February 2008
6 posts
A Hole in the Head →
Brilliant, and timely.
“The three-toed sloth is not well informed about the outside world. On a scale...”
– Quoted from “The Life of Pi“ by Yann Martel. This is a particularly outstanding book, and best enjoyed as an audiobook because the narrators are so well suited to the characters.
“If I had asked my customers what they wanted, they would have said a faster...”
– Henry Ford
If Banner Ads Were Forced To Be Truthful... →
"6 Degrees" Fades Away →
This article shows how the famous “6 degrees of separation theory” fades under scrutiny. I found the original theory frighteningly seductive, so admitting it might be a hoax — or at least bad science — was a hard pill to swallow. Then later on in the article I read: “Milgram was so in love with the idea of six degrees that he overlooked the weak statistics backing...
Motivated by a Tax, Irish Spurn Plastic Bags →
“In 2002, Ireland passed a tax on plastic bags; customers who want them must now pay 33 cents per bag at the register. There was an advertising awareness campaign. And then something happened that was bigger than the sum of these parts. Within weeks, plastic bag use dropped 94 percent. Within a year, nearly everyone had bought reusable cloth bags, keeping them in offices and in the backs of...