Diminishing returns for ads

I have to believe that the "law of diminishing returns" applies strongly to TV ads. The more often any given ad appears on TV the less people are willing to pay attention. A little observation will support this. Watching Monday Night Football in a sports bar, the number of people who got up to order food or drinks or visit the rest rooms was fairly constant until a commercial was replayed. Then people stopped watching the TV and found something else to do. Even when people didn't leave the table they turned to look at those at the table with them instead of the TV.

It was not just the transition from action to commercial, either. I thought it might be caused by the "here's a good time to release pressure" response, and in fact that was easily observed. But the people remaining at the table often talked while watching the screen until the first repeated commercial came on, then started looking at each other. The interesting thing about that is that watching the screen generally didn't resume until the action came back on, or a commercial featuring scantily clad models or fast cars. No surprise there.

I have two conclusions from this and a few similar observations. First, that every repetition of the same or very similar ad moves from vague interest to disinterest, then to dislike. Thinking about TV and groups, the MUTE button is likely to be used about the third time an ad comes in in a short time.

The second observation is that once people stop paying attention to the commercial, they tend to continue disinterest until the actual program comes on. So one repetitious ad can not only cause disinterest (and eventually actual hostility) but will render following commercials and public service announcements less effective. I wonder if one of those smart DVR boxes which drop commercials could be set to let (or make) you see each commercial once, then skip it every time it comes on from that point forward.

A roundabout way to address traffic problems

I realize that the roundabout is the latest fad in traffic control, and that it presents a low maintenance way to avoid accidents at intersections. Unfortunately, in practice they are being used in places and ways which don't seem appropriate, if benefit to to motoring public, the taxpayers, the voters, are taken into account.

In places where the traffic is light, is roughly the same from all incoming roads, a roundabout is just a really annoying way to cause traffic delays as people slow down to negotiate the turn, coming to a full stop or crawling pace when there is snow or ice on the road. In bad weather it presents the winter motorist a fine chance to slide off the road negotiating a turn which has been introduced into an otherwise safe straight road.

At heavy traffic times such as rush hour, as volume increases people coming from one road and going to another half or three quarters of the way around the circle will occasionally dominate the circle and enter the roundabout in a steady stream of traffic with no gaps for access by motorists entering from other roads. If this persists briefly it's intended behavior, but if it lasts for minutes it results in a backup on those other roads, sometimes all the way back to another roundabout, which in turn becomes totally deadlocked.

Eventually the driver at the front of one of the backlogged roads gets frustrated, perhaps urged on by the people behind leaning on their horns, and that front driver tries to pull into a small or nonresistant gap, which at best means a driver in the roundabout, who has the right of way, will have to brake and give every car behind a chance to have a rear end accident. At worst, the non-gap will be occupied by several cars proving the law of impenetrability, that two objects can not occupy the same space at the same time. This doesn't seem to bother traffic engineers, one was quoted in local news coverage saying that "accidents are usually harmless fender benders with no injuries." If accidents actually at the roundabout are not higher, I have to wonder how many drivers frustrated by a long wait try to "make up the time" and drive aggressively for the remainder of their trip while doing so.

In most fields of engineering there is a technique called "worst case analysis," which would predict behavior in the worst possible case and the worst case which occurs regularly, such as twice a day in morning and evening rush hour. That might lead to some better choices of where to use a roundabout, spacing between roundabouts, and where a signal is a better choice. Since removing under-performing roundabouts would be an expensive solution to an occasional but frequent problem, perhaps augmenting the roundabouts in problem locations with a traffic signal, controlled by backlog sensors and active only at problem times, to prevent prolonged exclusive flow from any one source.

