Fromperdomp9

Marjuana: why's it illegal and should it be?

2009-03-14T12:32:00.000-07:00

Photo Manipulations by Erik Johansson

2009-03-14T12:15:00.000-07:00

Erik Johansson from Sweden creates awesome images by digitally modifying photographs that he took himself.

Check them out here

Daft Punk Controller!

2009-03-12T12:59:00.000-07:00

A very cool little daft punk gizmo awaits you through the link below. If you enjoy their music you'll like it.

Daft Punk Controller

Humanity Gone Haywire

2009-03-12T12:50:00.000-07:00

Wow. I just watched a video of humanity going haywire. It was on people in Africa that have been convinced by missionaries that Satan has possessed young children there. They ’re regularly tortured, beaten and killed for being witches. What the fuck?!? Check out the link below to see Joe Rogan's blog about this video.

Joe Rogan's Blog

Brush & Rinse Toothbrush

2009-03-12T12:42:00.000-07:00

Brush & Rinse is a toothbrush that can redirect water from a faucet to your lips for easy rinsing. Current methods of getting water into our mouths for rinsing after brushing are sloppy, create waste, and place unnecessary stress on our bodies. And, people love water fountains.

Features:
- No disposable rinsing cups
- No glass to wash
- No cup to add clutter to sink area
- Water fountain/play incentive for children to brush teeth
- Great for travel, cramped bathrooms and tiny sinks

Buy it Here!

40 Inspirational Speeches in 2 Minutes

2008-12-12T14:43:00.000-08:00

Youtube.com

Craigslist: Things I'd like to tell students that would probably get me fired.

2008-12-09T13:11:00.000-08:00

Haha. This is a post that was on craigslist and written by a college professor. Click the link at the bottom to see the actual post or just read below if you're too lazy for clicking.

Date: 2004-09-10, 10:15PM PDT

You’re not nearly as cool as you think. Class clowns were funny in high school, but not now.

If you miss class, don’t ask me if anything important happened. Lecture happened. If you didn’t want to go – your money, your grade. What do you expect anyways? That I’m going to answer, “Yes, actually, on the one day you missed I decided to give a pop quiz that counts for 50% of your grade. Oh yeah, and then we discussed the answers to the final and then I gave everybody cookies. Too bad you missed it.”

I don’t really like it when I see you guys in the bathroom. I’m always afraid I’ll fart or something, and then it’ll be around the department and I’ll get some lame nickname like Dr. Farts. On a similar topic, how do you know when I fart in my office? Invariably, there’s a knock on my door immediately afterwards, and I have to answer it while trying to position my body for maximal obstruction of air. And, it’s kind of a catch 22. It’s not like I can go to the bathroom and fart, because of the above issue.

I’m a better liar than you. It’s because I’m really smart. When I was an undergrad, I got out of all sorts of things for all sorts of reasons. Deaths in the family, tears on command, cars breaking down, feigning symptoms of depression, you name it, I used it. I know when you’re trying to bullshit me. Don’t try. And while I’m very sympathetic if it’s legitimate, I’m a bitch if you lie to me.

I’m also a good writer. And the thing is, good writers notice writing style. If you try to plagiarize, I will be able to tell. And, I will give you hell for it and I will report you and you will be sorry because I will make you re-write the paper and take an ethics course to boot.

I’m not actually all that good at keeping my mouth shut. Please don’t tell the other faculty what I say, unless it’s good and about them; or it’s something you learned that you thought was really neat that also does not clash with their theoretical viewpoint, because they’re sensitive about that.

Please don’t get offended by my jokes. See, they’re funny, only, as it turns out, not to conservative Christians, most Republicans, and ultra feminists.

If I’m late for a meeting and rushing out of my office, or if I’m trying to eat lunch in between classes, or if I’m out with friends on a Friday night, I might not be all that keen to answer questions about the upcoming midterm. I might be grouchy. Just so you know.

This here’s for the boys. If you’re flunking my class, don’t make sly little suggestions about what you might to do earn an A. You’re flunking my class. Why would I think your performance would be better in any other areas?

Incompletes are for students who, for legitimate, documented reasons, couldn't finish the class. If you don't like your grade, you can't take an incomplete.

I will do my best to give the first midterm before the drop deadline, and all other midterms before rather than after holidays.

If you take the midterm and do badly, and then don't drop the class, and then come back 3 months later and try to play it like you were never in my class and you want me to sign a petition, I won't. If you ask me to sign the petition before the drop deadline, I will happily. If the administration gives you shit about it, I'll cause a ruckus.

If I see you out on the town on a weekend night and you want to buy me a drink, you can’t currently be in my classes or ever take any of my classes again. Ever. Then maybe you can buy me a drink. Allright probably. Okay.

If you’re out on the town drunk and want to yell at me about your grade, then please don’t ever take any of my classes again.

If I set up extra office hours to tutor you, and you don’t show up, I will secretly hate you. Also, I will refuse to set up any other office hours outside of regularly scheduled ones. Oh, and any subsequent emails from me will be cryptic and I’ll wait an extra day to respond.

Just because I seem cool doesn’t mean my tests are easy. I tell you all the first day the classes are hard. Here, I am not lying. Believe me.

Reading all the material and going to class does not guarantee you an A unless you’re super-duper smart. You actually have to study too.

At the beginning of the term, when I say, “I won’t hand you a grade, but I’ll help you work to get the grade you want,” that doesn’t mean that if you flunked all the midterms and you show up the day before the final I can do anything other than feel bad and tell you to get a good night’s sleep.

When you tell me, “I’m getting kicked out of college because of the grade I got in your class,” this makes me feel bad, but it also makes me wonder if this is the first bad grade you’ve gotten in college, and what kind of slave driver is supporting you that would cut you off for one bad grade.

When you come to office hours week after week because you’re worried about your grade, and you use all the study suggestions that I tell you to, and I really honestly believe that you’re trying hard but you’re still getting a bad grade, I will wish I had the guts to gently tell you that not everyone is meant for college, but I won’t. I will feel bad instead and continue to tutor you.

When you ask a stupid question in class I will not repeat the most horrible thing I ever did to a student the first year I was teaching, which was to laugh at a question. However, I do reserve the right to later tell my friends and to laugh then. Sorry, but sometimes I just have to. Your name and any identifying information will not be used.

Please ask all the questions you want to in class. Really. I learn from my mistakes. If I see anyone so much as roll an eye, I will pull them aside after class and tell them that’s inappropriate.

I’m kind of a talker. I like to tell stories. Please, if you figure this out, do not use it to postpone lecture, and hence, the amount of material you will be responsible for.

Please vote. And when you do, consider what cuts in educational funding do to your tuition. They are not unrelated.

If you work for me on a project, and you do a good job, I will write you a kick-ass letter of recommendation. If you work for me and do a lousy job, I will writer a letter that, while not direct, will let the program you are applying for know what kind of a student you are, and I will show you this letter before I send it because I will feel guilty. Remember that things like, “She was often on time,” or, “From my conversations with him, it is clear that he very much wants to go to graduate school,” are not really compliments.

And, please, if you like my class, if you feel that it changed the way you think, if you learned a lot, if you were challenged, please tell me. In this age of limited resources and time, that’s what keeps me going. I love teaching, and I’m clearly not in it for the money. All this above is just my bitch-session to get it out of my system before school starts. Almost always, I only hear from people who are angry at me. Tell me if you got something out of my class. I really really need it sometimes.

Actually, the last item goes for all your teachers.

Craigslist.org

Imagining the Tenth Dimension: A New Way of Thinking about Time and Space

2008-12-02T17:43:00.000-08:00

Reality, today's physicists tell us, is created by the vibrations of exquisitely tiny superstrings in ten spatial dimensions. Ten dimensions? Most of us have barely gotten used to the idea that there are four. Using simple geometry and an easygoing writing style, author Rob Bryanton starts with the lower dimensions that we are all familiar with, then uses those concepts to build one layer upon another, ultimately arriving at a way of imagining the tenth dimension.

Imagining the Tenth Dimension Site

The Story Of Stuff

2008-12-02T17:38:00.000-08:00

From its extraction through sale, use and disposal, all the stuff in our lives affects communities at home and abroad, yet most of this is hidden from view. The Story of Stuff is a 20-minute, fast-paced, fact-filled look at the underside of our production and consumption patterns. The Story of Stuff exposes the connections between a huge number of environmental and social issues, and calls us together to create a more sustainable and just world. It'll teach you something, it'll make you laugh, and it just may change the way you look at all the stuff in your life forever.

Watch The Story Of Stuff Here

Politics Explained with Cows.

2008-12-02T16:47:00.000-08:00

FEUDALISM: You have two cows. Your lord takes some of the milk.

PURE SOCIALISM: You have two cows. The government takes them and puts them in a barn with everyone else's cows. You have to take care of all of the cows. The government gives you as much milk as you need.

BUREAUCRATIC SOCIALISM: You have two cows. The government takes them and put them in a barn with everyone else's cows. They are cared for by ex-chicken farmers. You have to take care of the chickens the government took from the chicken farmers. The government gives you as much milk and eggs as the regulations say you need.

FASCISM: You have two cows. The government takes both, hires you to take care of them and sells you the milk.

PURE COMMUNISM: You have two cows. Your neighbors help you take care of them, and you all share the milk.

RUSSIAN COMMUNISM: You have two cows. You have to take care of them, but the government takes all the milk.

CAMBODIAN COMMUNISM: You have two cows. The government takes both of them and shoots you.

DICTATORSHIP: You have two cows. The government takes both and drafts you.

PURE DEMOCRACY: You have two cows. Your neighbors decide who gets the milk.

REPRESENTATIVE DEMOCRACY: You have two cows. Your neighbors pick someone to tell you who gets the milk.

BUREAUCRACY: You have two cows. At first the government regulates what you can feed them and when you can milk them. Then it pays you not to milk them. Then it takes both, shoots one, milks the other and pours the milk down the drain. Then it requires you to fill out forms accounting for the missing cows.

PURE ANARCHY: You have two cows. Either you sell the milk at a fair price or your neighbors try to take the cows and kill you.

LIBERTARIAN/ANARCHO-CAPITALISM: You have two cows. You sell one and buy a bull.

SURREALISM: You have two giraffes. The government requires you to take harmonica lessons.

Why Do We Forget Things?

2008-12-02T14:38:00.000-08:00

One of the most powerful tools of the human mind is our memory. It is the ultimate teacher within. Learning from our own mistakes is one of the most basic forms of education. A young child gets too close to a stove and burns his hand; he commits it to memory to stay away from a hot stove. But why do we remember certain events and forget others, even if they seem just as important? The ability to remember is a critical tool of survival. We need to remember. The question is: how can we unlock our minds and remember more accurately? The answer is a child-like imagination.
The key to recall is organization. The use of mnemonic techniques helps us to organize our thoughts and file them in logical places within our memory warehouse. As was mentioned earlier, the answer to unlocking our minds and our memories is a child-like imagination. Using vivid visual imagery, we associate words in a series of ridiculous scenarios within our mind's eye. The result is a memory that is organized and methodical. The more we practice these techniques, the more they become second nature to us. The brain is an enormous resource of potential energy. The problem is that most of us don't know how to maximize this potential.

The Wisdom of the Heart from the 14th Dalai Lama

2008-12-02T14:31:00.000-08:00

The 14th Dalai Lama, Tenzin Gyatso, is the spiritual and exiled leader of the Tibetan people. Born in northeastern Tibet, he was recognized at the age of 2 as the reincarnation of the 13th Dalai Lama. After the suppression of the Tibetan national uprising in 1959, His Holiness escaped to India where he was given political asylum. Dalai Lama is a Mongolian title, which means "Ocean of Wisdom". "Dalai" means "ocean" in Mongolian, and "Lama" (bla ma) is the Tibetan equivalent of the Sanskrit word "guru", and is commonly translated to mean "spiritual teacher". He seems like a pretty awesome dude. Here's some of his wisdom in the form of ten things to remember:

1. Be kind whenever possible. It is always possible.

2. Open your arms to change, but don't let go of your values.

3. Sleep is the best meditation.

4. Spend some time alone every day.

5. We can never obtain peace in the outer world until we make peace with ourselves.

6. Remember that not getting what you want is sometimes a wonderful stroke of luck.

7. We can live without religion and meditation, but we cannot survive without human
affection.

8. Happiness is not something ready made. It comes from your own actions.

9. If you can, help others; if you cannot do that, at least do not harm them.

10. The ultimate authority must always rest with the individual's own reason and critical analysis.

Wikipedia.com

Panasonic Pwnd On Their Own Times Square TV

2008-11-26T14:37:00.000-08:00

In a clever bit of green marketing, the non-profit Electronics TakeBack Coalition ran the above ad warning of "toxic waste" on Panasonic's own proud Times Square display. The coalition promotes manufacturers accepting their own products back for recycling. Unfortunately, clever ads and even manufacturer support are only half the battle.

YouTube.com

Key to Happiness

2008-11-24T08:43:00.000-08:00

[Via YouTube]

Ganzfeld Hallucinations

2008-11-20T12:25:00.000-08:00

The cognitive science journal Cortex has just released a special issue on the neuropsychology of paranormal experiences and belief, and contains a fantastic article on hallucinations induced by the Ganzfeld procedure.

The Ganzfeld procedure exposes the participant to 'unstructured' sensations usually by placing half ping-pong balls over the eyes so they can only see diffuse white light and by playing white noise through headphones.

It is probably best known for its uses in parapsychology experiments, but it is also used to induce hallucinations and sensory distortions which are much more likely to occur in the absence of clearly defined sensory experiences.

The article reviews the sorts of hallucinations reported in during these experiments and discusses what electrophysiology (EEG or 'brain wave') studies tell us about what happens in the cortex when these perceptual distortions kick off.

Some of the descriptions of hallucinations are really quite striking:

“For quite a long time, there was nothing except a green-greyish fog. It was really boring, I thought, ‘ah, what a non-sense experiment!’ Then, for an indefinite period of time, I was ‘off’, like completely absent-minded. Then, all of sudden, I saw a hand holding a piece of chalk and writing on a black-board something like a mathematical formula. The vision was very clear, but it stayed only for few seconds and disappeared again. The image did not fill up the entire visual field, it was just like a ‘window’ into that foggy stuff.”

“an urban scenery, like an empty avenue after a rain, large areas covered with water, and the city sky-line reflected in the water surface like in a mirror.”

“a clearing in a forest [Lichtung], a place bathed in bright sun-shine, and the trunks of trees around. A feeling of a tranquile summer afternoon in a forest, so quiet, so peaceful. And then, suddenly, a young woman passed by on a bicycle, very fast, she crossed the visual field from the right to the left, with her blond long hair waving in the air. The image of the entire scene was very clear, with many details, and yes, the colours were very vivid.”

“I can see his face, still, it's very expressive… [I could see] only the horse that comes as if out of clouds. A white horse that jumped over me.”

“A friend of mine and I, we were inside a cave. We made a fire. There was a creek flowing under our feet, and we were on a stone. She had fallen into the creek, and she had to wait to have her things dried. Then she said to me: ‘Hey, move on, we should go now’.”

“It was like running a bob sleigh on an uneven runway right down… [There] was snow or maybe water running down… I could hear music, there was music coming from the left side below.”

“In the right side of the visual field, a manikin suddenly appeared. He was all in black, had a long narrow head, fairly broad shoulders, very long arms and a relatively small trunk…. He approached me, stretching out his hands, very long, very big, like a bowl, and he stayed so for a while, and then he went back to where he came from, slowly.”

You can simulate the Ganzfeld procedure in your own home by taping two half ping-pong balls over your eyes and listening to the radio tuned to static in an evenly lighted room.

The other articles in the special issue are also fascinating, and range from a study finding greater body asymmetry is related to higher levels of unusual beliefs - likely reflecting asymmetrical brain development, to an experiment looking at the cognitive psychology of people who believe they've been abducted by aliens.

Needless to say, there's many more fascinating studies and Cortex has the advantage of not only being a leading neuropsychology journal but also making its material freely available as open-access articles. Enjoy!

[Via Cortex special issue]

Your Weekly Address from the President-Elect

2008-11-17T10:10:00.000-08:00

President-Elect Barack Obama has pledged to deliver weekly "fireside chats" a la FDR via YouTube, and today he posted his first. The content of the video isn't unexpected: he calls for immediate help from Congress to aid unemployment insurance, and calls for all Americans to come together to weather the hard economic road ahead.

http://www.youtube.com/user/ChangeDotGov

12 Barack Obama Quotes on Technology

2008-11-07T09:25:00.000-08:00

The historic U.S. Presidential election has come to an end with Barack Obama emerging victorious against John McCain. Obama will become the forty-fourth President of the United States and the first African-American to be elected for the highest office.

Some of my tech savvy readers are probably wondering how will Obama utilize technology to help improve the U.S. and world economy. That is why I'm going to share to you some of Barack Obama's tech related quotes to learn more about his plans. I also included links to the quotes' sources. Enjoy!

