Thursday, January 30, 2020

Globalization of Technology Essay Example for Free

Globalization of Technology Essay Politics Technology enables and even promotes changes in every aspect of our lives. Through the years it has changed what and how we eat (the microwave), how and where we work (the internet), how we are entertained, and even how we keep in touch with friends and family. And though many people may notice these types of quick advances of technology, many may not notice how technological advances have tied into changes in politics and the way they have been run. †¢The power of mass images has really become a major influence on politics as a product of a increasing technology. In the 1960’s, images of wealth in the west eventually exposed the weakness of the communist regime running the old Soviet bloc. There is the story Nikita Khrushchev narrating a film of Harlem in the 1960’s to demonstrate poverty in America. Instead, his poor, struggling citizens focused on the nylons hanging on backyard clothes lines and the number of fine autos in the street, and saw wealth rather than poverty. Today, the pictures from Iran appear in graphic detail on our televisions. The power of the mass media has made it more difficult for the state to wall off the outside world. †¢The television has been used to promote politics through commercial advertisement since the Dwight D. Eisenhower campaign in 1952. That was over 50 years ago. It has been used to broadcast presidential debates since the Kennedy vs Nixon Great Debate in 1960 which was exactly 50 years ago. However, nothing is like the way the television is used today. †¢The most recent Presidential campaign, in 2008, showed how fundraising is being impacted. President Obama raised a record breaking 600 million dollars in contributions during his run up to the election. Of that 600 that Obama received, 500 million came from the internet and through public financing through the internet. He ran as fierce an internet campaign as he did his television and radio campaigns. Later the same young people who followed Obamas every move online, turned out to vote. †¢Is technology damaging politics? †¢For example, you can argue that because there are dozens of news channels. Campaigns are now much more media run. The media decides what is news worthy (which as of the past few years has been whatever gets ratings), interprets the meaning of events for its viewers, and manipulates the decision making process of its viewers. †¢Can technology be damaging to political candidates themselves? †¢Political videos of nearly every 2008 presidential candidates can be found on YouTube. In many of the posted videos, candidates are engaged in old speeches, contradicting their current political positions. †¢Also, since the election, the internet seems to have gone from President Obamas best friend, to his greatest political enemy. Some of the most controversial legislation in US history is being introduced and posted online for all Americans to see, online commentators who once supported Obama are continuously pointing out unfilled promises. Economy and Social Relations Technological progress is the key to offering future populations the potential for improved standards of living. Technical change enables firms to combine inputs in a novel manner to produce existing products more cheaply and to develop new products to meet consumer needs. Economists and other social scientists pretty much agree that technological change is the most important contributor to economic growth in the modern era and it is estimated that more than half of the country’s long-run growth is can be attributed to technological change. †¢A prime example of technology based increases in productivity comes from the field of agriculture. Until at least the 17th century, about 90% of the population was directly involved in agriculture. In the United States, the farm population was 44% of the total population as recently as 1880. Currently, the U.S. farm population is about 2% of the total population. But over that same period, total production from farms has more than doubled. The increase in productivity is correlated with several technological innovations in the field of farming. The innovations include the widespread use of farm chemicals (fertilizers, pesticides), and farming equipment. Thus, the tremendous increase in farm productivity is seen as a direct result of the technological advances that were made in the field. †¢Technological change in production processes like that often reduces the amount of labor and other resources needed to produce a unit of output. This is good on one hand because it reduces the cost of production for products but on the other, it also results in a loss of jobs in the short-r un. The long-run is a different story though. By reducing the cost of production you thereby are lowering the price of a particular good in a competitive market, which then frequently leads to a greater demand for that good. And a greater output demand results in increased production, which requires more labor, and offsets the effects of losing jobs in the short-run. †¢Along with production technology, constant improvements of transportation and communications technologies have also had major impacts on today’s economy. Previously, physical and human resources moved around the world by means of land, sea, and air transportation. Now, with data serving as a basic resource and digital communications the means of transport, financial capital is moving throughout the world at nearly the speed of light. †¢How has technology negatively affected the economy? †¢One challenge that technology has brought about to the new global economy comes from the new wave of outsourcing. As a concept its not new. Companies have chased cheap labor around the globe for decades, making cars in Mexico, plastic toys in Taiwan and shirts in Malaysia. But in the past couple of years, the debate over outsourcing has intensified as technology companies reduce costs by sending technical support, software development, quality assurance and other functions offshore. A few years ago this idea would have been impossible. The world mostly turned to its technology leaders, companies such as Microsoft Corp. for example, when it needed software. But with the growth of broadband Internet connections and e-mail, technical support staff and software developers can respond to questions with the same speed in Bangalore, India, as they do in Bellevue. And they can do it at a fraction of the cost. †¢Of course this comes at the expense of not only lower class and low skilled workers in the U.S., but even in the middle classes, there are plenty of jobs that are now outsourced.. Again, inability to find work means inability to purchase homes, spend money, and profit companies. When people don’t buy, corporations that produce things don’t make money, which can thus â€Å"trickle down† to fewer jobs available and a greater desire to outsource to make things more cheaply so they will be more attractive to consumers. †¢Those supporting outsourcing say that lowering expenses of corporations will create jobs. There are plenty of government agencies that outsource some of their work, saving them millions of dollars, a direct effect on the US economy and on federal spending. A common theory contends that being able to pay people lower wages for work means that companies will be able to produce things with less expense and transfer this saving to consumers. Lower prices may mean more consumer spending, and companies will be able to hire more workers in the US because they’re paying less for workers outside of it. †¢Further, many argue that giving jobs to workers in less developed countries improves those countries economically and increases trade for US products. It also increases a country’s ability to pay back debts to the US, and may promote better political relationships. Companies economically benefit by selling their products in other countries. This means they can hire more people in the US and lower their prices on products for US consumers.

