Wednesday, August 29, 2007
The World is Flat post 3
In chapter three of The World Is Flat we see Friedman using the word "convergence" a great deal. Friedman uses this word to describe when several major technological developments come together to make the world what he would call a "flatter" place. He lists three major "convergences". The first is when work flow software and hardware came together to create a single machine that could do multiple handy office tasks such as copying, faxing, and scanning. The second is the same technology being offered all around the world so that everyone is on an even playing field. The third and final "convergence" is that of several country's. Places like China and the U.S. that at one point were very much separated now inter-connect without a problem. Friedman is just using this word to mean the coming together of many ideas.
Tuesday, August 28, 2007
The World is Flat post 2
In the second chapter of The World Is Flat we see Friedman clearly depicting how technology is reshaping human interaction personally, inter-nationally, and economically. He does this by taking us through "ten forces" that he believes to have flattened the world. The first is when the Berlin Wall fell and Windows was first introduced to the U.S., the second is when Netscape went public, the third is work flow software, the fourth is uploading, the fifth is outsourcing and explains Y2K, the sixth is off shoring, the seventh is what Friedman refers to as supply-chaining, the eighth is in sourcing, the ninth is in-forming, and finally the tenth is about what Friedman refers to as "steroids".
We see clearly through several examples that Friedman describes for us that technology is reshaping human interaction personally. How we as Americans react with our peers around us has changed drastically in the last 15 years. Having a conversation with someone face to face or over the telephone is rarely necessary anymore due to the invention of email. At the time of its invention it was called SMTP which translates down to simple mail transfer protocol. With email you can send people mail digitally without worrying about postage stamps or how long it will take to ship to the receiving party. Anyone at any time can give their take on a subject now as well through a simple process called blogging. In a blog they can include anything that they would like and then publish it for the world to see. Another example that Friedman provides us with has to do with children's cartoon shows. In the book he informs us about a children's show called Higgly Town Hero's and that several of the actors that do the voices for the characters reside in different states. They do not even have to be in the same 300 hundred mile radius as each other and they can still put a children's show together using audio recording devices over the Internet. Many people have been sharing more than emails through the Internet in recent years though. Friedman states that "file sharing, the peer-to-peer model, allows computer users to share songs, video, and other kinds of files with one another online. Peer-to-peer networks emerged in the public eye with Napster which enabled any two of us to share songs stored on each other's computers. At it's peak Napster was perhaps the most popular Web site ever created. In less than a year, it went from zero to 60 million visitors per month." Later on down the page Friedman goes on to state that "some 330 million tracks were purchased online in 2004 from online stores such as Apple's iTunes, the Associated Press reported on June 22, 2005, but around 5 billion were downloaded for free by people tapping open file sharing networks using freely downloadable file-sharing programs such as eDonkey, BitTorrent, and Kazaa." In fact it was not long before even phone calls could be placed over the Internet through the book we are told about a company named VoIP that lets you make phone calls through the Internet and provides you with unlimited long-distance and local phone calls and the only catch is that you have to buy a small microphone attachment for your computer. Given all of this information we can clearly see that the way that we interact personally with people is changing rapidly due to new technological developments.
How we interact with people inter-nationally is also changing rapidly. Due to recent advances in technology even business meetings are no longer the same they can be held with people in another country without that party being present. Friedman tells about this new development called video-conferencing. He states that "each party to the video-conference sits at a long table facing a wall of flat-panel TV screens and cameras pointed at them. The flat-panel screens display the people at the other site, which could be anywhere in the world. It creates an effect of everyone sitting around a single conference table and is apparently a qualitatively different experience from anything that has been on the market before." Each video conference suite costs about $250,000 but the company's believe that they can make it up in the long run by not having to pay for airplane tickets to have executives flown in from other country's. Even X-rays are not always being examined by doctors here in the U.S. in recent years. Friedman tells us that an X-ray can be taken in Bangor Maine and sent to Bangalore to be read without either of the party's even giving it a second thought.
