Good News

...Well, 'good' as in high quality:

"The Los Angeles County coroner's office is investigating two recent deaths that officials say could be related to the recent global swine flu outbreak. However, no tests have come back positive for the swine flu, and medical examiners have not officially determined what caused the deaths."

And by high quality, I actually mean no quality.

I, like the rest of the public, also sometimes like to make statements that have no evidence whatsoever.

These people died of the flu? Well, then, it must be that ol' swine pandemic goin' around!

...Or, perhaps, it was just our forgotten friend the seasonal flu: 13,000 killed in U.S. by 'regular flu' since January 2009.

"No fewer than 800 flu-related deaths were reported in any week between January 1 and April 18, the most recent week for which figures were available."

Wow - 800 deaths per week. Now that's something. Call me when the swine flu gets close to these numbers - I'll gladly remind anyone how much energy they've spent thinking about one and not the other.

But don't get me wrong. It's not about the time you spend worrying about various external threats. It's the emphasis you put on other people's perceptions of those threats. Worry about whatever you want, for as long as you want, but at least do yourself the justice of trying to measure the difference between reality and common perception of reality.

I'm often surprised at the size of variance between the two...

Pirate Bashing

Not by me, of course.

I recently came across this very short statement about movie piracy among college students. It corrects some previous statistics the MPAA had released (they had significantly overstated the amount of piracy by students), but it also goes on to rant about the evils of downloading movies. I found this sentence particularly interesting:

"American workers miss out on thousands of new jobs each year and billions of dollars in earnings, in addition to the cities and towns that lose millions of dollars in tax revenue – all due to piracy."

I wouldn't be surprised if a majority of people believed this sentence. It's interesting not because the figures are exaggerated (they might be), but because the logic is wrong.

First off, there are some compelling reasons that college students might be the biggest movie pirates. They are often more interested in media, they have lower incomes, they are generally more technologically savvy and they are not as "set" in their beliefs of morality as older folks are.

When companies set their DVD prices, they are focused on their largest demographics; their biggest spenders, which most likely does not include poor college kids. In other words, college kids are "priced out" by all the higher income folks that are willing to spend $12-$20 on DVDs. The fact that college students will make the effort to illegally download/copy movies while the "recent graduates" (for example) demographic does not seems to prove the fact that the price is out of their affordable range. If piracy were suddenly impossible, these college kids would, in large part, still be priced out of the market.

This being the case, the relevant question is this: If it were suddenly impossible to pirate movies, would college kids suddenly start spending "billions of dollars" on movies? I think we've inferred already that this would not be the case, but let's just play along and assume the MPAA article is correct.

This means that there are "billions of dollars" worth of resources in one of two places. In the hypothetical world where piracy was impossible, the billions of dollars is in the hands of movie producers and sellers. In our world where piracy is possible, these billions of dollars lie in the hands of whoever sells stuff to college kids, since college kids get to retain the money that they'd otherwise spend on movies.

In short, either movie producers and DVD sellers get the money or clothing stores, the cafeteria at the student union, liquor stores and pornography site webmasters get the money.

That's what college kids spend their money on, right?

Anyway, the point is this: It doesn't matter who gets the money - the "thousands of new jobs each year and billions of dollars in earnings" will exist either way. Whether or not it's good for the economy is solely a matter of determining the incentives created by the money and how people ultimately use it.



My guess is that the MPAA article is just using a little fear mongering to draw attention away from the earlier mistake they made. They can bite me - I'm going to go download Deep Impact or Twister, or some other movie of that excellent, high-dollar blockbuster genre. God knows I'm not paying for that crap.

The War Conspiracy Game

Ever hear people say that World War II is what finally pulled the U.S. out of the Great Depression? I'm not sure if that's actually true because we were doing pretty well towards the end of the 1930s, but it got me thinking: How does our economic performance (Gross Domestic Product, specifically) correlate with war, if at all?

Fortunately for you, me thinking means making pretty graphs for the 4EConglomerate. Check out the graph of GDP growth over the past 77 years, with nice little labels for when we started warring and when we stopped warring:
See anything interesting? (Click on it, foo)

This was interesting to me:

Years in which the United States went to war were relatively large-growth years. These ones are green in the graph, by the way, with labels on the bottom. Years in which the U.S. was in the process of pulling out of a war were relatively very low-growth years. These are the red ones, with the 'exit' labels on the top.

Take a look at 1945-47, 1954, 1974 and 1991. All of these years saw massive U.S. military withdrawals from foreign countries - WWII, Korea, Vietnam and the Cold War/Gulf War respectively. Each one of those years were negative-growth years. Also notice that since World War II, there have been only 11 years with negative GDP growth, and 7 of them just happened to be years in which we were pulling out of wars.

Is this a coincidence? Is there some reason that WWII, Korea, Vietnam and the Cold War ended during years in which the U.S. was entering a recession? Is a soon-to-fail economy a reason to pull back military resources, or is a sudden loss of defense-related production and services harmful to the economy?

