It is Time to Chill Out

It is time to chill out. The Scarlet Letter, by Nathaniel Hawthorne, is a book written in the 1800s concerning the early Puritan society. The Puritan society reveres their religious beliefs to the point where it takes precedence over logical and irrefutable truths about their rule-bound society. This particular story takes place in the town of Salem. Out of the many complex characters in this book, the focus of this research will be on Roger Chillingworth. To thoroughly understand his character, three important subjects of scrutiny will be discussed including Chillingworth's life, motivations, and his state of mind. All things have a beginning. This is how the character, Roger Chillingworth, was at the beginning of the novel. Roger Chillingworth is a scholar well known for his work. At the same time Chillingworth was a peaceful man who was law abiding. Here is a quote from Chillingworth pertaining to his previous life. â€Å"Even then I was in the autumn of my days, nor was it the early autumn. But all my life had been made up of earnest, studious, thoughtful, quiet years, bestowed faithfully for the increase of mine own knowledge, and faithfully, too, though this latter object was but casual to the other–faithfully for the advancement of human welfare. No life had been more peaceful and innocent than mine; few lives so rich with benefits conferred.† Before he came to Salem, Chillingworth was a man in the pursuit of knowledge for himself and his fellow humans. At some point Chillingworth decided to travel to Salem. He believed that it would be prudent to send his wife Hester ahead of him so he would have home waiting for him when he arrived. On his way to Salem, Chillingworth encountered many obstacles. His first problem was his ship being lost at sea. When he finally reached land, he was captured by Native Americans. When he finally overcame all of his hardships and reached Salem, he witnessed the wife he had the pleasure of calling his own ostracized for the sin of adultery. â€Å"Such an interview, perhaps, would have been more terrible than even to meet him as she now did, with the hot mid-day sun burning down upon her face, and lighting up its shame; with the scarlet token of infamy on her breast; with the sin-born infant in her arms; with a whole people, drawn forth as to a festival, staring at the features that should have been seen only in the quiet gleam of the fireside, in the happy shadow of a home, or beneath a matronly veil at church. Dreadful as it was, she was conscious of a shelter in the presence of these thousand witnesses. It was better to stand thus, with so many betwixt him and her, than to greet him face to face–they two alone. She fled for refuge, as it were, to the public exposure, and dreaded the moment when its protection should be withdrawn from her.† This is the sight that Chillingworth beheld when he saw Hester on the scaffold. This is the origin of Chillingworth as we know him. Now this is how his life developed since the day of realization.After discovering his wife's sin, Roger's life changed in many ways. After his realization of his wife's, Hester's, sin , Chillingworth's heart froze over in a rigid determination in finding the one who had destroyed his last haven. In his perusal of the man at fault, he asked Hester about his identity only to be rejected. â€Å"It has been related, how, in the crowd that witnessed Hester Prynne's ignominious exposure, stood a man, elderly, travel-worn, who, just emerging from the perilous wilderness, beheld the woman, in whom he hoped to find embodied the warmth and cheerfulness of home, set up as a type of sin before the people.† As can be seen despite Hester's silence on the matter, Chillingworth's determination continues to be resolute in his goal to find the adulterer. Under the guise of a physician, Chillingworth begins his search with plenty of failure. However, that would soon change when the town sought him out in order to aid Reverend Arthur Dimmesdale. â€Å"Such was the young clergyman's condition, and so imminent the prospect that his dawning light would be extinguished, all untimely, when Roger Chillingworth made his advent to the town. His first entry on the scene, few people could tell whence, dropping down as it were out of the sky or starting from the nether earth, had an aspect of mystery, which was easily heightened to the miraculous. He was now known to be a man of skill; it was observed that he gathered herbs and the blossoms of wild-flowers, and dug up roots and plucked off twigs from the forest-trees like one acquainted with hidden virtues in what was valueless to common eyes. He was heard to speak of Sir Kenelm Digby and other famous men—whose scientific attainments were esteemed hardly less than supernatural–as having been his correspondents or associates. Why, with such rank in the learned world, had he come hither? What, could he, whose sphere was in great cities, be seeking in the wilderness? In answer to this query, a rumour gained ground–and however absurd, was entertained by some very sensible people–that Heaven had wrought an absolute miracle, by transporting an eminent Doctor of Physic from a German university bodily through the air and setting him down at the door of Mr. Dimmesdale's study! Individuals of wiser faith, indeed, who knew that Heaven promotes its purposes without aiming at the stage-effect of what is called miraculous interposition, were inclined to see a providential hand in Roger Chillingworth's so opportune arrival.