To be fair, my research is decades old at this point.

Some slight ramdom paper reading, back in my uni days. Though I’ve ran across it via other sources over the years since. Unfortunately I don’t have any links to hand though.

It might better be described as people put numbers into categories. Most people have a 10-20 category. 19.99 fits. 20.00 gets bumped up to the next box. It’s a sub/semi conscious thing. If we use our higher thought process, we can deal with the numbers. That takes effort however, by default, we chunk. The price just abuses a common rollover point most people share.

It’s a subconscious thing. It’s how our brain is wired. It’s a bit like advertising. Most people don’t like ads. However, when confronted my 2 similar products, we will go with the familiar one. The source of that familiarity is irrelevant, ads make it familiar, just the same as using it, or a recommendation.

It’s possible to override both of these effects, but that requires a level of conscious effort. I can almost guarantee you’ve been caught by both at different times. You just didn’t notice (since noticing would allow you to correct).

Basically, $19.99 is in the category “under $20”. $20.00 is in “over $20”. Without conscious correction, you act on this.

It was originally to force the cashier to open the till.

Say an item was $20. If the customer paid with a $20 note, then the cashier could, intheory, pocket it, without it showing up on the rocords. If it was $19.99 they needed to open the till to get a cent out. This meant it was recorded, and so the till wouldn’t balance.

Most people round down. Their brain locks on to the 1 of 19.99, and approximates it to 10.00. We need to actively counter this to see it as 20.00. It’s a skill most people don’t apply all the time, and a number can’t even do.

Once you can do it reliably, it’s mind-boggling that others can’t, but it’s still a learnt skill, that needs to be applied.

My minion is still too young for that. I plan to wind them up mercilessly however. Right now, dad jokes are the height of humour to them.

• “I’m hungry”
• “Hi hungry, I’m dad!”
• “Nooooooo, I’m not called hungry!”
• “So why did you tell me your name was hungry?”
• …

I’ll be a little sad when it finally gets old.

I know a few teachers, the “cringy and bad” is the goal, not a mistake. It’s apparently quite therapeutic watching the “cool kids” squirm. How bad can you make them, but not make it obvious what you’re doing?

The fact that it also helps a lot of kids remember it is almost just a bonus.

The ork waaaaaagh requires enough orks to function. It’s sort of an average belief. Even the warpheads (their psykers) just channel the collective waaaaaagh energy.

The matrix power plant hack was the exception. In the movie, it’s just a screen of code flying past. If you slow it down, it’s a legit hack.

Trinity checks the software version, to see it hadn’t been updated. She then implements a real hack that that version was vulnerable to. It resets the admin password to a default, letting her log in as admin.

Simple, stark is a semi latent technomancer. His arc reactors might actually work, but the mini ones don’t. They are effectively conductors for magic. They turn magic into electricity with zero heat output. This also explains the suits momentum damping capabilities, and why they can’t be copied easily.

My head canon, at least with Superman, is his powers. He doesn’t have multiple unrelated powers, but only 1 main one. Instinctive momentum control.

• Flying - Momentum control

• Bullet proof - Momentum stopped at the point of contact.

• Heat beams - Changing the momentum of particles he’s focused on.

• Holding a plane by a thin aluminium sheet - Adjusting the momentum of the plane directly.

• No sonic booms, or massive wind - momentum nulling on the nearby air.

In this case, catching a falling person safely makes complete sense. He just nullifies their momentum before they hit.

I’ve dodged similar collisions a couple of times, over the years. Unfortunately, this time, she didn’t even touch the brakes. I was hit with a 50 mph differential, and no warning whatsoever.

I was rear ended, HARD once. That distance gave me the space to control both my vehicle, and the one that hit me. It turned a potential multi car, multi lane pileup into a 2 vehicle wreck, either 1 more dinged car.

The space isn’t for the 99.999% of the time, but that 0.001% OH FUCK time.

Spiders don’t have to eat their mate. The female just tends to be hungry, after mating. The male is snack sized, right there, and of no further use.

Apparently, when trying to breen endangered spiders, they make sure the female is well fed prior. It gives the male a chance to make a quiet getaway.

My university basically gave up with a couple of professors. They hired a personal assistant, full time, just to try and keep them organised. They apparently settled on 3 phone calls, to make sure they made lectures on time. It even extended to things like reminding them to actually get their wives birthday presents, and personal book keeping.

It seems the human brain has a capacity limit. The more specialist knowledge shoved in, the less room for more normal knowledge. Eventually it displaces even the most basic common sense.

We have “family film nights”. We all have dinner together, then get out some beanbags, on the floor. We then all watch a film together, cuddled up on the beanbags.

The films are ones our daughter hasn’t seen, and can often push her boundaries. E.g. we watched “Monsters Inc” together. She was a little bit scared, but with mummy and daddy there, she loved it.

It’s definitely one for building memories together. We are too often distracted, even when present. Having dedicated family time makes a huge difference.

Oh, and she also doesn’t watch much paw patrol, even when around friends. Apparently “Daddy doesn’t like it” is quite enough to put her off it. A classic “respect over fear” situational win for me.

On a side note. The screen time correlation goes away, when you correct for the child’s parenting and lifestyle situation. It’s not “screens are bad” but that kids in worse situations watch more TV, etc. The causation is backwards.

Of course not, that would be immoral. They’ll track trollies and baskets, then tag it to the till and your loyalty card. It would be a lot more consistent, and harder to dodge.

I can see multiple uses for the tech. Unfortunately, many are a but dystopian, but some are legitimately useful.

For those confused, it’s worth noting the difference between observed as a layman concept and as a quantum mechanical one.

In QM, to observed is to couple the observer to the “system” being observed. Think of it like “observing” your neighbour, over a fence using a BB gun. When you hit flesh, you know where your neighbour is. Unfortunately, the system has now been fundamentally changed. In a classical system, you could turn down the power, until your neighbour doesn’t notice the hits. Unfortunately, QM imposes fundamental limits on your measurements (heisenburg and his uncertainty principal). In order to observe your neighbour accurately, you need to hit them hard enough that the will also feel it and react differently.

QM behaves in a similar way. Initially, the system is just a single particle, and is not very restrained. This allows it to behave in a very wave like manner. When you observe it, the system now includes the whole observation system, as this coupling propagates, more and more atoms etc get linked. The various restraints cause an effect called decoherence. The system behaves ever more like a classical physical system.

In short, a quantum mechanical “observer” is less sneaky watching, and more hosing down with a machine gun and watching the ricochets.

I just spent the weekend driving a remote controlled Henry hoover around a festival. It’s amazing how many people immediately anthropomorphised it.

It got a lot of head pats, and cooing, as if it was a small, happy, excitable dog.