Lingo - Definition and Examples

An informal term for the special vocabulary of a particular group or field: jargon.Language or speech that is perceived as strange or unintelligible. Plural: lingoes. Etymology: From the Latin lingua   , tongue Examples and Observations Cowboy Lingo The various buildings on the ranch had their various slang names. The main house, or house of the owner, was known as the white house (its usual color, if painted), the Big House, Bulls Mansh, or headquarters. The bunkhouse was equally well known as the dog-house, dice-house, dump, shack, or dive, while the cook-shack, if it was a separate building, was spoken of as the mess-house, grub-house, feed-trough, feed-bag, nose-bag, or swallow-an-git-out trough.   (Ramon Frederick Adams, Cowboy Lingo. Houghton, 2000) Australian Lingoes To speak the lingo is to become a member of a group that shares a sense of itself and expresses that sense in its own language. In the sense of the Great Australian Lingo that group consists of all its speakers--most Australians, in fact. There are also many other lingoes, past and present, that are and have been spoken in Australia by different groups, or speech communities as they are called. . . .What does the term TALK RIVER mean, for example? You almost certainly will not know unless you worked in or were close to the Murray River boat trade. In that speech community, it means to talk about matters relating to the river, its people and its business. Unless you are involved with the welding trade you would be unlikely to know that STICK and TIC refer to different forms of welding--STICK is with flame heat and TIC with an electric arc. Nor would you know what a KROMER CAP is.​  (Graham Seal, The Lingo: Listening to Australian English. UNSW Press, 1999) Hospital Lingo Like any specialized jargon, the shoptalk used by residents not only conveys facts but provides a running commentary on the absurdities of hospital life...A sampling of current resident-speak follows, drawn from the wards of a busy teaching hospital.Banana bag: an intravenous solution containing a liquid multivitamin that colors the fluid a bright yellow, used in undernourished or alcoholic patients. Doc-in-the-box: an urgent-care walk-in clinic. Hes moonlighting at a doc-in-the-box downtown.Gomer: shorthand for Get out of my emergency room. Any undesirable patient, usually one that is unkempt, demented, combative or any combination of the above...Tail-light sign: when a patient (usually elderly) is dropped off at an emergency room by relatives who drive away before an evaluation is complete, forcing the patient to be admitted to the hospital whether or not his medical condition requires it.Wallet biopsy: checking a patients insurance or financial status before embarking on expensive procedures.  (adapted from Hospital Lingo: Whats a Bed Plug? An L.O.L. in N.A.D. by Sheilendr Khipple. The New York Times, May 13, 2001) The Use of War Lingo by Journalists Back in August, the [Associated Press] issued a memo about how to convey campaign coverage, and it included this passage: war lingo — use criticized instead of attacked, or choose a better verb to describe what the candidate is doing, i.e., challenging, doubting, etc. Also avoidable: launch an assault, take aim, open fire, bombard. AP Deputy Managing Editor for Standards Tom Kent lays out the thinking behind the rules: We’ve long felt it’s a good idea to avoid weapons metaphors when we’re not talking about real weapons. Even beyond evoking memories of violent events, we think frequent use of these terms in non-military situations smacks of overdramatization and hyping, writes Kent via e-mail.  (Erik Wemple, No More Taking Aim,’ ‘Blasting,’ ‘Sniping’! The Washington Post, December 20, 2012) A Parody of Social Science Lingo The lingo used by sociologists and such annoys many reasonable people. Richard D. Fay of M.I.T. is one of them. Last week the Washington Star picked up a letter he had written to the Harvard Alumni Bulletin in which he showed how the Gettysburg Address would sound, lumbered up in that lingo:​ Eight and seven-tenths decades ago, the pioneer workers in this continental area implemented a new group based on an ideology of free boundaries and initial conditions of equality. We are now actively engaged in an overall evaluation of conflicting factors . . . We are met in an area of maximum activity among the conflicting factors . . . to assign permanent positions to the units which have been annihilated in the process of attaining a steady state. This procedure represents standard practice at the administrative level.From a more comprehensive viewpoint, we cannot assign--we cannot integrate--we cannot implement this area . . . The courageous units, in being annihilated . . . have integrated it to the point where the application of simple arithmetical operations to include our efforts would produce only negligible effects . . .It is preferable for this group to be integrated with the incompleted implementation . . . that we here resolve at a high ethical level that the deceased s hall not have been annihilated without furthering the project--that this group . . . shall implement a new source of unhampered activity--and that political supervision composed of the integrated units, for the integrated units, and by the integrated units shall not perish from . . . this planet. (Lumbering Lingo. Time, August 13, 1951) The Decline of Lunch Counter Lingo [T]he vitality of lunch-counter speech--cats eyes for tapioca, baby for a glass of milk, jerk for ice cream soda, and Adam and Eve on a raft for fried eggs on toast--had a raciness about it that many people sought to put an end to in the late 1930s.  (John F. Mariani, The Dictionary of American Food and Drink. Hearst Books, 1994) Pronunciation: LIN-go

