“Sway: The Irresistible Pull of Irrational Behavior”

Ori Brafman and Rom Brafman

I was looking forward to this book after listening to two other eye-opening books on Behavioral Economics: Predictably Irrational and Freakonomics. In fact, I had learned about this upcoming book from Dan Ariely, the author of Predictably Irrational. I just finished listening to the audio version of this book.

Sway is in every way as absorbing and thought-provoking as the other two are. While the other two books illustrate how irrational our day-to-day decisions and opinions can be, and how conventional wisdom can be misleading, this book presents a theory on how we get swayed by some emotional forces. The authors follow a similar style and build their theory using numerous examples.

Why does a renowned aircraft pilot, known for his impeccable record and attention to safety, decide to take his plane off, without even asking for clearance from the control tower, and cause a disaster that kills everyone aboard? Why do the French audience of the TV show “Who Wants To Be A Millionaire?” mislead one of the participants? Why do some doctors keep turning their backs on a sick young girl and her mother, leading to a tragic end? Why did the scientific community reject a brilliant discovery by one anthropologist, and accept a completely bogus claim by another?

Using anecdotes such as these to discuss bizarre human behavior, Ori and Rom Brafman develop a theory to explain what sways us into doing highly uncharacteristic things. They explain how our sensitivity to perceived loss affects our sense of judgement, and how our expectations are clouded by trivial considerations such as appearances and surroundings.

Why did some students pay $200 for a $20 bill? Why do we hold on to stocks that are sinking until they are worth nothing? Would a rose by any other name really smell as sweet, or was Shakespeare mistaken?

If these questions intrigue you, read the book and you will enjoy every bit of it.

This post contains a summary of all the posts related to FLL-2008 in this site.

FIRST Lego League 2008 Registration

FLL-2008: Climate Connections Missions

More FLL-2008 posts under development.

I set up my 55-gallon freshwater aquarium about two years ago, and Fluval 305 was my choice for the filter. This has been a quiet, reliable and low-maintenance workhorse ever since. This filter is rated to service aquariums upto 70-gallons, and so I chose this as it would have some extra capacity when used with my 55-gallon tank.

The Fluval-305 is an advanced external canister filter. First thing I did was to watch the instructional video on the included DVD. In about 10 minutes, this video pretty much tells you where to locate your filter, how to connect the tubes, how to fill the media, and how to turn it on. If you bought this filter and are trying to set it up, I would highly recommend watching the video; it will save you a lot of time.

In the couple of years that I have been using this filter, it has performed quite impressively. It is powerful, quiet and very effective. It does mechanical, chemical and biological filtration — all in one good sized canister that sits below your aquarium. I try to keep my aquarium balanced with live plants, supported by appropriate lighting, nutrient-rich substrate and under-substrate heater. This, as well as the Fluval-305’s large capacity, has made it possible for me to space out filter cleaning and media replacement to about once in 2 to 3 months.

Here are some features that make this a great filter:

Aquastop Valve
When you want to remove the filter for routine maintenance, you need to disconnect it from the tubes in your aquarium. With a lot of filters, this can be messy. With this filter, this is as simple as lifting the valve to block the tubes. Once you do this, you can just disconnect the tube attachment from the filter body with absolutely no spill whatsover.

Motor
The motor is hermetically sealed and the only moving part is the impeller. It is completely enclosed inside the filter body and does not need any maintenance, other than cleaning the impeller assembly during routine maintenance.

Foam Screen Frame
A thick and wide layer of foam forms the first stage of the filter. This performs mechanical filtration, to keep out suspended particles from entering the internal stages. The particles are trapped in the foam and are typically broken down over time. The large area of this foam filter ensures that it does not get easily clogged with particles.

Intake Stainer
This is a large intake tube with a clog-proof, wide-mouth design. I haven’t had to clean this tube ever since I set up my filter.

Output Nozzle
The output nozzle can be adjusted for height with respect to the water-level for either surface agitation or quieter operation, as desired. It can also be angled for optimum water flow.

Media Baskets
The Fluval-305 has three large media baskets. The lower one is typically for the pre-filter and activated carbon. The middle one is best for ammonia remover, peat, and possibly biological media. It is best to fill the top one with biological media and post-filter/water polisher media. Consult the manual for details.

Instant Prime System
This is another great feature of this filter. After you clean the filter, replace the media and assemble the filter, you place it under the aquariun, connect the intake and output tube assembly, lock it, and lower the aquastop. Then you just pump the Instant Prime handle a few times, and with the siphon action, the filter fills up quickly. You will see some bubbles being released from output nozzle as the filter fills with water from the aquarium. After the bubbles stop, continue to pump a few times to make sure that all the air in the filter has been replaced with water, and then you are all set! Just plug in to an electrical outlet and the filter is in action!

Lift-lock Clamps
The “lid” or the top part of the filter body is held tightly to the lower or the main part by two lift-lock clamps, one on either side. These hold securely to make sure that the filter does not accidentally open when it is running — that would be disastrous!

