Blog 18: The Story of Stuff

2. Planned Obsolescence/Perceived Obsolescence
Define "planned obsolescence" and "perceived obsolescence" in your own words. Who/What is responsible for these marketing strategies? Who/What benefits from them? Who/What suffers because of them? Are these strategies necessary? Are they right? Provide evidence from your own experience or from what you have read and discussed in class.

           In my opinion, "planned obsolescence" means the industrial design have a policy of planning or design a product with a limited useful life, therefor it will become as trash and can't use it anymore. "perceived obsolescence" means in some way in our mind, we think it is unfashionable or no longer functional after a certain period of time and It is human nature to get attracted to new inventions and new objects. 
           Industrialists and businessmen knows that this human nature to their advantage and release old products with small changes.  They claim the modified products to have new qualities and features when they are released in the market. 
           Industrialists and businessmen get profits with the modified products.  Because people discard their old products to buy the new mobile phones or cameras that have special and unique features.  They discard their clothes, bags that they were using till now to buy new fashion products.  This not only leads to money wastage but also is harmful for the environment as waster materials increase.
           Nowadays, the technology is always change their versions very quick, especially in the software industry. That's why you have to follow their step to buy the new stuff just because they have tiny change and you can't use the old version anymore. As for me, i have an apple iPod, you can't use it over 2 years because it has limit battery life. The mac also change the version very quick like once a year. For an industry, planned obsolescence stimulates demand by encouraging purchasers to buy sooner if they still want a functioning product.
           It is not a good idea to discard the objects that are being used unless it is necessary.  If anybody is not using the objects it is better to give it to somebody who will use them.

Blog 14

1. Read/Annotate the advice in “Happy Meals” on page 33 of the packet.
2. Blog 14: Write a 250+ word blog entry where 

• one paragraph addresses all the ideas in Pollan's advice that are possible for you or your family to do and why, 

• another paragraph addresses all the ideas in Pollan's advice that would be hard for you or your family to do and why, and 

• one last paragraph addresses all the ideas in Pollan's advice that are impossible for you or your family to do right now and why.

In "Happy Meals" Pollan's advice that we possible can "Eat mostly plants, especially leaves." I believe most of us would agree with this statement because when he said "By eating a plant - based diet, you'll be consuming far fewer calories, since plant foods are typically less 'energy dense' than the other things you might eat." That's true. 
We and our family can really easy to find the plants to eat,especially leaves, such as, lettuce, spinach,celery and so on. They are all very healthy food. However, i think having a healthy eating habit it comes from the lifestyle of each of us. One of the big problems is very difficult to eat those healthy plants is that today we are having really busy lifestyle that we don't have enough time to prepare our food and we always go out to eat. If you go out to eat or grab some food to go that you can't find the "green vegetable" like this healthy. You always eat unhealthy food with high calories. Another reason is we always eat alone. If we always eat alone and you won't to take long time to just prepare the food for yourself. Otherwise, you stay with your whole family and you will.
Pollan's advice are possible to do and again i agree with it. The thing is how much time i am going to put on my meal and how much i care about myself's body. I will put the time to organize what i eat now. How healthy i could be. I will follow his advice to eat mostly plants, especially leaves.

Blog 13

3. Compose a multi-paragraph 250+ word blog entry on ONE myth about water consumption by doing the following:

• Quote the myth

• In your own words, restate the most convincing arguments against this myth. 

• Connect at least one of the arguments to your personal experience with an example.

• Explain what YOU may be able to do to help debunk this myth further.

         According to the passage "The story of the bottled water", The Myth is Bottled water is convenient. The reality is we can find free drinking water anywhere, such as, school, park, office and even when you home.  Disposal of plastics is not easy and inconvenient. More convenient is you buy a reusable bottle and filling it from the public sources instead of buying bottled water. The leading organizations suggest to use a stainless steel or lined aluminum as sturdiest and safest.
        When the Myth think: "Bottled water is continent." I am not so sure that myth is correct. It could be also that We can find the drinking water anywhere in the public. or you don't have to pay and you can drink whatever you want.
        From my experience, I have the same experience many times. I think the public water is much convenient than the bottled water. When i in school i always bring my own bottle to refill the water from the school tap. It is very convenient for me because i have many class during the day and i really like to drink the water. I don't have too much time to go out to by the bottled water between class to class. I have to find the class because they are not pretty close sometimes and also i need to use the bathroom during the class. For me the running water from the tap everywhere in school are very convenient for me even i don't have time to refill it but also i can drink it. Therefore, I find the myth think "bottled water is convenient" that hard to believe because my own experience.
        Starting from myself, i will drinking tap water instead of bottle water and then, i will tell my friends and my family that doesn't have different and the tap water is healthy and more "green" than the bottle water.