made to break/ part one

In Slades, Made to Break, there are many interesting and important historical and modern facts which relate to the development of this country.  The historical facts are the developments of various items that our country uses and how they came about.  Such as, bandaids, cars, razors etc. These items were develope by very important and intelligent men, who took one idea and modified it for a better more marketable item.  One example is the bandaid.   It was developed until 1924.  The bandage was what people used to heal cuts but it was to large and not very effective.  It was than made smaller and used a chemical to make it sticky.  This was the development of the bandaid.  The next was the car, at first there was the tin lizzie which was noisy, smelly, homely and unreliable.  This was not very effective with people at the time, espescially women.  The upgrade to that was the model t.  It was not as noisy, cleaner, more modern and innovative, much more reliable and all at a good price.  This became a favorite for millions of people and everyone soon had to have it.  The reasons why these items became so popular was becuase of two reasons.  The people selling the cars knew what was wrong with the items and needed to make the more efficient and they knew how to market them.  Once they wer marketed a proper way, they exploded onto the scene and become extremely popular.  This relates to developments of this country because thousands are products have become popular today because of great marketing.  People believe that they need these products and than they have to have them.  The funniest thing is that we really do not need these products but the media plays such a big role in what we need but does not differentiate in what we dont need.

world and wikipedia part 2

When the online encyclopedia first came out it was a huge hit and had very positive results.  One of the reasons why we love this site is that it is a virtual world in which we can share information among people and throughout the world.  People in Africa can learn about information in the United States.  We can learn about infromation in Russia and they can learn about what is going on in South America.  We also love Wikipedia because it lets us be push the limits of being explicit writing whatever we want.  We love Wikipedia and we also hate it.  Many people say that it is very informative, but we do not ever think about what is wrong about.  Many people can say whatever they want to say on whatever subject and can bad mouth certain people, organizations or events.  If alot of people read those articles than it can be very, very embarrassing and upsetting to those people.  Now comes the question of illegality and slander, which can be a very nasty business.  Considering the good and bad of Wikipedia, the pros and cons are pretty much even.  Many people love Wikipedia and love using it.  I do not foresee it being abolished by any government in the world.   I personally, would do what I can to help abolish this site because it is not an accreditted web page.

world and wikipedia part 1

Wikipedia is a site on the computer in which you can read up on various subjects, people, events etc, in world history.  Wikipedia is world wide and can be read in hundreds of languages.  Millions of people use this tool everyday to do research and what not, but is it reliable? Alot of information on Wikipedia is true and correct, but alot of it is not.  The reason being for this is that anyone can go on the site and write anything they want on any subject.  This is not an accreditted source of information. This is why professors tell their students to avoid retreiving any infromation on the site and putting it in their papers.  This is why I do not use Wikipedia for any of my sources for my papers.  Thousands of people can edit anyone elses work on the site which is the reason for the quote, " The best feature of the site is that anyone can edit virtually anything,contained on it, the worst feature of the site is that anyone can edit virtually anything contained on it."   Although, many kids use this site for work and so on becuase they do nnot care about the validity of their work and alot of times they do not have to site it.  It is also used for people who like to post and write about certain subjects that interest them.  Although, do to the inaccuracy of many of the postings on Wikipedia, many companies such as Google have tried and succeeded to become partners with the site.  The reason for this is that the site gets many hits and is very popular.  This would help their profits and the notoriety.

technopoly/ part 2

In the second part of Technopoly I started to learn the machines and technology start to take over in many forms of ife for humans, such asrelationships, jobs and so on.  For example, the lie detector test became so popular that it eliminates complexity and doubt among people.  But, it also eliminates the x factor of situations which could prove to be dangerous.  This x factor could be your gut reaction eliminated or lie detectors could eliminate people from jobs who just got nervous under questioning and told the truth but was interpreted as a lie.  Also, the abilities that many people have could be eliminated by machines.  Such as, doctors who practice medicine would rely on machines and the traditional art of examining someone and establishing their illness would be wrong.  Also, many people who have abilites such as putting a car together, building a bridge, or building a house would be lost because machines would do all the work, which will eliminate the human component.  Since, the economy has been in a recession many companies have had to eliminate jobs from people and turned to machines and even robots to do some type of work.  This, unfortunately has taken jobs away from people, which left them in a tough position.  When the economy turns around these people will not be hired back because machines have taken aver their jobs.  Many people do think that machines and technology is a great thing, which in many cases it is, but in many cases there are many people out there who are suffering and having a hard time, due to the advancement of technology.  We need to embrace technology, but we also need to be aware of the consequences in which it brings.

