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“2021 I almost gave up on life ..went naked in my room and cried to God several times!hmm ..still shocking how God pulled me out of those really dark places I never thought I could survive .. I pray we all win the battles our parents never won .. and I had to go extra spiritual on this jam🎶
BATTLES AND VICTORY “
Don’t give up ,Stay motivated I made this for you..
Now listen to the inspirational and spiritual piece
Look at your hands. Have you ever used your fingers to help you count? Perhaps you used them to help you to add two numbers. When you did this, you were using your fingers as a counting device. It was a very simple device which helped you to carry out / simple additions.
Stones
To start with, look at your fingers again. How many have you? You have ten if you include your thumbs. Because you have ten fingers, they are not very good for counting when the numbers are larger than 10. Because of this, primitive man started to use stones instead of fingers to help him to count. Suppose he wanted to count the number of animals he owned, He built a pile of stones with one stone for every animal. After he had finished building the pile he needed to look at it and see how many there were in it.
This was not easy if all the stones were in a single pile. So he put them into smaller piles of the same size. What size did he choose for each of these smaller piles? He decided that the size of each pile should be ten. He picked this number because he had ten fingers.
Suppose that after counting his animals the primitive man had three piles of ten stones and one smaller pile of four After looking at the piles he said,
"I have three tens and one four." He called the number thirty-four.
Even quite small numbers like 34 used a lot of stones. Using stones is no good for large numbers.
The next step was to use a different stone to mean ten animals. Perhaps our primitive man used black Stones to count up to 10. He used white stones to
Counting with stones
Count the number of tens. The number 34 only needed 7 stones, 3 white and 4 black. This method was also used to count larger numbers. Red stones could be used for hundreds. Then the number 154 used only ten stones. This simple way of counting was difficult to use because stones were very awkward.
ABACUS
The next idea was to use coloured beads threaded on a string. At first the beads were made of stone. Around about the year 1200 the Chinese used this 1 method to count. The beads were threaded on lines of wire frame. The beads on the first line counted the units. The beads on the second wire counted the tens. The bead on the third wire counted the hundreds and so on. By moving the beads back and Abacus with beads showing forth along wires, numbers could be added and the numbers could be subtracted. This device was called an ABACUS. The Abacus is a wooden frame with strings on which colourful beads are strung.
Early mechanical aids to counting
Calculating devices
Just over three hundred years ago, the first machines for helping with calculations were invented. These machines were mechanical. They had parts which moved. The power that caused the movement was provided by the person who was using the machine. Calculating machines like these were still used in the 1970s but they became out of date with the invention of electronic calculators.
PASCALINE
A Frenchman called Blaise Pascal invented the first machine which could do both addition and subtraction, in 1642. The machine was named PASCALINE.
It had a number of wheels with teeth on them. The first wheel counted units, the second the tens, the third the hundreds, and so on.
Every time the first wheel made one complete turn, the second wheel moved one position forward. Ten turns on the first wheel caused one complete turns the second wheel.
One hundred turns on the first wheel caused ten turns on the second wheel and one complete turn on the third wheel.
After a large number of turns, by looking at the position of each wheel you can read a number from them. This method is still used today in fuel and electricity meters.
Addition is done by moving the wheels forward. Subtraction by moving them backwards.
THE STEPPED RECKONER
The next step was to invent a machine called THE STEPPED RECKONER which was able to do multiplication and division. It could also calculate square roots.
This was done in 1671 by a German called Gottfried von Leibnitz. This machine also used wheels with teeth on them.
Information processing devices
The machines mentioned so far are only calculators. They are used to add, subtract, multiply and divide two or more numbers.
In the nineteenth century there was a new idea. This idea was to give a machine some information which was then used by it. We say that the machine is processing the information which it has been given.
Jacquard's Loom
An early example of a machine which processed information was used by a French An ea manufacturer, called Joseph Jacquard. In 1802 he built a machine to help weave complicated patterns. When a pattern is woven, each of a number of threads must be raised or lowered. When this has been done the weaving loom pulls mother thread between the raised and lowered threads. Then each of the threads is raised or lowered in a different way and the loom passes between them again.
This is done very many times when a length of cloth is woven.
Jacquard's loom used lines of holes on a card to represent the weaving pattern. If there were ten threads there was space in each line for ten holes.