* "To restore America's competitiveness, we must recruit a new generation of science and technology leaders by investing in diversity."
SOURCE

* "Together, we could open up government and invite citizens in, while connecting all of America to 21st century broadband. We could use technology to help achieve universal health care, to reach for a clean energy future, and to ensure that young Americans can compete -- and win -- in the global economy..."
SOURCE

* "I will recruit new teachers and make new investments in rural schools, we'll connect all of America to 21st century technology and telecommunications."
SOURCE

* "We are a land of moon shots and miracles of science and technology that have touched the lives of millions across the planet."
SOURCE

* "As president, I will tap our natural gas reserves, invest in clean coal technology, and find ways to safely harness nuclear power."
SOURCE

* "Ensuring that the US continues to lead the world in science and technology will be a central priority for my administration."
SOURCE

* "I'll change the posture of our federal government from being one of the most anti-science administrations in American history to one that embraces science and technology."
SOURCE

* "We will fire government managers who aren't getting results, we will cut funding for programs that are wasting your money, we will use technology and lessons from the private sector to improve efficiency across every level of government."
SOURCE

* Obama said the nation needs to invest in solar, wind, biodiesel and clean coal technology "so the use of coal does not degrade our environment. We can do that if we are investing in the technology, the research and the development."
SOURCE

* "We must adapt and make tradeoffs among systems originally designed for the Cold War and those required for current and future challenges. We need greater investment in advanced technology ranging from the revolutionary, like unmanned aerial vehicles and electronic warfare capabilities, to systems like the C-17 cargo and KC-X air refueling aircraft--which may not be glamorous to politicians, but are the backbone of our future ability to extend global power."
SOURCE

* Obama said if elected his government would "harness technology to confront the biggest challenges that America faces".
SOURCE

* Pointing to President Kennedy's challenge to put a man on the moon, Mr. Obama said: "I will set big goals for this country as president - some so large that the technology to reach them does not yet exist."
SOURCE

Via Gizmodo.com

GO VOTE!!!!!!!!!

2008-11-04T12:18:00.000-08:00

GETYOURASSOUTOFTHEHOUSEANDVOTE.COM

Hidden Garage with more Lambo's?!?!

2008-10-30T12:51:00.000-07:00

What?!?

Gizmodo.com

Ballotpedia Helps You Understand Local Propositions and Initiatives

2008-10-30T11:35:00.000-07:00

Web site Ballotpedia is a collaborative wiki that provides detailed breakdowns of ballot measures and initiatives. In the midst of a heated election, it's easy to overlook a lot of the local propositions you can expect to see on your ballot next Tuesday. Ballotpedia's breakdowns—like this table of ballot propositions for California—are gateways to all kinds of useful information, including arguments for and against each item. If you haven't brushed up on the other important votes you can cast on your ballot this year, Ballotpedia is a great resource to get up to speed.

Ballotpedia.org

Unusual Diet Tips from the World's Oldest Person

2008-10-27T08:58:00.000-07:00

Just over 11 years ago, on Aug. 4, 1997, Jeanne Calment died at age 122. Born Feb. 21, 1875, the lifelong resident of Arles, France, was the oldest person who ever lived whose birth date was reliably confirmed.

Her quick wit, lifetime of exercise (she rode a bicycle until she was 100), and cheerful disposition - “I will die laughing,” she once said - all played a part in her longevity, but two of her dietary habits stand out: She reportedly ate nearly two pounds of chocolate a week, and was “devoted” to port wine.

I do not recommend eating so much chocolate (the caloric load could lead to obesity in many people), nor do I suggest “devoting” yourself to serious wine-drinking. But I will say that Dr. Weil’s Anti-Inflammatory Food Pyramid is, I believe, the only food pyramid in wide circulation that includes both chocolate and red wine as health-promoting, antioxidant-rich food sources. I make no promises that these additions to an optimal diet will result in such remarkable longevity for everyone, but in moderation they are indeed healthy, and will possibly make a long life more enjoyable as well!

Jeanne Calment Wiki

Why to Start a Startup in a Bad Economy

2008-10-27T08:46:00.000-07:00

Really great article by Paul Graham about starting a new startup even with the economy getting worse these days.

Click Here to Read

New Online Comic!

2008-10-15T14:41:00.000-07:00

If you like to laugh and you like to read short comics then you'll love this site my brother and his girlfriend put together. Its got a buncha comics, mainly by Alex and a few by my little brother David plus other random videos and such. (ie Bathroom conversations) So check it out!

Jelloshooters.org

New Game Rage Blog!

2008-10-13T16:03:00.001-07:00

Check out the new Game Rage blog! It's done by a friend of mine and a few other cool guys met the other day. They also have a pod cast so check that out too. It's pretty much about video games and such but not your average "Lets review this game" video game blog. Do yourself a favor and click the link already...

GameRage Blog

The Truth: What Obama and McCain won’t tell you about your money

2008-10-07T08:46:00.000-07:00

I found this article here. This guy knows what he's talking about:

After watching the debate tonight, I figured I’d translate what both candidates were saying. Sorry I’m not as politically correct as them, but I hope this is informative.

Things will get a lot harder before they get better.
All the predictions about the recovery taking until “at least the end of the year” are horseshit. In truth, nobody knows, but it would be political suicide to admit that a recovery — whatever that means — will take a few more years. The truth is, nobody knows how long it will take. But if there’s one thing Americans love, it’s a leader pretending to know everything. And if there’s another, it’s that Americans love a quick fix…only to later complain about it not being done right.

Your questions about how “quickly” we can get out of this crisis are misguided.
Sometimes a forest needs to be cleaned out with fire before it can grow again. Again, an unpopular position. Since the government has virtually unlimited resources, it can certainly alleviate the pocketbook pain we’re feeling…but it will come back to bite us in the ass later.

Not all homeowners deserve to stay in their houses.
Renting is a perfectly reasonable alternative, but the idea of Americans “losing their houses” is politically untenable. Why? Because America perpetuates a mistaken culture of homeownership. Owning your own home is the kind of BS sacred cow that got us into this mess: Our parents tell us to buy a house. Our friends are impressed if we own a house in our twenties. The government literally encourages us to own a house by offering tax deductions. Homeownership is the American Dream!

The truth is, if you’re making the largest purchase of your life, you need more than a slogan — you need to take the responsibility to do some research. (And note that you can’t advocate for increased homeownership and also argue for Americans to keep their houses. By not reducing the prices, younger people cannot buy houses at these inflated prices.)

Yes, there was an exceptional amount of predatory lending.
For every blogger who argues loudly about personal responsibility, an angel dies and an Ogilvy executive lights a marshmallow in hell and eats a delicious snack. Wall Street and realtors are also to blame for this. But so are average Americans. It’s difficult to have a nuanced discussion about real estate on the campaign trail, so we resort to cartoonishly simplistic caricatures of things like Wall Street’s corruption. True — but also take a look in the mirror.

Homeowners are delusional about how much their houses are actually worth (see this, too).
As a wise commenter said, “I love the fact that it’s “acceptable/normal” for a home to increase its value by 100% during a five-year time frame, but it’s “unreasonable/impossible” for a home to decrease it’s value by 30-40% during a similar time frame.”

Taxes: Pandering to ordinary Americans instead of telling them to stop spending on stupid stuff
The reason Obama and McCain spent so much time talking about taxes is that most Americans are historically horrible at managing their spending. Since they make a fixed amount of money (revenue) and can control only one thing (costs), both politicans use tax breaks to pander to voters. Most people have never seriously thought about how to make more money. Fine. But what’s even more outrageous is Obama and McCain’s complete lack of honesty about what people really need to do to weather the economic crisis. Did you hear either one plainly say, “You’re going to need to buckle down and save more?” Of course not. You might as well walk into a Dave Ramsey seminar and argue that credit cards are a useful tool. It’s a suicidal suggestion. But it’s true.

Shut up about your money worries unless you’ve taken the time to read a book about how money really works
You need to read a couple of good books about money. Not read the screaming headlines of CNN.com. But a real book that explains how money works. If you don’t, do you really have the right to complain about how scared and nervous and worried you are about your money? (Note: If you want to get my favorite book recommendations, sign up for my free newsletter by Friday, 10/10/08. In fact, I’m giving away free personal-finance books in the upcoming weeks.)

Americans don’t know how to be frugal — yet
Things will get more expensive. Taxes will eventually go up. They have to. Costs of ordinary goods will go up. They always do. If you’re expecting it to get easier, you’re wrong. The key is to make more money and cut your costs. Sadly, Americans are poorly versed in being frugal. You think it makes sense to buy a new car every few years? You think it’s normal to eat out 5 times per week (lunch and dinner)? You feel good about yourself for ordering water when you go to a restaurant, but you blew $50,000 because you didn’t take the time to understand your mortgage? You’re not frugal. But a few more years of an economy like this and things just might change.

Sensible investors don’t change strategies very much — even in a market like today’s
With the market cratering hundreds of points every day — then climbing a similar amount the very next day — billions have been pulled out of the market. Yet long-term investors have the discipline to stay steady. Panicked spouses and overconfident investors think they know better by trying to time the market, but they’re wrong. In fact, here’s an excerpt from my upcoming book:

Recently, a group called Dimensional Funds studied the performance of the S&P 500 from January 1970 to December 2006, during which time the annualized return of the market was 11.1%. They also noted something amazing: Of those 36 years from 1970 to 1986, if you missed the 25 days when the stock market performed the best, your return would have dropped from 11.1% to 7.6%, a crippling difference.

Now, if only we could know the best investing days ahead of time.

Of course, we can’t. That’s why I continue to dollar-cost-average money into the market, slowly. Will it go down in the short-term? Almost certainly. But as my funds get cheaper and cheaper, I’ll pick up more and more shares. And eventually — over a 10, 20, or even 50-year time horizon, I’ll make a significant amount.

But encouraging people to continue investing during times like this wouldn’t be received well. More often than not, politicians need to seem to be doing something — ANYTHING!! — in order to keep you happy. Frankly, with a balanced portfolio, there’s really not much to change. But that’s not sexy enough to tell most people. (Plus, they have no idea what a balanced portfolio is.)

* * *
Sorry if I was too harsh. I’m usually not political, but I’m tired of the bullshit around our money. Every single one of us knows co-workers, family, or friends who are worried about their money. It’s time to get honest about what’s going on.

More to come in future posts.
* * *

Via [iwillteachyoutoberich.com]

Guy uses Craigslist to rob an armored truck!?!

2008-10-05T13:05:00.000-07:00

A bank robber got away with a bag full of mucho money from an armored truck after successfully pulling out a perfect escape plan, straight out the final scene of the Thomas Crown Affair. The criminal — who was wearing a yellow vest, safety goggles, a respirator mask and a blue shirt — used Craigslist to hire a dozen of decoys to confuse the police and the public around the scene. Mike, one of the hired decoys, gave the full details:

I came across the ad that was for a prevailing wage job for $28.50 an hour. He said to meet near the Bank of America in Monroe at 11 a.m. Tuesday. (He also was told to wear a yellow vest, safety goggles, a respirator mask… and, if possible, a blue shirt).

I know, stealing is bad, but I wish all crimes were as amusing and non-violent as this one.

King5.com

The Fuck Diet

2008-10-02T09:16:00.000-07:00

I'm trying to go on a "fuck" diet. No more saying it or typing it or thinking of saying it. I say it waaaay too much now and it pretty much has lost all of it previous effect as a result. I'm not sure how difficult this will be yet but I'm not looking forward to it. I guess I'll just update this periodically on how its going. Onwards...

Why is Marijuana Illegal??

2008-09-25T15:15:00.000-07:00

DrugWarRant.com

Dude... Schwarzenegger Terminates Texting While Driving in California

2008-09-25T10:55:00.000-07:00

No more texting while driving in California :( The Golden State is joining seven other states and Washington DC by imposing a full-on ban of text messaging while driving. The bill signed by the Governator himself imposes a $20 fine for the first offense and $50 for repeat offenders starting next year. Kind of a slap on the wrist if you ask me—but that is more than 43 other states in this country are doing. [LA Times]

The New Chevy Volt Looks Sweet and Runs on (almost) No Gas.

2008-09-21T14:59:00.000-07:00

PrintWhatYouLike Cuts Down Any Web Page for Printing

2008-09-19T07:59:00.001-07:00

Free printer-friendly service PrintWhatYouLike.com is a simple point-and-click element removal tool to make printing sites and pages without printer-friendly links much easier, and without any software. Paste in the URL of a site, and you'll get a left-hand sidebar that lets you click and and remove pictures, headlines, and other page elements. You can pull out the background image, isolate selected parts of the page, and even resize individual elements, all in the name of reducing ink usage and improving readability. Better still, you can copy a link to the page you've just hacked to bits, giving web site owners with popular pages a free resource for printer-friendly versions. PrintWhatYouLike.com is a free service. For more earth-saving and frugal printer tips, check out the How-To Geek's smart and easy ways to reduce printing costs.

PrintWhatYouLike.com

Campus MovieFest is Starting Soon!

2008-09-17T15:33:00.000-07:00

Every year Campus MovieFest goes to colleges around the US to have college-wide film festivals that feature short movies made by students. Me and some buddies just signed up today and we're brainstorming ideas. The rules are that they give us a camera and laptop next wed and we have one week to make a movie no longer than 5 min. Click the link below to check it out or sign up your own group.

Campus MovieFest!

Learning Portuguese...

2008-09-17T12:34:00.001-07:00

But I know I'll get if eventually. Sometimes
I wish I spoke more languages. I think I'll make it goal to speak 3 by the time I'm 30. I dunno. I guess we'll have to wait and see. Anyone here bilingual? Trilingual?

-- Post From My iPhone

Graff Art by Banksy

2008-09-17T10:34:00.000-07:00

Banksy really is an awesome graff artist. He's from the UK but he has some pieces in the US in LA, SF, and NY. He's even done some stuff on the wall in Palestine. I posted a few of my favorite pieces for you all to scope but you can check out the link too to his official site if you're so inclined to see more.
Banksy.co.uk

New posts on the go

2008-09-17T10:32:00.001-07:00

Hey. I just figured out how to upload updates from my phone. So now I know what you're thinking. That means more updates?? Maybe. School and work are pretty demanding of my time at the moment but I won't forget to stop by of course.
-jimmy

We were bored so we made music... with our hands...

2008-09-14T01:56:00.001-07:00

Uploaded by www.cellspin.net

Word's cannot explain this video...

2008-08-28T15:42:00.000-07:00

What the Hell is this??? So wierd yet I must keep watching...

I think I believe in change

2008-08-28T15:34:00.000-07:00

I believe in change. I mean…I think I believe in change. As a sentence, it looks so alone. But as I grow up and possibly decide to become a slightly better writer, that sentence could come out as "I trust my belief in the idea of customary evolution." Now, if I drop out of college, and party all of my brain cells to death like innumerable other students at my old school then it may turn out to be a prolonged, beautiful…belch.

Some people retort to my belief that "people don't change, situations do," but I don't think I believe that. As long as we have a problem with ourselves, we will try and change it. From a minor change of thought to a major change of life, we are always subconsciously correcting our problems. I didn't want to be the expelled thirty year old who ended up living with his parents for the rest of his life, because he directly insulted the principal and my friends don't always have to cater to my needs for me to be in a good mood. I just didn't know it, until today. You cannot force and detect change while it's in the process. It happens and it happens a lot.

And, I am a person who's changed a lot. From new situations and new people come new problems. With new problems, comes the need for change. A year ago, the sentence would've been ridden with spelling errors and wouldn't be my actual thoughts – it would be made hastily - to try and please the people I thought were "cool." And, now, slightly more mature and less careless, and at a crossroad of uncertainty such as one many teens are at, the sentence is simply, "I think I believe in change." This, I think I believe.

More proof that guys and girls think totally different when it comes to communication

2008-08-27T15:36:00.000-07:00

Current mood: fascinated

Really interesting article about the communication between guys and girls by a linguistics expert:

"Can't We Talk?" (condensed from: You Just Don't Understand)
by Deborah Tannen

A married couple was in a car when the wife turned to her husband and asked, "Would you like to stop for a coffee?"

"No, thanks," he answered truthfully. So they didn't stop.

The result? The wife, who had indeed wanted to stop, became annoyed because she felt her preference had not been considered. The husband, seeing his wife was angry, became frustrated. Why didn't she just say what she wanted?

Unfortunately, he failed to see that his wife was asking the question not to get an instant decision, but to begin a negotiation. And the woman didn't realize that when her husband said no, he was just expressing his preference, not making a ruling. When a man and woman interpret the same interchange in such conflicting ways, it's no wonder they can find themselves leveling angry charges of selfishness and obstinacy at each other.

As a specialist in linguistics, I have studied how the conversational styles of men and women differ. We cannot lump all men or all women into fixed categories. But the seemingly senseless misunderstandings that haunt our relationships can in part be explained by the different conversational rules by which men and women play.

Whenever I write or speak about this subject, people tell me they are relieved to learn that what has caused them trouble - and what they had previously ascribed to personal failings - is, in fact, very common.

Learning about the different though equally valid conversational frequencies men and women are tuned to can help banish the blame and help us truly talk to one another. Here are some of the most common areas of conflict:

Status vs. Support.

Men grow up in a world in which a conversation is often a contest, either to achieve the upper hand or to prevent other people from pushing them around. For women, however, talking is often a way to exchange confirmation and support.

I saw this when my husband and I had jobs in different cities. People frequently made comments like, "That must be rough," and "How do you stand it?" I accepted their sympathy and sometimes even reinforced it, saying, "The worst part is having to pack and unpack al the time."

But my husband often reacted with irritation. Our situation had advantages, he would explain. As academics, we had four-day weekends together, as well as long vacations throughout the year and four months in the summer.

Everything he said was true, but I didn't understand why he chose to say it. He told me that some of the comments implied: "Yours is not a real marriage. I am superior to you because my wife and I have avoided your misfortune." Until then it had not occurred to me there might be an element of one- upmanship.

I now see that my husband was simply approaching the world as many men do: as a place where people try to achieve and maintain status. I, on the other hand, was approaching the world as many women do: as a network of connections seeking support and consensus.

Independence vs. Intimacy.

Since women often think in terms of closeness and support, they struggle to preserve intimacy. Men, concerned with status, tend to focus more on independence. These traits can lead women and men to starkly different views of the same situation.

When Josh's old high-school friend called him at work to say he'd be in town, Josh invited him to stay for the weekend. That evening he told Linda they were having a house guest.

Linda was upset. How could Josh make these plans without discussing them with her beforehand? She would never do that to him. "Why don't you tell your friend you have to check with your wife?" she asked.

Josh replied, "I can't tell my friend, 'I have to ask my wife for permission'!"

