The Once And Future King Book 1

In the first book of the Once and Future king, Arthur know as Wart, is in his childhood. He practiced with Kay in all sorts of combat training, sword fighting, bow and arrow shooting, and jousting. Kay and Wart were friends and did many things together. Until Kay started drifting away from Wart to show that he was above Arthur, because Kay was going to be Knighted, and Wart was only going to be his Paige. Then one day Kay flew their hunting bird before it was ready to be flown and they lost it. Kay turned around and went home but Wart stayed and tried to recapture the bird until it got dark. The next day he lost the bird and ran into Merlin who after helping Wart recapture the bird, went back to the castle with him to be both Kay and his tutor. Merlin teaches Wart the regular school information but then also teaches him life lessons by changes him into different animals so he can understand how things work. The book ends by Arthur (Wart) pulling the sword from the stone and becoming King.

This book is very interesting, I liked how he created the animal's world and how they each had their own way of living. The hawks with their hierarchy of different species and how they are built like our war ranks. The way T. H. White created the ant's world, with everyone connected via a telepathic link to control the hill, was a great explanation.  I think that Arthur will use these lessons wisely during his rein, and put them to use in his building of the round table. I think that the next book will be about Arthur coming up with the round table and establishing his golden age of the kingdom.

The World Is Flat Post 6

I liked the book, though found some technologically incorrect areas, Friedman has his thoughts well sorted out and did do his homework. The flat world has effected me a lot already as most people who know me would say. I was introduced into this huge network of technology, with websites on multiple counties when I was about 6. I started to look into this world and discover how great of a thing this could be if I could work it to my advantage. I continued my work with learning the operating system of both Mac and Windows (Mac has and is always better) and I started to tinker with programming languages. But I realized that it is nice to know those things, but someone in India, China, Japan, or down the street could replace me. So I went back to knowing the current technology the background systems so that I could use my knowledge to help people who couldn't figure things out of their computer. Then I stumbled across a program that could help anyone from anywhere in the world with their software problems. So, I started up another path the one of hardware. No one is Bangalore can plug a computer into a ethernet switch only the person who is on the physical spot can. That is an untouchable position, so I sat down so to speak and worked on that; still keeping my other areas ready for use if needed. I then found Mr. Kern Kelley and started helping the IT department converging my knowledge of software, hardware, and overall technology to become someone who could help in almost any technical way. If one job was taken out could work on another to keep me going. I am currently not old enough to work without the superintendent's permission but, I do know a few untouchables jobs I could take up. To succeed in these jobs I still need the wide spectrum of knowledge that I can get from school. I need to know by watching the progressing world, to see which jobs remain untouchable and what opens up to other people of the world. I would be a fool to try and predict what will happen to the world in the future and do not want to find a job, settle in it only to move again. Nor would I want to try to ascertain help to get a job in years from now if I don't know the job I would want or need is. I gladly embrace the flattened world because that is what I have be living in and have taught myself to succeed in. I do not know how the world will move whether we as American will come out as the world leader in technology advancements, the world will become truly flat and everyone will be at the same level, or if America will be left behind. But I do know that I am ready to adapt.

The World Is Flat Post 5

The flat world is a good thing and a bad thing for America, in short it is a double sided sword. On one side, we as working Americans could lose our jobs to outsourcing, but it would repay by allowing our US companies to make more of a profit. Yet, we benefit from more minds thinking and acting upon goals, research, education, economics, transportation, and safety. More people can collaborate together to preform actions simply and easily. The flat world will make things safer by way of asking a better doctor on the other side of the world to look at a patients MRI for obstructions. Easier to find the information you are looking for as it is now not a question of is it out there? To, where can I find it? But.... We still need to think about the other side, more technology means more power, more power currently relates to more fossil fuel that is needed. We can see this in China, their country is exploding with population and technology everywhere! They need more fuel and they are producing so much pollution they turn their sky grey. So yes, I think the flat world is a good thing for America; but you can't just include America, the rest of the world is now tied in with us on a flattened landscape, if one of the countries suffer we now all get hit with the effects.

