Friday Fact Finding

Time Square in New York City is one of the busiest places in the United States. It is the center of progress, art, culture, and many other aspects that make America the good country it is.

September 11, 2001 was one of the most monumental attacks on the United States. Through all the horror of this terrible event it proved that America is capable of sticking together and not losing hope in the heat of disaster.

This picture depicts three of America’s founding fathers. Without these amazing men America would probably have taken a lot longer to become the country it is or maybe never even become this type of country. These men shaped the democracy which America runs on.

Ever since the beginning of the Agricultural movement America has begun to progress at a rapid pace. Agriculture not only provides us with food but also a huge profit in money. America is highly advanced with their farming tools and production is on a massive scale.

One of the things that makes America great is its diversity. There are people of just about every culture and race in America. I believe that it is so wonderful that no matter what age, language, background, color of skin, etc. we are all able to get along and live in peace and happiness together.

The documents of America such as the Declaration of Independence and the Bill of Rights have formed our government.

The capital of the United States is a symbol of our wonderful government and democracy. It is the center of America and where every change to America is discussed.

Our Government is a democracy and is probably the reason why our country is so peaceful and successful.

America is such a great country because we are so patriotic. The people that live here all have a genuine love for the country which they call home. We are taught from when we are very young to love our country and celebrate the holidays such as the Fourth of July.

America is very technologically advanced and has made many accomplishments. We won the race to the moon and have been the beginning of many inventions and technological movements.

Our nation is a nation of peace. Also, since we have the right to free speech we are able to protest and speak our about our beliefs which makes us so great.

Wall Street is one of the busiest places in America. It is the place that determines a lot of our wealth.

This bridge in San Fransisco, California represents the beautiful architecture in America.

The eagle, America’s national bird, is a symbol of our freedom.

Oil is one of the main resources of the world and is the cause for most of our wealth in America.

Bison have been an American animal ever since the beginning of America. The Native Americans relied on the bison for foot, shelter, and clothing.

The white house is the house of our president, the leader of our country. Without our wonderful government we would live in chaos.

America is known for its excellent army. We have a very advanced army that is very courageous. Even through the long lasting war in Iraq they have stayed strong and done their best to help the Iraqi people.

The mountainous terrain of America is very beautiful. America is very diverse in its landscape.

America also has many flat, grassy plains. This shows how diverse our nation is in just about every aspect.

America’s flag and the statue of liberty are our main symbols of our country. They represent everything our country stands for.

Problems in America:

Many, many soldiers have died in Iraq and the number is rising every day.

Our right to free speech is diminishing. Recently when people have spoken their thoughts they have been ridiculed.

For the first time our  current president, President Bush, is now hated by a very vast amount of Americans and other people around the world. He is the most disliked President in all of history. Of course he still has several supporters but not many. Many people disagree with him and believe he has made many mistakes.

Immigration to America by Mexicans and Latin Americans is a huge problem. Many people are dying to cross the border and the ones that make it across do not become legal citizens.

Global warming is a problem for the entire world but mainly for America since we are one of the largest producers of carbon dioxide emissions. It is urgent that Americans do something soon to help stop this climate crisis.

Homelessness in America has grown dramatically. The number of people living on the streets is ridiculous and help really needs to be provided to them soon.

Your New Client

There are currently approximately 27,499,638 people living in Iraq. The majority of the people living there are either Arabs or Kurds. The main religion practiced in Iraq is Muslim. Iraq isn’t an ideal place to live and is not very advanced. There is only a 74% literacy rate. Most citizens only are educated through the sixth grade. Iraq is currently a land of turmoil, destruction, illness and deaths. The infant mortality rate is 47 per every 1,000 live births. The number of documented deaths of Iraq citizens due to violence is 87,643-95,664 people. Innocent people die every day due to the current war between Iraqis and Americans. Americans claim to be helping the Iraqi citizens but in many ways have only made their lives worse.

Iraq’s main resource is oil. Their supply of oil has caused much conflict and competition with other countries. Other resources include natural gas, phosphates, and sulfur. Their main agricultural products are wheat, barley, rice, vegetables, cotton, cattle, and sheep. The average income per capita is $3,600. Since the war with the United States Iraq’s economy has decreased by half. Iraq is desperate for help. Their economy is crumbling, thousands of innocent people are dying, and many are homeless. Many of us could not possibly imagine becoming custom to bombs going off daily. Iraqi’s need aid of some kind no matter where it’s from. The Americans have obviously not been enough help so there needs to be more. Billions of dollars have already been spent toward Iraq but not much improvement has been made. Someone needs to come forth with a new plan and take action to save this country rich in resources and culture. Iraq is definitely worth saving.

Insert a Picture of Yourself

My friend Maria was born in Los Angeles, California. She is currently 25 years old. Her parents moved to the United States from Guatemala a year after they married. Her father is a police officer and her mother is a veterinarian. Maria wants to follow her mother’s footsteps and also become a veterinarian. She is attending Texas A&M studying to become a vet.

