Breakthroughs Made by the First civilizations 5000 Years ago and Their importance

          First great civilizations began in a region in the Fertile Crescent called Mesopotamia. The first great civilization was Sumer, but followed by other great civilizations in that region after Sumer collapsed, such as Akkad. The river Tigris and Euphrates benefited in the beginning of these civilizations. These civilizations made many breakthroughs in terms of technology, writing and mathematics. These breakthroughs were very important.

            Mesopotamians made many technological breakthroughs. One of the first technological breakthroughs was mastering the river. Even-though, the two rivers flowed through the region, the area was harsh, and therefore, farmers had to master irrigation methods to bring water to remote lands. The farmers had to dug canals to safe guard their lands. Also, farmers found way to drain swaps to obtain fertile land. These methods were used in later civilization as farming techniques. Mesopotamians also learned to use the river as means of transports. Which means they were the first civilizations to use sailing boats for transporting goods. These were very important as in later ages for merchants to transport goods and emperors to conquer lands. This also helped in transporting raw materials such as metals and timber as Mesopotamia lack these materials.

            Another technological breakthrough came with farmers trying to use of metal tools for farming. The first metals used were copper as farmers discovered how to extract copper from oxide ores. Then they used bronze as they discovered that copper mixing with tin improved. One of these first tools was the plow which was a metal stick pulled by a rope. Bronze was later used to make weapons, such as swords, daggers, spears, and maces, armors and crafts. Other breakthroughs leading from this are glass and lamp making. These discoveries are very important as metals are used by all the civilizations in later ages for various purposes. Today, metal tools and objects are widely used.

            The discovery of the wheel was a technological breakthrough, which happened in Mesopotamia. This helped in transportation of goods on land in Mesopotamia. Wheels were also used in war chariots in later ages. Invention of this led to the invention of the potter’s wheel. This helped in making symmetrical products such as pots in a relatively short period of time. The potter’s wheel was also called the first true mechanical device. Textile weaving is another discovery, which led from this. Discovery of the wheel was very important as this led to many more discoveries in later ages such as war chariots, horse carriages and even vehicles in the modern age.

            Another technological breakthrough was the use of labor. As first farmers settled in, they had used extra people available on the field. This meant enemies or traitors who were captured were put to work on the fields. This was important because this led to surplus production of food, which created merchants and other professions besides farming. This was also used as a punishment to pay off debt. Laborers also became important when it comes to building infrastructure in cities. Laborers were used in later civilization to maintain the economy and a form of justice, so that other people could work on other professions. In later ages, labor was an occupation that built many colossal monuments and buildings.

Another important technological breakthrough is cities. The first civilizations used clay to construct large buildings, which were architectural breakthroughs at that time. There were places decorated with hundreds of kilograms of these very expensive metals. There were temples, which had authority over people in a certain region of the city. There was a proper economic system and justice. There was a proper way of welfare. Also, there was urban planning within the cities. These were important in later ages as these acted as a base for civilization. Later cities that came up were related to the culture in Mesopotamia.

Mesopotamia had the most important breakthrough in writing. They were the first to discover writing. This system of writing was called cuneiform. At first this was in the form of pictures of concrete things such as a person’s face, a sheep or a star. These pictographs also represented ideas. This evolved into phonetic writing. This was written by reed stylus on soft clay tablets. This discovery was very important, as it was the beginning of the recorded history. This writing system was adopted by many other civilizations in the later ages. This discovery led to writing the first literature. The literature ranges from hero epics to wisdom writing. One of the famous ones written in Mesopotamia was the Epic of Gilgamesh, which recounts the exploits of a heroic ruler of Uruk, who lived about 2700 B.C.E

Mesopotamia had many Mathematical breakthroughs. Mesopotamians made breakthroughs in arithmetic, geometry and algebra. Mesopotamians had mathematical tablets for multiplication, division and for square and cube roots for ease of computing with numbers. They had the knowledge to solve linear and quadratic equations. They also had carried out geometrical calculations. They use theorems that were later discovered to exist by people of later ages such as the theorem proposed by Pythagoras. They used a sexagismal system of counting based on the unit 60. Presently this system is used in computing divisions of time and angles. They also discovered a principal of giving numbers a value according to their position in a series. They also had calendar based on seven-day week. These mathematical breakthroughs were used by later civilizations.

              To conclude, as the first great civilizations, Mesopotamians made major breakthroughs in technology, writing and mathematics. Many of these breakthroughs acted as a foundation for civilizations in later ages. Civilizations of later generations used these to make other breakthroughs. Things that we take for granted could not have happen without the breakthroughs by the first civilizations. Some of these are even used today.                                     