† The people were over joyed at his presence with the hope that he could assist the recovery of Dimmesdale. This is the beginning of the complex relationship between Chillingworth and Dimmesdale. When he first started living with Dimmesdale he examined feverishly only to discover that the Reverend had no physical signs of a sickness that has brought him to this state. This lack of discovery brought Dimmesdale onto Chillingworth's list of potential adulterer candidates. Upon further investigations, Roger discovered that Dimmesdale, who had come to regard Chillingworth as stalwart companion, was hiding a secret that he hides at the risk of his own health. This secret causes Chillingworth's inner sirens to go off at max volume. As a result of his suspicions Chillingworth dug into Dimmesdale's mind with the single goal of uncovering his secret. â€Å"He had begun an investigation, as he imagined, with the severe and equal integrity of a judge, desirous only of truth, even as if the question involved no more than the air-drawn lines and figures of a geometrical problem, instead of human passions, and wrongs inflicted on himself. But, as he proceeded, a terrible fascination, a kind of fierce, though still calm, necessity, seized the old man within its gripe, and never set him free again until he had done all its bidding. He now dug into the poor clergyman's heart, like a miner searching for gold; or, rather, like a sexton delving into a grave, possibly in quest of a jewel that had been buried on the dead man's bosom, but likely to find nothing save mortality and corruption. Alas, for his own soul, if these were what he sought!† Roger's actions in his pursuit of the truth began to show signs of wear on Dimmesdale's mental and physical state of being. Eventually Roger found clear evidence that showed that Dimmesdale was the adulterer including biblical paintings of adultery, a whip, and a branded A on Dimmesdale's body. At this truth Roger had uncovered he was ecstatic. â€Å"But with what a wild look of wonder, joy, and honor! With what a ghastly rapture, as it were, too mighty to be expressed only by the eye and features, and therefore bursting forth through the whole ugliness of his figure, and making itself even riotously manifest by the extravagant gestures with which he threw up his arms towards the ceiling, and stamped his foot upon the floor! Had a man seen old Roger Chillingworth, at that moment of his ecstasy, he would have had no need to ask how Satan comports himself when a precious human soul is lost to heaven, and won into his kingdom.† After his discovery Dimmesdale began to torment the man with a new abandon. His tormenting ends however when Dimmesdale finally succumbs to his poor health and passes away. In the beginning of the Scarlet Letter Chillingworth was just a man who wanted to come home and be loved. Even before that he was a kind man who, although being anti-social and abrasive, had no ill intentions towards the people around him and sought to improve the world. â€Å"Old Roger Chillingworth, throughout life, had been calm in temperament, kindly, though not of warm affections, but ever, and in all his relations with the world, a pure and upright man.† When he Chillingworth saw Hester on the platform for the sin of sexually loving and lusting after another, he felt betrayed and hurt by her actions. Hearing how she refused to give up the name of the adulterer redirected the pain and hurt into a cold, seething anger towards the man who stolen and abandoned his wife in her time of need. This anger started as a rejection of the injustice in this case of adultery. However, over time that anger became a deep hatred and obsession in finding the man who betrayed his wife. He was willing to do anything to find the man who had caused hurt for both him and his wife, even at the expense of hurting others in the process. When he finally found the man he had sought to bring to justice, instead of doing what he had initially set out to do he took a perverse and sadistic pleasure in watching the man's soul and spirit break under the constant of his actions. â€Å"Thus, a sickness,† continued Roger Chillingworth, going on, in an unaltered tone, without heeding the interruption, but standing up and confronting the emaciated and white-cheeked minister, with his low, dark, and misshapen figure,–â€Å"a sickness, a sore place, if we may so call it, in your spirit hath immediately its appropriate manifestation in your bodily frame. Would you, therefore, that your physician heal the bodily evil? How may this be unless you first lay open to him the wound or trouble in your soul?† By the point Dimmesdale died, Roger had become so obsessed with Dimmesdale that he had nothing else to live for. This is seen as his body loses energy, just stops working, and dies one year later. A surprising and somewhat relieving fact about his last days is that he left his fortunes to Pearl, the child of Hester and Dimmesdale. â€Å"Leaving this discussion apart, we have a matter of business to communicate to the reader. At old Roger Chillingworth's decease, (which took place within the year), and by his last will and testament, of which Governor Bellingham and the Reverend Mr. Wilson were executors, he bequeathed a very considerable amount of property, both here and in England to little Pearl, the daughter of Hester Prynne†. This shows that he bared no ill will to the child and thus had not lost all of his humanity in the end.In conclusion, Chillingworth was a sad, corrupted, old man. People's views on Roger are different depending on the point of view. Some people think he is the essence of evil. â€Å"Roger Chillingworth, fictional character, the vengeful cuckolded physician husband of Hester Prynne, protagonist of Nathaniel Hawthorne's The Scarlet Letter (1850). Vindictive and sly, Chillingworth ministers to the Rev. Arthur Dimmesdale, with whom his wife has had an affair, after Dimmesdale becomes ill. Ostensibly concerned with Dimmesdale's health, Chillingworth wants only to spy on him and gloat over his misfortunes. Chillingworth is held up as a greater sinner than the adulterer Dimmesdale, whose spirit he malevolently destroys.† Others would say that he was a victim of circumstance in this tragic tale. â€Å"The beginning of Chillingworth's descent into madness begins when he internalizes Hester's adultery as a personal betrayal rather than as a consequence of his aloofness.† All can agree though that he was betrayed and had committed many sins in the aftermath.

