The Myth: July 2006

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Monday, July 31

Positive Correlation?

I went to the Twins game Friday night, and they lost.
I went to the Twins game Saturday night, and they lost.
I watched the Twins game on Sunday, and they were losing when I left for golf.

While I wasn't watching, the Twins rallied and won Sunday's game.

I'm going to the Twins game tonight, they better not lose or I'll have to quit being a fan...

posted by Brad at 7/31/2006 01:34:00 PM | permalink | 0 comments

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Sunday, July 30

Blink, Chapter 2: The Locked Door

This chapter reinforces the fact that snap judgements (based on "thin slicing" mentioned below) are unconscious - behind a locked door in our brain. It's difficult to trust judgements that come from such a mysterious place, but we inevitably fail when trying to explain the thought process that led to a decsion.

As quickly as you can, make a four-word sentence out of each set:

him was worried she always
shoes give replace old the
ball the throw toss silently
sky the seamless gray is
us bingo sing play let

John Bargh devised this test, and used it to prove that the unconscious mind can be "primed." People would walk down a long hallway, sit down at a table, do a test like the one above, and then walk back down the hallway more slowly than they walked in. The words "worried," "old," "gray," and "bingo" caused them to think about the state of being old, and they acted accordingly.

Gladwell also uses speed-dating as an example of how dating can be distilled to a simple snap judgement, which helps explain its recent growth in popularity. But if you try to look behind the locked door and ask people to explain their choices, it gets confusing. Two professors from Columbia University had speed-daters rate what they are looking for in a potential partner before, after, and months after the speed-dating. They found that answers changed to match people they connected with (unconscious preferences), but eventually shifted back to the original "conscious ideal"

72 pages down, 182 to go - I better pick up the pace!

posted by Brad at 7/30/2006 09:23:00 PM | permalink | 0 comments

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Friday, July 28

PennantRACE

My new favorite website combines my passion for baseball and the visual display of quantitative information.

There's a shakeup in the AL Central:

The Twins (bottom, maroon-ish line) have caught up to the best teams in baseball:

posted by Brad at 7/28/2006 11:27:00 AM | permalink | 1 comments

1 Comments:

I have an idea....write a Haiku about the Twins and while you're at it, write the poems for the folks you promised back in May! Love ya.

By Anonymous, at 7/30/2006 9:49 PM

Home at the Dome

I'm pumped to be going to 3 of the next 4 Twins games (sitting in yellow circled sections)

Love that 6 dollar "near beer"...

posted by Brad at 7/28/2006 10:00:00 AM | permalink | 0 comments

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Wednesday, July 26

Chapter 1: The Theory of Thin Slices

This chapter introduces the concept of "thin-slicing," as demonstrated by University of Washington psychologist John Gottman's "Love Lab." He created a scale that measures emotion from 1 (disgust) to 20, which can predict with 90% accuracy whether or not a married couple will still be married 15 years later after observing them talking for fifteen minutes.

Samuel Gosling (another psychologist) did an experiment which suggested that fifteen minutes in someone's bedroom can give you a more accurate indication of their conscientiousness, emotional stability and openness to new experiences than asking their close friend.

Medical researcher Wendy Levinson recorded hundreds of conversations between a group of physicians and their patients. Half of the doctors had been sued at least twice, while the other half had never been sued. "Trivial" things like the length of conversation, comments made, and tone of voice used by the doctor highlighted clear differences between the two groups - regardless of the amount or quality of information provided to the patient.

Time for Chapter 2 to put me to sleep...

posted by Brad at 7/26/2006 12:39:00 AM | permalink | 1 comments

1 Comments:

Only an introduction and one chapter? That doesn't seem right... Why leave your readers with such a cliffhanger?? Or is this like your own Reading Rainbow plug, and we don't have to take your word for it... now we have to read this book ourselves..? (Which reminds me of the commercial Nick did for our project in History, and if you could - how fun would that be to have online for all to see??..)

