Good morning.
We have in
our house two grandfather clocks. One is
full-size and sits on the floor; I purchased it about 15 years ago when my Iowa
friend Christine Grant alerted me to an ad selling an Amish grandfather clock
at a very good price. The other sits on
a desk; it's brass and glass and was a wedding present to my paternal
grandparents in 1900. The full-size
version has chains that must be pulled regularly to raise the weights to move
the gears and the pendulum; the desk-size version must be wound with a key. In both cases, the clock gains or loses time
almost randomly, a few minutes here and there, and I can fiddle
endlessly—without success—with the weight on the pendulums to try to adjust the
speed. So, I have wondered to myself
many times, how on earth did people keep accurate track of time with these
clocks before the radio would announce the time?
If you were
wealthy and lived in London, here's one way.
From one of the Charles Lenox mysteries by Charles Finch.
Just before noon each Tuesday,
Arthur, a footman belonging to the staff of Lenox's house, took the London
underground to Paddington Station, carrying two pocket watches. Usually with a minute or two to spare he
arrived at the terminal and watched, with a feeling of stale drama, as the
large railway station clock ticked toward the hour. When it finally struck twelve o'clock, he
reset both watches, one in each hand, to the same time.
This accomplished, he returned to
Hampden Lane [the Lenox house] and wound all the clocks to match the hour upon
the pocket watches, or at any rate an average thereof, which usually put the
house within five seconds or so of British railway time."
I have no idea if this is
historically accurate. In any case, it's
one possible explanation for how anyone kept accurate time with these clocks
that are forever fast or slow. I can set
our two using my cell phone, but that didn't work too well in the 1870s.
* * *
Yes, this
is a first-world problem, but I live in the first world. Sometimes it's a healthy distraction to look
at the minor matters in life.
From Numlock News:
The use of paper napkins is taking
a steep, steep dive: twenty years ago 60 percent of American households
regularly bought paper napkins, but according to Georgia-Pacific statistics
that figure is now down to 41 percent. The trend is clearly generational: 61
percent of people over the age of 65 use paper napkins every day, compared to
just 37 percent of 25- to 34-year-olds. If you work for one of the two
conglomerates that dominate the space, this is stressful, if you're anyone else
this is a long-awaited generational shift in favor of sustainable practices.
Naturally, the first group really wants to make the second group buy their
napkins, and to do so they're basically turning them into paper towels.
I happen to be somewhat OCD about
napkins, I suppose because I was raised that way. It seems to me that you have to have
*something* on which to wipe your hands when eating (unless you manage never to
get any food or liquid on your hands, a feat I've never managed to
accomplish). So what is one to do if
paper napkins are forbidden--use cloth napkins, which have to be washed, and
thus use resources in a different way? I
don't know if the paper used in napkins is biodegradable; it may vary with the
manufacturer, for all I know.
* * *
I was reminding
Kathy during a recent chat of the contrary advice that folk wisdom offers, a
phenomenon I learned about from my long-time friend and colleague Regents
Professor (emerita) Ellen Berscheid when I took my first (social psychology) course
from her in winter 1974. In the course
of one her lectures she noted these contradictions (I think), among others I
can't now recall:
Opposites attract – but – Birds of a feather flock together
Look before you leap – but – He who hesitates is lost
Out of sight, out of mind – but – Absence makes the heart
grow fonder
Familiarity breeds contempt – but - Home is where the heart
is
Early to bed, early to rise, makes a man healthy, wealthy
and wise – but – Eat drink and be merry for tomorrow we die
And so
on. You get the drift.
There've
been studies over the years suggesting pretty persuasively that as a matter of
fact opposites do not attract. Quite the
contrary. Four guys (in this case, it
was guys) from the Stanford School of Business, the University of Cambridge,
and Stony Brook University did a very large study to test whether birds of a
feather flock together—but instead of using attitudinal surveys or other
measures that can be of shaky reliability, they looked at several million
Facebook users' posts to gauge whether people of similar personalities showed
patterns of interaction. Much of the previous
research looked at commonalities among people (age, education, ethnic
background, religion, etc.); they were looking at personality. "Psychologists looked at this issue for
many years, but the results were quite clear: Friends and partners are not similar in terms
of personality. . . . This was
surprising, because we know intuitively that people choose partners and friends
who have similar personalities. It made us wonder if, perhaps, the researchers
were doing something wrong."
Instead of
surveys (e.g., are you an introvert), they "used big data gleaned from
Facebook — all those "likes" that users click to show their approval
of someone else's posts or opinions, and their word choices in their own posts
and responses — to develop a more accurate picture of user personalities." These "digital footprints" don't
lie and are extremely difficult to manipulate—and Facebook users certainly aren't
thinking about a personality inventory when they post. "If nothing else, Kosinski says the
study raises doubts about the old saying that opposites attract. They might
sometimes, but those cases are the exceptions, not the rule. 'As it turns out,'
he says, 'the great majority of our interactions are with people who are a lot
like us.'"