Rim Connector Assemblies
The intake and output tubes can be fixed very securely and neatly to the aquarium using the rim connectors. This makes it easy to manage the tubes inside your tank.

While flipping through the pages of the book “Sway: The Irresistible Pull of Irrational Behavior” by Ori Brafman and Rom Brafman, I came across this interesting analysis. This is where a participant in the TV show “Who wants to become a millionaire?” being shown in France, is asked the question that goes something like:

What goes around the Earth?

1) Moon

2) Venus

3) Mars

4) Sun

To the surprise of everyone in the audience, including his girlfriend, he does not know the answer, and he decides to take the audience’s help. And, most unexpectedly, 52% of the people in the audience pick “Sun.” The authors’ explanation to this behavior goes: Most people in the audience did not want a guy who couldn’t answer such a simple question to become a millionaire, and so they intentionally gave him the wrong answer.

That seems to rationally explain the seemingly irrational behavior. The authors go on to elaborate that a similar situation occurred in Russia, but here, the audience had a tendency to give the participant a wrong answer regardless of whether they thought he/she was smart and hence worthy of becoming a millionaire or not. It appears that in a society such as Russian where people have the notion of everyone being equal, thanks to years of communism, they are not very happy to see one of them becoming rich. The authors further speculate that in the shows aired in the US, the audiences are known to help the participant no matter what - they just want him/her to win and take all the money. This, according to the authors, is the result of capitalistic mindset where it is common to see some people get rich.

As the economies around the world continue to come together with stronger inter-dependence, i.e., more global, it would be interesting to see its effect on the mindset of people in societies with very different socio-economic backgrounds.

[This is part of the Buffalo Linkstation Pro Duo NAS Configuration article.]

The Shared Folders Configuration page has two sub-menus:

1. Shared Folders Setup, and,
2. Services Setup

1) Shared Folders Setup

In this page, you will see a list of existing shared folders and a brief description of each. You can also “add” or “delete” shared folders using the buttons at the bottom of the page.

To edit one of the existing shared folders, click on the name or the icon the folder that you want to edit. This opens up the page where you can edit the settings for that shared folder.

1.1) Editing Shared Folder Settings

• Shared Folder Name: This is the name by which the share appears on the network, e.g. in Windows Network Neighborhood. You can put a meaningful name like Pics.
• Shared Folder Description: This is a brief description to let the users know what this share is for.
• Volume: This indicates the disk array volume on which the shared folder resides. For RAID-1 setting, this will just be RAID Array 1.
• Shared Folder Support: You can choose support for Windows network, Apple network, FTP and for Disk Backup. The Disk Backup allows the share to be used as a backup destination from another Linkstation.
• Shared Folder Attibutes: You can select Read Only or Read/Write
• Recycle Bin: You can enable or disable this; if enabled, all the deleted contents will be saved in a recycle bin folder. When you use Linkstation for automated backups with software like Norton Ghost, it is recommended to disable recycle bin for the shared folder where the backup files are stored. This way, when newer backup versions are created, and older one are deleted, the older versions don’t keep getting accumulated in the recycle bin, consuming more and more disk space.
• Remote Backup Password: Password if this share is selected for remote backups.
• Access Restrictions: You can enable or disable access restrictions. If enabled, you can set access permissions (read/write, read-only or none) on a per-group or per-user basis.

2) Services Setup

In this menu, you can enable or disable Network Sharing Services, viz., AppleTalk Protocol and FTP Server.

I was using Turbo Tax Home and Business 2007 and wanted to send the final PDF to a tax consultant for some review. I wanted to create an encrypted PDF from Turbo Tax; I couldn’t find a way to do this. Then I figured that an alternative would be to “ZIP” the unencrypted PDF, and add a password to the ZIP file. This worked, but I had to work around an unexpected hurdle in Yahoo Mail related to encrypted attachments.

Sending emails with encrypted attachments

I was trying to send an email with Yahoo Mail with an attachment that had a password protected “zip” file. When I tried adding the attachment, I kept seeing this error message:

“There was a problem! No file specified. Please try again.”

I figured that this might be because Yahoo Mail was not able to scan the attachment with Norton Antivirus. I could not find any way to turn off this check. I was using Yahoo Mail Classic setting.

When I changed my setting to New Yahoo Mail and tried the same thing, I saw this message:

“Alert! There is a problem scanning <doc> for a virus. Send anyway | Cancel”

I chose “Send anyway” and the it went through!

Receiving emails with encrypted attachments

While trying to open the same attachment from my Sent folder, this is what I also found. If you receive an email on Yahoo Mail Classic, with an encrypted attachment, you will most likely not be able to download the attachment; but if you switch to New Yahoo Mail, then you will be able to open it.

I picked up this book when I bought my first SLR camera — the Canon Rebel K2 — about 3 years ago. Being new to the SLR world, I was looking for a book that explained some of the basics of what you can do with an SLR.

Eager to explore my new SLR, I settled down comfortably on a couch with my camera and this book. I had only flipped pages for a couple of minutes before I was deeply engrossed in the book. It felt like it was written for me. Here is an overview of the some of the sections in the book.

