Second semester is exciting. I finally get to find out what colleges I am worthy of being admitted to, which is either going to be pretty great or pretty crushing. I have the privilege of being able to read some of the English language's best works with one of the worlds premier intellectuals as well. Engineering is also looking nice, with the capstone project's freedom seemingly being an opportunity for redemption from JPL. All in all, I am pretty happy about how this semester will go.
On a less fun note, my group is facing issues deciding what problem we want to tackle. We think we want to do something to assist firefighters, but don't know exactly what they need to succeed. Also, we have not had a day of all three of us all being at school. This should change, but has made it hard to coordinate as a full group. I suspect that in the future we will face problems in figuring out how to implement whatever solution we decide to follow, as I've traditionally struggled with minutia.
A product made for profit is created with primarily shareholders in mind. It is designed to be marketed and have qualities that allow for maximum profit, so expendability, replaceable parts and cheapness to manufacture are all mandatory. For products designed purely to do good, price is generally less of a consideration, as the product is not designed to be profitable, but to reach as many people as possible. They also tend to be made to last, as people consuming more of the product costs the manufacturer more, as they are operating at a loss. An example of a product made for profit is the IPhone. It has 45% of the smartphone market share and makes billions each year. It was designed to make a profit, and has large marketing campaigns and updates. A product made for benefit is Insulin. It is a necessity for diabetics, and as such is protected from traditional supply and demand. Instead, research and manufacturing was done by scientists on a grant wit the goal of making it cheap. Only now, since Insulin manufacturing is controlled by one group, has the price gone up 700%. Products for profit are made to be wanted. Products for the common good are made to be needed.