SP Post 5

This is a little late, but I forgot I needed one more. I have since finished my books and have zeroed my focus down to a possible topic regarding the recent makeover of the Miami Marlins. THe Marlins made a lot of changes this offseason. They moved into a brand new (and controversial) new ballpark. They changed their logo, uniform, and colors in an attempt to rebrand themselves. And finally they made a number of on field changes. There was a great article in Sports Illustrated focusing on the Marlins Makeover and branded it is "one of the biggest gambles in baseball." I think it would be very interesting to use the themes from The Tipping Point and Predictably Irrational to try and predict or evaluate what the Marlins have done.

One a separate note, while I was surfing the endless bounds of the internet I found an hour long podcast that is just a conversation between the authors of the two books I read: Dan Ariely and Malcolm Gladwell. I have listened to the first twenty minutes so far and it is very interesting hearing them discuss their books and compare their two ideas.

SP POST 4

I have read a lot of Bill James, in fact I subscribe to his website, and have met him (he used to live in brookline and I was good friends with his son who has since moved back to Kansas). Also interestingly enough I just last night finally saw Moneyball, which I read a few years ago. I think that something in this direction would be very interesting, though I dont want to rewrite the same ideas expressed in Moneyball, I would rather focus on Ariely's ideas and try to apply them to the world of sports. Arielys book is all about decision making, and why we continue to make poor decisions and possible ways that we could try to avoid being so irrational. This meshes well with the thesis of Moneyball. Maybe its just because I have read so much on the topic, but I feel like this has been done a lot, so I would like to go at it from a new angle. Maybe try to answer a much more specific question relating to baseball, popularity, and decision making (tying together both books, and moneyball), Off the top of my head "why were Tim Wakefield and Jason Varitek so popular in Boston despite being mediocre players?" I will continue to mull it over and post again later this evening with some more concrete ideas

SP POST 3

I very much agree with your last post, and it is great advice to consider a quirky topic that will be really interesting to me rather than a big one than may be interesting, but has been done or will not be that convincing. Thinking about it as I read on, this is in part why Gladwell is so interesting to read.  He focuses on a range of topics and issues ranging from things of critical importance, like the start of the American Revolution, but also some lighter topics from his personal life or his opening anecdote about hushpuppies.  Popularity is a big issue throughout the book so far that may be interesting to explore (as you suggested). Focusing in on popularity is a good way to draw on both books ive been reading. Popularity lends itself to the type of macro trends Gladwell discusses, but leaves room for some interesting exploration of individual decision making which is discussed in Ariely's book. Some possible topics I have thought about this week are "why is Dr. Pepper so unpopular?" "why do Brookline students choose to apply to local schools in such great numbers?" "why do kids apply to so many more schools now than they used to?" I dont think I will want to write about the college process (im so sick of it at this point), but it could be interesting to explore and easy to get data from Naviance. It might be more fun to explore something more out there.

 I just got back from a week long training trip to Texas with the crew team, but now that I'm back I have my own copy of Ariely's book so I will probably get more ideas from continuing that book.

2nd Blog post on SP Reading

For my second book I have begun reading "The Tipping Point" by Malcolm Gladwell. Where Predictably Irrational looked at why individuals might make certain decisions The Tipping Point focuses on why large scale things happen. In a way it reminds me a lot of freakonomics, the Roe V. Wade and Crime Rate thing that Josh has been working with comes to mind, but the tipping point focuses specifically on things like that. Why did large scale changes happen so quickly? It is very interesting so far and not very intuitive, so reading it is constantly gripping. I so far have enjoyed it very much, but i think i prefer Predictably Irrational to it. I have ordered a used copy off amazon for cheap, so I hope to finish it soon after break (it will take about a week to arrive). This makes me think that for my senior paper I want to zoom in on something at the micro level rather than looking at large scale trends like I have for many of my other big papers in this class and at BHS as a whole. What specifically i dont know yet, but I think it would be interesting to try to zoom in on maybe one recent decision and look at all the factors that might have influenced it. For example maybe Ill want to use Government class and zoom to investigate "Why did Barney Frank not want to run for reelection?" or "Why did Obama do ___"

1st Blog Post on SP Reading

For my first book I ready the first 100 pages of Predictably Irrational by Dan Ariely, I borrowed it from Morris and he needed it back, so I dont know if ill be able to finish it, so I am moving on to read The Tipping Point next. I really enjoyed what I read about this book; Ariely was fun to read and writes in a very quick and easy way. His study on behavioral economics was fascinating and definitely a possible topic for my senior paper. I think his work on how IRRATIONAL people are complemented my philosophy class well where we were also examining the question of how rational people are. This book really got me thinking about all the decisions I made; If i was drafting a player for a fantasy baseball league, or deciding what homework to do first I had to stop and wonder if I was making that decision because I had been tricked to do something irrational in one of the ways Ariely discussed. This book has gotten me really excited about economics and decision making and was a great extension to Freakonomics as a study on why things happen the way they do. Other books I may want to read as a follow up are Incognito which i read the first two chapters of for Philosophy, The Tipping Point, which I have started up already, And the freakonomics sequal Superfreakonomics, though I think i want to read a new author.

Zentation Speech

http://www.zentation.com/viewer/index.php?passcode=Eg3VTZnuNZ

Stats Speech (2nd Try)

AUDIENCE: inner city youth

ETHOS: knowledgable, celebritory

PATHOS: Empowered, Inspired, 

ACTION: Join an RBI Youth League

Statistics Speech (take 1)

AUDIENCE: One inner city youth (Ariel)

ETHOS: knowledgable

PATHOS: Empowered, Inspired

ACTION: Join an RBI Youth League

Story Speech take 3

AUDIENCE: Innercity Youth

ETHOS:  On their level, Like them, Nostalgic about past (in good way)

PATHOS: Empowered, Inspired

ACTION: Join an RBI Youth League