by david allan van nostrand | May 11, 2020 | Human Behavior, Items in the News
When I was a rookie bartender working my way through college, I found a grizzled veteran who agreed to teach me how a master craftsman does it. One day I asked him the name of the guy seated down at the end of the bar. “Amigo,” he said. “No, no, what’s his...
by david allan van nostrand | Feb 24, 2020 | Human Behavior, Items in the News
As each stove came down the assembly line, I plugged a two-pronged electric heating coil into a socket and secured it with two screws: bzzt bzzt with an airgun, like a Nascar tire changer but slower. Four calrods*, eight screws: bzzt bzzt…bzzt bzzt…bzzt...
by david allan van nostrand | Dec 16, 2019 | Human Behavior, Items in the News, Young moderns
We were the first to have a gen-name. Now everyone has one and some have two. Regardless of what they call themselves, our term for the latest group at front and center of deciding everything for everybody else is Young Moderns. Nitpickers will say hey, what about the...
by david allan van nostrand | Dec 9, 2019 | Human Behavior, Young moderns
One by one, hundreds of college students were asked to be alone with their thoughts for 15 minutes – no phones, no books, no pens for doodling – nothing. They were asked only to stay awake, be quiet, and sit idly in their seats. Before beginning, students...
by david allan van nostrand | Nov 25, 2019 | Human Behavior, Misinformation traps
Three international executives recently listened with great interest as a man complained long and loud about how cellphone numbers should never be reissued. He had just bought a new mobile and was angry because he kept getting annoying calls for someone else. He was...
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...