Wednesday, January 22, 2020

If Animals Were Human :: Pets Love Family Essays

If Animals Were Human Going home on the weekends, automatically the family is happy you’re home, having been gone for so long. Mom is prepared to fix a hot, home cooked meal, dad has a project for you and him ready to go, and the sister is anxious to tell you about her life in high school and get her big sibling’s advice. The one who is often forgotten is the dog. The most faithful one, who is most anxious to see you, stands in the yard jumping up and down, barking, and running, starving for attention. He is forgotten in the sense that you notice him when he barks, when he nudges your hand to be pet, or doing something too distracting or agitating. Even then, he is let outside when he barks, he gets pet for a little while when he nudges your hand, only until you become bored with him, and when he becomes a distraction he is told to go away and lie down. When the dog experiences these things, the dog constructs feelings within him. Of course, the dog has feelings, but it’s never taken into consideration how deep they are. This notion is presented in the excerpt, â€Å"Am I Blue?† by Alice Walker. (Forest of Voices) In the beginning, she rents a house, which has neighbors within the view of her front windows. The neighbors have a beautiful horse in the meadow behind the house and Alice watches, during the day, this beautiful creature they call, Blue. She notices that the children there pay little attention to the horse, riding him hard for 15 minutes or so and then simply becoming bored and going back into their house to disappear for another month or so. Alice goes to see the horse and befriends it by feeding it apples. At first he liked the apples because it was a good treat while the grass was becoming dry because of the season. Then the horse came to expect the apples. Blue would wait by the fence, signaling by stomping or whinnying, for someone to come and give him an apple. All the while, when she was feeding Blue the apples she was befriending the horse. Not only did the horse like the apples, but also he liked the attention, which is sometimes hard to comprehend when you think of

Tuesday, January 14, 2020

Describe with examples how different aspects of development can affect one another Essay

Example 1 A family of four attends a large family gathering. Their new addition to their family is 6 month old â€Å"Emily†. This â€Å"Emily’s first time out with people other than her family. While she is with her family, â€Å"Emily is happy, smiling and making cooing and babbling noises. She is aware and alert with the new environment that surrounds her, she is she moves her arms and legs vigorously to show her excitement. As this is her first social outing, she gets upset when someone she is not familiar with talks to her or plays with her. She starts to cry as this her way of showing that she is not familiar with this person and may be a little scared. Emily’s emotions affects her communication. Example 2 â€Å"John† is seventeen from a low wage, single parent family. He has a part-time job while studying to help out his mother financially. Unfortunately the Manager undermines, bullies him and takes credit for his work. â€Å"John† who is not used to dealing with difficult people in a working environment, may become withdrawn and quiet. He may keep his feelings towards his Manager to himself as he is afraid that he might lose his job that he desperately needs. Emotionally he feels depressed and unworthy. He is seen as ‘the man of the house’ and feels he cannot communicate his problems to his mother as he doesn’t want her to have the added pressure of dealing with his problem. His studying may also suffer as he worries about his mother’s financial situation and also his situation at work. Socially he has withdrawn from his friends as they may realise something is wrong is embarrassed to talk to them about it. Intellectually, his studies would have suffered as a result of his manager bullying and undermining him as he cannot concentrate.

