Saturday, July 25, 2020

CPW The Story So Far

CPW The Story So Far Come one, come all to CPW! I dont know about you guys, but the energy on campus right now is absolutely amazing. The Infinite Coordidor is packed with hosts and pre-frosh running to class and with families taking campus tours, the sun is shining beautifully, the steps of the Student Center are thronging with people and I know thing are only going to get even better from here. Really, words fail me. I almost feel like a pre-frosh again. (Almost.) Personally, today has already been even slightly more crazy than usual. After my bioengineering seminar, I ran over to the Student Center to pick up my very own pre-frosh, an awesome guy from Brooklyn named Abi (if youre reading this, hi Abi!). After a quick stop at Annas and bumping into Shamarah 12 in the Infinite Corridor, we arrived at my recitation for 5.12 (organic chemistry), where I spent an hour unraveling the mysteries of Sn2 reactions and E1/E2 elimination. We followed that up with another recitation, this time for 18.03 (differential equations), where the ever-effervescent Jeremy explained convolution and why it matters. Abi then ran off to the Whitehead Institute to take a tour of the Weinberg Lab. To be honest, Im actually incredibly jealous (who would have thought I could be envious of a pre-frosh?), because Dr. Weinberg who was my professor for 7.012 last fall is a brilliant researcher, and I imagine his lab has to be pretty cool as well. Now Im headed to my last class of a day, an hour-and-a-half lecture/discussion about humanistic perspectives in medicine. So far, this class (which fulfills part of my humanities requirement) has covered everything from the Hippocratic Oath to black-market organ harvesting yes, its very intense ;) and today well be discussing Sinclair Lewis Great American Novel, Arrowsmith. (Who says MIT kids arent cultured?) At 4:30, Im heading over to the northeast side of campus for a not-so-secret meeting with several familiar faces sorry to keep you in suspense, but youll definitely hear (and see?) more about the fruits of our meeting later. At 5:00 Im due to meet Abi again at the Student Center well probably head over to Simmons (my dorm), get him settled in my room, and figure out some sort of plan for dinner. After that, Ill be helping set up for the CPW Festival (which you should all come to, by the way: the fun starts at 9:30 in the Johnson Athletics Center) before hopping across the river to meet up with some other pre-frosh friends at Skullhouses Monster Party. And from there, who knows what will happen? Oh, CPW