My Inspiration Quote

The quote that inspired me the most to overcome a challenge in my life is a quote by Thomas A. Edison: "I have not failed. I've just found 10,000 ways that won't work.” Edison’s inspiration is what keeps me going through difficulties and times when I cannot predict how things will work out. If not for inspiration from such great minds as Edison, I would have given up many times.

The statement above by Edison means that with every failure, there is some form of success. And if you do not give up, you might eventually succeed. Edison’s life and work exemplify this quote.

Edison was famous for his invention of the electric light bulb, phonograph, motion picture and camera, and his implementation of the principles of mass production. Yet, he only attended school for three months as his teacher called him “addled”, which made him not to go to school. His mother then home schooled him. Early in life, he set up his first laboratory in a railway boxcar, but later was thrown out of it, when his laboratory caught on fire. To earn an income, he sold candy and newspapers on trains. This allowed him to discover his business talents. At the age of 19, he worked as an employee for Western Union. He took night shifts so that he could spend time with his favorite past time, which was experimenting, but this eventually led to his employer firing him.

During the course of Thomas Edison’s invention of the light bulb, he tried various ways to make a bulb light up longer. He used various substances as the filament to make the light bulb light a little longer than before. But most of the time, things ended up in failure as the filament burned up.  Even though things were appearing to be a failure, he did not give up.  He tested over 3000 filaments before he came up with his own version of an electric light bulb.  If he had given up just because his first or second try ended up in failure, we might not be enjoying the luxury of not having to light up candles or fires to see in the night. This is a great example, which shows what this quote actually means. 

This quote helped me in meeting a challenge, which I had dreamed of tackling for a long time. The challenge was to learn Objective-C computer language and use it for programming and submitting applications for IOS to the Apple App Store. This quote helped me to stay inspired and helped me to accomplish my goal. Up to the date of writing this, I have submitted two applications to the App store - and only two weeks after I fully got the handle of the language.  Programming was one the most difficult things I had ever attempted because nobody was there to guide or lend advice to me. I was on my own when I did not understand what things meant or when errors came in the programs I created.  I stayed up late at night figuring out errors.

This quote really inspired me to not give up. I thought of Edison and his words when things wouldn’t work. Not only did this help me to not give up, it also helped me to learn from my failures. During the course of my studies, there were times that I did not understand what I was studying. On those occasions, reminding myself of Edison’s quote, I found some way of understanding what I was learning, even if it meant searching online, and reading and watching videos of programming demonstrations. Another time, during my first submission of an application to the App Store, I could not figure how to submit the application and I kept being met with error messages when I tried. I attempted many times and finally figured out what was wrong. Now, when I look back and think if I had given up the first time I did not understand anything about the language, I would not be enjoying the fun of programming for IOS devices. I accomplished my goal with the help of inspiration from this quote.

To conclude, inspiration comes from various sources, but the ones that are the most helpful for me translate to, “keep striving toward your goals”. And the one that inspired me to accomplish something that I always wanted was a famous quote by the great Thomas A. Edison.

Book Review: The Secret Seven – Shock for the Secret Seven

Can you trail along a wild goose chase through a small town? Secret Seven, the main group in The Secret Seven – Shock for the Secret Seven, goes through a wild goose chase to find the reason for the mysterious disappearances of pedigreed dogs in their town. The group finds startling discoveries in their investigation to the mystery. The Secret Seven – Shock for the Secret Seven is a detective story book which is part of a series of detective stories for children which is The Secret Seven. This is written by Enid Blyton who is one of the most successful children's storytellers. In this book the author reveals how the actions of a group of children led to revealing many mysteries.

The first part of the story is centered on how the group becomes aware of the mystery. The story begins with Peter and Janet at home, deciding to hold a meeting for their club which Secret Seven. Peter is related to Janet as her brother. They usually hold the meeting in a shack outside their home but it is winter and snowing outside so they are reluctant to hold a meeting. Eventually, they decide to hold the meeting as they have not held one in a long time. Both of them decide on a password and go to tell rest of their members about the meeting and the password. They tell it to Jack but he is not sure of coming as his cousin, Bony, is coming to his house and he has to accompany him. On the day of the meeting, everyone shows up late and forgets the password. Jack is the last person to come. After Jack has come, Susie, Jack’s sister, comes into the club using the password. Peter is furious at jack and scolds his sister and him. Jack gets angry at Peter and quits the club. All the members are surprised of what has happened. After the meeting, Peter and Janet is at home when Matt the Shepherd, Peter's father's colleague, who works on Peter’s father’s farm, comes to meet their father. He has come to tell that his dog is stolen. The whole family was surprised by it. Peter’s father calls the police to report this incident. After he has called, he finds out that there are similar cases like this reported to the police station before them. After that, the whole family comes to realize that there is a dog thief who is targeting pedigreed dog. The whole family becomes worried about Scamper, their dog, as it is likely to be stolen.

