Holiday Happiness Curve & "Leisure Sickness"

*Do vacations make us happy for long?  According to studies published in recent years, not really.  Not only are the positive effects of holidays on our well-being weak, they also fade very fast.  Once the traveling was over, those who had gone away didn't feel any better than those who had stayed home.

*Jeroen Nawijn of NHTV Breda University of Applied Sciences in the Netherlands found a holiday happiness curve: Our mood tends to be lowest through the first 10 percent of a holiday and quite high during the 'core phase,' which spans about 70 percent of the vacation time.  Our spirits soar on the day before going home.

*Leisure sickness - the inability to relax and adapt to the pace of life outside work - is apparently more prevalent in people living in big cities.

*How to we squeeze more happiness out of vacations?  First, take more short trips instead of a few long ones: Research shows that additional days don't bring us additional happiness.  Nawijn in his 2010 study concluded that two to six-day vacations are the most beneficial to our well-being.

*If you want to avoid a post-holiday mood crash, don't come back home on a Sunday.  A study published in the Journal of Leisure Research shows that if we return on a Thursday or a Friday, we can insulate ourselves from the shock of job demands and prolong the holiday happiness boost.

Should You Just Stay Home?
by Marta Zaraska
http://www.washingtonpost.com/national/health-science/vacations-dont-keep-people-satisfied-for-long-once-they-return-home/2011/07/05/gIQAyQw1YI_story.html

Psychology of Dining & Utensils

"The restaurant diners felt that the small fork gave them 'a feeling that they are not making much progress' towards their goal, and this resulted in them eating more of the food on their plate than the large-fork group, the researchers reasoned."
Diners Who Use Big Forks Eat Less: Study
http://news.yahoo.com/diners-big-forks-eat-less-study-164030784.html

Travel Deals That Might Not Be

The number of travel/hotel sites online (and general discount sites) is amazing, but often, they do not provide that great of a deal due to price psychology and hidden "costs."

Travel Deals That Might Not Be
by Kelli Grant
http://www.smartmoney.com/spend/travel/travel-deals-that-might-not-be/

Judging an Internet Site

"In just a brief one-twentieth of a second - less than half the time it takes to blink - people make aesthetic judgments that influence the rest of their experience with an Internet Site."

Internet Users Judge Web Sites in Less Than a Blink
by Kamakshi Tandon
http://www.computerworld.com/s/article/107822/Internet_users_judge_Web_sites_in_less_than_a_blink

Patterson Cycle

http://www.quora.com/What-are-the-underlying-reasons-for-The-Patterson-Cycle-and-why-is-it-roughly-14-years-long

On "Blue Laws" & Religion

"Blue laws are statutes that prohibit the sale on Sunday of certain nonessential items, such as appliances, furniture and jewelry, typically sold in shopping malls as well as liquor and cigarettes.  Jonathan Gruber and Daniel Hungerman found that when states eliminated blue laws, church attendance declined while drinking and drug use increased significantly among young adults.  Even more striking, the biggest change in bad behavior mostly occurred among those who frequently attended religious services."

When Malls Stay Open on Sundays, the Pious Party
by Richard Morin

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/09/13/AR2006091301759.html

Idea of the Week: Incentivizing Voting

"Here's how it would work: Each person's vote would count as a lottery ticket.  At the end of each election, one ticket would win $1 million.  If two million people vote, the odds of winning (1 in 2 million) would be far better than the current Powerball odds (1 in 146 million).  The voting jackpot would come from the state's unclaimed lottery fund.  With money remaning after the jackpot, he proposes thousands of prizes of $1,000 each."

Arizona Ballot Could Become Lottery Ticket
http://www.nytimes.com/2006/07/17/us/17voter.html

Question of the Day: Hand Washing

Q: The health media advise us to wash our hands for 30 seconds, which seems like quite a long time.  If one washes only 10 seconds, is the wash of any use at all?

A: When we wash our hands, we're removing germs mechanically, not killing them.  So even a quick wash is far better than none.  The most cleansing occurs during the frist 10 or 15 seconds.  Every second after that is less effective.  And as warm water doesn't kill germs, the temperature doesn't matter.  Cool water is fine.

