The internet is an important tool in today’s society.  When used safely, it can be an all-knowing vat of information, and a great communication tool.  As long as you know the downside to the internet, you can avoid some of the bad effects of the internet.  They say people don’t get enough face to face contact or exercise. Well fix that by cutting down the amount of time you spend gallivanting across cyber space and go for a run, of play a game of football or basketball with some friends. Bam, face to face contact with real live people aaaaaaand exercise.  People say that you can get scammed or conned, well A, don’t put enough personal information on the internet to get attacked and B, don’t just talk to random people and certainly don’t meet with them in real life if you don’t know who they are.  You just have to be smart about you internet usage.

The chapter we read was about randomness and chance.  I especially liked the part with the fighter pilot instructors, and how the successes and fails of the trainees are more random chance than getting better or worse.  I also found interesting the part about the Star Wars movies and how they speculate one would bring in more revenue than the other.  I feel like whichever had the better trailer would win out in the end.  But the experts say that people just randomly gravitate towards one or the other, and that I can understand too.  If one person randomly sees a movie, then they recommend it to their friends, and all their friends see that one, and more and more people go to the one over the other.  Makes sense to me.  Random things happen to everyone everyday, so this book can relate to anyone who reads it.  I wouldn’t mind learning more about the psychology behind randomness, maybe I’ll finish the book when I have time.

The excerpt we read was all about jobs that are difficult.  Not all of them were legit jobs though, some were just duties people had to others.  The part about the farmer, he talked about how he liked his job because he was helping people, and didn’t do it for the money. He talked about how he doesn’t even make that much money, and how it is all invested in machinery.  He also goes on to talk about how his job security was at risk, with all the city expansion.  the next article, about the waitress, was all about how she had a crappy job and how she made the best of it.  She didn’t even care about the tips, she just tried to keep things up to date and different. The house wife just sort of went about her day to help those she loves, and doesn’t mind having to do work.  She has a fairly good attitude about life.  The part about the guy taking care of the woman who had a stroke is just kind of sad. He is devoted to taking care of this woman, and has to do so much to help her, and doesn’t really get anything out of it. She is just as important to him as anyone else in his life, and everything he does he is trying to keep her comfortable or healthy.  He does his tough job very well.