Why 35mm?

The book starts with an explanation of what 35mm format means, followed by some interesting historical account of early cameras, covering the first commercial 35mm camera, Leica 1 (1925), and some recent ones like the Nikon F5.

Choosing a 35mm Camera

It quickly moves on to what a modern SLR camera looks like, its features and what you can do with it. It talks about what you should look for when you are selecting an SLR camera. If you are interested in a 35mm compact camera specialist cameras, you can find some tips on what to expect. And then there are some specialist 35mm cameras: panoramics and rangefinders — learn what you can do with them. Are single-use cameras any good? What do modern 35mm DSLRs have? Are they as good as film cameras?

Using a 35mm Camera

You learn about basic photography terms and techniques in this section. This includes focusing, exposure and exposure modes, shutter speed, aperture, metering and so on. There are many interesting pictures to illustrate the concepts and methods related to auto-focus (AF), manual focus, single-shot AF, servo AF, follow focusing, tracking, depth of field, etc. What are Picture Program Modes for portraits, landscape and close-ups? How does action mode work? How do you take pictures at night? You will be exposed to all this in this section (pun intended).

Choosing and Using Lenses

What’s the big deal about lenses? Why do you need so many different kinds? One of the best features of an SLR is its capability to take many types of lenses. In this section, you learn about lens terms: angle of view, focal length, aperture, distortion, aberration, and so on. Find out what you can do with different types of lenses: Apos, wide-angle and telephoto. Should you buy a marque or independent lens? How much should you pay? How do you handle your lens? Find answers to all these and more.

Film and Accessories

This section is all about the equipment: types of films, film speeds, types of light, flash guns and many other things. You will also learn about flash techniques, ways to take close-ups, and many types of filters. What kind of supports work best? You will find a few tips on choosing and using tripods.

Techniques

This is one of the most interesting sections of the book. It is filled with great examples that highlight the importance of composition, focal points, shapes, colors, viewpoints, and all such stuff that photographers are constantly thinking about. How does light affect your picture? How do you set-up lighting for portraits? How do you make a portrait interesting? What makes candid shots appealing? What can you do with landscapes, animals and birds? How do you pick your film for your holiday travel? How do you create the effect of movement? There is enough stuff in this section to make you keep coming back to this book.

Creative Projects

Many hobbyists often reach a point where they ask themselves, “Okay, I have tried taking all kinds of pictures. What else can I do?” This section has some interesting ideas for you to try. Create a photo essay, experiment with patterns, play with the lighting, or may be multiple exposures. Do you know now to take pictures off a television? There are quite a few things to keep you busy for a while.

Processing and Printing

Want to try your hand and developing your own pictures? You can set up a basic darkroom in a spare bedroom, garage or the basement. This section gives you some pointers on what you need. While not a detailed manual on this topic, it covers all the essentials to help you decide if you really want to try this.

Digital Imaging

Do you have a lot of prints of your film pictures and want to digitize them? Want to play with digitized pictures and try some special effects? This section walks you through the steps and gives you good tips on how to enhances pictures digitally and what are some editing tricks that you can use to create interesting pictures.

Selling and Storing Images

Have you dreamed of earning some cash from your hobby? You are not alone. Almost everyone who is passionate about photography would like to their work put to some use. In this section, you learn about some possible ways in which you could promote your work: photo magazines, greeting cards, calendars, libraries, events such as weddings, and so on. Photography is an art where presentation makes a big difference and you get some ideas for this, as well as how to preserve your pictures, negatives and slides.

Fault Finder

What’s the frequently asked question in photography? “What went wrong?” With some really good examples, the author illustrates typical problems related to lack of focus, camera shake, under/over-exposure, tungsten lighting, red-eyes, etc. The example pictures make is quite easy to see what is described.

Summing It Up

I have been using my SLR for a few years now, and have recently graduated to a DSLR, but I still refer to this book often to refresh my memories on some of the techniques discussed in this book. I gave a copy of this book as a farewell gift to one of my friends who had just bought a Canon S2 IS and was very interested in photography. He too found this book very educative and was soon inspired to by a Canon DSLR! Priced at around $19.99, this book is a steal for anyone who is looking for a hands-on guide to get started with serious photography.

Do you play a lot of MP3 or other music on your cell phone? If so, a typical Bluetooth phone headset does not really give you the best of music because it is mono. If you would like to use a headset for your normal phone use and also occassionally to listen to music, then the Jabra BT 8010 might interest you.

This is a Bluetooth headset that comes with two earphones: a main unit and an auxiliary unit. When you want to use it like a phone headset (e.g. while driving, when you cannot have both headsets on), you can use the main unit. But let’s say you are working out and want to listen to music. Then you connect the auxiliary unit to the main one with the attached cable, and it becomes a stereo headset!

I have used this headset for about 5 months now with my Treo-680, and I have been quite happy with the performance. The main headset also has a volume dial that is easy to operate. It also has an LED display allows you to access the menu and configure it! You can store a few phone numbers. The main headset can be changed to right- or left-ear use very easily; the auxiliary unit just goes to the other ear.