i’m justin dickinson

Shared by jmdickinson
I can't bring 4 oz of shampoo but this jack-ass can pack a bunch of rancid meat into his carry on?

After demanding that Attorney General Andrew Cuomo (the presumptive gubernatorial frontrunner) investigate the proposed mosque's financing, Lazio is now challenging Cuomo to a debate over the issue, which Capitol Confidential piquantly describes as "the single most important statewide issue of the summer, if not our generation." In an open letter to Cuomo, Lazio rants:

You have called those of us who oppose building this mosques racist and bigots. You should be ashamed of yourself. To get real answers I suggest that we debate this issue in an open forum to be covered by the news media. Your position on this issue is so wrong and I recognize you may not want to defend it but all the same I am asking you to do just that. I am sending a copy of this request for debate to all television stations and all newspapers in New York. I believe the debate should be held where the audience can watch and respond as well as ask questions of us.

Cuomo has not responded to the challenge, which comes less than a week after Lazio's Republican rival, Chuch Paladino, promised that, if elected, he would use eminent domain to seize the proposed mosque property and include it in "a war memorial district" around Ground Zero. Not to be left behind, Newt Gingrich continues to chime in that the group behind the mosque explains where the $100 million to build it is coming from. In an interview with "Inside City Hall," Gingrich declared:

There are over a thousand mosques in the United States. There are over a hundred mosques in New York City. I defend the right to have mosques in America. I defend the right of people to worship as they want to worship. This is a political act designed to establish a 13-story building two blocks from the World Trade Center for the purpose of saying worldwide, we're winning, the Americans are losing, and they're too dumb to even know they're in a war.

Ha, how could the terrorists possibly think we're dumb when we're engaged in such a rational, insightful debate?

The Misconception: You rationally analyze all factors before making a choice or determining value.

The Truth: Your first perception lingers in your mind, affecting later perceptions and decisions.

You walk into a clothing store and see what is probably the most bad ass leather jacket you’ve ever seen.

You try it on, look in the mirror and decide you must have it. While wearing this item, you imagine onlookers will clutch their chests and gasp every time you walk into a room or cross a street. You lift the sleeve to check the price – $1,000.

Well, that’s that, you think. You start to head back to the hanger when a salesperson stops you.

“You like it?”

“I love it, but it’s just too much.”

“No, that jacket is on sale right now for $400.”

It’s expensive, and you don’t need it really, but $600 off the price seems like a great deal for a coat which will increase your cool by a factor of 11.

You put it on the card, unaware you’ve been tricked by the oldest retail con in the business.

One of my first jobs was selling leather coats, and I depended on the anchoring effect to earn commission. Each time, I figured it was obvious to customers the company I worked for marked up the prices to unrealistic extremes. Yet, over and over, when people heard the sale price, they smiled and wrestled with their better judgment.

The prices you expect to pay, where did those expectations originate?

To figure out how those channels were dug, those paths were beaten, answer this:

Is the population of Venezuela greater or fewer than 65 million?

Go ahead and guess.

Ok, another question, how many people do you think live Venezuela?

Come up with a figure and keep it in your head. We’ll come back to this in a few paragraphs.

In 1974, Amos Tversky and Daniel Kahneman conducted a study asking a similar question.

They asked people to estimate how many African countries were part of the United Nations, but first they spun a wheel of fortune.

The wheel was painted with numbers from 0 to 100, but rigged to always land on 10 or 65. When the arrow stopped spinning, they asked the person in the experiment to say if they believed the percentage of countries was higher or lower than the number on the wheel.

They then asked people to estimate what they thought the actual percentage of nations was.

They found people who landed on 10 in the first half of the experiment guessed around 25 percent of Africa was part of the U.N. Those who landed on 65 said around 45 percent.

They had been locked in place by the anchoring effect.

The trick here is no one really knew what the answer was. They had to guess, yet it didn’t feel like a guess. As far as they knew, the wheel was a random number generator, but it produced something concrete to work from.

When they adjusted their estimates, they couldn’t avoid the anchor.

The populations of South American countries probably aren’t numbers you have memorized. You need some sort of cue, a point of reference.

You searched your mental assets for something of value concerning Venezuela – the flag, the language, Hugo Chavez – but the population figures aren’t in your head.

What is in your head is the figure I gave you, 65 million, and it’s right there up front influencing how you answer the second question. When you have nothing else to go on, you fixate on the information at hand.

The population of Venezuela is 28 million people. How far away was your answer?

If you are like most people you assumed something much higher.

The numbers generated by the wheel of fortune, the number I gave you and the $1,000 price tag are all anchors, unwanted guests in the mind which change the mood of the party.

Anchors can make big numbers seem small, throw estimates out of whack and lead you into decisions which, in the long view, seem silly.

