Gatacca essays

Gatacca essays The movie Gattaca is made up of ideas of human spirit and perfection. The society where everyone wants to be perfect. Made men in the world of Gattaca are taught from the beginning of their lives what they have been designed to achieve, they know their expectations and they know their limitations. Jerome is one of the example. Jerome is a perfect baby genetically born. He is a perfect man and couldnt face fall but through the movie, Jerome has proven that he is not a coward and he has redeeming qualities. By meeting Vincent, the invalid or born by love, with clear ambitions and goals, which nobody think he could success. from a young age I came to think of myself as others thought of me, chronically ill, Jerome is given the chance to experience something new and different, the ability to dream about what could be. He shares every part of Vincents transformation into a valid. This includes blood, hair, skin and urine and part where they can take sample from, and helped Vincent to change into a valid, and possible in achieving his dream. Jerome get the chance to learn about the hope of doing something thought impossible, however Jerome got the chance to experience this achievement through Vincents dream. It is the chance to experience something different that makes Jerome think that he got the better end of the deal. After coming second in the swimming race Jerome gave up all he had achieved, feeling his life was useless and not worth living. This lack of motivation was brought up by the society in Gattaca where everyone is going after the perfection they pursue. Everyone wants the best for their babies. Jerome he was told that due to his score of 9.3 he was able to achieve anything, He was genetically born to be champion swimmer. This causes the result that he couldnt take that fact of failure. The burden of perfection and the failing made Eugene attempt to take his own life. I ...

Exercise in Building and Connecting Sentences

Exercise in Building and Connecting Sentences This exercise will give you a chance to practice condensing and combining sentences using transitional words or phrases.  Combine the sentences in each set into two clear sentences. Add a transitional word or phrase to the second sentence to show how it relates to the first. Heres an example: Retirement should be the reward for a lifetime of work.It is widely viewed as a sort of punishment.It is a punishment for growing old.Sample Combination:Retirement should be the reward for a lifetime of work. Instead, it is widely viewed as a sort of punishment for growing old. When you are done, compare your sentences with the sample combinations  below. Exercise: Building and Connecting Sentences With Transitional Words and Phrases To be self-centered does not mean to disregard the worth of other people.We are all self-centered.Most psychologists would probably accept this position.There are differences in math performance between boys and girls.These differences cannot be attributed simply to differences in innate ability.If one were to ask the children themselves, they would probably disagree.We do not seek solitude.If we find ourselves alone for once, we flick a switch.We invite the whole world in.The world comes in through the TV or Internet.Little girls, of course, dont take toy guns out of their hip pockets.They do not say Pow, pow to all their neighbors and friends.The average well-adjusted little boy does this.If we gave little girls the six-shooters, we would soon have double the body count.We know very little about pain.What we dont know makes it hurt all the more.There is ignorance about pain.No form of illiteracy in the United States is so widespread.No form of illiteracy in the United States is so costly. We drove the wagon close to a corner post.We twisted the end of the wire around it.We twisted the wire one foot above the ground.We stapled it fast.We drove along the line of posts.We drove for about 200 yards.We unreeled the wire on the ground behind us.The historical sciences have made us very conscious of our past.They have made us conscious of the world as a machine.The machine generates successive events out of foregoing ones.Some scholars tend to look totally backward.They look backward in their interpretation of the human future.Rewriting is something that most writers find they have to do.They rewrite to discover what they have to say.They rewrite to discover how to say it.There are a few writers who do little formal rewriting.They have capacity and experience.They create and review a large number of invisible drafts.They create and review in their minds.They do this before they approach the page. When you are done, compare your sentences with the sample combinations below. Sample Combinations To be self-centered does not mean to disregard the worth of other people.  In fact,  most psychologists would probably accept the position that we are  all  self-centered.The differences in math performance between boys and girls cannot be attributed simply to differences in innate ability.  Still,  if one were to ask the children themselves, they would probably disagree.We do not seek solitude.  In fact,  if we find ourselves alone for once we flick a switch and invite the whole world in through the TV or  Internet.Little girls, of course, dont take toy guns out of their hip pockets and say Pow, pow to all their neighbors and friends like average well-adjusted little boys.  However,  if we gave little girls the six-shooters, we would soon have double the body count.(Anne Roiphe, Confessions of a Female Chauvinist Sow)We know very little about pain and what we dont know makes it hurt all the more.  Indeed,  no form of illiteracy in the United States is so wi despread or costly as ignorance about pain.(Norman Cousins, Pain Is Not the Ultimate Enemy) We drove the wagon close to a corner post, twisted the end of the wire around it one foot above the ground, and stapled it fast.  Next,  we drove along the line of posts for about 200 yards, unreeling wire on the ground behind us.(John Fischer, Barbed Wire)The historical sciences have made us very conscious of our past, and of the world as a machine generating successive events out of foregoing ones.  For this reason,  some scholars tend to look totally backward in their interpretation of the human future.(Loren Eiseley,  The Unexpected Universe)Rewriting is something that most writers find they have to do to discover what they have to say and how to say it. There are,  however,  a few writers who do little formal rewriting because they have the capacity and experience to create and review a large number of invisible drafts in their minds before they approach the page.(Donald M. Murray, The Makers Eye: Revising Your Own Manuscripts)

