Why the World is Not Flat

Why the World Isn’t Flat

I’m glad we had to read this book because I had read it early, but only the 2nd edition. The book is a very entertaining read, even on the second time. For everyone, you should pick up the NYT and read some of his articles. Or perhaps some of his other books like the Lexus and the olive tree or aside from globalization, from Beirut to Jerusalem (which my gf just gave me). He has clever diction and often gets to the heart of some our times most pressing issues.
Friedman puts it directly to us the reader. Most his audience I assume is American. No longer do we have the overwhelming advantage of dominance in the world’s markets, as that will longer be the case. Of course as of now America is still undoubtedly singularly still the greatest nation the world has ever seen. However, as Friedman points out over time the importance of these huge groups such as nations and corporations is decreasing and that of the individual is increasing.
The effect this will have on me is that I will soon be facing increased competition from not just my peers around me but those of my peers from around the globe. As people right now are experiencing in the United States this can mean jobs will be lost or gained as opportunity presents itself. I feel that the best way to deal with the flat world is to adapt. It is just like survival of the fittest where animals that cannot adapt go extinct. On a better note I just read an article about the continuing success of kiwi breeding in New Zealand!
I appreciate Friedman’s keen sense of simplicity in laying out his ten flatteners. Open source is the greatest in my opinion. There is the ever-present conflict between customization and standardization. Open source projects make it possible for individuals (like me!) to develop software. Open source can successfully compete with big companies as well (Linux etc.). Open source also means greater opportunity for everyone in open source politics, culture and much more. Globalization has the chance to transfer power from the few to the many!
Nevertheless I’m sorry to say that there are so many problems in taking every word of his book entirely seriously. Sure, I need to hone a varied and important set of skills to remain “irreplaceable”. But the globalised world is not here yet. To think this way can lead to folly. Since Friedman gives many “stories” and examples in his book here’s one in addition: a little over ten years ago Coca Cola rebranded itself as going aggressively global and emphasized that there would be no distinction between international and domestic. So they set huge growth targets, focused on a few megabrands, and underwent a load of centralization and standardization. Well, I admire Coca Cola a lot, my dad worked for them for a little while in Brazil and said there were an incredibly future oriented company, buying up land for later use and setting plans for far into the future. As Steve Jobs said, the consumer doesn’t tell you what they want, you tell them what they want. Nevertheless, this plan terribly backfired and I believe they lost something like $100 billion in market value. Oops. Haha. Well that’s unfortunate. So now they are setting more realistic goals and diversifying. They’ve learned a lot from Japan, where if you’ve ever been there they have a huge assortment of products. I’m sure you’ve heard about entering the vita-water sectors as well. The lesson learned here is that globalization is not finished and not even close.
In fact, most of the technological advances that have made the world a smaller place have only served to increase local ties. Sure information, people, money etc can move quicker and to basically anywhere. But the world is only starting to truly benefit from globalization. Take the web for instance; you should be connected with the whole world when you get on. But don’t you end up chatting mostly with close friends and emailing cross-country. We are more wired but it does not mean that we are any more “global”.
From the business investment standpoint most fixed investment is internal. “Our investment knows no boundaries” is what companies say. But if you’ve looked at where investment comes from it’s a largely domestic thing. Politically we are not yet global citizens. If you ask people what they are they’ll respond with a nationality or ethnicity. Parochial ties are so strong. Some people I’ve met won’t even say a country but give me a region like Bavaria or Catalonia. These are reasons why even on the smaller scale such as the EU (haha not so small maybe) globalization has taken a hit. Someone said if globalization were given a vote in the United States today it would lose. We have the Mexicans, Britons have the Polish, the French have Algerians, Germans have Turks and the list goes on and on.
I truly believe in the flattening of the world. But the amount of exaggeration that people have used in describing globalization is ridiculous. Friedman talks about a world where distance, geography, and language don’t matter. But my god they do!
Even when all are in common it does not mean a flattening in its entirety. Look at the Canada-US border. The biggest bilateral trade in the world and yet there is more trade between provinces in Canada than between states of similar size and distance. Obviously some people care about these boundaries are artificially as they are. When you look at trade figures I am shocked, not by the huge numbers, but by the small numbers. There’s still a huge amount of international trade however don’t get me wrong.
But I mean, globalization is occurring but is far far far from complete. In fact, policies are very fickle as well. I remember a picture on the cover of the Economist, in 2006 or something, of the future of globalization showing a beached wreck see it? haha its probably of the Aral Sea, what a calamity. Anyways... I guess I feel pessimistic because of the sub-prime crisis this year. Who knows what will happen. Policies are as capricious as the wind. And an election is coming up! Oh no… haha as decreasing numbers of votes turn out Americans find themselves with fewer leaders and choosing between as Nader said, between Tweedle Dee and Tweedle Dum.
As the world flattens, as it looks like it will in the coming years we might find many more Americans without jobs. After all, many of them are overpaid for jobs that others who are more tenacious and determined could do for much much less. Luddites destroyed machines in the past for taking their jobs. Nowadays theres lots of violence against the minorities that can take jobs. But its survival of the fittest right?!
In the future we will experience more shocking news. Jobs will be lost and gained. Economies will plunge and soar. People will be put in poverty and some will become richer than anyone has ever been. This years election will come and go. Gas will be become more expensive. Maybe the next google will come around. There is global warming. And hopefully mankind doesn’t destroy itself in the process.
I guess some people at this point, after reading Friedman’s book or whatever, will be wondering how to be on the upside prospering in spite and because of all these things. How to prosper and be the next Bill Gates and how to change the world! Well you need skills that no one else can utilize as well as you. You’ll need friends in high places and friends to keep you sane. And heck, Friedman doesn’t go to lengths on this, but you’re gonna need some luck because regardless of a flat world or not, the world is changing.
And yet. What I wonder is whether you’ll be happy. Is what really matters the end result? Because if that’s true, then you might as well be dead.
But anyways. Happy new year to all!!! Heres to a prosperous, educational, satisfying, fun, and happy 2008! *clinks glasses* (btw it was handed to us by a Macedonian waiter who works for a Turkish chef whose company of restaurants is owned by a Frenchman whose investment parters come from China, Korea and Japan selling Argentine meat to markets in India and Mexico. The connections go on and on and on, but at least the glass is made in the USA).