Implementing An Automated Distributed Firewall - 4178 Words

Abstract This paper discusses about implementing an automated distributed firewall in an emulated environment allowing researchers, educators and companies for research purposes and to experiment a realistic distributed firewall before implementing one in real life. This eliminates the manual configuration of each firewall which is time consuming and prone to errors and eliminate repeated experiments. Traditional firewalls are topology restricted and considerer everyone on the inside are trusted and one on the outside is a least potentially an enemy. In order to overcome the difficulties for traditional firewall the idea of distributed firewall was proposed. This demonstration will show a platform to automate emulated distributed†¦show more content†¦In the recent years, the threat that faces data and information has been systematically increasing, from viruses to organized gangs that aim to stifle the operations of information systems, steal crucial information or facilitate leakage of competitive information. A firewall is a collection of components, interposed between two networks, that filters traffic between them according to some security policy (Cheswick Bellovin, 1994). Due to the increase in network attacks and awareness of cyber security firewalls are used not only in companies but also in home networks. Firewalls are the frontline of defence to secure the networks from security risks and attacks from cyber criminals. Firewalls filters network traffic based on filtering rules defined by the firewall administrator or admin. Although firewalls protects from network attacks, virus etc, it depends on the firewall policies defined, if the policies are not defined properly it proposes a security risk and limits the effectiveness of firewall security. . There are mainly three types of firewalling techniques based on the OSI layer in which the firewall is acting on. They are (1) packet filters, which inspect each packet passing through them, (2) application Gateways which act on specific applications such as FTP, Telnet etc and (3) circuit level Gateways, which apply security mechanisms whenever TCP and UDP connections are established. Firewalls have