In many situations, people make estimates by starting from an initial value that is adjusted to yield the final answer. The initial value, or starting point, may be suggested by the formulation of the problem, or it may be the result of partial computation. In either case, adjustments are typically insufficient…that is, different starting points yield different estimates, which are biased toward the initial values.

- “Judgment Under Uncertainty” by Kahneman, Slovic and Tversky

You depend on anchoring every day to predict the outcome of events, to estimate how much time something will take or how much money something will cost.

When you need to choose between options, or estimate a value, you need footing to stand on.

How much should you be paying for cable? How much should your electricity bill be each month? What is a good price for rent in this neighborhood?

You need an anchor from which to compare, and when someone is trying to sell you something they are more than happy to provide one. The problem is, even when you know this, you can’t ignore it.

When shopping for a car, you know it isn’t a completely honest transaction. The real price is probably lower than what they are asking for on the window sticker, yet the anchor price is still going to affect your decision.

As you look over the vehicle, you don’t consider how many factories the company owns, how many employees they pay. You don’t pore over engineering diagrams or profit reports. You don’t consider the price of iron or the expensive investments the manufacturer is making into safety testing.

The price you are willing to pay has little to do with these considerations because they are as far from you at the point of purchase as the population of Venezuela.

Even if you’ve done some research online, you don’t know for sure exactly what the car is worth, or what the dealer paid for it. The focus instead is the manufacturer’s suggested retail price, and no matter how unrealistic it is, you can’t help but be tethered to it.

When you haggle over the price, you are pulling away from the anchor, and both you and the dealer know this.

The anchoring effect can also slip in unannounced.

Drazen Prelec and Dan Ariely conducted an experiment at MIT in 2006 where they had students bid on items in a bizarre auction.

The researchers would hold up a bottle of wine, or a textbook, or a cordless trackball and then describe in detail how awesome it was.

Then, each student had to write down the last two digits of their social security number as if it was the price of the item. If the last two digits were 11, then the bottle of wine was priced at $11. If the two numbers were 88, the cordless trackball was $88.

After they wrote down the pretend price, they bid.

Sure enough, the anchoring effect scrambled their ability to judge the value of the items.

People with high social security numbers paid up to 346 percent more than those with low numbers.

People with numbers from 80 to 99 paid on average $26 for the trackball, while those with 00 to 19 paid around $9.

Social security numbers were the anchor in this experiment only because we requested them. We could have just as well asked for the current temperature or the manufacturer’s suggested retail price. Any question, in fact, would have created the anchor. Does that seem rational? Of course not.

- Dan Ariely from his book, “Predictably Irrational”

The auction experimenters conducted another study in which they asked people to listen to annoying sounds for money. The researchers initially offered either 90 cents or 10 cents for a blast of awful electronic screaming, and then they asked the subjects how much would be the lowest possible price they would need to be paid to listen to the sound again.

People who were offered 10 cents said it would take about 33 cents to continue. People offered 90 said it would take 73.

They repeated the experiment in other ways, but no matter how they messed with the sounds or the payouts, those who were first offered a low payment consistently agreed to lower amounts than those used to better wages. People who got more money at first were unwilling to accept lower payments later.

If you move up to a nice car or a big house, a nice computer or an expensive smartphone, you become anchored and find it difficult to back move down later, even if you should.

Those who buy expensive purses know they are being hornswoggled, at least at some level, yet the anchoring effect still reaches into their bank account.

Does a $800 Louis Vuitton purse function better than a $25 handbag from Wal-Mart? No, not even if it was hand made from giraffe leather and stitched by real, magical leprechauns. It’s just a purse.

But the anchor is set. Louis Vuitton bags are expensive, and that in itself has social value. People still buy them and are happy with their purchase.

If Wal-Mart offered a purse at $800 it would live out its life on the shelf. The price would be so far from the anchors already set by the store it would seem like a bad deal.

Like most psychological phenomenon, anchoring can be used to manipulate people to do good. The best example is the door-in-the-face technique.

In a 1975 study by Catalan, Lewis, Vincent and Wheeler, researchers asked a group of students to volunteer as camp counselors two hours per week for two years.

They all said no.

The researchers followed up by asking if they would volunteer to supervise a single two-hour trip.

Half said yes.

Without first asking for the two-year commitment, only 17 percent agreed.

Remember this study if you are ever in a negotiation - make your initial request far too high.

You have to start somewhere, and your initial decision or calculation greatly influences all the choices which follow, cascading out, each tethered to the anchors set before.

Many of the choices you make every day are reruns of past decisions, like channels dug into a dirt road by a wagon train of selections, you follow the path created by your former self.

External anchors, like prices before a sale or ridiculous requests, are obvious enough you can sidestep the actual price, the real appeal. Internal, self-generated anchors, are not so easy to bypass.

You visit the same circuit of websites everyday, eat basically the same few breakfasts.