As much as it could be a coincidence, I'd lean toward the latter as a better explanation.

I could even understand Vietnam, of all the major wars we've had, being an example of a war that was abruptly ended due, in some part, to economic problems back at home, but look at the graph: From 1971 to 1979, GDP was growing just as strong as ever, with the only exceptions being the two years it took to withdraw from Vietnam, '74 & '75. Not only were these two years exceptions, they were very conspicuous and short-lived exceptions. Go ahead, check 'em out in the graph up there.

Since I made this graph you have to look at it, too:
(If you click on it you can see the original graph in the background. I think it helps illustrate the relative size of the GDP effects from entering or exiting wars, but I mostly figured it would be nice to see the upward and downward "pressure" in formal red-arrow style. That's my favorite style.)

Also, before I start chatting about this too much, all the officially-rock-hard data is in an Excel file, with some nifty colorization showing all the years of both major and minor U.S. conflicts, as well as a whole bunch of GDP figures. It's a ton of fun to look at if you're even remotely interested in what I'm talking about. The war info is straight from Wikipedia and the excel file is RIGHT HERE.


So it seems to me that there is some pretty good evidence that ending a war is just as hurtful as starting one is helpful.

This makes sense, too. Increasing government spending - especially the kind of deficit spending we're good at - helps production, output, productivity, etc. at the beginning of a war, but when the war is over, resources have to be reallocated, production of defense-related products and services ends and output (GDP) has to fall. When you go to war, GDP and economic output rises, when the war ends, output decreases.



Are you bored yet? Do you care if going to, or leaving, war is good/bad for our economy? If simple economic truths don't entertain you, I say we start playing the "Invent a Conspiracy" game. It'll be fun. Ready?

Here's what you do: Read these intriguing facts and see if you can invent a conspiracy to match:

1. Since 1940, every year that has seen negative GDP growth has been either immediately preceded by a U.S. conflict or immediately followed by one. (The middle colored column in the Excel file shows every year with a U.S. conflict, major or minor.)

2. That includes the recessionary quarters in 2001-2002, which preceded the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq.

3. As I mentioned before, 7 of the 11 negative-growth years over the past 66 years were years in which the U.S. was exiting major wars.

4. Every year the U.S. enters a major war turns out to be economically beneficial both for the year and for the duration of the war.

5. Three of the five major conflicts of the 20th century (Korea, Gulf War, Afghanistan/Iraq) were started right after official recessions.

6. Every major war after WWII was started within about a year of quarters that saw negative GDP growth. (Except Vietnam, which was a little more than a year. Of 241 quarters since 1947, there have been 11 groups of negative growth quarters - check out this Excel file.)

I'll give you a minute to make up your conspiracy theory while I'm thinkin' of mine. Don't worry, it doesn't have to be very good, just good enough to work on hippies.

OK, I'll go first:

The thing that is potentially disturbing is the fact that politicians (specifically presidents) have the ability to start reasonably expensive wars. If wars - specifically the funding involved in wars - can jump start an economy, should we be concerned about the president/Congress/etc. abusing this power? If you were the president, and maybe you were looking for more reasons (than you already had) to go to war, wouldn't the idea that you can boost the economy during your presidency, and help crush the economy during the next administration's term(s), be sort of tempting?

Let's pretend this is possible for a second, since we're playing the conspiracy game.

Let's just imagine that we live in a world in which politicians care a lot about injecting money into the economy via the military/defense infrastructure (like contractors/defense companies), calling it a war, or a conflict, if necessary, and at the same time ensuring that a minimum number of people in the country see economic hardship. Hypothetically, this is a big win-win situation for any politician.

Pretend that in this world politicians were willing to use military operations as excuses for spending on military contractors and other defense infrastructure in order to ensure [campaign] financing for themselves/their party/etc. in the future. Add that to the positive economic side effects and you've got a pretty popular politician. I know, I know - it's not possible right? But we're pretending!

If we lived in a world like this, where campaign financing and presidential legacies are both more important than decency and spending money properly, then what would we get?

Isn't it just possible that we'd have, say, a government that is very often at war and has a, say, um, random figure here... a $9 trillion deficit...?

Use your imagination: If we lived in that kind of world, then maybe that's what it would look like.

...

Now let's pretend that we were coming up on a recession as well as an end to a war. If you were the president, let's say the newly elected president, would you just let the recession happen and the war end? Would you just let the economy crumble slowly, hoping the Federal Reserve and the "spirit" of American consumers/investors will prevent your presidency, your reputation and your political party's future from turning into a Hoover-style disaster? Or would you do that other thing...

That thing that always seems to revitalize the economy and guarantee your presidency a second term...

You know... that thing that ensures the next candidate will get hit with your economic woes...

That thing that'll guarantee political and financial support from some of the richest companies and people in this country...

You know, go to war?

Of course you wouldn't, right? If you were president, you'd choose the moral high ground, right?

Of course.

