Pancake City

The Washington Post has an interesting article on a study that may explain why people can be more motivated to combat a small humanitarian crisis than a much larger one, like genocide. From the article:

“In another experiment, Slovic asked people to imagine they were disbursing money on behalf of a large foundation: They could give $10 million to fight a disease that claimed 20,000 lives a year — and save 10,000 of those lives. But they could also devote the $10 million to fight a disease that claimed 290,000 lives a year — and this investment would save 20,000 lives.

Slovic found that people preferred to spend the money saving the 10,000 lives in the first scenario rather than the 20,000 lives in the second scenario: “People were responding not to the number of lives saved but the percentage of lives saved,” he said. In the one case, their investment could save half the victims; in the case of the more deadly disease, it could save 7 percent of the victims.”

The whole article is worth reading. My own take is that there is something intrinsically satisfying about making a noticeable change. I don’t think it’s taught by culture. There are quite a few children’s toys that are just variations of making red shapes blue, flipping Xs to Os, and so on. Conversely, if you feel like what you are doing is a drop in the bucket, you may think “Why bother?” regardless of how significant an effect that drop in the bucket may have.

The study focuses on how this behavioral quirk may affect our responses to crises, but I see variations of this dynamic pop up in many areas of life.

I’m unhappy with how my life is going and I’ve been thinking recently on ways to live a little better. By chance, I listened to an interview today with a behaviorial scientist who talks about a strategy for changing your habits, and what he said really hit home with me.

He said that because of the way our brains evolved, most people have a fear response to big changes that make implementing them difficult. The basic strategy is to take the concept of baby steps to the extreme: start with the tiniest change and very slowly increase it until you meet your goal.

For myself, I’m going to start with writing one minute a day, then two minutes the next day, then three minutes, and so on until I reach an amount I’m satisfied with. I’m also going to wake up one minute earlier a day for a while, and try breaking up the tasks I keep pushing off into multiple, much smaller steps.

I think my roommates would be annoyed if I used this technique with my laundry (Day 3: Load #1 transfered to dryer) but I’m excited about trying it with a few other tasks.

You can listen to the podcast and find a bit out about the book here.

I wish there was a war called The Chicken Pox War so my childhood scars would be a lot more manly. “Don’t fuck with me. I ate chicken noodle soup for two weeks straight.”

Tornado Tots is a good name both for spicy fried potatoes and four-year olds hopped up on sugar.

Last week, I went to a birthday party for Jaeda, the four-year old daughter of my friends Deb and Sean.

Lots of Tornado Tots there. It was fun, but tiring just to watch them. The baseline for a four-year-old birthday party is controlled chaos, and that’s if you are doing everything right.

Compounding the challenge of managing kids is birthday cake. Kid birthday cake is made of flour, eggs, and liquefied sugar directly injected into the icing with syringes. If you are ever making a recipe and are out of sugar, just use some kid birthday cake. Same thing. Cake makers are very sick people. They know what their cakes do to kids, and they love it. They probably hide spy cameras in their cakes and high five each other as they watch previously reasonable children running into walls and jumping on Tickle Me Elmo toys.

Deb and Sean wisely outwitted the evil bakers by having a “dance party” right after the kids ate. They held it in a closed, presumably well-padded room. 

There were lots of funny kids at the party. Here are a few:

Cake Face.  I know Cake Face isn’t particularly descriptive at a party for four-year olds. So I’ll call him Cake Face Killa.  Jaeda’s parents set out Arthur plates, napkins, and plastic knives and forks on the table. Nice try, but silverware is not this guy’s M.O. Cake Face Killa saw his slice of cake, dropped his arms to his side and smashed his face into the cake. Then he came up and laughed. His mom rolled her eyes and said, “You know, you could use silverware.” Does sarcasm work with four-year olds? Not with Cake Face Killa. 

Run! My friend Krista’s son Ryan was tired for most of the party. Then he had some cake, after which he trotted up and engaged me in this conversation.

RYAN: “Run!”
ME: “What?”
RYAN: “Run!”
ME: “Okay.”

