[Dec. 05, 2015] Saturday meeting topic

1. Why Is Black Friday Called Black Friday? <A href="http://useconomy.about.com/od/demand/f/Black_Friday_Name.htm">http://useconomy.about.com/od/demand/f/Black_Friday_Name.htm</A>   Black Friday is the name given to the shopping day after Thanksgiving. It was originally called Black Friday because so many people went out to shop that it caused traffic accidents and sometimes even violence.   The name was first recorded in 1966 by Earl Apfelbaum, a dealer in rare stamps. In his ad, he said, "'Black Friday' is the name that the Philadelphia Police Department gave to the Friday following Thanksgiving Day.   It is not a term of endearment for them. 'Black Friday' officially opens the Christmas shopping season in center city, and it usually brings massive traffic jams and over-crowded sidewalks as the downtown stores are mobbed from opening to closing."   The Police Department coined the phrase to describe the mayhem surrounding the congestion of pedestrian and auto traffic in the Center City downtown area. (Source: The Chicago Tribune, "Black Friday - Why and When?)   When Black Friday Became a Positive Name   Retailers did not appreciate the negative connotation associated with a black day of the week. They had a good point.   For example, Black Monday was given to October 19, 1987. On that day, the Dow Jones Average fell 22%, the largest percentage drop on one day in stock market history.   Another dark day, Black Thursday, occurred on October 24, 1929. It was the day that signaled the start of the Great Depression. It was followed the next week by Black Tuesday. On that day, the stock market lost 11% despite attempts by major investors to support stock prices.   That destroyed any confidence investors had in the stock market, which in those days was perceived to be the economy. Many had invested their life savings and were entirely wiped out.   No wonder retailers wanted to make the name "Black Friday" mean something positive. And, to them, the Friday after Thanksgiving is a very profitable day. To compensate, they decided to follow the adage, "If you can't beat 'em, join 'em."   They used the name to reflect their success. Accountants use black to signify profit when recording each day's book entries. Red is used to mean loss. Therefore, Black Friday means profitable Friday to retailing and to the economy.   Worst Black Friday Violence   Black Friday crowds hunting bargains still give the police headaches. In 2013, police shot a Chicago Kohl’s shoplifter as he fled in his car -- dragging an officer who was halfway into the vehicle.   The most violence seems to occur at Walmart, leading to the Twitter hashtag each year #Walmart fights. In 2012, two people were shot outside of a Walmart in Tallahassee Florida. They were fighting over a parking space.    Walmart's consumer electronics department seems to be the most dangerous place. In 2011, a woman pepper-sprayed a crowd at a Walmart in Los Angeles. She was trying to get a Wii for 60% off. The year before, crowds at a Sacramento Walmart forced the store to evacuate when they started pushing and shoving to get deals on consumer electronics at 5:30 am.   On Black Friday 2009, another California Walmart, this time in Rancho Cucamonga, needed police protection from unruly crowds -- again, in the early-morning hours in the consumer electronics department. The store was briefly closed a few hours after another store in nearby Upland was closed.   The worst Black Friday occurred in 2008 when a man was trampled to death. Despite being 6'5" and 270 pounds, temporary worker Jdimytai Damour died of asphyxiation when crowds stampeded into another Wal-Mart (this time in New York). At least 2,000 people broke down the doors, trapping Damour in a vestibule where he suffocated. Eleven other shoppers were also injured, including a pregnant woman. It seems the police have a right to call Black Friday by a negative name.      Questions 1. Did you know that Korea also has its version of Black Friday? What do you know and think about Korea’s Black Friday? 2. Is there anything you want to buy but cannot afford? Are you willing to get up early or not go to bed at all to line up outside waiting for a store to open if you can buy it at a very cheap price on Black Friday?   3. Why do you think people go crazy for Black Friday? 4. Have you ever made a plan and saved money with a certain product in mind? Please, share your experience.   2. Dreams and Reality Why Sleep Matters <A href="http://paidpost.nytimes.com/aetna/dreams-and-reality-why-sleep-matters.html?_r=0">http://paidpost.nytimes.com/aetna/dreams-and-reality-why-sleep-matters.html?_r=0</A>   Did you get enough sleep last night?   For many Americans, the answer is no, sadly. Almost a quarter of Americans said they didn’t get enough shut-eye because they were busy “concentrating on things,” according to the Center For Disease Control and Prevention.   