10 Reasons Why People Make Stupid Decisions...

10. I’ve come so far already… (invested cost bias) - We all know that the past is past and we can’t get back money or time that we already spent. But many people irrationally take sunk costs, time, money, or other resources which have already been spent and can't be recovered, into their decision making; such as how much you spent to get your car fixed last time, how long you have been dating someone (ask Krupa), how much you invested in a stock, or how many troops have been lost in Iraq so far. Why not just a little more? :-)

9. Me me me! (egocentric bias) - Putting yourself in another person’s shoes is harder than it sounds for most people. My friend Ketaki would be the best person to testify this. But nevertheless, I'll mention a scientific study: Two volunteers, at a London college, were connected to a device that allowed each of them to exert pressure on the other’s fingers. The researcher began by exerting a fixed amount of pressure on the first volunteer’s finger. The first volunteer was then asked to exert the same pressure on the second volunteer’s finger. The second volunteer was then asked to exert the same amount of pressure on the first volunteer’s finger, and so on. Although volunteers tried to respond with equal force, they typically responded with about 40 percent more force than they had just experienced. Each time a volunteer was touched, he touched back harder, which led the other volunteer to touch back even harder. When asked about it, both volunteers claimed to have exerted the same pressure in all attempts!! :-)

8. That just proves my point. (confirmation bias) - Isn't it a coincidence that no matter what happens in the world, some people can spin it to show why that confirms their opinions? (Like when Janki says "EXACTLY!" after whatever the incident!)

7. That’s easy. (overconfidence) - According to an AZ-MVD survey conducted 2001, 80% of respondents rated themselves in the top 20% of all drivers. My friend Shivam, the self proclaimed "most awesomest" driver has lost, what...ummm...pbb..pbb..pbb...about $300 on speeding, parking and other traffic violations, and on avoidable car damages!! While overconfidence is definitely a good thing in many situations, it probably means people don't work on their weaknesses as much as they should. Do overconfident drivers practice safe driving given their lack of abilities? Do overconfident public officials realize when they are making bad foreign policy decisions?

6. I’m #1! I’m #1! (dysfunctional competition) - People's happiness is often a function of what they have relative to others. You might be just as happy with your co-workers getting a pay cut, as you would with getting a raise yourself. Ask Sameer Raut! :-)

5. Mine mine mine! (endowment effect) - Why is it so hard for people to throw, give away or sell things that are past their prime? One theory is that people tend to place a higher value on objects they own relative to objects they do not. A study revealed that randomly assigned owners demanded to be paid around $7 for their coffee mug, while randomly assigned buyers were only willing to pay around $3. That also explains why my room-mate Arjun refuses to donate, let alone throw away, his old clothes (esp. the green shirt and jeans), and other random things which he really doesn't need.

4. Its gonna happen!!!! *PANIC* (recent-event bias) - People are suckers for recent, memorable and hyped-up events. So much so, that they think these types of events are more likely to happen than they actually are. Despite the focus that terrorism has gotten in the past several years, the risk of dying from terrorism is very low compared to much more mundane ways to die such as driving off the road (80 times more likely to kill you) or even a hernia (5 times more likely to kill you). And yes, there's no need to fear flying on an airplane, seated next to a guy with a thick beard. There's more likelihood of you getting shot by your schizophrenic nephew on your way home from the airport. Well, if the world has limited resources to invest, where do you think people are going to want to spend it? Stopping the slow and steady march of global warming that won't affect any of us during our lifetimes? Or more REAL threats like terrorism, which can kill many today? (I can bet my girlfriend Nikita would still opt for Global Warming...she wouldn't give a damn if Ali-Jabber Hassan kidnaps me and beheads me in some cave in Afghanistan)

