Will It Be Trump or Clinton?

Over this past weekend, most states transitioned off of Daylight Savings Time. It was first implemented in Germany a little over 100 years ago, and became the law in the US in 1918. You can learn more about its history here.

It is finally election day. Have you ever wondered why the elephant and donkey are the symbols of the two major parties? This article has the answer.

When I get on an elevator, especially if I am alone, I almost always press the Close Door button. Don't you? Well, read this and press the button no more. Those close door buttons that you frantically push don’t actually do anything. They’re placebo buttons. It wasn’t always so. The close door button lived a happy existence until 1990, when the Americans with Disabilities Act was passed into law. One clause clearly states elevator owners must ensure people with disabilities have adequate time to make it into an elevator—hard to follow if impatient people can control the doors. Some older elevators may still have the close door functionality, since ADA compliance is only required when a building is built or an elevator is upgraded. The average life of an elevator is about 25 years, so older models are quickly becoming extinct. Of course, the “American” Disabilities Act is only law in America; when in Rome, close the doors as quickly as you want. As we learned in Curio #394, placebo buttons are all around us. Most crosswalk buttons don’t do anything, or just change the color of the WALK sign but don’t make it come any faster. And many building thermostats are minimally functional, or not operational at all. Placebo buttons are meant to give us the “illusion of control.” That’s the psychological state where we tend to overestimate how much we affect things. Which got me thinking: maybe we only know about the poorly designed placebo buttons, and there are lots more really effective instances in our lives which we haven’t discovered yet? Actually, maybe it’s better that way.

Take a look at this next photo. What catches my eye about it is the zigzag pattern woven through the lines of the mountains and the trees.

I like the sun reflecting off the gold in this next one. And sometimes, I even like seeing the white trunks of the aspen down below a crown of gold.

Here's  a business name pulled from the dark side.

Don't forget to vote. That way, if your choice wins, you can say, "At least it wasn't the other candidate" and if they lose, you can say "I voted for the other candidate." Either way, though, I think we all lose. Sorry. That's just my opinion. Enjoy your Tuesday.