In this course, my write skills have improved. Because of all those writings, in the beginning it was really hard, because we have to write 800-900 words about "Story of Stuff". And I wrote about CPU, so now I know a little bit more about CPU. In the beginning, when I start write my "Story of Stuff" essay, I thought 800-900 words would be hard, because I used to write 150-200 words in high school. What makes 800-900 words easy that we write a paragraph or two paragraphs every week until we finish it, like 200 words every week. I think we have to write more than 800-900 words in the future. Because engineers have to write reports, so this course prepares us for the future.  I have learned some new vocabularies from the online quizzes. To write a summary is really important to me because it's better than copy and paste other's article from the internet, and that’s illegal. What I like about this course that we take 4 hours every week and you don’t have to do the work in the class, after your finish your classes you can go home and relax then start write your essay. And what makes this course better that we don’t have final exam, just a final essay and that’s not really stressful. I learnt a lot from this course because our teacher takes our essays then he tells us what should we fix to make our essays better.



Name: Hussain Mohammed Al Haddad (CID)
Words count: 247
 
                                                           Story of Stuff


“The Story of Stuff” is a project by Annie Leonard. Her web-project talks about the materials economy. It’s a system where people extract, produce, distribute, consume and dispose stuff. People use our planet’s resources to create things then they just throw away and create new ones. And if they keep doing that, after few years people won’t find enough resources to live. She didn’t tell us to stop buying stuff and what we need, but she said there is another way where we can use our planet’s resources and save it for other people.

In extraction, people extract our planet’s resources to make new things. For example, they cut trees for wood, hunt some types of animals to create clothes and other things, and use sea resources. Extraction is important to produce things, but we should use it wisely. Some people don’t know that our planet has limited resources; it means that we should put some limits, we should control it. Otherwise, our children and their children won’t have enough resources to live in the future. And don’t forget about those people who live in forests, they won’t be able to live there. They can make some forests just for extraction; they can cut tress and plant new tress, so they don’t have to destroy our environment.

In production, factories pollute the air and seas to create new things. Factories create many toxins that damage our health; can you imagine that you work in a place like that where there are many toxins? No one would work in a place like that because it damages their health, but why do these workers work in factories? It’s because those workers don’t have any other option. The companies destroy their environment and extract their natural resources and pollute their environment, so they have to work in these places to get money and live. Factories can use renewable energy to make production clean and they should reduce materials use, as possible solutions.

In distribution, some stores only sell cheap stuff; have you ever asked yourself how would this money cover transport fees or shelf space in the stores?  That means we don’t pay the real cost, but other people do, by extract their natural resources, pollute the air and water, and increase the rate of cancer and other diseases caused by pollution. Factories produce much stuff but people don’t need all this stuff, so they have to get rid of those extra stuff. “There are many strategies available to improve the environmental and social impact of distribution systems.” (StoryOfStuff,2007) For example: Fair Trade, Community Benefits Agreements, and Green Buildings.

In consumption, people consume more than they should, maybe because of planned obsolescence and perceived obsolescence. Some machines are designed to be broken after few months after people buy it, so they have to replace it with a new machine. For example, computers, they make new computers every year, they just change a small thing in the computer that makes computers faster. And the problem here that they make new shape every version so you can’t just replace that small part of the computer, you have to buy a new computer. And don’t forget, women’s shoe heels too. “While more stuff doesn’t bring happiness, we know what does: family time, health, community, collective action towards shared goals” (StoryOfStuff,2007) and that’s true we don’t spend more time with our family because we waste our time on shopping.

In disposal, we buy a lot of stuff and then we just throw it away, in the garbage. Then what do they do with that stuff? They just make a big hole in the ground and put all those stuff in that landfill, but sometimes they burn the garbage then they dump it in landfill. When they burn the garbage the incinerator releases toxins and super toxins that pollute our environment and there are some companies don’t want to deal with those landfills, they just throw it in the seas or somewhere else to pollute other’s environment. Recycle helps our environment but it’s not enough, some stuff you can’t recycle it, there is another clean way; “Combining Clean Production at the front end with Zero Waste approaches throughout the materials economy transforms wasteful, linear systems of production and disposal to be cyclical” (StoryOfStuff,2007).

In U.A.E, we consume more than what we need. Maybe we consume much water because of U.A.E Growth, "The growth of the UAE has led to increased stress on natural resources, including water," (Is youth falling to consumerism, 2010). Residents in U.A.E consume 525 to 600 liters (pppd) per person per day in 2005, that’s why there are special devices in houses, schools and mosques cut water flow, in that way U.A.E saves more water for the future. Teenagers in the UAE spend much money on useful stuff just to show off. For example: they spend their money on mobile phones, cars, license numbers and other technologies, even if it works fine.

In conclusion, people damage our environment to produce stuff, then they just throw that stuff in the garbage then we need to get rid of this stuff so we have to burn stuff and release super toxins that damage environment. We need to produce stuff so we need to produce stuff in a clean way. In that way, we save our environment’s resources and take what we need from it in same time.