3. If everybody else think so… (bandwagon/conformity) - People make decisions based on what they think, right? Well, not all of us (Rijuta, Debolina, Janki, Neeharika, Rachna, Ketaki, Sapna, Sharan, etc...hmmm...i noticed all are girls...any co-relation?) !! In a famous experiment by Solomon Asch, several experimenters in disguise were to answer the question "Which U.S. State is the farthest north? South? East? West?" on an internet forum. The experimenters in disguise were instructed to give incorrect answers to these easy questions on the first few posts itself. Surprisingly, half of the respondents gave wrong answers because of the pressure of their peers. Even more surprising was the fact that this being an internet forum, the "peer" were people who the respondents had never seen or known ever before!! Are these types of pressures enough to get people to do things that they know are wrong, or just do not wish to do (partying, drinking, smoking, sex, studying, shopping, hiking, gym, etc.)?

2. Lets go hard 8! (illusion of control) - We all know that there’s no difference between my chances of getting a 6 if I roll the dice or someone else at the table does, right? Explain that to my friend Yogesh who was persistant on rolling the dice himself when we were playing Monopoly. You throwing the dice wouldn't make you any luckier!!! Your hands are not magical!!! You don't control everything that you do!! Also explain that to Krupa and Nikita who think that things will fall into place without planning, preparation and effort.

1. He's just a moron. (attribution error) - Is the driver that cut you off a jerk? Or is he a good guy who didn't see you because he's distracted by something else going on in his life. Judging by the finger that you chose to hold up, you think he's a jerk. That's about par for the course, as most people tend to over-emphasize personality-based explanations for the actions of others. A NewYorker article by James Surowiecki discusses a classic experiement where "subjects shown a person shooting a basketball in a gym with poor lighting and another person shooting a basketball in a gym with excellent lighting assume that the second person hit more shots because he was a better player." So maybe it's better to withhold judgement about a person until you've actually talked to them. Even if they did cut in front of you in line at McDonalds. Finally something that applies to me everyone !! :-)

How Taxes Work...

Suppose that every day, ten men go out for beer and the total bill for
all ten comes to $100.

If they paid their bill the way we pay our taxes, it would go
something like this:
The first four men (the poorest) would pay nothing.
The fifth would pay $1.
The sixth would pay $3.
The seventh would pay $7.
The eighth would pay $12.
The ninth would pay $18.
The tenth man (the richest) would pay $59.

So, that's what they always did.

The ten men drank in the bar every day and seemed quite happy with
the arrangement, until on day, the owner threw them a curve.
"Since you are all such good customers," he said, "I'm going to reduce the cost of your daily beer by $20."Drinks for the ten now cost just $80.

The group still wanted to pay their bill the way we pay our taxes so
the first four men were unaffected. They would still drink for free. But
what about the other six men - the paying customers? How could they
divide the $20 windfall so that everyone would get his 'fair share?'
They realized that $20 divided by six is $3.33. But if they
subtracted that from everybody's share, then the fifth man and the sixth man would
each end up being paid to drink his beer.

So, the bar owner suggested that it would be fair to reduce each
man's bill by roughly the same amount, and he proceeded to work out the amounts
each should pay.
And so:

The fifth man, like the first four, now paid nothing (100% savings).
The sixth now paid $2 instead of $3 (33%savings).
The seventh now pay $5 instead of $7 (28%savings).
The eighth now paid $9 instead of $12 (25% savings).
The ninth now paid $14 instead of $18 (22% savings).
The tenth now paid $49 instead of $59 (16% savings).

Each of the six was better off than before. And the first four
continued to drink for free. But once outside the restaurant, the men began to
compare their savings.
"I only got a dollar out of the $20,"declared the sixth man. He
pointed to the tenth man," but he got $10!"
"Yeah, that's right," exclaimed the fifth man. "I only saved a
dollar, too. It's unfair that he got TEN times more than I!"
"That's true!!" shouted the seventh man. "Why should he get $10 back
when I got only two? The wealthy get all the breaks!"
"Wait a minute," yelled the first four men in unison. "We didn't get
anything at all. The system exploits the poor!"
The nine men surrounded the tenth and beat him up.