Our penchant for things that disturb our sleep appears to be growing worse, too, as glowing screens penetrate our pre-sleep activities, via late-night emailing, web surfing and movie streaming. The screens on smartphones, tablets and computers emit wavelengths of light that signal the brain to wake up, not rest, researchers at Brigham and Women's Hospital have found.   Sleep is a fundamental necessity of human life. In fact, we spend a third of our lives sleeping, but the reasons aren’t fully clear.   In fact, there are many reasons we need sleep, says Anthony Masi*, who has been a private practice sleep physician in St. Louis for the past 25 years.   Sleep is a time when our body restores damaged, worn cells and tissues, says Dr. Masi. It’s also when our brain, and other bodily systems, recharge — like a biological battery. And it’s when our minds process experiences, emotions and memories of the preceding day, he adds.   Still, considering how hard-pressed Americans are to live as efficiently as possible, it seems counterintuitive that we treat sleep as a luxury instead of a necessity, says Dr. Masi.   The practice of sleeping is as old as humankind, but the field that studies this ancient behavior is still “in its infancy compared to other medical fields like cardiology,” says Dr. Masi, pointing out that the sleep sciences only really began in the early 20th century.   “Sleep isn’t strictly for just resting your body or making you feel more alert when you’re awake,” he adds. “It’s also very involved in areas like memory consolidation and keeping the brain alive by cleaning out the buildup of waste that accumulates during our waking hours.”   We used to think of sleeping as a passive, even unproductive aspect of our lives, but it’s actually an active process that helps us perform at our best during the day. Considering its importance, there are many ways that we can improve our sleep health.   Reality Check for a Good Night’s Sleep   It’s a basic fact that sleep serves a vital function in our lives. But what really happens when you don’t prioritize sleep? And how much sleep do you really need?   Recently, The American Academy of Sleep Medicine (AASM) and Sleep Research Society (SRS) reached a consensus that recognized that while individual needs for sleep vary, most adults should get seven or more hours of sleep to avoid the health risks of inadequate sleep.   “It’s up to each person to figure out what works best for them,” says Dr. Masi.   The effects of sleep deprivation go beyond daytime drowsiness and irritability, according to Dr. Richard Rosenberg, a sleep specialist in Long Beach, Calif. and a contributor to the International Classification of Sleep Disorders and the AASM Manual for the Scoring of Sleep and Associated Events. According to a study called “Sleep Disorders and Sleep Deprivation: An Unmet Public Health Problem,” about 70 million Americans sleep poorly or not nearly enough to achieve the full physical, emotional and cognitive benefits sleep can offer.   When you’re sleep deprived, your brain can’t function properly, which affects your cognitive abilities and emotional state. And if you continue to go without enough sleep, you’re weakening your body’s immune system, increasing the risk of illness.   Many Americans don’t get enough sleep: a 2013 survey by the National Sleep Foundation said that one in five adults gets less than six hours of sleep on an average work night.   According to Dr. Rosenberg, the common practice of sleeping less to get more done, is wrongly regarded as a badge of honor — and may even be counterproductive. Think of Thomas Edison, for example, who has been called the founding father of the cult of sleep deprivation.   “Even Thomas Edison, who was famous for not sleeping much, was actually known to drift into cat naps during the day,” said Dr. Rosenberg. “Taken together, his naps and nighttime sleep probably added up to a normal amount of sleep.”         Questions 1. How many hours do you sleep? Please, tell us your sleeping pattern. 2. How often do you have difficulty falling asleep? And what normally causes you not to sleep well? What does it feel like to have insomnia? 3. Do you know any natural sleep remedies? And what are they?   3. Will 3-D Printers Change the World? Are we expecting too much from these 3-D printers? Christopher Gregory for The New York Times               <A href="http://www.nytimes.com/roomfordebate/2014/08/11/will-3-d-printers-change-the-world">http://www.nytimes.com/roomfordebate/2014/08/11/will-3-d-printers-change-the-world</A>   For the last half-decade, three-dimensional printing has been billed as the next revolution in manufacturing. The Economist and Wired have declared it world-changing technology. Last year, retailers including Staples and Amazon began to sell their own 3-D printers, and this year, Amazon has introduced a marketplace for 3-D printed objects.   