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  Latest Responses

  • Jen: I like the Han Solo quote. Stole it for my Facebook page. :)...
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Economists and stock analysts are always trying to place monetary values on abstract behaviours and ideals but here’s a great commentary about what you pay for when you go to Starbucks, or to one of its hipster overwhelmed competitors.

…you are paying a vast premium for the heating of your milk — but not the milk itself. The main ingredient is a double shot of espresso, and that costs $1.85. My Starbucks doesn’t charge for a single pump of vanilla, so that’s free. And at the sugar-and-napkins counter, you can pour all the milk into your cup that you like. So that’s free, too.

The $1.37 premium is therefore just for the labor of steaming the milk, which takes about 20 seconds.

He makes the point that we do it for the shared experience, the imaginary sense of community. We’re all still savages around the campfire, trying to reinforce the survival bonds to our tribe. Here’s the link so you can read it in the author’s own words.

MSN Money - Starbucks’ genius blends community, caffeine

I raise my paper cup to you!

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I’m an engineering type, and I used to work in a corporation. In the spirit of tearing us away from our computers and making us think about people instead of inanimate materials we once attended a training session on shipping, filled with terms like free-on-board, freight-forwarding, and other fascinating jargon from another walk of life.

At one point we were told about an employee who stacked pallets with various boxes. Being engineers, we suggested that a computer program might be able to derive the optimal stacking patterns on any given day. The presenter said that they’d tried that, but that the machine didn’t really do so much better to make things worthwhile. With hindsight, someone would have had to measure the boxes and put all the dimensions into the computer.

Just walking and breathing and picking our noses, we make incredibly complex calculations without conscious effort. We have a computer in our skulls that is much more effective than we often realize.

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Ever made a spur of the moment that you later regretted? Wonder why the people around you do such boneheaded things? If you’ve ever been in love, or scared, or hungry, you’ll recognize youself in the informatively headlined Hot and Cold Emotions Make Us Poor Judges by Shankar Vedantam in The Washington Post.

People find it very difficult to imagine how they themselves would behave when strong emotions are involved.

Studies have found that, for some reason, an enormous mental gulf separates “cold” emotional states from “hot” emotional states. When we are not hungry or thirsty or sexually aroused, we find it difficult to understand what effects those factors can have on our behavior. Similarly, when we are excited or angry, it is difficult to think about the consequences of our behavior — outcomes that are glaringly obvious when we are in a cold emotional state.

This sound like a big clue to the origins of our stupid ideas. Time to take up yoga, or meditation, or anger management.

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This morning on TV, some news anchor lizard was moaning about the “growing problem” of hazing in schools. And it very well might be a growing problem, but you wouldn’t know it if you analyzed the reports. Here’s the pattern:

1. Complain about the growing problem
2. Cite one or two isolated, but egregious, examples
3. Quote a talking head
4. Demand that something be done about the “epidemic”.
5. Rinse and repeat with another random scare when everyone gets bored

Well I’d like to demand that something be done about pompous, parasitic media lizards bombarding the impressionable with balderdash. In fact, I think those baboons should be HAZED!

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As a child I’d hear the expression ‘Far East’. To me that was just over a mile away, over the horizon where the sun rose. It was definitely east, and far away from me. That’s at least as logical as many of the things we believe as adults.

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Ever since Oprah recommended The Secret, I’ve been reading complaints. I have no intention of reading the book. Ever since an afternoon in Idaho, watching the remarkable Ms Winfrey urge me to “Get in touch with my spirit”, I’ve been leery of her ability to manipulate her target audience. Instead, I’ll point you at a review by someone with the fortitude to read the book.

The Secret is a motivational book. It can inspire you to set goals, and to visualize the life you’d like to lead. A lot of its techniques are time-tested psychological tricks to help keep you motivated. I like this.

The book loses me, though, when it claims that the Law of Attraction is a “universal law” such as the law of gravity. The Secret attempts to combine Christianity (Jesus followed the Law of Attraction, don’t you know?), quantum physics, and more in an effort to convince readers that our minds are some sort of universal force governed by frequencies and wavelengths and so on. This is bullshit of the highest order, and it makes me angry. To quote Han Solo, “There’s no mystical energy field that controls my destiny.”

Despite the harsh words, positive thinking isn’t dissed. My take is that if you believe in your goals, then you’ll be more open to the opportunities for success.

Think stupid thoughts: entertain the world.

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We’re not the only ones obsessed with stupid ideas. If you’re interested in thinking for yourself try reading 5 Ways to Develop Independent Thought, a guest post by Tom O’Leary at Pick The Brain.

Logically, when we think like everyone else is thinking, the best we can expect is to achieve what they’re already achieving. If our aim is to over-achieve, we need to avoid the same banal influences and think impossibly. We need to become independent from conventional wisdom.

More often than not, conventional wisdom is right, or at least a good idea. Millennia of philosophy and religion has generated some great insight into life. But often is not the same as always, and the more conformist the society in which you live, the more difference a good idea can make. And unfortunately, you can’t always tell the difference between a good idea and a stinker. Take a chance!

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An article at businesspundit.com explores some reasons for the truism about who you know, and what it takes to be successful in business. Even though he makes the case for the thoughtful introvert, he explains some of the reasons why we don’t get ahead as fast as we would like.

The point of all this is that, in business, you really do get ahead more by being liked rather than by being brilliant. Sure, you need to have some minimum level of competence, but if people like your personality, they will let mild transgressions slide. And deep deep down, they really don’t want to work with someone disciplined and demanding, because it might make them look bad. No one likes to be held accountable.

Sometimes I think that we are all in sales, that everything we achieve is proportional to the number of people we talk to. Maybe shyness should be covered as a disability.

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Just listened to a piece on public radio about black people in San Francisco. Apparently they’ve been heading for the suburbs in droves because the city is too expensive. Stable institutions like churches have seen their attendance decimated as their congregation departs.

The tone of the piece implied that this was a bad thing, and perhaps it is. But the same has been said of white flight, implying that inner cities become a wasteland of ethnic poverty. Perhaps both viewpoints are correct. If the old patterns of segregation are being maintained then nothing improves. On the other hand, maybe the major effect in play is old-fashioned resistance to change.

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This is mostly a rant, a little diatribe about the social nature of people. You know who they are, you probably complain about them several times a week. They’re the poor sad souls with the genetics for obstruction, some built-in radar for getting in the way, congregating at doorways, weaving in front of you as you try to walk by them, parking their cart in the supermarket to obstruct the whole aisle.

Or maybe the whole thing is random, a basic side-effect of small events, and a message from above to slow down, get in touch with priorities, take a moment to reflect. If so, I’m in trouble. I think of myself as patient but those idiots drive me mad. Pray for me!

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