ctrl.altered.mind

At the 2010 Aspen Ideas Festival, New York Times columnist David Brooks discussed what scientists are learning about the human mind - and what that means for both our lives and our public policy.

Brooks is featured regularly on NPR’s All Things Considered, on topics encircling politics and culture. In this 2010 talk at the Aspen Ideas Festival, he departs into the realm of science of the mind, and presents several illustrative examples of the immense influence subconscious behavioral targeting can have on the human mind.

I listened to part of his talk on my drive home from work today. I was moved by his eloquent construction of the resilient life story of a Mexican-Chinese girl (a fictional account, I believe), who overcomes the adversity of growing up in a troubled household to create opportunities for herself.

Link to Audio (54 mins)

The New York Times has a graphic representing the average amount of food thrown out each month in grocery stores, restaurants, cafeterias and homes, for a family of four people. This works out to an unbelievable 122 pounds of food - fruits, vegetables, and grains, amongst other types.

This image (courtesy of the NYT) depicts the monthly share of wasted food for each family of four, the sum of waste in eight different food groups as detailed in the study.

The scary part? This statistic is almost 13 years old. Collectively, about 96.4 billion pounds of edible food was wasted by US retailers, food service businesses and consumers in 1995. Consumption of processed food has only increased over the past few years in the United States, thereby causing a shift in the predictability of consumption of fresh fruit and vegetables. With artificial enhancements going into most edible substances today (with cheap substitutes such as high-fructose corn syrup replacing cane sugar), the shelf life of naturally grown products has been strongly affected (which, in turn, would cause greater wastage for products that remain on the store shelf at the end of the day). Milk is a prime example - organic milk with no growth-hormone treatment lasts much longer than that ‘extracted and processed’ from hormonally treated cows. Small examples such as these lead me to believe that the amount of food being wasted today scales much higher than was the case in 1995. If you have a hard time visualizing such numbers, just make a trip to a game venue at the end of a football or hockey game, and you will see gigantic containers full of unsold hot dogs, bratwurst and bread being unloaded into the trash. Since these stay cooked and non-refrigerated for a long time out in the open, it is unlikely that these foods can be handed out at the end of the day.

Chris Jordan is a photographer who explores the phenomenon of American consumerism. His ongoing series, Running the Numbers, takes a hard look at contemporary American culture through a statistical and pictographic snapshot. If the gory numbers alone fail to make the reader squirm, the images are sure to induce greater discomfort. Jordan hopes to achieve precisely this - by trying to convey something beyond the capacity of mere raw figures, which can sometimes have an unfortunate desensitizing effect for some. According to the photographer:

My only caveat about this series is that the prints must be seen in person to be experienced the way they are intended. As with any large artwork, their scale carries a vital part of their substance which is lost in these little web images. Hopefully the JPEGs displayed here might be enough to arouse your curiosity to attend an exhibition, or to arrange one if you are in a position to do so. The series is a work in progress, and new images will be posted as they are completed, so please stay tuned.

Some numerical examples (specific to the United States) behind the pictures, which must be seen to try and grasp the sheer magnitudes involved:

2,000,000 the number of plastic bottles used every five minutes, as shown here:

32,000 the number of elective breast augmentation surgeries performed monthly, in 2006

410,000 the number of disposable paper cups used every fifteen minutes

200,000 the number of Americans dying from cigarette smoking every six months

8,000,000 the number of trees harvested every month, to make paper for mail order catalogs

426,000 the number of cell phones retired every day

1,140,000 the number of brown paper supermarket bags used every hour

60,000 the number of plastic bags used every five seconds

106,000 the number of aluminum cans consumed every thirty seconds

15,000,000 the number of sheets of office paper used every five minutes

It is quite difficult to believe today that Starbucks, the largest coffeehouse company in the world (with over 15,000 stores in 44 countries), did not start selling coffee even after they had opened their fifth store. It took several years post establishment for the company to start selling beverages - their business was selling coffee beans until then. After that symbolic change, however, it was not business as usual anymore.

The Seattle-based chain has witnessed viral growth over the past few years, and is currently expanding at a phenomenal rate. Here is my attempt at collecting some magazine-styled numbers about the chain.

1971 The original Starbucks opened in Seattle, WA

300 Million pounds of coffee purchased by Starbucks in 2006.

6 The percentage of purchased coffee certified as fair trade.

7 The average number of new stores opening each day, worldwide.

7 Rank by Fortune magazine in a list of best companies to work for, in the United States, in 2008.

29 Its rank in the same list for 2006.

Incidentally, Starbucks does have a little secret item that’s not on the menu - a ’short cappuccino’ (the smallest size on their menu is called the ‘tall’), which is considered better and stronger, and available only by request.

(most figures drawn from Wikipedia)

The cheapest production vehicle in the world was unveiled this week by Tata Motors, part of India’s Tata Group and one of the world’s largest manufacturers of commercial vehicles. From the company that presented India with its first indigenous vehicle (the Tata Indica - my parents own one), comes the Tata Nano. This new car breaks new ground by breaking the pricing barrier in India’s relatively premium automobile market. The Nano will sell for approximately Rs. 1,00,000 (or just $2500, before taxes and other charges). In comparison, vehicles in a similar class carry a price tag in the vicinity of Rs. 3,00,000 - three times as much as the Nano. AutoBlog has a short video of the launch along with a picture gallery.