The World Is Flat Post 4

The potential negative consequences to a flat world are; world superpowers not so super, pirating, and work force balance. As the world continues to flatten out, I find some negative consequences to us as Earth's citizens, one of them being that the world superpowers, one of them being Microsoft, won't be so super anymore. Once we start outsourcing our processing jobs to huge processor labs in Japan what stops them from storing the beginning and finished parts? They have to store them anyway to process them, for example if Microsoft wanted to outsource the compiling job of their new Operating System (in 5 years again?) to Japan; the technician in Japan would have access to the beginning code and the resulting OS. This might be very tempting to the technician because it is the code of the new system, he could install a backdoor (security hole for intruder) into it before sending the result back to Microsoft. Or he could take the finished copy and sell it to all of Japan before Microsoft has all of the copyrights preventing distribution in Japan. This leads to another one of my concerns, pirating. Currently it is a huge problem, software, movies, and music, the main thing that is inhibiting the explosion of this underground community is transfer rates. If you were trying to peer to peer a new movie, chances are it is going to be about 5GB and at a constant download rate of ~150kb, which is highly unlikely, the download would take 12 hours. But if you had fiber channel links, the connection speed would be mind blowing (if under personal use only) you could download that whole movie in 21 seconds flat.

Someone tell me that isn't going to catch on with more people than already, we would have people downloading hundreds of movies in one day. That is what results in Microsoft strict DRM (Digital Rights Management) polices if you tried watching a movie in an inactivated version of Windows XP, the color would be inverted and completely distorted, a very unfortunate situation for someone who just hasn't activated windows yet.

Lastly another one of my concerns would be the work force balance. In the past years the US has had the jobs of different companies stay in the US, resulting in plenty of jobs for our country. Yet as we move into Globalization 3.0 we see that a lot of those jobs are being shipped off to other countries, and is starting to give good paying jobs for the rest of the world. What happens to the US's work force? The touchables are losing their jobs and becoming unemployed. The outsourcing of jobs is great but it is happening too fast, jobs are being tossed overseas by the Untouchable CEO of a business. He won't lose his job, but will profit more later from Indian workers. There are many more smaller consequences that arise, like distribution of viruses both digital and biological.

The World Is Flat Post 3

Convergence is a very important part of the world becoming flat, because the flatteners do flatten the world but they are doing it separated; if you combine a few of these forces you have a more powerful flattener. For example, in The World Is Flat, Friedman explains how many of these forces have come together to be a powerful flattener and a great businesses opportunities. The Convergence allows us to collaborate with the world give jobs to the cheapest but knowledgeable person in the world. It is a win for everyone but the Touchables (ununtouchables) for they typically are the most expensive work force.

The World Is Flat Post 2

Technology is reshaping human interaction personally, internationally, and economically. Once the Berlin Wall fell, many people were physically let go, but over the world it had repercussions. Friedman states that once the Berlin wall came down capitalism grew and more markets became open resulting in the decline of communism. But, now that the markets are ready for stock brokers to take a hold of them, there has to be collaboration, coordination, and digitalization. Within the next ten years the Web starting growing, and people could use the web browser Netscape to 'serf the web' and with this new technology; computers doing the connecting, we as either stock brokers or average people could go online and find out the current stock price of any company in the market. This goes to show that the human interaction with the economy has become an easy thing, you can lookup the current inflation rate, study the national debt, or study how the US dollar is worth against other nations' currency.
The telephone reshaped human interaction personally and was the beginning of international interaction. You could talk to anyone else with a telephone instantly! No more waiting around for mail to travel the country and back. The only problem that came about was that the phone companies charge more the people wanted to pay (of course), so the techno-geeks set up a different cheap way to call; the protocol VoIP to allow communication and collaboration between two people like a standard phone, but it could also be used as a conference call system. One of the systems were called Skype, most people used it for just person to person calling families anywhere in the world for a price cheaper then that of phone companies. As out-sourcing jobs became more common business executive realized the potential in Skype, executives started to use Skype to talk to their employees down in Bangalore or in Japan or in China. They also could setup a video conference with all three at once. Technology is reshaping the way we do many, many things and it is continuing to change and reshape as time progresses.

