Secret of Greatness Essay Example for Free

Secret of Greatness Essay Hard Work and Opportunity Gets You Further Than Natural Talent â€Å"Talent is cheaper than table salt. What separates the talented individual from the successful one is a lot of hard work.† ― Stephen King. Hard work and dedication is what will get you to the top. A person can have all the talents in the world but that can only get you so far. If you do not have the drive, determination, and dedication to succeed in whatever you do you will not succeed or conquer it as you would if you had put in the hard work to get better. Talent is overrated and overreacted. It is something that you are born with not something you have actually worked toward. The quote by Stephen King explains a lot it tells us that not only is talent cheap or something that is not worked for but it tells us that it is given and also it tells us what separates a talented individual from success is hard work which is something not given at all. Hard work is something you have to want for yourself and you have to go after it with everything you have to succeed. Also in the book â€Å"Outliers† it is said that working hard and practicing will get you further than sheer talent and that if you practice 10,000 hours you will be excellent at your sport or activity. The main thing that I took from this was work ethic, because in order for you to be excellent at something or the best you have to have a great work ethic which brings success. Take Tiger Woods for instance. He was a born winner right? Ever since Tiger was three years of age he had a golf club in his hands. He had competed many times and made a great impact at the professional level. But Tiger may have never got to the professional level if he had not worked. Ever since being a child to an adult he had worked toward his profession critiquing his skill making himself the athlete he is today. At a young age also Tigers father had instilled Tiger with a great deal of discipline which Tiger had carried with him as he worked toward his profession and devoted hours and hours into hard work in dedication. Through his use of discipline and hard work he had to remake his swing twice but he knew in order to be the best he would have to do so. A person that works hard is respected and looked up to because of the time he or she devotes to be the best. A person  that takes talent for granted and does not work hard is looked down upon. Talent is something that people are born with but if you do not take the opportunity to get better then you will not be the best. Opportunity is such a big word because it gives you the chance to succeed or be the best when we talk about hard work increasing your talent. Michael Jordan which is one of the best basketball players to ever live, but he may have never been the best player to ever live if it was not for opportunity and hard work. Michael Jordan was placed on the junior-varsity team at Laney High school in Wilmington N.C from the misrepresentation of his former coach Clifton â€Å"pop† Herring. Coach Herring had made this decision because most of the upperclassmen were guaranteed there starting positions on the varsity squad. At the time underclassmen hardly had played but Coach herring had made an exception for Michael`s fellow teammate Leroy Smith who had stood 6`7 and had made the varsity team. Even though Michael did not make the Varsity team he continued to ball out on his Junior Varsity team and make the best of it. However Over the summer he grew four inches taller and had worked hard t oward his goal to make his high school basketball team. His junior year, Michael had an opportunity to make the team and not to give up on his goal and that’s exactly what he did. Because of Jordan`s opportunity to strive for his goal to be the best, he had gone on to be known as one of the best players to ever step upon the court. I understand that people may say. â€Å"Well if the talent is there, why should I work?† And that in some sports it is kind of about talent more than work, but what I am arguing is that hard work and dedication will get you further than natural talent does. The outcome of a talented individual succeeding more than the hardworking individual in not as great as a hardworking individual succeeding over a natural born talented athlete or talented individual of any kind. In life you have to work hard to be at the top. Many people who sit back and rely on their natural abilities tend to pay the price because they never had that drive, determination, and work ethic. Many athletes are gifted in many ways and have lots of talent but they tend to lose sight of what is important and that is the hard work that you put in. Many of us are faced with many struggles in our lives but in order to overcome our struggles we have to be prepared to work hard and go after what we want. Things in life are not going to be given to you and people that use their natural ability and never  work hard tend to experience many struggles because they have no preparation to conquer the task at hand. Take Bill Gates for instance a money making machine who started out as just an intelligent, ambitious, and determined kid that had been known as the smartest kid on campus. Bill Gates talent was his broad spectrum of knowledge. As a kid he was enrolled in a private school for his outstanding efforts in the classroom. Bill then was introduced to computers and began to take a huge interest in technology. Since then Bill had lived on computers, working on them and spending many strenuous hours critiquing his skill. He then was put in a programmer`s group, they found a new way to apply their computer skill at the University of Washington. In the next year, they got their first opportunity in Information Sciences Inc, in which they were selected as programmers. They were allowed free computer time for exchange to work on a piece of software that could be used to automate company payrolls. Bill had spent twenty to thirty hours a week on computers or more. This opportunity got Bill prepared and made him even more focused on his goal in life. Bill had a talent but it all goes back to his work ethic. He constantly worked hard and put up lots of hours in order to now be one of the richest men in America and he still is working and striving for even more money. We can all be like Michael Jordan or Bill Gates but we have to recognize the opportunities which are given and take full advantage of each and every opportunity and use each opportunity to strive for better. Believing that hard work will get you further then natural talent. Remembering that by working hard and putting forth one hundred percent in whatever you do you will be prepared and ready for what’s in your way ahead. By preparing yourself you will not have to pay the price of failing because of going off of natural born talent all along. Remember no one looks up to a person that doesn’t work for what God has given them, people look up to ones that strive to be the best by putting in the blood, sweat, and tears to succeed at their goals. Work Cited Colvin, Geoffrey. Secret of Greatness. 19 10 2006: n. page Golliver, Ben. High school coach: I never cut Michael Jordan. CNN.Sports, 10 January 2012. Web. 15 Nov. 2013. . Gladwell, Malcolm. Outliers, the Story of Success. Little, Brown Company