Close analysis to the film Fight club Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 1000 words

Close analysis to the film Fight club - Essay Example As in most cases, the ending of a film plays a key role in affirming the running theme of the film to the intended audience. Fight Club does not disappoint and lives up to the expectation of the audience who are thrilled through the entire film. Scholars have identified Fight Club as a good example of conformity which is a concept that is determined by those around your circles (Wartenberg, 2012). The film seeks to analyze the extremes of conformity and the society’s approach towards real human connections that are pivotal to the emotional well being of an individual. On the contrary, non-conformity is speculated to lead to alienation and rejection of an individual by the society. In extreme cases, it might lead to isolation. Being isolated in the society is the worst thing that can happen to an individual who values associated with others, but conformity denies them the chance of socialization hence isolation. The film justifies the attempts of characters to move out of the violence that ensues during each and every encounter of the Fight Club because of the urge to break out of their roles that they have in the community to unleash their anger. The pain just like anger demands to be felt in different ways among these is violence. Therefore, this paper will provide an analysis of visuals, sound, themes and motifs. Also, it will seek to provide a clear and concise analysis of the film’s significance as it further interprets the film’s meaning to the reader. Fight Club falls under the romantic comedy because it relates to the characters attitudes and it strives to achieve a healthy relationship. In most instances, a lot of behavior which seems unhealthy and harsh to each other is prevalent, but this does not work for them because both characters are out on the extreme end of their characters. The narrator is out for intimacy, but avoids it with by using