Friday, May 22, 2020

Inca Road System - 25,000 Miles Connecting an Empire

The Inca Road (called Capaq Ñan or Qhapaq Ñan in the Inca language Quechua and Gran Ruta Inca in Spanish) was an essential part of the success of the Inca Empire. The road system included an astounding 25,000 miles of roads, bridges, tunnels, and causeways. Key Takeaways: The Inca Road The Inca Road includes 25,000 miles of roads, bridges, tunnels, and causeways, a straight line distance of 2,000 miles from Ecuador to ChileConstruction followed existing ancient roadways; Incas began improving it as part of its imperial movements by the mid-15th centuryWay stations were established at every 10–12 miles  Use was restricted to elites and their messengers, but commoners maintained, cleaned and repaired and set up businesses to cater to the travelersLikely nonelite access by miners and others Road construction began in the mid-fifteenth century when the Inca gained control over its neighbors and started expanding their empire. The construction exploited and expanded on existing ancient roadways, and it ended abruptly 125 years later when the Spanish arrived in Peru. In contrast, the Roman Empires road system, also built on existing roadways, included twice as many miles of road, but it took them 600 years to build. Four Roads from Cuzco The Inca road system runs the entire length of Peru and beyond, from Ecuador to Chile and northern Argentina, a straight-line distance of some 2,000 mi (3,200 km). The heart of the road system is at Cuzco, the political heart and capital of the Inca Empire. All the main roads radiated out from Cuzco, each named for and pointed in the cardinal directions away from Cuzco. Chinchaysuyu, headed to the north and ending in Quito, EcuadorCuntisuyu, to the west and to the Pacific coastCollasuyu, led southward, ending in Chile and northern ArgentinaAntisuyu, eastward to the western edge of the Amazon jungle According to historical records, the Chinchaysuyu road from Cuzco to Quito was the most important of these four, keeping the rulers of the empire in close touch with their lands and subject people in the north. Inca Road Construction Original Inca built canal and street in city of Ollantaytambo, Peru. Jeremy Horner / Corbis NX / Getty Images Plus Since wheeled vehicles were unknown to the Inca, the surfaces of the Inca Road were intended for foot traffic, accompanied by llamas or alpacas as pack animals. Some of the roadways were paved with stone cobbles, but many others were natural dirt pathways between 3.5–15 ft (1–4 meters) in width. The roads were primarily built along straight lines, with only a rare deflection by no more than 20 degrees within a 3 mi (5 km) stretch. In the highlands, the roads were constructed to avoid major curves. To traverse the mountainous regions, the Inca built long stairways and switchbacks; for lowland roads through marshes and wetlands they built causeways; crossing rivers and streams required bridges and culverts, and desert stretches included the making of oases and wells by low walls or cairns. Practical Concerns The roads were primarily built for practicality, and they were intended to move people, goods, and armies quickly and safely across the length and breadth of the empire. The Inca almost always kept the road below an altitude of 16,400 feet (5,000 meters), and where at all possible they followed flat inter-mountain valleys and across plateaus. The roads skirted much of the inhospitable South American desert coast, running instead  inland along the Andean foothills where sources of water could be found. Marshy areas were avoided where possible. Architectural innovations along the trail where difficulties could not be avoided included drainage systems of gutters and culverts, switchbacks, bridge spans, and in many places low walls built to bracket the road and protect it from erosion. In some places,  tunnels and retaining walls were built to allow safe navigation. The Atacama Desert Inca Road through the Atacama Desert. San Pedro de Atacama, Antofagasta Region, Chile (Lagunas Miscanti and Mià ±iques). Jimfeng / iStock / Getty Images Plus Precolumbian travel across Chiles Atacama desert could not be avoided, however. In the 16th century, the Contact-period Spanish historian Gonzalo Fernandez de Oviedo crossed the desert using the Inca Road. He describes having to break his people into small groups to share and carry food and water supplies. He also sent horsemen ahead to identify the location of the next available water source. Chilean archaeologist Luis Briones has argued that the famed Atacama geoglyphs carved into the desert pavement and on the Andean foothills were markers indicating where water sources, salt flats, and animal fodder could be found. Lodging Along the Inca Road According to 16th-century historical writers such as Inca Garcilaso de la Vega, people walked the Inca Road at the rate of about ~12-14 mi (20–22 km) a day. Accordingly, placed along the road at every 12–14 miles are tambos or tampu, small building clusters or villages which acted as rest stops. These way stations provided lodging, food, and supplies for travelers, as well as opportunities for trading with local businesses. Several small facilities were kept as storage spaces to support tampu, of many different sizes. Royal officials called tocricoc were in charge of the cleanliness and maintenance of the roads; but a constant presence that could not be stamped out were pomaranra, road thieves or bandits. Carrying the Mail Steps cut into the native mountainside for the Inca Road leading to Machu Picchu. Geraint Rowland Photography / Moment / Getty Images A postal system was an essential part of the Inca Road, with relay runners called chasqui stationed along the road at .8 mi (1.4 km) intervals. Information was taken along the road either verbally or stored in the Inca writing systems of knotted strings called quipu. In special circumstances, exotic goods could be carried by the chasqui: it was reported that the ruler Topa Inca (ruled 1471–1493) could dine in Cuzco on two-day-old fish brought in from the coast, a travel rate of about 150 mi (240 km) each day. American packaging researcher Zachary Frenzel (2017) studied methods used by Incan travelers as illustrated by Spanish chroniclers. People on the trails used rope bundles, cloth sacks, or large clay pots known as aribalos to carry goods. The aribalos were likely used for the movement of chicha beer, a maize-based mildly alcoholic beverage that was an important element of elite Inca rituals. Frenzel found that traffic continued on the road after the Spanish arrived in the same manner, except for the addition of wooden trunks and leather bota bags for carrying liquids. Non-State Uses Chilean archaeologist Francisco Garrido (2016, 2017) has argued that the Inca Road also served as a traffic route for bottom-up entrepreneurs. The Inca-Spanish historian Garcilaso de la Vega stated unequivocally that commoners were not permitted to use the roads unless they had been sent to run errands by the Inca rulers or their local chiefs. However, was that ever a practical reality of policing 40,000 km? Garrido surveyed a portion of the Inca Road itself and other nearby archaeological sites in the Atacama desert in Chile and found that the roads were used by the miners to circulate mining and other craft products on the road and to funnel off-road traffic to and from the local mining camps. Interestingly, a group of economists led by Christian Volpe (2017) studied the effects of modern expansions on the Inca road system, and suggest that in modern times, improvements in transport infrastructure have had a significant positive impact on various companies exports and job growth. Selected Sources Hiking the section of the Inca Road leading to Machu Picchu is a popular tourist experience. Contreras, Daniel A. How Far to Conchucos? A Gis Approach to Assessing the Implications of Exotic Materials at Chavà ­n De Huà ¡ntar. World Archaeology 43.3 (2011): 380–97. Print.Garrido Escobar, Franciso Javier. Mining and the Inca Road in the Prehistoric Atacama Desert, Chile. University of Pittsburgh, 2015. Print.Garrido, Francisco. Rethinking Imperial Infrastructure: A Bottom-up Perspective on the Inca Road. Journal of Anthropological Archaeology 43 (2016): 94–109. Print.Garrido, Francisco, and Diego Salazar. Imperial Expansion and Local Agency: A Case Study of Labor Organization under Inca Rule. American Anthropologist 119.4 (2017): 631–44. Print.Marsh, Erik J., et al. Dating the Expansion of the Inca Empire: Bayesian Models from Ecuador and Argentina. Radiocarbon 59.1 (2017): 117–40. Print.Wilkinson, Darryl. Infrastructure and Inequality: An Archaeology of the Inka Road through the Amaybamba Cloud Forests. Journal of Social Archaeology 19.1 (2019): 27–46. Print.

