The Thinking Blog ~ Knowledge Grows When Shared!

1. Quit yo Jibber-jabber! You ain't hurt, yo pathetic!, Argh! If I ever catch you out like a crazy fool again, you're gonna meet my friend pain!



2. Know your roots: See this tree here? It's tall, big, beautiful and it is strong! But it wouldn't be here if it didn't have any roots.. and you wouldn't be here either, if you didn't have any roots. You see roots nourish us.. and help us to become what we hope to be!



3. Acknowledge that you a fool: If you are "sitting around crying 'what's wrong with me Dr. Phil what's wrong with me' then YOU A FOOL that's what's wrong with you!



4. Be somebody: Or be somebody's fool. You gotta be a leader, a high achiever! So if you want to be cool, just like me - You better try real hard to be some-bo-dy!



5. Recouping: One out of one Dr. T's recommend it!



6. Treat your mother right: Mother! There is no other! Like mother! So treat her right!

M is for the moan and the miserable groan
From the pain that she felt when I was bo'n!

O is for the oven with its burnin' heat,
Where she stood makin' sure I had somethin' to eat!

T is for the time that she stayed up nights,
And took my temperature when I wasn't feeling right!

H is for the hard-earned money she spent,
To keep clothes on my back and tried to pay da rent!

E is every wrinkle I put on her face,
And every worry that I caused when I stayed out late!

The last letter, R, is that she taught me respect,
And for the room up in heaven that I know she'll get!

7. Treat your friends right: Where I come from, a true friend is someone that when you get bit by a snake in the big toe [!!], they'll be there to suck the poison out! I mean, that's a real, true friend! Sometimes a true friend is hard to find.



8. Learn computers: Maybe Mr.T hacked the game and created a mohawk class! Maybe Mr. T is pretty handy with computers!



9. Be the "I" in I.T.: Hey, sucka! Be there! Don't make me mad, Arrr!



10. Stop saying "I Pity the Fool": It used to be fun in the 80's, not anymore.



Happy 2008! Do you have a New Year’s resolution?

Let's try to connect some dots:

What was going on in Pavlov's dog's brain at a physical level? There is a neuroscience saying that "Cells that fire together wire together." A dog brain, like a human brain, has billions of neurons, which fire (become active) in specific patterns whenever we do anything. As two neurons fire at the same time the "bridge" between them (called a synapse) becomes more and more fortified. At some point the connection or bridge becomes hard-wired. What happened in that dog's brain was that the neurons that fired when the dog saw food (to get the digestive system ready, hence the salivation) became hard-wired to or triggered the neurons that fire when dogs hears the sound of a bell.




How do we react to a movie trailer where we see our favorite actor, or a TV ad for our favorite beer? Salivating, perhaps - even if we are not aware of it.




Why is the name "lie detector" a stretch? Well, if you become anxious for any reason, the device will say that you are lying. Lie detectors do little more than measure some variables (such as skin conductivity, or how sweaty one's fingers become) to detect the emotion of anxiety that arises when one is lying. Think again about Pavlov's dog. What happens if you simply feel anxious for being accused of a crime that can take you to jail, and with police in sight (with their "sound-making bells" of their badges, uniforms, guns)?

On the other hand, how are CIA agents and military personnel trained to evade the power of the lie detector test? Either by deluding themselves into fully believing the stories they want to tell (which then become their "truth" and therefore evoking no anxiety) or by learning how to manage anxiety and break the relationship between the feeling of "lying" and the emotion of "anxiety".

Why is all this important? Well, it matters if you don't want to act like Pavlov's Dog during this holiday season when it comes to responding to the incessant ads for retail sales.



How can we break a learned reaction? There are a variety of ways, all require "mental training", attention and practice. A common guideline is that you cannot try to "break existing habits." That said, the connections between neurons will weaken over time if they are not used - but, this is a long process. The trick is to quickly build new, more powerful connections, that override the previous ones. For example:

- Adults with extreme fear to spiders have learned how to control emotions by using cognitive therapy techniques.
- Meditation practitioners can lead a more "mindful" life by being aware of emotions, feelings and thoughts as they arise, and learning how to let them go.
- Biofeedback-based programs often use games to help people learn how to manage emotions in order to win points.

But the starting point is always being conscious of what is going on. Now that the holiday season is approaching, how are advertisers trying to lure you to the stores to spend more money? Which ads respect your intelligence, and which ones treat you as if you were no better than Pavlov's dog?