To Josh, checking with his wife would mean he was not free to act on his own. It would make him feel like a child or an underling. But Linda actually enjoys telling someone, "I have to check with Josh." It makes her feel good to show that her life is intertwined with her husband's.

Advice vs. Understanding.

Eve had a benign lump removed from her breast. When she confided to her husband, Mark, that she was distressed because the stitches changed the contour of her breast, he answered, "You can always have plastic surgery."

This comment bothered her. "I'm sorry you don't like the way it looks," she protested. "But I'm not having any more surgery!"

Mark was hurt and puzzled. "I don't care about a scar," he replied. "It doesn't bother me at all."

"Then why are you telling me to have plastic surgery?" she asked.

"Because you were upset about the way it looks."

Eve felt like a heel. Mark had been wonderfully supportive throughout her surgery. How could she snap at him now?

The problem stemmed from a difference in approach. To many men a complaint is a challenge to come up with a solution. Mark thought he was reassuring Eve by telling her there was something she could do about her scar. But often women are looking for emotional support, not solutions.

When my mother tells my father she doesn't feel well, he invariably offers to take her to the doctor. Invariably, she is disappointed with his reaction. Like many men, he is focused on what he can do, whereas she wants sympathy.

Information vs. Feelings.

A cartoon shows a husband opening a newspaper and asking his wife, "Is there anything you'd like to say to me before I start reading the paper?" We know there isn't - but that as soon as the man begins reading, his wife will think of something.

The cartoon is funny because people recognize their own experience in it. What's not funny is that many women are hurt when men don't talk to them at home, and many men are frustrated when they disappoint their partners without knowing why.

Rebecca, who is happily married, told me this is a source of dissatisfaction with her husband, Stuart. When she tells him what she is thinking, he listens silently. When she asks him what is on his mind, he says, "Nothing."

All Rebecca's life she has had practice in verbalizing her feelings with friends and relatives. But Stuart has had practice in keeping his innermost thoughts to himself. To him, like most men, talk is information. He doesn't feel that talk is required at home.

Yet many such men hold center stage in a social setting, telling jokes and stories. They use conversation to claim attention and to entertain. Women can wind up hurt that their husbands tell relative strangers things they have not told them.

To avoid this kind of misunderstanding, both men and women can make adjustments. A woman may observe a man's desire to read the paper without seeing it is a rejection. And a man can understand a woman's desire to talk without feeling it is a manipulative intrusion.

Orders vs. Proposals.

Diana often begins statements with "Let's." She might say "Let's park over there" or "Let's clean up now, before lunch."

This makes Nathan angry. He has deciphered Diana's "Let's" as a command. Like most men, he resists being told what to do. But to Diana, she is making suggestions, not demands. Like most women, she formulates her requests as proposals rather than orders. Her style of talking is a way of getting others to do what she wants - but by winning agreement first.

With certain men, like Nathan, this tactic backfires. If they perceive someone is trying to get them to do something indirectly, they feel manipulated and respond more resentfully than they would to a straightforward request.

Conflict vs. Compromise.

In trying to prevent fights, some women refuse to oppose the will of others openly. But sometimes it's far more effective for a woman to assert herself, even at the risk of conflict.

Dora was frustrated by a series of used cars she drove. It was she who commuted to work, but her husband, Hank, who chose the cars. Hank always went for cars that were "interesting" but in continual need of repair.

After Dora was nearly killed when her brakes failed, they were in the market for yet another used car. Dora wanted to buy a late-model sedan from a friend. Hank fixed his sights on a 15-year-old sports car. She tried to persuade Hank that it made more sense to buy the boring but dependable car, but he would not be swayed.

Previously she would have acceded to his wishes. This time Dora bought the boring but dependable car and steeled herself for Hanks' anger. To her amazement, he spoke not a word of remonstrance. When she later told him what she had expected, he scoffed at her fears and said she should have done what she wanted from the start if she felt that strongly about it.

As Dora discovered, a little conflict won't kill you. At the same time, men who habitually oppose others can adjust their style to opt for less confrontation.

When we don't see style differences for what they are, we sometimes draw unfair conclusions: "You're illogical," "You're self- centered," "You don't care about me." But once we grasp the two characteristic approaches, we stand a better chance of preventing disagreements from spiraling out of control.

Learning the other's ways of talking is a leap across the communication gap between men and women, and a giant step towards genuine understanding.

The Ideas of Others

2008-08-26T15:37:00.000-07:00

Every once in a while people say some of the most profound things and luckily what they say jut happens to get written down for others to read. These are some of my favorite quotes. Feel free to add any of your favorites in the comments.

"Be who you are and say what you feel, because those who mind don't matter, and those who matter don't mind." -Dr. Seuss

"It is better to remain silent and be thought a fool than to open one's mouth and remove all doubt." -Abraham Lincoln

"Here's to the crazy ones. The misfits. The rebels. The troublemakers. The round heads in the square holes. The ones who see things differently. They're not fond of rules and they have no respect for the status quo. You can quote them, disagree with them, glorify them, or vilify them. But the only thing you can't do is ignore them. Because they change things. They push the human race forward. And some may see them as the crazy ones, we see genius. Because the people who are crazy enough to think they can change the world are the ones who do." -Jack Kerouac

"Sometimes we have to choose between what is right and what is easy." -Albus Dumbledore"

"Twenty years from now you will be more disappointed by the things that you didn't do than by the ones you did do. So throw off the bowlines. Sail away from the safe harbor. Catch the trade winds in your sails. Explore. Dream. Discover." -Mark Twain

"Nobody can make you feel inferior without your consent."
— Eleanor Roosevelt

"There is not any memory with less satisfaction than the memory of some temptation we resisted." - James Branch Cabell

"The important thing is this: to be able at any moment to sacrifice what we are for what we could become." -Charles Du Bos

"Age is not a particularly interesting subject. Anyone can get old. All you have to do is live long enough." - Groucho Marx

"In the future everyone will be famous for fifteen minutes." - Andy Warhol

"When the time comes to leave, just walk away and don't make a fuss."

"People in glass houses shouldn't throw stones and people in glass cities shouldn't fire missles."

"Artwork that is only about wanting to be famous will never make you famous. Fame is a by-product of doing something else. You don't go to a restaurant and order a meal because you want to have a shit." -Banksy

"you must be the change you wish to see in the world." -Gandhi

"The intuitive mind is a sacred gift and the rational mind is a faithful servant. We have created a society that honors the servant and forgets the gift." -Albert Einstein

"Man is least himself when he talks in his own person. Give him a mask, and he will tell you the truth" - Oscar Wilde

"Irony has only emergency use. Carried over time, it's the voice of the trapped who have learned to enjoy their cage." -Lewis Hyde

"Counting your time is not so important as making your time count."

"there's one thing worse than people talking about you, that's people not talking about you." -Oscar Wilde

"On Arturo Toscanini's 80th birthday, someone asked his son, Walter, what his father ranked as his most important achievement. The son replied, 'for him there can be no such thing. Whatever he happens to be doing at the moment is the biggest thing in his life - whether it is conducting a symphony or peeling an orange.'"
- Ardis Whitman
1905-1990, Writer and Lecturer

"Over time I've realized that you can only understand life backwards but you have to live it forwards."

"It's takin' whatever comes your way, the good AND the bad, that give life flavor. It's all the stuff rolled together that makes life worth livin'." -Animal Crossing: Wild World

"Friends: People who know you well, but like you anyway."

"2 rules to success in life. 1. Don't tell people everything you know."

"Modesty is the only sure bait when you angle for praise."-Lord Chesterfield

"Time is nature's way of making sure everything doesn't happen at once."

"Springtime is the land awakening. The March winds are the morning yawn." -Lewis Grizzard

"Laughter and tears are both responses to frustration and exhaustion. I myself prefer to laugh, since there is less cleaning up to do afterward." - Kurt Vonnegut

"Life is really simple, but we insist on making it complicated." - Confucius

"You have succeeded in life when all you really want is only what you really need." - Vernon Howard

"People are, if anything, more touchy about being thought silly than they are about being thought unjust." - E. B. White

"No one needs a smile as much as a person who fails to give one"

"Maturity is the ability to postpone self-gratification."

"Man is least himself when he talks in his own person. Give him a mask, and he will tell you the truth" - Oscar Wilde

"Age is not a particularly interesting subject. Anyone can get old. All you have to do is live long enough." - Groucho Marx

"Irony has only emergency use. Carried over time, it's the voice of the trapped who have learned to enjoy their cage." -Lewis Hyde

"Counting your time is not so important as making your time count."

"In the future everyone will be famous for fifteen minutes." - Andy Warhol

"On the whole human beings want to be good, but not too good, and not quite all the time." - George Orwell

"I don't wanna get lost in the ocean."

"There's no exception to the rule that everyone thinks they're an exception to the rule" - Banksy

"When the time comes to leave, just walk away and don't make a fuss."

"The intuitive mind is a sacred gift and the rational mind is a faithful servant. We have created a society that honors the servant and forgets the gift." -Albert Einstein

"there's one thing worse than people talking about you, that's people not talking about you." -Oscar Wilde

"The wise man asks himself the reason for his mistakes. The fool asks others."

Earth? Environmentalism is all about humankind.

2008-08-19T14:54:00.000-07:00

Biofuel laws, recycling, cleanup acts - presumably, environmentalism is all about saving the environment, yes? However, Jamais Cascio of How Can You Save The World offers a different point of view.

The Earth is a hunk of rock. Humans can do very little in endangering its existence, aside from blowing it in half with all our nukes or letting it get swallowed by a black hole created by the Large Hadron Collider.

The Earth cares very little to what we'll do to the environment. Whatever happens, the planet will go on, it will recover, and it will make new life long after we've messed up the environment so much that we can't live in it ourselves.

From that point of view, we can see how environmentalism isn't about the environment - it's about humans. The point of environmentalism is to preserve the current state of the environment, because once it shifts too much, then it's us that's in danger, and not necessarily the Earth.

Basically, that's the whole gist of Cascio's point, which is a sentiment I've long held for myself. So remember to recycle. You're saving the human race. You can read Cascio's entire view on the matter by following the source link below.

[Via How You Can Save The World]

Ultimate View of Fire and Flames on Drums

2008-08-09T15:15:00.000-07:00

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2a497Hom8Gg

holy crap. that's fast.

Bullshit

2008-08-07T15:25:00.000-07:00

Everyone lies: it's just a question of how, when and why. From the relationship saving "yes, you do look thin in those pants" to the improbable "your table will be ready in 5 minutes", manipulating the truth is part of the human condition. Accept it now.

I'm positive that given our irrational nature and difficultly accepting tough truths, we're collectively better off with some of our deceptions. They buffer us from each other (and from ourselves), avoid unnecessary conflicts, and keep the wonderful confusion of our psychologies tucked away from those who don't care. White lies are the spackle of civilization, tucked into the dirty corners and crevices our necessary, but pretentiously inflexible idealisms create. Small lies prop up and support our powerful truths, holding together the insanely half honest, half false chaos that spins the world.

But lies, serious lies, should not be encouraged as they destroy trust, the binding force in all relationships. One particularly troublesome kind of lie is known as Bullshit (BS). These are unnecessary deceptions, committed in the gray area between polite white lies and complete malicious fabrications. BS is usually defined as inventions made in ignorance of the facts, where the primary goal is to protect oneself. The aim of BS isn't to harm another person, although that often happens collaterally. For a variety of reasons BS can be hard to detect, which is why I'm offering this missive as a crash B.S. in BS detection. But be warned: to keep you on your toes there are several bits of BS tucked inside this essay which you will have to find for yourself.
Why people BS: a primer

The first lie in the Western canon comes from the same joyful tome as the first murders, wars and plagues: the Old Testament. Despite my distaste for trips into religious texts, this one has supreme tragicomic value.

To recap from the book of Genesis, God tells Adam and Eve not to eat fruit from the tree of knowledge, as pretty as it is, for they'll die. He wanders off to do some unexplained godlike things, as gods are prone to do, leaving the very tempting, and non pit-bull or electrified fence protected, tree out for all to see. Meanwhile Satan slinks by and convinces Eve apples are good: so she and Adam have an apple snack. God instantly returns, scolds Adam, who blames Eve; resulting in everyone, snakes, people and all, getting thrown out of Eden forever.

Please note that in this tale nearly everyone lied. God lied[1], or was deceptively ambiguous, about the apples (they weren't fatal), Satan misrepresents the apple's power, and Adam, approximates a lie in his wimpy finger pointing to Eve. It's a litany of deception and a cautionary tale: in any book that makes everyone look bad in just a few pages, is it really a surprise how the rest plays out?

People lie for three reasons; the first is to protect themselves. They may wish to protect something they want or need, a concept they cherish, or to prevent something they fear, like confrontation. There is often a clear psychological need motivating every lie.

A well known fib, "the dog ate my homework", fits the BS model. In the desperate fear driven attempt not to be caught, children's imaginations conceive amazing improbabilities. Fires, plagues, revolutions, curses, illnesses and absurd reinventions of the laws of physics and space-time have all been summoned by children around the world on the fateful mornings when they find themselves at school, sans-homework. It's an emotional experience, this need to BS: as logically speaking, the stress of inventing and maintaining a lie is rarely easier than accepting the consequences of the truth.

Which leads to the second reason people lie: sometimes it works. It's a gamble, but when it works, wow. Did you lie to your parents about girls, boys, fireworks, drugs, grades, or where you were till 2am on a school night? I sure did and still do. My parents still think I'm a famous painter / doctor / professor in London (shhh), and my best friend still believes his high school girlfriend and I didn't get it on every time I borrowed his car[2]. Even my ever faithful dog Butch used to lie, in his way, by liberating trash from a house-worth of garbage cans, then hiding in his bed, hoping his lack of proximity to the Jackson Pollock of refuse that was formerly my kitchen would be indistinguishable from innocence.

Which gives us the third reason people lie, a truth saints and sinners have known for ages: we want to be seen as better than we see ourselves. Sadly, comically, we also believe we're alone in both having this temptation, as well as the shame it brings with it (e.g. "We're not alone in feeling alone"). The secret truth is everyone has moments of weakness: times when fear and greed melt our brains and we're tempted to say the lies we wish were true. And for that reason the deepest honesty is found in people willing to admit to their lies, or their barely resisted temptations, and own the consequences. Not the pretense of the saints, who pretend, incomprehensibly, inhumanly, to never even have those urges at all.

What Makes People Tick?

2008-08-07T15:17:00.000-07:00

October 2nd, 2007 in Communication, Featured
Four Rules to Understand What Makes People Tick

Breaking down human behavior into rules might seem like a gross simplification. But even with the complexities, it is easy to fall into the same mistakes. I'd argue that many heated fights, lost sales and broken hearts are caused by a few critical errors. If you make the wrong assumptions, you've lost before you begin. By keeping in mind these rules, you can avoid repeating the same mistakes.

Rule One: People Mostly Care About Themselves

People aren't thinking about you. A damaging myth to buy into is believing the amount of time you think of yourself compares to the amount of time others think of you. In reality they are nowhere close. Take a look at this chart:

I've used this example before but I believe it deserves repeating. Take a look at the different slices of this chart. The biggest is the time you spend thinking about yourself. The second is the time spent thinking about relationships, but how they affect you. What does Julie think of me? Will my boss give me a raise or fire me? Do my friends respect me or just tolerate me?

Only a tiny sliver is devoted to empathy. Empathy is the rare occasion where you think through the perspective of another person. When I've discussed these ideas previously, many people argue I'm being far too generous with my chart. In reality that sliver is probably even smaller.

This means that you occupy only a tiny percentage of a persons thoughts. Waiting for people to invite you, becoming embarrassed at a minor faux-pas or emphasizing what others think of you come from failing to use this rule. Almost all people are far too self-absorbed to notice.

Rule Two: People are Motivated by Selfish Altruism

To say all behavior is strictly selfish would be misleading. It fails to account for acts of charity, ethics and why people don't just cheat, swindle and lie all the time. Selfish altruism is a broader category that covers why people do nice things as a way to get what they want.

By studying primates, researchers noticed four main categories of selfish altruism. I believe they are the same categories we use, even if slightly more sophisticated:

1. Dominance - Some primates will give help as a way of asserting dominance in the group. It is as if they are saying, "Look at how powerful I am that I can give some of my resources to help you."
2. Reciprocity - You scratch my back, I'll scratch yours. The idea is that I do a favor for you with the assumption it will be returned one day. If the cost to me is less than the benefit towards you, I might help you even if I can't predict an immediate payback.
3. Trade - If we both have something the other person wants, we have a reason to interact. While reciprocity is vague on the details of a payback, trade is direct.
4. Familial - It makes sense, from an evolutionary perspective, to help those who might share your genes.

By looking through this lens of selfish altruism, you can better make decisions. Viewing people as completely uncaring or selfish is incomplete. But expecting people to think of you constantly and do nice things for free is dangerous.

Rule Three: People Don't Think Much

I believe we drastically overestimate what we do intentionally. Subconscious patterns, environmental stimulus and programmed reflexes occur frequently, even if we later take credit for them.

The conscious mind is a relatively new addition to the human operating system. And it's been designed to cleverly take credit for a lot of decisions it doesn't really make. If someone asks you to be unbiased in making a decision, it is probably best to just laugh.

The implication of this is that appealing entirely to thoughts won't work. Since a bulk of decision making is made in the background, you need to target that background if you want to be influential. You don't need to be manipulative, just smart enough to recognize that snap judgments mean a lot and your communication is more than just words.

Rule Four: Conformity is the Norm

You become your environment. Uniqueness and individuality tend to warp to fit the people around you. This is true of other people as it is for yourself. It means you should be careful who you pick as friends, partners and colleagues.

This is why I believe it is important to keep a varied social group. When you interact with people from completely different backgrounds, beliefs and behaviors on a regular basis you are more likely to see different perspectives. This also means you have more control in picking who you want to be.