The next night the tenth man didn't show up for drinks, so the nine
sat down and had beers without him. But when it came time to pay the bill,
they discovered something important. They didn't have enough money
between all of them for even half of the bill!

And that, boys and girls, is how
our tax system works. The people who pay the highest taxes deservingly get the most
benefit from a tax reduction. Tax them too much, attack them for being wealthy,
and they just may not show up anymore. In fact, they might start drinking overseas where the atmosphere is somewhat friendlier.

David R. Kamerschen, Ph.D.
Professor of Economics
University of Georgia

Dark screens save energy!!

My friend Anisha just changed her blog background to white. Why did you do that Anne? Little does she realize what effects it has on the environment. Hence this post.

In the early days the computers displayed black text on top of a gray background. Now almost all display defaults are black text and white background. Why has such a trend been popular in the last 10 years? I don't know for sure but I'm guessing it is to make people feel more comfortable. Everyone is used to white standard paper, off-white newspaper, white background in magazines, most books, and so on. Printing black on white is just technically easier and cheaper.

Why do dark backgrounds matter? A minor reason is personal preference, which is what most people are thinking at this point. But that's just a small concern. I'll discuss the main reasons.

The first is your eyes. Yes, those things you are reading this with. Talking engineering, think of the background as "noise", and the text as a signal. Your eyes are trying to read the signal and ignore the noise. From an energy perspective let's simplify and say dark colors are low energy and light are high. So with a light background you are flooding your eyes with a high intensity wall of noise and trying to pick out the low intensity dark signal. With a dark background you instead change the important text to the high intensity signal. If that didn't make sense then think of it as a looking at the stars. At night your eyes open up and you can pick out the faint signals of a star from light years away. An then try to imagine trying to pick out black eagles flying high in the sky on a bright sunny day.

A second reason also associated with your eyes is eye strain. This can come from at least two sources. The first is the effort to pick out the weaker dark text signals as described above. The second is viewing such displays in dark environments. Try using a regular word processors with white background and black text in a pitch black room. Now try with a black background and white text. Your eyes try to adjust to both the room environment and to the screen you are looking at. To those that prefer or must work in bright environments this is less of a concern. For those who are in dark environments, it is almost impossible to handle the brightness without turning on a background room light. In some cases, such as with portable devices, this is not possible and the only option is turning down the display back light which lowers the contrast and readability between background and foreground significantly.

The third reason dark backgrounds are important is energy. It takes a lot of energy to make pixels bright. In general, a text interface is using many fewer pixels to display the important text information than the background. So a dark background is much more energy efficient. This is extremely important for battery powered displays in notebook computers, PDAs, mobile phones, digital cameras, and so on. Even on desktops the power required to drive a large display with a full white background is much higher than with a dark background. If you don't believe me, buy a cheap in line power meter and test it yourself. Lower energy will save you money, stop power companies from needing to supply you, and in the end, save the environment. You do love the earth don't you?

Google.com realized it a couple of years ago, and released a dark-screen version of itself called "Blackle". And just that could save the world a lot of energy. Lets do the math. an all white web page uses about 74 watts to display, while an all black page uses only 59 watts, a difference of 15 watts. Google.com gets about 200 million queries a day. Let's assume each query is displayed for about 10 seconds; that means Google is running for about 550,000 hours every day on some screen all over the world. On a CRT monitor, the shift to a black background will save a total of 15 watts. That turns into a global savings of 8.3 Megawatt-hours per day, or about 3000 Megawatt-hours a year. Not bad just for changing a few color codes, isn't it?

"Smile for the picture yaar!!!"

"Smile for the picture yaar!!!"

This is one of the most irritating things one can say to me, and to quite a lot of other people for that matter. Even complete strangers can be this rude. And it's usually a woman saying this to a man. If you are a person who says that dreadful phrase to friends and family while posing for a picture, stop right here, and go force someone to smile. If you are fed up of hearing that over and over again, read on...

"Smile!! Things can't be that bad!!"