So we ran around the house for a bit. Then he saw his friend playing in a cardboard castle and ran into that. 

Mini-Buddha. I think her name is Ava. This is what she said after she spilled her cup of water. “I spilled water on my dress. Now it’s wet. But that’s okay.”

The birthday girl. After the party, Jaeda and I played with her new Barbie mansion. I love playing with Jaeda and haven’t done so for months, so I had a lot of motivation and energy. She almost wore me out though. 

In half an hour, the Barbies rode their duck cars around the world, founded a school (taught by Whorton the Who), drank tea, jumped on the bed, fell of a cliff, checked themselves out in the mirror, and walked up and down the Barbie mansion steps a dozen times in a row for reasons I still can’t figure out. These Barbies did more in one half-hour than I’ve did in my whole life.

What killed me was bed time. My throat was parched and I needed a break. When Jaeda said “Bedtime!” I tossed “Pink Brother” (my Barbie) into the plastic bed and thought about taking up religion so I would have someone to say thanks to in moments like this. I start to get up to rest on the couch, when literally three seconds later, Jaeda said, “Morning!”

What I thought: “Are you freakin’ kidding me? Give a Pink Brother a break.” What I said: “Oh, I think they are still tired. Let’s have them sleep a little longer.” Jaeda: “No. Morning.”

You can’t argue with a four-year old on her birthday. Well, you can, but you’ll probably lose. We played for a while longer, and I was very grateful then Sean pulled out a DVD of Yo Gabba Gabba (an awesome children’s show, by the way).

I don’t know if I have the energy and talent to raise a kid, but they are fun to play with for a few hours. I feel the same way about dogs. I don’t know if I could handle the responsibility of owning one, but I love to walk them. I admire parents in general–it takes a lot of energy and sacrifice to be one.

I watched a great movie today, “Face in the Crowd.” It was made in 1957, but almost all of what it says about celebrity, politics, power, and television is not only still relevant, but prophetic in some cases. 

The more I think about it, the more I like the movie. I highly recommend it. A few quotes from one scene:

GEN. HAYNESWORTH: “Politics have entered a new stage, a television stage. Instead of long-winded public debates, the people want capsule slogans. ‘Time for a change.’ ‘The mess in Washington.’ More bang for a buck. Punch lines and glamour.”

[...]

MR. PERVIS: “General, my papers have supported Worthington Fuller from the first day he ran for office. He’s not a grandstander, a backslapper or a baby-kisser.”

GEN. HAYNESWORTH: “That’s exactly what he’s got to become. A majority in this country don’t see eye-to-eye with him. We’ve got to find 35 million buyers for the product we call Worthington Fuller.”

Change.gov, President-in-all-but-name Obama’s transition site, added a neat feature today. It allows you (after a simple sign-up) to submit questions and vote on questions that other people send.

I voted on questions for about 15 minutes. Its fun to see what other people are asking. The site saves your voting history, you can even click on their names to see a history of the questions they submitted.

I’m surprised at the quality of the questions so far. Even the form questions have been much better than your average Internet discussion (a low standard, to be sure).

I don’t know how long term their thinking is, but if they wanted to create a database of issues each person cares about for the purpose of mobilizing them in the future, this is the perfect way to do it.

I’ve only used the web site for 15 minutes or so, and already they know my zip code + a vague idea of the issues that matter to me. Let’s say I lived in a swing district, and Congressman X is undecided on the Eggplant Equal Shinyness Act, an issue important to both Obama and I. 

It would be exceeding easy and effective for them to send me a targeted email with my representative’s phone number and a suggested script: YES TO EGGPLANT, NO TO BIG CHICKEN.

They are going to run into the same problems every web site with thousands of commenters run into, and perhaps a few on their own:

1. Too many comments for users to read. I stay away from the comment sections of most blog posts when there is 30+ comments in them. It just takes too much time to go through.

2. Too many comments for people to bother responding. Obviously, this isn’t a roadblock for many people, but it is for me. I rarely post comments in a thread where 30+ people have already commented because I assume the original writer isn’t going to have time to read it, and most people aren’t going to bother reading it either, if they even see it in the flood of messages. 