But, alas, all this is just a conspiracy theory. Things are not that simple in the real world. In the real world, there are so many more other causes of war and other variables than any single citizen such as myself could possibly comprehend. In the real world, there are countless other choices besides just go to war or collapse. In the real world, lives are more important than legacies and riches.

And, don't forget, in the real world, when we go to war with Iran in 2009/2010 immediately following this next recession, I'm sure we'll have perfectly good reasons to do so.



Just kidding - that conspiracy theory totally sucked. Though I really had you going at the end there, didn't I? I'll try a little harder next time.

Fun game though, right? Let's play again in two years.

The Parking Con

Ever drive into a Target, Home Depot or other big store's parking lot and have to park a long way from the entrance? That's because you're doing it wrong.


Take a careful look at this image from Google Earth of a parking lot in Phoenix, AZ:
See how the center parking column below the asterisk is filled with cars while the columns to the left (and a couple to the right) are relatively very empty? If you look at the density of vehicles, it kinda looks like a bell curve, doesn't it?

(I had a picture of a nice curve sitting around.)

Assuming every driver wants to get closer to the store's entrance/exit, the drivers of the cars parked around the number 1 in this picture would have been a lot better off parking around 2 or 3. Notice all the empty spaces there:
See the asterisk at the top of the circle? That's the vehicle located furthest from the entrance in the center column. In all the pictures in this post, the white circle represents all the points in the parking lot that are the same distance from the entrance as that vehicle.

In the images in this post, for the most part, the edge of the white circle is placed at the first available empty spot of a series of empty spots in the center parking column in front of the entrance (you can verify this in the picture above). Basically, if you can find an empty spot or spots within the circle, they're closer to the entrance (since the circle(s) are centered on the entrance.) If people parked in parking lots only concerned about getting closest to the entrance, each car on the circle's borders would be equidistant from the center, like this:
Pretty obvious stuff, right?

Here are the important questions:

- How common is it for drivers to park a great distance away from the entrance of a store just to be in the center column (the column directly in front of the entrance), specifically when there are empty spaces much, much closer to the entrance?

- If there really is an "imbalance" in the way people park, wouldn't people start to notice or care about it?

- When people drive into parking lots, do you think they try to consciously be in front of/in line with the entrance, or are they trying to minimize their walking distance (get closest to the entrance)?


If you search Google Earth for big stores, shopping centers or other places with large parking lots (I recommend looking for Home Depots), you'll see people's parking behavior for yourself. Fortunately, I've done this work for you so you don't have to spend hours trying to figure out the errors in your parking ways. Have some examples:
Look at the top of the center column. The drivers of the cars at the edge of the white circle (#1 in the next image) could have parked one, two or three columns to the left or the right and been much closer to the entrance (and the exit, since this one's a Target) The optimal parking distance is represented by the light blue circle, the distance at which the first series of open parking spaces is from the entrance (#2 in the next image). Here's a better graphic:
Clearly people would have parked closer to the entrance if they would have avoided the center column.

In this example, every other column except for the center had available spaces closer to the entrance:
I was even very generous with the blue circle in this one. Notice that the first series of available parking spaces was, at most, about a fourth of the distance from the entrance as the top cars in the center column. All the drivers who parked at the top of the lot had to do was choose any column but the center one and they'd have been better off.

Have another:
The distance differential isn't quite as exaggerated in this image as it was the last few, but the point remains.

So why is it, then, that people
A) prefer the center column over the others even with some [inconspicuous] cost,
B) don't notice the empty spots while driving and
C) don't recognize the overall pattern?

Apparently it's tough. It's hard to tell which column has the spaces closest to where you want to be, and I suppose it's some version of common sense that the center columns would have the majority of the closest spaces. The only way to see it, it seems, is to look at a lot of parking lots from above (Google Earth style).

There are, I'm sure, a plethora of other reasons why bell curve parking occurs so commonly (search Google Earth, or maps.google.com, and figure 'em out yourself, I dare ya), but that's not really the point of this post. No, the point of this post is to spread the secrets of how to find optimal parking, and to teach you how to exploit the strange behavior of your fellow man.

That's right 4EConners, I'm converting my hours of wasted time looking at and diagramming parking lots into future time saved by you. If you just follow these very basic rules for parking, you'll be able to [hopefully] recoup the time you wasted reading this post (over the next 40 years or so...) by spending less time walking in and out of stores, shopping malls and maybe even the place you work:

Rule #1 - Center Column Overflow:
If the center column - directly in front of the entrance - is packed to the limit (see the second parking lot image, above) with cars, the overflow will be taken up by the columns flanking the center. This means you'll have to start your search for the closest space at least two columns away from the center column, if not more. In fact, the busier the store, the further to the left or right you'll have to look.

Rule #2 - Center Column Space Available:
If the center column still has spaces available at it's "top" (furthest away from the entrance), start your search for the perfect space in the columns immediately to the left or right of the center one. You'll most likely find better spaces in these two columns than you would elsewhere.