Fast PLants :: essays research papers

How Tall can Your Fast Plant Grow? Procedure: During the fast plant life cycle many things were taken into account. The plants all started out as a seed. Data was collected every Tuesday and Thursday after class. The kind of quantitative data that was collected was the height of each plant on the days that we would go in and check them. The qualitative data that was collected was our drawings of the plants. We were able to add details to the pictures. The purpose of this experiment was to be able to view the complete life cycle of an organism. All of the plants that we used in the experiments were F2’s . Analysis: The germination took place within the first 3 days of planting the seeds. It was noticed that in the time frame of the 3rd and 5th day the cotyledons became visible. The first true leaves made their appearance right around the 10th day. The days surrounding the 13th day lead to flower buds actually forming and showing up. The plants were starting to get flimsy so on day 17 we added stakes to support the young plants. Our first flowers started to bloom around the 27th day. They were yellow and petite. Pollination took place a day later. We cut the wings and heads off of the bee and glued it to a toothpick. We then gently brushed the bee over the flowers to help the pollination procedure. After all of the pollination was done, seed pods started to develop 30 days after the initial planting. The plants stayed healthy for a couple more days after this. It was around day 36 that the plants started drying up and dying. It was time for the plants to be harvested for their seeds th ey had produced. While working with our plant it was exciting to look around and see how other plants were coming along. I like to think that our plants were in the top percentile of successful plants. They grew up fast and tall while others seem to take a while to get the same height. Weekly growth seemed to be exceptional. It seemed like every Tuesday that I came in to check my plants they had grown so much over the weekend. Some occasions the plants would grow as much as 4 centimeters just over the weekend. Of the four plants that we had remaining at the end of the experiment, two were hairy.