Economically technology is completely reshaping the world. Before the modern advances in technology India was always at a three percent growth rate but after 1991 they hit a growth rate of 7 percent. Before 1991 they had roughly $1 billion dollars left in currency but as of 2005 when Friedman was writing this book they had hit over $118 billion dollars in currency and there is no doubt that is has only grown from there. Due to the fall of the Berlin Wall alone the European Union expanded from fifteen to twenty-five countries. Due the invention of Microsoft Friedman tells us that "within five years, the number of Internet users jumped from 600,000 to 40 million. At one point, it was doubling every 53 days." This alone raked in a huge amount of money for the company and their stock. Due to the invention of fiber optic cables more than twice the amount of phone calls can process through the same set of wires and at a much lower cost to all party's involved whether it is the consumer or the producer. When the idea of fiber optic cables was first introduced as opposed to the copper ones already in existence Friedman states that "in a period of about five or six years, these telecom companies invested about $1 trillion in wiring the world." Friedman also tells us that just since the year 2000 "sales of sports video games in the United States increased by 34 percent, to $1.2 billion."
Technology is rapidly changing our world as we know it today. It has come with major economic benefits and has knocked down several obstacles that were once considered major communication blockers. It is no problem to buy merchandise from China these days or set up a factory in India but both of these would have been considered very risky moves a mere 15-20 years ago. Even the way we speak to our neighbors has changed today. Rarely do we see anyone getting up and going over to visit with them but merely sending an email with a full update. There is no longer any real need to buy a birthday card either. You can simply log online and find a free e-card that has the same message, dances, and can be delivered in half of the time. But at a certain point will we as humans just be advancing ourselves right out of jobs?
We see clearly through several examples that Friedman describes for us that technology is reshaping human interaction personally. How we as Americans react with our peers around us has changed drastically in the last 15 years. Having a conversation with someone face to face or over the telephone is rarely necessary anymore due to the invention of email. At the time of its invention it was called SMTP which translates down to simple mail transfer protocol. With email you can send people mail digitally without worrying about postage stamps or how long it will take to ship to the receiving party. Anyone at any time can give their take on a subject now as well through a simple process called blogging. In a blog they can include anything that they would like and then publish it for the world to see. Another example that Friedman provides us with has to do with children's cartoon shows. In the book he informs us about a children's show called Higgly Town Hero's and that several of the actors that do the voices for the characters reside in different states. They do not even have to be in the same 300 hundred mile radius as each other and they can still put a children's show together using audio recording devices over the Internet. Many people have been sharing more than emails through the Internet in recent years though. Friedman states that "file sharing, the peer-to-peer model, allows computer users to share songs, video, and other kinds of files with one another online. Peer-to-peer networks emerged in the public eye with Napster which enabled any two of us to share songs stored on each other's computers. At it's peak Napster was perhaps the most popular Web site ever created. In less than a year, it went from zero to 60 million visitors per month." Later on down the page Friedman goes on to state that "some 330 million tracks were purchased online in 2004 from online stores such as Apple's iTunes, the Associated Press reported on June 22, 2005, but around 5 billion were downloaded for free by people tapping open file sharing networks using freely downloadable file-sharing programs such as eDonkey, BitTorrent, and Kazaa." In fact it was not long before even phone calls could be placed over the Internet through the book we are told about a company named VoIP that lets you make phone calls through the Internet and provides you with unlimited long-distance and local phone calls and the only catch is that you have to buy a small microphone attachment for your computer. Given all of this information we can clearly see that the way that we interact personally with people is changing rapidly due to new technological developments.
How we interact with people inter-nationally is also changing rapidly. Due to recent advances in technology even business meetings are no longer the same they can be held with people in another country without that party being present. Friedman tells about this new development called video-conferencing. He states that "each party to the video-conference sits at a long table facing a wall of flat-panel TV screens and cameras pointed at them. The flat-panel screens display the people at the other site, which could be anywhere in the world. It creates an effect of everyone sitting around a single conference table and is apparently a qualitatively different experience from anything that has been on the market before." Each video conference suite costs about $250,000 but the company's believe that they can make it up in the long run by not having to pay for airplane tickets to have executives flown in from other country's. Even X-rays are not always being examined by doctors here in the U.S. in recent years. Friedman tells us that an X-ray can be taken in Bangor Maine and sent to Bangalore to be read without either of the party's even giving it a second thought.