Procurement and Purchasing Strategies(Critique) Essay

Procurement and Purchasing Strategies(Critique) - Essay Example In this paper, this concept will be discussed in detail considering three scholarly articles in order to know what benefits does outsourcing provide to companies and what concerns companies usually have in deciding whether they should outsource the procurement process or not. Discussion The articles chosen for this discussion included ‘The Make-or-Buy Decision in the Presence of a Rival: Strategic Outsourcing to a Common Supplier’ by Arya, Mittendorf and Sappington, ‘The procurement function’s role in strategic outsourcing from a process perspective’ by Carter and Yan, and ‘Strategic procurement outsourcing: a paradox in current theory’ by Fernandez and Kekale. The main concept behind all of these articles is that outsourcing is basic need of today for companies to operate efficiently. For example, Carter and Yan (2007, p. 210) state that there are many benefits of adopting this approach some of which include reduced costs, improved compe titiveness, and increased focus on other business processes. Some more benefits of outsourcing the procurement function to external sources include improvement in efficiency levels and reduced transaction costs (Fernandez & Kekale 2007, p. 168). Procurement outsourcing also provides strategic benefits to companies (Arya, Mittendorf & Sappington 2008, p. 1749). Moreover, Fernandez and Kekale (2007, p. 168) also found that reduced cost is a very significant benefit of procurement outsourcing if we consider the increased percentage of external goods and services purchases. Fernandez and Kekale (2007, p. 168) also found that a company outsourcing its procurement functions can achieve at least five times more saving as compared to the savings that achieve from outsourcing other processes, such as, HR activities and financial operations. This figure suggests that procurement outsourcing is really a very beneficial aspect of doing business in the modern world where the competition is conti nuously increasing with every passing day. However, companies usually have some concerns regarding outsourcing their procurement functions to external sources. For example, managers of such companies feel that they will become dependent on other firms if they completely outsource the procurement function. They also feel that this approach will lead to downsizing ion their firms which will out a negative impact on the careers of many employees working for purchasing and procurement department. Manager also have other concerns like what they should actually outsource, whom should they outsource their procurement function, and whether outsourcing to a common supplier in presence of competitors will be a viable option or not (Carter & Yan 2007; Arya, Mittendorf & Sappington 2008). Some managers think that if they outsource their procurement function to a supplier which is also serving some of its competitors, it will increase the cost because of monopolistic power of the supplier. Howev er, in actual, there is no such case and the monopolistic input supplier serves all clients equally (Arya, Mittendorf & Sappington 2008, p. 1747). According to Cohen and Roussel (2005), the purpose of outsourcing is to add value to suppliers while reducing business costs. Procurement means to acquire those goods and services which a company needs to have for completing its manufacturing processes. If these goods and servi

Management Accounting 3 Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 1000 words

Management Accounting 3 - Essay Example Developed by Dr. Robert Kaplan of Harvard Business School and David Norton as a performance measuring framework which could have the capability to take into account the strategic vision and goals of the organization. It is also viewed as value methodology besides being considered cost benefit analysis tool however it is also being labeled as something which can help organizations to change value culture as well as improving operational efficiency and profitability of the organization. (Gumbus and Lussier). The need for developing a balanced score card emerges because though companies are good at developing the glossy mission and vision statements however they fail to develop operational strategies which can help achieve organizations those strategic goals and due to the lack of ability of the organizations to effectively measure whether they are achieving their strategic goals, and targets, organizations found Balanced Score card a very effective tool to measure and monitor their per formance against their strategic goals. Since a balanced score card connect various components of the organizational strategy making such as organizational resources, customers, people, operations, finance and the community also therefore Balanced Score Card is a very comprehensive strategic tool to manage above all. This essay will look into some of the key performance areas which a balanced score card look into and will review their usefulness in achieving the strategic goals within the context of a service organization. Balanced score card have evolved from being a simple performance measuring tool to one of the highly used strategic management tools organization could ever have. It tends to associate the non-financial aspects of the performance with the financial aspects and presents a broader and deeper view of the organizational performance and its relevance to the overall organizational strategy. Rather than being simply used as a performance measurement tool, it

Making Decisions Based on Demand and Forecasting Essay Example for Free