Applying the Four Rules

Here are some applications of these rules you might want to consider:

* What layers are you communicating with? If people are selfish, self-absorbed and fail to think much, just working on the words you use isn't enough. Everything about you is communicating something, and unless you get that message straight, the most persuasive argument won't win anyone over.
* Give reminders. Although some people are meticulously organized, most aren't. Give people the reminders they need so you don't get left out unintentionally.
* What's your social value? This isn't your worth as a person, but what you have to offer in terms of other peoples needs and wants. It is easy to get depressed about human issues, if you don't see the calculations behind it. Improve the value you offer and you can access the selfish altruism in us all.

[Via Four Rules To Understand What Makes People Tick]

Philosophy and maybe the proof of God’s existence?

2008-08-04T15:26:00.000-07:00

Can't remember where I read this but its interesting non-the-less.

One of the most far-reaching consequences of the rationalism of the Enlightenment was the undermining of basic Christian faith among the educated classes. The effect was unintended because the project of many Enlightenment philosophers was to prove the existence of God using reason: Descartes and Leibniz assumed that God's existence could be rationally proved, indeed God was a necessary part of their philosophy.

There are many traditional "proofs" for the existence of God, and we will look at three of them: The argument from design, the ontological argument and the cosmological argument.
Traditional "proofs" of God's Existence
1) The argument from Design.

If you found a clock and examined the mechanism within it, you would probably think that this intricate mechanism was not the outcome of mere chance, that it had been designed.

Now look at the universe; is it possible that such an intricate mechanism, from the orbits of planets round the sun to the cells in your fingernails could all have happened by chance? Surely, this enormously complex mechanism has been designed, and the being that designed it must be God.
2) The ontological argument

God is the perfect being. As He is most perfect, He must have all perfections. If God lacked existence He would not be perfect, as He is perfect he must exist.
3) The cosmological argument (God as "First cause")

Everything that exists has a cause. However, there must at some time have been a cause prior to all other causes. This 'prime mover' or first cause is necessary to explain existence. This first cause is God.
Pascal's Wager

The French mathematician Blaise Pascal (1623-62) put forward an argument that would appeal to agnostics. (An agnostic is someone who believes that it is impossible to prove God's existence.)

His argument goes something like this: God either exists or he does not. If we believe in God and he exists, we will be rewarded with eternal bliss in heaven. If we believe in God and he does not exist then at worst all we have forgone is a few sinful pleasures.

If we do not believe in God and he does exist we may enjoy a few sinful pleasures, but we may face eternal damnation. If we do not believe in God and he does not exist then our sins will not be punished.

Would any rational gambler think that the experience of a few sinful pleasures is worth the risk of eternal damnation?
Kant

Kant attempted to show how philosophy could prove the existence of God. Unfortunately, for him his previous work showed that we could not know reality directly as thing-in-itself. What is real in itself is beyond our experience. Even if God exists, we can not know God as he really is.

For Kant the Christian could have faith in God, and this faith would be consonant with reason and the categorical imperative. Given that human beings have the autonomy to create moral values, it would not be irrational to believe in a God who gives purpose to the moral realm.
Hegel

Hegel thought that the God of religion was an intuition of Absolute Spirit or Geist. Hegel's Geist is not like the transcendent (outside of our consciousness) God of traditional Christianity. For Hegel God is immanent and when we have understood that history is the process of Geist coming to know itself it appears that we are all part of Geist, or God.
Feuerbach and Marx

For Feuerbach and Marx religion is seen as the projection of the human essence onto an ideal: God does not make man. Rather "God" is the invention of human consciousness. Marx also sees that religion is part of an ideological view that encourages the oppressed to accept their fate. As he says: "Religion is the sigh of the oppressed creature, the sentiment of a heartless world, and the soul of soulless conditions. It is the opium of the people.

"The abolition of religion as the illusory happiness of men, is a demand for their real happiness. The call to abandon their illusions about their condition is a call to abandon a condition which requires illusions."
Søren Kierkegaard
Søren Kierkegaard (1813-1855) agreed with Kant that the existence of God could not be proven by reason. However Kierkegaard did not think that it was rational to believe in God, rather one should have faith in God even if this seems to reason to be absurd. To put it another way reason has no place in faith. God is beyond reason.

Kierkegaard is regarded as the first existentialist.
Nietzsche: The Death of God

"Have you not heard the madman who lit a lantern in the bright morning hours, ran to the market place and cried incessantly, 'I seek God!, I seek God!' ... Why, did he get lost? Said one. Did he lose his way like a child? Said another. Or is he hiding? Is he afraid of us? Has he gone on a voyage? Or emigrated?... The madman jumped into their midst and pierced them with his glances.

"'Whither is God'? He cried. 'I shall tell you. We have killed him - you and I. All of us are his murderers...'"

"...the madman fell silent and looked again at his listeners; and they to were silent and stared at him in astonishment. At last he threw his lantern on the ground, and it broke and went out. 'I came too early,' he said then; 'my time has not come yet. This tremendous event is still on its way, still wandering -it has not yet reached the ears of man."

In these passages Nietzsche is showing the inevitable unfolding anthropocentrism (lit. putting man at the centre of the world) implicit in philosophy since Kant. If we view our existence through human categories, then our concept of God is itself a human creation.

Nietzsche is not simply asserting his atheism; he is suggesting that once we are aware that the concept of God is our own creation we can no longer base our religious and moral beliefs on any notion of a divine external reality.

In the period that Nietzsche was writing, the death of God was just beginning. Western thought was starting to face the prospect of a radical change in its orientation, and it wasn't quite ready to own up to it yet.

Kierkegaard and Nietzsche represent opposite reactions to the inability of rationality to give a rock solid theoretical proof of God's existence. Kierkegaard calls for us to embrace God even if it seems an absurdity, while Nietzsche says it is time for us to create a new mode of being, with human creativity at its centre.

The atheist existentialist Sartre accepted God's death and much of his writing is attempt to look at the human condition in a world that is without a prime mover who could have provided a basis and structure for the understanding of being.
The twentieth century

Anglo American analytic philosophers of the twentieth century have tended to agree that philosophy may help us clarify religious concepts, without giving us a secure foundation for religious belief.

Many people claim to have had a religious experience, to have experienced the divine directly. This experience is direct and is of a different quality to sensory experience or intellectual discovery, and therefore outside of the scope of philosophy.

The view that the existence of God cannot be proved or disproved by philosophy has not stopped developments in modern theology. Theologians are attempting to balance the anthropocentric view of God presented by philosophers since the Enlightenment with the need to provide a spiritual path and a guide to an ethical and meaningful way of life.

I'm Voting Republican... No Not really... just read.

2008-07-31T15:27:00.000-07:00

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FiQJ9Xp0xxU

Ok. I'm not voting republican but this video is pretty funny. I always picture people like this when they tell me they vote republican or that they like bush. I know. There's actually people who like bush!

Some Moral/Ethical Dilemmas: Totally Messed Up Scenarios

2008-07-31T14:28:00.000-07:00

The following is a list of some moral dilemmas, mostly adapted from Moral Reasoning, by Victor Grassian (Prentice Hall, 1981, 1992), with a couple additions. The question to consider with all of these is why they are dilemmas. Some, however, may not seem to be dilemmas at all. Discussion of the dilemmas can be found at http://www.friesian.com/dilemma.htm

1. The Overcrowded Lifeboat

In 1842, a ship struck an iceberg and more than 30 survivors were crowded into a lifeboat intended to hold 7. As a storm threatened, it became obvious that the lifeboat would have to be lightened if anyone were to survive. The captain reasoned that the right thing to do in this situation was to force some individuals to go over the side and drown. Such an action, he reasoned, was not unjust to those thrown overboard, for they would have drowned anyway. If he did nothing, however, he would be responsible for the deaths of those whom he could have saved. Some people opposed the captain's decision. They claimed that if nothing were done and everyone died as a result, no one would be responsible for these deaths. On the other hand, if the captain attempted to save some, he could do so only by killing others and their deaths would be his responsibility; this would be worse than doing nothing and letting all die. The captain rejected this reasoning. Since the only possibility for rescue required great efforts of rowing, the captain decided that the weakest would have to be sacrificed. In this situation it would be absurd, he thought, to decide by drawing lots who should be thrown overboard. As it turned out, after days of hard rowing, the survivors were rescued and the captain was tried for his action. If you had been on the jury, how would you have decided?

2. A Father's Agonizing Choice

You are an inmate in a concentration camp. A sadistic guard is about to hang your son who tried to escape and wants you to pull the chair from underneath him. He says that if you don't he will not only kill your son but some other innocent inmate as well. You don't have any doubt that he means what he says. What should you do?

3. Sophie's Choice, not in Grassian.

In the novel Sophie's Choice, by William Styron (Vintage Books, 1976 -- the 1982 movie starred Meryl Streep & Kevin Kline), a Polish woman, Sophie Zawistowska, is arrested by the Nazis and sent to the Auschwitz death camp. On arrival, she is "honored" for not being a Jew by being allowed a choice: One of her children will be spared the gas chamber if she chooses which one. In an agony of indecision, as both children are being taken away, she suddenly does choose. They can take her daughter, who is younger and smaller. Sophie hopes that her older and stronger son will be better able to survive, but she loses track of him and never does learn of his fate. Did she do the right thing? Years later, haunted by the guilt of having chosen between her children, Sophie commits suicide. Should she have felt guilty?

4. The Fat Man and the Impending Doom, with parts cut out in the 2nd edition; they seem to have gotten removed to avoid unintentionally humorous overtones.

A fat man leading a group of people out of a cave on a coast is stuck in the mouth of that cave. In a short time high tide will be upon them, and unless he is unstuck, they will all be drowned except the fat man, whose head is out of the cave. [But, fortunately, or unfortunately, someone has with him a stick of dynamite.] There seems no way to get the fat man loose without using [that] dynamite which will inevitably kill him; but if they do not use it everyone will drown. What should they do?

Since the fat man is said to be "leading" the group, he is responsible for their predicament and reasonably should volunteer to be blown up. The dilemma becomes more acute if we substitute a pregnant woman for the fat man. She would have been urged by the others to go first out of the cave.

5. The Costly Underwater Tunnel, compare: 112 men were killed during the construction of Hoover Dam on the Nevada-Arizona border (the "official" number was 98, but others had died from causes more difficult to identify -- or easier to ignore -- like by carbon monoxide poisoning): The first was a surveyor, J.G. Tierney, who drowned on December 20, 1922, and the last was his son, Patrick Tierney, who drowned on December 20, 1935 -- 13 years to the day after his father. The working conditions in the summer down in the canyon involved temperatures hitting highs of 119o, with lows of no less than 95o (familiar numbers to those who have visited the cities of Needles, Blythe, or Yuma in the summer). In 1931, about the time that Hoover Dam, a federal project (with private contractors), was begun, the Empire State Building, a private project, was completed. Although the rule of thumb had been that one man would die for every story built in a skyscraper, which would have meant 120 dead for the Empire State Building, in fact only 5 men died in the whole project. By comparison, in the earlier (1908-1913) building of the Los Angeles Aqueduct by William Mulholland (d.1935), it was also the case that only 5 men died (though when Mulholland's St. Francis Dam, in Francisquito Canyon, collapsed in 1928, it killed over 500 people). The Golden Gate Bridge cost 14 lives (or 11 -- the rule of thumb there was one life for each $1,000,000 of the project, with the bridge costing $35,000.000 -- workers who fell and were caught by nets joined the "Half-Way to Hell Club"). The Alaska oil pipeline, built in the 1970's, cost 31 lives. The Tunnel under the English Channel, built in the early 1990's, cost 11 lives. When the Gateway Arch in St. Louis was being planned, the prediction was that 15 workers would die, but none did. Similarly, though much earlier (1927-1941), no one died during the carving of Mt. Rushmore (though workers may have died later from the effects of breathing dust from the carved rock -- this used to be a serious problem for miners, before they began flushing drill points with water). Even with such progress over time, the John Hancock Building in Chicago (1970) cost 109 lives, or, indeed, about one per floor, as predicted for the Empire State Building -- perhaps the infamous wind of Chicago made for more hazardous conditions. While it is usually ordinary workers who suffer in construction accidents, it isn't always, as was the case with the Brooklyn Bridge, whose designer, John Augustus Roebling, died in a ferry accident in 1869 while surveying the site. His son, Washington Roebling, suffered such a severe case of the bends, working in a pressurized caisson in 1872, that he supervised the rest of the construction crippled in bed, sending instructions through his wife, until the bridge was completed in 1883. Overall, 27 died on the Brooklyn Bridge, 3 from the bends (though, as with Hoover Dam, this may not count them all). It was many years before it was known what to do about this condition. Workers were still suffering from the bends when the Holland Tunnel was built in the 1920's. The chief engineer of the tunnel, Clifford Milburn Holland, died suddenly in 1924, aged 41, of "exhaustion." The tunnel, opened in 1927, was then named after him.
Railroad Safety
year billions of
passenger
miles fatalities
per billion
passenger
miles
1890 11.8 24.2
1900 16.0 15.5
1910 32.3 10.0
total deaths of employees,
1890-1917: 230,000
1920 47.4 4.8
1930 26.9 2.3
1939 22.7 1.8
1943 87.9 3.2
deaths increase during
World War II with the
temporary return of
obsolete equipment
1950 31.8 0.6
1970 10.8 0.07
The first tunnel under the Hudson, for the Pennsylvania Railroad, was begun in 1874; but construction was abandoned because of deaths, restarted, and not completed until 1908. All such bridges and tunnels eliminate the need for ferry boats. Even in recent years, ferry sinkings and accidents are common, and they still sometimes result in the deaths of hundreds of people at a time. Even New York's famous Staten Island Ferry is not immune. On October 15, 2003, the pilot on one of the Ferry's ships passed out (he was diabetic), and it crashed into a pier at Staten Island. Eleven people were killed and 71 were injured, some with severed limbs. I had just ridden the Ferry that summer, and I noticed that many people stand right on the edge of the vessel as it approaches the dock. That was not a place to be in the accident. The captain of the ferry, who was not at his required station, in the pilot house, at the time of the accident, subsequently committed suicide. In the table we see the rate of fatalities on American railroads over time. The 230,000 deaths between 1890 and 1917 averages out to about 8500 per year. This seems excessive and appalling, but we might compare it with recent traffic fatalities, which have been above 40,000 per year for every since since 1962, except for 1992. Between 1966 and 1974, deaths were actually above 50,000 a year. This constant absolute rate of fatalities nevertheless reflects improvement, since the population of the country has grown greatly during the period, and the vehicle miles travelled have increased from 805,000 in 1963 to 2,880,000 in 2003. So the rate of fatalities has fallen significantly. Meanwhile, railroad fatalities have become rare. Part of that is the circumstance that the number of railroad employees has fallen from some 2 million in 1920 to only 177,000 in 2004. A train that used to require a large crew (including multiple brakemen) now may only be driven by two.

An underwater tunnel is being constructed despite an almost certain loss of several lives [actually, all but certain]. Presumably the expected loss is a calculated cost that society is prepared to pay for having the tunnel ["society" doesn't make any such calculation]. At a critical moment when a fitting must be lowered into place, a workman is trapped in a section of the partly laid tunnel. If it is lowered, it will surely crush the trapped workman to death. Yet, if it is not and a time consuming rescue of the workman is attempted, the tunnel will have to be abandoned and the whole project begun anew. Two workmen have already died in the project as a result of anticipated and unavoidable conditions in the building of the tunnel. What should be done? Was it a mistake to begin the tunnel in the first place? But don't we take such risks all the time?

We can get some clarity about this example by asking what the police would do if they are informed that the work foreman has authorized the deliberate crushing of a worker.
6. Jean Valjean's Conscience, with some comments; see the 1998 movie, Les Miserables, with Liam Neeson, Uma Thurman, and Geoffrey Rush.

In Victor Hugo's Les Miserables, the hero, Jean Valjean, is an ex-convict, living illegally under an assumed name and wanted for a robbery he committed many years ago. [Actually, no -- he is only wanted for breaking parole.] Although he will be returned to the galleys -- probably [in fact, actually] for life -- if he is caught, he is a good man who does not deserve to be punished. He has established himself in a town, becoming mayor and a public benefactor. One day, Jean learns that another man, a vagabond, has been arrested for a minor crime and identified as Jean Valjean. Jean is first tempted to remain quiet, reasoning to himself that since he had nothing to do with the false identification of this hapless vagabond, he has no obligation to save him. Perhaps this man's false identification, Jean reflects, is "an act of Providence meant to save me." Upon reflection, however, Jean judges such reasoning "monstrous and hypocritical." He now feels certain that it is his duty to reveal his identity, regardless of the disastrous personal consequences. His resolve is disturbed, however, as he reflects on the irreparable harm his return to the galleys will mean to so many people who depend upon him for their livelihood -- especially troubling in the case of a helpless woman and her small child to whom he feels a special obligation. He now reproaches himself for being too selfish, for thinking only of his own conscience and not of others. The right thing to do, he now claims to himself, is to remain quiet, to continue making money and using it to help others. The vagabond, he comforts himself, is not a worthy person, anyway. Still unconvinced and tormented by the need to decide, Jean goes to the trial and confesses. Did he do the right thing?

7. A Callous Passerby

Roger Smith, a quite competent swimmer, is out for a leisurely stroll. During the course of his walk he passes by a deserted pier from which a teenage boy who apparently cannot swim has fallen into the water. The boy is screaming for help. Smith recognizes that there is absolutely no danger to himself if he jumps in to save the boy; he could easily succeed if he tried. Nevertheless, he chooses to ignore the boy's cries. The water is cold and he is afraid of catching a cold -- he doesn't want to get his good clothes wet either. "Why should I inconvenience myself for this kid," Smith says to himself, and passes on. Does Smith have a moral obligation to save the boy? If so, should he have a legal obligation ["Good Samaritan" laws] as well?

