The Outliers

Right now I am reading the Outliers by Malcom Gladwell,  the Outliers is about finding success and becoming an expert on different topics.  This text also talks about those who have been successful and those who have not been very successful.  This book also explores the life story of some of the worlds best software designers, (Steve Jobs, Bill Joy), and how they got to the top of their field.  The author also tries to find common denominators between the software designers.  After studying Steve Jobs and Bill Joy he finds out that their age was one of the main contributors into the success of these two software designing icons, Steve Jobs was born in 1955 and Bill Joy was born in 1955.  Malcom Gladwell states that being born in 1955 meant that they were not to young to miss the tech wave but not to old to let it pass by.  The author also elaborates upon the great failures in life.  He talks about the North Korean pilots who repeatedly crashed their planes.  He says that it was because of the pilots upbringing,  He says that the pilots who crashed planes were from Latin america,  studies show that pilots from latin america are less likely to fix a problem while pilots from Germany, Finland, Scotland, and Canada are more likely to try and fix the problem.

Overall, The Outliers is one of the most interesting and well written books that I have read.

 

Don't put me in coach.

This week I started reading a book called don't put me in coach. Don't put me in coach is about a basketball player who was on mike Conley and Greg Owens aau team and followed them to Ohio state as a walk on. Don't put me in couch is an outrageously funny book that talks about the authors college life and his teammates off the court. This book also talks about the author, Marc Titus's personality contrast with the teams star Evan turner. This book also talks about coach Thad Matta and his pregame speeches. Marc also talks about his experience with his roommate othello who is from africa and as Marc puts it had a lot of sex on the team road trips. Overall don't put me in coach is a very funny and entertaining book that is told from an interesting perspective.


- Posted using BlogPress from my iPad

Score casting

I am currently reading the book score casting. Score casting is trying to determine whether conservative sports stories are better than outlandish ones. There is one character named James williams, he is the head football coach at a small private high school in Arkansas. Instead of regular football strategies like punting on fourth down and kicking field goals inside the opponents 30 yard line, this football coach goes for it all. Williams rarely punts except for when he is ahead by significant margins, and he doesn't have a field goal kicker on his roster. This strategy may be completely outrageous but it is successful, Williams has won several state championships he had only lost 12 games in 5 years. Williams has been extremely successful, some of these strategies have not been so successful. There was a basketball coach who was very successful in college, and got an NBA job with the Denver Nuggets. He told his players to shoot every 7 seconds and pressure the ball all the way up the court his team averaged 120 points per game but they gave up 130, they where nicknamed the Enver Nuggets. The coach of the Enver Nuggets was fired a year later after a pair of 20 win seasons.


- Posted using BlogPress from my iPad

Scorecasting

I am currently reading score casting by moskowitz and werthiem. Score casting is about, proving the theory's of sports. For instance you may have heard the saying defense wins championships, and you probably think that is true over 75% of the time. According to the champions in the big four sports over the last twenty years the champion has had a dominant defense, or in the top ten in their sport only 52% of the time. Which is 33% less than our original hypothesis. This book also helps prove the superstar theory. The superstar theory is that star players are treated differently than regular player. Common sports wisdom states that every superstar should be treated better than the regular player. This is true. In the NBA a superstar player with 5 fouls with four minutes or less in the game has only a 12% chance of picking up his 6th foul that would force him to leave the game. While the pedestrian player, not the superstar has a 75% chance of picking up the 6th foul that would force him to leave the game. Score casting also proves baseball theory, this book proves that umpires call much smaller strike zones in and 0 and 2 count, conversely the umpires call a much larger strike zone with a 3-0 strike zone.



- Posted using BlogPress from my iPad

Quiet Strength

I am currently reading quiet strength by Tony Dungy.  This book is about Tony Dungy's life on and of the field, as both a football coach and a father.  I like this book because he explains what it takes to be a football coach, he takes you through his life as a teenager, player, coach and head coach all in separate parts.  He also talks about how his parents made a tremendously positive impact on himself as a person.  One of my favorite parts of the book is the one I am currently on.  Tony finds out his son committed suicide. So Tony and his family go down to Tampa Bay for the Funeral,  Dungy takes us through his entire funeral speech word for word this is very powerful and riveting, Dungy goes on and on about how his son made a powerful impact on his life.  My favorite part of this speech is when he says,"Jamie was different, instead of being afraid, that his parents would embarrass him in school he told all his buddies, this is my mom". I like this part because it really describes Jamie, his son. In conclusion I would recommend this book to anyone who enjoys a great family, or sports story.

aztec post

               Early yesterday we saw the ships of Quetzelcoatl of the gulf of mexica. We gave him and his followers flowers and masks. In response to these gifts they looked at us with a weird expression, not a look of gratitude but a look of surprise and disgust that brought.  That brought us to think, maybe Quetzelcoatl is here to take over the beauty that is the Aztec empire, its population of more than 15 million and the biggest city in Mesoamerica, Tenochitlan. Once those concerns are behind us we should be happy that Quetzelcoatl has returned.

Hunger games

I have read hunger games by Suzanne Collins. Even after reading it a year and a half ago, still I marvel about how powerful and descriptive this book is. I love this books storyline and how it's message gets to you and how you can really understand what is happening. However I think this book got repetitive after about 100 pages. I think that the hunger games got nonchalant towards the end. I like the main character katniss, but I dislike peeta because he isn't a strong character. Overall I think this is a good book and I think anyone should read it.


- Posted using BlogPress from my iPad