Assessment of the Two Narratives and the Three Blogs, and which I liked best.

Malcolm X's autobiography excerpt has historical information as well as an emotional link.  You can get an idea of his feelings as you progress through his writing. Malcolm starts with his frustration of not being able to read, and progresses through how he learned to read the effort and dedication involved in learning to read as well as he did. Malcolm goes on to share his feelings of how his people were marginalized in the history books and how he was unwilling to accept that.

Mike Rose's narrative describes how he was marginalized by an incorrect placement into vocational classes due to an error in reading his test scores by the administration. Mike describes the people that he became associated with as a result of this placement. Mike goes further to describe the attitudes of those people.  The way that he tells his story is almost like a novel, the way he describes things in such detail you can picture yourself in the scene with him. I did not personally feel emotions as strongly with Mike's story as I did with Malcolm's story.  I could get a sense of Mike's emotions but I was more detached to his story likely due to the respect that I have for Malcolm and the fact that what Malcolm did was not just an achievement for himself but for his people and all people during the civil rights movement era.

Joshua Romero's blog is a description of his struggles to break free from Google's data aggregation machinations on his personal information.  Joshua talks about how many different services of Google's that he uses and at first thinks that it will take great effort to break free of Google's grasp on his data.  Joshua realizes that for some of the services that it will be an easy thing to break free, but for others more difficult and questions whether or not he should on some services.  Joshua break up his blog into different sections based on the type of services that he is using and what he replaces the services with.  My feelings are more ambivalent on Joshua's blog as I had never trusted the internet much in the first place. I don't use email for more than superficial contact with people, and I only use one cloud service and that is only because Amazon now forces people to use their cloud service when they buy MP3's.  Until recently you did not need to use their cloud service, but all music that I had purchased prior to their having a cloud has been added to their cloud when they switched to that delivery method.

Feross Aboukhadijeh's blog follows his process to becoming an excellent programmer.  There is not any real emotional ties to his blog only a process (an essay?).  Feross's blog is however well organized and straight forward. I think a person could easily take his process or a variation of his process to learn most anything that they wanted to.

My favorite blog is by Cate Huston. When I was done reading her blog I wanted to read more, so I found her blog link and started reading some of her other travels then realized that I needed to concentrate on my assignment here.  The joy (is that the right word?) of Cate's blog is that she invites you into her life.  You get a look into her thought process. I feel that I have at least a minimal understanding of her as a person. Cate breaks up her blog into sections based on the specific topic that she wants to talk about in this blog and elaborates on each. I don't feel an emotional attachment as much as feeling her being an acquaintance.  You know like somebody that you met once that you would like to meet again. Cate seem's like she is a very personable person.

I suppose I should actually answer the assignment.  How do they differ?  They differ in their organisation, and how they relate or don't relate with other people.  Mike's story is his interactions with and observations of people that he was forced to associate with and his feelings and thoughts on his situation. Malcolm does not describe others so much as his own thoughts and actions. Malcolm does not mention specific people and their characteristics except in general terms.  I know he spent time in prison but other that his efforts to learn to read there is nothing about his prison life, however that may have been addressed elsewhere in his autobiography and I imagine it was.  Joshua's story is about him breaking free from the grip of a corporation intent on gathering data about him. Feross's blog is his story alone. Feross tells you who he has worked for but it does not play a part in the story other than to give you something to associate his success with. Then there is Cate.  Cate does not talk about other people except in a generalized fashion as people that read her tweets and emails. Cate does give you the impression as a reader that she really cares about you having success in your travels, in that sense although she is talking about herself she is addressing her thoughts to you.