If Elliott
and I are examples, it certainly was "birds of a feather."
* * *
Here's an odd way that science denial
will cost people. Researchers at the
School of Business at the University of British Columbia have found that real
estate prices are higher in "climate change denial" neighborhoods
than in "climate believer" areas.
"Cities from New York to Miami and from New Orleans to Los Angeles
are feeling the impact of climate change -- and in some areas, rising water
levels, heat waves, droughts and fire risk are putting a serious dent in real
estate values." The folks who did the
study looked at sea level data, climate change attitudes from a Yale program,
and real estate transactions in high-risk areas.
They found that, even after taking
myriad variables into account, homes projected to be under water located in
climate change "denier" neighbourhoods sell for roughly 7 percent
more than homes in "believer" neighbourhoods. "If everyone were to say, 'I'm not
buying beachfront property here because it's going to get flooded,' then prices
would collapse. But if you don't believe in climate change, you might say, 'You
guys are crazy. Climate change isn't a real thing, so I see a buying
opportunity.'"
The researchers didn't study
climate change attitudes and real estate prices in other countries because "belief
in climate change is much more ubiquitous in those areas." And within the
U.S. there are significant differences.
People in California are more likely to accept climate change science;
those in Florida are less likely to do so—even though the real estate risks in
Florida are extremely high.
You would not catch me buying ocean-front
real estate on any coast. Just watching
the East Coast places we've visited many times over the years—Virginia Beach,
Kill Devil Hills, Myrtle Beach—and seeing the devastation in those areas
convinces me that things ain't gonna get any better for those low-lying lovely
coastal towns and resort areas. But I
suppose if you believe these are just normal swings in the climate, then maybe
you can snap up a deal.
* * *
Two
professors of biology, one from Columbia and one from Touro, writing in The
Scientist, have developed a set of criteria to distinguish "natural"
(my term, not theirs) from "synthetic biological organisms and robots"
(their terms) so that we can determine whether the latter are living
beings. They do so in the face of
advances in (1) artificial intelligence that can, will, lead to robots that can
understand and mimic human emotions, and (2) manipulation of DNA to create new
organisms. To what extent are they
living creatures and, especially in the case of humanoid robots, should they be
deemed "persons"?
This is not
a trivial matter because the definition may carry certain legal and moral
obligations, depending on what that definition is. Their view:
Living is "the property of an organism that possesses any genetic
code that allows for reproduction, natural selection, and individual mortality." So, for example, "robots would not fit
into our definition because human beings can control all aspects of computer
functions. There is no uncertainty, nor unknowability, with AI robots. AI-based
human robots can be programed to replicate themselves and even can be programed
to terminate. However, robots do not sense 'mutations' or engage in any natural
selection process and, therefore, would not meet our criteria as 'living.'" So, robots, no.
Slightly
more scary: "Organisms that utilize
synthetic DNA nucleotides may meet our criteria as living. However, it is
important to recognize that while developing synthetic 'life forms' constitutes
technologically exciting endeavors, the danger that they may destroy all
existing life forms on Earth through the unpredictability of natural selection
may push such projects across an ethical boundary." This is the legitimate worry about GMOs, not
whether we can develop berries that are impervious to frost or soybeans that
are invulnerable to bugs.
* * *
And here,
to end this epistle, is some research appropriate to the season, published in
the Journal of Consumer Psychology.
University of Nevada-Reno marketing research has discovered that "neatly
wrapped gifts can inflate expectations about what's inside, which means poorly
wrapped gifts may be more pleasing to recipients." When Gallup reports (for 2018) that people
expected to spend $885 on gifts, I guess wrapping is worth a look.
The
researchers "were interested in exploring the validity of the common
assumption that recipients prefer gifts that are neatly wrapped" What they discovered was that people use the
quality of the wrapping as "a cue about the gift inside and form
expectations." However, the finding
didn't hold when giving to acquaintances (as opposed to family or friends).
When relationships are less established -- acquaintances
rather than friends -- the gift recipients use the neatness of the wrapping
paper as a cue to sense the gift giver's value of the relationship. Gifts that
are nicely wrapped suggest that the gift giver views the relationship as
important, and this positivity increases the chances that the recipient will
like the gift.
So if you're
wrapping presents for close friends and family, throw on old paper and let the
bows be crooked. If for an acquaintance
(the relationship with whom you value, or think you might value), be neat and
put on extra ribbon.
With warm
regards on this winter morning in the Upper Midwest—
Gary
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