Drunk Tank Pink

… and other unexpected forces that shape how we think, feel and behave.

By Adam Alter

We like to think we are cleared headed beings. That are behavior, our choices, are ground with  good reasons. Alter argues that in ambiguous situations, any little bias can make a difference. Ambiguous situations occur far more often than we'd like to admit.

The presence of other people makes us more competitive.

The absence of other people makes us more reflective.

Labels take on a life of there own. Alter mentions that Russians can describe and identify shades of blue more accurately than Americans. This is because Russia has distinct words for light blue, blue and dark blue. In America identifying the shade of blue is left to judgment. In Russia there is a right and wrong.

The Muler Lyer lines… That illusion only works in WEIRD cultures (Western Educated Industrialized Rich Democratic.) Cultures that don't live around strong hard lines don't see the illusion.

People with easy to remember, fluent to say names are more successful that people with hard to remember or disfluent names.

See the circular effects here? A label, or a quirk of culture, affects my abilities. Not like a placebo, but in a real way. When we use those abilities, depend on them, then they take on a life of there own.

I believe the core of the book. I'm a little worried about the validity of much of the science. I don't know how many of the sited studies have been replicated.

 

Mind over Matter. The Epic Crossing of the Antarctic Continent

By Sir Ranulph Fiennes

Together Sir Ranulph Fiennes & Dr. Mike Stroud  crossed Antarctica unsupported. They towed all their supplies with them, 400lbs each, on sleighs. They were the first to do so. They did so for science and for charity.

I have a lot of respect for them, pushing themselves to their limits on this journey. Ranulph lost 40lbs and was badly frost bitten.

It's difficult to explain my respect.  There had to be better ways to raise money for charity than to risk life and limb. Was the science that important?

Ranulph has done some good thinking on leadership. How democratic should a leader be? Ranulph says you should listen to everyone, but don't hesitate to ignore them if they group chooses a path you disagree with. Ranulph pointed out that many leaders have stocked their teams with people they knew would not challenge them.  I've never thought about team building that way. I've always focused only on skills.

Ranulph also has thoughts on the type of people it takes for extreme endurance journeys in Arctic or Antarctic. One weird qualification-- the team should be physically about the same size. Someone who is too big will need many more calories than someone smaller. In the Arctic, after weeks of traveling, everyone will be very hungry. It's hard to regularly give the bigger guy more food without causing hard feelings. If the bigger guy needs more food, shouldn't he carry more weight too? More hard feelings.

The World's End

Five old friends go for a pub crawl in a town that has been taken over by aliens.

RO called this move unnecessary. I can see his point. It's not funny enough to be a great comedy to watch. The action isn't good enough to be a great action flick. The drama isn't important enough for this to be a good drama. The ending was arbitrary.

Yet, it's a very well done movie. Think of it as a high quality Doctor Who episode.

From Shaun Gallagher, author of "Experimenting With Babies: 50 Amazing Science Projects You Can Perform on Your Kid" and "Correlated: Surprising Connections Between Seemingly Unrelated Things."  by way of Reddit.

Tell me ...

• your sex
• whether you have any children
• whether you think pot should be legalized
• whether you think you're a good singer, and
• whether you like mayonnaise

... and I can predict a whole lot about you.
Your sex, Correlated's statistics suggest, can be used to predict your level of risk aversion (men, for instance, are more likely to want to skydive) and your capacity for empathy (women, for instance, are more likely to think we're too stingy with foreign aid).

Whether you have children tends to be a pretty good indicator when it comes to pop culture preferences (parents, for instance, like in-vogue artists such as Lady Gaga less than non-parents do) and, as you might imagine, youth issues (parents, for instance, approve of single-sex schools at a higher rate than non-parents).

Your opinion about marijuana legalization tends to be a good indicator of your political leanings and your opinion about a whole host of other social issues, from the death penalty to legalized prostitution to gay marriage, as well as your beliefs about religion and morality.

On average, people who describe themselves as good singers also tend to say they're good at a lot of other things, such as dancing or math or hula-hooping. On the flip side, people who say they're bad singers also tend to think they're bad at a lot of other things. So basically, this question tells us something about people's self-image and their perception of their abilities.

Similarly, people who like mayonnaise tend to also like a bunch of other foods, and people who dislike mayo tend to dislike a bunch of other foods. So this question tells us something about how picky a person is.

Given a person's answers to these five questions, I'd bet you could do a pretty decent job of guessing their responses to most of the other daily poll questions that have been asked on Correlated.
Still, day in and day out, Correlated is able to discover correlations that continue to surprise me — and I hope that they continue to entertain you.

Catch 22

Folklore has it that Cortez ordered his ships to be burnt so that his men would have no chance of retreat. They would be victorious, or they would die. Catch 22 argues there is an alternative... when then enemy is trying to kill you, when your leadership offers you no chance of retreat, then going crazy is a perfectly valid choice.

And what of our leaders? What if they can't lead us to victory? If they are no more than small pieces in a larger game, if they can do little more than achieve small tactical goals, then isn't it inevitable that they would focus on themselves and their careers, giving little care to the greater goals?

"Man was matter, that was Snowden’s secret. . . . Bury him and he’ll rot, like other kinds of garbage. . . . Ripeness was all."

Brilliant Blunders

By Mario Livio

Mario digs deep into big mistakes made by big minds-- Darwin, Pauling, Einstein. He covers there theories, the times and speculates why they did, or didn't make a mistake. In Einstein's case the jury is still out on the Cosmological constant.

I'm surprised he didn't cover Pauling's obsession with Vitamin C.

Why are mistakes made? Ego, oversight, laziness, bad luck.

The Grapes Of Math...

An history of math, mathematicians, and they problems they were trying to solve.