Post by ironhold on Jul 26, 2014 19:06:13 GMT
This likely won't make for good TV, but...
One of the realities of modern life is that all sorts of people give all sorts of bad advice and spread all sorts of (often deliberate) misinformation. As a result of this bad advice, people are often inconvenienced, if not subject to harm.
Well - how about a series of myths explaining why certain bits of popular advice are bad and what can happen if people listen to them?
Example:
Here in the US, there's an urban legend which holds that the brightly-colored reflective stickers that show up on peoples' mailboxes are a means by which some sinister conspiracy marks the residences of people who are to be suppressed if the conspiracy takes power.
In reality, those markings are more often than not placed by assorted service workers who are simply trying to do their jobs.
For example, I work for a newspaper known as the Copperas Cove Leader-Press. In addition to my writing duties, I also work as a courier. We use little orange dots about the size of a thumb print to mark residences and select commercial / non-residential properties that we deliver to; these dots are highly reflective, such that on a clear night they can reflect light from several houses down. A rival publication, the Killeen Daily Herald, uses blue dots to mark their houses, and at one point IIRC also used yellow and red dots to denote specific tiers of service (daily vs. weekend-only vs. Sunday-only).
Without these dots, it can be a pain in the patoot to have to try and distinguish houses at night, especially since the house numbers are not always visible from the road (either because the numbers are painted / applied in a fashion that cannot be seen at night, the numbers are missing, or there are obstructions in the way like parked cars). As you can imagine, I am rather displeased when I find that my dots have gone missing again.
As a test of the myth, we can have the team go out to that abandoned military housing development and attempt to "deliver papers" at night. The team will be given a list of houses to "deliver to" and will will have a minimum period of daytime driving to familiarize themselves with the streets and any house numbers that are visible. From this, they can make a list of what is located where on their "route".
As a control, the team will be required to make deliveries at night without any sort of visual cues beyond the house numbers and any landmarks they observed. Making matters more frustrating, select houses will require that the "paper" be left in a specific location (such as on the front porch or by a specific object). The team will be timed on how long they take to get the job done.
As a variable, the team will be allowed to place high-visibility markers of some kind (like the reflective dots) on the houses as they please, with a limit of 1 - 3 dots per property.*
All other variables being constant, the second run should be far faster, both because of the team slowly gaining familiarity and because of the dots allowing them to eyeball locations.
*There are some properties on my route that have multiple dots. Some are instances in which the specific location where a paper is to be dropped are marked, while others are places in which I had to relocate the dot due to changes in direction or visibility.
One of the realities of modern life is that all sorts of people give all sorts of bad advice and spread all sorts of (often deliberate) misinformation. As a result of this bad advice, people are often inconvenienced, if not subject to harm.
Well - how about a series of myths explaining why certain bits of popular advice are bad and what can happen if people listen to them?
Example:
Here in the US, there's an urban legend which holds that the brightly-colored reflective stickers that show up on peoples' mailboxes are a means by which some sinister conspiracy marks the residences of people who are to be suppressed if the conspiracy takes power.
In reality, those markings are more often than not placed by assorted service workers who are simply trying to do their jobs.
For example, I work for a newspaper known as the Copperas Cove Leader-Press. In addition to my writing duties, I also work as a courier. We use little orange dots about the size of a thumb print to mark residences and select commercial / non-residential properties that we deliver to; these dots are highly reflective, such that on a clear night they can reflect light from several houses down. A rival publication, the Killeen Daily Herald, uses blue dots to mark their houses, and at one point IIRC also used yellow and red dots to denote specific tiers of service (daily vs. weekend-only vs. Sunday-only).
Without these dots, it can be a pain in the patoot to have to try and distinguish houses at night, especially since the house numbers are not always visible from the road (either because the numbers are painted / applied in a fashion that cannot be seen at night, the numbers are missing, or there are obstructions in the way like parked cars). As you can imagine, I am rather displeased when I find that my dots have gone missing again.
As a test of the myth, we can have the team go out to that abandoned military housing development and attempt to "deliver papers" at night. The team will be given a list of houses to "deliver to" and will will have a minimum period of daytime driving to familiarize themselves with the streets and any house numbers that are visible. From this, they can make a list of what is located where on their "route".
As a control, the team will be required to make deliveries at night without any sort of visual cues beyond the house numbers and any landmarks they observed. Making matters more frustrating, select houses will require that the "paper" be left in a specific location (such as on the front porch or by a specific object). The team will be timed on how long they take to get the job done.
As a variable, the team will be allowed to place high-visibility markers of some kind (like the reflective dots) on the houses as they please, with a limit of 1 - 3 dots per property.*
All other variables being constant, the second run should be far faster, both because of the team slowly gaining familiarity and because of the dots allowing them to eyeball locations.
*There are some properties on my route that have multiple dots. Some are instances in which the specific location where a paper is to be dropped are marked, while others are places in which I had to relocate the dot due to changes in direction or visibility.