When it comes time to buy new cat food or take your car in for repairs, you have old favorites.

Come election time, you pretty much already know who will and will not get your vote.

These choices, so predictable, ask yourself what drives them. Are old anchors controlling your current decisions?

When you are parting with your money, know the person on the other side of the deal thinks you are not so smart and is depending on the anchoring effect when they tell you how much you are about to save.

Links:

The African nation study

African nations in the U.N.

Door in Face Study

Social Security numbers study

Elaine was concerned that Gary was drinking too much soda, so she kept them by her feet at all times. To retaliate, Gary threatened to loosen the umbrella buoys.

In 2007, Spanish bank BBVA engaged IDEO to rethink the way their ATMs worked. In 2009 the fruits of that labor began to see the light of day and the companies have done a really great job highlighting their insights and subsequent designs.

The average ATM experience is nothing special so the opportunity to innovate is there for the taking but few companies seem willing to put in the effort to really do so (BofA’s smart Enter button was one for me).

The IDEO/BBVA video’s got a few “how did it possibly take so long for someone to do it this way!?” ideas (the 90 degree shift in positioning of the ATMs and the “one slot to rule them all” stand out for me ). They also take a page out of Apple’s recent playbook of success in two ways: integrating the hardware + software from the get go and choosing to go full touchscreen to give them the flexibility to always provide the best interface to the user, no matter what they’re doing.

As devices like the iPad go more mainstream and touchscreen prices go down, I look forward to seeing more industries be forced to reconsider the interfaces that stand between them and their customers.

Be sure to check out the IDEO/BBVA case study.

Hipster Fashion Cycle Infographic designed by Emily Miethner

(via thinkingaloud)

Get yourself a skateboard, a big blue tarp, have someone lift the edge of the tarp over you as you skateboard by, and guess what that looks like:

(via mathowie)

The world's oldest drinkable champagne has been discovered...it dates back to the time of Louis XVI and may have even been in his actual possession.

The corks kept their seal and the cold and dark of the deep Baltic preserved the champagne. Inside the bottle they found champagne, and not just champagne but drinkable champagne, complete with fizz. Ekstroem contacted champagne vintners Moet & Chandon, and they identified it with 98% certainty from the anchor marking on the cork as 18th century Veuve Clicquot.

According to records, Veuve Clicquot was first produced in 1772, but the first bottles were laid down for 10 years. "So it can't be before 1782, and it can't be after 1788-89, when the French Revolution disrupted production," Ekstroem said.

Many more are here; prints are available. (via submitted for your perusal)

“Forced to wait for fifteen minutes at the airport luggage carousel leaves many of us miserable and irritated. Yet if we’d spent the same waiting time walking to the carousel we’d be far happier. That’s according to Christopher Hsee and colleagues, who say we’re happier when busy but that unfortunately our instinct is for idleness. Unless we have a reason for being active we choose to do nothing – an evolutionary vestige that ensures we conserve energy.

Consider Hsee’s first study. His team offered 98 students a choice between delivering a completed questionnaire to a location that was a 15-minute round-trip walk away, or delivering it just outside the room and then waiting 15 minutes. A twist was that either the same or different types of chocolate snack bar were offered as a reward at the two locations.

If the same snack bar was offered at both locations then the majority (68 per cent) of students chose the lazy option, delivering the questionnaire just outside the room. By contrast, if a different (black vs. white) bar was offered at each location then the majority (59 per cent) chose the far away ‘busy’ option. This was the case even though earlier research showed both snack bar options were equally appealing, and even though the location of the two snack bar types was counterbalanced across participants. In other words, Hsee said, the students’ instinct was for idleness, but when they were given a specious excuse for walking further, most of them took the busy option. Crucially, when asked afterwards, the students who’d taken the walk reported feeling significantly happier than the idle students, consistent with Hsee’s theory that we’re happier when busy (a repeat of the study in which students were allocated without choice to the idle or busy condition led to the same outcome – the busier students felt happier).”

Read more at BPS Research Digest (Thanks @moonylein)

“From Tolkien’s ring of power in The Lord of the Rings to Star Trek’s Romulans, who could make their warships disappear from view, from Harry Potter’s magical cloak to the garment that makes players vanish in the video game classic Dungeons and Dragons, the power to turn someone or something invisible has fascinated mankind. But who ever thought that a scientist at Michigan Technological University would be serious about building a working invisibility cloak?

That’s exactly what Elena Semouchkina, an associate professor of electrical and computer engineering at Michigan Tech, is doing. She has found ways to use magnetic resonance to capture rays of visible light and route them around objects, rendering those objects invisible to the human eye.

Semouchkina and colleagues at the Pennsylvania State University, where she is also an adjunct professor, recently reported on their research in the journal Applied Physics Letters, published by the American Institute of Physics. Her co-authors were Douglas Werner and Carlo Pantano of Penn State and George Semouchkin, who works at Michigan Tech and Penn State.

