How the bandwagon effect occurs is demonstrated by the history of measurements of the speed of light. Because this speed is the basis of the theory of relativity, it's one of the most frequently and carefully measured quantities in science. As far as we know, the speed hasn't changed over time. However, from 1870 to 1900, all the experiments found speeds that were too high. Then, from 1900 to 1950, the opposite happened ― all the experiments found speeds that were too low! This kind of error, where results are always on one side of the real value, is called "bias." It probably happened because over time, experimenters subconsciously adjusted their results to match what they expected to find. If a result fit what they expected, they kept it. If a result didn't fit, they threw it out. They weren't being intentionally dishonest, just influenced by the conventional wisdom. The pattern only changed when someone had the courage to report what was actually measured instead of what was expected.

Taoism states that modern knowledge can act as a barrier to our natural curiosity and creativity. Children are naturally curious and creative but socialization and education can destroy it. For example, children can play for hours bouncing a ball back and forth to an adult, while adults can become bored within minutes. This is because the adult conceptualizes the outcome: The ball will be sent back and forth. However, children experience the ball bouncing and they are excited since the ball never bounces the same. Moreover, Taoism states the most important part of reality is not what we see, but what we do not see. Without the empty space (invisible), a room (visible) would be useless. Science teaches us to focus on what we see, but Taoism teaches us to focus on what is invisible but important.

Disruptions in life's major transitions can be destructive and ultimately can promote criminality. Those who are already at risk because of socioeconomic problems or family problems are the most susceptible to these awkward transitions. Criminality cannot be attributed to a single cause, nor does it represent a single underlying tendency. People are influenced by different factors as they mature. Consequently, a factor that may have an important influence at one stage of life may have little influence later on. These negative life events can become cumulative, as the chances of acquiring additional ones increase as people acquire more personal deficits. The cumulative impact of these disruptions sustains criminality from childhood into adulthood.

Each realm of work has a central mission, which reflects a basic societal need and which the practitioner should feel committed to realizing. The core of the mission of medicine is the healing of the sick. The core mission of the legal profession is the pursuit of justice, through the resolution of conflict. Teachers pass on the most important knowledge of the past and prepare their students for the future. All practitioners should be able to have confidence in what they are doing. At best, the mission is part of what draws the practitioner to a chosen profession and remains as a principal sustenance. A good way of clarifying this sense of mission is to ask "Why should society reward the kind of work that I do with status and certain privileges?"

Consumers want to maximize the value they receive for each hard-earned dollar they spend. But value is not just about price. After a long day of travelling, a consumer might find great value in a $4 glass of Coke and ice delivered to her hotel room, while at a neighborhood grocery store, she might be hesitant to pay $4 for a six-pack. Another consumer might happily pay $2,000 for a suit from his favorite fashion apparel retailer but switch grocery stores to get the lowest price on a loaf of bread. Retail is the part of the economy that is closest to the customer's wallet, and so it is important to understand how value is created and sustained from the perspective of consumer decision makers.

Consumers want to maximize the value they receive for each hard-earned dollar they spend. But value is not just about price. After a long day of travelling, a consumer might find great value in a $4 glass of Coke and ice delivered to her hotel room, while at a neighborhood grocery store, she might be hesitant to pay $4 for a six-pack. Another consumer might happily pay $2,000 for a suit from his favorite fashion apparel retailer but switch grocery stores to get the lowest price on a loaf of bread. Retail is the part of the economy that is closest to the customer's wallet, and so it is important to understand how value is created and sustained from the perspective of consumer decision makers.

Think of it: We hear someone make a controversial remark or do something we strongly like or dislike. What is our immediate reaction? It is to either agree or disagree with what the person said or did and then try to get others nearby to agree with our point of view. But we don't let it go at that. We are not happy unless everyone around us agrees with the way we see things, and feels the same way as we feel about them. And when we learn that others do not, our immediate reaction is to try to make them think and feel the way we do by arguing them out of their obviously wrongheaded positions. But this is never as straightforward and simple as we imagine it will be. What is occurring here is much like what happens when you walk outside on a cold winter day, the wind screaming past. The harder the wind blows against you, the more tightly you pull your coat around yourself. Trying to argue another person out of his point of view is counterproductive. The best way to change another person's deep-seated opinions or feelings about an important matter is to simply understand that other person and let that person know that you do. Trying to use logic and reason to alter another person's deeply held views and feelings is futile. A human will change only when that person chooses to change and the choice to change never arrives when icy winds of disagreement are blowing in their direction, causing them to hold all the more tightly to their convictions.

For a while it was a widely held belief that securing a job with a large corporation would usually lead to employment security. For years it was assumed that getting a job with one of the major manufacturing firms could secure one's income for 20 or 30 or more years and lead to a comfortable retirement. This was true for many who entered the manufacturing workforce as early as the middle to late 1930s or during or shortly after World War II. A significant number of these people put in 30 or so years and retired comfortably during a time when all were aspiring to retire at younger and younger ages. Many retired by age 60, and those who followed expected the retirement age to drop to 55 in time for them to take advantage of it. Take a close look at the overall status of college graduates in today's job market, and look as well at the numbers indicating how far employment has fallen in manufacturing. With the exception of those trained in certain occupational and professional specialties, many college graduates have been out beating the bushes for employment rather than being recruited on campuses as they were in earlier decades. A great many of the people presently seeking jobs in manufacturing count themselves lucky to find steady work — "steady" meaning that it might last a few years — and are overjoyed should they also be able to obtain benefits such as health insurance.