Making Decisions Based on Demand and Forecasting Essay 1.Report the demographic and independent variables that are relevant to complete a demand analysis providing a rationale for the selection of the variables. (Independent variables are the variables that have effect on the demand of Pizza). List 5 and explain the effect of each of them on the demand of Domino’s Pizza. I currently reside in Allentown, Pennsylvania, which has a current population, based off of the 2010 Census data, of 118,032 people. The large amount of people that reside in the 18 square mile city, which is the third largest in the state, allows for huge competition amongst the local chain and privately owned pizza restaurants. Within the city limits of Allentown, Pennsylvania, there are 3 Domino’s pizza restaurants within 13.2 miles of each other. The average median income per household is $49,025 and $37,356 per family. This can affect the demand of pizza based on the price of the pizzas being sold. The lower the income of a family is, the lesser the chances they will purchase take-out or fast food. Typically, families that are on a fixed or smaller income will live on a budget and normally that does not include the luxury of eating out. Looking at the price of various Domino’s Pizza, Pizza Hut and various local pizza restaurants, the average cost of a large, plain cheese pizza pie is $10.42. While this may be a good price to some, families with a higher number of members may not be willing to pay $10+ per pizza due to the fact that they most likely have to purchase in multiple quantities. 15 percent of the Allentown, Pennsylvania population get around by means of transportation other than a car, therefore a pizza restaurant offering delivery services will be a benefit to those not able to pick their pizza up. The local average fee for pizza delivery is $2.00, based off of two of the large chain pizza restaurants delivery fees. The local privately owned pizza restaurants do not charge a delivery fee, which is a greater demand for those residents looking to spend the least amount of money on their pizza lunch or dinner. Many pizza restaurants offer various pizza order specials, such as 2 large plain pies for $19.99. While that is a great offer, the larger chain pizza restaurants such as Domino’s and Pizza Hut offer various specials like a large pizza for 8.00 or a large 3-topping pizza for $7.99. The only disadvantage of these specials is that the pizzas vary in their large size from restaurant to restaurant. 2.Find the price elasticity of demand for Pizza online. Is it elastic, unit elastic, or inelastic? Explain how the price elasticity of demand can affect your decision to open the pizza store and your pricing policies? Price elasticity of demand is defined as â€Å"the ratio of the percentage change in quantity demanded to the percentage change in price, assuming that all other factors influencing demand remain unchanged† (McGuigan, 2011, pg. 70). With the average cost of pizza in Allentown, Pennsylvania being $10.42, it is still a very high demand product. If the price of pizza were to go up, the demand for pizza may drop slightly, making the demand in price insensitive. There are certain determinants that will affect the price elasticity such as disposable income and the prices of competitors’ products these cannot be controlled by the firm. Determinants that can affect the price elasticity of pizza that can be controlled by the firm are price, advertising, product qua lity and customer service (McGuigan, 2011, p. 69). The price elasticity demand for pizza is and will most likely always be inelastic, because even though the cost of the ingredients to make pizzas may increase and decrease, pizza is a very popular product and will always be in high demand. Being a part of the Domino’s Pizza franchise, offering the various weekly and monthly specials will guarantee that the demand for pizza will not decline by a huge rate should the need to increase pricing arises. This will not affect my decision to open a Domino’s Pizza franchise, I am confident that the demand for pizza will only slightly decrease if economic reasons forces pricing to rise. My pricing policies will always be in line with Domino’s corporate structure, therefore being able to offer special deals on pizzas will counter balance the rise on individual pizza pies. 3.Explain the cross price elasticity. List 3 goods that you consider substitute to pizza in your area. How do they affect your decisions? (opening the store and pricing policy) Cross price elasticity is defined as â€Å"the ratio of the percentage change in the quantity demanded of Good A to the percentage change in the price of Good B, assuming that all other factors influencing demand remain unchanged† (McGuigan et al, 2011, pg. 87). If the price of pizza’s rises and the demand decreases by a certain percentage then this causes the need for pizza boxes will decline. This will be considered a negative cross price elasticity, and the two goods are complementary. On the other hand, if the price of pizza increases, and the demand for an alternative product increases, then this is considered substitutes, and the cross price elasticity is positive. Some substitutes for pizza in the event the price rises could be Subway sandwich platters, KFC family bucket meals, and Chinese food platters. Families buy pizza because of the large quantity for a cheap price, but if the prices were to increase, then these same families may look for similar alternatives that will not empty their wallets. These are possible alternatives that offer a large quantity of food at a reasonable price that can affect the demand of pizza. However, monitoring the costs of the competing fast food restaurants in the Allentown, Pennsylvania area will allow Domino’s to offer certain specials and pizza deals to the community that can keep their demand at a high rate. 4.Explain how you will forecast the demand for pizza in your community for the next four (4) months, using the regression equation including the assumptions that were used. Justify the assumptions made related to the forecast. 5.Based on the forecasting demand, price elasticity, and cross price elasticity discuss whether Dominos should establish a restaurant in your community. Provide a rationale and support for the decision. Establishing another Domino’s Pizza restaurant in the Allentown, Pennsylvania area will be a good idea because there is a true demand for pizzas. Referring to the price elasticity and the cross price elasticity, the positive outweighs the negative sides of supply and demand. Whether or not the price of pizzas goes up, the demand will always be sufficient enough to warrant the decision to open up a new restaurant. The price elasticity is inelastic because if and when the price of pizza increases, the demand for it will not be greatly affected. Domino’s Pizza’s financials for first quarter 2013 were released and the pizza giant had revenues up 8.6% from Q1 2012, and their net income was up 65.9% for the same period in 2012 (Dominos.com, 2013). This proves that even during the decline in the economy, the demand for pizza stays at the top. Domino’s Pizza sells more than one million pizzas daily, it is safe to assume that opening a new Domino’s in the Allentown area will not be a bad decision.

