By Eric Maddox with David Seay
published in 2009
This is a change in books because I became fascinated as I picked this books from the shelf of the public library, and I do believe I plan on returning to “The Tipping Point” in time. It was immediately fascinating because of the bold letters on the cover that said, “The inside story of the search for Saddam Hussein-as told by the soldier who masterminded his capture.” One of the major words in this is obviously Saddam Hussein. That name stuck out to me, more than it should have for me. The reason that I don't believe it should have sparked interests is that I rarely know anything that is going on in the world. The Iraq war is a war of controversy. Israel is having problems with Palestine. In my mind all I knew of Saddam Hussein is that he is/was a fugitive like Osama Bin Laden, yet another person I don't know anything about. This book must have stood out because it provided information of a topic of interests that I had no idea about and therefore interested me. This book is a story of an interrogator, in the front lines of battle, that discovered a slightly different path to finding Saddam Hussein, a fugitive hiding somewhere in Iraq.
Thursday, October 29, 2009
Monday, October 26, 2009
The Tipping Point
By Malcolm Gladwell
Published in 2000
On pages eighteen and nineteen of this book, Gladwell brings up a new concept to help explain his theory of how epidemics are tipped. This concept is described as three agents of change he calls “the Law of the Few, the Stickiness Factor, and the Power of Context. To prove his agents, he uses sound examples to make his point indisputable. In explaining the Law of the Few, Gladwell looks at a commonly talked about 80/20 principle. This principle explains that in some situations, 80% of the work will be done by 20% of the participants. An example he uses is that 80% of alcohol is drunken by 20% of all alcohol drinkers. This shows that a few people can amount to most of the work in a situation. In explaining the Stickiness factor, Gladwell describes a brand of cigarettes that made good use of contagious messages as propaganda. Winston is that brand of cigarettes, and it was introduced with a sticky message, “Winston taste good as a cigarette should.” This phrase, when added with a small jingle tune, tipped Winston and Winston cigarettes were highly regarded. The Stickiness shows that contagious messages can make a big impact on the subject. In explaining the Law of Context, Gladwell looks at a map that describes how many patients come into a public hospital for treatment of syphilis and gonorrhea in Baltimore. In summer, the cases of syphilis are high. But in the winter, the cases drop because people are less likely to travel from their homes. The Law of Context explains that epidemics are affected by the situations they are in.
Published in 2000
On pages eighteen and nineteen of this book, Gladwell brings up a new concept to help explain his theory of how epidemics are tipped. This concept is described as three agents of change he calls “the Law of the Few, the Stickiness Factor, and the Power of Context. To prove his agents, he uses sound examples to make his point indisputable. In explaining the Law of the Few, Gladwell looks at a commonly talked about 80/20 principle. This principle explains that in some situations, 80% of the work will be done by 20% of the participants. An example he uses is that 80% of alcohol is drunken by 20% of all alcohol drinkers. This shows that a few people can amount to most of the work in a situation. In explaining the Stickiness factor, Gladwell describes a brand of cigarettes that made good use of contagious messages as propaganda. Winston is that brand of cigarettes, and it was introduced with a sticky message, “Winston taste good as a cigarette should.” This phrase, when added with a small jingle tune, tipped Winston and Winston cigarettes were highly regarded. The Stickiness shows that contagious messages can make a big impact on the subject. In explaining the Law of Context, Gladwell looks at a map that describes how many patients come into a public hospital for treatment of syphilis and gonorrhea in Baltimore. In summer, the cases of syphilis are high. But in the winter, the cases drop because people are less likely to travel from their homes. The Law of Context explains that epidemics are affected by the situations they are in.