Friday, May 8, 2020

My Professors Method Of Writing - 1224 Words

I was ready to learn my professor’s method of writing, to lap up each rule or ‘best-practice’ suggestion, pen in hand, mind alert. As soon as he began to write on the blackboard, I scribbled away, making sure I didn’t miss anything. Though his suggestions mirrored what I had learned about essay writing before, I made sure to write out his three point plan model, introduction and conclusion, familiarly logical sequences. ‘This is what you’ve always been taught’, said Professor Allister, ‘but in this class, forget what you’ve learned’, just as he marked a great X across the words I had been hurriedly copying down. The professor had begun pulling down the boundaries to creativity my previous education had built. The classroom was alive with†¦show more content†¦Olaf was intimidating, not knowing what the grading standards would be or how my professor would critique me. The essay question seemed simple at first, broad and open to interpretation, but writing about personal experiences of the local gave a new challenge, I had to find a way of portraying my own opinions and experiences instead of using facts and theories I had learned in a lesson. Encouraging creativity, I was required to go beyond regurgitating facts, but draw from memories of my own life and think of explicit ways to link them to the purpose of my essay. Of all the lessons Mark Allister gave, ‘Just write’, has had the biggest impact in shaping my approach. Letting words flow from my mind without critiquing has been a challenge, learning not to stem my creativity by considering punctuation and grammar too early in the process, preventing myself from checking each sentence, even when I knew that what I had written wasn’t grammatically correct. As I practiced, I was able to quiet the critiquing voice and listen to the ideas float, coming together messily at first but eventually developing links and fluidity. As I’ve grown as a writer over the semester, I have proven to myself that making time to redraft is critical to the quality of my work. Attempting to finish a paper in a day will never result in work that has the same polish and clarity as a paper that has received continual work, peer reviewing, rethinking and rearranging structure, and

Wednesday, May 6, 2020

Tips on Saving a Dollar Free Essays

Along with high gas prices, groceries are going up too. Delivery costs and fuel prices forces companies to charge higher prices to the consumer to cover costs. Utility bills are another issue. We will write a custom essay sample on Tips on Saving a Dollar or any similar topic only for you Order Now Utility companies increase rates and mostly in the summer and winter months when power is being used most. Saving money can always help, and these tips will teach a person the right way. Everyday gas prices seem to get higher and higher. Americans complain about these prices. Many tips on conserving fuel and saving money while doing It are everywhere. Just by filling up the gas tank on a Wednesday night or early Thursday none can save up to five dollars a week. Most station owners change their prices In anticipation of the weekend traffic. A simple but often overlooked tip is to keep the tires properly inflated and aligned. Driving slower and smarter can save up to twenty five cents a gallon. For every five miles per hour that some drives over sixty miles per hour it costs an additional twenty-four cents a mile, so driving seventy miles per an hour will cast fifty more cents a gallon. Saving on groceries can help consumers more than they think. The coupling craze has swept the nation. Thousands of consumers are now using coupons. Serious coupon users can save hundreds in Just one visit. People who buy in bulk often save money because larger Items tend to have smaller unit prices over smaller sized products. Buying the generic brand, which Is usually twice the size of name brand and tastes Just as good can cut grocery bills In half. Try to avoid buying pre made lunches or food items will cost more than buying the ingredients to make the product ourselves. Utility company’s rates keep climbing each year. Just turning a light out when walking out of the room can drop that utility bill drastically. Insuring that the house is strongly insulated in the attic and walls a will save a quarter of the bill. Control air conditioning at a happy medium; do not change the temperature more than twice a week, can save up to fifty dollars a month. Consumers can install low-f low shower heads to save on water usage. Most Americans need to change from incandescent eight bulbs to fluorescent light bulbs which last longer and use less power. Americans can save money to make the purchases they really want. Following these tips can save thousands each year. Saving on gas each year can keep $3,300 In your pocket. Avoid buying name brand foods; these name brands companies often manufacture the store brand at a cheaper price and can possibly save $1 , 100 a year. Can save up to $500 a year. Now that is an average saving of $4,900 a year, a well needed vacation is due after saving that much money! How to cite Tips on Saving a Dollar, Papers

