Google Suggest: I laughed. I cried.

You know what Google Suggest is.  It is that thing that happens when you start typing in Google and suggestions for possible searches appear as you type.  The way it works is that Google’s algorithms predict the search you most likely want to see using “data about the overall popularity of various searches”  (direct quote from Google).  If you think about it, there is something important here.  Google Suggest can tell us what Americans are searching for, what they are seeking.  Every once in a while something comes along that reminds you that you know nothing about what other people are thinking.  Google Suggest is just that thing.

Let’s start with “should I”…

…if you are asking Google, the answer is “probably not”.  “Should I worry” gives the opposite result…

…if you are asking Google, the answer is “definitely”.

The common searches for why things are the way they are…

Mail on Columbus Day.  Honestly, hadn’t crossed my mind.

What are Americans thinking of buying?  Not what I would have expected…

Same goes for a query about where is…

…the GEICO gecko – seriously?  C’mon, pull it together.

Things get interesting for searches on famous figures such as the President…

…other famous people with interesting results include God.

People are invoking God all the time in their searches.  In America, God has wives covered, but apparently not husbands, so we turn to the next best thing – Google…

What do American’s like?  All sorts of things.

I like turtles too.  I had a pet turtle growing up, but it probably would not have been at the top of my list.

What are Americans afraid of?

…Chinese people and pre-pubescent women.  Not my first guesses.

What do people think about ethnic groups in America?

I have to wrap it up, but I thought I would finish up with what Americans are wondering about fat people.

Isn’t that God’s truth?

Selecting and Selected

My brief effort at internet dating ended in a whimper last month when my match.com promotional subscription ran out.  Perhaps it was my lack of desire to post 80 pictures of myself on the internet along with a 1,000 word description of each thing that I have ever done, or perhaps I am not that desireable after all.  For my official excuse, I think I’ll go with a scientific study that I read recently, which elaborates on the idea that people are bad at thinking about each other in abstractions.  What this means is that the shopping lists that people set out for a desireable mate having nothing to do with what people actually want in a desireable mate.  Women tend to include in their shopping lists the desire for earnings potential and status in a mate (men tend to write down the desire for a good-looking mate, no surprises there).  It turns out women actually just want good-looking mates.

I figured as much.  What was new to me was a nuance in how men and women select their mates.  In most settings, women are reported to be more selective than men.  A group of researchers found this to be true in the common speed-dating setting where men rotate and women stay seated in one place.  When the roles were reversed and the men stayed seated in one place – the men became more selective.  The implications in daily life are intense; I’ll test out a few and see if I learn anything new.

P.S.  The study is by Finkel and Eastwick – well worth the read.

My Brain Doesn’t Work The Way I Thought It Did

You kill brain cells, they don’t grow back.  That is what I learned growing up.  Having taken my last biology class in the late 1990’s, I assumed that after enough hard nights of drinking and time spent in parking garages, my brain would just slow down like those of most old people.  To make up for this, I would gray a little, acquire gravitas and weigh in on discussions strictly at a “high level”. 

If you looked in my “Book Queue” last week, you may have noticed that I had a book at the top of the list titled “The Brain That Changes Itself”.  This book will change the way you think about your mind, the way “The China Study” will change the way you think about what you eat.  Through a series of case studies and personal experiences, Norman Doidge (a pyschiatrist), makes a very compelling argument for neuroplasticity – the idea that the brain (and its cells) can change dramatically in function, speed and growth throughout a person’s life.  The story is told in a very accessible way and it is a quick read.  The information in the book may be old hat for brain surgeons, but it was completely new to me. 

I won’t do a book report here, since you should read this book and I don’t want to bore you.  I will just focus on what I learned.   I was under the impression that the brain always processes certain functions in the same place.  This is not true.  The processing location changes every day and it can change with age.  While certain parts of your brain are better suited for certain types of processes than others, it ends there.  Other than that loose constraint, your brain is totally malleable.  The implications of this on how you think are tremendous.  Through understanding the rules by which the brain changes itself, people who have had strokes and haven’t walked in decades can be brought to walk again – or even perform surgery.  Amputees who have phantom limb syndrome not only can change their brain function to eliminate the sensation, but can also scratch itches on their phantom limb.   On a less positive note, the brain’s dramatic ability to structurally orient itself to a task also leads to destructive obsessions and compulsions.

The section that most piqued my interest was the part about rejuvenating the brain (since I walk through a parking garage every morning).  I would have thought that if you could gain new brain cells, it would happen when you learn a new language or meet new people or something along those lines.   Living in an environment that stimulates your brain is extremely important for maintaining your existing brain cells alive.  However, new cell generation occurs only when you exercise – or better said when you move through space, which requires your brain to constantly anticipate what new places will be like.  On top of that, exercise also releases a neuronal growth factor – BDNF, which is the exact same chemical that is released in your brain in the first two years of your life.  The chemical makes your brain more plastic, more able to pay attention and more able to store new information in an integrated, long-term sustainable way.  What I can’t explain is that knowing all of this, I still can’t bring myself to do exercise in 2008.  It’s getting late, so maybe tomorrow.