by david allan van nostrand | Oct 12, 2020 | Artificial Intelligence, Fads, Marketing
In a shell game, three walnut shells are moved about swiftly and onlookers bet on which one the pea is under when they come to rest. It’s not actually a game at all – it’s a swindle con artists control through sleight of hand and illusion to fleece the mark (the...
by david allan van nostrand | Nov 4, 2019 | Fads, Human Behavior
You dimwit, nitwit, halfwit, ignoramus, dolt, imbecile, moron, nincompoop, numskull, pinhead, simpleton, birdbrain, lame-brain!For many generations, beating and humiliation were two of the tools schoolteachers used to keep order. Children who misbehaved would get...
by david allan van nostrand | Oct 14, 2019 | Fads, Human Behavior
The great California gold rush began when sawmill builders found gold in a streambed in 1848. Headlines in newspapers around the world told tall tales of gold lying on the ground just waiting to be picked up. Hundreds of thousands of gullible fortune seekers came by...
by david allan van nostrand | May 6, 2019 | Fads, Items in the News
Amazon’s recent announcement of a category-changing Whole Foods shop-eat-entertain design strategy was big news because they took the usual way of thinking about grocery stores and radically redefined it. Paradigm shifts occur when we dramatically change our beliefs...
by david allan van nostrand | Feb 18, 2019 | Fads, Unintended Consequences
Travelers are leaving their hotel rooms and heading for the lobby for a couple of good reasons. One is that the ever-smaller rooms have no space for tables, chairs, or desks and so are less comfortable than ever before. Another is that the lobby is now a happening...
by david allan van nostrand | Jan 21, 2019 | Fads, Unintended Consequences
Novelist William Styron wrote in Darkness Visible that “depression is a true wimp of a word.” True depression, he said, swallows its victims entirely and is so overwhelming that a better word for it is brainstorm, not as it is currently used to mean some burst of...