IT Alignment Can Actually Be Trap for the Companies

Question: Why IT Alignment Can Actually Be Trap for the Companies ? Answer: Introducation: The companies mostly believe that the goals of the company regarding the IT should be aligned with the business goals for the company create values. Although, many companies do not understand that, instead of providing improvement for the IT alignment can actually be trap for the companies. According to Issa et al (2015), the Charles Schwab and Co company had gained a very high position in the field of the financial services because of the efficiency in the IT department of the company. It is first in ranking among the online trading businesses. In the earlier times the IT department had become very inefficient. It was basically run by the custom systems, and they had very snarling operations. The product that were IT based were produced with a delay, and they also disappointed the customers of the company who were valuable to them. In addition to this the Schwab Company was spending about 18% of the revenue on the IT department of the business, whereas many other companies who were competing with the company were spending less money in respect to the company. This was great disadvantage to the company in respect to the annual revenue of the companies. According to Doyle-Lindrud (2015), the tech-savvy companies also themselves in similar kind of predicament as of the Schwab Company. In addition to this the companies have realized that, the diagnosis of the IT inefficiencies have very often misguided the companies. It has been found that even after very efficient implementation of the IT alignment of the company the Business performances of the company that depend on the IT alignment have either decreased of have gone sideways, but did no have any improvement on the business qualities of the company. Ullah and Lai (2013), stated that for improving the IT alignment of the company the organizations have deployed various kind of resource planning system or have been designing, spate solutions for solving the separate kind of issues of the company. The overall complexities of the company have also increased due to the alignment into the businesses of the company. As a result the companies had to postpone the structural improvements of the company. The companies have been devoid of getting benefits that they thoroughly deserve. In addition to this the companies have incurred cost rises, delay in their processes, and have fragmentations in the business co-ordinations. Alignment of a wrong IT department would not help the organization to gain the objectives that they are looking for. Ye and Wang (2013), in addition to this more than 500 business executives of several companies were subjected to survey, and it resulted in the business executives rating their Companies IT capabilities very lowly. They were queried about the alignment as well as the effectiveness of the alignment and it was found that the result of the people could be divided into four quarters. Three fourth of the quarter of the people that were surveyed thought that the alignment was neither effective not efficient for the company. The company used the IT basically for the maintenance purpose. The systems that could be maintained for a very minimal value did not add much of a value to companies overall output. These type of companies had recorded very minimal amount of growth for the company. These companies had a growth rate of below 2 percent than the average growth among the companies. According to Coltman et al (2015), in addition to this it was found that 11% of the companies were very highly aligned in the IT department, however they were not very highly effective. In addition to this, the spending ogf the companies were13 percent more than the companies who had average spending. In contrast the companies had a growth rate of 14 percent less than the other companies. According to Ball (2016), only 8 percent of the people believed that the IT is very efficient for their company but the alignment of the IT for the company was not very efficiently done. The IT produced the project that were very cost efficient and had high functional value. This companies can be set apart from the companies that were under the alignment trap. These organizations were notably called the well-oiled organizations. The efficiency of these organizations were notably higher than the rest. The costs of the companies were 15 percent less than that of the other companies and the output of the companies were 11 percent more than that of the other companies. According to Sull et al (2015), among the rarest of the executives of the survey were the ones who thought that the effectiveness and the alignment of the IT were very both very efficient for the companies. But this was only 7 percent of all the people that took part in the survey. These companies recorded a growth rate that was about 35 more than the rest of the companies, while the companies had spent 6 per cent less of the all the resources that the other companies had spent. According to Heikkanen et al (2013), the survey and the findings makes it very clear that the getting the alignment of the IT for the companies in a correct procedure is very important for the companies. The most important task is to increase the effectiveness of the business of the companies. For the companies to achieve the growth level that is IT enabled it is very important that hey follow certain strict policies. Firstly the companies need to use simplifying techniques. The Company needs to simplify the IT department and its operations. They require to use new infrastructures and also use some standardized methods for their IT sectors. In addition to this the companies need to use, Right sources for the development of the IT department of the company. The IT alignment needs to be efficient and have a certain amount of capabilities for the department and create some innovations in their business applications. The in-house developments requires strategic and competitive differenti ation. In addition to all these the main focus of the companies to provide products that are of great are of great valuations. In addition to this for meeting the challenges the IT should be equipped with the right kind of the resources in the right king of amount. The objectives of the company should also be rightfully defined. References Ball, R., 2016.Operational effectiveness of the information technology function in business process change: A case study in a financial services firm(Doctoral dissertation, University of Cape Town). Coltman, T., Tallon, P., Sharma, R. and Queiroz, M., 2015. Strategic IT alignment: twenty-five years on.Journal of Information Technology,30(2), pp.91-100. Doyle-Lindrud, S., 2015. Watson will see you now: a supercomputer to help clinicians make informed treatment decisions.Clinical journal of oncology nursing,19(1). Hiekkanen, K., Helenius, M., Korhonen, J.J. and Patricio, E., 2013. Aligning alignment with strategic context: A literature review. InDigital Enterprise Design and Management 2013(pp. 81-98). Springer Berlin Heidelberg. Issa, S.F., Schwab, C.V. and Field, W.E., 2015, July. A review on the environmental impact and physiological conditions on the human body during an engulfment, entrapment and extrication. In2015 ASABE Annual International Meeting(p. 1). American Society of Agricultural and Biological Engineers. Sull, D., Homkes, R. and Sull, C., 2015. Why strategy execution unravels and what to do about it.Harvard Business Review,93(3), pp.57-66. Ullah, A. and Lai, R., 2013. A systematic review of business and information technology alignment.ACM Transactions on Management Information Systems (TMIS),4(1), p.4. Ye, F. and Wang, Z., 2013. Effects of information technology alignment and information sharing on supply chain operational performance.Computers Industrial Engineering,65(3), pp.370-377.

