Computer and its effects on human life

Computer and its effects on human life Introduction: When computers were first invented in the 1970s it had a big effect on peoples lives all around the world. Stop and imagine life without computers. Today living without a computer is almost impossible for most people in the world since they depend on it for their every day programs. People all around the world use the computer to connect with people thousands of miles away and computers has made the lives of todays growing society a lot easier. The amount of computer users has doubled in the past decade with more people trying to get their hands on a computer to make things easier for them. With a click of button and in a matter of seconds you can transfer information from one place to the other side of the world right from the comfort of your room. Computers are the most modern and most important machines in the 20th century. Although computers have influenced people in a good way but there is a bad side to it too. Computers have a negative effect on the environment, society and people. First of all computers contain hazardous elements like lead and mercury which is very toxic and can damage the environment. When computers are not disposed properly or if not recycled then it can ruin the environment with its harmful chemicals. Computers consume a lot of energy which can pollute the environment (atmosphere). Not only computers have a negative impact on the environment it also has a negative impact on humans too (as well). The computer can damage the human brain due to using the computer continuously and it can cause pain in the body like the hands, back legs etc. if not used properly and due to repetitive motion, computers make the society very inactive since people get addicted to it and using it too much leads them to miss out in their daily activities such as exercise. Short History: The personal computer was invented by Steve Jobs and Steve Wozniak which was called apple I computer in 1976. Since the 1970s computer designs and programs have changed a lot and new models and better designs were built in the coming years. Throughout the late 1970s and the early 1980s computers were developed for personal household use for personal productivity, programming and games. Some larger and expensive systems were for use in an office and small businesses. Later on business computers acquired graphics and sound system and home computers and game system users used the same processors and operating systems as office workers. After the apple I computer Steve Woniak and his friend Steve Jobs created the Apple II computer which was a complete computer. The Apple II computer had color graphics, a full QWERTY keyboard and internal slots for expansion. In the 1980s many other computers were built with improved models such as the TRS-80. Personal computers were not a threat to the environment in the 70s and 80s since only limited amount of them were produced. Computers were expensive back then that only rich individuals, some businesses, companies and corporations could afford them. As more companies came into the computer business competition between other companies caused most of the computer prices to go down. With computers cheaper people could not wait to get their hands on one of them. Later in the 1990s computers started to become a threat to the environment since there was a big demand for it and people were trying to get the brand new computer designs. In the 90s old computers were being thrown away without proper disposal and the toxic chemicals in the computers which were mostly lead and mercury harmed the environment including safe drinking waters. This is still continuing today with more and more computers are being trashed away with landfills of them all around the world. Subject description: Computer disposal has had a big impact on the environment and the society. 75% of obsolete computers are just lying around. A study by the National Safety Council has found that nearly 75% of computers purchased by corporations, companies and individuals are lying around in some attic, garage or store room. Those computers are being disposed but not recycled. Many people are not aware of the hazards of computer disposal in land fills. In the production of computers harmful chemicals are used such as lead and mercury. Materials like plastic are also used in the production of computers. Just like coal lead is also mined from the earth and for that habitats and trees has to be destroyed in order to dig the ground and mine lead. The result is deforestation and many animal habitats will be destroyed and companies would not bother to try to fix it back. Mercury is also consumed from the earth and is very hazardous. The plastics that are used in making computer monitors contain dangerous flame retardants that can be very toxic when released into the environment. When old computers are thrown away into landfills without proper disposal than the chemicals in the computers and the lead and mercury can enter the waters in the environment and make it very toxic, it does not only pollute water but also kills living creatures in the water. When determining the problem of pollution caused by computers and their production it is evident that all computer hardware is responsible for the problem and causes of pollution during production. Pieces of hardware such as keyboards, monitors, mice are all made out of plastic which is usually not recyclable. Other chemicals found in these tools are also harmful and can damage the environment. As the result of the assembly of the pieces inside the computer such as chips and wafers a lot of toxic materials are given off causing more harm to the environment. The creation of computers causes