Break This: Throwing Away and Buying New

As the saying goes, "If it ain't broken don't fix it." However, I would like to expound on this saying a little more. For the last decade or so American consumers have been pleased with the current product life cycle. That is you purchase a product, you use it, if it breaks you throw it away, then purchase a new one. This is one of the reason why the United States is one if not the largest consumer in the world. If we don't like a product or if it breaks in the slightest bit we just buy the latest that is out there and throw the old one away, again and again, and again.

Now that we are in a down turned economy, however, it is time to change the way the average consumer thinks. There is less money now to spend and yet we still want a lot of things. The tide needs to turn back to the days of hacking, repairing, and repurposing. The day has come where we need to take the initiative in trying to repair, jimmy-rig, or resurrect the things we want. So instead of throwing away that LCD TV that has gone black, replace those bad capacitors and watch it come back. Want a server? Repurpose that old work laptop and use it to host your pictures and movies.

Want some good resources? Check out instructables.com, Make magazine,and a ton of other sites dedicated to those people who want to make things work. Save a buck, save a purchase, and save yourself some heartache of losing your stuff.

Break This: Schools Stifling Creativity

TED is an international conference where some of the greatest thinkers in the world discuss some of the major problems in the world. They come up with incredible ideas and invent some amazing technology. This lecture by Sir Ken Robinson talks about some of the concepts or how the structure of schools is impeding in the creativity and learning process. I hope you enjoy it.



Tell me what you think in the comments.

Break This: Brand Positioning

I'm amazed at how many people will accept the findings of an "expert" without doing any investigation into an issue themselves. Sure, the idea of having an expert give an opinion based on reason is valid and should be encouraged, but to what degree are we willing to go out and make our own opinion about the world around us?

An article in the Opinion section of The New York Times discusses the idea that Science is as much based on faith as religion. I won’t go any further with that line of thought, but the article brings up a good point about how we accept certain things in the education process without ever really asking why certain things are the way they are. And that’s just in the area of Mathematics and Physics.

I’m probably a little more cynical than I should be, but my point relates to product marketing. I turn on the TV to watch my favorite show and I’m bombarded with messages about how this product will do all these things to make my life better, or make me cooler, or prevent something bad from happening to me. These ads are based on some brand personality, in some cases inclusive with an “expert” finding, which solidifies the product’s position in the mind of the consumer and gets us to buy their product without much thought about the claim.

The real question is whether the utility of the product matches the hype. Based only on taste, can you tell the difference between your favorite brand of root beer and the others? I think we, as consumers, would be much better served if we did a few blind taste tests for ourselves. In fact, I think we owe it to ourselves to question the “facts” about the things we take for granted. If nothing else, "the proof is in the pudding.”

So go ahead and break Brand Positioning. You might just find a new favorite....

Global Warming?! Where?

It seems like people these days are considerably concerned about global warming and its effects on our lives all over the world. Because of this people are going out of their way to do all sorts of crazy things in order to decrease the amount of air pollution they are causing. But here are a few research papers and discoveries that may answer the question: is there global warming? Because as far as I am concerned, we aren't doing nearly as bad as we used to.

For example, a newly completed study found in Geophysical Research Letters discusses how the rise in temperature in Europe is related to both the removal of pollution as well as the creation of it. The concept isn't new, in fact the theory has been known as Global Dimming for the last few decades. The research concluded that in certain areas of Europe the temperature has risen faster than could be explained by just the idea of global warming. In fact, they concluded that the extra increase in temperature was caused by the lack of pollution allowing direct radiation from the sun to strike the earth's surface. That is, the pollution in the air is reflecting a portion of the sun's radiation. So that is something you might not have heard from your friend who drives his Prius smugly because he believes he is averting global warming.