The next part of the story revolves around investigating the situation. Peter and Janet go with his father to the police station and there they finds out according to eyewitness report that the thief has a large body frame and large legs. After staying in the police station for some time, they go with their father, Matt and a policeman to their father’s farm. There they investigate the area. The next day, Peter and Janet hold another meeting and discuss about the mystery and the evidence that they have about it. They want to solve this mystery on their own. Also, Janet discusses about the unusual behavior of dogs that make them attracted to some people. The group comes up with various theories of how the dogs could be stolen. Just before the meeting ends, Janet lets Scamper go out. After the meeting ended, Janet calls Scamper but it does not return. Then, Peter and Janet scream its name and searches everywhere but they could not find it. Then, they come to realize that Scamper has been stolen by the dog thief. They tell this to their father with the names of people who went along the road when the meeting was in progress. After that, Peter, Janet and their father go to the police station to report the incident. They go with a policeman to question the people who passed through during the meeting but they could not suspect any of them of stealing their dog. In this part of the story, the writer uses a tone that gives a great sense of mystery. The writer has not mentioned any clear evidence to suspect anyone of stealing the dogs.

The last part of the story is about solving the mystery. Peter and Janet hold a meeting for the club and tell the other member of what happened to Scamper. They are all sad about it. They decide to follow every man in the town that matches the description of the dog thief. Jack gets to know of what the club is going to do from Colin, A boy at Peter's school and a member of the club. Jack decides to do what the club is doing but on his own. The next day, everyone in the club is in the town trailing anyone who matches the description. Colin almost got into trouble while trailing a man. The man suspected that Colin is the dog thief and tried to call the police. While Jack is doing his own investigation, he sees the local postman. Also, he sees that every house that the postman goes, the dogs become attracted to him. For Jack’s curiosity, he decided to follow him. Jack follows the postman to the postman’s house without making the postman realize that he is being followed. At postman’s house, Jack realizes that something is strange and decided to come investigate the house next day when the postman is not there. The next day, Jack returns to the place to investigate it. While he is investigating, he comes across a startling discovery that makes him believe that the postman is the thief. Then, he runs to Peter’s house and informs this. Peter’s father and Jack go with the police to the postman’s place and catches the postman red handed of steeling the dogs. After that, they come home with Scamper and Matt’s dog, Colie. Peter and Janet are very happy. Peter invites jack back to their club which Jack accepts. Also, Peter’s father let Colie out so that it could go back to Matt. This is the part of the story that writer makes the story reach its climax. There was some action involved in this part of the story.

My opinion of this book is as follows. The Secret Seven – Shock for the Secret Seven is written for an audience of teens and children. The genre of this book is detective and mystery. The story is written in a style which suits for the young people but gives a sense of mystery and up close into the investigation of the mystery. It is easy pictured the events and mystery while reading it. The characters that have an impact on this story are Peter, Janet and Jack. Peter and Janet can be credited for leading the club and Jack can be credited of solving the mystery. I think this is well written as it gives as sense of mystery and puzzles, even though, it was written for a young audience.

To sum up, The Secret Seven – Shock for the Secret Seven written by Enid Blyton is a great story that revolves around a mystery of dog theft. This was written for a young audience but adults could enjoy reading this. I would recommend this book for teens and adults to read in their leisure time.

Illegally download movies

             On thing that I am good at is getting any movie that I want from the Internet. Many people do not know how to enjoy this benefit and save a lot of money. I like to share my knowledge on how to illegally download movies from the Internet.

            First thing that anyone has to do to download movies is to pick a good Torrent client and a Torrent website. Torrent websites are websites that lists Torrent files. These files are computer files that allow access to file sharing network of the specific software, song or movie which the file is associated with. Torrent client is software which runs the Torrent file and downloads the data from the network. There are many Torrent websites and Torrent clients available. I personally prefer www.BTJunkie.com, as it is a database of millions of Torrent files. Also, it gives user ratings, comments and qualities of the file sharing networks. UTorrent is my favorite Torrent client, as it is very simple to use, available for PC and Mac and very lightweight, since it only consumes 400kb of space on your hard disk. 

