July 2008
The Archives
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Restroom
Men’s Room Etiquette Part 1: The Separation Rule
07.28.08 | Permalink | 7 CommentsGive a guy a little space
Public men’s rooms vary in size and layout, but there are some simple guidelines to follow regarding giving everyone in the room the proper amount of privacy.
To quote George Costanza, “I’m a stall man” myself; if there’s a stall available, I’m going to use it 99.9% of the time, because I like my privacy. I’m not ashamed to admit it: I get stage fright sometimes. Personally, if I were designing a men’s room, I’d have nothing but stalls in there, but since I don’t design men’s rooms, I have to deal with what’s presented to me [...]
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Elevators
Elevator Etiquette Part 1: People in the Elevator Have the Right of Way
07.22.08 | Permalink | 6 CommentsPeople get out before people get in
This happens almost every day when I use the elevator at work. Basically, people tend to focus so much on where they’re going that they forget that there may be other people to contend with before getting there. So the bell chimes, the light blinks, the doors open, and the poor folks getting off the elevator crash into the selfish bastards immediately running in.
A simple thing to keep in mind: there are [...]
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Walking
Tips for Walking in the City Part 1: Face Forward
Somewhere along the evolutionary path, our ancestors, unlike many other creatures such as birds or most fish, developed two eyes in the front of their heads, rather than one on each side of the head. This change led to all kinds of amazing new abilities for our brains and bodies. The tradeoff is that we lost our ability to see directly behind us.
While we can’t focus with great detail on objects in our periphery, we can at least make out basic motion through shifts in color and luminosity that happen in the area surrounding almost 90 degrees in either direction. (See figure 1.) This range is enough [...]