Data Is

1.  Ones and zeros represent the binary system used to store data.

2. A hard drive disk is a metal disk usually made from aluminum and coated with a metallic powder.

3.  Computers need an internet browser in order to read html.

4. Programs are large groups of bytes, or code. Programs tell the computer how to work to create the product you request.

5. CPU stands for Central Precessing Unit.

6. RAM or Random Access Memory is a set of specialized microchips which shuffle data into groups.

7. An application is a fancy program which uses GUI’s.

8. A GUI is a Graphical User Interface that allows you to easily give instructions to a program.

9. The web is not always reliable. Some web pages are created to mislead people such as a satirical website or one that simply has false information.

10. An operating system is a serious of programs and applications that together operate the hardware that is connected together in the computer. It also manages the use of memory that shuffles data through the processor to perform functions.

11. An operating system coordinates the processing of data or calculations by the CPU that is the primary calculator in the computer.

12. It is impossible for all computers on the web to be connected by wires.

13. An input device is any hardware that is connected to the computer.

14. Another name for the internet is the World Wide Web.

15. The speed at which computers send and receive information is called bandwidth.

16. Types of home internet services are high-speed or internet controlled by cable modems.

17. The web is a large body of information much like a library.

18. Email or electronic mail is a method of communicating which uses the resources of the web. Messages are compressed into date packets and are sent using addresses.

19. Not all emails are secure. Information within the message can be read and misused by unauthorized people.

20. It is possible that transmission of emails may take hours or even days therefore emails are not instantaneous.

21. Emails can be accessed by governmental authorities for surveillance or criminal prosecution.

22. FORTRAN, Pearl, Java, and Pascal are all programming languages.

23. A computer operates by a human being telling the computer information by using an input device which then the computer reads by using its GUI and operating system. The applications of a computer also use GUI’s to transfer and read the data which then tells the computer what it is supposed to do.

Computer History

1. ASCII White-the fastest computer in the world. Can do 12 trillion calculations per second. It is a “super computer” that takes up a lot of space.

2. Charles Babbage- an English scientists who is considered to be the “Father of the Computer”. He was a cow catcher before designing computers. He believed that to error was human therefore he had to create a machine that would not make mistakes like humans. He was the first to design a computer-type machine. He designed an analytical engine that was 15 feet tall but he never got the chance to build it.

3. Herman Hollerith- a former M.I.T. instructor. He designed electric machines that sped up the process of calculating and counting. He formed a company that would become the basis for I.B.M.

4. Colossus- a machine built by the British to break the inigma code during World War I. It was a deceiphering machine.

5. John Mauchley and Eckert- made a machine that could figure charts in minutes. They also created “eniac”which was the most complex machine of its time weighing 30 tons and measuring 100 feet long. Created their own company, Univac, and mass produced computers which sold commercially. Univac was used by CBS to predict the results of the presidential election. The machine proved to be correct.

6. John Von Neumann- a skilled man with a photographic memory. Provided the last key to developing a general purpose computer. He created a computer that had memory, input and output devices, and an internally held program.

7. IBM- early 1960’s. Made computers that were much smaller and compact.

8. Jack Kilby and Robert Noyce- made a single integrated circut chip. It was much smaller and was the most powerful computer of its time.

9. Ted Hoff- created the microprocessor which was all the information was on one tiny chip. Developed the Intel company.

10. Douglas Engelbart- created the mouse and keyboard.

11. Xerox- introduced “alto” in 1973 which had a graphical interface, laser printer, mouse, and a keyboard. It cost $18,000 per machine.

12. Steve Jobs and Steven Wozniak- built the “apple one” by using a build it yourself computer kit. Then a few years later they built the “apple two” and introduced the floppy disc drive. It was a personal computer with 4KB of memory storage. It had a command line interface. The program for the apple computer became known as Macintosh.

13. Bill Gates- president of a company called Microsoft. He stole the ideas from apple and copied them to create his own computer program called “Windows”. He became the richest man in the world.

• The World Wars, humans natural drive to find faster ways to do things, and the want to improve all spurred computers to be made.
• Before CRT monitors came into general use, the teletypewriter was the standard computer interface.
• Human Machine Interface (HMI) is what is used today.

Creating a Solution

1. The rapid warming of the planet earth is a huge problem to society.

2. People’s addiction and dependence on oil and other fossil fuels  have caused this climate crisis.

3. Global warming affects people because as the temperatures rise natural disasters grow stronger and happen more frequently. Many people have died already from natural disasters that are happening much too often. Along with humans, animals are being affected which will affect humans in the long run. Many animals are close to extinction which will give humans a smaller food supply. Crops are not doing as well due to long dry spells or other strange weather surges.

4. Global warming affects all the people in the world. In some parts of the world people are being affected more than others but eventually the entire world will witness the effects if a change is not made soon.