8. The Last Episode of Seinfeld, not in Grassian.

The cast of Seinfeld, Jerry, Elaine, George, and Kramer, have a layover in a small New England town. They witness a robbery in broad daylight. The robber has his hand in his pocket, and the victim shouts that the man has a gun. As soon as the robber runs away, a policeman appears on the scene; but instead of pursuing the robber, he arrests Jerry, Elaine, George, and Kramer for having violated the new "Good Samaritan" law of the town. Since the four of them spent the time of the robbery making fun of the victim, who was fat, their role in the matter doesn't look good, and at their trial everyone who has ever felt wronged by them in the course of the television series testifies against them. They are convicted. Is this just? What were they supposed to do during the robbery? Should they have rushed the robber, just in case he didn't really have a gun?

9. A Poisonous Cup of Coffee, with Jane and Debbie added for the sake of gender equality.

Tom[/Jane], hating his[/her] wife[/husband] and wanting her[/him] dead, puts poison in her[/his] coffee, thereby killing her[/him]. Joe[/Debbie] also hates his[/her] wife[/husband] and would like her[/him] dead. One day, Joe's[/Debbie's] wife[/husband] accidentally puts poison in her[/his] coffee, thinking it's cream. Joe[/Debbie] has the antidote, but he[/she] does not give it to her[/him]. Knowing that he[/she] is the only one who can save her[/him], he[/she] lets her[/him] die. Is Joe's[/Debbie's] failure to act as bad as Tom's[/Jane's] action?

10. The Torture of the Mad Bomber. cf. the use of torture in Clint Eastwood's movie, Dirty Harry (1971), somewhat comically in Sin City (2005), and then in extended, serious, and graffic fashion in Man on Fire (2004). After 9/11/01, we have the case of terrorist suspects who may know of planned operations that could cost the lives of thousands. The otherwise four-square civil libertarian and Harvard Law Professor Alan Dershowitz has actually suggested legalized torture to deal with such people. This early complacency about torture seems to have been followed mostly by objections that some kind of torture was used by U.S. forces in Iraq and by U.S. allies (Egypt, Pakistan, etc.).

A madman who has threatened to explode several bombs in crowded areas has been apprehended. Unfortunately, he has already planted the bombs and they are scheduled to go off in a short time. It is possible that hundreds of people may die. The authorities cannot make him divulge the location of the bombs by conventional methods. He refuses to say anything and requests a lawyer to protect his fifth amendment right against self-incrimination. In exasperation, some high level official suggests torture. This would be illegal, of course, but the official thinks that it is nevertheless the right thing to do in this desperate situation. Do you agree? If you do, would it also be morally justifiable to torture the mad bomber's innocent wife if that is the only way to make him talk? Why?

In the judicial system of Imperial China, torture was technically illegal but tolerated because no one could be convicted without a confession. Torture could then be used with these provisions: (1) Questioning could only be done in open court. Since torture would then be administered in public, the public should agree, from the evidence, that the suspect is probably guilty. If it appeared that an innocent person was being tortured, a riot might result. The Judge, who was also the Magistrate of his administrative District, would be held responsible for the civil disturbance. (2) Punishment would be mitigated in proportion to any suffering inflicted by torture. And, most importantly, (3) if it turned out that an innocent person was convicted, the punishment he suffered could be imposed on the Judge. This was called , "reversed judgment." I think that this is a fine legal principle -- where with us misbehavior by judges, prosecutors, or police is generally not liable to criminal sanction. A person not even under oath lying to a federal agent is guilty of a crime, but prosecutors can lie in court and the police can lie to suspects with impunity. The Chinese legal system is discussed and illustrated by the Dutch diplomat and scholar Robert van Gulik in his Judge Dee books.

11. The Principle of Psychiatric Confidentiality, cf. the 1997 movie, Devil's Advocate, and the 1993 movie, The Firm, on confidentiality between lawyers and clients.

You are a psychiatrist and your patient has just confided to you that he intends to kill a woman. You're inclined to dismiss the threat as idle, but you aren't sure. Should you report the threat to the police and the woman or should you remain silent as the principle of confidentiality between psychiatrist and patient demands? Should there be a law that compels you to report such threats?

12. The Partiality of Friendship

Jim has the responsibility of filling a position in his firm. His friend Paul has applied and is qualified, but someone else seems even more qualified. Jim wants to give the job to Paul, but he feels guilty, believing that he ought to be impartial. That's the essence of morality, he initially tells himself. This belief is, however, rejected, as Jim resolves that friendship has a moral importance that permits, and perhaps even requires, partiality in some circumstances. So he gives the job to Paul. Was he right?

13. The Value of a Promise, Compare with the role of David Cash in the murder of Sherrice Iverson by Jeremy Strohmeyer. Under Nevada law, Cash was not charged simply for concealing knowledge of Strohmeyer's crime. To be an accessory after the fact, he would have needed to have done something (a wrong of commission) to otherwise help Strohmeyer. Later, when he was admitted to the University of California, there was protest over his moral suitability.

A friend confides to you that he has committed a particular crime and you promise never to tell. Discovering that an innocent person has been accused of the crime, you plead with your friend to give himself up. He refuses and reminds you of your promise. What should you do? In general, under what conditions should promises be broken?

In October 1990, Jeffrey Cain was killed in a road rage shooting in Anchorage, Alaska. When George Kerr informed on the friends who had done the shooting, he said, "I usually wouldn't rat out my friends, but this is just so severe I got to do it." "Just so severe" is the issue. After their conviction, the friends arranged from prison, in a conspiracy including the pregnant sister of one defendant, to have a bomb sent to Kerr's house. Kerr wasn't home, and the bomb killed his father. All the conspirators, including the sister, were convicted of the murder.

14. The Perjured President, not in Grassian. Note that the issue here, although the politics is somewhat dated, is over the use of sexual harrassment laws. The support of the Paula Jones lawsuit by Catherine MacKinnon -- "When Paul Jones sued Bill Clinton, male dominance quaked" -- seemed merely to result in the marginalization of MacKinnon from elite opinion -- her earlier Stalinism and anhedonic political moralism had not been sufficient. Clinton continues to be treated as a serious political influence, appearing extensively in television promotions for California Proposition 87 in the 2006 election. That the proposition failed should cause some enthusiasts to reevaluate Clinton's influence.

A long time Governor of a Southern State is elected President of the United States on a platform that includes strong support for laws against sexual harassment. After he is in office, it comes out that he may have used State Troopers, on duty to protect him as Governor, to pick up women for him. One of the women named in the national press stories as having been brought to the Governor for sex felt defamed because she had actually rebuffed his crude advances, even though he had said that he knew her boss -- she was a State employee. She decides to clear her name by suing the now President for sexual harassment. The Supreme Court allows the suit to proceed against the sitting President. Because the sexual harassment laws have been recently expanded, with the President's agreement, to allow testimony about the history of sexual conduct of the accused harasser, the President is questioned under oath about rumors of an affair with a young White House intern. He strongly denies that any sexual relationship had ever taken place, and professes not to remember if he was even ever alone with the intern. Later, incontrovertible evidence is introduced -- the President's own semen on the intern's dress -- that establishes the existence of the rumored sexual relationship. The President then finally admits only to an ambiguous "improper relationship." So the dilemma is: Is it hypocritical of the President and his supporters to continued to support the sexual harassment and perjury laws if they do not want him to be subject to the ordinary penalties for breaking them? Or, are the political purposes of the President's supporters in keeping him in office more important than this?

Copyright (c) 1999, 2002, 2003, 2005, 2006, 2007, 2008 Kelley L. Ross, Ph.D. All Rights Reserved

Does anyone actually read my blogs?

2008-07-24T15:30:00.000-07:00

Current mood: contemplative

I write blogs because I like to write about random stuff or post what others have written that I thought was awesome but does anyone actually read my blog?

How to Write With Style - by: Kurt Vonnegut

2008-07-23T15:31:00.000-07:00

Newspaper reporters and technical writers are trained to reveal almost nothing about themselves in their writings. This makes them freaks in the world of writers, since almost all of the other ink-stained wretches in that world reveal a lot about themselves to readers. We call these revelations, accidental and intentional, elements of style.

These revelations tell us as readers what sort of person it is with whom we are spending time. Does the writer sound ignorant or informed, stupid or bright, crooked or honest, humorless or playful-- ? And on and on.

Why should you examine your writing style with the idea of improving it? Do so as a mark of respect for your readers, whatever you're writing. If you scribble your thoughts any which way, your readers will surely feel that you care nothing about them. They will mark you down as an egomaniac or a chowderhead --- or, worse, they will stop reading you.

The most damning revelation you can make about yourself is that you do not know what is interesting and what is not. Don't you yourself like or dislike writers mainly for what they choose to show you or make you think about? Did you ever admire an emptyheaded writer for his or her mastery of the language? No.

So your own winning style must begin with ideas in your head.

1. Find a subject you care about

Find a subject you care about and which you in your heart feel others should care about. It is this genuine caring, and not your games with language, which will be the most compelling and seductive element in your style.

I am not urging you to write a novel, by the way --- although I would not be sorry if you wrote one, provided you genuinely cared about something. A petition to the mayor about a pothole in front of your house or a love letter to the girl next door will do.

2. Do not ramble, though

I won't ramble on about that.

3. Keep it simple

As for your use of language: Remember that two great masters of language, William Shakespeare and James Joyce, wrote sentences which were almost childlike when their subjects were most profound. "To be or not to be?" asks Shakespeare's Hamlet. The longest word is three letters long. Joyce, when he was frisky, could put together a sentence as intricate and as glittering as a necklace for Cleopatra, but my favorite sentence in his short story "Eveline" is this one: "She was tired." At that point in the story, no other words could break the heart of a reader as those three words do.

Simplicity of language is not only reputable, but perhaps even sacred. The Bible opens with a sentence well within the writing skills of a lively fourteen-year-old: "In the beginning God created the heaven and the earth."

4. Have guts to cut

It may be that you, too, are capable of making necklaces for Cleopatra, so to speak. But your eloquence should be the servant of the ideas in your head. Your rule might be this: If a sentence, no matter how excellent, does not illuminate your subject in some new and useful way, scratch it out.

5. Sound like yourself

The writing style which is most natural for you is bound to echo the speech you heard when a child. English was Conrad's third language, and much that seems piquant in his use of English was no doubt colored by his first language, which was Polish. And lucky indeed is the writer who has grown up in Ireland, for the English spoken there is so amusing and musical. I myself grew up in Indianapolis, where common speech sounds like a band saw cutting galvanized tin, and employs a vocabulary as unornamental as a monkey wrench.

In some of the more remote hollows of Appalachia, children still grow up hearing songs and locutions of Elizabethan times. Yes, and many Americans grow up hearing a language other than English, or an English dialect a majority of Americans cannot understand.

All these varieties of speech are beautiful, just as the varieties of butterflies are beautiful. No matter what your first language, you should treasure it all your life. If it happens to not be standard English, and if it shows itself when your write standard English, the result is usually delightful, like a very pretty girl with one eye that is green and one that is blue.

I myself find that I trust my own writing most, and others seem to trust it most, too, when I sound most like a person from Indianapolis, which is what I am. What alternatives do I have? The one most vehemently recommended by teachers has no doubt been pressed on you, as well: to write like cultivated Englishmen of a century or more ago.

6. Say what you mean

I used to be exasperated by such teachers, but am no more. I understand now that all those antique essays and stories with which I was to compare my own work were not magnificent for their datedness or foreignness, but for saying precisely what their authors meant them to say. My teachers wished me to write accurately, always selecting the most effective words, and relating the words to one another unambiguously, rigidly, like parts of a machine. The teachers did not want to turn me into an Englishman after all. They hoped that I would become understandable --- and therefore understood. And there went my dream of doing with words what Pablo Picasso did with paint or what any number of jazz idols did with music. If I broke all the rules of punctuation, had words mean whatever I wanted them to mean, and strung them together higgledy-piggledy, I would simply not be understood. So you, too, had better avoid Picasso-style or jazz-style writing, if you have something worth saying and wish to be understood.

Readers want our pages to look very much like pages they have seen before. Why? This is because they themselves have a tough job to do, and they need all the help they can get from us.

7. Pity the readers

They have to identify thousands of little marks on paper, and make sense of them immediately. They have to read, an art so difficult that most people don't really master it even after having studied it all through grade school and high school --- twelve long years.

So this discussion must finally acknowledge that our stylistic options as writers are neither numerous nor glamorous, since our readers are bound to be such imperfect artists. Our audience requires us to be sympathetic and patient readers, ever willing to simplify and clarify --- whereas we would rather soar high above the crowd, singing like nightingales.

That is the bad news. The good news is that we Americans are governed under a unique Constitution, which allows us to write whatever we please without fear of punishment. So the most meaningful aspect of our styles, which is what we choose to write about, is utterly unlimited.

8. For really detailed advice

For a discussion of literary style in a narrower sense, in a more technical sense, I recommend to your attention The Elements of Style, by William Strunk, Jr. and E.B. White. E.B. White is, of course, one of the most admirable literary stylists this country has so far produced.

You should realize, too, that no one would care how well or badly Mr. White expressed himself, if he did not have perfectly enchanting things to say.

In Sum:

1. Find a subject you care about

2. Do not ramble, though

3. Keep it simple

4. Have guts to cut

5. Sound like yourself

6. Say what you mean

7. Pity the readers

The Dark Knight

2008-07-18T15:33:00.000-07:00

Wow. How awesome was the Dark Knight? "Pretty awesome", I would say.

Ambivalence

2008-06-17T15:40:00.000-07:00

Current mood: Ambivalent

I always hear that the best writers write about what they know and their experiences. Unfortunately, I don't think twenty-two years of living have provided me with as much knowledge or experiences has I would like. I mean, don't get me wrong, I can discuss string theory or recognize the motifs and themes from any John Steinbeck book, but to assume that I have learned an adequate amount of life lessons to decide that what I believe is "absolute truth" is actually very far-flung from the truth.

After staring at my computer screen for hours, trying to compile a sincere belief from my thoughts, I realized that I really like the word "Ambivalence". The most important decisions are not decided recklessly but happen rather as a ongoing process while balancing between both sides. I won't denounce ambivalence or pass it off as simple uncertainty. Instead, I'll use it as an advantage. Ambivalence is useful when I'm buying stuff, for instance it helps me decide if the latest new expensive gadget is truly worth the money. Unfortunately, it creates a difficult situation in class when I'm deciding which multiple choice answer is right… But in general, it has allowed me to make choices that I am proud of.

There is no trophy for the student who can figure out how they are going to live the rest of their life the quickest. The last few years or so have been a bumpy road of friends and family pressuring me to decide on a major, a career, relationships, a life for myself. I would fly through ideas like flicking through the pages of a catalogue.

So many things sounded interesting but nothing completely fit me. I became a second guesser, which led everybody to think that I was incapable of figuring anything out. Being extremely indecisive is not the best quality to have. It's not like it's a puzzle in which I couldn't piece together, it was as if I just needed more time to think about everything. Unfortunately, college procedure doesn't wait for anybody and I made a few dumb decisions. I've also made an attempt to leave myself plenty of opportunities to change my mind. I think there's no reason for you to feel stuck in a decision that you've made for yourself.

Ambivalence has taught me to acknowledge my regular change of mind. Ambivalence makes use of doubt to its advantages and forces me to really search my thoughts for what feels right. I encourage every person to acknowledge his or her ambivalent qualities. Maybe we shouldn't push the thoughts of sadness with a life decision to the back of our heads. Instead we should embrace these thoughts because they have the ability to free us and allow us to achieve what we feel is most important at the time. Ambivalence can let me live my life day by day instead of feeling stuck in the choices I make.

Sometimes something small can be huge

2008-06-13T15:41:00.000-07:00

Current mood: hopeful

We don't always know how our actions will affect other people. We do know, however, that our actions will have some sort of an effect and, if we've made good choices, hopefully a positive one. This is a huge responsibility, but it is also a wonderful opportunity. One small, seemingly insignificant act on the part of one person can make a huge difference in the life of another. It may even save the other's life. Seriously.

Dalai Lama’s 18 rules for living

2008-06-08T18:27:00.000-07:00

Current mood: contemplative

At the start of the new millennium the Dalai Lama apparently issued eighteen rules for living. Thought i'd post the here because I found them interesting.

1. Take into account that great love and great achievements involve great risk.
2. When you lose, don't lose the lesson.
3. Follow the three Rs:
1. Respect for self
2. Respect for others
3. Responsibility for all your actions.
4. Remember that not getting what you want is sometimes a wonderful stroke of luck.
5. Learn the rules so you know how to break them properly.
6. Don't let a little dispute injure a great friendship.
7. When you realize you've made a mistake, take immediate steps to correct it.
8. Spend some time alone every day.
9. Open your arms to change, but don't let go of your values.
10. Remember that silence is sometimes the best answer.
11. Live a good, honourable life. Then when you get older and think back, you'll be able to enjoy it a second time.
12. A loving atmosphere in your home is the foundation for your life.
13. In disagreements with loved ones, deal only with the current situation. Don't bring up the past.
14. Share your knowledge. It's a way to achieve immortality.
15. Be gentle with the earth.
16. Once a year, go someplace you've never been before.
17. Remember that the best relationship is one in which your love for each other exceeds your need for each other.
18. Judge your success by what you had to give up in order to get it.

Lifting the Lid on the Science of Persuasion

2008-06-06T18:29:00.000-07:00

Current mood: blank

Very Interesting article I found on the web:

Cajole your boss into giving you a raise, win someone round to your point of view, or persuade your partner it's their turn to put out the trash - getting people to do what you want can be very handy. Persuasion is a key element of all human interaction, from politics to marketing to everyday dealings with friends, family and colleagues. "Persuasion is a basic form of social interaction," says Eric Knowles, emeritus professor of psychology at the University of Arkansas in Fayetteville. "It is the way we build consensus and a common purpose."