One idea that most people don't consider about global warming is that what if it was good for us and really wasn't that bad? For instance, in colder countries that were once stricken by cold this could be an escape that allows higher populations to thrive there. Tómas Jóhannesson, a geophysicist at the Icelandic Meteorological Office said this, “It’s not surprising that the warming effects of climate change can be beneficial for a cold country like Iceland." Or maybe the climate change can help the current weather patterns so there are fewer storms and natural disasters. Researchers at the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, who reported in May that Atlantic hurricanes may actually decrease, with a projected 45 percent drop in tropical storms and hurricanes by the end of the century due to the climate change.

So the question now is this: Is there really global warming and is it really all that bad?

Break This: Stalkernet

Have you ever visited a school website and found yourself in a student directory? Sure, it's fun to find yourself and a few of your friends, but do you really want your information to be available to anyone on the internet? Some colleges and universities post disclaimers about how information shouldn't be used for commercial purposes, but they cannot provide any guarantee that someone won't just look you up on your student directory and send you commercial email despite the warning.

Worse than the occasional SPAMling attack is the potential for some wacko with too much time on his/her hands to use the directory wacko who has found a great new way to meet new people on the college directory. For this reason, I hereby dub open college directories "Stalkernet," which I will continue to refer to through the rest of this post.


Stalkernet has a legitimate purpose: college and universities need to retain student information so they can collect on registration, maintain academic records, and keep in contact with you after you graduate from college. The problem comes when the colleges and universities decide to post the information to the internet. In some cases, the information is only available to students who have logged into the school's web portal which, although better than no security at all, is not particularly desirable.


The solution in many cases is simple: check that box on your personal information page that keeps your contact information from being posted. In some cases you may also need to talk to the administration office in order to resolve this issue, but the personal privacy and peace of mind is worth the effort. So go ahead: Break Stalkernet....

Break This: Diminishing Returns on Study

I am an avid believer in the concept of diminishing returns. I really like to apply it specifically to studying for an exam. You see, right now I am working on my masters at BYU and I have come to learn throughout my college career that I reach a certain point, no matter the subject, where I cannot hold in more information. I believe that whenever a person is studying for an exam, whether the exam contains application or theoretical questions, there is only a certain amount of information your mind can hold before it can't hold anymore.

This is where diminishing returns starts to take affect. You notice that although you are studying and using the same methods and processes you know will maximize your studying efforts, there seems to be only a partial amount that sticks in your mind. So my question is this: why waste the time? I think that once you hit that speed bump, the time used to study loses value in an exponential scale. Don't spend too much time in that area of diminishing returns because after all that time and work, when you come out of the exam with a score far less than you expected you will only be that much angrier for losing that time.

So when you hit that peak and really start noticing that your "brain is getting warm" or that diminishing returns has sunk in with a vengeance I would suggest doing one of two things: Either stopping for a long period of time (if you really want to keep studying) or Just take the exam. I promise you will thank me for helping you stay sane during midterms and finals.

Break This: Organic Food

Ever wonder how much money is spent on organic food? It is way too much. Honestly, how much of a difference is there between organics and regularly grown food? Think about it this way: Most baby boomers we raised and fed non-organic food when chemicals such as pesticides and other fertilizers were mainstream. Personally, I think they turned out alright and I'm not seeing a third arm or an extra eyeball. In fact, they as a demographic generate the largest amount of revenue in the United States.

Here is another argument. I have talked to doctors, food scientist, and nutritionists here at Brigham Young University and every single one I talked to mentioned that they are happy that people in general are becoming more aware of what they eat, however, the fact that people are going out of their way for organics isn't worth the minimal incremental possibility of better health. Nothing has been conclusive to them.

How about the argument that it is "greener" to buy organic food compared to regularly grown food because of the growing process harming the environment. Well, unfortunately for that argument, organic foods are being transported on such a wide scale from local growers to different chains such as Wal-Mart, Whole Foods, and the likes that the carbon foot-print necessary to quickly ship those sensitive foods from one end of the country to the other.

Now, I am a healthy eater. I like to eat wisely and I'm not a penny pincher. But the exorbitant amounts of money spent on a slight non-conclusive improvement in nutrition through organic foods needs to stop. Regularly grown foods are good for you because of the natural properties of the food. As long as you aren't gorging down junk food you're ok.