Rock Music and Creativity :: Creative Creativity Essays

Rock Music and Creativity As the reader may verify by looking at my name, I originate from Cyprus, a Greek island in the Mediterranean Sea. As I grew up in a Greek environment, Greek music predominated in my listenings with a glimpse of classical music added when my studies in the piano encouraged it. My short stay in the States has, apart from many other things, introduced me to rock music. According to Google.com, "rock 'n' roll can be defined as a genre of popular music originating in the 1950s; a blend of Black rhythm-and-blues with White country-and-western; rock is a generic term that evolved out of rock 'n' roll." The purpose of this essay is not, however, to provide an analysis on rock music. I know I have much to learn, many hours of listening to be able to be considered a `rock fan'. Nevertheless, rock provides a perfect example where Margaret Boden's three domains of creativity appear explicitly. Margaret Boden, Dean of School of Cognitive and Computing Sciences and professor of philosophy and psychology at the University of Sussex, has written many essays on creativity. In The Creative Priority she divides creativity into three main branches. The first involves `making unfamiliar combinations of familiar ideas', new ways to join already existing ideas in order to generate a completely novel creation, be it a poem, a painting or a scientific invention. The `exploration of conceptual spaces', searching for possibilities in an area that no one has thought about before and realizing the potential those may have, entails the second branch. Finally, the third includes `transforming conceptual spaces in people's minds', pushing and altering the limits previously imposed to result in the triumph of creation. This classification provides a summary of what various authors have illustrated in their works on the creative process. As the definition of rock music states, rock emerged from the combination of black rhythm-and-blues and white country-and-western. Those two kinds of music prevailed on the music scene since the beginning of the 20th century. Both were familiar to the audiences of the time. What Elvis did that shook the waves and initiated a revolution in music, was to combine those two familiar ideas in an unfamiliar way. The result was a new – for the time – music genre, which as such had a lot to offer and a lot to explore within.

A Study of Warfare in Europe Between 1300 and 1500 Essay

Since the introduction of gunpowder into Europe, it has gone on to dominate warfare into the twentieth century. With the development of the first European guns in the fourteenth century, armies were given use of a weapon which was to radically alter most of the ways of making war which had been established during the Middle Ages, and changes began to be seen within only a few years. It is, however, questionable whether the nature of these early changes constituted a revolution in the methods of war, and even more so whether guns had by 1500 made a great deal of impact on the character of war as it had existed in 1300. In assessing whether a revolution had taken place (or at least whether one was in the process of happening) by 1500, it is necessary to examine three areas: the effectiveness of guns during the period; the extent of their use in conflicts; and finally the changes which resulted from the employment of the new weapons in war. The first reliable sources which assert the existence of guns appeared in the 1320s, and from the late 1330s the number of references to them rose dramatically. The early guns were of large calibre and used almost exclusively for sieges, although as early as Crà ©cy in 1346, the English â€Å"fired off some cannons which they had brought to the battle to frighten the Genoese.† Guns were made in one of two ways. Firstly, there were cast metal guns, usually of bronze, which were made at the foundry. These were usually the better weapons because they were made of a single piece of metal and therefore were less likely to burst apart on firing. The second method was arranging wrought iron strips into tubes which were then bound together with iron hoops in much the same way as barrels were made. The advantage of these guns was that iron was a much cheaper metal than bronze (but could not be cast), but being made of many pieces faults were more likely to develop, causing either the release of explosive pressure through the sides of the barrel and therefore a reduction in the power of the shot, or even the complete bursting of the gun. This structural weakness was compounded by the inclusion of a detachable breech (such guns were far easier to build) which often detached itself on the discharging of the weapon. Despite their lack of quality, however, iron guns were the more numerous due to their comparative cheapness, although smaller guns tended to be made chiefly from bronze both because of the difficulties of constructing small guns from iron  strips, and because they required less metal than the great bombards. The sizes and types multiplied from their modest beginnings until there were guns ranging in size and type from great bombards used for reducing entire cities, to handguns used as anti-personnel weapons. The early role played by artillery was in sieges, where its effectiveness was soon widely appreciated. â€Å"Broadly speaking, the use of guns meant that sieges could be brought to a conclusion much more quickly.† Cannons, with the ability to throw stones with great force over a flatter trajectory and with more accuracy than the old siege engines, could bring an end to a siege in a few weeks where previously it might have taken several months. In 1437, the castle of Castelnau-de-Cernà ¨s was â€Å"broken down during the said siege by cannon and engines, and a great part of the walls of the same thrown to the ground, so that it was in no way defensible against the king’s enemies.