harm to the environment because old computers are often disposed only to be replaced by larger computers which consume more energy causing more pollution. As the demand for larger monitors and more memory chips grow due to the developments in media, the level of toxins and pollution will increase too and cause even more harm to the environment. These toxins and pollution is caused when more monitors and chips are being produced and manufactured. The average 24 kg desktop computer with a monitor requires at least 10 times its weight in fossil fuels and chemicals to manufacture. Researchers found that manufacturing one computer and 17- inch CRT monitor uses at least 240 kg of fossil fuels, 22 kg of chemicals and 1,500 kg of water which is a total of 1.8 tonnes of material. A variety of environmental impacts associated with computer production processes are huge amount of energy used in the production and operation of computers. Long-term health effects on workers, families and neighboring communities due to chemical exposure and emissions from production stages such as microchip fabrication. Health impacts due to exposure to hazardous materials contained in computer products, such as brominated flame retardants and lead. The main risk of exposure comes from computers that have been dumped in landfills or from environmentally unsafe recycling processes in developing countries. The process of safely getting rid of your old computer is recycling. Recycling of computer parts are done in systematic order by recyclers. After the extrusion of elements such as copper, tin, aluminum, and zinc, precious elements like gold and silver are also taken out of the computer parts. The remaining computer and electronic components are then shredded into small parts and is thrown away safely. Individual components such as glass from cathode ray tubes are sold to foundries to be used as flexing agents. The harmful gases generated through this process is mostly trapped and contained. Many manufacturers of computer parts also offer programs to buy obsolete computers for recycling. It is the safest way to always recycle your obsolete computer by giving it to a computer recycling program. This way these old computers are not left in land fills and will not harm or damage the environment. Future trends and Environmental/ social Impacts: Sales of personal computers have skyrocketed in the past two decades. The 300,000 computer sales in the U.S in the 1980s increased by 500% the next year and doubled again in the year after that. Today, despite the high-tech meltdown of the late 1990s, computer sales grow about 10 percent a year and more than 130 million computers are being sold each year around the world. By the end of 2002, one billion PCs had been sold worldwide. In 2001 125 million personal computers were shipped compared to 48,000 thousand in 1977. According to iSuppli the global personal computer shipments were 264 million units in 2007 which was 11.3 percent more than 2006. As of June 2008, the number of personal computers used worldwide hit the one billion mark while another billion is expected to be reached by 2014. About 180 million computers which are 16 percent of the existing installed base were expected to be replaced and 35 million obsolete computers to be dumped into landfills in 2008. Nearly 80% of the personal computers used today are mostly in developed countries with the U.S being one of them. With the computer sales increasing each year, the number of obsolete computers increase too, this causes more environmental damage. Most of the obsolete computers are dumped in landfills in developing countries and most of those computers come from developed countries. This increase of computers in landfills contributes to pollution in our environment and destroys habitats. The number of people worldwide owning a personal computer has been doubled since 2002 and that has a bad impact on humans. Most people try to make their job easier just by using a computer, thats a good thing but that also makes many individuals lazy. The continuous use of computers by individuals increases their chances of pain in the muscles and will have many pain problems in their adulthood. Most people are addicted to computers that they will likely miss their daily exercise and daily routines. As more new technologies are about to come in the near future, more and more computers will be replaced by them and therefore causing a massive destruction in the environment. Conclusion: Overall, a computer is one of the famous and great inventions in human history. This technology is likely to cause more harm to humans and the environment, it does not only make humans lazy but it also damages them mentally and physically. The way computers are being programmed to do a job, due to too much use of technology humans are being programmed as well without being aware of it. The harmful chemicals in the computers cause pollution in the environment and destroys it, third world countries are filled with trash that the western world has produced but can not keep them in their own country instead pays other poor countries to dispose it for them. There are positive impacts as well, such as saving time, increase in knowledge and multi tasking gets jobs done at once and make life easier. Living without a computer is nearly impossible for many people around the world. Today if the use of computers stopped than basically the earth stops. Almost everything today to communication to designing a new model of some sort is done by a computer. Life without a computer is nothing; people are too depended on them now, its time that they should start using their brains as well not just the computers and take action against unsafe disposals of obsolete computers.