Really? How do you know things can't be that bad? Do you know this me so personally? Are you living inside my head? How do YOU declare to me, that things can't be that bad? You have a lot of disgusting nerve! If you're a man who's getting increasingly pissed off by jerky women telling you to smile (or just-as-jerky men telling you "Smile!") here are smart, witty responses that will shut them up:

If the comment is just "Smile!" reply with one of these:

"MAKE ME." Then stare at them hard.

"AND IF I DON'T?" Then give them a threatening stare.

"SAY SOMETHING FUNNY." Give them an emotionless gaze.

"I WILL IF YOU TRIP AND FALL FLAT ON YOUR FACE."

"I AM smiling. This is the face God gave me. Don't like it? Take it up with HIM."

"I DON'T SMILE ON COMMAND."

"WHY?"

No matter what you do, do NOT smile when someone commands you to. The moment you smile just because someone told you to, you automatically rank yourself lower than them in the pack.

If the comment is "Smile! Things can't be that bad!" reply with one of these:

"How would you know?" Then stare at them blankly.

"How do you know? Do you live with me?"

"Nice assumption to make about someone you don't know!!" Wait for their response and enjoy watching their face turn white.

"Things can't be that bad? Well just stay put and I will tell you about the things in my life. My dog got hit by a car three days ago and might lose a leg. My beloved Aunt was just diagnosed with swine flu. My wallet was lost last week. I just found out my car needs a 1,000 bucks worth repairs. My best friend just joined a drug-dealing gang..."

Next time someone asks you to smile for a picture, don't just sit there and take it all in. DO SOMETHING ABOUT IT!!

Law in India

Here's Shobhaa De's personal experience in one of her trips to Pune last month.

"I had a nasty run-in with the Pune cops - and I wasn't even directly involved. One of my oldest girlfriends now lives in Pune. We were meeting after a longish time. She lost her way to Oakwood Premier ( more on that later) where I was staying. And while trying to locate the address on a dimly-lit road, she drove up the wrong gate. As she executed a neat U-Turn, a casual labourer from a nearby building site , travelling with his wife, an infant and toddler on a scooter, lost control of his two wheeler and crashed into a wall ten feet from her car. There was no physical contact with my friend's vehicle ...and there wasn't a scratch on either him or his family. But the minute he noticed she was a single woman at the wheel, he kicked up a huge hungama, pulled her out of the car, manhandled her and yelled for reinforcements. Soon, she was gheraoed by 60 slumwallas baying for her blood. The cops arrived soon after, and she thought that was the end of her problem considering she was not at fault in the first place! Hell, no! Her problems had just started! Now, this one being a real lady ( royalty, at that), phoned me to say she was running a little late!! It was only when I prodded that she explained why! I immediately rushed to the spot ... by then there were more than a hundred people, including half-a-dozen cops talking animatedly on walkie-talkies. They glared at me and resumed shouting. When I pointed out that nobody was hurt, a cop taunted, " How do you know that.... are you a doctor?'' I said let's go find a doctor in that case. That apparently was the wrong response. The mob started to scream, " Take them to the best hospital for x-rays. The woman's back is broken." It was no use telling this lot that had her back really been broken, she would not be able to sit up straight, much less walk!! By then , we were joined by another girlfriend. The sight of three calm women drove the crowd mad with rage . A fourth woman arrived on the scene - a senior cop!! We thought at least she would get it! Not a chance. She told us to follow her to the cop station. Not the nearest one, but some distant thana miles away from the 'accident' spot! This was getting us nowhere. But we were determined not to do a deal or pay anybody off. We told the lady officer exactly that. There was talk of filing an F.I.R etc. We said, go right ahead. And we'll file ours for assault ( the man had broken my friends pearl choker during the scuffle. It was close to 11p.m. by now - there goes our dinner, we said, but the hunger to see this drama through to the bitter end was far stronger. After endless attempts to bulldoze us into shelling out big bucks, the cops said, " Are you willing to pay for a doctor?" My friend replied, "Yes.On humanitarian grounds - I am not obliged to do so, since I am not involved in the first place." The cops smirked and left with those guys 'to see a doctor'. I'm guessing they went around the corner to figure out the next move. Ten minutes later, we received a call to say, "The doctor wants 3,500 rupees - for x-rays and other tests." We paid it. Suckers. No receipt was given."