† On occasion, the mere presence of bombards could be enough to induce swift surrender, cities preferring capitulation to large-scale destruction by cannon fire. As artillery was added to armies in increasing amounts during the 1400s, wars became far more fast-moving affairs. The French employed artillery on a large scale in reducing the English fortresses in Normandy and Gascony, while huge, cumbersome bombards were used to good effect by the Spanish in the Reconquista. Such was the effectiveness of artillery by 1500 that Machiavelli could declare that â€Å"No wall exists, however thick, that artillery cannot destroy in a few days.† The successes which the early guns had in siege warfare led to the bombard being a vital part of any country’s armoury. The use of the counterweight trà ©buchet, which had been in existence in Roman times, failed to decline until the 1380s and was still listed as an active weapon in some French arms inventories until the 1460s. This shows the gradual nature of the introduction of gunpowder artillery (perhaps caused by shortages of materials for the cannons or unwillingness to invest in them when a prince already owned trà ©buchets), but there was little doubt that guns were becoming by far the better siege weapons. Their importance gave rise to a kind of ‘arms race’ in France in particular, with cities in the contested areas of the Hundred Years War assigning the acquisition of guns a high  priority. Charles the Bold’s army included a substantial artillery element in his war with the Swiss (although he was perhaps not a good enough general to make effective use of it), while in 1494, Charles VIII invaded Italy with â€Å"†¦an army of 18,000 men and a horse-drawn siege-train of at least forty guns. Even contemporaries realised that this marked a new departure in warfare: in 1498 the Venetian Senate declared that ‘the wars of the present time are influenced more by the force of bombards and artillery than by men at arms’.† Despite their undoubted worth, however, artillery did have a number of disadvantages at this time. Perhaps the main one of these is the chronic difficulty of moving the heavy guns, especially over land. Philip the Good of Burgundy experienced such problems in his war with Ghent in 1452-3: â€Å"Such was the weight of a great bombard which he borrowed from the town of Mons that all the bridges between Mons and Lille had to be strengthened with iron supports for its passage. During the journey, the gun fell into a ditch, and took two days to be extricated by men using lifting equipment specially constructed for the purpose.† Transport was easier by river, but clearly this limited the movement of the artillery. It is partly because of these transport problems that artillery (with the exception of handguns) was used little during open field battles. Particularly when manoeuvring was of critical importance to an army, the last thing a commander would want would be to have to wait for the artillery, which would be slower than the rest of his force, and be unlikely to be able to move away from roads. Due to a lack of enthusiasm for such a cumbersome battlefield weapon, field artillery developed little in the early days of gunpowder, and the large cannons which were used on battlefields tended to be immobile siege guns which had been hastily adapted. Not only did the lack of mobility of cannons cause problems for armies on the march, but it also restricted their usefulness on the battlefield itself. The absence of effective gun carriages meant that artillery tended to be fixed rather than able to be aimed, the guns being mounted on wooden frames or simply positioned on mounds of earth. Their slow rate of fire (not only because of the time taken to load them, but because it took time for the  guns to cool down between shots) and their limited range at this time was another weakness, which led to them being easily overrun. Soldiers could wait at the limit of the guns’ range until the first salvo had been fired, then charge, reaching them well before the next shots could be fired, and disable the guns. The weaknesses of artillery on the battlefield were such that, â€Å"Even during the second half of the fifteenth century cannons were only used occasionally in pitched battles.† Handguns were of more use on the battlefield, having none of the transport problems of the heavy artillery and having a great deal in common with the crossbow, a weapon of proven worth. Like the crossbow, the handgun was a specialised anti-personnel weapon, and was ideal for firing at large exposed masses of soldiers where it could inflict considerable damage. The advantages which handguns had over crossbows was their superior hitting power, (of which Pope Pius II remarked, â€Å"No armour can withstand the blow of this torment, and even oaks are penetrated by it,†) and their relative cheapness due to the simplicity of their construction. As their accuracy improved and the numbers of trained marksmen increased, they came to supersede the crossbows in European armies, but by 1500 this process was by no means complete, the two weapons frequently working side-by-side in battles. While the slow rate of fire of handguns meant they could not stand independently in battle and needed the support of troops armed with close-combat weapons, they became an accepted auxiliary weapon in many armies. Despite the increased use of gunpowder weapons in battle, they were by no means always successful. Superiority in artillery was no guarantee of victory, as Charles the Bold discovered at Grandson and Morat in 1476. At Agincourt, the French gunners were pushed to one side by their own men at arms and played no significant role in the course of the battle. There are, however, examples of the successes of guns in battle, hinting at the success they were to achieve in the future. The Battle of Castillon in 1453 showed the devastating effects of crossfire: â€Å"Talbot imprudently attacked the [French] camp which led to the intervention of the French battery commanded by Giraud de Samian, a highly respected cannoneer. ‘He grievously injured  them because with each shot five or six fell dead to the ground’.