English Translation of Chinese Neologisms from the Perspective

1. Introduction Language is dynamic. Every day there are new words coming into use in languages and there are many others fading away from lexicon. Chinese, one of the oldest languages in the world, still possesses this dynamism. Language serves as a tool of communication and interaction, thus it reflects the social changes, and meanwhile social changes find their expressions in language, which leads to the advent of neologisms. The appearances of new inventions, new technologies, new ideas and new social phenomena are capable of bringing neologisms into languages.In the twentieth century, Chinese neologism has undergone three stages: the first stage was from 1919, after the May 4th Movement; the second stage was from the establishment of People’s Republic of China to 1978; the third stage began with the policy of reform and opening-up. Entering into the new century, the development of society has hasted their paces and the communication between centuries becomes more frequent . Language is witnessing the changes. During recent years, an increasing number of new words has been adopted into Chinese.Therefore, as the translator, he or she shoulders the responsibility of translating the new words properly in order to convey the Chinese culture to other countries, and this has proved to be a great challenge. Though there are many dictionaries and handbooks which study Chinese neologisms and the translation of Chinese neologisms, the study of neologism translation is far from enough. This thesis will discuss the translation strategies in order to accomplish the translation of Chinese neologisms efficiently by adopting the theoretical foundation of Eugene A.Nida’s Functional Equivalence. The thesis is divided into six parts. The first part is introduction; the second part focuses on the origins and characteristics of Chinese neologism; the third part puts its emphasis on the theoretical basis—Functional Equivalence, which was proposed by the famou s American translation theorist Eugene A. Nida; the fourth part discusses the respective translation strategies under the guidance of the translation theory. The fifth part talks about the existing problems in neologism translation and how to solve these problems.Last part is a conclusion of the whole thesis. Neologisms emerged in the new century especially new words of 2008 will be adopted as main examples, because they are endowed with fresher and richer contents and reflect the characteristics of new era more evidently. The examples and their translations are quoted mainly from China Daily, Global Times and official translation versions of political documents. This thesis will not specify the respective source of each neologism.

Evening News Essay

News is information or a presentation about current events and is reported by a variety of means such as newspapers, periodicals, radio, television and websites on the Internet. The reporting of news falls into the field of journalism, which are typically written or broadcast in news style. Most news is investigated and presented by journalists and can be distributed to various sites via news agencies. On the other hand, according to a web encyclopedia, â€Å"Short for Web log, a blog is a Web page that serves as a publicly accessible personal journal for an individual. Typically updated daily, blogs often reflect the personality of the author.†(par. 1). A blog is a mixture of a person’s experiences in life and what is happening on the Web. It is like a kind of a personal diary-cum-guide site. There are unique types of people, thus, there are as many unique types of blogs as well. In another case, a blog is also a web site that contains dated entries in reverse chronological order (most recent first) about a particular topic. Functioning as an online newsletter, blogs can be written by one person or a group of contributors. Entries contain commentary and links to other Web sites, and images as well as a search facility is also included. Most blogs also invite feedback and comments from visitors and Internet newsgroup discussions, which tend to be more question-and-answer oriented. People have already maintained blogs before but it only gained momentum in 1999 when automated published systems were introduced. Nowadays, thousands of people use web site blog hosting services to simplify and accelerate the publishing process. The template-based software makes it easy to create an online blog and continuously allows you to add entries. Similarly like news, a blog   is a form of media. However, news is considered a traditional media while blog is connoted as internet type of media. It is a platform to communicate what anyone may wish to let anyone know within reach of an internet connection. In traditional media, you are first defined by your