Sound

Guitars may be played acoustically, where the tone is produced by vibration of the strings and modulated by the hollow body, or they may rely on an amplifier that can electronically manipulate tone. The above clip is an example of the electric guitar being played by Tom Morello who has a distinct way of playing with multiple effects. Although it must seem like he has a dozen different pedals to make all these sounds that should be coming from a synthesizer he uses only a wah, whammy, and delay. The killswitch is important too to cut off sounds. He makes the guitar sound like anything but a guitar at some times.

I learned a bunch of other things about the guitar. And about my violin as well. Such as the bridge, to me it seemed somewhat useless. But instead the main purpose of the bridge on a guitar or violin is to transfer the vibration from the strings to the soundboard, which vibrates the air inside of the instrument, thereby amplifying the sound produced by the strings. Well thats pretty important.

Oftentimes i wish i had an electric violin to play around with the various effects. If i did i would have a violin without much of a body. It would have pickups however. Pickups are attached to a guitar/violin that detect (or "pick up") string vibrations and convert the mechanical energy of the string into electrical energy. The resultant electrical signal can then be electronically amplified. And in regards to the whammy bar, it allows me to modulate the pitch moving the bridge up and down.

Very interesting chapter on sound. Especially since its such an inescapable part of our lives. Yet, such an enjoyable part.

Excuse me while I kiss the sky!

Yes. Hey Joe! I love how Hendrix plays his strat upside down because he's a lefty. His strings even sound different too.

I can't wait for chapter 17 on sound. I couldn't bear rehash the simple harmonic motion that we just covered. I guess all i've got to remember is the usage of conservation of E total. Actually, we've to rememeber everything we've covered right?

