US History Readings

Reading Log 10

2007-03-29T07:03:00.000-07:00

In this chapter we learned about the role of the translators and why they are important in starting an epedimic. Basically, you can have an innovative idea, product, or theory, but in order to turn that into an epedimic you need to be able to take that innovation and translate it into a language that everyone can understand. To do this translators drop certain details and sharpen others to make their message become contagious, so that it will eventually tip. For example Airwalk would look for certain trends and then they would create advertising that match those trends. The Beasty Boys were putting money into the Free Tibet compaign, and so Airwalk made an ad of a monek writting a test looking down at his shoes because he had written cheating notes. Of course the shoes were Airwalks.

Reading Log 9

2007-03-15T20:00:00.000-07:00

In the last section, I learned about the rule of 150. Basically what the rule of 150 says is that humans have a certain amount of people that they can relate to, more than just knowing their name, this number turns out to be 150 people. There are lots of historical examples to back this up. For example there was a tribe in Australia that would build a new village when the population exceeded 15o. In the army, each unit is 200 people. In Gore, a high tech company, each plant has 150 employers. When the number goes above 150 then another plant is built, to get the number back around 150 employees. The Ya-Ya Sister hood became a best seller book, and a lot of the reason for this is because of the rule of 150. The author said that it wasn't just one epidemic, it was a lot of little epidemics that sold her book. People started coming to her readings in groups. Reading groups would form just around her book. One person would come a buy a copy, not just for themselves, but also for the other people in their reading group. Then these people would tell their friends and then they would go get copies. If people just showed up to her readings single, instead of in groups of six or seven, it would have been much harder for her to reach such a large audience.

Reading Log 7

2007-03-07T20:02:00.000-08:00

In tonights reading we learned about Fundamental Attribution Error (FAE). FAE is a fancy way of saying that when it comes to interpreting human behavior we often make the mistake of overestimating the important fundamental character trait and under estimate the context of the situation. As human beings we are a lot more attuned to personal cues than contextual cues. This is most likely a survival trait due to evolution. It allows our mind to process lots of information and filter out what we think are the most important details. For example the immediate context of the situation is more important than the judgment of your heart. For example if there is someone is hurt and you are running late you probably will pass the person without helping them, however if you had plenty of time to spare you would probably be willing to stop and help the person.

Reading Log 6

2007-03-06T15:35:00.000-08:00

In this reading we learned about the power of context. The power of context basically says that peoples behavior is affected by their environment. For example if an alley way is filthy and there are lots of broken windows than the message that nobody cares will be broadcast. Criminals will then be more likely to commit crime because they will assume that if nobody cares to keep the alley way nice, than nobody will care wether they comit a crime either. In New York city the police used the power of context to make the crime rate tip. They removed the graffiti from the train cars and arrested people for fair-beaten. The message was spread that the police cared and therefore the criminals thought they would be more likely to get cause, so they did not commit as many crimes.

Reading Log 5

2007-02-15T11:01:00.001-08:00

In this reading we learned mostly about salesmen. According to Gladwell a maven is an educator and an information gatherer not a pursader. Mavens gather the message, connectors spread it, and salesmen are the pursaders when people are not already convinced. Gladwell gave several examples to support his point. Gau is a financial broker who is very successful. Gau succeeds because he is an optimistic person and when people are around him they feel good and so they are more likely to trust him. Peter Jennings is a news caster for ABC news. Mondale and Mullen did a study and found that people who watch ABC voted more for the republicans because when Jennings mentioned the republican candidates he was energetic and animated.

Tipping Reading Log 3

2007-02-02T07:45:00.000-08:00

In this reading log the author continued to talk about connectors. He talked about how most people have a small social circle and when they go looking for new jobs they generally get information from their acquaintances. This makes sense because most of your close friends occupy the same social circle that you do and so they would probably know about the same information as you do. Your acquaintances by definition are people who you know only slightly and are not in your immediate social network. Therefore they are more likely to know about new things that you have not already learned about. The reason why Paul Revere was successful in getting his message across that the British were coming was that he knew a lot of people, he had lots of acquaintances. When he rode into a village he knew exactly which doors to know on. He knew who were the militia leaders of the village and Paul Revere was respected, so people would listen to his advice. Dawes most likely stopped in the same number of villages but he did not have the social connections, and therefore his message did not reach enough people to tip.

Tipping Rd. Log 1

2007-01-23T10:57:00.000-08:00

This book is better than I thought it would be. I recently stared my own business selling iBooks so I am interested in the ideas in this book. I agree with that author that something big can turn into something widespread. A great example of this is the Internet. In the beginning it was just a few people in Universities and garages testing the concept, today their are millions if not more web pages and most people can create a website even if they don't know anything about writing code. This blog is a perfect example of using the web to create a page. I am not typing out the htlm code. I am simple typing words into a text box and the program does the rest. Once enough people excepted the web there was nothing that was going to slow it down.

Vocabulary:

Tipping Point: The moment when a dramatic change occurs and a small idea becomes widespread.

Tipping Rd. Log 2

2007-01-23T10:52:00.000-08:00

Why Does the author use epidemics as an example?