Rule #3 - The Generalization:
Depending on how busy the store/parking lot is, the general rule (which can, in theory, override rules 1 and 2) is that the closest parking to the entrance will be about 20 to 60 degrees away from a line parallel to the store front. If the store is busy, start your parking space search at about 20 degrees up from the store-front line and look for spaces driving away from the center column. If the store is slow, though, start at the top of the lot and look down to around 60 degrees from the store-front line. This should be even easier to see since the parking lot is not as busy.

These rules will be harder or easier to follow depending on which way you enter a parking lot. A good way to simplify the whole process, though, is the even easier-to-understand Foreecon Fourth Rule of Parking:

Rule #4 - Sign Readability Rule of Thumb:
If the store/parking lot is clearly busy, you should be parking where you can't read the sign due to the angle your car is parked from the store, i.e. relatively far off to one side.
If the store/lot is clearly not busy, you should be parking slightly off-center from the front of the store, where you can read the sign but not head-on.

Easy enough, right?


And for kicks, here are some non-traditional parking lots:
Notice the stack of cars, stacked up even through multiple different rows, perpendicular to the walkway entrance (the center of the blue circle). Again, using Rule #3, you can see there is available parking closer to the entrance about 20 or 30 degrees from the imaginary entrance line (in this case, the line perpendicular to the sidewalk that crosses the street.)

Finally, a complex one. In this example, if you click on it & look closely you'll see that the parking lot is packed with people attending a small carnival-type-thingy and/or going to the mall (the mall entrance is right behind the carnival). You'll notice that the drivers really wanted to get close to that one center of activity, and that there's a big drop-off all at once (at one of the parking columns on the left side.) Of all the examples I gathered, this one looks most like a normal distribution curve (including the cars parked all the way at the top of the image):
If it's not obvious already, following Rule #3 would have saved the people who parked at 1 or even 2 in the image a bunch of time by parking at the 20 or 30 degree line from the entrance/store front (3). But how does one know while driving in the parking lot? Easy - the great thing about finding parking at the ~20 degree line is that you can pretty easily see any open spaces from the road closest to the store front. Basically, If you can see that the parking lot is pretty full, all you have to do is follow the store front road until you find a space; Rule #3 dictates that you'll end up parking closer to the entrance than you would if you tried to find spaces by driving up and down each of the columns.


So, even though some parking lots are very non-standard, and the rules will be either more or less applicable depending on the time of day, the general rules of parking will apply in some form or another wherever you go. You might not always get the best deal by following the rules (and maybe you need the exercise, too), but I'd be willing to bet that reading and following the Foreecon Rules of Parking (trademark pending) will mostly help you achieve the parking glory you've always searched for.

And one more thing: If drivers suddenly became aware of their behavior, they'd all start filling up the empty parking spaces and making this entire "study" invalid, right? All this parking strategy, then, will be our little secret OK? Enjoy your new ability to park.

Adsensory Perception

As it has probably become obvious to anyone who has read my posts up to now, I've got plenty of free time. However, this doesn't mean I'm spending my time on fruitless endeavors - far from it. For this post I decided to do a little field work for the benefit of all those that are curious about the intelligence of their future ruler - Google. (...Also the provider of this blog space...)

Here's the scoop:

Anyone with a Gmail account should notice the advertisements on the right side of the page while they're reading their email. As we all know by now, these advertisements are targeted to the specific contents - both words and whole phrases (I think...) - of the email message that you are currently reading. This is pretty clever of Google's AdSense program, I'd say, as it maximizes the odds of a click-through on the ad.

For example, when I got an email alert from Facebook, the links all had references to reading in them because the message was directing me to a link to click in order to read the Facebook note. Notice the Pat Buchanan full-text ad, and the smaller one-liners below it involving reading (click on the image to embiggen it):

I especially like the "learn to read" sponsored link in the middle. That's good targeting!

Anyways, I decided to test Google's parsing intelligence, so I sent ever-helpful-Fred an email. This wasn't any email, though, I figured I'd give AdSense a run for it's intelligent money:

Hey Fred - I hate Google targeted advertising... If you click on any Google advertisement, Google calls the government and reports you as an enemy combatant.

As if that weren't enough, every time you click on those advertisements next to your Gmail inbox, Google kills a forest creature and sends the dead carcass to your parents with a note that says, "Google AdSense is bigger than Jesus, don't even think about switching to MSN," which, incidentally, is infinitely better than Google in every conceivable way, especially due to the fact that they don't harvest your soul every time you get interested in "FREE RING TONES."

...And every time I do try to download a FREE RING TONE, the phone company tries to murder my grandparents, so please, Fred, please don't click on those RING TONES ads. In fact, you should especially avoid even looking at any Google ads because you'll get tempted by LOW MORTGAGE RATES and LUMINOX WATCHES which are horrible scams and the worst watches on the planet, respectively, and clicking on them will make Google send terrorists to your house to steal your dinner and sing crappy songs until your ears detach.

Okay, that's enough of that. I'm going to go out and buy some VIAGRA and C1AL1S but not from Google sponsors, their sucky crap sends me into a vomiting session that "lasts more than 4 hours..."