The card was attached to a device on the loom which was able to look for holes in the card. The device looked at each line. If there was a hole in positions 3, 5, and 9 then the third, fifth and ninth threads were raised and the rest lowered. After this was done the loom would start to weave. Then the device would look at the next line of holes on the card. It would raise and lower the threads and start weaving again. The information on the card was processed by the loom. A loom operator used to do these before the invention and it was tedious and time consuming job.
Jacquard's invention emphasised three concepts:
* information could be coded on punched cards
* cards could be linked in a series of instructions and
* many programs could automate jobs.
Sir Charles Babbage's Difference Engine
In 1822, an Englishman called Sir Charles Babbage built a machine called a Difference Engine. In this, information on cards was supplied to the machine.
The machine then used wheels with teeth on them to do some mathematical calculations.
Babbage later designed another machine called an 'Analytical Engine'. He wanted to use this for more complicated calculations. Babbage died before he could complete this difficult task. He was the first to exploit the concepts from Jacquard's loom in a computing machine. Charles Babbage is known as the father of computers because of the ideas he introduced.
A friend of Babbage called Ada, Countess of Lovelace, showed how the 'Analytical Engine' could be used to do some particular calculations.
Sir Charles Babbage is often thought of as the inventor of the computer and Lady Lovelace is regarded as the first computer programmer. She is also one of the few women to have been involved in the early history of computing.
The Analytical Engine has four parts:
* a mill for calculating
* a store for holding instructions, intermediate and final results
* an OPERATOR (or system) for carrying out instructions
* a device for "reading" and "writing" data on punched cards.
Hermann Hollerith's Machine
During the rest of the nineteenth century more complicated mechanical devices were built. The most important was made by an American called Hermann Hollerith. He used it to process the information obtained in the census of the population carried out in the United States in 1890. With this machine, he was able to do in three years what would have taken very many people seven years to do by hand.
Hollerith formed a company to sell his machines. After a series of mergers with other companies, his company became part of the American Computer Company, International Business Machines (IBM. IBM is now one of the largest computer manufacturers in the world.
At this time a major change was about to take place. It was made possible by inventions in ELECTRONICS. We will look at these inventions in the next section.
Electronic systems used another important idea. You have always counted in a system based on tens. This is called a decimal system. You can also count in a system based on eights, sixes, twos or indeed in one based on any number.
Electronic computers count in a system based on twos. We will look at this and other number system later in this book.
…According to the Oxford Advance Learner's Dictionary rights are 'one of the basic rights that everyone has to be treated fairly and not in a cruel way especially by their government'
The Oxford Concise Dictionary of Politics
(IAINMCLEAN), Human Rights are, "a special sort o inalienable moral entitlements. They attach to all persons equality, simply by virtue of their humanity, irrespective of race, nationality or membership of any particular social group. They specify the minimum conditions for human dignity and a tolerable life"…
…Politics defines human rights as those "conditions of social life without which no man can seek to be himself at his best"…
…Rights and liberty are expression of citizenship that they are made to cover those legally satisfied citizens of a country more as in the case of most modern states, whereas in medieval societies they were not meant for slaves…
…Human rights are further defined as elemental conditions ascribed to individual citizen by the government which make life meaningful, enjoyable and interesting. By human rights citizens feel sense of belonging and participatory in the process of nation building. By it every citizen feels being wanted, loved, cared for and regarded by the community and the government…
Here are some notable facts about Human Rights:
~ Human rights are one of the hallmarks of democracy.
- Every person/individual is entitled to rights by virtue of his/her status as human being.
- Human rights generally originated and are traceable to viewpoints and writing of ancient Greek philosophers, the Stoic, Roman lawyers, Christian fathers such as St.Thomas Aguinas.etc.
- Human rights are linked to social contract theorists and philosophers of the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries John Luck, Thomas Hobes etc. .
- Human rights are not dependent and are not determined by civil, political and socio-economy status or ranks or positions. It is an entitlement of every person either rich or poor, old or young, male or female. It has no respect for race, colour, sex, ethnic or religion and political affiliation.
- Human rights are not negotiable and are undeniable.
- Claim of human rights is universal and global. It is borderless.
- By the instrument of Human rights, the state government or any constituted authority cannot claim absolute power and authority over individual.
That is, if the state claims power and authority then of course an individual must claim rights.
- Human rights and civil obligations or duties are reciprocal. In other words, anybody who claims rights must be law abiding, obey the rules and regulations and laws as stated by the government of its agents and institutions.
