Category: interesting
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Words and Phrases Lost in Translation
Coming from the author’s confusion in relating to her German-speaking Balkan partner, the question is asked: can phrases and words that we give great weight to in our native tongue truly be translated across cultural and language barriers. Could it really mean the same thing for him to say “I love you” in English if he…
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The Transformative Power of a Narrative
Can a narrative attached to an everyday object increase its objective value? That was the question posed by Rob Walker (author of The New York Times‘ Consumed column) and Joshua Glenn (author of Taking Things Seriously) when they started the Significant Objects Project—an experiment designed to test whether a series of stories created about an object…
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Creating Effective Messages
Nature has published a short interview with psychologist Robert Gifford looking at the “interface between psychology and climate change”. Noting the problem of pubic distrust of scientific messages that are delivered with uncertainty, Gifford proposes five elements of effective messages*: It has to have some urgency. It has to have as much certainty as can…
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An Analysis of Supermarket Checkout Times
An analysis of supermarket checkout times has shown that express lanes (for people with fewer than 5 items, say) are not always the most efficient checkout route for time-sensitive shoppers. Dan Meyer, a high school maths teacher, has done the hard work (providing his data and analysis) and came to the following conclusion: [Express lanes]…
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Marketing and Spreading Online
Bud Caddell, strategist at Undercurrent, talks with the author of Chief Culture Officer, Grant McCracken, on Bud’s experience of marketing online and how it really should be done–by the small and large companies. This on making something ‘spreadable’: Trying to design a program that reaches mass first, isn’t going to spread at all. It’s not remarkable, there’s…
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Advice from Economists
Jim Rogers—co-founder of the Quantum Fund (with George Soros), economic commentator, guest professor of finance at Columbia University and author of A Gift to My Children—provided a short interview with the FT discussing his thoughts on making that first million, on travelling, and some general advice to the next generation. What is the secret of your success? As…
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The Statistics of A/B Testing
Whether or not you believe this to be (as Joel Spolsky does) the “best post […] about A/B testing, ever”, it definitely is one of the easiest to understand and one of the few posts on split testing that is statistically sound (i.e. useful). Is [a given A/B test] conclusive? Has [variant] A won? Or…
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Language Map of Europe
As Neatorama says of this language map of Europe: Languages correspond only imprecisely with political borders, which are designated by the superimposed red lines. The English version of this map was created by Postmann Michael in 2007 […] and there are continuing doubts regarding the accuracy of some of the language borders. I am reminded…
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The Humble, Essential and Safe Elevator
Stuck in an express elevator around the 13th floor of the McGraw-Hill office in New York for 41 hours, Nicholas White’s story should be somewhat fear-provoking. Intersperse with information on the importance of elevators in modern cities, a profile of elevator consultant James Fortune and a discussion on the psychology of elevators, the article somehow…
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Penny/Dollar Auction Psychology (The Workings of Swoopo)
I first heard of the bidding fee scheme/online auction site Swoopo in a Coding Horror post that takes a look at the company’s business plan, calling it “pure, distilled evil”. It’s also a pretty simple (or, as the post said, “brilliantly evil”) plan: It’s almost an exploit of human nature itself. Once you’ve bid on…