Wednesday, October 21, 2009
The Tipping Point
By Malcolm Gladwell
Published in 2000
As a child, I have always considered Hush-Puppies to be a good tasting round bread. This book starts by describing a different kind of Hush-Puppies, shoes. Gladwell uses this brand of shoes to describe its "Tipping Point". "The Tipping Point is that magical moment when an idea, trend, or social behavior crosses a threshold, tips, and spreads like wildfire." This is the description of a theory that Gladwell explains in his book. For example, Hush-Puppies started as a pair of shoes that made their producer, Wolverine, famous. The trend of these shoes steadily decreased and by 1994, the shoes sold only 30,000 pairs a year. Just when the company was thinking about putting these shoes away, sales sky-rocketed. It became so famous that 120,000 pairs were sold in 1995. In later years, that number would only increase as Hush-Puppies became a staple for the male wardrobe. Gladwell analyzes this statistical data to show how in a span of two years, Hush-Puppies underwent a tipping point that caused them to dramatically increased and became a fashoin statement. He explains how just a group of kids wearing these shoes could have sparked a chain reaction thatcauses the change in the shoe's trend. In this introduction of his book, Gladwell explains his theory of "The Tipping Point".
Published in 2000
As a child, I have always considered Hush-Puppies to be a good tasting round bread. This book starts by describing a different kind of Hush-Puppies, shoes. Gladwell uses this brand of shoes to describe its "Tipping Point". "The Tipping Point is that magical moment when an idea, trend, or social behavior crosses a threshold, tips, and spreads like wildfire." This is the description of a theory that Gladwell explains in his book. For example, Hush-Puppies started as a pair of shoes that made their producer, Wolverine, famous. The trend of these shoes steadily decreased and by 1994, the shoes sold only 30,000 pairs a year. Just when the company was thinking about putting these shoes away, sales sky-rocketed. It became so famous that 120,000 pairs were sold in 1995. In later years, that number would only increase as Hush-Puppies became a staple for the male wardrobe. Gladwell analyzes this statistical data to show how in a span of two years, Hush-Puppies underwent a tipping point that caused them to dramatically increased and became a fashoin statement. He explains how just a group of kids wearing these shoes could have sparked a chain reaction thatcauses the change in the shoe's trend. In this introduction of his book, Gladwell explains his theory of "The Tipping Point".
Sunday, October 18, 2009
WWW:WAKE
WWW:WAKE
by Robert J. Sawyer
published in 2009
“And then Webmind added one final word, which she heard and felt and saw: “Together.” I hate this ending. The main reason is that I expected more. I expected a journey with both Caitlin and Webmind, the proposed name of the entity, in which they work together to do something incredible. Instead, the pages to the end of my book disappeared and I felt that Sawyer just ends the book too soon. Fortunately, once I finished the book, I actually read some of the author information and discovered that this book is part of a trilogy. Unfortunately, WWW:WAKE is the first and only book to have come out so far and the next one, WWW:WATCH comes out sometime in 2010. I never had patience but this first book was great, so I expect the second to be better.
by Robert J. Sawyer
published in 2009
“And then Webmind added one final word, which she heard and felt and saw: “Together.” I hate this ending. The main reason is that I expected more. I expected a journey with both Caitlin and Webmind, the proposed name of the entity, in which they work together to do something incredible. Instead, the pages to the end of my book disappeared and I felt that Sawyer just ends the book too soon. Fortunately, once I finished the book, I actually read some of the author information and discovered that this book is part of a trilogy. Unfortunately, WWW:WAKE is the first and only book to have come out so far and the next one, WWW:WATCH comes out sometime in 2010. I never had patience but this first book was great, so I expect the second to be better.
WWW:WAKE
WWW:WAKE
by Robert J. Sawyer
published in 2009
The Web can connect people from across the world together. It was the only way a connection could be made between Caitlin and the entity. What I didn't understand was why a manifestation of the internet in China's internet would be interested about signals from a blind girl's only chance at seeing. The signals it would have received would be mixed and not interpretative at the comprehension level of the entity at the time. There is also little to describe why the entity would be interested with signals coming from around the world. Only after Caitlin can see is there a plausible explanation for the presence of the entity. The signals from her Eye-pod device would be transferring video signals which could be interpreted be the entity. This is how the entity connects to Caitlin. Through this and Caitlin's ability for complex math, the two are able to connect and form a bond that ends the book.
