The word “avocado” comes from the Nahuatl word āhuacatl (“testicle”, a reference to the shape of the fruit). Historically avocados had a long-standing stigma as a sexual stimulant and were not purchased or consumed by any person wishing to preserve a chaste image.

As a fan of both etymology and of avocados, I found this interesting.

Speaking of words, I want to also link the word haberdasher to Brendan, to help him keep that number three rank in Google for the search term, right behind Wikipedia and Websters. Well done.

And since you are wondering now like I am…

haberdasher – 1311, from Anglo-Fr. hapertas “small wares,” of unknown origin. At first “a dealer in small articles of trade,” sense of “dealer in men’s wares” is 1887 in Amer.Eng., via intermediate sense of “seller of hats.”

Imagine that America had no system of post-secondary education, and you were a member of a task force assigned to create one from scratch. One of your colleagues submits this proposal:

First, we will set up a single goal to represent educational success, which will take four years to achieve no matter what is being taught. We will attach an economic reward to it that seldom has anything to do with what has been learned. We will urge large numbers of people who do not possess adequate ability to try to achieve the goal, wait until they have spent a lot of time and money, and then deny it to them. We will stigmatize everyone who doesn’t meet the goal. We will call the goal a “BA.”

You would conclude that your colleague was cruel, not to say insane. But that’s the system we have in place.

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The particular story that caught my attention was about the coming economic stimulus package, and more specifically how the way the money is presented to Americans will greatly affect how it is spent (or not spent). The segment featured behavioral economist Dan Ariely, who, among other things, had this to say:

For instance, I suspect that giving people a prepaid debit card will do more to rejuvenate the economy than mailing out checks, but direct deposits wouldn’t be nearly as effective. I also suspect that if we added a line on the debit card that reads “spend the government’s money” this would work even better.

The piece was short, but its points were incredibly fascinating to me. I have always been interested in economics, but I find myself getting bored when reading about traditional economic theories and looking at piles and piles of numbers and data for too long. Behavioral economics however, really takes a different and more interesting approach, using psychology and real world information to study how real people actually make their financial choices.

This is the sort of angle that captivates me and keeps me interested and thinking….not always the “whats”, but always the “whys” are what I find most thought provoking.

ANYWAYS, below are some links to some things I have been digesting, and reading, and watching, as well as some things that I intend to digest, read, and watch on the topic.

• Frontline “Secret History Of The Credit Card” -This episode of Frontline (available to watch in full on the site) was riveting. What I found most interesting of all, were the marketing tactics and how they do and don’t affect consumer behavior. The interviews with Andrew Kahr, who created things like the 0% APR and the 2% minimum payment are worth reading/watching in and of themselves.
• The Marketplace story referenced above, regarding the economic stimulus package can be listened to online for free, at marketplace.org.
• MIT has several courses online for free download, including Economics and Psychology, as well as Behavioral Economics and Finance.
• Did you know there was a behavioral economics research center here in Boston? I didn’t.

Now forget about the results, I found one of the comments to be the most telling.

i was going to pick my thumb but i need it for texting!! lol

Think about this. Given the options here, this youngster decided that the most agreeable decision was to part ways with his thumb. Upon further analysis, he was swayed not when he realized how drastically this would impact his entire life, but rather when he realized that missing a thumb would slow down his ability to exchange text messages with his friends.

Unbelievable.

T-Mobile, Verizon, Cingular, etc…are you listening? Send ad budgets my way immediately.

As owner of www.donotreply.com, the Seattle-based programmer receives millions of wayward e-mails each week, including a great many missives destined for executives at Fortune 500 companies or bank customers, even sensitive messages sent by government personnel and contractors.

Via here.

Who knew? Not me anyways.

They’re the original search engines, leftover from the days of rotary phones and answering machines. Once valued reference books kept in a certain drawer or cabinet for easy and frequent access, the massive telephone directories landing on doorsteps and in apartment foyers across the city in recent weeks seemed bound for more ignoble destinations.
more stories like this

Days after hundreds of thousands of the 2,000-page, 4-pound tomes were delivered, they began showing up in recycling bins and trash dumpsters. From Beacon Hill to Jamaica Plain, they moldered on porches and driveways, lay strewn across sidewalks, and sat in large, untouched piles in condo and apartment buildings.

The full story here.

Two of the items on my list this year were to get into better shape, and to donate more to charity.

My efforts to get in shape started with me joining a gym that literally opened across the street from my building, but so far I have gone less than 10 times total. I hate to quit on this one so soon, but I may kill the month-to-month (I knew better than to commit for a year) membership by the end of February and just mark this as a failure. I just can’t get down with the gym, I really dislike everything about it. I would much much prefer being active outside, playing soccer, running around, biking, etc…so I think I just need to admit to myself that I am not a gym person and stop forcing it.

So far, my giving to charity has been going a bit better. Giving is incredibly easy to do (this is one of those sectors that the internet transformed so amazingly) online, and I feel great about doing it. My charity of choice today was the MSPCA here in Boston, which as someone who loves animals, was a fulfilling donation to make.

If you are interested in donating, the link to do so is here.