5. The first time scientists recorded a prediction of the climate warming rapidly across the earth was in the 1800’s when people began to use fossil fuels as their main source of fuel for energy. The industrial revolution brought on many predictions by scientists. It wasn’t until the 1900’s that the evidence became very evident and in the 1980’s it was given the term “the greenhouse effect”. Every decade the climate continues to get increasingly warmer.

6. Humans are the sole cause for this problem. Fossil fuels such as oil were not bad at first but as soon as the evidence began to appear of the harm it was doing to the environment we should have begun to start solving the problem. It has only been recently that the problem solving has begun. Many of the people in the world still do not take this climate crisis seriously even though the proof is right before their eyes.

7.Recently other sources of energy have been offered such as wind power, electric power, hydrogen power, or ethanol. Also simple things like limiting the amount of time you drive in your car and recycling would make a difference.

8. The problem has not been completely solved anywhere in the world but definite changes have been made that are seeming to help. It will take the entire world changing to make a significant change however.

9. I want to solve this problem because it personally scares me. I am afraid of what the world will be like in several years if changes are not made soon. I have seen many things on television and read many articles about this problem and scientists say that if changes are not made soon then the effects of global warming will be irreversible. I am also worried about the world becoming a barren, forest-less place without many animals. I believe that our world will be a miserable place to live for future generations. Also, gas prices are ridiculous and have made the middle class drop to the poor class almost. Even if you can afford a car you might not be able to afford gas to fuel your car. We need to get away from our oil addiction. Fuel should be affordable for everyone.

Blog Review

1. My first blog entry was about what I already know about computers.

2. Autobloggreen, Slashgear, and Treehugger are all blog websites dedicated to green technology.

3. A blog is a website usually made by one person with regular entries in a journal style are made of commentary, descriptions of events, or other material such as graphics or video.

4. Before you send an e-mail when you’re mad you should ALWAYS stop and think about what you are saying. You may go ahead and write the e-mail but wait overnight to actually send the e-mail. Your message can come off as more hurtful than intended if you send it in the heat of your anger.

5. You should not use large fonts or colors because they come off as distracting and draw the reader’s attention away from the message. Sometimes messages written like this can come off as so annoying that the reader will not even want to read it. Upper case letters come off as yelling and is rude so they should not be used either.

6. An e-mail sent by a bunch of people that is just advertising is called SPAM.

7. It is always important to have something in the subject line every time you send an e-mail for several reasons. First off, you want the recipient to know who the message is from and what it is about. Also if the computer does not recognize the subject it will simply send it to the bulk folder of the recipient’s e-mail.

8. To view many websites without opening different windows you can use tabs.

9. Dogpile.com is a combination of all of the internet’s best and most reliable search engines.

10. Progress reports are due to be submitted Friday, September 12.

Search Engines

1. Google, Ask Jeeves, and Dogpile

2. www.thrivingivory.com/

Yes, it was the same website on each search engine.

3. I believe that Dogpile is the best search engine because it is a combination of different search engines. Although Google is the most well-known search engine it is not necessarily the best because you get an overload of information most of the time.

4. All of the search engines give pretty much the same websites for these keywords. The first websites listed are the official website of the person and then as it moves down it goes into other websites and videos.

5.Wikipedia is a free online encyclopedia that anyone can post entries on.

6. The first results are the same and then they vary on each search engine. I feel like Dogpile’s websites are more reliable and specific.

Extra Credit:

1. Google has added GMail, Maps, and Shopping.

2. Google is the most popular search engine because it is the most well-known and has a lot of publicity behind it. Google provides good information. Also, not only is Google a search engine but it also has recently started to provide many only services such as e-mail.

3. Google, Askjeeves, Dogpile, and Yahoo are all crawler-based search engines.

4. You can learn just about anything you want to about search engines from searchenginewatch. The website is primarily for webmasters. It provides tips and information about searching the web.

Tree Hugger

Hydrogen powered cars are a very good idea. They do not pollute the air. The only emission is water which would recycle in the earth’s atmosphere. Water can be found just about anywhere which is a perfect idea. Since water recycles naturally there is no limit and we would never run out. The only worries to this technology is cost and also the fact that water can freeze. When hydrogen reacts with oxygen in a fuel cell it acts much like electricity.

Future Tech

1. Solar Powered Car- It is a natural source of energy and does not pollute the air.
2. Electric Aircraft- This is not the best alternative source of energy but it is however better than burning oil. Electricity does not pollute the air.
3. Wind Power- It is a natural source of energy and does not pollute the air.
4. Green Bags- They can be used many times and do not contribute to the bulk of grocery bags in landfills.
5. Compact Fluorescent Light Bulbs-They use much less energy than regular light bulbs.
6. Ethanol Fuel-It is a natural source of energy and does not pollute the air.

I believe that Ethanol Fuel is the best idea to solving the global warming crisis. It is a natural source of fuel and does not pollute the air. Also, there is no limit to how much you can have because more corn can always be grown and processed so there is no worry to running out of fuel. It would also be very cost efficient to produce and sell.