Monday, January 6, 2020

Protostars New Suns in the Making

Star birth is a process that has been happening in the universe for more than 13 billion years. The first stars formed from giant clouds of hydrogen and grew to become supermassive stars. They eventually exploded as supernovae, and seeded the universe with new elements for new stars. But, before each star could face its ultimate fate, it had to go through a lengthy formation process that included some time as a protostar. Astronomers know a lot about the process of star formation, although there is certainly always more to learn. Thats why they study as many different star birth regions possible using such instruments as the Hubble Space Telescope, the Spitzer Space Telescope,  and ground-based observatories outfitted with infrared-sensitive astronomy instruments.   They also use radio telescopes to study the young stellar objects as theyre forming. Astronomers have managed to chart nearly every bit of the process from the time clouds of gas and dust start down the path to stardom. From Gas Cloud to Protostar Star birth begins when a cloud of gas and dust starts to contract. Perhaps a nearby supernova has exploded and sent a shock wave through the cloud, causing it to start moving. Or, maybe a star wandered by and its gravitational effect began the clouds slow motions. Whatever happened, eventually parts of the cloud start to get denser and hotter as more material gets sucked in by the increasing gravitational pull. The ever-growing central region is called a dense core. Some clouds are quite large and may have more than one dense core, which leads to stars being born in batches. In the core, when theres enough material to have self-gravity, and enough outward pressure to keep the area stable, things cook along for quite a while. More material falls in, temperatures rise, and magnetic fields thread their way through the material. The dense core isnt a star yet, just a slowly warming object. As more and more material gets swept into the core, it starts to collapse. Eventually, it gets hot enough to start glowing in infrared light. Its still not a star yet — but it does become a low-mass proto-star. This period lasts about a million years or so for a star that will end up being about the size of the Sun when its born. At some point, a disk of material forms around the protostar. Its called a circumstellar disk, and usually contains gas and dust and particles of rock and ice grains. It may well be funneling material into the star, but its also the birthplace of eventual planets. Protostars exist for a million years or so, gathering in material and growing in size, density, and temperature. Eventually, the temperatures and pressures grow so much that nuclear fusion is ignited in the core. Thats when a protostar becomes a star — and leaves stellar infancy behind. Astronomers also call protostars pre-main-sequence stars because they have not yet begun fusing hydrogen in their cores. Once they start that process, the infant star becomes a blustery, windy, active toddler of a star, and is well on its way to a long, productive life. Where Do Astronomers FindProtostars? There are many places where new stars are being born in our galaxy. Those regions are where astronomers go to hunt the wild protostars. The Orion Nebula stellar nursery is a good place to search for them. Its a giant molecular cloud about 1,500 light-years from Earth and already has a number of newborn stars embedded within it. However, it also has clouded little egg-shaped regions called protoplanetary disks that are likely harboring protostars within them. In a few thousands of years, those protostars will burst into life as stars, eat away the clouds of gas and dust surrounding them, and shine out across the light-years. Astronomers find starbirth regions in other galaxies, as well. No doubt those regions, such as the R136 starbirth area in the Tarantula Nebula in the Large Magellanic Cloud (a companion galaxy to the Milky Way), also are studded with protostars. Even farther away, astronomers have spotted starbirth crà ªches in the Andromeda Galaxy. Wherever astronomers look, they find this essential star-building process going on inside most galaxies, as far as the eye can see. As long as theres a cloud of hydrogen gas (and maybe some dust), theres plenty of opportunity and material to build new stars — from dense cores through protostars all the way to blazing suns like our own. This understanding of how stars form gives astronomers a lot of insight into how our own star formed, some 4.5 billion years ago. Like all the others, it began as a coalescing cloud of gas and dust, contracted to become a protostar, and then eventually began nuclear fusion. The rest, as they say, is solar system history!