Tuesday, May 6, 2008

Forum 2 - Inventions and Technology


Some inventions have really changed society and made a big difference in the way we live nowadays. We of course can't do without the most recent ones such as the Internet and the cell phones. However, there are so many from the past that we sometimes forget about them. Check this link and you will find a few:

http://www.cbc.ca/kids/general/the-lab/history-of-invention/default.html

Share with the group your impressions in favor and against (pros & cons) of early inventions and/or modern technology. Have they done more good than harm? In what way have we benefitted from them?

18 comments:

Anonymous said...

Sewing machine

I think that this invention done more good than harm, because is very important for many people and business like companies, tailor's shop, clothes shop, and seamstress. Until that time, sewing was a difficult, time-consuming job and hard on the hands. For me one of the most important machines ever devised. I can’t vote against it, because I don’t see anything bad.

We have many benefit from them, because imagine a world where all your clothes had to be sewn by hand. Before perhaps took many hours for sew something I think that now is more quick with it. And we can make ours exclusives clothes.

I like so much this invention, because I have a Singer and a Brother, and many years ago, I made the sewing course and now I know make different clothes. I can make panty, brassier, sleep clothes, pants, blouse, shorts, bath set, kitchen set. I don’t know sewn by hand! Congratulations to the people that known make it. I’m a seamstress. I dislike the sewing needles but it is part of the work.

Laura Navas

Anonymous said...

Technology impact

World today is very different, the technology had changed the way to do things.
An example of that is the Internet, because whit the introduction of these technological tools, the work became to be easier. In the past, everybody had to get up early in the morning, and travel to their office, but now many people can work from home. People only need to have a phone, a computer and modem for the internet connection.
All of that seems very well of course, do that, but everything have advantages and disadvantages one advantages might be a flexible schedule work, there aren’t many distractions, less stress for to much traffic, more cheaper because people don’t need go out to eat.
One of disadvantages can be to be alone at home and don’t have personal contact with friends, so maybe you lose the interest to go out frequently.

Natala

Anonymous said...

As Natala wrote, in the modern day world, technology is forever changing and improving all around us. I agree with her because technology as internet has brought a good way to do work and rest too; working at home can be one of the most advantages of this technology.

The option to stay home and enjoy the possibility to communicate with the world by the commodity of home is really great, but one of negative effect of technology is the fact that as the result of technology are said to be the beginnings of the dehumanization of society.

On the other hand, the production of new technology really is creating a more advanced and convenient society for all of us, and for the future generations.

Trina

Néstor A. said...

Medicine and technology

The evolution of the society have been based in the development of the new technology, in different areas; for example the medicine invents and technologies in this area have been a beneficial because today the doctors can to save more life’s by technology medicine; the surgery are much safe because de doctor use machines and instruments for to guarantee the success.

One disadvantage of the technology is now all people to depend of the technology for work and to live, for example in my place work (the library) we depend of the electricity for provide any service.

Néstor A.

Anonymous said...

An other example of society's technological advances is the modern invention of the television, the most firmly ingrained social habit in our everyday lives. But, in education terms, the time that children spend in front of the television would be much better spent if they were to spend that time with their families and friends.

In this case, in my opinion, comments about the TV invent does more harm than good, is relative. I know that today all houses have a TV set and is true of many homes have more than one set, for that television is taken for granted, treated as an innocent part of the furniture but, it can does more harm than good.

It depends of family, because parent can use TV programs as educational way, with science, geography and history documentaries, news programs, children’s programs, which TV can slow down young children’s speech development, or let that the evidence that seeing on-screen violence makes us less sensitive to the real things.

Trina

Néstor A. said...

The airplane


In 1952 Jet Planes were first used for passenger, this event were a big advance for the business transportation, because people can to fly from country to country fast and safely; the numbers of passenger were enormous like now.

The invention of the airplane for transportation gave a possibility to people of knows others countries and other continent. After the invention of automobile the airplane has been the must important type of mass transportation.

The accidents in airplane are less that car accident, but when this happen general are fatality.


Néstor A.

Anonymous said...

The Computer

I agree with Natala and Trina, but they forgot that Internet would be impossible without the computer. For me, computers are a support for many revolutionary inventions and have improved, in most cases, other inventions created before it. For example medicine before computers was based on the doctor knowledge and the tools he used, but in many cases doctors hadn’t an almost real diagnostic for the patient.
Today with many of the revolutionary machines computer-based used in medicine, doctors have a reliable diagnostic for their patients and through Internet they can share and research about strange diseases which are unusual.
But people must be careful with computer in many aspects. One of theme is for example the children, because when they are in front of the computer for many hours, they can found inappropriate content that can affect them. Other aspect may be electronic fraud or unauthorized information access, because electronic transaction that people make can be intercepted by malicious software or persons, who supplant the owner identity to stole their money, personal information or confidential documents that can be compromising. If people use computer as a tool, I think we can obtain free time to share with family, friends or do another things.

Lucy

Anonymous said...

The Automobile

I think automobile is one of the most important inventions in history. Before it, people had to walk or to ride horses long distances to obtain many things to their families and communities. In spite of the first automobiles were built late 1800s, in 1700s a true self-propelled vehicle was built, which carried four passengers for 20 minutes at a top speed of 3.6 km/hr.
At the beginning of the 1900s, fossil fuels were introduced and helped the quick growing of the automobile industry. But this is the most dangerous thing about vehicles, because carbon monoxide emanations have caused a severe global warm in the planet. A person who worked by the United States Patent and Trademark Office said that in few years that office would have to close, because almost everything had been invented, but he was wrong, and the automobile industry wasn’t the exception.
This bad effects detected by the automobile emanations, have generated new researches to improve its efficient and to minimize the impact in global weather. New technologies based on green energy have been developed, such as Natural Gas, Electricity, Solar Energy, Biofuel and inclusive Pressurized Air. This is a little window to the future of the industry and I hope in few years we could enjoy beautiful and clean automobiles.