-Ask Marilyn; 8/5/07

Question of the Day: Creativity

Q: How do you explain the "aha!" moment we've all had in teh shower or the gym - or anywhere but at work?

A: In creativity research, we refer to the three Bs - for the bathtub, the bed and the bus - places where ideas have famously and suddently emerged.  When we take time off from working on a problem, we change what we're doing and our context, and that can activate different areas of our brain.  If the answer wasn't in the part of the brain we were using, it might be in another."

The Hidden Secrets of the Creative Mind
http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,1147152,00.html

Video: Surfing the Longest Wave in the World

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=J9rI76MuaXI

Quotes

"There are times in one's life where we either make a frightening change or continue to die a slow death." (Unknown)

"Anyone driving faster than me is reckless, and anyone driving slower than me is an idiot." (George Carlin)

"Idealism is fine, but as it approaches reality the cost becomes prohibitive." (William F. Buckley)

"If I've learned one thing in the last twenty years, it's that anyone who claims to be making money - isn't, and anyone who claims not be be making money - is.  (Paul Young)

"With every passing hour our solar system comes forty-three thousand miles closer to globular cluster M13 in the constellation Hercules, and still there are some misfits who continue to insist that there is no such thing as progress." (Rason K. Jerm)

"Apparently, the UN is a school playground.  With nukes." (Unknown)

"No two people in any relationship know what's going on in that relationship." (Unknown)

"Infiltrating the hottest shows is essential to building a client list.  You have to be seen at this.  If you're not seen, you're forgotten." (Unknown)

"Networking has been incredibly important.  You've got to develop it where the players are in your field.  There are always meetings and conventions of people withs similar interests.  Be there, invited or not." (Unknown)

"It's hard to be humble when you're as great as I am." (Muhammad Ali)

"It's much better to have your gold in hand than in the heart."

"To succeed in life, you need three things: a wishbone, a backbone, and a funnybone." (Reba Mcentire)

"If you don't see it, make it." (Unknown)

"I'm not a businessman; I'm a business, man." (Diamonds from Seirra Leone - Remix 2005)

"Awkwardness passes, regret doesn't.  Cheers." (Unkown)

"I love children and old people.  It's everyone in between I can't stand. (Unknown)

"If you wait long enough, something that was once bad for you now is good and vice versa." (Unknown)

"The only intrinsic danger is caring what others think." (Unknown)

"Nobody's palate is more important than your own." (Pierre Rovani)

The Neocons: An Illustrated Progression

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/graphic/2008/02/01/GR2008020102389.html

Who Is Impressed by the British Accent?

"The main significant effect found in this study was that people who’d lived at least three months outside the US rated the English accent significantly lower than people who’d only lived in the US. In fact, Americans who had not lived abroad considered the English-accented person to be much more intelligent than themselves, but the people who had lived abroad rated the standard American accent more intelligent than the standard English one. My preferred way of interpreting this (a bit tongue-in-cheek) is that Americans are happy to rate the English as more intelligent than themselves up until they actually start meeting and talking to the English."

http://marginalrevolution.com/marginalrevolution/2011/06/who-is-impressed-by-a-british-accent.html

How Many People Call The Fat Duck Restaurant Each Day?

30,000+!

"The Fat Duck employs three full-time receptionists but its computer system logs the number of calls that fail to get through each day. That figure, he says, is between 28,000 and 31,000, double the figure 18 months ago, although the chef concedes the total number is swollen by prospective diners hitting the redial button. The restaurant only takes bookings two months ahead of time.  But with two sittings a day and only 42 seats up for grabs, space is at a premium."

Heston Blumenthal's Fat Duck Restaurant Gets 30,000 Calls a Day
by Zoe Wood &  Rebecca Smithers
http://www.guardian.co.uk/lifeandstyle/2011/jul/06/fat-duck-heston-blumenthal

Interesting Memo on Starting a Think Tank

http://www.aec.msu.edu/fs2/promisam_2/Mmo_regarding_thinktanks.pdf

On US Government Bureaucracy

"In a 2005 study, I [Paul C. Light] found an average of 18 layers between, say, the secretary of agriculture and the forest ranger, or the secretary of interior and the oil-rig inspector - up from sevel layers in 1960."

http://www.brookings.edu/papers/2004/0723governance_light.aspx