by Robert J. Sawyer
published in 2009
The Web can connect people from across the world together. It was the only way a connection could be made between Caitlin and the entity. What I didn't understand was why a manifestation of the internet in China's internet would be interested about signals from a blind girl's only chance at seeing. The signals it would have received would be mixed and not interpretative at the comprehension level of the entity at the time. There is also little to describe why the entity would be interested with signals coming from around the world. Only after Caitlin can see is there a plausible explanation for the presence of the entity. The signals from her Eye-pod device would be transferring video signals which could be interpreted be the entity. This is how the entity connects to Caitlin. Through this and Caitlin's ability for complex math, the two are able to connect and form a bond that ends the book.
WWW:WAKE
WWW:WAKE
by Robert J. Sawyer
published in 2009
WWW: WAKE is an interesting title. When I first saw this title, I thought of a web address. Reasonable enough because www. Is the way URL addresses start. As I read this book, I realized that the title simply restates the plot, something “wakes” up from the internet. This thing was a being that seemed to adapt through its perception of its existence. In previous blogs, I have already said that Robert Sawyer describes this entity at almost every chapter beginning. He shows that the entity has almost no perception of itself and questioned its existence at the beginning. Then with use of a different plot, Sawyer gives that entity an awareness of self being by having China unleash a massive firewall. This firewall makes the entity split, and the main identity, Sawyer is following, recognizes that the other is feeding data to it. By doing this the entity knows it exists because the other exists. Sawyer describes the growth of a very fast child in this book. It started out not knowing anything at all and ends knowing almost everything about human society.
by Robert J. Sawyer
published in 2009
WWW: WAKE is an interesting title. When I first saw this title, I thought of a web address. Reasonable enough because www. Is the way URL addresses start. As I read this book, I realized that the title simply restates the plot, something “wakes” up from the internet. This thing was a being that seemed to adapt through its perception of its existence. In previous blogs, I have already said that Robert Sawyer describes this entity at almost every chapter beginning. He shows that the entity has almost no perception of itself and questioned its existence at the beginning. Then with use of a different plot, Sawyer gives that entity an awareness of self being by having China unleash a massive firewall. This firewall makes the entity split, and the main identity, Sawyer is following, recognizes that the other is feeding data to it. By doing this the entity knows it exists because the other exists. Sawyer describes the growth of a very fast child in this book. It started out not knowing anything at all and ends knowing almost everything about human society.
Wednesday, October 14, 2009
WWW:WAKE
Caitlin Decter is described to be unique individual. She has always had to live without sight. That is something that I have never encountered in a book before, a weakness in the main character. I have tried exercises without the use of sight, such as pin the tail on the donkey and pinatas. I do not operate very well without my vision. Caitlin was born with a disfunction that causes her brain to not interpret the information coming from her eyes. The intresting thing about this is that she is able to react to her JAWs program, which reads her information from websites, and browse the Internet faster than many people. I was suprised when I read this because I always thought that it would have been harder to browse the Internet without sight. This use of brain interaction has caused her cerebral cortex to be more developed than an average blind person's would be. The cereral cortex is a part of the brain that plays a role in perceptional awareness. Sawyer, once again, draws the reader back to an idea of awareness.
WWW:WAKE
As I began every chapter, I was lost in what Sawyer meant by going back to awareness. In the first chapter, the introduction made sense in that he wanted to give the reader an idea of what is to come. In the second chapter, he describes about awareness and also creates a sense of being, as if something is becoming aware. Not to be a plot spoiler or anything, but this is his intention. Sawyer uses the beginnings of chapters to progress a being through its stages of awareness. This being is affected by events that occur in the book, such as China's Great Firewall. This particular event affected the being directly because it somehow split it apart. Sawyer also confuses me when he describes how apes could communicate through computers by their sign language. One particular ape, Hobo, loves to paint and paints a picture of one of his caretakers from memory. Hobo relates to the entity in that they both can develop inteligence and understanding of complex ideas. Other than that relationship, Hobo confused me throughout the book because of the few brief times he is mentioned through sub stories, and how unclearly Hobo is related to the main story of the book.