Online vs. Traditional Education free essay sample

School would not be a learning opportunity if one does not incorporate what he or she learns through assignments. Both online and traditional education has individual and group assignments. From doing a research, writing essays, answering discussion questions, and participating in class are all seen in the online and traditional settings of school. Who can forget those dreadful presentations? Presentations are not everyone’s favorite assignment, but they can be given is class or online in the same form of fashion by preparing to deliver any informative information. Even though assignments may be different for each class, both online and traditional education has the same intentions to help one obtain learning material. Reference material is used to help one refer to when it comes to learning. Books are very good material and resources. They are used both in online and traditional education. With the convenience of E- books online, it makes reading easier and better. We will write a custom essay sample on Online vs. Traditional Education or any similar topic specifically for you Do Not WasteYour Time HIRE WRITER Only 13.90 / page One does not have to worry about carrying the hard, heavy textbooks around. No matter what the setting may be online or traditional, the library is still one of the major sources or school. In the library, students have excess to the internet and many other sources such as books. Although every class has their own reference book which relates to the type of course, computers are expanding with technology and have become a major reference source. Online education and traditional education are similar because of the teacher student interactions. With the latest technology, teacher student interactions should be no problem with teaching and communicating online. Teachers that are teaching online courses can communicate with their students via the internet by doing a live chat or sending an e-mail. However, this form of interaction does not change for the traditional education because a teacher may still interact with his or her students in the same ways which is in reference to school. In the classrooms, the teachers are able to interact with his student one on one or as a class. This allows questions to be asked immediately vs. having to wait for a reply online. With the choice of choosing which education would be better, online or a traditional education, people can expect the same form of process because of assignments, reference material, and most of teacher student interactions.