Bartolomeu Dias Biography Essay

Why on earth would a person sail around the southernmost tip of Africa without modern sailing technology such as GPS? Bartolomeu Dias was such a person to accomplish his great voyage around the Cape of Good Hope. He was born in Portugal around 1450 and was a Portuguese navigator and explorer and was known as the first European who sailed around the southernmost tip of Africa and reached the Cape of Good Hope. Bartolomeu Dias’ achievement had ultimately led to expansion of trade routes and the foundation Portuguese Empire. He came from a Portuguese noble family and his father was a member of a Portuguese court (Alchin). When he grew up, he also became a member of the royal Portuguese court like his father. Some people believed that his descendants were seamen and explorers. When Bartolomeu Dias was young, he could receive high-level education compared to other ordinary people. He also leant many languages, physics, geometry, mathematics, and astronomy. The privileged childhood that he led, such as environment that he was in and the education that he received allowed him to be well-educated and be able to sail around the world. Despite his cleverness, his navigational and sailing skill was extremely high and later he became the sailing-master of the man-of-war which was British Royal Navy description for a strong warship. Through years of voyage, Bartolomeu Dias discovered the sea route around Africa and his voyage lead to the foundation of Portuguese Empire which helped to make the trade between Africa and Asia increase. Motivation Bortolomeu Dias is a well known Portuguese navigator who is the first to travel around the southern tip of Africa and name it the Cape of Good Hope. He comes from a noble family, so he can have much support even if the country didn’t support him. Dias’ family is not only rich, but also much of his relatives have seagoing background. Since he comes from a noble family, he was well-educated. During his education, he learned about math, physics, and astronomy. In addition, because of his relatives, he also has experience of navigation and exploration (Loon Lake). In 1487, he was chosen by Portuguese King John 2 to go and explore a path to the Indian Ocean through the southern tip of Africa (LLC). During the period of time which Dias live in, Portuguese, Spanish, and other European countries are trying to discover more about the world and find different ways to get to other countries to expand their colonies. To compete with other empires, the kings will send an intelligent and reliable explorer to be the sea captain who is able to lead the crews on the voyage. The Portuguese King selected Dias on the voyage because of his background. Dias was a superintendent of the royal warehouse (Hartig, Otto), so the king knows about much about his background. Because of his educational background, he is able to use his knowledge of astronomy and his navigation skills in the voyage to correctly sail on the Atlantic Ocean without getting to the wrong place or getting lost at the ocean. Dias became a successful explorer who brought glory to his home country because of his omni-directional knowledge. His attitudes toward study enable him to complete the mission. If he didn’t work this hard, how could they find their destination accurately? How can Dias open the road for Gama? Details of Adventure Most records of Bartolomeu Dias’s early voyages have been lost from time to time. There are, however, three of his voyages that are currently known to historians, including his journey on a war ship in around 1481 (wikipedia), his voyage to the Cape of Good Hopes, and his last exploration as an advisor for Vasco Da Gama, in which he and his fellow sailers were tragically killed in a storm. Bartolomeu’s most famous exploration is his second trip, which brought Europeans to the southernmost tip of Africa for the first time. The crewed sailed off from the port of Lisbon in Portugal in 1487 (biography. om). At first Bartolomeu followed the map created by Diogo Cao, another portugese explorer. Bartolomeu brought with him the standard padroes for staking territories for Spain and marking coasts for later explorations (biography. com). On February 3, 1488, Bartolomeu’s crew landed on the Sao Brass, modern day Mossel Bay. There, they encountered an extremely hostile local tribe, who threw stones at the ships until the Portugese shot dead one of their tribesmen. As they sailed further along the southern coast of Africa, Bartolomeu’s crew started to fear because their food supply is running low. They want to end the exploration immediately and travel back to Andra Do Salto, where they left 15 men to watch over their food supply. Bartolomeu convinced his sailers to give him three more days before heading back. They finally stopped at Kwaaihoek, where they planted a padroe and headed back toward Portugal. On their way back, Bartolomeu Dias named the second cape they encountered Cape of Storms, which later became the Cape of Good Hopes. After 15 months of travel, they covered over 16,000 miles and arrived at Lisbon in 1488 (Alchin). 7 men died on this historical journey. Bartolomeu’s crew brought tons of jewelries with them on this trip and traded for ivory along the African coast (BBC News). The Impact of Voyages Batrolomeu Dias is the Portuguese explorer who rounded Africa’s southern tip, then sailed up part of Africa’s east coast before returning home. [World History 544] Also, he discovered Brazil, which later becomes a very important place for mining gold, silver and trading raw materials. Because he discovered the route that rounds Africa, Vasco da Gama was able to round the Africa and found the Spice Islands, or now days Philippines. Philippines gave Portuguese large amounts of spices, and also, they could hold a great power in trade with Asia. The reason they could hold that much power is because they found the route to Asia. And at that time, Portuguese was the only country who knew the trade route toward Asia. And Bartolomeu’s voyage helped Vasco da Gama to find his route to Africa. So, Bartolomeu’s voyage had an impact on Vasco da Gama’s voyage, and da Gama’s voyage had a huge impact on Portuguese’s trading and economy. Overall, Bartolomeu’s voyage had an impact on Portuguese’s trading and economy. Also, â€Å"his trip contributed to the establishment of the Portuguese Empire in the begining of the 16th century, that would lead to an increase in trade in Africa and Asia with Portugal. He appears in the Portuguese bills of 2,000 shields. † [theageofdiscovery – Bartolomeu Dias]. Usually, a great person who is respected by people, and who contributed for the country a lot will appear on the bills of the country. So, appearing on the bill prove that Bartolomeu Dias had a huge impact on Portugal’s history.

Generating Random Numbers in Java

Generating a series of random numbers is one of those common tasks that crop up from time to time. In Java, it can be achieved simply by using the java.util.Random class. The first step, as with the use of any API class, is to put the import statement before the start of your program class: Next, create a Random object: The Random object provides you with a simple random number generator. The methods of the object give the ability to pick random numbers. For example, the nextInt() and nextLong() methods will return a number that is within the range of values (negative and positive) of the int and long data types respectively: The numbers returned will be randomly chosen int and long values: Picking Random Numbers From a Certain Range Normally the random numbers to be generated need to be from a certain range (e.g., between 1 to 40 inclusively). For this purpose, the nextInt() method can also accept an int parameter. It denotes the upper limit for the range of numbers. However, the upper limit number is not included as one of the numbers that can be picked. That might sound confusing but the nextInt() method works from zero upwards. For example: will only pick a random number from 0 to 39 inclusively. To pick from a range that starts with 1, simply add 1 to the result of the nextInt() method. For example, to pick a number between 1 to 40 inclusively add one to the result: If the range starts from a higher number than one you will need to: minus the starting number from the upper limit number and then add one.add the starting number to the result of the nextInt() method. For example, to pick a number from 5 to 35 inclusively, the upper limit number will be 35-5131 and 5 needs to be added to the result: Just How Random Is the Random Class? I should point out that the Random class generates random numbers in a deterministic way. The algorithm that produces the randomness is based on a number called a seed. If the seed number is known then its possible to figure out the numbers that are going to be produced from the algorithm. To prove this Ill use the numbers from the date that Neil Armstrong first stepped on the Moon as my seed number (20th July 1969) :​ No matter who runs this code the sequence of random numbers produced will be: By default the seed number that is used by: is the current time in milliseconds since January 1, 1970. Normally this will produce sufficiently random numbers for most purposes. However, note that two random number generators created within the same millisecond will generate the same random numbers. Also be careful when using the Random class for any application that must have a secure random number generator (e.g., a gambling program). It might be possible to guess the seed number based on the time the application is running. Generally, for applications where the random numbers are absolutely critical, its best to find an alternative to the Random object. For most applications where there just needs to be a certain random element (e.g., dice for a board game) then it works fine.