Apple, Ebay, and Amazon suck big time - If you buy from them, you'll die.

Don't click on Google ads, they're evil.

Love,
- PAT BUCHANAN

P.S. Buy STOCKS and BONDS and INCREASE YOUR INCOME while enjoying MUSIC FROM THE '80s if you feel like bleeding to death and exploding.

Look at all those words to target!

So, wouldn't you think the result would be an eclectic mix of strange ads?

Nope. No ads at all. Look at all that blank space on the right side of the email!

Apparently Google AdSense is intelligent enough to recognize that "Harvest your soul" and "FREE RING TONES" are in the same sentence, and "Google ads, they're evil"could be some sort of trigger that prevents the displaying of ads on relevant sites and emails. This makes sense, of course, as it would be a waste of advertising space and money if Google's advertisers were advertised on every blog, online magazine and email that complained about the ubiquity of Google's ads, or the viruses embedded in all ring tone sites, or Apple Inc.'s sponsored ad next to an article on www.AppleSucksBigTime.org (not a real site, unfortunately...)

I'm just impressed.

I really expected to be able to trick a freakin' algorithm...

The Girl Alarm System Scouts

Girl Scout Cookies now cost $3.50, and that's pretty expensive for cookies.

For every sale, the scout gets about $0.65. Sure, that’s good money for little kids, but this means we’re paying around $2.85 per box for a few semi-delicious cookies. (Admit it, they’re not that good…) Wouldn’t it make more sense to go to the Dollar Store and buy some peanut butter cookies or cheap “Samoas” for a dollar, then give $2.00 directly to a girl scout sitting outside the store? Yes, it would. In fact, you just saved 50 cents, and the girls just made an extra $1.35 – That, my friends, is called a Pareto superior outcome.

Who gets screwed if we decide to stop buying cookies from girl scouts? The company that produces cookies, that's who. While a portion of your purchase goes to a form of charity, a much, much larger portion goes to the cookie makers. An easy way to look at this, I think, is to imagine the case of direct charity: You give money to a girl scout who sits in a chair outside of a store. That's it - very direct. However, if you place a cookie factory in the middle, the charity then becomes less direct, and clearly more inefficient. I'm not saying selling cookies isn't good - it clearly helps convince some people to donate who otherwise wouldn't. The trick, though, is that if you feel like supporting a charity, or an organization, like the Girl Scouts, then buying cookies wastes your money and reduces the scouts' take in the process.

So, every time you feel like buying cookies from a scout, just give them about $2.00 per box (per box that you would have otherwise purchased). With the extra $1.50, remember to buy crappy cookies at the 99 Cent Store or even Safeway next time you go. Besides, you'll get the cookies faster this way.

If every moderately charitable person that enjoys the idea that "buying cookies helps a good cause" would follow this advice, we'd put an inefficient cookie-making company that operates under the guise of "charity" out of business, we'd make the girl scouts much richer, and we'd have a lot more cookies and we wouldn't have to wait for them. F yeah!

Oh, and don’t forget about the opportunity cost of paranoid mothers sitting in the car staring at you while you’re buying cookies from their daughters at your doorstep. That seems like a big waste of human resources. What we should do, instead, is start a corporation in which both mothers and their daughters go door to door (just like they're doing in the scouts), only instead of using their daughters' cutesy sales ability to sell cookies, we'll have them sell more important and expensive things, like insurance or home security products. Those are the same as cookies, but they require a more complex contract than the one the scouts already have you sign when you buy cookies... That shouldn't be too hard to update...

What?

Did you ask, "What about child labor laws?"

Oh, all right. Fine. We'll call the company "Mother-Daughter Fun Time Relationship and Skill Building Scouts." We'll allow the mother-daughter teams to keep 18.6% of the revenue, provided they spend it on more relationship or skill-building activities like camping and community cleaning (or whatever the hell the Girl Scouts do). There! Child labor laws successfully averted, and we'll make the big bucks selling overpriced, crappy alarm systems!


...instead of cookies...

The First Date Strategy Guide

The title says it all.

Imagine yourself at a restaurant, sitting across the table from an attractive date that you have just met prior to sitting down at the table. Picture yourself, after saying, "It's a pleasure..." or some other personalized greeting, sitting down in the chair and ordering your drink from the waiter. The waiter leaves, and you're left to experience an incredibly unknown situation by yourself. Is this image and situation firmly in your head?
---


The First Date Strategy Guide -
Maximizing Your Odds of Getting a Second Date

Before we continue, we need to define our basic goals on a first date:

1. I've already mentioned that your date is very attractive. Since your first reaction is one of attraction and not disgust, the first and most important goal we have is to impress upon the date that we're the best person for them.

2. Our second and slightly less important - at first - goal is to filter the candidate. We need to find out if we want to be with this person over the long term, so we apply our own filtering process that differentiates seemingly unacceptable qualities from acceptable ones.

Throughout a first date, the above two goals will shift in priority, but the main purpose of this strategy guide is to increase your ability to achieve goal #1 and prevent your date from over-using goal #2. Sounds simple, right?