Great Gatsby Essay free essay sample

His style, especially in the great Gatsby is described as â€Å"lushly evocative† because his works have a brilliant understanding of lives that are corrupted by greed and are incredibly sad and unfulfilled. Fitzgerald’s Great Gatsby portrays a very successful live that is full of wonderful material things if looked at on the surface level, but if we go below the surface we would notice a whole array of emotions that are not very pleasing to the eyes. Greed and incredibly sadness are some of the emotions that can be seen below the level in the Great Gatsby and it drives some of the characters to do some things which they were not meant to do. In the case of how his style showcases his understanding of the lives that are corrupted by greed, Fitzgerald wrote, â€Å"She never loved you, do you hear? he cried. She only married you because I was poor and she was tired of waiting for me† (Fitzgerald 130). We will write a custom essay sample on Great Gatsby Essay or any similar topic specifically for you Do Not WasteYour Time HIRE WRITER Only 13.90 / page In other words, Daisy is been greedy and self-centered when she chooses to marry Tom because of his money and not love, because greed affects not only the person but also hurts the loved ones to that person. Identically, we see greed being the underlying theme in the Great Gatsby when Fitzgerald wrote, â€Å"He wanted nothing less of Daisy than that she should go to Tom and say: I never loved you† (Fitzgerald 109). Although Daisy shows a sign of greed in her actions, Gatsby also follows suit in his incessant desire to have Daisy all to himself that has driven him to acquire material things that he hopes would please her into being with him. Concerning the case of how Fitzgerald’s style shows his understanding of peoples sadness, he wrote this in reference to Gatsby, â€Å"But his heart was in a constant, turbulent riot† (Fitzgerald 99). Although Gatsby had obtained almost all his lives goals, which includes wealth, fame, and popularity with the people, he still has this sadness in his heart that is causing him a lot of pain, which goes to show that material wealth cannot buy happiness only God can give us peace of mind. Likewise, the characters in the Great Gatsby are all dissatisfied and feel unfulfilled with an aspect of their life, and Fitzgerald lets us know this by saying, â€Å"Why† she said hesitantly, â€Å"Tom’s got some woman in New York† (Fitzgerald 15). Interestingly, Tom is dissatisfied with having Daisy as his wife and gets a mistress (Myrtle), but when the mistress gets killed in an accident, he comes running back to get Daisy before she goes off with Gatsby and this just further stresses the idea that material wealth cannot satisfy us in this world because we would continue to look for more and we need to turn to God to satisfy us. Fitzgerald’s style of writing is one which encompasses the understanding of man’s greed and the sadness and unsatisfaction that comes with not being a true believer in God which in Fitzgerald’s time was the case. Great Gatsby Essay free essay sample The Biographical and Historical Approach to The Great Gatsby Throughout the book, Fitzgerald shows a lot of aspects of the 1920s including prohibition and the illegal selling and moving of alcohol. Prohibition was a big part of the 20s and the crime it produced because of the alcohol that was not to be had. Prohibition started in the U. S. with the ratification of the Eighteenth Amendment. This prohibited the sale, use, possession,  and manufacturing of alcohol any where in the U. S.. Then on  January 17, 1920 congress passed the Volstead Act which enforced the Amendment. Some people said that the passage of the Amendment was due to the fact of the absence of young men that were in the war. The law represented the gathering of decades of activism by temperance advocates. They said that alcoholism hurt worker productivity, domestic violence, family disruption, and was responsible for health problems(â€Å"1920s Prohibition†). We will write a custom essay sample on Great Gatsby Essay or any similar topic specifically for you Do Not WasteYour Time HIRE WRITER Only 13.90 / page Instead of eliminating alcohol from America it stimulated an economy that provided illegal hooch,bathtub gin, and moonshine to customers. Approximately 5,000 people died from drinking poisonous home made alcohol. To avoid poisoning from alcohol they sought to buy good hooch and delivered it from overseas mainly over Canadian borders and alcohol became Detroit’s second leading industry behind auto manufacturing. Millions of Americans broke the Volstead act and also went to speakeasies which were secretive bars. In big cities gangsters tried to control the alcohol market by committing fierce and violent crimes to control there turf which was called turf wars(â€Å"1920s Prohibition†). Gavia 2 By 1929 it was apparent that enforcement of prohibition was not working. President Hoover, in response to public demand appointed a commission to study the problems of law enforcement. Hoover designated former attorney General George   Wickersham as head of the national commission on Law observance and enforcement a. k. a. Wickersham Commission. People criticized the report saying it was a waste of taxpayers money because they arrived at no new solutions to prohibition problems(â€Å"1920s Prohibition†). The public was so mad by the governments failure to enforce the Volstead Act that by 1932 both political parties in their platforms put in the repeal of the Eighteenth Amendment. So the Twenty-First Amendment which was ratified in less