Molecular biology cloning and Brachyury gene Essay

Molecular biology cloning and Brachyury gene - Essay Example Such recombinant vectors imitate effectively in specific strains of bacterial host cells, leading to the production of several copies of the recombinant DNA molecule, which was put into the vector (Eisen, et al, 2002, p 5483; Sambrook, Fritsch & Maniatis, 1989, p 891). 2. Brachyury gene: definition and the relation between the genes with cancer Brachyury refers to a protein which is encoded by the T gene in humans. It is a transcription factor that is within the T-box complex of genes, which has been identified in all bilateral animals. Brachyury also helps in defining the mesoderm in the process of gastrulation (National cancer institute, nd, para 5). The T gene is first expressed at the ending stage of blastula, at the mesoderm region and then later in the process of gastrulation. Expression of the Brachyury gene is contained to the tail bud and the notochord region. Brachyury is expressed within the endothermal epithelial cells of the hypostome in the diploblastic Hydra that makes up the apical portion of the polyp cranium. Therefore, the T gene plays an essential role in forming the axis of the initial body. The T gene is critical in the molding tripoblasts’ and diploblasts’ layers of germ, as well as, in the formation of the apical pole (Rolf, 2013, para 1). Genetic evaluations of individuals with hereditary form of bone cancer reveal that acquiring an additional T gene might cause the uncommon bone cancer. A study of seven families diagnosed with chordoma involving two or more blood relatives was conducted by the NCI researchers. Linkage analysis approach was utilized to explore whether certain genetic markers with established points in humans are present at birth along with chordoma. The initial analysis set out six genome areas that necessitated an extra examination. A comprehensive hereditary examination revealed that chromosome 6 section was more apt to be related with hereditary bone cancer. Brachyury gene that is contained in chromosom e 6 is exceptionally significant in the growth of notochord. Results from earlier examinations show that the T genes is found in almost all bone cancer cases, but not in the wide ranging assortment of ordinary body tissues or other malignant cells kinds. As such, the observation made the Brachyury gene an excellent candidate for involvement in the uncommon bone cancer (Rolf, 2013, para 2) 3. What is plasmid pNEB193? Plasmid pNEB193 is an enigmatic and a fresh plasmid. It was first found in NBRC14147 in S.albulus. Its functions are not known, though the cryptic plasmid pNEB193 replicon was utilized in duplication of vector construction (Sambrook, Fritsch & Maniatis, 1989, p 894). 4. Cloning technique What is the aim from using the polymerase chain reaction PCR in the cloning technique? Polymerase chain reaction is the primer-meditated enzymatic amplification of distinctively replicated or genomic DNA sequences. The template DNA includes a target sequence that can be very long in term s of nucleotides length. The main aim of using PCR is to clone genes directly without constructing DNA libraries. PCR makes gene cloning rapid by starting with a whole genome, PCR permits the DNA from a chosen region to be increased several billion fold, successfully sanitizing this DNA away from the remainder of the genome (Taylor & Francis group, 2010, p 544). PCR is mostly employed in molecular biology and

Is leadership and management the same of different Analyse different Essay

Is leadership and management the same of different Analyse different perspectives and present your argument - Essay Example The question is worth-discussing, so this work will try to define who leaders and managers are and what are their tasks through the history of leadership and management beginning from 80th till the formation of modern approach. Leaders and managers: who are they? One of the simplest approaches to differentiation of management and leadership was presented by Prof. John Kotter in his book â€Å"A Force for Change†. â€Å"The purpose of leadership is seen in bringing about movement and useful change and the purpose of management is to guarantee stability, consistency, order and efficiency† (Kotterman, 2006). Both, leadership and management are important for success of any organization. From definition suggested by Kotter it is clearly seen that it is not only possible to interchange these concepts, but it should be mentioned that these concepts define quite different things: management is for stability, leadership is for change. Moreover, it is quite relevant to note that managers and leaders can be people from the same class. A very interesting explanation of management and leadership is given in the book â€Å"Leaders: The Strategies for Taking Charge† (1985): â€Å"Managers are people who do things right and leaders are people who do the right thing† (Fairholm 1998, p. 17). ... This interest was caused by the growing development of Japanese business world. Japanese organizations had their secret: they substituted mechanical function of managers by a facilitative and developmental function (Fairholm, 1998). In America this tendency was ‘wrongly copied’ and managers were mixed up with leaders by a mistake. This process is perfectly described in the following citation: â€Å"To punish managers for letting us down, we blessed leaders with the good-guy styles and damned management with the bad-guy ones. The next step was to portray leaders as transformational and managers as transactional† (Kotterman, 2006). It is clearly seen, that in 80s it was rather hard to differ between managers and leaders. Moreover, a function of managers was even neglected and very often at that time managers were described as ‘control freaks’ (Kotterman, 2006). Kotter’s claim was one of the most understandable at that complicated period: he claim ed that managers have to deal with difficulties and leaders are focused on change and innovation. Generally, in 80s the main interest of scientists and researchers was focused on leaders, while the function of managers was not interesting for them anymore. Managers’ function to motivate employees for successful performance was taken away from them by leaders. In the book â€Å"Leadership and Performance Beyond Expectations† (1985) Bernard Bass claims that leaders have to be responsible for human resources motivation. The main drawback of researches and studies of that time was a lack of attention to the performance of leader’s functions. In other words, these studies were not practically implemented (Fairholm, 1998; (Martin, 1999). It