************
When the date "starts," our first impulses are to focus on what we're going to say. Both candidates at this point are more focused on themselves and on the signals and statements they are giving before any verbal exchange of personality information occurs. This being the case, here's the first strategy claim:

1. Whichever person speaks first - whoever strikes up the initial conversation - is subtly taking the dominating role and showing confidence.

This one's pretty simple - The hardest thing to start talking about is the first thing, and you both know this. The trick is to break the ice in a substantial way; don't say small, closed-ended phrases like "Hey, nice restaurant." Starting an open-ended initial conversation has the potential to kill nervousness and alleviate stress, and being the stress-killer is a dominating role that will win some trust and respect points, provided the other person doesn't mind giving up the role. If the other person (the male, I would assume) is attached to the dominant role, this could backfire if the female steals it. As a male, I'd be willing to bet that this is why women are less likely to be talkative at the beginning of a first date - They don't want to dominate the initial conversation and risk treading on any invisible territory.

The point: A gentle incentive to motivate the other person to want to start talking would be the optimal strategy here. Given our lack of information at this point about the other person's desired role in the date, I'd say a moderately personal question would be best, asked by the male. This way, the traditional male / female roles (which are very prevalent in a first date - and that's actually a little strange, come to think of it) are maintained by the male initiating the conversation and almost immediately ceding permission (by asking the question) for the female to begin an adequate discussion.

Another thing about this initial conversation is that both dates will most likely not want to be the first to start blindly throwing out personal details and personality information. The trick, therefore, is to be incredibly sincere when asking the initial, conversation starting question. After the other person starts talking, it then becomes your job to reinforce their security, i.e. keep them talking for as long as possible. Background conversation (such as "Yes, uh-huh, no kidding? wow" and shaking your head in acknowledgment) might do the trick, but you don't want to overdo it. The point is to be sincere enough to show you're receptive and not too judgmental.


************
At the beginning of the date, you're worried about being filtered and less focused on doing any filtering of your own. Since this is a strategy guide and not a politically correct article on equality, here's strategy #2:

2. Both candidates will be more focused on themselves until they are given the confidence to think more outwardly. If you withhold confidence-giving actions or statements, you'll keep attention focused on the other person and will increase your odds of remaining "mysterious" and consequently increase your chances for a second date.

Regarding the first part of the strategy: During the first part of the date, you're nervous and concerned about looking like an excellent person. You'll be in this self-conscious stage for as long as your date gives no signs as to how much you can open up. Since you're worried about losing future dates with this person, "being yourself" is not an easy option unless you get additional confidence - It's human nature to avoid talking about the things we think might make us look bad, or uncool. And these worries are based somewhat on reality. The two main goals of a first date are to impress the other person AND decide if that person is good enough. On a first date, there is very little pressure to convince yourself that you like the other person, and you're much, much more likely to be more judgmental and criticizing that normal. As a logical backup for this statement, think about this: It is far, far easier to get a third date than it is to get a second date - why? By the start of the second date, both parties have convinced themselves that the other person is date-able, and have devoted a certain amount of expectations and hope toward the success of the relationship, and are therefore more likely to forgive strange idiosyncrasies (and better yet, they're more likely to find them "cute.")

And as for the second part of my claim: If you start "giving confidence," you'll get filtered more harshly. By "giving confidence," I mean doing anything that makes the other person more relaxed and able to focus on you. This would be telling long stories, or talking too much about the details of your life, or even laughing too much at what they say, or - and this is the worst - letting on that you're really nervous. Even though you might be an incredible person, the first date is a risky time to give the other person a lot of leeway in making judgment calls, and the more you withhold actions and statements that give the other person more confidence in making judgments, the less likely they are to make these judgments.

So, the point: Imagine the situation: You're sitting there listening to your date talk endlessly, on and on and on, about what he or she does for a living and for fun, and everything else. As long as your date continues to fill the silence, all you've got to do is listen and nod, and you are therefore given the time and the leeway - and most importantly the confidence - to make your own judgment calls. If it's you doing all the talking, your date has the leeway and you get judged more often. While you want your date to trust and respect you, you don't want your date to be too focused on you. You'll be better off if, on the first date ONLY, you keep him or her distracted and self-conscious as much as possible. Yes, I'm serious.


************
Strategy #3 is basically a more specific continuation of the last one:

3. Try to avoid statements that identify your uniqueness.

This is going to be a tough one to argue, but you've got to remember this point: This strategy guide is about increasing your odds of a successful first date. In other words, the goal is to get a second date, provided you actually like the person sitting across the table. While hiding your uniqueness might make you appear bland and uninteresting, exposing it too much will increase the chance that you get over-critiqued on the first date.

While conversation is the most important part of the first date, the trick is to limit the conversation that exposes your quirks and idiosyncrasies, or your "uniqueness." Save the long, detailed life stories for the second date, when you'll have far greater leeway, and your date will have already made up his or her mind almost entirely about how to perceive and judge your [weird] traits.