            The next step is to choose the correct Torrent file. There can be thousands of Torrent files for one movie but selecting the right one from this list requires some skill and experience. The first thing to be aware of is the title. You have to make sure the title seems real. There can be titles of movies that do not exit or not released can appear, therefore, you have to do some research on the movie before downloading it. Second, when you search for a specific title of a movie, you have to select the search result that has most number of seeders. In addition, the number of leeches should be less than the number of seeders. Seeders are the number of clients that are uploading the file and leeches are the number of clients that are downloading the file. In order to have a fast download speed, there should be high number of seeders. The last thing to do before selecting the torrent file is to make sure the quality of the movie is good. You have to read comments on the Torrent site for the specific Torrent file to find out about the quality.

            The last step is to download the data for the movie. First, download the Torrent file from the Torrent site. Then, open the file with the Torrent client. When you open the file, the client will ask a location on the hard drive to save the data which you have to specify. The location has to have enough space to hold whole capacity of the data that you are downloading. The last thing is to wait till all the data finish downloading to your computer. You should have a bit of patience to download from Torrents as the download speed can vary from time to time.

           To sum up, a movie of good quality can be downloaded by using the steps mentioned above. These require a bit of skill, experience and patience in order to follow these steps perfectly and obtain movies from the internet so that you could save a lot of money and enjoy some of the perks of the Internet.

Book Review: Hotel Du Lac

             Hotel Du Lac is a romantic novel written by a Booker Prize winning author Anita Brookner. The main plot of the story centers on the romance of the main characters.  The Main characters are financially successful people whose notion of romance and love varies from character to character. I have a mix of opinions to this book.

            The story sets in the country side of Switzerland, with the ending of summer atmosphere seems calm and silent. The setting is timeless. Hotel Du Lac is located near a lake with an overview of the mountains ahead, which gives a sense a beauty and remoteness to the hotel.

The plot of the story revolves around, Edith Hope is an author of romantic novels, pen named “Veronica Wilde”, who aborts her marriage and is sent away to a hotel named Hotel Du Lac by her friends, so that she would think about what she has done and would change. The silence of the hotel and the guests in the hotel from various walks of life, make Edith question herself and her actions. During her stay at the hotel, she gets to know about the guests’ lives and their romantic views.  A guest named Mr. Neville seeks attention of Edith. At first she refused any possibility of relationship between them but as her time in the hotel passed, she begins to be interested of Mr. Neville and his views of life. He asked her to marry which she secretly accepts but Mr. Neville could not recognize it. As the story emerges, she finds out the Mr. Neville is not different than any other men that she knew, when she sees him emerging from Jennifer’s room in the morning of the day that they are about to leave. She decides not to change and returns back to her former self.

The Main characters of the Story are as follows. Edith is a romantic novelist residing in London, and sent off to exile in Hotel Du Lac. Her romance is based on not being tied down by marriage and her lover would be available in every evening for her to make love. Mrs. Pusey and her daughter, Jennifer, are guests who are on their usual holiday in the hotel.  Their romance is on men, whom they consider equals and have self-respect. Mrs. Pusey is a widow, who relies on the fortune that her husband had left when he died. Mrs Pusey and Jennifer live a splendid life and always go for shopping. Monica is being forced to stay at the hotel because of her husband’s demands as her husband is the heir to a throne and he does not want her unusual behavior ruin his chances. She is a gold digger and her romance is centered on people who have a good fortune. Mme de Bonneuil is an old lady staying at the hotel because she cannot stand living in the same house as her son’s wife. Mr. Neville is an Englishman staying at the hotel after he had attended a conference in Geneva. He is an owner of a successful electronic company. His romance is toward women who have views toward the word that are not common in most women and would not hurt him as his former wife had done.

            My opinion on this book is that storyline and setting is more calm and peaceful than any other romantic novel that I have read up to now but the timeline of events made me confused. The author had made the setting very much calm and well described that it does not make the mind wonder what kind of setting is this and whether romance can be fell in a setting like this. There is not much action so I could imagine the romance involved in the story more than the previous books that I have read. The themes of the events have introduced well so it did not made me confused of what is happening.  However, the sudden flash backs of memories made me wonder which time period is a particular event is happening. They made me confused of the chronological order. These are my opinions of the book.

           

To conclude, Hotel Du Lac was a splendid romantic novel written by Anita Brookner. The plot centered on the romance of six main characters of different walks of life and I had mixed opinions about the book.