He/she must be submissive and obedient to the civil and constituted authorities.
- Human rights are expectedly enforced and promoted by the state, government, civil society and international tribunal.
- Human rights literarily translates or connotes creating congenial conditions for the happiness or happy living of the citizenry.
Human rights ostensibly check against absolutism, authoritarianism, despotism and tyranny and dictatorship.
- Human rights are associates and are therefore linked to justice, fair play, liberty and freedom from oppressive and dictatorial regime.
- Human rights are rooted in and developed from natural laws.
- Human rights can interpret to mean, upon failure of government to pursue, preserve and enforce rights the people have the rights and even a duty to rebel and replace such a government (John Luck's postulation and proposition).
Anifowose R. and Enemuo F. (1999).
- Human rights are an embodiment of legal and constitutional documents of every nation of the world.
For instance the 1979, 1995 and the 1999 constitutions of the Federal Republic of Nigeria contained all elements of rights.
- Human rights originated from the voice of protest and demand against oppression and arbitrary rule and regimes of the past be they monarch, military totalitarian and indeed dictatorial democratic governments of some African governments.
Generally speaking rights are claims of individuals, or group of individuals, society, community, villages towns, nations, civil society, corporate body etc. against arbitrary power of the state, government or regime. The claims are required to be secured through legal and constitutional mechanisms. Gauba, (2004).
Furthermore, it must be noted that the concept of rights is dynamic and is progressive in nature. The concept changes with time. As society progresses new dimension of rights in respect of claim, demand and need surface simultaneously. In other words, as the level of social consciousness and awareness is nurtured and developed, the need to review and redefine the concept arises accordingly. For instance in the recent time there are calls to legalize homosexual as a light which was hitherto considered as illegal, in human, debasing etc.
The advocacy for homosexual as right is being championed be western countries of the USA, the great Britain and the like. Besides, food all citizens in society is presently considered as one of the most important aspects of right of man. This implies no one should be denied access for quality and adequate food. The above attests to changing pattern of rights in modern world and society.
Broadly speaking, rights can be categorized into two, namely positive rights and negative rights.
Positive rights are those rights in which the government or state is expected to positive measures in the protecting and securing the rights of individual citizens.
For example; right to medical care, right to work, right to legal aid, right to life etc, are classified as positive rights.
Whereas negative rights are those rights which cannot and should not be encroached, violated, abused and tempered with by the government or the State. Such include freedom of thought and conscience, of expression, of association etc. Agarwal (2004) posits that while in Capitalist states like the USA, the great Britain etc stick and reckon with negative rights, Socialist States like Cuba gives precedence to positive rights. A welfare states do considers both negative and positive rights as basic, feasible and go for the benefit of the citizenry and progress and development of the nation.
Definitions of Human Rights
"The concept of human rights have severally been one theorist to the other. As it is today human rights have become commonplace and of course universal or global entity yet there are variations in terms of meaning and usage.
Whereas the concept is overwhelmingly universalized, there is problem of transparency and sincerity in its observance, recognition and application.
Human rights though are said to be common among people of all nations of the world because they have been abused, traumatized and trivialized. Knowledge, campaign and use of human rights spread across globe because it has been rendered meaningless and innocuous without losing its symbolic value (Ake, 1993). While it spread our society at the micro level and the world in macro sense is repressive, and oppressive and violated.
According to the Oxford Advance Learner's Dictionary rights are 'one of the basic rights that everyone has to be treated fairly and not in a cruel way especially by their government'
The Oxford Concise Dictionary of Politics
(IAINMCLEAN), Human Rights are, "a special sort o inalienable moral entitlements. They attach to all persons equality, simply by virtue of their humanity, irrespective of race, nationality or membership of any particular social group. They specify the minimum conditions for human dignity and a tolerable life".
Obaseki (1999) in Anifowose and Enemuo defines human rights as the rights of man or fundamental freedom... they are legally recognized and protected to secure for each individual the fullest and freest development of personality and spiritual, moral and other independence. They are conceived as rights inherent in individuals as rational free willing creatures not conferred by some positive law nor capable of being abridged or abrogated by positive laws.
Agarwal (2005) in his book entitled (Political Theory
Principles of Political Science) defines human rights as
"form the essential conditions of good life and which constitute the essentials of human progress". He further stresses that in the absence of these rights, growth and development of human personality is not possible.