† With the increased use of guns, deaths and injuries caused by them came to be recorded in greater number: â€Å"In 1442, John Payntour, an English esquire, was killed by a culverin shot at La Rà ©ole. Four years previously, Don Pedro, brother of the king of Castile, had been decapitated by a gunshot during the siege of the castle of Capuana at Naples†¦In April 1422, one Michael Bouyer, esquire, was languishing in prison at Meaux, ‘gravely ill and mutilated in one of his legs by a cannon shot, in such a way that he cannot aid himself’†¦It was becoming obvious that the gun could not only batter down fortifications, but could kill, and kill selectively from afar.† It is clear that by 1500, guns had come to be an everyday part of European armies. While the use of firearms on the battlefield tended to be limited to handguns, these were gradually replacing the older bows as the main auxiliary shot weapon. Cannons had made a huge impact on the conduct of siege warfare, bringing sieges to an end comparatively swiftly, and becoming indispensable in great armies. Although there were bound to be initial troubles with what was after all a relatively new weapon, notable successes were being recorded, especially in sieges, and the gun was definitely here to stay. To constitute a revolution, though, the growing use of such weapons would have to have changed not only the methods of making war, but also the outcome and the character of conflicts. What, then, were the consequences of the increased use of gunpowder? One of the largest series of changes happened in the area where the new guns were at their most effective, that of siege warfare. The advantages which a defending army could gain by hiding within fortifications had been understood for a long time. During the ‘High Middle Ages’, the war zones of Western Europe had become studded with castles and forts, and wars came to be characterised not by swift manoeuvre and open field battles, but more through long, drawn-out sieges. The failure of an attacking army to take a castle was likely to cause it a great deal of problems. If bypassed by an army, a defending garrison could retake control of the surrounding countryside from its secure central base and conduct raids on the enemy’s army and supplies (especially as fortifications tended to be located at  communications centres). Failure to take a large number of castles could result in their garrisons uniting to form an army capable of defeating the enemy force in the open field. In short, territory could not be conquered without gaining control of the fortifications within it. The effect of the introduction of effective siege guns with the capability of breaching the walls of castles was to bring the advantage in siege warfare away from defence and more towards the attacking force. With guns able to bring about the capitulation of fortresses within a few weeks or even a few days, there was a diminishing prospect of the defending country being able to organise an army in time to relieve the besieged. It would seem that the introduction of cannons had, for a time at least, called into question the efficacy of defence by small, dispersed garrisons defending fortifications. Had the use of siege guns not produced a defensive reaction, it seems possible that the castle could have been made redundant and defensive armies driven to do battle in the open field on equal terms with their adversaries. Attacking innovation, however, did produce defensive reaction, which in turn provoked counter-reaction from besiegers, and this greatly altered the nature of siege warfare during the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries. Guns, of course, were not exclusively weapons of attack. Defensive firearms were an early experiment which had some effect in maintaining some sort of defensability of fortifications in two ways. Firstly, by firing at the besieging army from the castle walls, defensive marksmen and cannoneers could take advantage of the short range of early guns by making it very hard to position bombards close enough to the walls to cause damage. By refusing to give the besieging army the freedom to position guns wherever they liked, the defenders could in this way keep the enemy at ‘arms length’. The second way in which guns could be used to defend fortifications was not to defend the walls from destruction by cannon fire, but to provide crossfire against enemy troops when the time came for them to attempt to storm the castle, a function which crossbows were able to perform, but were of inferior effectiveness and more expensive than handguns. This use of defensive firearms caused changes in the way in which attackers  approached sieges. Guns being fired into the besiegers’ camp necessitated the greater use of cover, in particular for the bombards which were placed nearest to the castle walls for much of the siege. To this end, trenches were dug and wooden shields or hoardings were constructed to protect the soldiers and their guns. Trenches provided some degree of effective protection against most weapons, while the hoardings gave protection to the guns, which usually had to be positioned in more exposed locations in order that they could target the walls before them, against everything but powerful firearms. â€Å"Jean de Bueil could advocate the siting of a besieger’s camp before a beleaguered fortress on the model of the fortified entrenchments dug at Maulà ©on, Guissen, Cherbourg, Dax, and Castillon fifteen years before. Trenches, he wrote, were to be dug from one part of the siege to another, covered by hoardings. Ease of contact and movement between the units of the encircling forces could thus be ensured.