than one year. Which by 1933 national prohibition ended(â€Å"1920s Prohibition†). High standards, resistance, and bad enforcement of the Volstead Act plagued Prohibition from the beginning. Hoping to make a better definition of  Prohibition legislatures in New  York, New Jersey,  and Massachusetts passed some laws in 1920 that allowed the sale of light wine and low alcohol beer. The Supreme Court  denied the challenges to the Volstead Act in the exact  same year. Even though the doctrine allowed states to create stringent standards this did not mean they could make looser regulations(Blocker,Fahey,Tyrell). All but one state which was Maryland passed a state-level compaction to the Volstead Act creating enforcement mechanisms. Very little states invested funds to sustain an effective enforcement group, and twenty-eight states did not even invest any money. A handful of states repealed their enforcement acts and local police worked very hard to contain the illegal alcohol trafficking. In bigger cities there were webs of underground clubs called speakeasies that were Gavia 3 like bars. After the St. Valentines day massacre in Chicago the Governor of New York renewed calls for the changing of the  Volstead Act(Blocker,Fahey,Tyrell). From the beginning prohibition enforcement would prove to be to weak to hold up prohibition. The prohibition unit, federal agency empowered to enforce national prohibition underwent three reorganizations and personnel changes. It produced seven years of chaos. Until 1927 the Prohibition bureau was not under civil service, because of this it was susceptible to political interference. One out twelve agents were was fired for illegal acts. Even though the Coast Guard and the customs services aided the Prohibition Bureau to stop smuggling it could not carry out the task of prohibition enforcement(Blocker,Fahey,Tyrell). Wayne Wheeler general counsel of ASLA tried for IRS stewardship for Prohibition. Also he wanted the exemption of civil service or the agents. Dry leaders were reluctant to criticize enforcement. Congress was content on where they stand on prohibition issue. They made minimal appropriations for additional enforcement(Blocker,Fahey,Tyrell). The Democratic Party platform included an anti prohibition act when Roosevelt ran for president he promised that he would repeal prohibition. The vote for repeal was 74 percent those for prohibition was 26 percent. Happy throngs sang happy days are here again(David Hanson). Prohibition had been repealed by the 21st amendment which only had two sentences but were the most important sentences. They read: The eighteenth article to the constitution of the U. S. is hereby repealed. The other read: the transportation into any state, territory, or possession of the U.S. for delivery or use therein of intoxicating liquors, in violation of the laws thereof, is Gavia 4 hereby prohibited. Section 1 made it legal to have and sell alcohol and section two made the states delegate the law of liquor. Not all states repealed automatically it took the last state to repeal it until 1966 to do so(David Hanson). Prohibition and repeal were still against each other for awhile and it even split up families and friends. Today  there are still hundreds of dry counties across the country seven decades after national repeal. Even though prohibition failed and caused big problems a lot of people still support neo-prohibition and defend the vestiges of prohibition that still seem to exist(David Hanson). Fitzgerald touched on night life and bootlegging of the time. The government shut down bars and drinking spots. So the gangs took over and opened up places called speakeasies. If you were caught with alcohol you were arrested(Prohibition and The Great Gatsby). This did not stop people from drinking they just went to speakeasies. Many of the people that drank were mostly wealthy people. The Great Gatsby has its share of drinking throughout the book because the characters are always drinking(Prohibition and The Great Gatsby). Through the course of the book you hear of drinking, adultery, vehicular manslaughter, and constant partying. Four stills, two in Detroit and two in Indiana were raided. Many of the federal agents that were not paid well were themselves bootleggers. Wayne wheeler of the anti saloon league said he needed less than $5 million which was not true they actually needed $28 million which was unheard of in the 1920s(Prohibition and The Great Gatsby). Fitzgerald enrolled at Princeton in 1913. There he dedicated his life to the literary life. Gavia 5 He wrote Princeton’s musicals and some pieces for there magazine. In 1917 he dropped out of Princeton and joined the army(Sara,Tom Pendergast). In Alabama he met a daughter of a supreme court judge named Zelda Sayre. He pursued her with great vigor. Her family did not like him much at all they thought he was not suited for her. In 1919 he left for New York   to make a fortune   in order to be able to marry her(Sara,Tom Pendergast). Fitzgerald succeeded and returned to st Paul to finish his first novel. A week after it was published he married Zelda in New York and so they began their life together as young celebs. In April of 1925 he published The Great Gatsby. Through the recollections of Nick Carraway he puts his memories in the book from the characters to the memories them self. His book was also about the American family idealism(Sara,Tom Pendergast). As you can see that Prohibition was a major role in the twenties it was probably the biggest dilemma at the time. Fitzgerald shows all this along the way til the very end(Sara,Tom Pendergast).

