Pain Scale Comic

The text we had to read reminded me of this XKCD comic.

from http://xkcd.com/883/

"Why Bother?"

    In Michael Pollan’s article “Why Bother”, Pollan tries to address the people who wish to make a difference for the world’s climate but is overwhelmed by the gravity of the situation. Pollan presents the reader with the question “Why bother?” in reference to how useless one may feel when wanting to cut down on carbon emissions.  He first presents some reasoning and examples to justify this feeling such as the fact that one’s carbon savings will probably offset by another’s carbon usage.  He also addresses some of the complexities of trying to reduce one’s carbon footprint such as whether “eating local or walking to work”(89) really reduces the carbon output.
    After presenting the justifications for this thinking he then presents an answer to the “Why bother?” question. Pollan said “If you do bother, you will set an example for other people.”(92) He hopes that by setting an example, the behavior will spread through other people and basically become what he calls viral social change. After answering this question he then proceeds to close up the article by explaining how to start a vegetable garden and the benefits of doing so as an example of the small acts we can do to start social change.

Works Cited

Pollan, Michael. "Why Bother?" New York Times Magazine 20 Apr. 2008

    19+. Rpt. in The Allyn and Bacon Guide to Writing. John D.

     Ramage, John C. Bean, and June Johnson. 6th ed. New York:

     Pearson, 2012. 88-94. Print.

Exploration!

 Alright, first blog post! As an electrical engineering major I'm interested in technology in general. There are several broad topics I could perform my research on: the social impact of technology, "green" technology, and future technology.

"Green" technology and sustainability seems to be a popular subject in tech. There are a few more narrow subjects to talk about such as saving energy in general, alternative fuel sources, alternative electricity sources. I could also take an economical aspect of this subject and attempt to do research on whether if becoming "green" is a financially sound decision.

Technology has become more involved with our social lives. Facebook, twitter, and other social networking sites has changed the ways we communicate with each other. One topic I'm particularly interested in was the psychological impact of videogames on the average person. Are they as bad as the media says they are?

The final subject in technology I'm interested in researching is what future technologies are on the horizon and how may they shape our future. Several technologies that are currently in the works include Augmented Reality (there's actually applications of this already), Quantum Computers, and Artificial Intelligence.

So, yeah. A variety of topics to research... still no idea what I really want to do yet though.