The point: Stay reasonably neutral. Don't mention how many times per hour you masturbate or why you like drinking mayonnaise directly out of the jar. While it's tempting to say the first date is all about deciding whether or not there should be a continuing relationship, it's not. The first date is, unfortunately, more about measuring each participants ability to handle stress.

While you want your date to reveal as much information about him or herself, you don't want to reveal too much information about yourself. Why? As I've said, we have a tendency to over-critique on the first date because there are no strings attached yet, and humans have a propensity to blame nervousness and stress on the person they think is causing these feelings. Better to not provide fodder for this possible blame. Again, first dates are more of a formality; a way for two people to develop some commonality and reputation to bring into a second date.

You might be able to convince your date that your uniqueness is adorable and indispensable, but you're mostly just taking on additional, unnecessary risk that is probably not required to get to the second date. And all you really want is that second date... (Remember, we're constantly assuming that you really like your date).


************
I just typed it, and now I'm typing it again -

It is all about getting a second date. Fortunately for you, the default assumption is that you will get a second date, unless you do something to convince your date otherwise.

Strategy #4:
4. Don't play into the volatility of the first-date situation.

The first date is a very unfair forum for judging each other, mostly because of the amount of stress, nervousness, time limitations and a lack of any previous commitments to each other. Because both candidate's decisions to make a second date depend almost entirely on the happenings and knowledge gained from the first date, the optimal strategy during your first date would be what I call the "safe route." This not only involves using all the other strategies explained thus far, but also the following:

To play the "safe route," you'll have to figure out how to make your first date seem more like your initial meeting. Since you got a first date based on specific qualities your date found interesting, it's logical to assume that these qualities, if redeployed during the first date, would increase your odds of success.

In other, more drawn out words: If you met at a friend's house, or a party, at the store, or anywhere in the real world, a specific set of your personality or aesthetic qualities were used to determine the answer to your question, "Hey, wanna go out some time?" The basic idea is, if you repeat the experience or display the qualities that worked in the first place, pre-date, your chances of having a successful first date are much better.

The point: Since the first date is such a volatile and high-pressure situation, your chances of getting a second date will go up if you choose a less risky strategy. You might teeter on the verge of being slightly boring, so try to keep your signals and personality displays moderately interesting. If you stick to the strategy that got you to the first date, you're more [probabilistically] likely to get a second date.

If you haven't figured it out by now, this strategy is for those who are really, really worried about making the relationship stick. I don't personally care too much about this strategy, but I do believe the average dater's odds will be higher by employing the more logical tactics...


************
Strategy #5:
5. Make sure your date chooses the restaurant.

This seems unimportant, but it's not. Humans have a tendency to dislike other people's choices. For the most part, though, this depends on how you view the person making the choice. For example, if you really look up to someone who is making you try a piece of exotic cheese, you're more likely to appreciate the taste. If, instead, someone you don't really think of as a friend (imagine your worst enemy, actually) offers you a piece of the same exotic cheese, you'll be far more likely to dislike it. Not only this, but it'll probably have an effect on how you view that particular cheese for the rest of your life.

This is obvious, I think, but I mention it for one reason: If you choose the first-date restaurant, you're allowing your date to make the psychological connection between the restaurant and your tastes. That's pretty obvious too, but it's also pretty important, I think. If the restaurant is unimpressive, your date will be more likely to blame you if you chose it rather than if she/he did. If your date chose an unimpressive restaurant, you'll be exempt from blame, and you might even be given the opportunity to show your warmheartedness when you say "Nah, I don't care about the hair all over my food - I'm having fun!" On the other hand, if you've got a no-fail restaurant in mind, go ahead and be "the decider."

The point: It's a smaller detail, but you might as well not take the risk. If you can successfully (and not indecisively) convince your date to pick the first-date restaurant, you'll end up reducing your risk. Unfortunately for men, this is one of those decisions that somehow reflects on our ability to be confident in our choices. It's a trade off - if you can somehow get the girl to pick the location without looking like a sissy, then you win.


************
And strategy #6...
These just keep coming...

6. Wear the right clothes.

As much as I and a lot of my close friends are very picky in not following fashion trends, it sends out the wrong first-date signal. You may be tempted to say, "Hey - I'm going to be myself and wear what I always wear!" but the idea of the successful first date, again, is to limit instant and incorrect judgments. If I were on a first date, I would enjoy seeing my date dress in obvious "special occasion" clothes, and take it as a non-verbal signal of concern for the success of the date.

The point: I know it sounds shallow, but it's one of those things that humans can't stop doing. No matter what, we're ALL going to continue to judge people - at least on some level - by how they dress. Some of us are less concerned than others, but the big picture is that the way you dress is your message to the public about your personality - even if it's not accurate. If it isn't accurate, though, then you're just sending the signal that you don't know how to properly signal, which is equally as unimpressive. If there's ever a time to be overly concerned with something as shallow as fashion, it's on the first date. At the very worst, you can tell your date that you usually don't try so hard, and he or she will definitely get the point.