The author of Tipping Point using epidemics as an example because he is trying to demonstrate that just like something simple such as the common flue can adapt, became complex, and infect millions of people. Just as hush puppies started out small with just a few kids in New York city, became contagious, and then quickly spread as more and more people saw people wearing hush puppies and bought them. The author is illustrating that even though human beings generally think in linear terms that something small can unexpectedly reach a tipping point and rapidly change, just as when the temperature dips below freezing it can snow, even though the change was only a few degrees.

This phenomenon can be used to describe the iPod. In the begging some people bought the iPod because it was new and it was a cool product. As more and more people started buying iPods more people wanted one because it became the cool device to have. This is partly do to the fact that the iPod had an elegant yet simple design, and worked with iTunes, however another factor was that if your cool friend had an iPod you would want one too.

Vocabulary

Epidemic: A widespread occurrence of an idea, thought, trend, or fashion, the biological definition is a widespread occurrence of a disease.

Passing on the lessons from Pearl Harbor

2006-05-31T15:05:00.000-07:00

Dec. 7, 1941 was a traject day for the United States. This was the day that the Japanese attacked Pear Harbor. The San Francisco Chronicle interviewed people who reflected on this day. These interviews can help us to understand the lessons from Pearl Harbor and apply them to the current.

Some of the lessons that we can learn from Pearl Harbor are; be prepared, use the intelligents, do not forget, no more war, and more. For most people today Pearl Harbor is a distant event. When we were hit on September 11, 2001, we were shocked. We had forgotten that we were still vunerable to attack. Some people who lived through Pearl Harbor think that there were lessons that we could have applied to Sep. 11, to have avoided it. For example some think that Bush know about the attack and that he let it happen because he needed an excuse to go to war with Iraq. Some think that Resevelt deployed a similar tacktic during Pearl Harbor.

S.S. St. Louis Turned Away

2006-05-31T14:53:00.000-07:00

In 1939 the S.S. St. Louis, carrying passengers from Europe, mostly Jews who where trying to escaping the holocaust, was turned away by the U.S. goverment. On board was 937 passengers. Out of those 619 were sent to France, Holland or Belgium and fell under the occupation of Nazi rule. Of those 260 were deported to concentration camps and killed. The passengers onboard the ship were either rescued or prosecuted.

Some of the passengers that were turned away in 1939 now live in the United States. One passenger reflected on the event. He rembers when the U.S. Coast Guard rescued 125,00 Cubans in the Mariel boatlift of 1980. Today he can still not understand why such a big country like the United States would not allow 937 people in.

Reading 5

2006-05-17T13:49:00.000-07:00

U.S. Involvement in the Philippines

Michel Goldberg wrote an article for saloon.com about the recent U.S. involvement in the Philippines. In the article he interviewed Chalmers Johnson, "who wrote the acclaimed book "Blowback: The Costs and Consequences of American Empire" and taught for 30 years at the University of California." He believes that the U.S. government is using the excuse of the war on terrorism as a way to get U.S troops back in the Philippines. He said that the Islamic groups kidnap civilians and hold them for a high ransom. He said that terrorist terrorize a large group of the population. This groups are criminals, however the U.S. used the word terrorist not criminals.

This is similar to what is going on in Iraq because the U.S. government used the excuse of the war on terror to go into Iraq. According to president Bush Suddam is supporting members of the Al Quida. However Osama Bin Ladden was in Afganistan and many members of Al Quida where also living in that country. Yet Bush did not focus on Afganistan.

Why does the U.S. government say that we need to go into Iraq to stop the terrorist when there are also terrorist in other countries?

Why have we not heard much about the Philippine conflict?

How did this conflict begin?

Reading 4

2006-05-10T08:33:00.000-07:00

This reading compared and contrasted the Vietnam War with the current situation in Iraq. Although there are some correlations similarities between the 2 wars there are also many differences. For example there is no national protest against the war in Iraq. Also we are not facing the same amount of casualties for this war. However there are also similarities. For example we are in unfamiliar territory. Our leaders do not know what is going on. We are fighting a war that each day looks more and more like it is never going to end.

Reading 2

2006-05-08T09:49:00.000-07:00

This reading consisted of letters written between Khrushchev and Kennedy. The first letter that Krushchev wrote to Kennedy was trying to sweat talk to him. The second letter was more hard line. Kennedy was adviced only to respond to the first letter. I think this was because Kennedey did not want to revoke a political conflict. During this time communism was a brand new idea that had not been tested. Many people thought that it might be a better alternative to democracy. Krushchev's argues at the time made sence. He argued that the Soveit Union had just the same right to practice their form of goverment as the United States had to practive democracy. He reminded Kennedy that the U.S. had missles stationed in Turkey, within striking distance of Russia. He proposed that if Kennedy removed the missels from Turkey that he would take his missels out of Cuba. Kennedy refused this offer. Kennedy beleived that if it came down to nuclear war that the U.S. could beat Russia. Krushchev understood that either the U.S. or Russia enganged in nuclear war that it would not matter if you won because both contries would be devistated. Even if you fired your missels first the enemy would fires thiers minutes latter and at that time we had no defence agaist a nuclear attack.