Necessity is the Mother of Invention

What does the phrase, “Necessity is the mother of invention” mean? I think “Necessity is the mother of invention” means that inventions are created when someone really has the need for them. It is like when Samuel Morse’s mother had him carry messages on horseback. He needed to find an easier way to send messages to others. So, he invented the Morse code. From that we can see that he made the invention of Morse code because he needed to make sending messages easier and quicker. Inventions need a necessity to be created otherwise there’s no reason to make it. Samuel Slater had the idea of a factory that made everything all in one place. From that we can see that he was not just helping himself, but others as well. He helped save people time, energy, and money. Another invention I personally enjoy is the television. I think the reason for inventing the television was for entertainment purposes. This invention was also made to help others; to give them something to do. It was invented in a time where working was very important and people had very serious lives. The television helped them escape from their lives and have some fun watching a comedy. It was also a way of communication of what is going on in the world through the news. All of these inventions show that when someone needed or wanted something they came up with an invention to help them. That is what I think “Necessity is the mother of invention” means.

Political Cartoon Analysis

I would say the main visual elements of this piece are a large, angry man squeezing a small, fearful man. The big man seems to be stealing the small mans money and collecting more profits. The labels on the men and the bags of money indicate that this cartoon is about capitalism and child labor. I think that the cartoonist’s opinion is that capitalism is that the higher class people become more greedy and more greedy until they resort to children. They can pay children less to work for the same type of work; therefore the owners get a higher profit from them. That is shown by the capitalist man squeezing money out of the child worker. The cartoonist obviously thinks that there is something wrong with how capitalism is progressing. It shows this in the cartoon by the helpless child that is getting thieved. I think the cartoon is very persuasive, but I would give one piece of advice. I would tell them to make it clearer and easier to read because they spent time and effort on a interesting cartoon but we can barely see and read it.

image from:http://depts.washington.edu/labhist/laborpress/images/Socialist Voice

End of Quarter One Feedback

So far I think I have not reached my goals fully. I think I have been handing my homework in on time(mostly). I could be better because sometimes I forget or write it down wrong in my agenda. I can definitely improve. I didn't reach my goal completely for having all the boxes checked on my Socratic seminar slip. I did well by getting a 21/25, but i didn't get all of them ticked. I can improve still by backing up my ideas with examples from the book and preparing myself for the discussion. As for my last goal I am sad to say I haven't learned many new things about the Simpsons. I will definitely have to study up on that this quarter.
i have a few goals set for myself for this quarter. My first goal is to gain money in stocks quest, if that is even possible right now. Hopefully i will at least get up to my original amount. Secondly, I want to continue reading books for AR to get full points. I would also like to improve the quality of my blog posts by putting more time and effort into them. I hope I will be able to complete these goals.

Stocks

Yesterday we did an 1870's stock market simulation. When Mr. Coyle told us one of his five investment tips,"Be fearful when others are greedy…be greedy when others are fearful" i wasn't exactly sure what it meant. I understood that it meant you have to take chances with your money, but later on i realized that wasn't all it meant. In the beginning of our investments, the silver company was shooting up and getting loads of money. People then flocked to by more silver cards, as i stayed put. Here I used the investment tip to be fearful when others are greedy. I knew the silver wouldn't always be easy to find again, so I didn't buy any stocks in silver. Sure enough, the amount of silver dropped and so did the price of the stocks. I was one of the people not mourning over their loss of money. Another example is when the Drexel-Morgan Company was not doing well because of corruption issues and of course, their stocks were low. No one wanted to go near their stocks but i followed Mr. Coyle's advice and got greedy when others were fearful. I bought some stocks in the Drexel-Morgan company and eventually the price increased greatly. I then thought more about this investment tip and realized what it really meant. It means you shouldn't just follow what everyone else is doing. It is kind of like the saying "If all your friends jumped off a cliff, would you too?". It is saying to use your own mind and common sense. Others aren't always right.

Pros and Cons of the IR

Pros:

• People can always find a job and make money
• People have a lot more knowledge of the outside world
  
• People are more educated
• People are more healthy

Cons:

• Since all the factories were created, the pollution has increased immensely
  
• Obesity rates have increased due the the industrialization of food
• Some people are really rich while others are really poor
• Some people have become too money oriented

Image URL
http://educ.ubc.ca/news/photos/globe.jpg