They describe developing a nonmetallic cloak that uses identical glass resonators made of chalcogenide glass, a type of dielectric material (one that does not conduct electricity). In computer simulations, the cloak made objects hit by infrared waves—approximately one micron or one-millionth of a meter long—disappear from view.

Earlier attempts by other researchers used metal rings and wires. “Ours is the first to do the cloaking of cylindrical objects with glass,” Semouchkina said.”

Read more at Physorg (Thanks @moonylein)

“Despite millions spent on drug research and development, one of the more promising treatments for Alzheimer’s disease (a progressive brain disorder that affects more than 5 million Americans) is found in a substance widely known for its ability to spice (and color) food.

The compound curcumin, only found in turmeric, is a widely used spice found in Indian food, and is also popular in the cuisines of other South Asian countries like Nepal, Iran and Thailand. The bright yellow spice is familiar to fans of curry dishes, but it has been used in other preparations as well. For centuries, it has been used in Asian medicine.

Like other brightly colored foods (think blueberries, pomegranates and tomatoes), it is the compound that gives turmeric its color that makes it a powerful antioxidant — in this case, curcumin. And like the lycopene in tomatoes and the beta-carotene in carrots, bright orange-yellow curcumin has some seriously amazing health benefits. Curcumin has been found in clinical studies Preliminary clinical studies show curcumin helps reduce beta amyloid plaque in the brains of people with Alzheimer’s (and prevent plaque buildup in people who don’t have the disease).

This plaque is the key to understanding — and preventing — the disease. As the NY Times recently reported.”

Read more at MNN

NOTE: This article is being continually updated by the source due to inaccuracies. Read Gareth Jameson’s comments below for some more information.

Do you have a plan for the imminent flash-the-TSA-attendant 'upgrade' at JFK? Well Flying Pasties has done the planning for you, with their new "2mm thick 100% rubber" pasties that "obscure your private areas when you pass through airport scanners. No adhesive necessary as they simply slip into your clothing!" They come in male and female models, with x-ray visible slogans like "Only my husband sees me naked!" and peace-sign motifs, so you can "keep your dignity in style."

You can't make this stuff up. More details on Fucked In Park Slope>.

There's probably a perfectly reasonable, Puritanical explanation as to why we can't drink beer and wine in movie theaters, but whatever the reason, we're tired of sneaking in our own six pack and waiting for a big on-screen explosion every time we want to crack open another lukewarm one. But finally, a new screening room has opened to take away the shame of brown-bagging it in movie theaters: Jason Stevens, the owner of reBar—that big, handsome gastropub in DUMBO with the killer polenta—is opening a small, 60-seat movie theater with a bar inside his bar. It is called reRun.

Stevens tells us the screening room, which officially opens Friday, will serve a delicious selection of upscale snack food, including popcorn with duck fat or bacon fat, handmade pastries, pretzels stuffed with filling such as Savory Ground Beef or Garlic Mashed Potatoes, and beer from two rotating draft taps. The bar, which is inside the theater, will close during the movie, but Stevens says he doesn't plan on grabbing drinks out of customers' hands when they go sit down. ReRun's designed by the same guy who did the great Zipper Factory theater (RIP!), and has been assembled almost entirely from reclaimed materials, with bench seats from old minivans, chandeliers made from hubcaps, and a Chevy bumper behind the bar.

The technology, however, is state of the art. Stevens says he spent $17,000 on the projection and sound system, which is all digital and will play Blu Ray discs on the 12 foot screen. Aaron Hillis, who covers film for the Village Voice, will be doing the programming, and christening reRun Friday with the indie film Audrey the Trainwreck. Stevens tells us all the films will be first run features that have been on the festival circuit but don't have distribution yet. Next month's screenings, which aren't on the reRun website yet, will feature The Parking Lot Movie (August 13th-19th), followed by Trust Us This is All Made Up (August 20th-26th).

Instead of coming to New York for her...ummm...project, Saunders traveled the world looking for men, sleeping with at least one new man a week. There was even a lesbian fling! She chronicles some of her exploits to NOTW, but sadly admits that now, old and tired at 30, she's just looking for love. She said over the past 10 years, "I took things too far. Now all I want to do is settle down. I just hope I haven't put men off." What do you think, guys?

If you’d like to join a vigilante punctuation posse or a grassroots typography militia, Washington State might be the place for you.

In one Seattle suburb, for example, an underground group has targeted a certain “JS,” who sources say “has some serious control/micromanagement issues, and enjoys flaunting his power to tell people what to do a liiiittle too much. He also tends to find nasty ways to get revenge on people who contradict him.”

Elsewhere in Seattle, “office professionalism” seems to have no bearing on freedom of speech…as long as you use the right typeface, of course.

related: Completely valid rebuttals