By Martha, at 7/29/2006 11:41 PM

Introduction: The Statue That Didn't Look Right

I started reading Malcolm Gladwell's blink at the airport on Monday, and it's due back at the Library next Wednesday. Since I'll be speed reading it, I am going to write very short summaries of each section to help me internalize the material (and hopefully pique your interest along the way...)

The introduction starts off with a story about the Getty Museum's 10 million dollar purchase of a statue that ended up being a fake - even after the museum did careful analysis, several experts knew instantly upon seeing it that "something was up."

The next example uses 4 decks of cards (2 each red and blue) that either wins you or costs you some money. It takes people 50 cards to develop a hunch about which color is better, and 80 cards to be sure. But by measuring the activity of sweat glands on the hands, we can see that the body actually starts reacting after only 10 cards.

Next, the 3 objectives of the book are laid out:

Decisions made very quickly can be every bit as good as decisions made cautiously.
When our powers of rapid cognition go away, it is for very specific and consitent reasons that can be identified & understood.
Snap judgements and first impressions can be educated and controlled - the power of knowing, in that first two seconds, is an ability we can all cultivate for ourselves.

posted by Brad at 7/26/2006 12:23:00 AM | permalink | 0 comments

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Tuesday, July 25

Bizzare Japanese Toilet Training Cartoon

Courtesy of Dmitry, although not as awesome as the beer can montage...

posted by Brad at 7/25/2006 06:08:00 PM | permalink | 0 comments

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Monday, July 24

Stranded

I finally joined the "missed a flight" club tonight, and needed to get online from SFO to reschedule some meetings tomorrow morning. Since I'm paying $6 for anything up to an hour, I might as well use it - sleep is overrated.

While I don't have any photos to share from Yosemite, plenty were taken. If/when I get my grubby (literally, I haven't showered in 66 hours) hands on some, I'll be sure to Flickr. In the meantime, feast your eyes on my cousin Karen's first baby.

Thanks to Wikipedia, I know that Aidan is to be properly referred to as my "first cousin once removed"

posted by Brad at 7/24/2006 03:40:00 AM | permalink | 0 comments

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Friday, July 21

RSS 4 Comments

Thanks to the folks at Feed43, I now have a seperate feed for comments.

Feel free to subscribe anytime by clicking on the little orange icon next to each post's comments.

posted by Brad at 7/21/2006 11:37:00 AM | permalink | 0 comments

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Tuesday, July 18

Real Full

Just got back from the Taste of the Twin Cities Originals, which was totally oversold. If I had a dollar for every time I bumped into someone, it might have covered the cost of admission.

Dmitry, Jennifer and I picked a single word to describe each thing we tasted: mashy, uppity, creamy, game-y, spicy, gritty, salty, soggy, chewy, yummy, tiny, creepy, oniony, beefy, smoky, zesty, tasty, crumbly, chilly, tender-y, stringy, bready, pinky, disappoint-y, nutty, starchy, spready, sweaty, and beet-y.

Best of Show Awards:

Brad: Eden Avenue Grill - Homemade Carrot Cake
Dmitry: Lake Elmo Inn - Boneless Cajun Porkchop
Jennifer: Dixies on Grand - Jambalaya (which is apparently pronounced 'jam' not 'jum')

posted by Brad at 7/18/2006 09:39:00 PM | permalink | 2 comments

2 Comments:

Not sad I didn't go to this, then. Sounds like the food equivalent of the City Pages beer festival.

By Alicia, at 7/19/2006 8:25 AM

Unrelated to the post about food... I just wanted to say "thanks" for the donation! I don't know about all people with Arthritis, but there's one little girl I know who is very grateful for your help... :)

By Martha, at 7/20/2006 4:43 PM

Monday, July 17

Camping is Fun

I went camping on Friday night to brush up on my skills for this weekend in Yosemite - Kristi's first ever camping experience. Hopefully my camera behaves and she provides some entertianment, as I've been wasting a lot of monthly quota on Flickr lately.