† Further success could be gained by the besieging forces by employing not only large bombards to break down the walls, but also smaller guns to pick off individual defending troops. This would not only prevent defensive gunners from having the luxury of completely free shots at their enemies, but would limit the effectiveness of attempts to repair breaches in the walls. The use of guns in both attack and defence produced perhaps the biggest changes in siege warfare in the form of changes to the fortifications themselves. The castles which existed before the widespread use of cannons were ill-suited to withstand the accurate and powerful impact of cannonballs. Trebuchà ©ts had been of more use in lobbing stones over the walls to cause damage inside castles than in actually causing breaches, and so the walls were built tall and flat so as to be better able to resist being scaled by soldiers. Such walls provided a large target for cannon fire, and their flatness meant that the full force of the shot was directed straight into them. Rather than rebuild entire castles, lords were often forced through reasons of cost to opt for the next-best solution of adaptation. Scarping the walls with banks of earth or masonry was tried in an attempt both to thicken the walls, and to turn the blows of cannons into more glancing shots, with the added bonus that sloping walls meant that siege ladders became ineffective. While it was a sound theory to avoid  square-on impacts from cannonballs, scarping was of limited value, and where this was an adaptation to an older castle, in many cases it weakened the walls by placing extra weight on them. Gunports were a further adaptation to fortifications which occurred as a result of the introduction of guns. These were holes put in the walls of the castles, often where arrow slits had been, to allow small guns to be fired from a position of relative safety. They were frequently positioned in the towers or gatehouses of castles to provide flanking fire along the walls where it was anticipated any attacking soldiers would have to stop before being able to push on into the castle. This modification was quite cheap and easy to put in place, and was used across Europe. One method of improving the efficacy of defensive fire both against attacking troops and forces sitting back and besieging was the greater use of defensive outworks built of earth or masonry. Not only could this ‘forward defensive’ strategy force enemy guns further back from the castle proper, but it also provided a further opportunity to enfilade soldiers as they advanced. Boulevards or artillery towers could be built in ditches forward of the walls with a clear line of fire along the trench. As the enemy soldiers advanced, they would have to spend time negotiating the ditch during which the fire from the outworks could take its toll. â€Å"At Dax, Guissen and Cadillac, in 1449 and 1451, the French encountered heavy resistance from such outer works constructed by the defenders.† The ultimate defence against besiegers armed with guns, though, was the fortification based on the angled bastion. It was this defence which was coming increasingly into use by 1500 which decisively swung the balance of power back in favour of the defenders. The bastion was essentially a gun platform for siting heavy guns which needed the freedom to be turned and fired against the enemy camp wherever it was in relation to the castle, a freedom which could not be obtained firing through gunports. These towers were thrust forward of the walls to keep the enemy back and were built the same height as the rest of the castle (unlike traditional towers), perhaps to facilitate the movement of guns around the walls, or perhaps because of the high cost of taller towers. The entire structure was squat, making it a smaller target and allowing the guns at the top of the walls to maintain fire at targets close to the foot of the fortification, and scarped to produce more glancing blows from cannonballs. This last objective was also achieved by projecting the bastions at a different angle to the rest of the wall, so that in effect only the wall would receive square-on blows. It could be said that round castles and round towers would present no flat surfaces to be hit squarely, but to build such fortifications would make flanking fire along the walls at best difficult. Round bastions were built, but left dead ground where guns could not reach, while entire castles built on a circular model would need many projecting towers to provide fire along the walls. With the angled bastion, fire could be given along the entire base of the tower from guns positioned in the walls, while fire along the walls could be provided from gunports in alcoves in the bastion. It seemed for a while that the destructive power of cannons would lead to a decisive shift towards the attackers in siege warfare which would perhaps bring an end to the dominant role of fortifications in warfare. However, defensive tactics adapted to the situation in a number of ways, ensuring the survival of the castle and the siege. It can be said, though, that although the nature of warfare overall was not changed, the nature of sieges changed significantly as a result of the use by both attackers and defenders of gunpowder weapons, and because a new type of castle had been born. If guns provided a temporary revolution in the balance of sieges, then the bastion was equally as revolutionary in restoring the old balance. â€Å"By resisting the new artillery and providing platforms for heavy guns [the bastion] revolutionised the defensive-offensive pattern of warfare.† While cannons produced many changes in the conduct of sieges, changes of similar magnitude cannot be seen in open field warfare. Cannons, lacking effective carriages to allow them to keep pace with their armies and to manoeuvre on the battlefield, were little used until the late fifteenth century. Handguns, despite coming to be as accepted a weapon as the crossbow, failed to produce any noteworthy changes. Possessing greater hitting power than the crossbow, but similar weaknesses, including slow rate  of fire, they were unable to establish themselves as anything more than an auxiliary weapon. While the Swiss were to use handguns in their successful pike square formations, their role could be (and often was) performed equally well by crossbowmen, and European armies continued to be based on knightly cavalry and close-combat infantry. The handgun of the fifteenth century was simply another auxiliary shot weapon, and, â€Å"The arquebus, or match-lock musket, did not finally oust the crossbow from French armies until 1567.