3. Too many comments for the Obama team to read. One of the recent questions change.gov posed got 3,500+ comments and counting. Even with a few rating and filtering tools, it would still take days for a staff member to read them all and make a “Best Of” digest or summary. Let’s say someone posts an amazing idea that Obama’s policy advisors should hear about. How does that not get lost with all of the so-so ideas and volumes of low quality information?

I have zero complaints so far. The fact that they are at least trying to listen is noteworthy. I hope they have a long-term strategy though–it will help maintain their focus and the value of what they are doing.

Must…resist…buying.

The Frequently Bought Together section below the listing is a bonus.

Only two left in stock—hurry!

1. The recycling market has crashed along with the rest of the economy (link).

The economic downturn has decimated the market for recycled materials like cardboard, plastic, newspaper and metals. Across the country, this junk is accumulating by the ton in the yards and warehouses of recycling contractors, which are unable to find buyers or are unwilling to sell at rock-bottom prices.

[...]

One reason prices slid so rapidly this time is that demand from China, the biggest export market for recyclables from the United States, quickly dried up as the global economy slowed. China’s influence is so great that in recent years recyclables have been worth much less in areas of the United States that lack easy access to ports that can ship there.

[...]

The situation has also been rough on junk poachers — people who made a profitable trade of picking off cardboard and other refuse from bins before the recycling trucks could get to it. Those poachers have shut their operations, said Michael Sangiacomo, chief executive of Norcal Waste Systems, a recycling and garbage company that serves Northern California.

“I knew it was really bad a few weeks ago when our guys showed up and the corrugated cardboard was still there,” he said. “People started calling, saying ‘You didn’t pick up our cardboard,’ and I said, ‘We haven’t picked up your cardboard for years.’ ”

2. The euro, pound, Canadian dollar (doesn’t Canada have their own name for anything?) and who knows how many other foreign currencies have dramatically against the dollar since August. The Japanese yen has followed almost the reverse pattern, rising dramatically since August. I have no idea why this has happened, but I find it interesting. It makes it easier to hold the fantasy of visiting Europe again. The rise in the dollar doesn’t seem to have got as much attention as its steady fall did six month to a year ago, but that’s just my sole viewpoint, doesn’t mean it’s true.

Let’s get a head start on the bad Obama puns, shall we?

Some Democrats are publicly calling for him to get a head start on dropping the elect part from President-elect. Problems are mounting. Bush has already checked out. To quote Dem. Barney Frank:

“At a time of great crisis with mortgage foreclosures and autos, he says we only have one president at a time,” Frank said. “I’m afraid that overstates the number of presidents we have. He’s got to remedy that situation.” (link)

It has been only a month since he won the election, and in informal settings, I hear as many people call him President Obama as President-elect.  He could be more publicly hands-on if he wanted to with a minimum of people complaining that he is being presumptuous.

But I don’t think he wants to, at least for a few more weeks. Here’s why.

1. We’re nowhere the bottom yet of this economic mess. Unemployment will be higher on Jan 20. than it is today. There will be more stock market fluctuations, more turmoil, more bad economic news that continues to be “worse than expected”, a phrase I hear in every news story on the latest economic indicator. (You think it’s time we lower our expectations by now?) Obama doesn’t want to take responsibility for this mess until he has to, especially when…

2. He doesn’t have the powers of the presidency yet. By all indications, he is shaping up to be the most prepared new President we’ve ever had. But although he could take a more active role, he has one hand tied behind his back. If it became known he was taking an active role though, people wouldn’t take that into account. He would get 100% of the fallout for the continuing downturn, with limited abilities to do anything about it.

3. He’s really fucking busy. I have trouble eating a bowl of cereal before rushing out the door. He and his staff need to vet and hire thousands of people, reach out to potential allies and partners, take calls from foreign leaders, keep tabs on various crises like the automaker bailout and terrorist strike in India, etc. etc. I doubt he has much free time to be more involved than he is.

