Author: Daryl

May’s Between the Cracks Picks

Between the CracksIn an attempt to capture stories that didn’t receive much face time on most news sites, here are this month’s “Between the Cracks” picks:

Fortune Cookie Payout (via AZ Central)
One hundred ten people from 26 states won from $100,000 to $500,000 each in the U.S. powerball lottery (totaling $19 million) by betting on a series of numbers they found in a fortune cookie. It made for an expensive night for Powerball, with winners beating the odds in a game with a 1 in 3 million winning combination.

‘Ginormous’ Tops Non-Dictionary Word List (via Yahoo!)
The editors of Merriam-Webster dictionaries got more than 3,000 entries when, in a lighthearted moment, they asked visitors to their Web site to submit their favorite words that aren’t in the dictionary. First place went to “ginormous” — bigger than gigantic and bigger than enormous — followed by “confuzzled” for confused and puzzled simultaneously, and “whoot,” an exclamation of joy. A “lingweenie” — a person incapable of making up new words — placed 10th. I’m guilty of using ginormous as often as humanly possible.

Xbox 360 Demos Running on Macs (via CNet)
Yup, just a week after Microsoft’s Bill Gates blasted Apple’s iPod as being “toward the end of its life” (among other anti-Apple statements), Microsoft released a statement saying that they, in fact, were using Apple G5 desktop computers to power their demonstration video illustrating the powers of the new XBox 360. The statement read, “We purchased a number of Apple G5’s because very specific hardware components of the G5 allow developers to emulate some of the technology behind future Xbox products and services.” What the heck does that even mean?

Have more to contribute? Leave a comment, per favore.

Thief v. Berkeley Professor

I had to repeat this story just to give it more face time. Credit to Boing Boing and Engadget for posting the original.

Jasper Rine is a professor of genetics and development at the University of California at Berkeley, and recently had his laptop stolen by a student in his class. Apparently, the student believed that s/he would be able to copy the exam questions and solutions from the laptop prior to the next exam, and return the laptop without much consequence.

As this recorded webcast of Professor Rine’s announcement to the class on April 15th will show you, the student now has a bit more to worry about. To get to the pertinent part of the lecture, forward the RealPlayer file to 48:50. (Update: Apparently UC Berkeley didn’t like all of us viewing the speech, so the video has been cropped.) For those who don’t want to deal with RealPlayer, Sean Graham made a very lo-fi mp3 of the audio from the ‘good part’ of the lecture.

You can also read a transcript of Professor Rine’s speech.

Johari Window

Johari WindowYesterday, a Simon buddy of mine, Stan, shared with us the top-level idea of the Johari Window, a psychological model for human interaction and self-disclosure. (Joseph Luft and Harry Ingham, the principal creators of the model in 1969, labeled their model the “Joe & Harry” or “Johari” Window.) I’ve obviously been under a rock, since I was able to find a wealth of information about the subject with a simple web search.

(See references one, two, and three for more reading about the model.)

The model is commonly used for understanding better what it takes to be an effective leader through communication, feedback, and honest discourse, which is part of the core fundamentals they teach us at Simon, especially in Professor Schmidt’s class. The model employs a four-part figure to reflect the interaction of two sources of information – self and others. The squared field, representing the “interpersonal space,” is partitioned into four regions with each region representing particular information-processing elements that have significance for the quality of relationships.

The Public Arena is the portion of the total interpersonal space devoted to mutual understanding and shared information. This known by the self / known by others facet of the relationship is thought to control interpersonal productivity. The assumption is that productivity and interpersonal effectiveness are directly related to the amount of mutually-held information. Therefore, the larger the Public Arena becomes, the more rewarding, effective, and productive the relationship is apt to be.

One can significantly influence the size of the Public Arena in relating to others by the behavioral processes you choose to use in your relationships. To the extent that you make others aware of relevant information which you have and they do not, you enlarge the Public Arena in a downward direction reducing the Private [Arena]. The process employed toward this end has been called by Luft and Ingham the Exposure Process. It entails the open and candid expression of feelings and factual knowledge.

Yet it takes two to communicate and the other party must also expose in order for communication to be productive. Therefore, active solicitation by you of the information of others must also be employed. This process is known as Feedback Solicitation. As one solicates feedback, the Public Arena extends to the right reducing your Blindspot. The overall idea is to increase your Public Arena, and thus establish truly effective relationships by engaging in optimum Exposure and Feedback solicitating behaviors.

Poisson d’Avril

April Fool's Cubicle Prank with Styrofoam PeanutsI was trying to figure out where April Fool’s Day originated, or why many European languages call it “Fish of April”. (For example, Italy calls the day Pesce d’Aprile and France calls it Poisson d’Avril.) I found the following blurb at InfoPlease:

In 1564 France adopted the reformed calendar and shifted New Year’s day to January 1. However, many people either refused to accept the new date, or did not learn about it, and continued to celebrate New Year’s Day April 1.

Other people began to make fun of these traditionalists, sending them on “fool’s errands” or trying to trick them into believing something false.

The French came to call April 1 Poisson d’Avril, or “April Fish.” French children sometimes tape a picture of a fish on the back of their schoolmates, crying “Poisson d’Avril” when the prank is discovered.

In 1752, Great Britain finally changed over to the Gregorian Calendar, and April Fool’s Day began to be celebrated in England and in the American colonies.

Oh those crazy French and their cries of laughter over … a fish. But, I suppose it does explain the phrases and where the idea of April 1 pranks came from. But now, April Fool’s pranks have matured to the point where they’re very nearly an art form.

The Museum of Hoaxes has a nice list of the top 100 April Fool’s Day pranks. And even Google is getting into the fun this year with its creation of the Google Gulp, a line of “smart drinks” designed to maximize your surfing efficiency by making you more intelligent, and less thirsty.