We had fun on Lake Pepin Saturday, except my arms hurt from too much tubing behind Damon's boat. Hopefully that doesn't affect my ability to throw bowls at Brit's tonight, as I try to raise my record to 4-0 on the green. Feel free to stop by and enjoy some Bass and a cigar, I'll bring extras.

posted by Brad at 7/17/2006 05:03:00 PM | permalink | 1 comments

1 Comments:

Can you think of a time when I DIDN'T provide solid entertainment? I doubt it! :) Looking forward to next weekend!

By Anonymous, at 7/17/2006 7:09 PM

Stretch Your Stomach

Looks like they posted the menu for tomorrow's Taste of the Twin Cities Originals event.

I'm going to stop eating now so I can vist all 32 booths...

posted by Brad at 7/17/2006 05:01:00 PM | permalink | 0 comments

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What does your number spell?

It's super annoying that I have to type in my 14 digit card number every time I want to view my account on the Minneapolis Public Library website.

Frustrated by having to copy/paste the number from my Backpack every time, I decided to see if there was a mnemonic that could help me remember the last 7 digits (the first 7 are apparently the same for everyone).

tags-owe is the best that phonespell.org could come up with, so we'll see if that works...

posted by Brad at 7/17/2006 01:29:00 PM | permalink | 2 comments

2 Comments:

What's really sad is that I have my 14 digit library card number totally memorized.

By Anonymous, at 7/20/2006 8:49 AM

I don't think the mnemonic is going to help, since the numbers on my computer keyboard don't have letters on them like phone keys do...

By Brad, at 7/20/2006 10:06 AM

Saturday, July 15

McHealthy?

Muck was just telling me how yummy the KFC "Famous Bowls" are, so I looked up the Nutrition Facts thinking I could save myself a trip. 720 calories (PDF) isn't exactly diet food, but 531 grams seemed like a pretty significant serving size.

Since I don't frequent KFC, I needed to find a comparison I was familiar with - enter the McDonald's USA Nutrition Facts. Since I have nothing better to do, I loaded the menu into my first ever Google Spreadsheet. Sadly, it does not appear that you can publicly share GeeSheets yet - so I published it on my first ever ZOHO Sheet.

The bowl is only 1.38 calories per gram, a whopping 60% less than a small fry. All this typing is making me hungry, I wonder where I can get one of my own?

PS: It hurts to type b,f,g,r,t and v because I burned my left index finger starting last night's campfire - perhaps more on that in another post...

posted by Brad at 7/15/2006 06:48:00 PM | permalink | 2 comments

2 Comments:

In May we had the Bowl (no cheese) in Culpepper, VA. It was freaking fantastic. At first, it seems gross that you pile all that stuff in a bowl and eat it.

Then you realize that if you go to KFC, you're gonna eat chicken, corn, and mashed w/ gravy so what's the dif if you eat it in one bowl or spread out in a compartmentalized plate. Same thing, same calories.

The cheese confused us though - nothing else on the KFC menu contains shredded cheese (that we could tell) so why add it to the bowl? Do fat Americans need a few MORE calories? Or is the inventor of the bowl from WI? :)

By Laura, at 7/15/2006 8:43 PM

Hey,

Thanks for using Zoho Sheet! Hope it helped you out with its feature set.

By Anonymous, at 7/16/2006 7:29 AM

Thursday, July 13

The Perfect Wine?

Friendly neighborhood Sam's Wine Shop wants me to pre-order the 2001 Chateau d'Yquem, Sauternes. It received a perfect 100 point rating from Wine Spectator and Robert Parker, which means it's probably quite tasty...

...but $475.99 for a 750 ml bottle? You've got to be kidding me.

posted by Brad at 7/13/2006 07:44:00 PM | permalink | 0 comments

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Not a Morning Person

For some reason, I got out of bed a half hour early this morning - and eventually attempted to brew coffee without water. It's great to get in to work early, but if I'm just going to sit down at my desk and blog about it, then what's the point?