Economically technology is completely reshaping the world. Before the modern advances in technology India was always at a three percent growth rate but after 1991 they hit a growth rate of 7 percent. Before 1991 they had roughly $1 billion dollars left in currency but as of 2005 when Friedman was writing this book they had hit over $118 billion dollars in currency and there is no doubt that is has only grown from there. Due to the fall of the Berlin Wall alone the European Union expanded from fifteen to twenty-five countries. Due the invention of Microsoft Friedman tells us that "within five years, the number of Internet users jumped from 600,000 to 40 million. At one point, it was doubling every 53 days." This alone raked in a huge amount of money for the company and their stock. Due to the invention of fiber optic cables more than twice the amount of phone calls can process through the same set of wires and at a much lower cost to all party's involved whether it is the consumer or the producer. When the idea of fiber optic cables was first introduced as opposed to the copper ones already in existence Friedman states that "in a period of about five or six years, these telecom companies invested about $1 trillion in wiring the world." Friedman also tells us that just since the year 2000 "sales of sports video games in the United States increased by 34 percent, to $1.2 billion."
Technology is rapidly changing our world as we know it today. It has come with major economic benefits and has knocked down several obstacles that were once considered major communication blockers. It is no problem to buy merchandise from China these days or set up a factory in India but both of these would have been considered very risky moves a mere 15-20 years ago. Even the way we speak to our neighbors has changed today. Rarely do we see anyone getting up and going over to visit with them but merely sending an email with a full update. There is no longer any real need to buy a birthday card either. You can simply log online and find a free e-card that has the same message, dances, and can be delivered in half of the time. But at a certain point will we as humans just be advancing ourselves right out of jobs?
Monday, August 27, 2007
Doctor Faustus
Doctor Faustus is a well known play from which we have the term "Faustian bargain". In the play a man named Faustus makes a pact with the devil. He promises the devil his soul in return for the use of one of the devils servants named Mephostophilis. Mephostophilis is to carry out Faustus' every whim for a time period of 24 years and if he does so then the devil may have his soul. Towards the end however, we see Faustus trying to repent of his sins because his time is up and now he knows that he must pay the consequences.
The term "Faustian bargain" in this book refers to Faustus selling his soul to the devil to have a temporary advantage over the rest of the human race. This was an extremely greedy move and we find that he pays for it in the end. Today we take the term "Faustian bargain" to mean remaking what we know to be true to suit our desires. Though this is slightly less dramatic then the selling of ones soul to the devil it is still done in greed and generally for all of the wrong reasons.
The term "Faustian bargain" in this book refers to Faustus selling his soul to the devil to have a temporary advantage over the rest of the human race. This was an extremely greedy move and we find that he pays for it in the end. Today we take the term "Faustian bargain" to mean remaking what we know to be true to suit our desires. Though this is slightly less dramatic then the selling of ones soul to the devil it is still done in greed and generally for all of the wrong reasons.
Sunday, August 26, 2007
Book Four- The Candle In The Wind
King Arthur fears disaster from the very beginning of this book. His son Mordred is out to pay him back for a terrible childhood and the jealous Agravaine has his back. They decide to tell the king that Lancelot and Guenever have been having an affair so that he can no longer deny it and will have to banish Lancelot and burn Guenever at the stake. King Arthur tells the two men that they must first prove their accusation and they oblige and set to work at it as soon as the king leaves for his hunting trip the next week. They end up cornering the two lovers in a room together as they are about to get intimate and Lancelot is forced to barricade the door against an army of men and escape. He has to return a week later to save Guenever from being burned at the stake and kills many of the Round Table knights in the process. Two of the knights which were killed during the battle were Gareth and Gaheris and this leads to a need for vengeance in Gawaine who had been on Lancelots side up until that point. In the end Lancelot is banished from the castle and Guenever is accepted back into the court with her good name forever tarnished. King Arthur and Gawaine set out for revenge against Lancelot still though and surround his castle. While King Arthur is after Lancelot, Mordred sets to work back at the castle trying to proclaim himself as the new king. Lancelot eventually delivers a fatal blow to Gawaines head and is forced to return to England to keep Mordred from the throne. The book ends as King Arthur is telling his life story to a young page, Thomas Malory, so that his legend may one day be remembered.
This was by far my most favorite book of them all. It seemed to do a great job of summing everything up. The ending leaves you pondering over many questions that King Arthur poses. Luckily for us we live in a democracy and do not struggle with the concept of might as much as they did back then. We do however, still have problems identifying just when our laws begin to cross over unseen lines and this book will make you see and consider those. All in all King Arthur improved many problems in that civilization and put his best foot forward to get as much fixed as possible.