Unfortunately persuasion is both notoriously difficult to pull off and almost impossible to resist when done well. Psychologists have long been fascinated by persuasion - why some people are more persuasive than others and why some strategies work where others fail. Over the next six pages we bring together some recent insights into the science of persuasion.

For those who don't want to be persuaded, there are lessons here too. Knowing the strategies charmers and advertisers adopt can help you resist their guile.
1 Be a mimic

WHEN you're aware of it, it's one of the most infuriating behaviours imaginable. Yet mimic someone's mannerisms subtly - their head and hand movements, posture and so forth - and it can be one of the most powerful forms of persuasion. That's the conclusion of a number of recent studies.

William Maddux at the INSEAD business school in Fontainebleau, France, explored the effect of mimicry on 166 students in two role-play experiments, one involving negotiation between job candidates and recruiters, the second between buyers and sellers (Journal of Experimental Social Psychology, vol 44, p 461). In both cases, the outcome of negotiations was better for the would-be persuaders when they employed subtle mimicry. For example, in the buyer-seller experiment, 67 per cent of sellers who mimicked their target secured a sale, as opposed to 12.5 per cent of those who did not.

Another study by Robin Tanner at Duke University in Durham, North Carolina, asked students to discuss a new soft drink with sales reps (both the reps and the drink were fictitious, though the students did not know this). Half of the reps were instructed to mimic the physical and verbal behaviour of half of the students they spoke to.

These "chameleon" reps elicited more positive ratings of the drink, and volunteers they mimicked consumed more of it during the chat. "Ours is the first study to show that mimicry can essentially enhance persuasion in interpersonal interactions," says Tanner. Intriguingly, people felt especially positive about the drink and its market prospects when the mimic explicitly stated their vested interest in the success of the drink (Journal of Consumer Research, vol 34, p 754).

It is possible, though, that the reps in the "no mimicry" group subconsciously resorted to mimicry. Jeremy Bailenson and Nick Yee of Stanford University got round this by using virtual reality avatars. They asked 61 students to watch and listen to an avatar arguing that students should carry ID cards at all times - an unpopular proposal. For one group, the avatar moved in a pre-programmed human-like way. In the other, computers tracked the students' head movements, which the avatar mimicked after a 4-second delay (previous studies suggested a delay of 2 to 4 seconds works best). Students who had been mimicked were more likely to respond favourably.

But be warned, overt mimicry can backfire on the mimic, or at least be very embarrassing if detected, says Tanner. "It's far from a free shot at persuasiveness."

The crucial factors are: be subtle, leave a delay and, whatever you do, if you think there's even the slightest chance you've been rumbled, stop.
2 Look at it this way...

IF YOU want to bring people round to your point of view, try "framing", a favourite tactic of spin doctors. "Framing is about leading people to think about an issue or opinion in a way that is advantageous to you," explains George Bizer of Union College in Schenectady, New York. "For example, opponents of inheritance taxes prefer to frame them as 'death taxes'."

Framing is a key tactic in election campaigns, so Bizer wanted to see whether voters were more or less persuadable to change their views when asked to frame them in different ways.

He asked 69 undergraduates to read an article about two fictitious candidates' views and policies (one candidate, Rick, was conservative, while the other, Chris, was liberal). Half of the students had to choose between the two statements: either "I support Rick" or "I oppose Rick"; the other half chose between equivalent statements about Chris. Participants also rated their preference for both candidates on a sliding scale from "strongly support" to "strongly oppose".

They then read another article, this time arguing against the merits of their preferred candidate, and then had their opinions reassessed. Overall, people whose preference for a candidate had been expressed in terms of opposition to the other candidate were less likely to modify their opinions (Political Psychology, vol 26, p 553). "A simple change in framing - leading people to think of their evaluations in terms of whom they oppose instead of whom they support - leads to stronger, more resistant opinions," says Bizer.

These findings fit with a broad body of research suggesting that negative information frequently has a more powerful influence than positive messages. So if you want to sway someone when they choose between two options, a good tactic is to be negative about the option you don't want them to pick.
3 Less is more

IN MOST battles, outnumbering your opponent will hand you victory, and it would seem common sense that the more arguments you can call on, the more persuasive you'll be. Yet, the evidence suggests otherwise. A number of studies have revealed that the more reasons people are asked to come up with in support of an idea, the less value they ascribe to each. The result: asking people to "think of all the reasons why this is a good idea" is likely to backfire, and may serve to harden their views.

Zakary Tormala and Richard Petty of Ohio State University, working with Pablo Briñol at the Autonomous University of Madrid in Spain, demonstrated the effect in 2002. The researchers told 59 university students that there was a plan to introduce new exams into their courses - an unwelcome prospect. They then asked half the students to produce two reasons why this was a bad idea, and the other half eight reasons. On average, students who supplied just two arguments against the proposal were subsequently more opposed to the exam policy than those who gave eight.

Tormala and colleagues argue that the ease with which we can summon up thoughts affects how much confidence we place in them, and it is generally easier to think of two reasons for believing something rather than eight. This finding has some clear practical implications. "If you want to persuade people by getting them to think positively about your message, idea, product or whatever, ask them to generate just a few positive thoughts - three at most - because that's easy and they'll feel confident about their positive thoughts," says Tormala.

Conversely, next time you're in an argument, avoid the temptation to spin the "give me one good reason" line; it'll only strengthen your adversary's hand.
4 Grind them down

HUNGER is a powerful thing, but how many times have you reached for a quick snack, only to regret it when it's lying heavily in your stomach? Just as your standards for food quality can slip when your stomach is empty, so you should avoid engaging in argument or doing battle with sales people when your mental batteries are running low. Conversely, if you're trying to be persuasive, strike when your target is running low on mental energy.

Edward Burkley of Oklahoma State University in Stillwater studied the impact of cognitive exhaustion on the resistance levels of 78 students. The plan was to try to convince them to accept one month's summer holiday instead of three. Half the students came to the study fresh. But the other half first had to complete a self-control task in which they wrote down all thoughts that came into their heads while suppressing any thoughts about a white bear.

This task, Burkey argued, would use up some of their reserves of self-control. He found that the students who had performed the white bear task were less resistant to the idea of giving up two months of holiday.

Burkley also studied the flip side of this effect. He asked a different group of 72 students to rate the plan to shorten their holidays. Half were told it would be implemented within two years, making it personally relevant. The other half were told it would not be implemented for 10 years. He wanted to test the hypothesis that students presented with the two-year scenario would use up more of their mental resources, because they would be more motivated to argue against that unwelcome suggestion.

The students then had to try to complete an (unbeknown to them) unsolvable puzzle - a technique commonly used in such studies to measure how much self-control a person has. On average, students in the 10-year group persisted for more than a minute longer before giving up, suggesting they were less mentally exhausted than those in the two-year group (Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin, vol 34, p 419).

Of course, there is a form of mental exhaustion that doesn't require thought: nag them into submission. Children have got this technique sussed, says Burkley.
5 The medium is the means

IN THIS fast-paced world, we seldom have time for face-to-face meetings. You are just as likely to conduct your personal and business negotiations by email, or some other electronic medium, as you are in person. How does this impact your powers of persuasion?

The question intrigued Rosanna Guadagno of the University of Alabama and Robert Cialdini of Arizona State University, who have been comparing the persuasive power of online communication with face-to-face meetings.

In a study published in 2002, Guadagno and Cialdini had a group of students discuss the introduction of new exams (Group Dynamics: Theory, Research and Practice, vol 6, p 38). The group was split into same-sex couples. Unbeknown to the subjects, each pair included an accomplice of the experimenters whose role was to provide arguments in favour of the idea. Half the discussions took place in an online chatroom, the other half sat face-to-face.

While overall men rated the proposals similarly whether they participated in the electronic or face-to-face sessions, women in face-to-face sessions rated them more highly than those who only took part online. Guadagno and Cialdini suggest this is because groups of women tend to form communal bonds and reach agreement. Electronic communication disrupts the exchange of social cues women use to establish a communal bond and is therefore less conducive to persuasion.

On the other hand, groups of men typically try to establish their competence and independence, which can lead to competitive encounters. When two men who have not met before debate a point, online interaction is about as effective and persuasive as face-to-face.

But if they have met and had a competitive exchange, subsequent face-to-face meetings are less productive, whereas online exchanges fare far better. So while online communication can prevent women "connecting", it can help men suppress competitive urges that hamper persuasion.

So, if you're a woman and want to persuade other women you'd be better off meeting face-to-face, while men are less confrontational if contacted by email. The researchers are now studying these effects in mixed couples.
6 Style over substance

IT WAS midnight when the knock came at the door. It was "Paul", a "neighbour", who'd "just moved in". He spoke non-stop, without pause or hesitation, detailing a problem with a truck that had run out of gas and his need for $20, which he would, of course, return first thing in the morning. Later, Kurt often looked back and wondered just how it was he got taken in so easily.

"Paul" was a master of his craft: Kurt later learned that four other people on the street had also been taken in by the con.

Maybe we shouldn't be so surprised when things like this happen. Persuasion, it turns out, may have as much to do with how you say something as what you're saying. And the less time you're allowed to think about the content, the more the style of delivery matters. At least, those are the findings of two marketing professors who decided to tease style and substance apart.

John Sparks at the University of Dayton in Ohio and Charles Areni at the University of Sydney, Australia, knew from earlier work on courtroom transcripts that people equated certain kinds of speech with lack of credibility. In particular, hesitant phrases such as "I mean", "you know" and "isn't it?" reduced a speaker's power. But no one had looked at the exact relationship between style and content.

The researchers asked 118 undergraduates to read a transcript of a testimonial about a scanner. In one version, the speaker used hesitations like "I mean" and "ummm"; in the other, he used none. They also gave half the students enough time to read it thoroughly, while the others got just 20 seconds, to see how limiting a person's understanding of the substance would alter the persuasiveness of the style.

The researchers found that in both versions style was important. When hesitant language was used, people were less easily convinced that this was a scanner worth buying - even when it was a better scanner at a lower price. Style was especially important, the researchers found, when time was limited (Journal of Applied Social Psychology, vol 38, p 37). "If you can't pay attention to what the speaker is saying," Sparks says, "you pay attention to how they say it."

So take a lesson from Paul, the conman. If you want to be persuasive, don't stumble, pause or use language that shows hesitation. And for goodness sake, don't give your listeners time to think about what you're really saying.
7 Get them angry

ANGERING people may seem like an odd way to go about persuading them, but according to Monique Mitchell Turner, a communications professor at the University of Maryland, College Park, it is seriously underrated as a tool of persuasion.

Much study has gone into how emotions aid persuasion. The best known and most studied is fear. It serves well in campaigns that try to steer you clear of certain activities, like smoking or unprotected sex.

But fear doesn't always work, says Turner, and over time, people become more resistant to scare tactics. The same applies to guilt. It can be effective (think of maternal guilt), but not once people clue into the fact they're being manipulated. Worse, it has to be carefully calibrated: too much and people resist. "We don't want people telling us we're bad people," says Turner.

Anger is different. For one thing, it's focused on someone else's misdeeds, not your own. Also, it's a very utilitarian emotion, she says, usually in response to a perceived injustice. "Anger makes people feel empowered," Turner says.

There has been a long debate, she says, about whether anger can be constructively harnessed. In studying groups that employ anger as a tactic - most notably animal rights groups such as People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals, as well as environment organisations and even political campaigns - she has found that, given the right conditions, it can.

First, people have to be convinced that the issue is relevant to them, that it affects them or their children or their community. At that point, says Turner, you need to hammer home what's wrong with the world as it is. Once you have got people roiled up, you can offer them a way to remedy the situation (Public Relations Review, vol 33, p 114).

"When those feelings of anger are accompanied by the feeling that there is a solution to this problem, then the message is more likely to be persuasive," she says.
8 Resistance isn't futile

HISTORICALLY, psychologists studying persuasion have concentrated on what makes certain messages more appealing than others. But over the past few years researchers have begun revising that idea. A growing body of evidence suggests that breaking down people's resistance to persuasion can be even more important.

The reason for this is that people are naturally suspicious of attempts to persuade them. This is especially true if they think they are being duped.

In laboratory studies, merely reminding people that they are vulnerable to manipulation - for example, showing them magazine adverts with celebrities or models endorsing products they clearly know nothing about - makes them generally more difficult to persuade (Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, vol 83, p 526).

So far so obvious, but there's a useful point here. Resistance means that very persuasive arguments can backfire. People who successfully resist persuasion often become even more entrenched in their wrong-headed opinions, and the stronger, more credible or authoritative they perceive the attempt at persuasion to be, the more certain of their opinions they become when they resist it (Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, vol 83, p 1298).

At first blush, this seems paradoxical. You might think a strong, authoritative argument would hold greater sway. Not necessarily. It seems that if people resist good arguments presented by an expert, they conclude their own arguments must be even stronger.

This sets up a bit of a catch-22. "If you want to change people's attitudes, it's good to have strong arguments," says Zakary Tormala of Stanford University. "But if they manage to resist your message, they might become more certain of the very attitudes you want to change."

How to overcome this deadlock? Tormala's colleague Richard Petty of Ohio State University says: "Present positions closer to your target's views, then move them towards your goal a little at a time." You could also try charming them by boosting their self-esteem. "When people feel good about themselves, they are more open to challenging messages," he says.

People Are Scared

2008-06-05T18:31:00.000-07:00

Current mood: blah

I think people are scared. Based on the actions I've witnessed in both other people and in myself, this is what I believe.

Under the normal social restrictions connected to societal normality's, I think fear dictates our behavior. This fear is over sensitized; Resulting in behavioral doubts and/or worries and consequentially prevents us from reaching our true potential and true purpose in life.

This realization has formed a want in me to follow my own personal truth. I will conquer my fears and, during my efforts, I will encourage others to follow the same path. The path based on truth.

The Wal-Mart You Don’t Know

2008-06-03T18:33:00.000-07:00

Current mood: enthralled

An interesting article I was reading about Walmart by: Charles Fishman

The giant retailer's low prices often come with a high cost. Wal-Mart's relentless pressure can crush the companies it does business with and force them to send jobs overseas. Are we shopping our way straight to the unemployment line?

A gallon-sized jar of whole pickles is something to behold. The jar is the size of a small aquarium. The fat green pickles, floating in swampy juice, look reptilian, their shapes exaggerated by the glass. It weighs 12 pounds, too big to carry with one hand. The gallon jar of pickles is a display of abundance and excess; it is entrancing, and also vaguely unsettling. This is the product that Wal-Mart fell in love with: Vlasic's gallon jar of pickles.

Wal-Mart priced it at $2.97--a year's supply of pickles for less than $3! "They were using it as a 'statement' item," says Pat Hunn, who calls himself the "mad scientist" of Vlasic's gallon jar. "Wal-Mart was putting it before consumers, saying, This represents what Wal-Mart's about. You can buy a stinkin' gallon of pickles for $2.97. And it's the nation's number-one brand."

Therein lies the basic conundrum of doing business with the world's largest retailer. By selling a gallon of kosher dills for less than most grocers sell a quart, Wal-Mart may have provided a ser-vice for its customers. But what did it do for Vlasic? The pickle maker had spent decades convincing customers that they should pay a premium for its brand. Now Wal-Mart was practically giving them away. And the fevered buying spree that resulted distorted every aspect of Vlasic's operations, from farm field to factory to financial statement.

Indeed, as Vlasic discovered, the real story of Wal-Mart, the story that never gets told, is the story of the pressure the biggest retailer relentlessly applies to its suppliers in the name of bringing us "every day low prices." It's the story of what that pressure does to the companies Wal-Mart does business with, to U.S. manufacturing, and to the economy as a whole. That story can be found floating in a gallon jar of pickles at Wal-Mart.

Wal-Mart is not just the world's largest retailer. It's the world's largest company--bigger than ExxonMobil, General Motors, and General Electric. The scale can be hard to absorb. Wal-Mart sold $244.5 billion worth of goods last year. It sells in three months what

number-two retailer Home Depot sells in a year. And in its own category of general merchandise and groceries, Wal-Mart no longer has any real rivals. It does more business than Target, Sears, Kmart, J.C. Penney, Safeway, and Kroger combined. "Clearly," says Edward Fox, head of Southern Methodist University's J.C. Penney Center for Retailing Excellence, "Wal-Mart is more powerful than any retailer has ever been." It is, in fact, so big and so furtively powerful as to have become an entirely different order of corporate being.

Wal-Mart wields its power for just one purpose: to bring the lowest possible prices to its customers. At Wal-Mart, that goal is never reached. The retailer has a clear policy for suppliers: On basic products that don't change, the price Wal-Mart will pay, and will charge shoppers, must drop year after year. But what almost no one outside the world of Wal-Mart and its 21,000 suppliers knows is the high cost of those low prices. Wal-Mart has the power to squeeze profit-killing concessions from vendors. To survive in the face of its pricing demands, makers of everything from bras to bicycles to blue jeans have had to lay off employees and close U.S. plants in favor of outsourcing products from overseas.

Of course, U.S. companies have been moving jobs offshore for decades, long before Wal-Mart was a retailing power. But there is no question that the chain is helping accelerate the loss of American jobs to low-wage countries such as China. Wal-Mart, which in the late 1980s and early 1990s trumpeted its claim to "Buy American," has doubled its imports from China in the past five years alone, buying some $12 billion in merchandise in 2002. That's nearly 10% of all Chinese exports to the United States.

One way to think of Wal-Mart is as a vast pipeline that gives non-U.S. companies direct access to the American market. "One of the things that limits or slows the growth of imports is the cost of establishing connections and networks," says Paul Krugman, the Princeton University economist. "Wal-Mart is so big and so centralized that it can all at once hook Chinese and other suppliers into its digital system. So--wham!--you have a large switch to overseas sourcing in a period quicker than under the old rules of retailing."

