I’m a hunter gatherer of surprising information. Some of it is useful, some is truly surprising, and some is no more useful than a wristwatch in Mexico. Here’s some to ponder:
As someone with a different name, studies of names usually get my attention. Names including an infix, e.g. David van Mitchell instead of David Mitchell, ranked 43% higher in perceived social status. People will rate a piece of writing 14% better when the author’s name includes a middle initial.
Using plastic bags has become uncool. But taking a 30,00 foot view of the environmental footprint, the issue becomes murky. Reusable organic cotton bags must be used 149 times to offset the effects of traditional plastic bags on climate change, and they must be used 20,000 times to offset all combined environmental effects.
Timing is import. For example, you’ll get better results from a bureaucrat after lunch than before lunch when they might be hangry. Unfortunately, often you can’t control timing. After the LSU football team loses a game, Louisiana juvenile court judges hand out 6.4% longer sentences on average. And the longest sentence lengths are handed out by judges living closest to LSU.
We used to obsess about celebrities. Then social media caught on, we started obsessing about one another. Facebook gives you the impression that everyone else in the world is having a better time, and that if you are not cataloging your life, you’re not really living it. You only see pictures of others having a great time at the best party. People are developing a chemical addiction to their phones. A gambling addict feels that rush of brain chemicals not when they win but when the roulette wheel is spinning. When someone pulls out their phone to see if someone has commented on the photo they posted, they get that same rush.
This is crazy. No person born blind has ever been diagnosed with schizophrenia.
There’re some surprising casualties of smart phone use. Worldwide, growth in the fragrance industry is lagging behind cosmetics and skincare products, because ‘You can’t smell a selfie’.
The human mind is very powerful (or maybe gullible). Placebos are so effective that placebo placebos work: A pain cream with no active ingredients worked even when not used by the patient. Just owning the cream was enough to reduce pain.
No wonder it’s hard for some folks to find their boot straps to pull themselves up with. The Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation says, “Where you are born is more predictive of your future than any other factor.”
It’s hard to believe that mammals are doing as well as we are. Scientists have identified about 120,000 species of fungi in 2019, but estimate there are as many as 3.3 million species in all. By comparison, all living mammals comprise fewer than 6,400 species.
Do you like yams and sweet potatoes? The sweet potato provides more nutrients per farmed acre than any other staple.
The human mind is weak. Expensive placebos work better than cheap placebos.
God bless Google, I searched for what happened in the year of the last four digits of my cell phone. The corncob pipe was invented 1869.
Don’t tell Lamborgini owners this. A developed country is not a place where the poor have cars. It’s where the rich use public transport.
Hey vegans. People are more violently opposed to fur than leather because harassing rich women is safer than harassing motorcycle gangs.
It’s hard to believe that there are people who think that the Earth is flat or that climate change is a hoax. You cannot reason people out of positions they didn’t reason themselves into.
Don’t tell Louie Vitton this. Luxury isn’t about owning a lot of stuff. It’s about feeling unrushed.
A tidbit for the anti-vaxers.You can ignore reality, but you can’t ignore the consequences of ignoring reality.