This was by far my most favorite book of them all. It seemed to do a great job of summing everything up. The ending leaves you pondering over many questions that King Arthur poses. Luckily for us we live in a democracy and do not struggle with the concept of might as much as they did back then. We do however, still have problems identifying just when our laws begin to cross over unseen lines and this book will make you see and consider those. All in all King Arthur improved many problems in that civilization and put his best foot forward to get as much fixed as possible.
Book Three- The Ill Made Knight
In this book we are introduced to two more characters that play a big part in the legend of King Arthur. The first is the young knight Lancelot and the second is Arthurs wife Guenever. Lancelot is King Arthurs best knight and friend but before long sparks are beginning to fly between his friend and his wife. Several times throughout this book Lancelot leaves the court to separate himself from Guenever so as not to betray King Arthur and runs into some wild adventures along the way. However, despite his efforts before long Lancelot and Guenever become lovers while King Arthur is away for a year. We then see the tables turn when one day Lancelot is in another court spending the night and is tricked into sleeping with another woman named Elaine, who becomes pregnant. When Guenever discovers this news she becomes angry even though poor Lancelot is pleading his innocence and states several times that he wants nothing to do with this child. Eventually Guenever drives Lancelot mad and he leaves the court one more time and ends up on a quest for the Holy Grail. While on this quest he learns many things about himself and becomes a very religious man. In the end he even returns to the castle and saves the queen from burning at the stake due to a false accusation. As the book comes to an end we see things quiet down in the court and King Arthur trying his best to ignore any sparks between his wife and Lancelot.
The language in this book was fairly simplistic. The only person in this story whose language I struggled in comprehending was Sir Gawaine as he returns back from his quest for the Holy Grail. He speaks very differently from the rest of the characters in the book and it kind of makes you appreciate that he holds only a small part in the story.
I find the love between Lancelot and Guenever to follow a fairly typical story line. He could have any young and single woman that he liked and yet he chooses to chase after the one that he can not have. We see that a lot especially today although it is not punished as severely as it was then. We see Guenever portrayed as a bit of a seductress in this but in a rather crafty way and at one point it actually drives poor Lancelot into going crazy. We see her hypocrisy rather clearly when she tells Lancelot that she would like him to stay away from her while Elaine makes a visit to the castle in case there is a chance of rekindling the love between the two of them. Not more than a few minutes later however we see her telling him that she will send for him in the night to make sure that he has not left his room to be with Elaine and when she discovers that he has she unleashes her wrath on both of them.
I found this to be the hardest book so far to get through. It was really lengthy and went on for quite some time about the love affair between Lancelot and the queen. White also clearly mentions several times how hard it is becoming for King Arthur to overlook the love that has arisen between his wife and his best friend. My prediction however, is that in the next book we will find that poor King Arthur will be forced to face the facts of the two lovers affair and that it will be one sad moment for all three of them when this occurs.
The language in this book was fairly simplistic. The only person in this story whose language I struggled in comprehending was Sir Gawaine as he returns back from his quest for the Holy Grail. He speaks very differently from the rest of the characters in the book and it kind of makes you appreciate that he holds only a small part in the story.
I find the love between Lancelot and Guenever to follow a fairly typical story line. He could have any young and single woman that he liked and yet he chooses to chase after the one that he can not have. We see that a lot especially today although it is not punished as severely as it was then. We see Guenever portrayed as a bit of a seductress in this but in a rather crafty way and at one point it actually drives poor Lancelot into going crazy. We see her hypocrisy rather clearly when she tells Lancelot that she would like him to stay away from her while Elaine makes a visit to the castle in case there is a chance of rekindling the love between the two of them. Not more than a few minutes later however we see her telling him that she will send for him in the night to make sure that he has not left his room to be with Elaine and when she discovers that he has she unleashes her wrath on both of them.
I found this to be the hardest book so far to get through. It was really lengthy and went on for quite some time about the love affair between Lancelot and the queen. White also clearly mentions several times how hard it is becoming for King Arthur to overlook the love that has arisen between his wife and his best friend. My prediction however, is that in the next book we will find that poor King Arthur will be forced to face the facts of the two lovers affair and that it will be one sad moment for all three of them when this occurs.
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