4. Presumptuousness. It’s becoming an increasingly small reason, but unless Bush publicly handed Obama the Torch of Life and took off on the next flight to the Galapagos Islands tomorrow, it would be awkward if Obama, say, gave a nationally televised address at an Oval Office-ish desk. I think the weekly YouTube addresses are a good mix of official and casual. I expect them to get more meaty the closer Obama gets to Jan. 20th. 

I don’t want to become a total Obama fan-boy, but he has shown an amazing talent for navigating tricky situations, and I like how he is handling this one so far. He operates more deliberately and with a long-term outlook than some of his frenetic supporters, and I think this particular criticism doesn’t have much merit. Give him a month. I think this line of criticism will seem out of date by then.

I don’t understand the yearly rush of shoppers on Black Friday. This year was particularly disturbing when a mob of shoppers crushed a Wal-Mart employee to death, and then complained when police told them they had to leave the store because they had just killed someone.

I went to the mall with Tina on Saturday. Mostly the same deals, less crowded than Friday.

I understand going mall shopping for clothes or anything you need to see or try on first before buying. But I don’t understand people waking up at 3:00 A.M. to buy tech. GPS units, lap tops, video games, flat screen TVs–all of that stuff you can get cheaper online, even cheaper than many of those “Friday only! 5-9 a.m!” specials you see advertised.

If you are looking to buy a particular item for Christmas, let me know and I may be able to find you a good deal. If you are looking to buy something but don’t need it by Christmas, I think there are going to be some great deals after Christmas and for the next few months because the economy is so bad. Retailers are going to be forced to slash their prices.

With that in mind, here’s a short guide to saving money online.

1. Find 1-2 deal aggregator sites and check them frequently, every few hours if you can. My favorite by far is slickdeals.net. They publish their “hottest” deals on the front page. The thing is, once they promote the deal on their front page, it usually sells out shortly thereafter. To get a leg up, visit their forums and read the deals that have 4-5 thumbs up. You can find out about deals before others that way, and see offers that are good but not good enough for the front page.

2. If you know what store you want to shop at, check online for a coupon first before buying. You can search for “[store] coupon” in Google or check out an aggregator like RetailMeNot. Credit card sites sometimes have coupons around the holiday. I used with 20% Banana Republic Visa coupon last week.

3. If you are ordering online, sign up with a cash back site and see if the retailer is participating in a cash back program. It’s usually only a few percent discount, but that can add up if you are buying a big ticket item. The two major cash back sites are Fat Wallet and Microsoft Live’s cash back program. Sometimes you can’t use a coupon and get cash back, so be aware of that. Microsoft’s CB program is better than Fat Wallet’s, but I think they are doing a holiday promotion and it won’t last. (Up until a few days ago, they had 30% off Ebay purchases. Now it’s down to 20%.)

4. Browsing these deal sites can be addicting, and it’s easy to get sucked into buying something you don’t need because it’s on sale. A “Buy 1, Get 1 Free” sale at the supermarket ended up in me throwing away two cans of salmon. This is not for impulse shoppers looking to rationalize their purchases.

If you have your own tips or any questions, let me know.

So Woot.com had a web cam special a few days ago, a pack of 2 for $13 + $5 shipping. After I pass off a few to my family so we can talk on Skype, I’ll have an extra one and I’ve been thinking about what I should use it for.

Then it hit me: Cat Cam. My roommate has a cat, Syntax. Maybe I can figure out a way to attach the camera to Syntax and convert him into a mobile video reporter.

I waited until he came in my room and then grabbed my camera to take some profile shots of him–side, front, top–for the schematics. “Syntax, I need to take some photos of you.”

Maybe there was a devilish tone in my voice when I said that, because he bolted out of my room, something he hasn’t done since my last cat-related idea, “I wonder if cats like belly rubs?”  I followed him to the hallway, but he wouldn’t stand still for me to get a good photo. I snapped a few photos of him butt and him peeking his head out around the corner, and gave up.