Laski (1982) in his book entitled "Grammar of
Politics defines human rights as those "conditions of social life without which no man can seek to be himself at his best".
Wide in Agarwa (2005) defines rights as a reasonable claim to freedom in the exercise of certain activities. Rights are "what we may expect from others, and others from us, and all genuine rights are conditions of social welfare. Thus, the rights anyone way claim are partly those which are essential to every man in order to be a rational human person and partly those which are necessary for the fulfillment of the function that society expects from him. They are conditioned by and corrective to his social responsibilities Hobb House in Agarwal
(2005). Human rights are further defined as elemental conditions ascribed to individual citizen by the government which make life meaningful, enjoyable and interesting. By human rights citizens feel sense of belonging and participatory in the process of nation building. By it every citizen feels being wanted, loved, cared for and regarded by the community and the government.
In the view points of classical scholars like Thomas
Hobbes (1588-1679) J. J. Rousseau (1712-78) and G. W. F.
Hegel (1770-1831) 'human rights presupposes the process of creating congenial conditions for the happiness of men".
In essence, it means that absence of rights makes the happiness of individuals depend on the chance benevolence of the power that be (Gauba, 2004). Absence of rights may result into the government degenerating into absolutism, authoritarianism, despotism and tyranny.
Rights entail some kind of benefits which an individual group of individuals or community claim to restrict the domineering tendency of the government or state.
They also consist of socio-economic and political benefits which the state may extend to its citizens to improve the quality of life. Rights may be deliberately claimed by the citizens to ensure happiness, improved living condition and equal distribution of wealth.
To this end, it is stressed that while the state exercises authority over the individual the individual in turn can claim certain amount of rights from the state. Thus, relationship between the state and individual citizens is said to be reciprocal, bilateral and at times conflicting. It is on this basis that Gauba (2004) observes that "If the state claims authority, individual must claim rights".
Also that individual owes allegiance (loyalty) to the state and obeys its commands because the state serves his/her interests.
Enemuo (1999) observes, that human rights are inalienable rights that belong to the man by virtue of his humanity and therefore should be granted and guaranteed to everyone.
They are basic entitlements which every individual should enjoy in a society.
They can be defined as prerogative conferred by law upon a person or a group. Rights and liberty of person are always defined within the framework of the constitution of the state to become a civic right (Olawale, 1980).
In as much as there is relationship between the state and individual on the basis of human rights observance, Thomas Hobbes portends that in situation when and where a state fails in its responsibility in creating congenial atmosphere or condition for people's happiness and enjoyable life, people can rebel by destroying the government and replace it. This is considered as element of rights to remove, suspend and eliminate a government by the people.
Liberty and rights and their practice or observance are fundamental hallmarks of democracy. Democracy can only be said to exist and practicable under the following conditions.
a. When citizens can freely express opinion and exchange information, through the available media of communication and information radio, television, newspapers.
b. When citizens can form and join political parties and association of their choice to promote their political and group interest without any form of intimidation, harassment etc.
c. When citizen can hold public meetings, discussion and debate.
d. When citizen enjoy participatory right either by way of choosing their representative in competitive elections, formulation and implementation of policies, support the adoption or rejection of policies, support candidates of their interests/choice.
e. Having the right to vote, recall and sack a government, a political party and candidate or representative ruling and acting contrary ot their socio-economic, political and legal aspirations rights and interest.
f. Circumstance of economic justice and freedom by having equal access to state or nations wealth by all citizens irrespective of sex, status, ethnic and geopolitical affiliation. Economic justice also dictates gainful employment by all, life more abundant, special allowances to the jobless, aged and the disable.
The basic tenet of human rights connotes the freedom of the individual with respect to personal action, the possession and use of property, adherence to religious beliefs and worship. It can further be included as right of protection against infringement by government, private individual, or group of individuals. It can also mean personal security, lawful rights which result from the existence of constituted authority or government.
Rights and liberty are expression of citizenship that they are made to cover those legally satisfied citizens of a country more as in the case of most modern states, whereas in medieval societies they were not meant for slaves.
Finally human rights provision varies from state to state and from society to society depending on the prevailing ideological, socio-economic, political and cultural configurations of the society in question. Though the universality of human rights is being contended, criticized and rejected in recent time, it must be made clear that the aspect of 'natural rights of individual is pervasive. It is a general phenomenon.