† Nonetheless, the importance of guns increased during the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries until they became an essential part of major wars. One of the results of this was to make war a much more large-scale thing in terms of money, and to put serious warfare (involving conquest and therefore sieges) out of reach of the pockets of anybody but princes. Artillery was very expensive. â€Å"It was one thing, in accordance with ancient ways, to expect a man at arms to come to the host equipped with his own horses and armour, but no one, in the new conditions of war, expected a master of artillery to provide his own cannon.† On a national level, the introduction of guns further widened the gap in military potential between rich and poor countries, underlining the superiority of countries like France over countries like the Italian states. It can be asked to what extent gunpowder weapons revolutionised notions of chivalry and whether the attitudes of people altered as a result of their experiences of the new guns. There is a good deal of late mediaeval literature which shows that many people despised them. They were an indiscriminate weapon which had no respect for social status, meaning that princes could now be killed from afar by peasants and artisans. This went against the traditional chivalric notion of individual combat among equals. Guns were also seen as cowardly, because of the belief that the gunner, hiding behind the smoke from his gun, did not put himself in mortal danger by firing, yet could still take the lives of others. Many saw guns as being instruments of the devil, with the noise and fire created being seen as having come from Hell itself. A popular attitude during the early days of guns in Europe is shown by Cervantes when he wrote, blessed be those happy  ages that were strangers to the dreadful fury of these devilish instruments of artillery, whose inventor I am satisfied is now in Hell, receiving the reward of his cursed invention, which is cause that very often a cowardly base hand takes away the life of the bravest gentleman; and that in the midst of that vigour and resolution which animates and inflames the bold, a chance bullet (shot perhaps by one who fled, and was frightened by the very flash the mischievous piece gave, when it went off) coming nobody knows how, or from where, in a moment puts a period to the brave designs and the life of one that deserved to have survived many years†¦ It is unlikely, however, that this attitude was held by the majority of people at the time. Shot weapons were nothing new, and had been in existence and used on a large scale for many years. There was little difference between a knight being killed by an arquebus or by a longbow. The large-scale use of guns by most European armies demonstrates that while there might have been some degree of chauvinism against firearms, princes were still quite prepared to use them, and indeed the church positively encouraged their use at a time when the Turkish threat to Christendom was increasing. There is little evidence that captured gunners were treated any differently to any other captured commoners (and by 1500 it was by no means guaranteed that gunners would not in fact be noble), and overall, society had little difficulty in accepting the place of artillery in modern warfare. Guns were ‘domesticated’ and given names, taking on characters of their own, and, â€Å"By the end of the fifteenth century and the beginning of the early modern era, gunpowder weaponry had simply become a feature of everyday life. Guns had become so conventional that they began to be used in celebrations, in fashion, and in crime. Ultimately, guns even became virility symbols.† This growing acceptance represents in part a change in attitudes brought about by the realisation that guns were of considerable use, but mainly it is a result of the rather superficial nature of chivalry at that time. There was a tendency for people only to behave according to the rules of chivalry when either it suited them to or when they could afford to. Princes, when faced with an adversary armed with artillery could not afford to confine themselves to criticising such ‘bad sportsmanship’ but had to respond in kind, an option which they were more than willing to take. In assessing whether gunpowder’s introduction caused revolutionary changes in Europe before 1500, it is necessary not only to examine the specific changes which arose, but moreover to assess whether warfare in 1300 had significantly changed in character by 1500 as a result of the use of guns. The answer to this has to be a definite no. The armies of 1500 made extensive use of guns, but these had not revolutionised the makeup of armed forces. The dominance of cavalry had persisted throughout the two centuries, and its only serious challenge had come in the late fifteenth century with the pike square, which by no means relied on guns. While the use of cannons had transformed the methods used in conducting sieges, only temporarily had there been the prospect of altering the nature of war away from the innumerable fortress battles which characterised the period. Gunpowder weapons had failed to bring an end to the siege as an important aspect of war, and could only act as a supplem entary weapon on the battlefield. Overall, despite the numerous changes which the increasing use of guns had caused, it is possible to agree with J. R. Hale’s assertion: â€Å"Gunpowder, in short, revolutionised the conduct but not the outcome of wars.†