Health of children living in poverty in hong kong Essay

Health of children living in poverty in hong kong - Essay Example Acording to statistics in 2005, a family of three took home $8,000 while that of four and two earned a low income of $9,800 and $6,400 respectivley. Analysts have intimated that the growing disparity between the rich and the poor is one of the greatest contributor to the poor education levels of the children in Hong Kong as there is no possibility of bridging it to make things better. In essence, the rich only associate with the rich while the poor have no option other than to keep by themselves meaning that it is a continuing cycle of poor education access for the poverty stricken because they cannot free themselves from it. According to the General Household survey of 2012 (89), a significant percentage of the population above 15 years and less than 65 is economically inactive in Hong Kong hence explaining the high levels of poverty in the region. The statistics also shows that Sha tin, Kwai Tsing, Kwun Tong, Wong Tai Sin, Yuen Long, and Tuen Mun are the principle districts in Hong Kong that have continued to register high numbers of poor households. Ideally, child poverty tends to have an effect on the feeding of the same in that it creates malnutrition for those affected by the scourge because these children cannot afford to feed properly as per the nutrition requirements. Most of the children drop out of school because they have to fend fro themselves rather than study because their parents cannot afford to put them through school. Other than this, children living in poverty tend to have self-esteem issues as they tend to feel marginalized and humiliated because of their non-desirable financial status hence making them to avoid going to school(Ngo 2013). Poor health and poverty also means that these children are likely to fail attending school because they are forced to help their parents in fending especially those from single parent households.. On other the other hand,

Course evaluation paper Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 750 words

Course evaluation paper - Essay Example (AHRQ, 2007) (See Table I – Recommended Immunization Schedule for Persons Aged 0 – 6 Years in the United States on page 6) As part of delivering good quality service to selected patients, segmenting the patient population is necessary to enable the community nurses to provide effective health care strategies in delivering a safe, efficient, effective, timely, patient centered, and equitable health care to patients. (Lynn et al., 2007; Institute of Medicine, 2001) The expected outcome for the community health care that focuses on immunization is to ensure that there will be a reduction of morbidity and mortality among the infants and children throughout the community. (Zimmerman et al., 1987) The intended target population for rendering the community health care which focuses on immunization is patients below six (6) years of age and below. In order for nurses to accurately identify the target patient population within a selected community, nurses will have to study the existing computerized patient record (CPR) within the community health care computer system. (Rivo, 1998) Adding the total number of children below six years of age plus the patients who are currently pregnant, the nurses could easily determine the total number of additional babies each month. In the absence of CPR system, nurses should ask the pregnant women to fill out a simple survey form which will be used in determining the size of target population for immunization and health care education for expectant mothers. Considering that there are some babies born within the community each month and the fact that the immunization schedule for new born infants up to six (6) years old is more likely to overlap at the time the schedule is due, the implementation of community health care immunization program should be continuously offered to the community at least once or

