Here are some of the most interesting things I learned this year: The bacteria RB41 is known to exist in only three places: showerheads, dog noses, and paleolithic cave paintings. (The Great Indoors: The Surprising Science of How Buildings Shape Our Behavior, Health, and Happiness) An average pair of jeans requires 6 miles of thread. […]
Does expensive wine taste better?
A close look at the psychology of wine, how marketing affects your perceptions, and why you’re paying too much for wine. In 2002, four Wall Street businessmen sat down for dinner at the Balthazar in New York City. They ordered a Mouton Rothschild 1989 for the table. The Balthazar menu lists this wine at $2,000. […]
Diversification Bias
For a group of twenty-five children who were trick-or-treating on the evening of October 31, 1993, Halloween was going exactly as planned. Approach the house. Ring the doorbell. Select the candy. Pretty typical, right? What these kids didn’t know was they were the unwitting participants in an experiment. On the same street, coming in the […]
The 1918–1920 Influenza Pandemic in Lynden, Washington
Quick programming note: Usually I write about marketing and consumer behavior. I’m taking a quick break to write about the events that happened 102 years ago in my hometown, Lynden, Washington. The first person in Lynden to die of influenza during the 1918 pandemic—the so-called “Spanish flu”—was Cora VandenBrink. She died on Monday, October 28, […]
52 things I learned in 2019
Here are some of the most interesting things I learned this year: Having a younger brother reduces your earnings by 7% on average. (“The brother earnings penalty”) Amazon loses 1% in revenue for every extra tenth of a second customers spend waiting for pages to load on their website. (“Wait, wait, tell me”) There is […]
The peak–end rule
The peak–end rule predicts that your memory of an experience strongly correlates with the average of how you feel at the peak of the experience and the end of the experience. Have you ever thought about how strange it is that the moment you’re experiencing right now will never happen again? The only thing you […]