The Nano will essentially answer the desire of millions of Indian households that aspire to own an inexpensive car, but have had to make do with a scooter or motorcycle. Anyone who has been on the streets of a major Indian city, Mumbai included, has seen a family of two adults and their two children remarkably balanced on a two-wheeler amidst crazy traffic. The Nano’s affordable price tag ensures that such commuters would now have a cosy seat each and an exponentially stronger chance of completing their trips safely.

While this point alone is enough to justify the Nano for its supporters, the car has quite the share of detractors who make equally (if not more) powerful points. Indian city roads are congested beyond belief already, and public transportation is already seeing severe strain. Empowering every person and his secretary to own an inexpensive car is only going to make those conditions much worse. As Mumbai city desperately tries to cope with its burgeoning fleet of cars by adding new highways and flyovers, the country will soon see this problem escalate across even its smaller cities and towns. It is not just the problem of traffic congestion - more cars with relatively inexperienced drivers spells out a recipe for chaos through accidents and rampant disregard for traffic laws.

The New York Times has a bleak report on the unveiling of the Nano. An excerpt from the article:

With a population of nearly 16.5 million, New Delhi now adds 650 vehicles to its roads each day. At last count, there were 5.4 million vehicles in all, a more than fivefold increase in 20 years; scooters and motorbikes still outnumber cars two to one.

Pity the walker in the city. Half of all fatal road accident victims are pedestrians, according to the police. Every now and then, a homeless person sleeping on the street is run over. Last week, a speeding car banged into a policeman standing at a traffic checkpoint and didn’t bother to stop; the officer was critically injured.

While I am excited to see India’s economical growth make an impact on the standard of living of its people, the viral nature of this growth is equally concerning.

Care for a swig of style?

A TV writer/producer named Kevin G. Boyd has had an inspiration: ultra-premium drinking water selling for a very, ahem, splashy price — around $38 per 750-milliliter bottle. The water comes from the highly regarded English Mountain Spring source in Tennessee and goes through a nine-step purification process. And then it’s packaged in glazed bottles hand-decorated with sparkly Swarovsky crystals.

Well, at least in this case and unlike conventional bottled water, most people would know that they are buying into pure hype.

(via Daily Dish)

It seems such a long time ago that my brother and I would plonk ourselves down in front of the TV every Sunday morning to watch Knight Rider with the Hoff. The show had a winning theme - the idea of a smart sports car that can think for itself, let alone respond to voice commands, would be lapped up by kids our age without much hesitation.

Naturally, I was pleasantly surprised to learn that the famous KITT (re-christened as the Knight Industries Three Thousand) is making a comeback - and as soon as February 17th in the US, and the central character will be played by a 540-hp Ford GT500KR (with the voice of Will Arnett). David Hasselhoff will be returning as a much older Michael Knight, while the lead (human) character would be played by Justin Bruening. This time around, however, I hope the show can build some not-quite-wafer-thin plots around the central theme, compared to the ones in the 80s series.

(via Autoblog)

A local environmentalist group has called for residents of Mumbai to observe an hour of abstinence from the use of electricity on December 15 from 7:30pm to 8:30pm, in a bid to increase awareness about global warming.

The city has been constantly battling an ever-increasing demand for energy, given its constant strain on resources. Residential areas across the city have had to endure rationing of electric supply for decades, in order to accommodate for load sharing with industrial zones. This problem has been aggravated even further by the exponential demand for energy resources over the past couple of years, as the city witnesses a surge in conspicuous consumption. The mushrooming of malls all over Mumbai, and the increasing demand for motor vehicles by the burgeoning middle class, are factors spearheading the onward march towards increased pollution and the depletion of precious resources.

The city of Sydney faded into black on March 31 this year with it’s event called Earth Hour (pdf), in a similar effort to send a message across Australia about climate change. I sincerely hope that this token move to achieve one hour of no power, will help in educating the masses in Mumbai and India, and increase awareness about the change each individual can bring forth.

Check out MumbaiUnplug.com for more details. Good luck Mumbai!

Peter Hartlaub of the San Francisco Chronicle has written an interesting article on the debilitating effect of overprotective parenting on the development of children:

…If two 12-year-olds were seen traveling on the roof of a car in 2007, it would likely trigger an Amber Alert, four dozen cell phone calls to Child Protective Services and a viral YouTube video to be played endlessly on “Nancy Grace.” But I’m sort of glad it happened. Being perched on the top of that slow-moving Ford Country Squire was a small risk (remember, this was the pre-Ford Taurus 1980s, when station wagons had giant luggage racks that were practically made for passenger travel), but there was also a reward. Riding on the roof of that car made me a little bit less of a wuss.

rs6 sent me a link to this guy’s album, where a few pictures of the 2008 Audi R8 reside. This beauty was apparently waiting for the press kit shoot in Beverly Hills, CA.

For the uninitiated, the R8 is a road car that will be launched in 2007, and shares its name with the famous Audi R8 race car that won the prestigious 24 Hours of Le Mans in 2000, 2001, 2002, 2004, and 2005 (Audi took 3rd place in 2003, when  the Bentley Speed 8 broke the R8’s six consecutive win streak).

The Audi R8 will be available in mid-2007 with a 4.2 L V8 making 420 hp, as seen in the Audi RS4. Pricing for the 420 bhp model starts from $140,000 USD. A  520 hp version is rumored to be in the making, although Audi has not yet confirmed this.

More pictures of the 2008 Audi R8