But for all the hype, it’s still unclear exactly how and when 3-D printing will have an impact on our daily lives. Will 3-D printing really change the world? And if so, how?   3-D Printing Will Be a Manufacturing Engine for the Economy By Daniel S. Hamermesh   For a sci-fi addict like me, 3-D printing reminds me of my favorite TV show, "Star Trek: The Next Generation." It is not yet, and probably never will be, a replicator; and I expect that the price of small 3-D printers that are widely useable will keep them out of most people’s homes for the foreseeable future. But having large-scale 3-D printing revolutionize manufacturing may be soon upon us; and this prospect may well have important economic effects.   How will the rise of 3-D printing in manufacturing affect the American economy and how will we fare as consumers and workers? Productivity in manufacturing has grown more rapidly than in other sectors of the economy for many years, 117 percent since 1990 compared to 64 percent for business as a whole.   Three-dimensional printing will spur further productivity growth, especially in those industries that turn out many replications of the same part for assembly into complete products (automobiles, airplanes, electrical equipment, etc.). As has been true in the past, the increased productivity will lower the cost of production, which will be passed on to buyers in the form of lower prices. In the end, we as consumers will benefit from 3-D printing, not because we’ll have little printers at home, but because companies will have large printers that help lower the price of the goods we buy. We’ll be able to buy more for less.   Increased productivity often means reduced demand for workers, especially low-skilled workers. Three-dimensional printing will likely result in the continued relative shrinking of manufacturing employment (from about one-sixth of employment in 1990 to about one-tenth today based on my calculations of data from the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics) but these need not be job losses as the change will occur mostly through workers retiring. Don’t worry: The increased purchasing power generated by the greater abundance of inexpensive goods will lead to expansions in employment in other industries, just like technology has improved our lives.   3-D Printers Are No Rival for Mass Production By Nick Allen   Three-dimensional printing is likely to change the world in many ways, but not in the way many people are led to believe. There seems to be a notion that everyone will have a printer in their home, that they'll download their products instead of visiting stores, that manufacture and supply chains will be a thing of the past.   This is a little idealistic. Three-dimensional printing is a great way of making a unique product cheaply, as it does not require expensive tooling like injection molding machines do, but items printed from a 3-D printer are unlikely to ever match the quality and strength and surface finish of mass manufactured goods. The layer-by-layer process of 3-D printing is a slower, more expensive, worse way of manufacturing than molding or subtractive manufacture.   Three-dimensional printers make objects with layer lines on the exterior and a grain weakness on the interior. Couple those weaknesses with the fact that consumer printers can generally only print out of one or two materials, and you have an expensive machine that excels at making you plastic napkin rings, shower curtain hooks and other very cheap items.   There are printers that can print in metal, rubber, ceramic, and there are printers that can print in very high definition, but these are unlikely to be in the home as many use toxic resins, cost a lot or can even be explosive.   Then there's liability. Companies are not going to release their intellectual property to consumers to print. First, because they'd lose income, but mainly because of product liability: What if your 3-D printed object breaks and injures someone? Who is liable? You? The 3-D printer manufacturer? The company who supplied the design?   You can compare it to the 2-D printing world in a way. Printing is amazing and it has changed the world without a doubt. But do we print out our newspapers every morning on our inkjet printers? We could, but there are better and cheaper ways to get the paper. Three-dimensional printing will get better, but it will never match mass production; the physics and chemistry of the process are its limiting factors. Questions 1. What do you know about 3-D printers? 2. How can 3-D printing have an impact on our daily lives? Will it really change the world? And if so, how? 3. What are disadvantages of 3-D printers? 4. Is there any other technology that you believe is a great revolution? What is it? And why?