"Can you hear me now Bangalore?"

The World Is Flat Post 1

When Friedman says "The world is flat" he is trying to convey his thinking and research of how the world is reshaping itself. Although the world is not physically reshaping, we can talk to people in Japan like they were siting next to us, we can work for corporations that are on the other side of the world. He is trying to show us with one catchy phrase what is happening to our way of life; for centuries your ability of getting a high paying job depended on where you lived, now you can get a high paying job anywhere in the world. As the world is flatting out, people who couldn't get jobs before are easily getting them now. For example, in Bangalore, Friedman shows that employees are performing jobs for US companies cheaper than the equivalent American would settle for.
We as Americans no longer have the advantage of being on top of a mountain with our high paying jobs and extremely well educated workers, looking down upon the uneducated people of the world who have to get a minimum wage job before they finish school. Now the mountains have been leveled and the valleys filled and now as we look at Japan at the same level as us competing for the same jobs. As Friedman puts it "The Playing Field Is Set" and now Americans will have to be untouchables, or fight for jobs with the additional millions of eager workers.

Oliver Twist Post

Oliver Twist is a orphan who lives in a workhouse. He is maltreated and get just enough food to survive and if anyone asked for more food they were punished. Oliver was put up for adoption and was eventually taken my a coffin maker. After a while Oliver was liked my his "father" but was bullied  fsdf around by his "brother"; Oliver eventually got into a fight and was forced to run away or otherwise be put away as an insane child. Oliver made his way into a group of child thieves and was falsely accused of stealing an elder man's handkerchief. The elder man Mr. Brownlow, realizing his mistake saved Oliver from the judge who would have killed him with months of hard work. But after Oliver recovered, he was kidnapped back in to the gang of thieves, and was forced to help with a burglary of a wealthy family. Shot in the resulting battle, Oliver was taken in by the family and nursed back to health. He lived with them for a while afterward and found out the truth of his family.
The characters of this book, the way that the plot is formed, and the connections to real events, makes this story a sad truth of what could of happened to many orphans back then. Oliver the orphan whose life was hard just kept on pressing down on him creating an almost hopeless life to lead. Oliver was a very strong person, living through many hardships and diseases, yet still pleasing many of the people he lived with. Mr. Brownlow a very nice man who saw how hard of a life Oliver had and wanted to help him very much. Fagen, the leader of the thieves whose only use for Oliver was a small good thief. The Maylie family, who made Oliver as good as their own child, beside the attempted robbery.
The way that they plot accelerated and twisted was amazing, you couldn't guess what was going to happen next, starting out as Oliver a workhouse child asking for more food. Then becoming a coffin maker's apprentice, suddenly running away to London, becoming part of a group of thieves. Oliver then became a favorite of wealthy Mr. Brownlow, then kidnapped back into the group of thieves. Being shot during a burglary, and becoming part of the victim's family.

Le Morte d'Arthur

In this short summary of King Arthur's life, the Le Morte d'Arthur first explains how the mythological stories may had melded with the real version of King Arthur's tale; showing some of the differences between his stories. Then the story starts with King Arthur being born and his father, the king, dies a couple of years later, leaving the throne for his son. Arthur was hidden away to not bring harm upon him, he was trained both in fighting, jousting, but also in lessons from Merlin. The story continues until the great king triumphs over many battles, but many years later he is fatally wounded in a battle again Sir Mordred. He orders that his sword, Excalibur be thrown into the sea, and Arthur was put onto a boat to try and get healed but it was to late. Arthur died and was buried on the beach.