Monday, April 27, 2020

My Jedi Powers free essay sample

The quality I find most impressive about myself is my mindfulness. Mindfulness is awareness of ones senses, thoughts, and any other brain activity. Mindfulness can be improved through practices such as Yoga, Tai Chi, and meditation. These activities are all becoming more and more prevalent in America, and with research into brain activity growing every day some say we are starting to truly adopt the concept, but mindfulness is still not an ordinary attribute to find in a Westerner. Regardless, I find myself more mindful and mentally pliable than most everyone I know, which in turn gives me more control over my emotions, thoughts, and ultimately the world around me. Im basically a Jedi. My drive to control my mind began when my dad died plunging me into a deep depression and lethargy, which lasted several months. I decided to attend a Tai Chi class after reading an article claiming that cultivating Chi could give a person more energy. We will write a custom essay sample on My Jedi Powers or any similar topic specifically for you Do Not WasteYour Time HIRE WRITER Only 13.90 / page Three weeks into the class, I first felt a tingling in my fingertips, and from then on out I was hooked on Chi. I sought other similar classes and began a regular meditation practice that I continue to this day. At first I thought the effects of my practices were strictly physical (more energy, more chi, greater flexibility), but soon I found myself growing calmer and able to handle greater stress with little trouble. I began reading more about the Eastern arts, and found that all these things are connected through mindfulness. I learned that all these practices I had found were all centered around the theme of paying attention to ones thoughts and actions. For example, when in yoga, one puts their whole focus into their body, in order to stretch or balance further. Similarly, when meditating one puts their focus on a thought in order to maintain it longer. Now, two years later, I am able to sit in silent meditation for an hour and not a single thought will arise If I deem it so. When one practices mindfulness, they learn to focus their thoughts onto whatever they choose, whether it be silence, homework, a relationship, or creating solutions to complex problems. Regardless of what I put my mind to, I am able to focus with incredible potency, and Ive only been practicing for two years. My next objective is choosing the correct things to focus on. If I can master that, I will become truly limitless- Jedi style.

Thursday, March 19, 2020

USING GRANTS FOR OTHERS AS WELL AS SELF

USING GRANTS FOR OTHERS AS WELL AS SELF A significant part of my income over the years came from grants, either ones I’ve written or projects I’ve been a part of. I’ve learned a few things about writing them, what grant committees look for and how to search out appropriate grants. I’ve also had proposals rejected. The competition, especially for grants in the creative arts, can be stiff, and sometimes there isn’t enough money to fund every project. The first major grant I won was a California artist-in-residency grant. For three years, it provided enough income for me to teach creative writing in a continuation school while allowing time for my own writing. I also wrote a Healthy Start grant for the school. It was accepted and they received $100,000 to set up an onsite nursery and offer healthy living classes for teen parents, a gratifying experience to see under-privileged students receive help to finish high school. I also spent seven years going into California state prisons teaching poetry and creative writing to inmates as part of the William James arts-in-corrections project. They were some of the best students I’ve ever worked with. I’ve written grants for organizations and arts groups, which have supported workshops and readings. A number of smaller grants allowed me time for writing that I might not have otherwise been able to. This past year, I received what, for me, was the creme de la creme. In March, 2011, I was awarded a Fulbright for a writing project, â€Å"The Language of Place† and spent six months in northeastern India on a creative writing project about environment. As part of it, I began a blog, Cloud and Mountain, which I have continued to maintain since returning to the U.S. The most important step of preparing a proposal is to study the organization and successful grants. Ask a granting agency to send you copies of grant proposals they’ve funded. Some make samples available online. This gives you a chance to see what types of projects have succeeded, but more importantly, you get an idea of the tone and language preferred. Some other tips: Keep your proposal within the stated limits. If it says proposals should be three to five pages, don’t send in two pages, don’t send in six. Keep your objective narrow and realistic. People who read proposals have a keen eye for projects that promise too much. Make your language positive. Focus on what you can do and show how your past experience will help you achieve your objectives with this grant. Do a very careful proofreading! Spelling or grammatical errors are a sure way to get your grant rejected. Even if you have a dynamite proposal, if the writing is sloppy it suggests you don’t care enough about it to bother with basic mechanics. An equally important step is to state how your project can benefit others. The Fulbright is a diplomacy program, so they seek projects that will contribute to a cross-cultural exchange with a host country. However, all grants will likely have a service component. Don’t just think about what you want to get out of your project, but what is its place in the bigger world? Will you be offering something that goes beyond yourself? In fact, this is not a bad philosophy for life! Here are few links that might be helpful: Getting a Fulbright Scholarship in Creative Writing Funds for Writers National Endowment for the Arts (NEA) Arts Writers:The Warhol Foundation Arts Writers Grant Foundation Fulbright International Exchange of Scholars Grant Seekers Cafe:a blog with a lot of good information on applying for grants Grant Seekers Guide: This site from Penn State Extension has some good articles on applying for grants and information for both Pennsylvania and nation-wide funding sources

