Writing Skills!

Writing Skills!

Should humanity create artificial intelligence- assuming such a thing is indeed possible? Many people believe we should not; because the possibility exists that al will have disastrous consequences for the human race. I strongly believe that even though this is true, humans should develop al because al has the potential to transform society in countless beneficial ways.

In the first place, having al will lead to incredible progress in all scientific and technological fields. Al wills solve humanity’s most serious problem, such as disease, world hunger, and environmental damage. The consequences will be that we will have higher living standards, longer life spans, and happier lives.

Secondly, al will be able to ensure humanity’s continued existence.al will indentify other planets in the universe able to sustain human life if we need to leave Earth. In addition, the human race will never have to fear being wiped out by a killer virus or an asteroid collision because al will be able to find solutions to these problems.

On the other hand, it cannot be denied that creating al may be dangerous. Al machines may become so advanced that they can view human as inferior and try to enslave or even destroy us.

All things considered, though, it seems to me that the benefits of al outweigh the risks. All technology, not just al, can be used for good or bad. Surely, you would like to live a safer, longer and worry – free life.

SKINPUT

Skinput

Turn your body into a touch scream

1.       One day we might take your phone calls, turn on our MP3 player, play games, and, who knows, maybe even open our front doors by simply tapping our fingers on our skin. At least, that’s the hope of researchers Dan Morris and Disney Tan at Microsoft, and Chris Harrison at Carnegie Mellon university, who are developing a technology called skin put(skin input) that will turn our skin into touch screens.

2.       Skin put works by detecting the ultra-low frequency sounds that are produced when we tap different parts of our skin.it takes advantage of the fact that mechanical vibrations travel differently through our bodies depending on where they originate from, as different locations on our bodies produce vibrations. The skin put software listens for the vibrations, and then turns them into instructions for devices.

3.       To use skin put, you attach an armband that has a small projector in it to your upper arm. The projector beams graphics onto your foream.an acoustic detector in the armband then determines which graphic you touched. Using wireless technology like Bluetooth, the information can be transmitted to devices like cellphones and laptops.

4.        Harrison explains that the motivation for skin put stems from the increasingly small size of today’s mobile devices. He notes that the human body is an appealing input device because it has roughly 21 square feet of external surface area-much of it easily accessible to our hands (e.g., arms, upper legs, torso).furthermore, while we usually have to look at our handheld devices in order to operate them, we can accurately interact with our bodies in an eyes-free manner. We can easily touch our palms or press or two middle fingers together without looking at each part.

5.       The potential applications of skin put are endless. Consider, first the everyday situations where it would be convenient to control devices simply by touching specific point on your body. You’re cooking dinner. Someone calls you and your hands are covered in food. What if instead of racing to clean your hands before the caller hangs up, you could simply answer your phone by touching your thumb and forefinger together? or, you’re at the gym and you’re on the treadmill. A song comes on you MP3 player that you’d rather skip. Instead of having to stop the treadmill, take out your player, and press buttons or spin a wheel, you simply tap your arm and continue running.

6.       Then there is the incredible potential of this technology to transform the lives of the disabled or visually-impaired by allowing them to control devices simply by tapping their arms. Skin put could also take the gaming experience to a new level.

7.       Skin put is still in the research phase.it will be years before it conceivably becomes available on the market and even then, there’s no guarantee it actually will. But something like it will. Keyboards and mice work just fine when you’re sitting at a desk using your computer. But as we come to rely more and more on digital devices in our everyday lives (and increasingly use them in situations where our hands are otherwise occupied such as while driving)it’s certain that something like skin put will be the interface of the future.

Earthquakes

EARTHQUAKES

A FORCE OF NATURE

I.                    On March 11, 2011, a 33-foot-high tsunami hit northern of Japan, causing the country´s worst destruction and loss of life since World War II. The tsunami was triggered by an earthquake in the Pacific Ocean. Measuring 9.0 on the Richter scale, the earthquake, was the sixth largest ever recorded by seismologists.

(     )

II.                   Not only that, it shifted the earth´s axis by 10 inches. This deviation led to shortening of the length of a day by 1.8 microseconds! Earthquakes hit the headlines only rarely; but events like Japan´s megaquake serve to remind us of their awe-inspiring power. Every year some 3 million earthquakes take place on the planet – equivalent to about 8,000 a day or one every 11 seconds. (     )

III.                 Earthquakes happen because the earth´s crust is not contiguous. Rather, like a boiled egg with a broken shell, it is separated into 20 pieces. These pieces are called tectonic plates. The theory that explains the movement of these plates on the earth´s surface is known as plate tectonics. According to plate tectonics, the earth ´s plates are not stationary but are instead moving very slowly around the planet. (     ) 

IV.                The result is that sometimes the plates crush into each other, sometimes they move away from each other, sometimes they slide past each other. (     )

V.                  Take, for example, plates that are sliding horizontally past each other. Because the edges of the plates are rough, they get stuck, the rest of the plate keeps moving. (     )

VI.                At some point (i. e., when the plate has moved far enough), the edges suddenly become unstuck. The sudden-unsticking and jerking apart of the plates releases the built-up pressure in an instant. The result is an earthquake.

VII.              There is a special region of the globe known as the Pacific Ring of Fire (     ).  In The pacific ring of fire, plates are crashing each other constantly. When two plates crash together, one of two things can happen. Either one plate is forced to slide beneath the other one, or the two plates push against each other to form mountains and volcanoes. In either case earthquakes can result.

VIII.            Earthquakes in the pacific ring of fire result from plates colliding and sliding under each other. (     )

IX.                It was the pacific plate sliding under the Eurasian plate that caused the earthquake and the tsunami in Japan on that fateful day in March 2011.