Next week ill try to attempt explain different techniques and stuff using physics. Fun fun :) In the meantime however, im sick.

Bungee Jumping!

So that's a short on bungee jumping at the original bungee jumping site in Queenstown, New Zealand with an introduction by a bungee company.

If the spring action on the bungee cord wasn't dampened then this would be an example of simple harmonic motion. However, no one would be able to stop, so that wouldn't be good for advertising. The motion is periodic, as it repeats itself with intervals in a specific manner; it is described as being sinusoidal, with constant amplitude. A motion with frequency f has period = 1/f. Thus if there was a period of 4 seconds the frequency would be 0.25 hertz.

Okay well that's it from me. I'm going to enjoy the rest of my thanksgiving break. There really is so much I have to be thankful for and I should be thankful year round.

The Challenger Deep

My homepage for Safari is a random page on wikipedia. I'll say that 40% I find a useless irrelevant page like one on some unknown district in India or in Minnesota. However, the other times I can find true gems and oddities (Vang Stone or Australian Senate election of 1967). This time though I found something that correlates with my work in physics and fluid motion.

The Mariana Trench is the worlds deepest oceanic trench. It goes down to a maximum 11 km down. This makes it the deepest location on the surface of the earth's crust. It is located where the Pacific plate is subducted beneath the Philippine plate. In 1960 the bathyscape(similar to a spherical shape so as not to be crushed by the intense pressure) "Trieste" reached the bottom with two men. The gauge presure of the seawater at the bottom is 1030kg/mcubed times 9.8m/s squared times 11000m. This is equal to 111034000 Pascals. This is over a thousand times greater than the atmospheric pressure we experience at sea level! It is almost scary to imagine the sheer darkness and fear one would experince being at that depth, although life persists even at that depth (foot long flounders and shrimp).

So now I've gone from space to the depths of the ocean. Hauntingly but beautifully, physics is omnipresent.

Eleven Flights More :(

Mission STS-120 was a space shuttle mission (Discovery) to the ISS that was launched on October 23 and landed this Wednesday the 7th. Sadly however, I was reminded that only eleven more missions will be flown by the space shuttle program until its decommissioning in 2010. On a better note the ISS is one more module closer to completion as the Harmony module (a US module built in Italy as part of a joint ESA-NASA deal) was attached; it is a habitat module, and repairs were also performed.

The ecape velocity needed was 11200 m/s this escape velocity does not depend on the mass of the space shuttle although it may require more or less energy depending on the payload of the space shuttle. The space shuttle escaped earth gravity to enter into a LEO or low earth orbit to meet with the ISS at about 320 km above the earths surface. The value of g at this height is GM over (r + 320km)squared. However, since this is at such a low (comparatively) orbit the value of g here is nearly the same as on the surface. The weightlessness is caused by the effects of freefall.

Heres a video that made me wonder what the initial angular acceleration of the system with the Tundra truck would be if my family's four door sedan was placed on the other side of the seesaw. Assuming the whole seesaw is 70m long then the Tundra truck would be at 25m from the fulcrum while on the otherside my family car would be 35m away from the fulcrum on the right side of the seesaw. The video states the truck is 10000 pounds (4535.9 kg) while my car is probably around 4000 pounds (1814.3 kg) and the mass of the seesaw is probably 10000 pounds (4535.9 kg).

First, inertia of the system would be needed. I = (truck)mr^2 + (car)mr^2 + IS
By substituting values for the variables and I of the seesaw is 1/2ML^2 one finds that the system's moment of inertia is equal to 6909614.2 kg*m^2.

Now net torque is found by adding the torques of the car and the truck. Which is 488990 N*m.

Σt = iα and so angular acceleration is 0.0708 rad/s^squared. Its kinda slow but it makes sense when dealing with large masses that are nearly equidistance from the fulcrum.

In the video it is clear the initial angular acceleration is much larger when only the truck is on the seesaw at a great distance from the fulcrum.