Online dating services Essay Example for Free

Online dating services Essay Online Dating Services, once a haven for the desperate and lonely are starting to attract a significant user and revenue base and are growing at an increasing rate. These services now attract over 30 million users a year in the U. S. and soon will be the highest revenue subscription content service on the Internet. The growth of online personals and many of the industrys characteristics are similar to those of products such as fax machines, DVD players, and the Internet itself. The main similarity is that the value of these services for each user increases with each additional user. However, many other characteristics hold true as well. It has significant economies of scale, requires highly complimentary products, and displays some semblance of standards and compatibility between its competitors. Since online dating services have proven to be so similar to other networked goods, much of the knowledge gained by examining these other services can be applied. This means that one can expect these services to continue to grow rapidly, gain mainstream acceptance and that subscription prices will remain low as long as the major services remain incompatible. Further, they likely will remain incompatible for a variety of technical and strategic reasons. Online dating services have been around since 19951. Computer dating services date (no pun intended) back as far as the 1960s2. However over the last three years these services have seen explosive growth. While other dotcoms reached their peak in 2000 and have since crashed, dating sites have seen explosive growth since 1999 both in users and revenue. The industry generated over $50 million in revenue in the first quarter of 2002, 550% year over year growth3. This growth has been so fast and successful that many of the Internet companies that survived the crash have turned to dating services for additional revenue and profitability4. This explosive growth and several of the industrys other characteristics are reminiscent of other technologies or innovations. The fax machine, VCR, and the Internet itself have all followed similar growth curves5. What online dating has in common with these sites is that they are all examples of networked products or services where each additional user increases the overall value of the good to all the other users. The following report provides an overview of the online dating industry and its recent growth. It then examines the characteristics of networks and whether these apply to the online dating. Based on these characteristics, it models an explanation for its recent growth and attempts to explain any potential shift in attitudes towards online dating. Finally, this report looks at the competition between services and the likely affect this will have on consumers utility, prices, the services themselves and societal welfare as a whole. The following section provides an overview of what online dating sites are, the major players, industry size and business models to establish a basis for comparing this industry to the characteristics of networked industries. Online dating services are simply websites that carry a database of singles for other singles to search. Typically users can visit the site and search based on sex, age and often certain characteristics of their profile, for example: I am a male seeking a female aged 18 to 24 in Toronto, ON. Only show ads with pictures. [insert screen shots here] From here visitors view a list of matching profiles and can click through on any of these to view the full profile. The full profile can contain one or multiple pictures, various stats on the user (age, sex, body type, sexual or religious orientation) as well as an opening headline, description and clever answers to profile questions. Registered users can then make contact with the user, usually through a messaging or chat system within the site and if the match is successful the relationship moves off of the site into the real world. Online dating services are big business. The online personals industry generated $53. 1 million in revenue in the first quarter of this year. That number is over 5 1/2 times the $8. 1 million total for that period in 2001. That number will likely continue to grow substantially this year once industry wide figures are available. Revenue at the leading service Match. com more than doubled in the third quarter of 2002 to $33. 4 million and this is a company with less than one third of the market. Nearly 34 million people visit personals sites each year6. The industry is dominated by two major players. Match. com is the biggest site with nearly 6 million visitors per month while Yahoo, at 3. 4 million, is the second most popular site, leveraging its large population of web directory and email users7. Following well behind these two are a dozen or so fairly evenly trafficked sites (see chart: Major Players in Online Dating). The business models for most of these sites are some combination of free and paid access. For all the sites browsing the ads is free. However users have to register and pay between $20 and $25 in order to post ads or respond to ads or both. Over 93% of online dating subscription prices are in the $5-50 range8. Both Match. com and Yahoo charge to post an ad and respond to ads. Lavalife (the 10th most trafficked site) is free to post ads but requires users buy credits in order to contact other users. Overall 98% of purchases at online dating sites are subscriptions. 