technopoly/part 1

The first six chapters of Technopoly are very interesting and informative.  The book references uses of tools by civilizations for solving a variety of problems and a variety of issues that posed a problem to societies, whether it be religious or practical.  I read that many civilizations have created tools for determining time, determing seasons, building fires, tunnels, roads, bridges, weapons and so forth.  What I have gathered is that we develop tools at first for necessity than for pleasure.  Now, after awhile we use technology becuase we become so dependant on it and we cant do anything about it,   it becomes almost like a drug.  In this, type of world there become technopoly, technocrats and terms that describes a certain civilization or government that is centered around technology.  Religion played a big role in what inventions and devices were able to be allowed to be used and not used in the public.  Many people developed technology, like Michelangelo and did not tell anyone because he was afraid of the consequences.  Personally, i think that society is going through a very extreme change.  Mainstream America is going through a hard time and a severe change.  Many people and companies are going to do business different and technology is going through a change which will make companies rely more and more on technology, until the human element is almost severely eliminated.  This is true today becuase many companies are becoming super efficient and are relying less and less on people and more and more on technology.  This saves alot of money and makes life much more efficient.  

evolution of computers

The second half of this book is mostly about the evolution of computers and the people who helped design them.  At first, computers were very primitive and very large.  They were mostly used by the government or large firms for variuos reasons.  They were very expensive for the time and were very slow.  After twenty or so years the computer phenonemon took off.  People became much more interested into computers, companies started investing largely into computers and they began hiring young kids to do some of their work, regarding computers.  One of these people was Bill Gates.  Unfortunatley, another reason for the huge interest for development of computers was the Cold War.  The Soviet engineers embarrassed the American engineers by launching the first artificial satellite.  This prompted large amounts of money into science and research for computers and among other things.  The reason for this was that we wanted to become a superpower again and compete with the Soviets when it came to science, engineering and electronics.  The rest of the second half of the book has to do with networking and starting to become a virtual community of people and ways of getting in touch with people via the Internet.  The main idea of this book is show us the development of computers throughout the history of our society and the reasons for this.  The Cold War, general interest in computers and technology, the understanding of the effect of computers in a society.  I think that the development of computers is a very good for the world.  It makes alot of work much easier and quicker and it really changed the way we run live our lives.  Although, with the good comes the bad.  There are some downsides to computers.  It keeps children away from doing other acitvities outisde which can play a role in the a childs mood and personality.  Many people are happy with the way things are going wtih computers and the only change I see in the future is that computers become smaller, faster, more reliable and advanced.

blog 1

In the reading, I read very interesting and important material that has to do with various technogical and innovative devices.  These devices range from being very old to somewhat current.  They also range from being primitive and remedial to very advanced.  Many people from a variety a cultures used certain devices and instruments to communicate to the gods, navigate on land on water, tell time, figure out equations and son on.   The first device that I read is the astrolabe, which was at first thought to be used for navigation but, it actually was used for calculating lunar, solar and stellar calendars.  This was a big find becuase it completely changed the time the scholars thought that these devices could be made, people were much more intellignet than they had previously thought.  Another imporant development was called tide predictors, which simply determined the tides for fisherman.  One of the biggest devices that was ever created was the computer.  It helped people solve long and rigourous calculations instantly.  Since that was slow and not as efficient scholars came up with the calculator, which was created by blaise pascal.  The first man to create the modern computer was Thomas Atanasoff.  Ironically, World War 11 was a time in which science and technology soared to new peaks and things really changed.  For, example, the atom bomb, enigma machines, jet engine technogoy, outer space technology and so on.  Another time in the history of the world that sparked new technology was the cold war.  Both superpowers took on challenges to be the most powerful country on earth.  In this time, many more advances had come about and more people had access to them.  Unfortunatly, the reasons for these advances were to kill their fellow man before they could kill them.  I learned alot in these readings, the reasons for the advancements of technology are many, the biggest reason that I could figure out, was that peope would not die and become extinct, for self-preservation.  The main idea of this article is to tell us hoe important technology is and how far our society has become in a technological advancements.  i think that these advances were created for the good of society, but also to better and more advanced than our enemies.  These reasons are various.  The things that scare me range from what our country will be like in one-hundred years.  Will there be flying cars, immortality people being telepathic and so on.  I also think that the technology the goverment has, far exceeds what we have at our fingertips, which is scary.  How much farther and advaced can we become and at what cost?