My roommate Meghan is an artist so maybe she can draw a sketch of him for my blueprints. Although she loves cats so she will probably draw him holding a bunch of daffodils in his paws or resting peacefully in a little girl’s arms, something he would never do in real life, unless the little girl was dipped in a vat of cat nip beforehand.

The next step was to figure out his length and width for the camera vest that will hold the camera. I don’t know if this cat spent some time in certain parts of China, but he became very suspicious when I brought out the measuring tape.  He started off 18″ long, then curled into 10″, then went under my legs. Maybe Meghan can measure him when she draws a sketch of him for me (WITHOUT DAFFODILS!).

I don’t know yet how I will make the camera vest. All I know is that I want it to be something that I can take off quickly for times when his owner, my other roommate, comes home unexpectedly.

Another issue is figuring out how to convert the wired USB web cam into a wireless web cam that will broadcast the data to my computer. I will probably need a battery pack too, and perhaps an exoskeleton. This cat is kind of a wimp. I don’t think he can carry all of this equipment without some 21st-century assistance.

I haven’t even got the cameras yet, so this is still the planning stage. Another issue is that some of the extra equipment may be expensive, and I’m not sure it’s worth it. This cat isn’t very interesting. He spends most of his time on my roommate’s bed. Occasionally he’ll run downstairs and stand in front of the bay window to see if his friend\enemy Neighborhood Cat is outside. But he’s no outdoor cat, so even if I get this project running, he’s just going to show me the same house I’ve seen before. “Hey, look! It’s the stairs no one sweeps except me. How exciting.” (Zing! Passive aggressiveness.)

I’ll explore the idea for a few weeks though. If you have any suggestions on where I can get a wireless USB adapter or anything else, let me know.

Deal update: You can get one of the cameras I mentioned for $8, shipping included. Better than what I paid for it. The deal will probably die in a day. (link)

I haven’t tried this offer, but it seems legit. Free medium PJ pizza with small order. I would create a separate email account for offers like this–you’ll probably get a lot of spam from Papa Johns after giving your email address.

Update: It’s dead.

I check Fail Blog a few times a month. Many of the entries are hilarious. Two of my recent favorites:

Speeding Ticket Fail

Shadow Fail

The CEOs of the Detroit automakers got some grief for flying into Washington on private jets to ask Congress for $25 billion in bailout money.  I wonder if they will jet-pool this time. I hear it’s an economical way to travel for bailout trips.

The CEO of Ford, Alan Mullaly, earned close to $50 million in total compensation since taking the helm of Ford in 2006. At the last bailout hearing, he was asked whether he’d be willing to take a $1 salary in exchange for federal funds. His response: “I think I’m OK where I am.”

After their last failed trip, they either figured out a better way to hide their compensation or had someone explain to them that private jets and multi-million salaries when your company is on the verge of bankruptcy is a bad idea.  The CEOs of Ford and GM and are now agreeing to take a $1/year salary in exchange for bailout funds. Nobility, we salute you.

I’m going to be cynical though and assume they are going to use accounting tricks to still take home seven figures in compensation. And it’s a good thing too. If they had to fire their butlers, their butlers would be forced to become manservants, manservants would be forced to become waiters, waiters would be forced to become janitors, and janitors would be forced to become auto-executives because by that point, we are going to realize they are more qualified to run an auto company than these guys.

The three auto companies have been feverishly working on restructuring plans since their last visit to show Congress they are making tough decisions and will put the money to good use. It missed the point though. The real problem with the top management in the Detroit automakers is that they didn’t have that plan a month ago when they asked for the bailout money.

i don’t know what will happen, but at this point I think the best solution is a federally-assisted Chapter 11 bankruptcy. Get an outside party to throw out the top management, restructure the pensions, sell off the less profitable parts of the company, and guarantee all the loans so the car companies and their suppliers can stay afloat. I don’t think the Big Three are capable of making these changes themselves quickly enough to make a difference.

I.

I’m 32. According to Patton Oswalt, 32 isn’t a noteworthy birthday, and I agree.

I’ve had an uneasy relationship with birthdays. They started off fun. My parents organized the parties and found the friends. I still have a fondness for skeeball, pizza, and animatronic mice. But then there comes an age when your parents stop choosing your friends and you start.