54% of those subscriptions are monthly, 22% annual. The user population of online dating sites is about 60% male, 40% female9. The ages of users range from 18 to 80 with the largest percentage (32%) between 35 and 44 years of age. Followed by 24% for 25-35 year olds, 22% for 45-54 year olds and 11% each amongst 18 to 24 year olds and those 55 and over (see graph: age distribution)10. The fastest growing segment appears to be the 18-30 space. In the first quarter of 2002, fully half of the new users of Match. com have been under 3011. This suggests that dating sites are no longer just for the desperate, those over 35 and still single, but have become another source for those with time and looks on their side to accelerate their dating or improve their dating efficiency. 5 Online Dating Growth While spending on online content as a whole has increased, no category has increased more than online dating (see graph: Quarterly Growth of Consumer Spending by Category of Online Content). While the other categories such as business content and research have experienced steady linear growth, the growth curve for online dating is an exponential curve. Not only is it growing but the rate of growth quarter over quarter is also increasing. At its current rate by the time numbers are available for the rest of 2002 it will exceed business spending as the largest category of online spending. It is also the only category of online content that has significant consumption externalities. When purchasing any of business content, research, single player games, news, credit help, sports or online greeting cards, the number of other users of the product does not play more than a minor role in the purchasing decision. There is also plenty of room for the industry to grow in both revenue and users. Soon these services will have video chat capabilities12. People will overcome a lot of their negative perceptions of the practice as the number of users increase and many of these primarily US-based services will begin to expand internationally. Many products are not useful without a complementary product. Portable CD players are useless without headphones, and DVD players require DVDs to play. This is one of the factors that separate network goods from goods such as an apple which can be consumed by itself. Arguably online dating services could be the required complementary product to the Internet. With an Internet connection one needs content to look at, and certainly users of online dating services are required to have an Internet connection, so there is some complementarity here but this connection is somewhat weak. While CDs are needed for a CD player to be useful at all, dating services are not a requirement for the Internet to be useful. Further, even with the rapid growth in online personals, it still lags Internet growth and coverage so significantly that for at least the next little while the overall growth of the Internet will have a negligible effect on online dating when compared to the growth it will experience from existing Internet users. With the requirement many networked goods have for complementary products comes the need for compatibility and standards. The benefits of making goods compatible with others are clear. Consumers can benefit by being able to choose from a number of headphone choices knowing that for the most part (except on airplanes) these headphones will plug into their CD player, stereo, and computer. From a headphone manufacturers perspective it is far cheaper to build for a standard jack than specifically for every device. While there is not a single standard that all online dating services are based on to the point where a profile or other stored information from one service can be seamlessly transferred to any other, several competing platforms are starting to emerge. Nerve. com, after the rapid growth of the personals section of its website, spun the service off into a separate company, Springstreet Networks, which provides a standardized shared match making service for other content providers such as salon. com, bust, boston. com and others14. Match. coms database is shared with licensees including msn. com, nytimes. com and villagevoice. com to name a few. Relationship Exchange is another network that powers the personals services behind. cupidjunction. com, and personals. canada. com amongst others. Even some of the smaller dating sites like people2people. com are licensing their databases to online newspaper sites like sfgate. com. The competition is not necessarily amongst the dating sites themselves but the networks they supply and pull from. However, Yahoo Personals is independent and not licensed to other parties. It is banking on its existing position as the top website on the Internet15 and its large pool of users of its other tools to provide a large enough pool of users. Lavalife also has its own proprietary system and is banking on its unique features and credit based rather than subscription based system. While Yahoo and Lavalife are staunchly independent, the advantages to smaller sites are obvious. A personals site is only as valuable as its pool of profiles that match the user. If the user is unable to find people with the same interests, geography and whatever other characteristics determine a match, the user will not subscribe to the site for very long, nor be enticed to subscribe in order to contact a matching user. The larger the pool of people, the better the selection of people that may match, the more likely the user is to subscribe or purchase credits. 6. 3 Consumption Externalities The increase in value with an increase in users is the fourth characteristic of networked industries: consumption externalities. If there is one heterosexual person of each gender on one of these sites the possible number of connections is only one. However with five people of each gender the number of possible connections is 25. With 100 males and 100 females the number of possible connections is 10,000. Thus the total value of the network, as measured by the number of possible connections, increases by Vn = nm x nf where n is the number of users and m and f indicate male and female respectively.