Remember the morning I put on non-matching shoes and didn't realize until I got to work? The photo has disappeared from Flickr because I'm cheap and don't have a Pro account...

posted by Brad at 7/13/2006 08:32:00 AM | permalink | 0 comments

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Tuesday, July 11

Baseballs & Beer

Met up with the Bullwinkle's Softball Team at their namesake tonight to watch the AL continue their dominance of the All-Star Game - tough to beat $5 pitchers and $3 burger baskets, let me tell ya.

Is it possible that I'm the first person ever who is worse at Golden Tee than real golf? Because I'm pretty sure that's what happened tonight...

posted by Brad at 7/11/2006 11:26:00 PM | permalink | 0 comments

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Monday, July 10

Good Form

As I begin my rigorous mental preparations & stretching routine for tonight's lawn bowling match at Brit's Pub, I recalled that a photographer was at our match a coupla weeks ago...

Sure enough, the "grassy lawn" made Minnesota Daily's Summer '06 Activities Guide:

posted by Brad at 7/10/2006 05:30:00 PM | permalink | 3 comments

3 Comments:

I definitely want to hit up some lawn bowling this summer. Perhaps a 1/2 day Friday...

By gomattolson, at 7/12/2006 8:48 AM

Isn't this approx. the 17th time your picture has randomly made a brochure/ad/article?

By Alicia, at 7/12/2006 8:55 AM

yes, although it's usually a picture I took, rather than a picture someone else took of me...

By Brad, at 7/12/2006 9:28 AM

From the NYT "Most E-Mailed" List

I try to read an NYT article or two every day, and realized after today's second helping that I could not recall what the first one was even about! They say that a good way to remember things is to teach them to someone else, so I decided to blog about both articles in a futile attempt to commit them to long-term memory.

Part of the reason I chose to forget about the first article is because it was a little dry - How a Computer Knows What Many (Mutual Fund) Managers Don't.

But the Op-Ed piece from a Dartmouth pediatrician was an interesting argument on why more doctors won't necessarily solve our nation's healthcare woes...

If you have time to read only one, pick the latter.

posted by Brad at 7/10/2006 12:46:00 PM | permalink | 0 comments

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Saturday, July 8

City-Wide WiFi?

I rode my bike to the Phyllis Wheatley Community Center this morning, and am currently blogging while connected to Earthlink's "Feather" Wi-Fi service.

Pretty sure I'm going to have to break down and buy a laptop once the city is blanketed with wireless Internet...

posted by Brad at 7/08/2006 12:03:00 PM | permalink | 0 comments

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Thursday, July 6

Kewpee Dot Kom

Keeping with tradition, we visited Kewpee's when I was home in Racine earlier this week. I made a note to myself (which I've been known to do occasionally) to see if they had an article on Wikipedia - and they did.

Back in the olden days, I used to search the internet by typing in whateverIwaslookingfor.com. In this case, it would have taken me to the site for Racine's very own restaurant - who knew that Kewpee is a chain? Now I have to visit the other restaurants in Ohio & Michigan...

There's lots to do at kewpee.com, what are you waiting for?

Learn the history of the Racine restaurant
Order sweet merchandise
Sign up for an e-mail address @kewpee.com
Have your mouse pointer followed around by one of several creepy dolls:

posted by Brad at 7/06/2006 01:11:00 PM | permalink | 0 comments

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Monday, July 3

Rock Star Twins

Joe Mauer (.392, 5 HR, 40 RBI) lost the starting catcher job to Ivan Rodriguez (.298, 7 HR, 38 RBI) by a mere 16,842 votes (less than a 1% margin) in final voting.

It appears that I agree with most of the SportsNation that Santana should start for the AL and Francisco Liriano is the most deserving recipient of your Final Vote.

With a sweep of the Brewers complete, the Twins have now won 10 straight, 20 of the last 22, jumped to #7 in the MLB Power Rankings... but still trail Detroit by 10 games in the AL Central :(

posted by Brad at 7/03/2006 11:26:00 AM | permalink | 0 comments

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