************
...And The First Date Strategy Guide's final claim:

7. Don't go to a restaurant in the first place.

Although choosing non-traditional locations involves taking on more risk, if you decide not to eat at a sit-down restaurant on the first date, you will gain points - provided your alternative is "better". Besides being unoriginal, going to a restaurant on a first date adds unneeded tension, as you're both staring at each from across the table trying to figure out how long to maintain eye contact as well as actually putting food in your mouths, which is pretty unattractive.

My suggestion? Get coffee, or take a nighttime tour of the city in your car, or something equally cheesy. For the record, I've never had a first date at a restaurant - in fact, I'm not even going to give out my personal first-date location strategy. There are enough people in existence right now that know the extent of my past cheesiness. And, I predict at least one of them will needlessly leave a comment mocking me or my credentials or past history on this subject... By credentials, I mean the fact that I haven't been on a date in years... My defense will be "Logic speaks for itself, Fred..." I can see it now...

The point: Creativity in location is good, as long as it adds to your overall attractiveness. If you're a crappy driver, or drinking too much coffee makes you insane (like it does for me), then I wouldn't recommend the two alternatives mentioned above. There must be a reason, though, why so many relationships begin at a restaurant. I just don't know what it is. I'm guessing that there's a higher degree of romanticism and bonding when your situation is catered by a third party... If you agree, then the odds might be in your favor by simply choosing the traditional restaurant-based first date.


---
There you have it. This is a first draft, by the way. I'm going to write a better one and submit it to GameFAQS.com, because there it will be read by the people who really, really need the advice. Or maybe I should send it to myself in a sealed envelop, to be opened on the third anniversary of my complete singularity...
...Regardless, anyone who thinks I'm unqualified to write a First Date Strategy Guide, I now call you out to challenge my assumptions!

BedCon

I was recently reading about the likelihood that mattress stores are more clever than their choice of business implies.

Now, I'm far from the first person to complain about this, but hopefully I can spread the idea and expand on it a little.
---

Ever seen a "mismatched mattress sale" advertised by a local mattress store? There's a store in Tucson that does it at least annually. Apparently they end every fiscal year with mattresses of one pattern/color and an equivalent number of box springs of another pattern or color.

The most obvious question is, "How did that happen?"

The most obvious (probably incorrect) answer is that a lot of customers came into the store throughout the year and bought a mattress of one pattern set and a box spring from another set. This leaves the store with mismatched inventory by the end of the year.
However, if customers prefer mismatched sets in the first place, why would there be a sale on them later on? Clearly they don't need to "slash the prices" of mismatched sets if they're the best sellers. Besides, who in the hell chooses separate patterns when the sets are priced appropriately?

A less obvious, but more likely, answer is that the mattress store mixes up the inventory. That's right, they just grab half the mattresses from one side of the store and throw box springs around until everything is sufficiently mismatched. Why would they do this? Well, it's true that they do have inventory purchased at the beginning of the year that should be sold before it gets moldy, but the fact that the sale is on because the sets are "mismatched" covers for the fact that it's just a collection of the least popular brands and styles that were not previously sold.

So you ask the sales clerk,
"Why is this mattress set only $249?"
"Well, because these patterns don't match. You don't care about patterns do you?"
"Of course I don't! They're going to be covered with sheets anyway!"

So you think to yourself, "Wow, I'm getting an awesome deal because everyone else is too picky to have a mismatched mattress set. What a bunch of pretentious fools!"

At least, I'd be thinkin' that after such an awesome deal...

Unfortunately, NOBODY cares what the patterns on their mattress sets are. If this were not obvious enough, some web site has a survey that further dodges the true question...

The real reason that you are getting some sort of a deal - and you are getting a type of a deal - is that these mattresses are terrible, and you could have just gone to any furniture store during any time of the year and bought the same ones for even cheaper. Unfortunately, the mattress store will also throw in current inventory, mismatched into the fray, and charge the normal, higher prices under the similar "you're a clever customer for not caring about matches" heading.

So, as further evidence, pay attention to the next advertisement you see on TV for one of these sales, I guarantee you they'll make some reference to the patterns and the fact that "nobody sees them anyway!" as if every single viewer of the advertisement didn't already know this... They know everyone knows this, but they also know that everyone has no idea what everyone else knows...

They call this "asymmetrical information" in economics, by the way, and it's one of the most important ways for a business to protect its profits and position. Without really getting into it, I think I'd be confident in saying that we should probably ignore all stores' "blowout sales," as they are usually a way for the business to push more of the cost of improper demand measurement on us. I'll elaborate more on this some day...

---

...And if you think you've got a question that will refute this post's assertions, I'll just go ahead and answer it before you ask. The answer is, "That's why they make 'em with patterns." If you just thought of one more, the answer to that one is, "That's why mattress producers hire economists."

ULTIMATE READER CHALLENGE 2007: Think of a question that would refute these assertions that isn't answered by those answers... I know there's got to be one out there somewhere...