Ryanware

There was a lot on my mind last night as I walked home from work. Or more accurately, there was a lot on my mind as I walked from work to the subway, rode the subway, and then walked from the subway to my friend’s apartment in Queens where I sleep on a couch that folds out into a bed. The point is, there was a lot on my mind last night.

The streets are crowded in the morning, afternoon, and evening. They are at night as well. Especially if you go to Time Square. Especially if you were at Times Square last night with the whole election thing going on. Normally, though, the streets are generally less crowded at night than during the day, just like every other place I’ve been.

I have noticed that whenever I drive on a crowded freeway I tend to drive faster. At night, when the freeways are far less crowded, I slow down. I’ve caught myself driving under the speed limit on more than one occasion at night. I walk slower at night than I do during the day.

It’s not my intention to delve into the fundamental attribution error yet again, but I can’t help realizing that the way I act on the streets and the way I drive is not so much about what kind of person or driver I am as it is my environment that in large part determines what kind of person and driver I am and and what other people think I am. It also effects how I feel about myself and about my driving. Time constraints also play a huge part (eg. during the day you’re more likely to be in a hurry). Something to think about.

My friend’s apartment is located in Queens. It’s not really his apartment as he’s renting from someone else, but I digress. The apartment is on the 3rd floor of a building with more than 3 floors. I do realize how incredibly not useful that is in helping you create an image of the building in your mind. I think it has 4 floors. The apartment is very small and the floor is dirty (at no fault of my friend).

Queens is what’s called a borough of New York City. The other boroughs are Manhattan, Brooklyn, The Bronx, and Staten Island. Queens is basically east of Manhattan, and as I understand it, one of the best places to get good, cheap food (cheap for here).

Last night on the way home we stopped at a 24-hour grocery store. 24-hour grocery stores are nothing special or out of the ordinary. In fact, there’s nothing at all special or out of the ordinary about this place at all. It wasn’t even that late when we stopped there. We did stop there, though, and I bought some chips, grape nuts, raspberries, and milk. I know, very exciting.

Upon arriving at the apartment the number of items on my mind decreased, but only because one of the items decided to take up all my thoughts. As it was election day that item was, naturally, chips.

Seriously. It’d been a while since I’d had a good bag of chips to much on. There are few things I like more than opening a bag of chips and eating it all in one sitting. Especially if cheese is involved. Or salsa. Both is even better. I didn’t eat the whole bag, for the record.

Since I didn’t have cheese or salsa I bought a bag of lime-flavored tortilla chips to compensate for the lack of pizazz that the cheese and salsa usually bring to an otherwise boring bag of chips. Believe me when I say that the pizazz was not missing with the lime chips. If you’re on a small budget and want some pizazz in a bag, go for lime-flavored chips. If you’re in the UK I highly suggest the lime-flavoured variety (chips meaning chips, not chips as in “french fries.” the brits are just confused).

As the events of the evening unfolded before my bag of chips and I (along with my friend and his roommate), it became increasingly clear to me that I should have purchased two bags of chips. And maybe some ice cream.

… people have an unjustified tendency to assume that a person’s actions depend on what “kind” of person that person is rather than on the social and environmental forces influencing the person.
- Wikipedia, Fundamental Attribution Error

I would like to suggest that the fundamental attribution error relates, not only to the actions of individuals or groups (group attribution error), but also to their opinions, and knowledge.

Here’s a very simple example. I was told today that one should not put egg shells down a garbage disposal in the sink. I thought this was a ridiculous thought. I told the person who told me (who heard it from someone else, who heard it from someone else) that it was absolutely crazy.

I decided to do some research on the internet in order to find out who the crazy one really was. I discovered that I’m not crazy, but also that those who hold the egg shell theory as fact may not be so crazy either. And not because it’s true. I still don’t think it is.

Here’s a few things I found in very short research:

• Plumbers say not to put eggs down the disposal.
• Many plumbers also say not to put anything down at all.
• Water is OK to put down the drain. (whew!)
• People think ice and egg shells sharpen garbage disposal blades.
• Egg shells supposedly help clean a garbage disposal.
• Lots of pasta down a garbage disposal is not good.
• One guy said he’s been to garbage disposal manufactures, installed/replaced many disposal units, etc. and that egg shells are not an issue.
• Too much of anything down the drain at once isn’t good.

Some thoughts from all this:

1. People don’t understand how sharpening a blade works. Basically, sharpening is the process of removing material from the blade in such a way that it leaves a thinner edge. The thinner the edge, the sharper the blade. You can also heat up the metal and shape it into a thinner edge. Ice in a disposal will not shave metal off the blades and it certainly doesn’t heat it up. If either of these were the case you’d have little bits of metal shards in your homemade shakes and smoothies.

2. Plumbers have a skewed experience. I don’t mean to suggest that their experience is wrong. Just skewed. Their experience (in my very limited knowledge of plumbers) is pretty much limited to two things: installing and fixing. When they install plumbing they don’t have to deal with clogs. When they’re fixing, there’s a good chance it’s a clog. A plumber can incorrectly assume that because many clogs have egg shells in them, you shouldn’t put eggs down the drain. The reality is probably far closer to: don’t put 4 cartons of egg shells down the drain at the same time. Or don’t put down 12 eggs plus potato skins plus spaghetti. I’m guessing many hard boiled eggs at once wouldn’t work out very well.

3. People’s view of life is based on their experience and what they believe of the experiences of others. Trust your own biased experiences or the skewed/biased experiences of someone else and you’ll only end up with more biased experiences. Trusting a plumber by not putting anything down the disposal probably won’t be a big deal, but other things might.

I do realize I’m making a huge generalization about plumbers. I apologize, I don’t mean to skew anyone’s view of what a plumber does or thinks. I’m merely suggesting that making judgments off of the actions, opinions, and experiences of others, while valuable, should be used with caution. One should always get as much information as possible (from the right sources) before making a judgment call. Who said it? Where did they learn it? If it’s an action, is the person shy? Confident? Stressed? Perhaps their computer blew up yesterday and they lost all their family photos. You never know.