                                                          References

Is youth falling to consumerism? | Newzglobe.com. (2011, January 5). Newzglobe.com. Retrieved May 16, 2012, from http://www.newzglobe.com/article/20110501/youth-falling-consumerism

Report Consumption. (n.d.). Report Consumption. Retrieved May 16, 2012, from www.rsb.gov.ae/PDFs/pub108.pdf

Story of Stuff « The Story of Stuff Project. (2007, January 1).  The Story of Stuff Project. Retrieved May 16, 2012, from http://www.storyofstuff.org/movies-all/story-of-stuff/

Todorova, V. (2010, January 13). Thousands of Abu Dhabi buildings face cuts in water usage - The National. Latest and breaking news | thenational.ae - The National. Retrieved May 16, 2012, from http://www.thenational.ae/news/uae-news/thousands-of-abu-dhabi-buildings-face-cuts-in-water-usage


Student name: Hussain Mohamed Hasan Ahmed Al Haddad(H00228079)
Section: CID
Words Count: 900
 
We see it in every computer or laptop, we see it in our calculators, and we see it in our mobile phones, it’s called CPU. “The Central Processing Unit (CPU) is a chip that works as the Brain of the Computer. The basic work of a CPU is processing the instructions given by the users” (Soudagar ,2012). There are some common names of CPU: The brain of the computer; because it does all calculation and logical operations, Processor or Computer Processor, Microprocessor, Central Processor and System Unit.

The first CPU was created on July 18 1968 by Robert Noyce and Gordon Moore. In 1970, Intel introduced a 1KB memory chip, 1 KB was larger than anything and it equals 1024 bits. The 4004 chip ran at maximum clock speed of 740,000 cycles per second and it was created on 15 November 1971 contained 2,300 transistors, and each transistor was spaced about 10 microns. The chip costs $200. The 4004 chip was designed for calculators but it was useful for many other functions. For example, it was used in traffic light controllers and blood analyzers. Intel released the 8008 processor in April 1972. It ran at a clock speed of 500 KHz, it contained 3,500 transistors. Intel released 8080 processor in April 1974 and it was design by Masatoshi Shima, it ran at maximum clock speed of 2 MHz 8080 processor was really better than 8008, it was better than 8008 by 10 times, the 8080 processor contained 6,000 transistors. Intel introduced the 8085 in March 1976, it ran at maximum clock speed 5 MHz and it contained 6,500 transistors which is better than 8080 processor. Processors evolution depend on number of transistor, increasing the clock rate and increasing the number of cores in a single chip multi-core processors   .Intel released the 8086 in June 1978, it ran at 5 MHz and it contained 29,000 transistors. But after few years the processors became faster. For example, 286 was released in 1982 by Intel, it contained 134,000 transistors. So there was a huge difference between 8086 chip and 286 chip. But in 1985, Intel introduced 386 processor it was better than Intel 286 because it contained 275,000 transistors. Intel 486 processor was released in 1989, it contained 1.2 million transistors, and it was 50 times faster than 4004 processor. In 1995, the first processor in the P6 (686) family was produced and it contained 5.5 million transistors.  In every year the processors have become better and better and with many transistors which make computers, laptops and mobile phones faster.

Clock rate is how fast processors can execute instructions. The speed of computers depends on clock rate, the faster the clock rate the faster computer executes instructions.

A multi-core processor makes computers faster, because it’s about two or more cores integrated onto a single integrated circuit. The multi-core processor can run multiple instructions at the same time. A dual-core processor has two cores. For example, AMD Phenom II X2, Intel Core Duo. A quad-core processor contains four cores. For example, AMD Phenom II X4.

In conclusions, CPU is the brain of the computer, it does many complex calculations. The CPU is improving nearly every year by increasing the clock rate and the increasing the number of cores in a single chip so it become faster every year. CPU is very important in our life, because we see it in every logical device like calculators, laptops, computers and mobile phones.


References

Central processing unit - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia. (n.d.). Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia. Retrieved April 12, 2012, from http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Central_processing_unit

How Does CPU works. (n.d.). Cheap Computer Deal Built with Cheap Computer Parts. Retrieved April 12, 2012, from http://cheapcomputerdeal.com/how-does-cpu-works.html

Mueller, S. (2009, December 10). Chapter 3. Processor Types and Specifications. Welcome to Safari Books Online. Retrieved April 12, 2012, from 0-proquest.safaribooksonline.com.library.hct.ac.ae/book/hardware-and-gadgets/9780768694857/firstchapter#X2ludGVybmFsX0ZsYXNoUmVhZGVyP3htbGlkPTk3ODA3Njg2OTQ4NTcvY2gwM2xldjFzZWMx

Soudagar, I. (n.d.).   Introduction to CPU - SysMatters.Com  . SysMatters.Com. Retrieved April 12, 2012, from http://sysmatters.com/introduction-of-cpu/

Whatley, T. (n.d.). How Does a CPU Work? | eHow.com. eHow | How to Videos, Articles & More - Discover the expert in you. | eHow.com. Retrieved April 12, 2012, from http://ehow.com/how-does_4568642_a-cpu-work.html

Word Count: 576
Name: Hussain Mohamed Hasan Ahmed Al Haddad (CID)