I was not a gifted person, but I was always deeply interested in every manifestation of life, good or bad. I never let an opportunity to increase my knowledge of people and conditions pass me by. Everything was useful to me: not only the things I saw but the people I met. I had really only three assets: I was keenly interested, I accepted every challenge and every opportunity to learn more, and I had great energy and self-discipline. As a result, I have never had to look for interests to fill my life. If you are interested, things come to you, they seem to gravitate to you without your lifting a hand. One thing leads to another and another, and as you gain in knowledge and in experience, new opportunities open up before you.

Companies must be aware that although it is the responsibility of the computer security department to produce and maintain the security policy, security is a process that should involve all staff members. If staff members see security as something that is an obstacle to their work, they will not take on their proper responsibility. Companies need staff members to understand why security is important, and that they themselves are being protected. Companies should remember that it is not possible for the security practitioner to be everywhere at once; an educated staff can go a long way toward acting on behalf of the practitioner. Educated users are more likely to pick a good password, challenge a stranger, or lock the PC when going for coffee, if they are aware of the consequences of not doing so.

In the 1990s, cable, as opposed to airwave broadcasts, has facilitated the rapid development of new programming in sports, increasing access around the world and allowing media companies and advertisers to tailor their messages to narrower audiences. The emergence of digital and social media in the 2000s has added to the range of tools sports marketers can use to appeal to various audiences. Digital and social media have also fostered a much stronger and more demanding consumer audience, effectively changing the relationship between organizations and their customers from one controlled by the organization to one controlled by customers. This change has also coincided with a shift from one way (from organization to market) to two-way simultaneous communications (an ongoing dialog between the organization and the marketplace). The result is that organizations (sports companies, teams, leagues etc.) are finding that they must listen far more actively to their customers than ever, otherwise the risk of a fan backlash increases noticeably.

Time is of the essence. At any given moment, half the contents of the warehouse are seventy-two hours away from being inedible, a prospect which prompts continuous struggles against the challenges of mould and geography. Clusters of tomatoes still attached to their vine, having ripened to maturity in fields near Palermo on the weekend, are exchanging the destiny seemingly assigned to them by nature to try to find buyers for themselves on the northern fringes of Scotland before Thursday. Blind impatience is equally evident in the fruit section. Our ancestors might have delighted in the occasional handful of berries found on the underside of a bush in late summer, viewing them as a sign of the unexpected munificence of a divine creator, but we became modern when we gave up on awaiting sporadic gifts from above and sought to render any pleasing sensation immediately and repeatedly available.

It is important to let yourself be "dissatisfied" with the status quo to inspire action and change in your life. Hard times often force you to reflect on your larger goals. And it is from those reflections that ideas and insights for the future often come. Uncomfortable emotions such as fear and insecurity often warn you of real and approaching dangers. In fact, research shows that mildly depressed and pessimistic people tend to see reality more clearly than optimists. People who set higher goals and fall short are often more dissatisfied with the result they achieve, but actually achieve much higher results than people who set lower goals and feel happy when they achieve them. And many creative artists seem to do their best work when they surrender to the full array of life's emotions, not just the happy ones.

Many people count the minutes since their last meal to avoid violating a fundamental rule of swimming: never get into the water on a full stomach. The only problem is that the warning is yet another old wives' tale that should be laid to rest. The theory is that the process of digestion increases blood flow to the stomach, away from the muscles needed for swimming, which increases the risk of drowning. A researcher at the New York University, however, said while swimming strenuously on a full stomach could lead to cramps, for most recreational swimmers the chances are small. And at least one study that looked at drowning in the United States found that fewer than 1 percent occurred after the victim ate a meal.

Routine can be your servant or your master. Mindless routine may become a prison and may curb your creativity. But routine, when used well, can release time and energy. Donald decided to learn French. He chose to devote half an hour each day to work on his French. He found that it was easy to skip a daily session, and if he skipped one, it was even easier to skip a second session. Two weeks went by, and he had only done his half hour of work on two days. We discussed ways to help him get down to work. He chose to make it a routine. After breakfast each day, he would work for half an hour. He established a routine. Now he found that he had done his work before he had time to think about not doing it. He established the habit that, after breakfast, he would take his coffee into the sitting room and work for half an hour.

The evidence from theory suggests no. Physicists are convinced that many features of the laws of physics, such as the masses of subatomic particles, the nature and number of forces, and the density of dark energy (the mysterious stuff that seems to be making the expansion of our universe accelerate) are ‘frozen accidents' locked in when the universe cooled from the searing heat of the big bang. If the experiment were done again, so to speak, the masses and forces would come out differently; there might even be a different number of spatial dimensions. Einstein once famously expressed his distaste for quantum mechanics by declaring that ‘God does not play dice with the universe'. In the multiverse theory God plays dice with universes (I am tempted to say God plays at randomly blowing bubbles). Taking a God's-eye-view, the multiverse is a patchwork quilt, featuring bubble universes of all hues and textures, distributed across a fantastic range of possibilities. What we had taken to be universal immutable laws of physics turn out to be more like ‘local bylaws, valid only in our cosmic patch', to use Martin Rees' evocative description.