Activities:

1.       THESE ARE SEVEN SENTENCES REMOVED FROM THE TEXT, CHOOSE FROM THE SENTENCES BELOW ( A- H)  AND PUT THE RIGHT LETTER IN THE PARENTHESIS. BE CAREFUL THERE IS ONE EXTRA YOU DON´T NEED.

a)      The result is an enormous build-up of pressure.

b)      It is the movement of plates at their edges that causes earthquakes

c)       So great was its power that it caused the entire island of Japan to move 16 feet eastwards.

d)      It is the explanation for mountains and volcanoes, not just earthquakes.

e)      The sudden drop of one plate below another, when it occurs under the sea can generate a tsunami.

f)       Most are so small and are unnoticed, but a few, about 20 a year, are big enough to cause damage.

g)      It is that an incredible 90% of all earthquakes, and 80% of the world´s largest earthquakes, occur.

h)      Because the plates are interconnected, no single plate can move without affecting the others.

2.       SUMMARIZE THE VIDEO YOU WATCHED AS HOMEWORK, USE ONLY 50 TO 60 WORDS. YOU MAY USE THE TEXT IDEAS.

1er Semester Activities UNIT 1

Name________________________________________ Responsible. Teacher Tomás J. Limón Encinas

ACTIVITIES 1ST SEMESTER

I. Complete the following sentences use the appropriate form of verb “To Be”:

Hi! My name _______ Andreas, I _____ from Germany, I_____ fifteen years old. I have five brothers, they _____ in the school too. Now, my favorite subject  ________ math.  This _____ my sister Myrie swimming. She ____ in the school swimming team. My father ______ doctor and my mother _____ piano teacher.  My  grandparents _____ old. They ____ in Greece. 

II. Write five school subjects:

a)      ______________________

b)      ______________________

c)       ______________________

d)      ______________________

e)      ______________________

III. Write the correct color:

a)      The banana is __________________.

b)      Grapes are ____________________.

c)       Sky is _________________.

d)      Clouds are ______________.

e)      Trees are ________________.

IV. Unscramble the following dialogue, write numbers from 1 to 6:

(     )  Yes, that is right.

(     ) My name is Karolina Ceroli, where are you from Alex, Mexico?

(     ) Oh! So you´re Italian.

(     )  I´m from Italy, I live in Roma.

(     ) No; I´m from South Africa.  And you?

(     ) Hi! I´m Alex Ramos, what´s your name?

Translate into English the following sentence, then transform it into the Affirmative, negative and interrogative form:

Mi nombre es Pedro López, soy ingeniero, estoy en la fábrica.

a)      Affirmative: _______________________________________________________________________________

b)      Negative: _______________________________________________________________________________

c)       Interrogative: 1._____________________________________________________________________________

2._____________________________________________________________________________

INTERNET RESCUE

Jerri Nielsen, a physician from Ohio, has the internet to thank for saving her life. When she accepted a job in Antarctica as the only doctor at the Amundsen-Scott Pole Station, she could never have anticipated how technology would help her.

                Antarctica is the most isolated place in earth. Every year, scientists from all over the world travel to work in conditions of extreme cold, with temperatures reaching minus 100 degrees Fahrenheit. In addition to being cold the atmosphere is very dry and windy. Between February and October each year it gets so cold that parts of the continent are inaccessible. Around the middle of the continent, near the South Pole Station, the cold weather causes plane fuel to change consistency, making impossible for aircraft to land. Thus between February and October, the team of researchers at the station must live together in isolation.

                Numerous research stations exist on Antarctica and staff may need may need medical treatment for anything from a cold to a bad cut. The extreme cold wind and dryness of the Antarctic environment can also cause many ailments. Hence, at each research stations, a doctor must be on call 24 hours a day, seven days a week. When jerry Nielsen saw an ad in a medical journal for doctors to work at the U.S. Antarctic research base, she was interested. She applied for the job, talked things over with her family, and decided to go. By November 1998, Jerry was settling into her new home for the year, an orange metal shack in Antarctica, which also doubled as her clinic.

                Jerry had previously practiced emergency medicine only in the sterile confines of a hospital. For the next few months, she experienced a totally different working environment. She discovered that the weather played havoc with conventional treatments; adhesive bandages would no stick, and wounds took longer to heal. As a result, Jerry found it necessary to improvise and think of new ways to care for her patients. Jerry, also found herself looking at relationships with her patients in a new light.  She was the only doctor to a group of forty people, unlike in the U.S., her patients became her friends.

                In March 1999, a few weeks after the last flight until November had left the station, Jerry felt a hard lump in her right breast. She kept it secret from her colleagues, but during the following months the lump grew in size. In June she decided to inform her supervisor. Two days later, after exchanging e-mails with the Denver-based doctor in charge of the Antarctic medical programs, a colleague helped Jerri perform the lump in an attempt to draw out fluid. When no fluid came out, Jerri knew the lump was cancerous.

                Over the next few months, Jerri relied on e-mails from doctors in the U.S. for medical support, and from her family for moral support. Necessary medical supplies and cancer-fighting drugs were successfully airdropped and Jerri, with the help of her colleagues, began treatment to fight disease. On October 16, 1999, seven months after discovering the lump, Jerri and another ailing colleague were picked up from the South Pole, and a replacement physician was dropped off.

                Jerri had lump removed back in the U.S. Medical tests showed that the cancer had not spread to other parts of her body. Thanks to the internet, Jerri made it home alive and in 2001, published a book about her remarkable experience. 

 

Activities: Copy the whole text in your notebook. Look for synonyms of the underlined frases, skimm the whole text and each of the 9 paragraphs, find the word with suffixes and make a list of their meaning. Translation will be done in the classroom under teacher supervision.