The House of Haunts!

For years I had no place of my own, I lived with this old lady Mrs. Kerry who was nice enough to let me live with her for the past 2 years. I was on the employee visa and didn’t have enough credit to buy myself a house. One day when I was walking down the road to my morning job, I saw this house with a sign saying FOR SALE! The place attracted my attention instantly. It was a very pretty house that brought out a very welcomed feeling. I was determined to buy it and as soon as I got home I spoke to Mrs. Kerry and asked her if she could help me with a loan. She treats me like her own daughter and promised me she would help.

A month later, I moved in. I was feeling so proud and happy. Finally a place called mine. The house was of 4 bedrooms with a nice small garden and a pretty water bath for the birds. My boyfriend found it hard to move in with me as his work place was very far from where I bought the house, so I planned to rent out the room next to mine to this girl, Melissa whom I knew at work.

Few weeks went by, and the place started to change. I kept seeing weird dreams, more of nightmares. I kept telling my boyfriend about the dreams but he was never bothered and always thought it was because I was too tired with all the work. I believed in both religions, Buddhist and Christianity and so had a statue of the Lord Buddha and Jesus on top of a shelf close to the stairs. One night when I was asleep I saw a very bad nightmare that scared the hell out of me, a figure that was dark and hard to describe just came out of the statues of Lord Buddha and Jesus that I pray to every morning, and it tried to strangle me. Even though I was asleep it felt so real. I felt myself choking and I was struggling to breathe. Then I ran downs the stairs hoping I could run away from this giant scary figure but suddenly I see a splash of blood on the wall in front of me. It was my blood. I lost hope knowing that I was stabbed and couldn’t do anything to get myself out of there. Suddenly I hear my name being called and I wake up to see Melissa holding me tight and shaking me so hard. I was sweating and felt really sick. It was freaky because it felt so real.

Days went by, I was constantly falling sick and strange things kept happening. One time, while I was driving on the highway I couldn't feel my legs and was about to crash onto the vehicle in front of mine. It was like someone or something was trying to kill me or harm me. I told my friend about all this and she suggested she would let her 6 year old daughter Sarah sleep with me for few days. So one night, when I was sleeping in my room with Sarah next to me, I suddenly hear her calling me. I woke up, and she kept telling me that my father was right next to me and that he spoke to her asking her to take good care of me. This freaked me out. My dad passed away 10 years back; no way could she have seen my dad. But she described his looks and the clothes he was wearing and I swear it was exactly how he looked like. I was puzzled, how did this small child know how my father looked when she was not even born when he died. She kept telling me, that he was a nice guy and asked her to take good care of me. I always knew he was my guardian angel but never actually could think of believing what just happened. I asked my friend to take Sarah home, because it was making things more complicating and confusing.

I was trying to knot myself out of this problem, but kept getting entangled. I broke up with my boyfriend because he turned out to be strange and Melissa, the girl who lived with me broke up with her boyfriend as well. And one day I came home after staying the night at my friends place and Melissa came out of her room and asked me if I was crazy to take a shower in the middle of the night, and I told her that I was not at home the night before. She didn’t believe me because she had heard the shower running in the middle of the night and lights being switched on and off in my room. I didn’t like what was happening and finally decided to go see the father at Holyoke Church and told him all these incidents that happened. The father listened to all my stories and decided that he should come home and say prayers.

As soon as he entered the house, he had the feeling that it the place was haunted by evil spirits. While he was praying, the upstairs phone kept ringing, and when I answered it just only gave this creepy sound of wind blowing hard on the receiver. It kept interfering with the prayers and the father asked me to ignore the call, because the spirit was just trying to interrupt the prayers. He kept praying and praying and kept splashing holy water all around the house.

He asked me to take the statues of the Lord Buddha and Jesus out, because according to the father it’s easier for the evil spirits to hang around, as they stay hiding behind the statues and they liked staying there because I indirectly prayed to them every morning. He explained by saying that I still could have faith in both religions and pray, but as long as I don’t keep statues around.

I wanted to know the story behind all this, so I went to my next door neighbor and told the old lady of all the incidents that happened. She instantly nodded, and said that the house was owned by an old lady who was a widow, she passed away long time back and since that day, whoever moves into the place ends up either divorced or single. No one could ever be happily married or in a relationship in that house.

I didn’t like what I heard, so I immediately put the house on sale, what shocked me the most was that the man who bought the house from me was going through a divorce with his wife!

Based on a true story!