Same is the state in schools, colleges, workplaces, government offices, and every other place you can think of. It doesn't matter who's fault it is. The one in tears is always right!

Indian Standard Time (IST)

ha ha ha..."Standard" did u say?? More like the cliched Indian "Stretchable" Time, and way to go for us Indians to make a impression on the world regarding our lack of punctuality. Indians have always had a laissez-faire attitude towards time. We have never let ourselves be ruled by the clock. A quick google of a few websites on Indian social or business culture and you will find a common refrain in all of them: ‘Indians appreciate punctuality but may not reciprocate it’. Added to this will be a warning to 'keep your schedules flexible while in India or while doing business with Indians'.

Obviously this is a generalization and all Indians cannot be judged by this yardstick. Every society has punctual people and also those who make you wait just to show you how important they are. The latter is best observed when a function (even vitally important ones) is scheduled to start at 10am, but people actually start arriving around noon. Even educated people do not think these virtues are necessary for success. They take life casually.

It is believed that culture, economy and climate do play a part in people’s punctuality. Industrialized and developed nations, especially North America, northern Europe, and Japan are known to be sticklers for punctuality. For people here, time is money and Industry by its very nature implies strict schedules. On the other hand, Indians, people of Latin America, Southern Europe, Africa and the Middle East are poor time keepers.

But surely, if you want to move up in today’s world, all these theories and generalizations will get you nowhere. Time management is key and punctuality is generally the rule. Missing deadlines and appointments and habitual tardiness are strict no-nos and are sure to be construed as lack of discipline and commitment.

The Dot Song

The Dot Song
The Idea originated when Anne put Paul Klee's quote as her status message. I still say its dumb.

So, here it is:

The Dot Song

A line is a dot that went for a walk.
- Paul Klee (contributed by Bimal Bharath)

A curve is a dot that flew like a hawk.
- Rahul "Anonick" Dandekar

An icosahedron is a dot that didn't know where to stop.
- Madhura Rane

A scribble is a dot not knowing what it sought.
- Anisha "Anne" Zaveri

A circle is a dot that just goes round and round,
A coil is a dot that keeps getting wound.
-Adi Sengupta

An exclamation is a dot with an erection.
-Bimal Bharath

An asterisk is a dot with hair.
-Srikanth Viswanathan

A Buckyball is a dot that was out there to shop.
-Shatabdi "Express" Chowdhury

A doodle is a dot that dances a lot.
-Rahul "Anonick" Dandekar

A colon is a dot who found true love.
-Siddharth "Sid" Joshi

A knot is a dot that lost it's path.
(disclaimer: in a closed space)
-Ravitej U.

A star is a dot that's really really hot.
-Adi Sengupta

A tittle is a dot.
-Anandi Rajan

Z is a dot after too many drinks.
-Shivam Gupta

A bot is a dot, out of silicon wrought.
-Preyas P.

A semicolon is a dot taking a dump.
-Ranaji Deb

A division sign is a dot looking at the mirror in vain,
A curl is a dot that had too much champagne.
-Anisha "Anne" Zaveri

A comet is a dot with a wild streak.
-Nikita Mehra

A shooting star is a dot that can't be caught.
-Shatabdi "Express" Chowdhury

A squiggle is a dot that lost the plot
-Nikita Mehra

An O is a dot yawning.
-Bimal Bharath

A bulls eye is dot that is tough to spot.
-Preyas P.

A fuzzball is a dot with goosebumps.
-Rajani Rajan

A double helix is a dot that is entangled and can't get out.
-Anandi Rajan

A dot is not what you and I thought.
-Achal Agarwal

A dot is a dot is a dot.
-Nikhil Karthik (A Gertrude Stein reference)

(Period)