WWW:WAKE
"Not darkness, for that implies an understanding of light. Not silence, for that suggests a familiarity with sound. Not loneliness, for that requires knowledge of others. But still, faintly, so tenuous that if it were any less it wouldn't exist at all: awareness." Robert Sawyer starts off this book by trying to give the reader a sense of an awareness of being. This intro attracted me to read this book because it made sense. Sawyer describes darkness, silence, and loneliness by contrasting them from an opposite identity. By using this literary device, he can draw in his readers, such as me. This book particularly stood out because of this introduction. Every other fiction book, that I have read, starts off by setting up a background for the main character/characters. This introdution does that because it makes you think of how much awareness Caitlin Decter, the main character who is blind, could possibly have by defining awareness in a unique way.
Tuesday, October 13, 2009
The Glass Castle
Rex Walls would ocassionaly go over his daughter's college work. When her dad wanted to see her course schedule, Jeannete expected to drop out of college because of tuition costs. Out of all the parts in this memoir, I was particularly touched by this part because of her father's reaction. He worked out to gather money he had been saving for years on the streets. Jeannette needed one thousand dollars. Rex Walls was able to get that money for her. He was able to provide for his daughter when she needed him. This goes against what I have read about Rex's character throughout the book. Somewhere in the his time in New York, Rex undergoes a change that makes him care for his children more. Because of this, he saves his earnings with his wife, instead of spending it on days at the bar. At the end of the memoir, I feel that Rex Walls became a completely different man than he was at the beginning of the book. He would always tell his children how he would do something amazing for them, like build the Glass Castle, but here, Rex does something Jeannette can appreciate him for.
The Glass Castle
Once in New York, Lori helped Jeannette get enrolled in an internship at The Phoenix, a weekly newspaper that was just a tad rundown. Jeannette had the experience of working on her school newspaper, The Maroon Wave. Her experience at her highschool newsgroup gave her an understanding of what the world was really like because the only insight she ever got about the world was biased ideas from her mother and father. The internship soon became a full-time reporter job and Jeannette had to to keep up with the news. She descibes this as the happiest time of her life because of the constant flow of her 90 hours of work a week. Because of her amazing experience at The Phoenix, when she was asked if she ever thought about going to college by the manager, she responded by comparing herself to the college graduates had the same job as her. First time I read this, I thought that after everything she has been though, she would strive to rise in whatever she was doing. The second time I read this, I realized that Jeannette was self-supporting and had finally gotten to a stable state in her life. With this sense of security, she feels safe and content with her life, but she does strive for more as she applies for college. Jeannette seems like the type of person who doesn't know when to give up, and that is what makes her succeed in what she does.
The Glass Castle
After years of never feeling quite normal, the trio of the Walls siblings, Brian, Lori, and Jeanette, decide to start a fund to leave Welch and just leave Welch. It all started with Jeannette. She saw that people got stuck in Welch but always had a belief that eventually things would get tough enough that her parents would decide to move again. As the siblings lived in Welch, they felt outcasted from the other kids. This was because of their image as a family and other children could not sympathize with how the Walls' children lived their life. Maureen is the only child of the Walls that recieved sympathy from other parents because she was a charming child. The other siblings had a rough life and when Jeannette thought that she had her dad on her side, he wasn't there and that hurt her a lot. Lori is the first to join Jennette's escape fund and they work together to raise money to fill this escape plan to go to the creative energy of New York. Brian was told later and he decided to pitch in and do handy jobs, such as lawnmowing, chop wood, or cut hillside weeds. They raised money for a year and then, when they had accumulated so much, their dad made the money dissappear. Even through this event, they trudged on, collected money, and were lucky that Mrs. Sanders had toddlers that needed babysitting in a different city and would pay for the travel expenses of lori and for the babysitting. Because of this Lori was able to leave Welch and make her way to New York with 237.20 dollars as a budget in New York. Lori making it to New York was proof that there is a way out of Welch and Jeannette and Brian followed.
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