medium. There is some constraint on how the contents are delivered physically or digitally which is determined by your medium. According to Maverick blog article, â€Å"There is a cost versus time versus interest versus access series of constraints that determines who your audience is, how you reach them and what they expect of you. Over time, those constraints have evolved our media into very defined roles†(par. 3). Blogs are different. There is no cost constraint. It costs nothing to create a blog. There are time constraints, but much less than traditional media. Bloggers are not pressured   to publish or create an article on a schedule. Blogging is basically personal and this is where the paths of blogging and traditional media diverge. Traditional media is business, thus it has become exclusively corporate while blogging remains almost exclusively personal. However, some bloggers have started to make money from their blogs but what they put in their blogs is all up to them which gives them satisfaction.   Members of traditional media are employees. They get hired for a specific job and they have to do that job. They get hired by a corporation that is most likely public, which means that their employers are concerned in getting their stock price up above all else. Thus, they write news and articles that is dictated by subjects perceived to make more money.   Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚   In comparison to mainstream media, blog gives anyone the freedom to write about anything. They can write opinion. They can report facts. They can ask questions. They can write any topics they want. Individual Web surfers post their own eclectic and varied thoughts. Still, others such as known political parties, religious and professional groups, businesses, and media organizations have created their own blog sites too. A report by Snow states that, â€Å"audience for blogs in general is more than 3.5 million strong, and growing. One group that surveys political blogs believes between 20,000 and 25,000 people are regularly talking about political topics on Weblogs. These days people from every corner of the country are finding each other on screen. The impact of all this dialogue is hard to gauge, but it is clearly shaping politics and media coverage†(par. 16-18). Wright also presented that â€Å"Blogging grew from the ground up as a grassroots effort. What started as a few people conversing about common interests via real-time Internet postings has become a continuous conversation among millions of   bloggers and readers. With millions of bloggers expressing their thoughts, experiences, and information they’ve learned in their fields of interest, this medium has become a worldwide forum†(3). Another interesting development of blog in comparison to traditional media is that even news agencies have created their own section termed newsblogs. Auty argues that â€Å"newsblogs supplement and work alongside traditional news media by filtering and reporting news. She praises the growth of personal diaries and eyewitness accounts (such as those that sprung up after 9/ 11) but overall sees blogs as being a new way of distributing and collecting the news rather than a new source of news itself†(341). The rapid pace of technology is changing the nature of blogs as well. The popularity of digital audio players such as the iPod has spurred the growth of blogs with audio content. People can download a wide range of audio files like music and listen to them at their convenience using a PC or a portable media player. The rapid adoption in the use of cell phones with built-in digital cameras and wireless Internet connections is also changing the face and pace of blogging. Bloggers armed with these tools can snap a picture, writes a short caption and then post it on a â€Å"moblog† or mobile log, regardless of time and place.   Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚   Thus, with these conveniences brought about by blogging and the personal satisfaction they give on people, it is not surprising that future generations will no longer subscribe to traditional media. As Wright argues, â€Å"blogs have the power to create businesses, change the course of political history, and transform the way the mainstream or traditional media looks at itself.†(2). BIBLIOGRAPHY Auty, Caroline(Editor). Politics and Government in the Age of the Internet. Bradford, , UK: Emerald Group Publishing Limited, 2005. p 341. Blogging Vs. Traditional Media. Blog Maverick Website. May 13, 2006. 27 Oct. 2006 Snow, Kate. The Power of the Blog. ABC News website. Sept. 26, 2004. 27 Oct. 2006 Webopedia. The No. 1 Online Encyclopedia dedicated to Computer Technology. 26 Oct. 2006 Wright, Jeremy. Blog Marketing. Blacklick, OH, USA: McGraw-Hill Companies, The, 2005. p 2-3.   

Using a Venn Diagram for a Compare and Contrast Essay