People will be afraid to face the truth and choose to escape from the unpleasant situation. For example, after the shark disaster, the beach people avoid having to see Christo—“pretending [the disaster] hasn't happened maybe” (The Beach 62). Sal even says that now that [the people on the beach] have started to get things back to normal, nobody has to find out [about Christo's condition] (The Beach 67). The third quality of humanity is weakness, which will stop people from doing the right thing. For example, “[Richard] knew [the rafters] were going to make the mistake even before it happened,” but he is too weak to give a warning to them (The Beach 70). As a result, Richard’s weakness indirectly causes the deaths of the rafters.

Finally, death also plays an important element of dystopia in this book. It causes the idyllic beach to change from paradise to hell. At the beginning, the behavior of Daffy cutting his wrists indicates that the beach is not a utopia. In fact, just like Daffy says, “Cancer in the coral, blue water, my [beach]. Nearly killed me” (The Beach 1). Second, a series of disasters begins with the rotten rice, which is followed by severe food poisoning. After that, the shark attacks the Swedes, causing the death of Karl and serious injury to Christo. Next, when the dope guards abuse and kill the rafters, the living environment on the beach becomes a nightmare. The dope guards suddenly appear on the beach during the special beach festival, giving a warning and leaving the beach people with a reminder—the dead bodies of the dead rafters. Scared by the dead bodies, the beach people start screaming and crying. With the combination of dope and alcoholic coconut milk, the beach people start to attack the dead bodies, kicking and stabbing them. Finally, when Sal sees the map which Richard had drawn for Zeph and Sammy—the rafters—she realizes that it is Richard who brought the rafters to the beach; therefore, the beach people start to attack Richard. At that moment, the beach has become a living hell.

In conclusion, in The Beach, Mr. Garland uses four standard elements to depict utopian and dystopian society: the location, the lifestyle, humanity, and death. In his depiction, the beach has a beautiful location and peaceful and simple lifestyle, but due to humanity and death, it fails to maintain such a utopian society and becomes a dystopian society. According to an article on Utopia and Dystopia in Wikipedia, “Due to [people's] inherent qualities, attempts at creating such a perfect world inevitably end in failure.” Indeed, people are born inherently evil. People go to the beach to build the civilization, but it turns into a savage society in the end.

Rainbow

There are various forms of natural phenomena existing in our environments. Some natural phenomena, like thunder, lightning, earthquakes, and volcano eruptions, challenge humans through disease, famine, and catastrophic destruction. Some natural phenomena, such as rainbows, shooting stars, the aurora borealis, and coral reefs, create good memories due to their enchanting beauty. Among these beautiful natural phenomena, rainbows are loved by many people no matter how old they are or which genders they are. People always love rainbows because of their beauty in colorful appearance and importance in folklore.

First of all, rainbows are beautiful because of their multicolored arcs with red on the outer part of the arch and violet on the inner section of the arch. Although rainbows span a spectrum of colors, people usually remember them as seven colors: red, orange, yellow, green, blue, indigo, and violet. People always feel amazed at the rainbow's momentary beauty, trying to count how many colors it has whenever it appears in the sky. When I was a child, I used to look for rainbows after a rainy day and I always had such a good time because beautiful rainbows filled me with happiness and imagination. When I was in college, I also used to look for rainbows during mountain climbing. Recalling my first time to challenge Snow Mountain in central Taiwan, I had felt fatigued, pained and depressed until I saw a rainbow appearing over a waterfall. The rainbow was so vivid and close that I suddenly forgot all my problems at that moment.

Moreover, rainbows have many beautiful mythological legends. It was difficult for ancient people to explain the phenomenon of rainbow; therefore, many people interpreted rainbows as a sign that a storm was over. For example, in Chinese culture, the rainbow was seen as an incarnation of the goddess Nuwa, who used stones of five different colors to repair a slit in the sky in order to prevent heavy rain from falling again. Another example is a story in the Bible, which describes rainbows as a symbol of the covenant between God and living creatures, and they were God's promise to Noah that he would never again flood the entire earth. In addition to the traditional meaning of rainbows, they also have a new meaning of Eternal Love in modern marriages. People like to exchange wedding rings under the rainbow-like wooden arch. Many famous songs related to rainbows also use in thousands of wedding ceremonies. For example, one of my friends used “Over the Rainbow” as his wedding song. When the music played at the climax of wedding, everyone felt touched.

To sum up, rainbows have marvelous beauty not only in their multicolored appearance but also in mythological legends. Rainbows are often drawn in the crayoned pictures by young children because of their colorful appearance and rainbows are the essential part of fairy tales when the stories describe their dreamlike places. Rainbows were also given new meaning in the modern society. Therefore, people always love rainbows due to their charming beauty.

Finding a suitable apartment

A suitable apartment can be found by the following systematic approach. The approach begins by deciding which neighborhood would be most convenient. When the most convenient neighborhood has been decided, an affordable rent is determined by how much budget is allowed. After that, since new listings appear every day, the classified ads in the newspapers or on the Internet have to be checked regularly. Next, after regular checking, the likely choices can be found, and then the apartments are telephoned to ask for details and to schedule an appointment to visit them. Finally, a long journey is begun to inspect each one of them.