UPDATE: This video just came in:



This article was written by Alvaro Fernandez from SharpBrains. If you are interested in contributing to the thinking process and become a guest writer on The Thinking Blog, find out more information here and be my guest!

There were 1,552,590 visitors (or more accurately, page impressions) on this blog ever since I placed Adsense and only 388 of those visitors decided to click. Today my earnings from Adsense stands at $93.40 and my that $100 mark to get the first check seems so far away. That is the reason why, when I read some really interesting posts on other blogs, I click on the Adsense before I exit the site - hoping it will be of some help for the author to pay the bills.

Perhaps not everyone experience the same thing but the damage Adsense ads made to my reputation is far greater than the reward - when I get it. Now when I look back I understood that is wasn't worth it and I will remove Adsense from my blog when it hits $100. Taking private advertisements targeted towards readers' interests is much more relevant for the advertiser and does a lot more help in terms of covering the costs of the blog.

Finally, I would like to thank those who take the time to visit the blog and click on things. You might not realize it but it is one way of helping the authors for the free content published here everyday. Thank you!

See the video clip:


According to AdAge, sales were up 234 percent between 2005 and 2006, and for this year the brand looks like it's on track to double sales. However, I wanted to give a heads up for those who are using this or thinking about using it. Chemical analysis has shown that the product consists almost entirely of wax. It's "homeopathic" in the literal definition of the term. The active ingredients are extremely diluted to the point that HeadOn products are placebo. Take a look at what's in them:

HeadOn Extra Strength Headache Pain Reliever

- Potassium dichromate 0.00000005%
- White Bryony 0.00000000000004%

HeadOn Extra Strength Sinus Headache Relief

- Potassium dichromate 0.00000005%
- White Bryony 0.00000000000004%
- Golden Seal Hydrastis 8 × 10−32%

HeadOn Migraine Pain Reliever

- Potassium dichromate 0.00000003%
- White Bryony 0.00000000000004%
- Blue Flag Iris Versicolor 0.0000000000001%

Any questions?

Here are the latest and most hilarious TV spots featuring Melody Man, the "never get bored" defender.


Melody TV







Melody Tunes






UPDATE: Unrelated to the above but here is another great spot from Egypt found while searching on YouTube. Whoever made this is pure genious!

13. When Parker Pen marketed a ball-point pen in Mexico, its ads were supposed to have read, "It won't leak in your pocket and embarrass you." The company thought that the word "embarazar" (to impregnate) meant to embarrass, so the ad read: "It won't leak in your pocket and make you pregnant."

12. Scandinavian vacuum manufacturer Electrolux used the following in an American campaign: "Nothing Sucks like an Electrolux."

11. Clairol introduced the "Mist Stick," a curling iron, into Germany only to find out that "mist" is slang for manure. Not too many people had use for the "Manure Stick."

10. Coors put its slogan, "Turn It Loose," into Spanish, where it was read as "Suffer From Diarrhea."

9. Pepsi's "Come Alive With the Pepsi Generation" translated into "Pepsi Brings Your Ancestors Back From the Grave" in Chinese.

8. When Gerber started selling baby food in Africa, they used the same packaging as in the US, with the smiling baby on the label. Later they learned that in Africa, companies routinely put pictures on the labels of what's inside, since many people can't read.

7. Colgate introduced a toothpaste in France called Cue, the name of a notorious porno magazine.

6. Frank Perdue's chicken slogan, "It takes a strong man to make a tender chicken," was translated into Spanish as "it takes an aroused man to make a chicken affectionate."

5. When American Airlines wanted to advertise its new leather first class seats in the Mexican market, it translated its "Fly In Leather" campaign literally, which meant "Fly Naked" (vuela en cuero.) in Spanish.

4. An American T-shirt maker in Miami printed shirts for the Spanish market which promoted the Pope's visit. Instead of "I saw the Pope" (el Papa), the shirts read "I Saw the Potato" (la papa).

3. The Dairy Association's huge success with the campaign "Got Milk?" prompted them to expand advertising to Mexico. It was soon brought to their attention the Spanish translation read "Are You Lactating?"

2. General Motors had a very famous fiasco in trying to market the Nova car in Central and South America. "No va" in Spanish means, "It Doesn't Go".

1. The Coca-Cola name in China was first read as "Kekoukela", meaning "Bite the Wax Tadpole" or "Female Horse Stuffed with Wax", depending on the dialect. Coke then researched 40,000 characters to find a phonetic equivalent "kokoukole", translating into "Happiness in the Mouth."