Lucy

Patricia Murillo said...

Laura’s sewing machine comments are very true, especially because as a seamstress herself she knows all that firsthand. The time & work saving advantages of this great invention are undeniable.

Patricia Murillo said...

Natala and Trina hit the nail right on the head with their views on the advantages and disadvantages of technology and Internet. But Lucy was also right by pointing out that without the invention of the computer there wouldn’t be any Internet.

Patricia Murillo said...

I agree with Nestor on his opinion of our high dependency on electricity for home and work. Most equipment, appliances and services operate on electricity, and we panic when we have a power outage, as we all experienced in Venezuela a couple of months ago.

I join Nestor and Lucy on their concern about some disadvantages of the airplane and the automobile. We need to think about safety and the environment.

Patricia Murillo said...

In regard to Trina’s comments on TV, I’d like emphasize the educational power of TV because there are many channels that have documentaries and teaching programs for all ages. It is through TV that we can hear news and see footage of events that happen not only in our country but also of the rest of the globe. However, the downside of TV programming is that these days most shows —including cartoons— are full of sexual and violent content that leaves a lot to be desired.

Anonymous said...

I'm Agree with Trina and Nestor the technology
can be a blessing between these benefit it,
The technology is very useful and easy to use
in many cases don't need to make physical
effort but you can't leave it all to technology,
the technology is only a tool to do your life
more confortable but not to live your life,
for many people is very easy lost themselves
in all these things.

Natala.-

Unknown said...

I found interesting the comment done by Natala about the Internet. I was helping my 11-year-old son to do a homework about Internet, and I realized that many people use this tool but not all of us know or get conscious about how many functions the Internet has. Using Internet, we are able to do many different things, such as to search for information, read newspapers and magazines, consult and manage public services and official requirements, open an e-mail account and send e-mails, chat, access to several data bases, listen music, watch videos, have video meetings, send messages to cellular phones, have forums, create blogs, download files, buy products and services, play games, do courses, study a degree, among other things.
It is amazing to be able to count with a tool like this that allows us to save time and money. However, I agreed with Natala that this has its disadvantages. Beside of the loneliness, other disadvantage is that many hours working in the computer could cause visual problems because people spend more time without batting an eyelid; so, doctors recommend to use eye-drops to keep them wet.

Militza

Unknown said...

It is incredible as the technology has developed in the last years, up to the point that we meet dragged by the speed of these changes. What we before called a long term, now has decreased to much less thank those developments. It is sure that many inventions simplify us our lives but with the speed with which they get improved they produce a quantity of scrap for which we are not prepared to handle. Lucky, there are companies and industries which devote themselves to recycle or re-use what for many of us already is useless (By the way, there is a good program about this titled “Scrap factory”, transmitted through NatGeo).

The worrier part of the technology improvement is, as some of you have mentioned, the damage that we are doing to our planet. There are islands full of wastes, without saying anything about how human beings are destroying our environment to support the industries and the commerce. And, even although, there have been created others alternative inventions, the speed of their introduction to the market, the costs involved on them, and the dark interests generated around the usual ones have made those almost impossible to be gotten by the mass. On the other hand, in order to be updated with the technology advances, people often forget their internal (emotional and moral) development.
This last link us with some of your comments about the disadvantage of other inventions like TV. Parents have to fight to counter remain the violent and dangerous messages that their children are receiving through TV.

The principles, the ethics and the morality must be reinforced in our children in order to guaranty them a better life style than that they might perceive throughout TV, using, if it´s possible, the same messages in order to convert them to a positive learning.

Militza

Anonymous said...

A special Invention.
I have to talk about inventions and technologies, it is a pleasure to me to introduce a great invention to you, it is a scalpel, this especial scalpel, which was made with diamond, is been using for make a small and slim cut in biological skim, metals and lunar rocks. This invention was the first step for frozen hydrated study, the Origin of electronic crio-microscopy concept.
The more important thing that I want to share with you is that all these inventions were made for a Venezuelan scientific, who was named Humberto Fernández Morán, he was born in Maracaibo in 1924. This magnify Venezuelan was one of the founders of IVIC and biophysical course in UCV, taught in many universities like; Chicago University and Institute technological of Massachusetts; and also worked by NASA in Apollo project.
Félix Mejías.

Anonymous said...

Inventions and environment.
I have read everything you gays wrote about invention and technologies, and some of you said that many inventions are not very good for the environment. I agree with you in many ways, but, I have to say that the problem is not the inventions, in my opinion the problem is the point of view of the universe flow, I am going to explain what I am talking about, the point is, since the world began, the man have thought that all things below him and he has used all resources without think about the consequence and all the inventions have been making for the man necessity. I think the solutions is on the table, the man have to use all his imaginations to create new inventions and technologies to save the environment, in my own words the man have to change the point of view of the universe flow. In conclusion the man has to work now to save the planet, and I sure that we all can make the change because the imagination is more important than knowledge.
Félix Mejías.

Anonymous said...

There were many examples in history of things that were invented. Each invention could have many arguments about if it was benefit, constructive or not for the society. It depends of different points of view. In a hand, I agree with Laura´s opinion about the sewing machine. It was a very important invention for people and business. It has helped to develop clothing´s industries after 1700s. Before, people sewed by hand. I think that this kind of work was very hard. In other hand, Sewing could be a pleasure for other people, particularly for women who like to do themselves their clothes and to wear exclusive ones.

Arminda