I didn’t do well with that transition. I had no social skills and was painfully shy. By Junior High, my birthdays were reminders that I didn’t have any friends to invite to a party.

High school was worse. I blame Kid n Play.

Specifically, House Party 1, 2, and 3. But really, all movies that had scenes of high school students partying, usually not even for a specific reason like a birthday or a late circumcision. 

These movies created my image of what life is like for popular people. Not only do you have parties on your birthday, but you could go to a party every weekend filled with happy dancing drunk people and rappers with six-inch flat tops.

This was not my life. Most of my weekends were spent alone at home. I was afraid to ask an acquaintance to hang out because I couldn’t think of a reason why someone would want to hang out with me. I don’t know where the depths of my poor self-esteem came from, but the end result is that my birthdays were usually dinner with my family. My sisters may have a better recollection, but I think they brought a few friends with them to fill the table. The idea of throwing a birthday party and having a group of people show up, just because you asked them, like you were Bacchus the Greek God of wine, was alien to me.

Even in college when my social situation was better, I didn’t have the confidence or motivation to ask a few friends if they wanted to celebrate my birthday until my 21st. Things didn’t change much after that. In my mid 20s, I worked at a very birthday-friendly company. 100% cake guarantee. All you had to do was tell one person and the whole office would be alerted through a network of pneumatic tubes. I didn’t tell anyone it was my birthday the first year. I did so the next year, but it felt uncomfortable and awkward.

As for an actual birthday party, not throwing one for myself or reminding my friends my Uterus Exit Day was aproaching was very easy to rationalize. Birthdays aren’t a big deal anymore. I don’t like drawing attention to myself. And a smaller voice: if I threw a birthday party, would anyone want to come?

II.

I have to say that my family was there every year to take me out to dinner and give me good wishes, and it always cheered my up. My sister Tina, in fact, the engine of our family birthday celebrations, has expanded the notion of a birth day into what she calls a “birthday weekend” or sometimes a “birthday week”, depending on how long she is around.

Here is how it worked over this Thanksgiving.

Wednesday evening. My Mom took us to see Cirque du Soleil. Tina: “We’re going to see Cirque du Soleil…for your birthday!”

Thursday. Thanksgiving. Tina: “Thanksgiving is your birthday dinner!” I think she put a candle in a pie. “Do you want us to make you anything for your birthday?”

Friday. Tina: “How is your birthday weekend going?” 

Saturday. Tina took me clothes shopping, something I hate doing by myself, for the whole day. She wrapped the gifts and demanded I open one after each course in the meal. She told me she had to restrain herself to not put a bow on the boxes.

Sunday. My actual birthday! After four days, I finally warm up to the idea that birthdays are special, and it’s okay for people to do something special to celebrate it. I am excited. ME: “Who wants to go outside in the rain and get the newspaper for me? For my birthday?” TINA: “Get it your damn self.”

And that’s birthday weekend. Lots of unexpected, heart-touching buildup and then a big zero on the actual day.

Birthday weekend is a lot like a M. Night Shyamlan movie.

III.

Most of the rest of my 20s were birthday-party free. I was finally motivated to throw a party for myself when I turned 30. I had to fight against my old habits of not doing anything, but it seemed big enough to be worth celebrating. I felt cosmically obligated, in a way. It was a good feeling when most of my friends were able to make it.  

I was ready to return to my usual routine for my 31st and not do anything, but my friend Kate threw a dinner party for me. I made me feel really good that one of my friends would do that for me, and I ended up having a wonderful time.

Last week, I sent out an birthday invitation to my friends without thinking about it much. I didn’t realize how odd that was for me until I started writing this post and remembering what most of my birthdays have been (or not been) like. It still feels a little awkward to throw a party, but nowhere near as much as it used to.

I credit being lucky enough to have some very good friends. I didn’t even say what we would be doing in the invitation, and eight people said they could come. The rest I know would come if they could. I couldn’t picture that happening five years ago.

And it’s the best birthday present I could ask for.