Steve Dobbins has been bearing the brunt of that switch. He's president and CEO of Carolina Mills, a 75-year-old North Carolina company that supplies thread, yarn, and textile finishing to apparel makers--half of which supply Wal-Mart. Carolina Mills grew steadily until 2000. But in the past three years, as its customers have gone either overseas or out of business, it has shrunk from 17 factories to 7, and from 2,600 employees to 1,200. Dobbins's customers have begun to face imported clothing sold so cheaply to Wal-Mart that they could not compete even if they paid their workers nothing.

"People ask, 'How can it be bad for things to come into the U.S. cheaply? How can it be bad to have a bargain at Wal-Mart?' Sure, it's held inflation down, and it's great to have bargains," says Dobbins. "But you can't buy anything if you're not employed. We are shopping ourselves out of jobs."

The gallon jar of pickles at Wal-Mart became a devastating success, giving Vlasic strong sales and growth numbers--but slashing its profits by millions of dollars.

There is no question that Wal-Mart's relentless drive to squeeze out costs has benefited consumers. The giant retailer is at least partly responsible for the low rate of U.S. inflation, and a McKinsey & Co. study concluded that about 12% of the economy's productivity gains in the second half of the 1990s could be traced to Wal-Mart alone.

There is also no question that doing business with Wal-Mart can give a supplier a fast, heady jolt of sales and market share. But that fix can come with long-term consequences for the health of a brand and a business. Vlasic, for example, wasn't looking to build its brand on a gallon of whole pickles. Pickle companies make money on "the cut," slicing cucumbers into spears and hamburger chips. "Cucumbers in the jar, you don't make a whole lot of money there," says Steve Young, a former vice president of grocery marketing for pickles at Vlasic, who has since left the company.

At some point in the late 1990s, a Wal-Mart buyer saw Vlasic's gallon jar and started talking to Pat Hunn about it. Hunn, who has also since left Vlasic, was then head of Vlasic's Wal-Mart sales team, based in Dallas. The gallon intrigued the buyer. In sales tests, priced somewhere over $3, "the gallon sold like crazy," says Hunn, "surprising us all." The Wal-Mart buyer had a brainstorm: What would happen to the gallon if they offered it nationwide and got it below $3? Hunn was skeptical, but his job was to look for ways to sell pickles at Wal-Mart. Why not?

And so Vlasic's gallon jar of pickles went into every Wal-Mart, some 3,000 stores, at $2.97, a price so low that Vlasic and Wal-Mart were making only a penny or two on a jar, if that. It was showcased on big pallets near the front of stores. It was an abundance of abundance. "It was selling 80 jars a week, on average, in every store," says Young. Doesn't sound like much, until you do the math: That's 240,000 gallons of pickles, just in gallon jars, just at Wal-Mart, every week. Whole fields of cucumbers were heading out the door.

For Vlasic, the gallon jar of pickles became what might be called a devastating success. "Quickly, it started cannibalizing our non-Wal-Mart business," says Young. "We saw consumers who used to buy the spears and the chips in supermarkets buying the Wal-Mart gallons. They'd eat a quarter of a jar and throw the thing away when they got moldy. A family can't eat them fast enough."

The gallon jar reshaped Vlasic's pickle business: It chewed up the profit margin of the business with Wal-Mart, and of pickles generally. Procurement had to scramble to find enough pickles to fill the gallons, but the volume gave Vlasic strong sales numbers, strong growth numbers, and a powerful place in the world of pickles at Wal-Mart. Which accounted for 30% of Vlasic's business. But the company's profits from pickles had shriveled 25% or more, Young says--millions of dollars.

The gallon was hoisting Vlasic and hurting it at the same time.

Young remembers begging Wal-Mart for relief. "They said, 'No way,' " says Young. "We said we'll increase the price"--even $3.49 would have helped tremendously--"and they said, 'If you do that, all the other products of yours we buy, we'll stop buying.' It was a clear threat." Hunn recalls things a little differently, if just as ominously: "They said, 'We want the $2.97 gallon of pickles. If you don't do it, we'll see if someone else might.' I knew our competitors were saying to Wal-Mart, 'We'll do the $2.97 gallons if you give us your other business.' " Wal-Mart's business was so indispensable to Vlasic, and the gallon so central to the Wal-Mart relationship, that decisions about the future of the gallon were made at the CEO level.

Finally, Wal-Mart let Vlasic up for air. "The Wal-Mart guy's response was classic," Young recalls. "He said, 'Well, we've done to pickles what we did to orange juice. We've killed it. We can back off.' " Vlasic got to take it down to just over half a gallon of pickles, for $2.79. Not long after that, in January 2001, Vlasic filed for bankruptcy--although the gallon jar of pickles, everyone agrees, wasn't a critical factor.

By now, it is accepted wisdom that Wal-Mart makes the companies it does business with more efficient and focused, leaner and faster. Wal-Mart itself is known for continuous improvement in its ability to handle, move, and track merchandise. It expects the same of its suppliers. But the ability to operate at peak efficiency only gets you in the door at Wal-Mart. Then the real demands start. The public image Wal-Mart projects may be as cheery as its yellow smiley-face mascot, but there is nothing genial about the process by which Wal-Mart gets its suppliers to provide tires and contact lenses, guns and underarm deodorant at every day low prices. Wal-Mart is legendary for forcing its suppliers to redesign everything from their packaging to their computer systems. It is also legendary for quite straightforwardly telling them what it will pay for their goods.

"We are one of Wal-Mart's biggest suppliers, and they are our biggest customer, by far. We have a great relationship. That's all I can say. Are we done now?"

John Fitzgerald, a former vice president of Nabisco, remembers Wal-Mart's reaction to his company's plan to offer a 25-cent newspaper coupon for a large bag of Lifesavers in advance of Halloween. Wal-Mart told Nabisco to add up what it would spend on the promotion--for the newspaper ads, the coupons, and handling--and then just take that amount off the price instead. "That isn't necessarily good for the manufacturer," Fitzgerald says. "They need things that draw attention."

It also is not unheard of for Wal-Mart to demand to examine the private financial records of a supplier, and to insist that its margins are too high and must be cut. And the smaller the supplier, one academic study shows, the greater the likelihood that it will be forced into damaging concessions. Melissa Berryhill, a Wal-Mart spokeswoman, disagrees: "The fact is Wal-Mart, perhaps like no other retailer, seeks to establish collaborative and mutually beneficial relationships with our suppliers."

For many suppliers, though, the only thing worse than doing business with Wal-Mart may be not doing business with Wal-Mart. Last year, 7.5 cents of every dollar spent in any store in the United States (other than auto-parts stores) went to the retailer. That means a contract with Wal-Mart can be critical even for the largest consumer-goods companies. Dial Corp., for example, does 28% of its business with Wal-Mart. If Dial lost that one account, it would have to double its sales to its next nine customers just to stay even. "Wal-Mart is the essential retailer, in a way no other retailer is," says Gib Carey, a partner at Bain & Co., who is leading a yearlong study of how to do business with Wal-Mart. "Our clients cannot grow without finding a way to be successful with Wal-Mart."

Many companies and their executives frankly admit that supplying Wal-Mart is like getting into the company version of basic training with an implacable Army drill sergeant. The process may be unpleasant. But there can be some positive results.

"Everyone from the forklift driver on up to me, the CEO, knew we had to deliver [to Wal-Mart] on time. Not 10 minutes late. And not 45 minutes early, either," says Robin Prever, who was CEO of Saratoga Beverage Group from 1992 to 2000, and made private-label water sold at Wal-Mart. "The message came through clearly: You have this 30-second delivery window. Either you're there, or you're out. With a customer like that, it changes your organization. For the better. It wakes everybody up. And all our customers benefited. We changed our whole approach to doing business."

But you won't hear evenhanded stories like that from Wal-Mart, or from its current suppliers. Despite being a publicly traded company, Wal-Mart is intensely private. It declined to talk in detail about its relationships with its suppliers for this story. More strikingly, dozens of companies contacted declined to talk about even the basics of their business with Wal-Mart.

Here, for example, is an executive at Dial: "We are one of Wal-Mart's biggest suppliers, and they are our biggest customer by far. We have a great relationship. That's all I can say. Are we done now?" Goaded a bit, the executive responds with an almost hysterical edge: "Are you meshuga? Why in the world would we talk about Wal-Mart? Ask me about anything else, we'll talk. But not Wal-Mart."

No one wants to end up in what is known among Wal-Mart vendors as the "penalty box"--punished, or even excluded from the store shelves, for saying something that makes Wal-Mart unhappy. (The penalty box is normally reserved for vendors who don't meet performance benchmarks, not for those who talk to the press.)

"You won't hear anything negative from most people," says Paul Kelly, founder of Silvermine Consulting Group, a company that helps businesses work more effectively with retailers. "It would be committing suicide. If Wal-Mart takes something the wrong way, it's like Saddam Hussein. You just don't want to piss them off."

As a result, this story was reported in an unusual way: by speaking with dozens of people who have spent years selling to Wal-Mart, or consulting to companies that sell to Wal-Mart, but who no longer work for companies that do business with Wal-Mart. Unless otherwise noted, the companies involved in the events they described refused even to confirm or deny the basics of the events.

To a person, all those interviewed credit Wal-Mart with a fundamental integrity in its dealings that's unusual in the world of consumer goods, retailing, and groceries. Wal-Mart does not cheat suppliers, it keeps its word, it pays its bills briskly. "They are tough people but very honest; they treat you honestly," says Peter Campanella, who ran the business that sold Corning kitchenware products, both at Corning and then at World Kitchen. "It was a joke to do business with most of their competitors. A fiasco."

But Wal-Mart also clearly does not hesitate to use its power, magnifying the Darwinian forces already at work in modern global capitalism.

Caught in the Wal-Mart squeeze, Huffy didn't just relinquish profits to keep its commitment to the retailer. It handed those profits to the competition.

What does the squeeze look like at Wal-Mart? It is usually thoroughly rational, sometimes devastatingly so.

John Mariotti is a veteran of the consumer-products world--he spent nine years as president of Huffy Bicycle Co., a division of Huffy Corp., and is now chairman of World Kitchen, the company that sells Oxo, Revere, Corning, and Ekco brand housewares.

He could not be clearer on his opinion about Wal-Mart: It's a great company, and a great company to do business with. "Wal-Mart has done more good for America by several thousand orders of magnitude than they've done bad," Mariotti says. "They have raised the bar, and raised the bar for everybody."

Mariotti describes one episode from Huffy's relationship with Wal-Mart. It's a tale he tells to illustrate an admiring point he makes about the retailer. "They demand you do what you say you are going to do." But it's also a classic example of the damned-if-you-do, damned-if-you-don't Wal-Mart squeeze. When Mariotti was at Huffy throughout the 1980s, the company sold a range of bikes to Wal-Mart, 20 or so models, in a spread of prices and profitability. It was a leading manufacturer of bikes in the United States, in places like Ponca City, Oklahoma; Celina, Ohio; and Farmington, Missouri.

One year, Huffy had committed to supply Wal-Mart with an entry-level, thin-margin bike--as many as Wal-Mart needed. Sales of the low-end bike took off. "I woke up May 1"--the heart of the bike production cycle for the summer--"and I needed 900,000 bikes," he says. "My factories could only run 450,000." As it happened, that same year, Huffy's fancier, more-profitable bikes were doing well, too, at Wal-Mart and other places. Huffy found itself in a bind.

With other retailers, perhaps, Mariotti might have sat down, renegotiated, tried to talk his way out of the corner. Not with Wal-Mart. "I made the deal up front with them," he says. "I knew how high was up. I was duty-bound to supply my customer." So he did something extraordinary. To free up production in order to make Wal-Mart's cheap bikes, he gave the designs for four of his higher-end, higher-margin products to rival manufacturers. "I conceded business to my competitors, because I just ran out of capacity," he says. Huffy didn't just relinquish profits to keep Wal-Mart happy--it handed those profits to its competition. "Wal-Mart didn't tell me what to do," Mariotti says. "They didn't have to." The retailer, he adds, "is tough as nails. But they give you a chance to compete. If you can't compete, that's your problem."

In the years since Mariotti left Huffy, the bike maker's relationship with Wal-Mart has been vital (though Huffy Corp. has lost money in three out of the last five years). It is the number-three seller of bikes in the United States. And Wal-Mart is the number-one retailer of bikes. But here's one last statistic about bicycles: Roughly 98% are now imported from places such as China, Mexico, and Taiwan. Huffy made its last bike in the United States in 1999.

As Mariotti says, Wal-Mart is tough as nails. But not every supplier agrees that the toughness is always accompanied by fairness. The Lovable Company was founded in 1926 by the grandfather of Frank Garson II, who was Lovable's last president. It did business with Wal-Mart, Garson says, from the earliest days of founder Sam Walton's first store in Bentonville, Arkansas. Lovable made bras and lingerie, supplying retailers that also included Sears and Victoria's Secret. At one point, it was the sixth-largest maker of intimate apparel in the United States, with 700 employees in this country and another 2,000 at eight factories in Central America.

Eventually Wal-Mart became Lovable's biggest customer. "Wal-Mart has a big pencil," says Garson. "They have such awesome purchasing power that they write their own ticket. If they don't like your prices, they'll go vertical and do it themselves--or they'll find someone that will meet their terms."

In the summer of 1995, Garson asserts, Wal-Mart did just that. "They had awarded us a contract, and in their wisdom, they changed the terms so dramatically that they really reneged." Garson, still worried about litigation, won't provide details. "But when you lose a customer that size, they are irreplaceable."

Lovable was already feeling intense cost pressure. Less than three years after Wal-Mart pulled its business, in its 72nd year, Lovable closed. "They leave a lot to be desired in the way they treat people," says Garson. "Their actions to pulverize people are unnecessary. Wal-Mart chewed us up and spit us out."

Believe it or not, American business has been through this before. The Great Atlantic & Pacific Tea Co., the grocery-store chain, stood astride the U.S. market in the 1920s and 1930s with a dominance that has likely never been duplicated. At its peak, A&P had five times the number of stores Wal-Mart has now (although much smaller ones), and at one point, it owned 80% of the supermarket business. Some of the antipredatory-pricing laws in use today were inspired by A&P's attempts to muscle its suppliers.

There is very little academic and statistical study of Wal-Mart's impact on the health of its suppliers and virtually nothing in the last decade, when Wal-Mart's size has increased by a factor of five. This while the retail industry has become much more concentrated. In large part, that's because it's nearly impossible to get meaningful data that would allow researchers to track the influence of Wal-Mart's business on companies over time. You'd need cooperation from the vendor companies or Wal-Mart or both--and neither Wal-Mart nor its suppliers are interested in sharing such intimate detail.

Bain & Co., the global management consulting firm, is in the midst of a project that asks, How does a company have a healthy relationship with Wal-Mart? How do you avoid being sucked into the vortex? How do you maintain some standing, some leverage of your own?

This July, in a mating that had the relieved air of lovers who had too long resisted embracing, Levi Strauss rolled blue jeans into every Wal-Mart in the United States.

Bain's first insights are obvious, if not easy. "Year after year," Carey, a partner at Bain & Co., says, "for any product that is the same as what you sold them last year, Wal-Mart will say, 'Here's the price you gave me last year. Here's what I can get a competitor's product for. Here's what I can get a private-label version for. I want to see a better value that I can bring to my shopper this year. Or else I'm going to use that shelf space differently.' "

Carey has a friend in the umbrella business who learned that. One year, because of costs, he went to Wal-Mart and asked for a 5% price increase. "Wal-Mart said, 'We were expecting a 5% decrease. We're off by 10%. Go back and sharpen your pencil.' " The umbrella man scrimped and came back with a 2% increase. "They said, 'We'll go with a Chinese manufacturer'--and he was out entirely."

The Wal-Mart squeeze means vendors have to be as relentless and as microscopic as Wal-Mart is at managing their own costs. They need, in fact, to turn themselves into shadow versions of Wal-Mart itself. "Wal-Mart won't necessarily say you have to reconfigure your distribution system," says Carey. "But companies recognize they are not going to maintain margins with growth in their Wal-Mart business without doing it."

The way to avoid being trapped in a spiral of growing business and shrinking profits, says Carey, is to innovate. "You need to bring Wal-Mart new products--products consumers need. Because with those, Wal-Mart doesn't have benchmarks to drive you down in price. They don't have historical data, you don't have competitors, they haven't bid the products out to private-label makers. That's how you can have higher prices and higher margins."

Reasonable advice, but not universally useful. There has been an explosion of "innovation" in toothbrushes and toothpastes in the past five years, for instance; but a pickle is a pickle is a pickle.

Bain's other critical discovery is that consumers are often more loyal to product companies than to Wal-Mart. With strongly branded items people develop a preference for--things like toothpaste or laundry detergent--Wal-Mart rarely forces shoppers to switch to a second choice. It would simply punish itself by seeing sales fall, and it won't put up with that for long.

But as Wal-Mart has grown in market reach and clout, even manufacturers known for nurturing premium brands may find themselves overpowered. This July, in a mating that had the relieved air of lovers who had too long resisted embracing, Levi Strauss rolled blue jeans into every Wal-Mart doorway in the United States: 2,864 stores. Wal-Mart, seeking to expand its clothing business with more fashionable brands, promoted the clothes on its in-store TV network and with banners slipped over the security-tag detectors at exit doors.

Levi's launch into Wal-Mart came the same summer the clothes maker celebrated its 150th birthday. For a century and a half, one of the most recognizable names in American commerce had survived without Wal-Mart. But in October 2002, when Levi Strauss and Wal-Mart announced their engagement, Levi was shrinking rapidly. The pressure on Levi goes back 25 years--well before Wal-Mart was an influence. Between 1981 and 1990, Levi closed 58 U.S. manufacturing plants, sending 25% of its sewing overseas.