Tuesday, March 3, 2020

How to Write an Interesting Biography

How to Write an Interesting Biography A biography is a written account of the series of events that make up a persons life. Some of those events are going to be pretty boring, so youll need to try to make your account as interesting as possible! Every student will write a biography at some point, but the level of detail and sophistication will differ. A fourth grade biography will be much different from a middle school-level biography or a high school or college-level biography. However, each biography will include the basic details. The first information you should gather in your research will include biographical details and facts. You must use a trustworthy resource to ensure that your information is accurate. Using research note cards, collect the following data, carefully recording the source for each piece of information: Including Basic Details Date and place of birth and deathFamily informationLifetime accomplishmentsMajor events of lifeEffects/impact on society, historical significance While this information is necessary to your project, these dry facts, on their own, dont really make a very good biography. Once youve found these basics, youll want to dig a little deeper. You choose a certain person because you think he or she is interesting, so you certainly dont want to burden your paper with an inventory of boring facts. Your goal is to impress your reader! Start off with great first sentence. Its a good idea to begin with a really interesting statement, a little-known fact, or really intriguing event. You should avoid starting out with a standard but boring line like: Meriwether Lewis was born in Virginia in 1774. Instead, try starting with something like this: Late one afternoon in October, 1809, Meriwether Lewis arrived at a small log cabin nestled deep in the Tennessee Mountains. By sunrise on the following day, he was dead, having suffered gunshot wounds to the head and chest. Youll have to make sure your beginning is motivating, but it should also be relevant. The next sentence or two should lead into your thesis statement, or main message of your biography. It was a tragic end to a life that had so deeply affected the course of history in the United States. Meriwether Lewis, a driven and often tormented soul, led an expedition of discovery that expanded a young nations economic potential, increased its scientific understanding, and enhanced its worldwide reputation. Now that youve created an impressive beginning, youll want to continue the flow. Find more intriguing details about the man and his work, and weave them into the composition. Examples of Interesting Details: Some people believed that Lewis and Clark would encounter elephants in the western wilderness, having misunderstood the wooly mammoth bones discovered in the United States.The expedition resulted in the discovery and description of 122 new animal species and subspecies.Lewis was a hypochondriac.His death is still an unsolved mystery, although it was ruled a suicide. You can find interesting facts by consulting diverse sources. Fill the body of your biography with material that gives insight into your subjects personality. For instance, in a biography about Meriwether Lewis, you would ask what traits or events motivated him to embark on such a monumental exercise. Questions to Consider in Your Biography: Was there something in your subjects childhood that shaped his/her personality?Was there a personality trait that drove him/her to succeed or impeded his progress?What adjectives would you use to describe him/her?What were some turning points in this life?What was his/her impact on history? Be sure to use transitional phrases and words to link your paragraphs and make your composition paragraphs flow. It is normal for good writers to re-arrange their sentences to create a better paper. The final paragraph will summarize your main points and re-assert your main claim about your subject. It should point out your main points, re-name the person youre writing about, but it should not repeat specific examples. As always, proofread your paper and check for errors. Create a bibliography and title page according to your teachers instructions. Consult a style guide for proper documentation.