Piggy Piggy Piggy, Can't You See...
Take the following image of a pig. What do you see? If you're in the United States, you know that this image represents more than just a pig. Culturally, it's much more than that. It's an icon that we associate with financial prudence, of socking away money for retirement or a rainy day. They're used as teaching devices to solidify the concept of saving to children. Banks and financial institutions use them to promote products...
Why I Want A Roomba
I've got my mind set on buying a Roomba. I'm not in any hurry, and so far, I haven't felt the urge to spend a few hundred dollars on one of these little vacuum cleaners, but one day, I plan to get one. And I'll tell you why. The first time I ever saw one was in an episode of the TV Show "Arrested Development". The mother on the show is explaining that she had...
The Sharpest Tool in the Shed
Just over a hundred years ago, Francis Galton set out to prove that the majority of people are stupid. He devised a very simple experiment: take an ox into a public place and have lots of random people guess at how many pounds the ox weighed. He hypothesized that a few intelligent people would get close to the correct answer, but that the majority of people would be way off the mark. Francis Galton was...
Now Junior, Behave Yourself
There was an episode of Penn and Teller's "Bullshit!" (which is a kind of quasi-political "Mythbusters" hosted by two libertarians) where people were sent with clipboards into a big outdoor event filled with environmentalists. They carried with them a petition to ban "dihydrogen monoxide" from our nation's lakes, reservoirs, and water supply. Dihydrogen monoxide being, of course, just ordinary water. (H2O) They didn't lie about where dihydrogen monoxide could be found. They just told people...
Speed Putty
You know the goop they cram into your mouth at the dentist when they need to get impressions of your teeth? They mix up this nasty tasting paste in a bowl, stick it into this plastic thing that covers your teeth, and then they stick that thing into your mouth. It feels like the stuff is oozing into the back of your throat, so your gag reflex goes bonkers, and all the while the dental...
The Power of the Deposit
I grew up in Michigan, the only state where aluminum cans and glass bottles have a deposit of 10 cents. In a handful of other states, the deposit is a nickel, but if you buy a twelve pack of Coke in Michigan, you're going to pay an extra $1.20 at checkout. The only way for you to get that money back is by bringing the empty cans back to the store, feeding them into big...
It's All About Soul
Lots of business writers talk about how the 21st century will belong to right-brained individuals. Businesses that leverage creativity in order to make (notice I didn't say "mass produce") interesting things that appeal to people will win out. The argument is simple: left-brained, logical processing is too easy to automate by using computers. In a global economy, trying to make stuff cheaper by creating a more efficient assembly line won't work because you can just...
Make the Invisible Visible
I remember reading once that for every four minutes that a person spends in the shower, on average, one more ton of carbon dioxide gets released into the atmosphere. Carbon dioxide is a greenhouse gas, and so the time we spend in the shower in the mornings contributes to the greenhouse effect. This isn't something that people think about at seven in the morning before they've had their morning coffee. So, I say we either...
Sign of the Times
"People are getting dumber." I'm sure you've heard this kind of mentality before. Here's an author who wrote an entire book about dumb I am. It's interesting how often people latch onto a few specific events, or a few localized occurrences, and extrapolate from them that our society or (gasp!) the entire world is in decline. People watch more TV, spend more time on the Internet, listen to heavy metal, and less time reading books...
Comedy via Social Media
Here's someone using Blogger in a creative and funny way. It's clear after reading a few of the entries that it's not really a librarian being serious, but a series of jokes in the form of blog posts, probably written by a few people who work at a library and are poking fun at the "librarian" stereotype. The entries are always pithy and short, and I think it's an excellent use of the medium (thanks,...