In a perfect world motorists would note a backlog problem and take action on their own to allow smooth traffic flow. In the real world, particularly at the end of the work day when people are tired and want to get home, motorists don't care if someone waits a long time to proceed, as long as it is someone else.  Proponents claim that roundabouts work fine if drivers only knew how to use them. This is somewhat like a software package with a poor user interface and a vendor suggesting training the users instead of fixing the problem. Users will turn to other software, and I know from discussions I have heard, drivers state that they are already taking alternate routes to avoid roundabouts. Shifting the traffic from main roads to neighborhoods and secondary roads is not the solution, it's time to rethink and improve the "user interface" of problem intersections

America is being attacked by religious radicals

Once again Americans may die from attacks by fundamentalist religious groups attempting to force their views on the rest of us. Only now it isn't foreign radical Muslim groups, but US fundamentalist factions determined to force their practices on the rest of us. And while we see it locally, it reflects a lack of tolerance in the US as a whole and in foreign countries as well.

At the Shenendehowa High School, the deceptively named Shenendehowa Parent's Choice Coalition is trying to force their choice, ignorance,on the rest of the student body. These parents could withdraw their own children from the course, but instead choose to impose abstinence only "sex ed" on everyone. The "Parents Choice" group is blocking choice by other parents, and adding the risk that sexually active teens (statistically the vast majority) will not be taught to avoid the many risks of pregnancy or getting a sexually transmitted disease, possibly one which will require lifelong care or be fatal. And since over 40% of teen teen pregnancies end in abortion or miscarriage, there are significant health risks to these children. Nationally over 15% of all new HIV cases reported, and about half of all STDs reported are in people in the under 24 group.

The sad truth is that these parents not only risk their own children, but every child in that school who remains ignorant. Learning about sex "on the street" is a good way to learn about the mechanics of sex, but a poor way to learn about safety. Where did this "Parents Choice" religious group get the right to to choose ignorance for other people's children?

Looking at this issue, I found on a Midwest station call-in show an interview with a mother who belonged to a similar group in the greater Chicago area. The reporter asked if this woman's daughter had been vaccinated against the cancer causing human papilloma virus (HPV). The parent replied that "My daughter will remain a virgin until her wedding night, marry a virgin, and she doesn't need a vaccine that promotes promiscuous behavior." I sure hope she's right about that behavior! Another caller called pregnancy and disease "God's judgement on sinners."

After hiring failed gubernatorial candidate and anti-abortion activist Karen Handel as senior vice president of public policy, the Susan G. Komen for the Cure foundation, a leading breast cancer group adopted a policy preventing funding for groups under investigation for misuse of funds. Then Representative Cliff Stearns, a Florida Republican and chairman of the House Energy and Commerce Oversight and Investigations Subcommittee, started an investigation to see if Planned Parenthood had used federal funds for abortion. That investigation seems to have been tabled "waiting for documents," leaving a stalled investigation, no need to prove wrongdoing, and thus permanently blocking funding for breast exams benefiting women who choose Planned Parenthood for their gynecological care.

The funding from the Komen groups was used solely for breast health examinations, not for any other activity of Planned Parenthood.

In Ohio, Amish terrorists (I couldn't make that up that term) from "a renegade Amish sect" are kidnapping church members who disagreed on interpretations of faith and shaving the beards of men and raping women "to keep sect members in line." The group attacked victims in three states. What's next, an Amber Alert on a horse and buggy?

In the south the Westboro Baptist Church has been disrupting the funerals of soldiers killed in action. This group has made the war into a gay rights issue in their minds, possibly confusing "don't ask don't tell" with "don't think, don't care" before you demonstrate. And a sympathetic judge has said this is a legitimate expression of their religious rights, free speech rights, or the right to do whatever you want as long as you hate homosexuals. So far no law enforcement group has used the "inciting to riot" laws employed against other demonstrators.

In Israel an article in 972 magazine tells us that a group of ultra orthodox children is reported to have verbally attacked and spat upon an eight year old girl for wearing secular garb. This lack of tolerance is not just in the USA, although it seems more shocking here compared to the tolerant attitudes of only a few years ago.


The overall trend in all of this is that more and more religious groups who hold beliefs that their version of "God's laws" trumps secular legislatures and courts. In some cases they attack only peace of mind, but in others they expose women to the very disease they ask us to fight by giving them money, or put other people's children at risk of unprotected sex in the effort to force everyone to live by some group's beliefs and rules.

The right to free speech never included the right to force others to listen, where have our courts gone wrong that this made up right trumps the ones in the Constitution.