Sales for Levi peaked in 1996 at $7.1 billion. By last year, they had spiraled down six years in a row, to $4.1 billion; through the first six months of 2003, sales dropped another 3%. This one account--selling jeans to Wal-Mart--could almost instantly revive Levi.

Last year, Wal-Mart sold more clothing than any other retailer in the country. It also sold more pairs of jeans than any other store. Wal-Mart's own inexpensive house brand of jeans, Faded Glory, is estimated to do $3 billion in sales a year, a house brand nearly the size of Levi Strauss. Perhaps most revealing in terms of Levi's strategic blunders: In 2002, half the jeans sold in the United States cost less than $20 a pair. That same year, Levi didn't offer jeans for less than $30.

For much of the last decade, Levi couldn't have qualified to sell to Wal-Mart. Its computer systems were antiquated, and it was notorious for delivering clothes late to retailers. Levi admitted its on-time delivery rate was 65%. When it announced the deal with Wal-Mart last year, one fashion-industry analyst bluntly predicted Levi would simply fail to deliver the jeans.

But Levi Strauss has taken to the Wal-Mart Way with the intensity of a near-death religious conversion--and Levi's executives were happy to talk about their experience getting ready to sell at Wal-Mart. One hundred people at Levi's headquarters are devoted to the new business; another 12 have set up in an office in Bentonville, near Wal-Mart's headquarters, where the company has hired a respected veteran Wal-Mart sales account manager.

Getting ready for Wal-Mart has been like putting Levi on the Atkins diet. It has helped everything--customer focus, inventory management, speed to market. It has even helped other retailers that buy Levis, because Wal-Mart has forced the company to replenish stores within two days instead of Levi's previous five-day cycle.

And so, Wal-Mart might rescue Levi Strauss. Except for one thing.

Levi didn't actually have any clothes it could sell at Wal-Mart. Everything was too expensive. It had to develop a fresh line for mass retailers: the Levi Strauss Signature brand, featuring Levi Strauss's name on the back of the jeans.

Two months after the launch, Levi basked in the honeymoon glow. Overall sales, after falling for the first six months of 2003, rose 6% in the third quarter; profits in the summer quarter nearly doubled. All, Levi's CEO said, because of Signature.

"They are all very rational people. And they had a good point. Everyone was willing to pay more for a Master Lock. But how much more can they justify?"

But the low-end business isn't a business Levi is known for, or one it had been particularly interested in. It's also a business in which Levi will find itself competing with lean, experienced players such as VF and Faded Glory. Levi's makeover might so improve its performance with its non-Wal-Mart suppliers that its established business will thrive, too. It is just as likely that any gains will be offset by the competitive pressures already dissolving Levi's premium brands, and by the cannibalization of its own sales. "It's hard to see how this relationship will boost Levi's higher-end business," says Paul Farris, a professor at the University of Virginia's Darden Graduate School of Business Administration. "It's easy to see how this will hurt the higher-end business."

If Levi clothing is a runaway hit at Wal-Mart, that may indeed rescue Levi as a business. But what will have been rescued? The Signature line--it includes clothing for girls, boys, men, and women--is an odd departure for a company whose brand has long been an American icon. Some of the jeans have the look, the fingertip feel, of pricier Levis. But much of the clothing has the look and feel it must have, given its price (around $23 for adult pants): cheap. Cheap and disappointing to find labeled with Levi Strauss's name. And just five days before the cheery profit news, Levi had another announcement: It is closing its last two U.S. factories, both in San Antonio, and laying off more than 2,500 workers, or 21% of its workforce. A company that 22 years ago had 60 clothing plants in the United States--and that was known as one of the most socially reponsible corporations on the planet--will, by 2004, not make any clothes at all. It will just import them.

In the end, of course, it is we as shoppers who have the power, and who have given that power to Wal-Mart. Part of Wal-Mart's dominance, part of its insight, and part of its arrogance, is that it presumes to speak for American shoppers.

If Wal-Mart doesn't like the pricing on something, says Andrew Whitman, who helped service Wal-Mart for years when he worked at General Foods and Kraft, they simply say, "At that price we no longer think it's a good value to our shopper. Therefore, we don't think we should carry it."

Wal-Mart has also lulled shoppers into ignoring the difference between the price of something and the cost. Its unending focus on price underscores something that Americans are only starting to realize about globalization: Ever-cheaper prices have consequences. Says Steve Dobbins, president of thread maker Carolina Mills: "We want clean air, clear water, good living conditions, the best health care in the world--yet we aren't willing to pay for anything manufactured under those restrictions."

Randall Larrimore, a former CEO of MasterBrand Industries, the parent company of Master Lock, understands that contradiction too well. For years, he says, as manufacturing costs in the United States rose, Master Lock was able to pass them along. But at some point in the 1990s, Asian manufacturers started producing locks for much less. "When the difference is $1, retailers like Wal-Mart would prefer to have the brand-name padlock or faucet or hammer," Larrimore says. "But as the spread becomes greater, when our padlock was $9, and the import was $6, then they can offer the consumer a real discount by carrying two lines. Ultimately, they may only carry one line."

In January 1997, Master Lock announced that, after 75 years making locks in Milwaukee, it would begin importing more products from Asia. Not too long after, Master Lock opened a factory of its own in Nogales, Mexico. Today, it makes just 10% to 15% of its locks in Milwaukee--its 300 employees there mostly make parts that are sent to Nogales, where there are now 800 factory workers.

Larrimore did the first manufacturing layoffs at Master Lock. He negotiated with Master Lock's unions himself. He went to Bentonville. "I loved dealing with Wal-Mart, with Home Depot," he says. "They are all very rational people. There wasn't a whole lot of room for negotiation. And they had a good point. Everyone was willing to pay more for a Master Lock. But how much more can they justify? If they can buy a lock that has arguably similar qual-ity, at a cheaper price, well, they can get their consumers a deal."

It's Wal-Mart in the role of Adam Smith's invisible hand. And the Milwaukee employees of Master Lock who shopped at Wal-Mart to save money helped that hand shove their own jobs right to Nogales. Not consciously, not directly, but inevitably. "Do we as consumers appreciate what we're doing?" Larrimore asks. "I don't think so. But even if we do, I think we say, Here's a Master Lock for $9, here's another lock for $6--let the other guy pay $9."

Charles Fishman (cnfish@mindspring.com) is a senior writer at Fast Company. Andrew Moesel provided research assistance for this story.

Bruce Lee on Life

2008-05-12T18:35:00.000-07:00

Current mood: calm

I read this online and found it really interesting, and I think Bruce Lee was badass so check it out.

If you haven't been living under a rock for the last 30 years I'm pretty sure you know who Bruce Lee was. :)

If you have, then you may be interested to know that Lee was a very famous martial artist and actor who sparked the first big interest of Chinese martial arts in the West in the 60's and 70's.

But besides being an awesome fighter and iconic figure Lee also had some very useful things to say about life.

Here are 7 of my favorite fundamentals from Bruce Lee.

1. What are you really thinking about today?

"As you think, so shall you become."

Perhaps the most basic statement of how we work. Think about what you are thinking today. What do those thoughts say about you? About your life? And how well do they really match your plans for your life and your image of yourself?

It's easy to forget about this simple statement in everyday life. It's easy to be quite incongruent with what you think on an ordinary day compared to how you view yourself and your goals. A simple external reminder such as a post-it with this quote can be helpful to keep you and your thoughts on the right track. An brilliant and beautiful expansion on this thought can be found in James Allen's As a man thinketh (that can be downloaded for free here).

2. Simplify.

"It's not the daily increase but daily decrease. Hack away at the unessential."

"If you spend too much time thinking about a thing, you'll never get it done."

If you want to improve your life then it's tempting to want to add more. One problem with this may be that you don't really have the time or energy to do more though. And so your efforts to improve become short-lived.

Adding more and more just creates more stress and anxiety. Removing clutter and activities, tasks and thoughts that are not so important frees up time and energy for you to do more of what you really want to do. And as the clutter in your outer world decreases the clutter in your inner world also has a tendency to decrease. This has the added benefit of making it easier to actually enjoy whatever you are doing even more while you are doing it.

Adding more thoughts and thinking things over for the 111:th time may create a sense of security. It's also a good way to procrastinate and to avoid taking that leap you know you should take. And the more you think, the harder it gets to act. Perhaps because you want to keep that comforting sense of security and avoid the risk of wrecking that feeling.

Thinking has its place. It can help you plan a somewhat realistic route to your goal and help you avoid future pitfalls. Overthinking is however just a habit that will help you waste a lot of time. It's more useful to replace that habit with the habit of just doing it.

3. Learn about yourself in interactions.

"To know oneself is to study oneself in action with another person."

The one person that is the hardest to get to really know may be yourself. Studying yourself while you are alone may result in some insights. But it's also likely to produce a lot of made up thought loops and doubts in your mind. A good way to really learn more about yourself is study yourself in interactions with other people. How people react and act in these interaction can over time teach you a lot. And what you think and how you react can perhaps teach you even more.

What you see, feel and hear in other people may be a reflection of you. The things you learn by thinking this way may not always be pleasant, but they can be enlightening. They help you to see yourself and also how you may be fooling yourself. And these powerful insights can be very valuable for your personal growth. So, in interactions with others, try asking yourself: what is reflected?

4. Do not divide.

"Take no thought of who is right or wrong or who is better than. Be not for or against."

This is a very useful and powerful thought. It is also one that obviously is hard to live by. Why? I believe it's because the ego loves to divide and find ways to "add more" to itself. It want's to feel better than someone else. Or more clever. Or prettier. Or cooler. Or wiser.

How can you overcome this way of thinking and feeling?

To me it seems to boil down to not identifying so much with your thoughts or feelings. That doesn't mean that you stop thinking or feeling. It just means that you realize – and remember in your everyday life – that the thoughts and emotions are just things flowing through you.

You are not them though.

You are the consciousness observing them.

When you realize and remember this it enables you to control the thoughts and feelings instead of the other way around. It also enables you to not take your thoughts too seriously and actually laugh at them or ignore them when you feel that your ego is acting out. When you are not being so identified these things you become more inclined to include things, thoughts and people instead of excluding them. This creates a lot of inner and outer freedom and stillness. Instead of fear, a need to divide your world and a search for conflicts.

To learn more about this I would recommend Eckhart Tolle's books and signing up for the 10 free and excellent webcasts - available both in video and audio form – that he's doing with Oprah right now.

5. Avoid a dependency on validation from others.

"I'm not in this world to live up to your expectations and you're not in this world to live up to mine."

"Showing off is the fool's idea of glory."

The ego wants to add because it thinks it's not enough. One way of doing that is by craving validation from others. We want to feel smart, pretty, successful and so on. And the validation makes you feel good for a while. But soon you need a new fix.

And the problem with being dependent on validation from other people is that you let other people control how you feel. This creates a rollercoaster of emotion in your life.

To find more emotional stability and to take control of how you feel you need to get your validation from to a more consistent source. Yourself. You can replace the expectations and validation of others by setting your own expectations and by validating yourself.

And so you validate yourself by thinking about how awesome you are. You don't sell yourself short. You appreciate how far you have come and the positive things you have done. You appreciate your own value in the world. You set goals and you achieve those goals. This builds confidence in yourself and in your abilities. These things will help you to build a habit of inner validation.

Now, showing off. Why do we do that? To get validation from others. However, this need for validation often shines through and that is why a thing like bragging seldom works. Instead of seeing the cool and successful person you are trying to project people just see the insecure and needy person looking for validation. And your bragging falls flat.

6. Be proactive.

"To hell with circumstances; I create opportunities."

It's easy to get locked into a reactive mindset. You just follow along with whatever is happening. You do what the people around you do. You react to whatever is going on.

And so you get lost in your circumstances. This way of thinking doesn't feel too good. You tend to feel powerless and like you are just drifting along.

A more useful and pleasurable way of living is to be proactive. As Bruce says: to create opportunities despite the circumstances around you. This feels better and provides better results. But on the other hand it's also more difficult. It's easier to just drift along in the reactive stream of life. And if you want to be proactive then you may have to take the lead quite often. And that can be scary.

Still, living proactively is so much more rewarding and exciting.

7. Be you.

"Always be yourself, express yourself, have faith in yourself, do not go out and look for a successful personality and duplicate it."

Just being yourself is a hard thing to do. You may do it sometimes. And other times you may forget or fall back into old thought patterns. Or you may imitate someone else.

And that comes through too. And it may work.

But I believe that being the real you will work better. Because there the genuine you is shining through. Without incongruency, mixed messages or perhaps a sort of phoniness. It's you to 100%. It's you with not only your words but you with your voice tonality and body language – which some say is over 90% of communication - on the same wavelength as your words. It's you coming through on all channels of communication.

So I'm not saying: "yeah man, you should just be yourself because it's the right thing to do etc." I'm saying that I think being your authentic self – the one where you do little dividing, the one that needs little validation from others, the one where your ego is not running the show and trying to get something from someone – will give you better results and more satisfaction in your day to day life because you are in alignment with yourself. And because people really like genuine and people really like authenticity.

A good line.

2008-04-15T18:36:00.000-07:00

Current mood: calm

"Over time I've realized that you can only understand life backwards but you have to live it forwards." I don't remember where I heard that but I think it's pretty profound.

Bad Habits

2008-04-13T18:36:00.000-07:00

Current mood: argumentative

Its funny but I was just thinking about bad habits today. It seems like people are the only things on earth that create their own bad habits.

More on this later perhaps....

Admitting your own Personal Suck

2008-04-10T18:38:00.000-07:00

Current mood: enlightened

I just realized something the other day. It always bugged me and I couldn't quite explain what it was. Some seemingly random (lucky?) people have become really good at identifying their weaknesses and developing the compensatory psychic muscle needed to shore up their vulnerabilities. Forget stuff? Write stuff down. Get easily distracted? Set a timer. Burdened with pointless interruptions? Leave the office. Find the erroneous code in your system and eliminate the bugs. Find the quickest, minimalist, most elegant solution that could possibly work. Can it really be that simple? Sure, to an outsider looking in, it's all "no duh" stuff, right? I mean, why would anyone need to be reminded that things can be written down on cards and kept organized? Well, to be honest… A lot of us need a unexpected amount of reminding. Seriously. How do some people stay skinny so easy? How can some people draw anything they see? Why are some people math whizzes? How can some people be so funny with little or no effort? If you ask these questions to any of those people with those skills you yearn for, you'll probably end up the same answer every time: "I dunno. It's just how I am." And so the rest of us generously proportioned, uncreative, math-retarded, not-funny people stare and stew like the loser in the old Charles Atlas ad. "Why can't I have that?" Because, you can't just turn it on and instantaneously become what you wish you were. It takes reflection, consideration, reiteration, and a personal dedication to facing the stuff at which you suck. And everyone sucks at something. You totally suck at something. Don't let it discourage you. Interestingly enough, I found an interesting article online that talked about how the application of two totally opposite ideas can have the same effect on a problem. Think about this:

"Outline: Plan everything you're going to write, scene by scene, all the way through to the end. Do your research while you're outlining, so by the time you start writing the actual story, you're already living in that world. With a detailed enough outline, the actual writing becomes a matter of choosing the right words to describe what you've already decided to tell. You can concentrate on style and let the plot take care of itself, because you've already done that part."
"Don't outline: Don't plan ahead at all. Feel the lure of the blank page. Trust your instincts and dive into the story, and don't look back until you're done."
(http://sfwa.org/writing/strategies.html)

It's not about one being smart and the other dumb. It's about understanding what's really significant and helping a given person solve a given problem. Your brain and its behavior isn't some kit you can put together from a page of plans. You're always thinking, obsessing, and changing as you go through your day. There's more than one path, and, dimes to donuts, you'll sooner or later end up losing it if you try to find just one. I guess I'm saying I like the idea that once you've started owning up your "individual suck," you can sample from an endless list of options of tricks that may or may not help you make your life better. As long as you don't lose any fingers and can still get most of your work done on time, where's the damage in experimenting? Try something. Then try the opposite. Then try the orthogonal. Every bit that falls short teaches you a little something that might come in handy some day. As they say, mistakes can be a buddhist gift.

The only damage you'll find more difficult to repair comes from the doors you've decided to close forever. Try patching your own "individual suck" with crazy, ridiculous, incredibly obvious solutions. You'll learn where your problems are and eventually you'll probably have a pretty good idea where the solutions are hiding too.

Onwards…

Stop whining....

2008-04-01T18:38:00.000-07:00

Current mood: annoyed

I guess I'll write - since it's on my mind today - that I'm realizing how much it pays to stop and pay attention whenever you hear yourself mentally whining.

Nobody likes a whiner, even when it's yourself. So it makes sense to be attentive to amount of which your internal monologue is becoming personally insufferable. As with body odor and not flossing, chances are good that others have already noticed things about you before you have, so - you know - congratulations on making it to the party.

Furthermore, and possibly more importantly, that whining should be telling you something. Whining is the white smoke in your tail pipe that means you're wasting mental oil. It means you're unconsciously allocating cycles to something that you cannot, would not, or should not be wasting your time thinking about. Otherwise, why would it be bothering you, right? You'd be either free of it or done with it.

Once you pinpoint where that whine's coming from, that's the perfect opportunity to decide what the hell the hang-up is. Because if it's worth whining and droning about, it's worth deciding what obstacle (barrier?) in either the "real world" or your own brain is keeping something from happening.

And once you figure out that obstacle, there's more than enough methods that exist to help you accomplish what you need to get passed it all in a way that's sane and sensible. But you can't finish a task you don't fully understand, so allow yourself the personal comfort of unpacking the problem behind the problem.

Put automotive-wise? Compulsively adding a new bottle of oil every other day doesn't repair your smoke problem: it feeds it. As an alternative, use the smoke as a warning that it's about time to trace the cracks in your engine.

As for me? Ya… Now I'm feeling a little better and a little less whiny.

Onwards…