One of the Fourteen Grand Challenges for Engineering

This is a summary of the article “First Successful Demonstration of Carbon Dioxide Air Capture Technology Achieved”. As the title shows, it is about capturing of carbon dioxide, which is one of the 14 grand challenges for engineering in the 21^st century.

The first part talks about the developers of this carbon capture technology and its importance. This technology was developed by Global Research Technologies(GRT) and a professor named Klaus S. Lackner at Columbia University. And the importance of this technology is that it can reduce the amount of CO2 to help protecting the atmosphere of the earth.

The second part tells the special function of the device using this technology. From the article, we know that the device extract carbon dioxide from the atmosphere, and store the pure carbon dioxide which can be transformed into energies. Moreover, this device can extract carbon dioxide regardless the zone limitation, which means a device at anywhere on the Earth can reduce the concentration of carbon dioxide of the whole world. As a result, this technology can be the best one to prevent the global warming amount other technologies.

The third part shows the challenge of the technology. One is that Since the technology needs to store carbon dioxide from the atmosphere, it may prevent the carbon recycling. As a result, the capture amount of carbon dioxide must be equal to CO2 emission. Another challenge is that is it too expensive to make the carbon dioxide into eco-friendly gases. These two challenges need to be solved.

In conclusion, this technology developed by GRT will play an important role in capture carbon dioxide and can both produce energy and make carbon dioxide into eco-friendly gases.

Reference:
PHYSORG(2007), First Successful Demonstration of Carbon Dioxide Air Capture Technology Achieved, Retrieved http://www.physorg.com/news96732819.html

Common mistakes

One of my common mistakes in grammar is the misusing of words. There are two main causes of this mistake. Firstly, since my vocabulary is poor, sometimes I may not be able to come up with the most correct and proper words to let others know what I want to say. For instance, in my last work I wrote “the opinion of not taking risk” while the word “opinion” should be replaced by “preference”. On the other hand, I meet the problem of not knowing the correct way to use some words, even some words that I know very well. For instance, in my last essay I have written a sentence: “they choose to resist buying the new products in order to avoid being bamboozled”. The word “bamboozled” is slang and not considered to be proper in academic writing. Another example is that sometimes I put “however” as the start of a sentence, which is considered informal. In order to make a change, I believe I should not only improve my vocabulary, but also read more articles to have some general ideas of how to use these words.

Exercise:
Sales slowed down but I think I know why that is. I didn't keep up with my regular listing. On Tuesday I was so distracted by the election I didn't list at all. I updated my Etsy avatar and am spending a little more time posting in the Etsy forums- usually I just read- but it's really a time suck and I don't know if it's worth it.
Also I didn't list any new items last week. A huge downside of Ann Arbor is that there are no art stores near by. There's a little one above the Michigan Book Store but the screen printing section is tiny and overpriced. The closest major art store is 40 minutes away in Detroit, so I now have to rely on the Internet for my supplies. I run out of a bunch of ink last week and had to wait for it to arrive before I could get to printing more holiday wrap for the shop. My goal is to have all my gift wrap for the holiday season in my shop by November 15. At that time, I'll probably send out a notification to my email list and family and friends. I can't decide if it's better to time that email before or after Thanksgiving. Any suggestions?
I'm also planning to send an email to some of the bigger blogs that have historically given me nice mentions, alerting them to the new stuff in my shop. I'm sure I'll reach 1000 hearts within the next few weeks but I'm not sure how to turn those hearts into sales，a heart means someone has seen my shop and likes what they see enough to "heart" me. But what would give them that extra push to buy? Do I need more diversity of patterns? More diversity of products? A bigger price range? Different colors?
It's nice for people to admire my work but I am trying to make this a sustainable business. I've really tried to steer away from trends and do something original but maybe I need to think about incorporating more trendy things if that's what will sell. I realize stationery isn't for everyone, even if they do like what I do and T-shirts and tote bags seems to always do well at craft shows so I'm now thinking about whipping some up for the Shadow Art Fair in December, the only fair I'm doing this holiday season. In the new year I'm also planning to add more patterns and do more fabric goods to keep things fresh.

Why people resist new technologies
There are various reasons why people resist new technologies. Firstly, many people resist new technologies because of their ethical conception. This phenomenon is more obvious among the older people. They have formed their own views of life and do not want to be disturbed by the new technologies. They also believe that new technologies will not help them substantially; instead of that, they have to suffer from the adapting to the new technologies and change their way of life. For instance, old people do not like shopping online. They think it can ruin their traditional way of shopping. Secondly, many people resist new technological products today as they do not know which one to trust. It is a fact that in a world of advertisements, people can hardly tell which claims are true and which are fake. Since most people cannot tell a beneficial new technological product from a fake one, they choose to resist buying the new products in order to avoid being cheated. As a result, some products such as the near-sight treat machine can never be sold out since people do not believe in it. Lastly, some people resist new technology as some technologies have potential dangers. One example is nuclear power. The most famous nuclear accident is the Chernobyl disaster. After the Chernobyl disaster, large areas in Ukraine, Belarus, and Russia were badly contaminated, resulting in the evacuation and resettlement of over 336,000 people( Wikipedia, 2006). Nowadays, many people do not want to take risk using new technologies that have potential danger because they do not want such horrible disaster to happen in their life. In conclusion, many people resist new technologies because of ethical conception, distrust and the preference of not taking risks.

References:
Wikipedia. (2006). Chernobyl disaster. Retrieved September 3, 2008, from http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chernobyl_disaster