Why Introverts are Vital to the Health Care Team

Why Introverts are Vital to the Health Care Team If you’ve spent any time in the industry, you know that the typical state of any health care facility is controlled chaos: patients stream in and out in need of attention, while doctors, nurses, assistants, and techs all work together to keep the machine running. If you thrive on solitude, can you make it in this profession? There has been a lot of talk lately about the role of introverts in society (people who feel more comfortable focusing inward on thoughts and feelings rather than outward on interactions with others). Popular opinion used to be that you were doomed if you weren’t commanding and outwardly confident.  But people are starting to realize that introspection is a very valuable professional skill–especially in medicine, when dealing with the important topic of patients’ health.Starting in undergraduate school, and then through professional studies, introverts learn to rely on themselves to weather the most challenging storms. Building up a quiet confidence comes in extremely handy when life-or-death challenges are thrown your way in the working world.You also have a skill set the more social of your peers struggle with: the ability to tap into the more emotional and sensitive side of patients.  In fact, if you identify as an introvert you likely will not only survive–you will thrive in patient relations, one of the toughest parts of the job.Embrace your ability to be quiet and thoughtful. Then, learn to work with extroverted colleagues to create a medical team that can handle all sides of patients’ needs.  Your introversion is not a liability, it’s a bonus!Can Introverts Survive in Medicine?

Periodic Table Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 750 words

Periodic Table - Essay Example Mercury is one of the noble metals. It appears near the bottom of the activity series and is very inactive. It is not affected by oxygen of the air at ordinary temperatures, but if heated to about 300oC it slowly combines with oxygen to form mercury (II) oxide. It does not dissolve in the monoxidizing acids, but dissolves readily in nitric acid to form mercury (II) nitrate (King, Caldwell and Williams 604).. Mercury was known to the ancient Chinese and Hindus and has been found in 3500 year old Egyptian tombs. Mercury is not usually found free in nature and is primarily obtained from the mineral cinnabar (HgS). Spain and Italy produce about half of the world's supply of Mercury (Gagnon). The element mercury is a metal which is liquid at room temperature. Mercury is a bit like lead but it's liquid. You can hold it in your hand. Heavy (density 13.6), in fact so heavy that objects such as bricks, cannonballs, and lumps of lead or iron will float in Mercury. Gold doesn't float in mercury - it behaves more like sugar in tea! Mercury does not stick to magnets, so if it gets into your carpets or under your floorboards it will be a long-term problem. Mercury vapour makes nice bright lights but is not for breathing. The highly reflective surface of the Mercury makes it the stuff of mirrors. It's also used for thermometers, barometers, electrical devices, etc. However the problem is the cumulative poisonous nature. In the pure metal form it's relatively inert, so not so deadly, but in compounds such as mercuric chloride. Mercury is a liquid it is not wet. It has a negative coefficient of surface tension, which means that the meniscus on the surface is the other way up from no rmal, or to put it another way it does not soak into material but more runs off in the style of "water off a duck's back (The Element Mercury). Mercury vapor and its salts are poisonous, though the free metal may be taken internally under certain conditions. Because of its relatively low boiling point (629.88 K or 356.73oC or 674.11oF) and hence volatile in nature, free mercury should never be allowed to stand in an open container in the laboratory. Evidence shows that inhalation of its vapors is injurious (King et al. 605). When it comes to versatility, mercury is number one. It has many used for today's common man and mad scientist. Being the only metal which is liquid at room temperature mercury has some specialist uses: It is used in thermometers because it has a large thermal expansion which is constant over a large temperature range although it is being phased out in favour of safer liquids. It is also used in barometers and manometers due to its high density. From this it has also become a way of measuring pressure in millimetres of mercury. Mercury can be used to make thermometers, barometers and other scientific instruments. Mercury conducts electricity and is used to make silent, position dependent switches. Mercury vapor is used in streetlights, fluorescent lamps and advertising signs. Mercury is also a good thermal conductor, making it an excellent shield and coolant in nuclear reactors. Mercury vapor is used instead of steam in the boilers of some turbine (Encyclopedia Britannica). Mercury easily forms alloys with other metals, such as gold, silver, zinc and cadmium. These alloys are called amalgams. Amalgams are used to help extract gold from its ores. Some mercury is used in the preparati on of dental amalgams of silver and gold for filling