dresese

When distraction is good for you

I just read an interesting post in the excellent Cognitive Daily blog: "Can distraction keep us from getting distracted?" This article reminded me of an interesting phenomenon I noticed a long time ago when Tetris was popular. I found that my Tetris performance was noticeably better when I was slightly distracted, either by music or random thoughts. When my brain was sort of on auto-pilot mode, it could not be stopped, but when I concentrated on the task, I was much more prone to error. The research mentioned by the posting demonstrates this phenomenon, and has some interesting explanations. Obviously more research has to be done to see what is really going on. I'd love to know, and I frequently wonder in what contexts that distracted state can help. Is it just for relatively simple tasks, like playing Tetris, or could the benefits also apply to more complex tasks, like programming?

Din Tai Fung

Every year, legendary Taiwanese dumpling masters Din Tai Fung come to the Flushing Sheraton for a week. They bring not only their prodigious skills, but also all of the raw ingredients from Taiwain!

I was fortunate enough to find out in advance when this would happen, and today a group of 9 of us went to gorge ourselves on the Din Tai Fung's legendary xiao long bao (soup dumplings) and other food. We not only got to eat this great food, but we saw the dumpling masters in action. I think they were somewhat surprised and amused that someone would be taking pictures of them.

It wasn't all dumplings. We started with a couple plates of "salty vegetable" which turned out to be some baby bok choi. It was perfect. Nicely salty, crunchy without tasting raw, and of course with bok choi's normal pleasant taste. This disappeared amazingly fast, especially for a vegetable dish!

We next ate some wonderful chicken soup. It was, as the waitress described it, "from real chicken, not frozen!" Taiwun Fun magazine describes it as "wild chicken". It had a perfectly clear broth, with a subtle, fresh flavor. The dark meat in the chicken was slippery and had a wonderful texture. One of the best chicken soups I've had.

Finally, the star of the show, the xiao long bao (or soup dumplings, as they are called here). We got two versions, one with just pork, and one with crab & pork. These were little miracles. They were small, perfectly sized, and had a dumpling skin that was both thin, strong, and tasty. The soup inside was much more elegant tasting than others I've had. The ones I've had in New York have had a sort of greasy, strong tasting broth, with the actual crab or pork somewhat of an afterthought. Not these. The broth accentuated the filling, and the filling was probably the most amazing thing about it. The crab & pork had such a nice, fresh, crab taste, with the texture of real crab. This was the only crab xiao long bao that actually tasted like crab. The pork xiao long bao also had a great filling, with an assertive taste, and a somewhat rough texture. For me, this was unusual, and a pleasant surprise.

We had many other dumplings, most of which I didn't get a picture of. They all were excellent. The strangest dumpling we had was a dumpling filled with sticky rice. This is a strange concept to me, and sort of reminded me of the pizzas you see in New York with ziti pasta on them. They were tasty, though, although they didn't blow me away.

All in all, I found the ingredients used to be top-quality fresh ingredients. The preparation was done extremely skillfully, and it all combined to form a wonderful and memorable meal. I don't know if I'll ever top these xiao long bao's, but I can only hope that I'll at least eat there again next year when Din Tai Fung comes around.

Voting

For a while now, I've been thinking about voting. A while ago, I made the fairly logical conclusion that there is no point in voting. I think the reasons for this are fairly simple: one vote does not make any difference. And although if many people came to the same conclusion, there certainly could be problems, one person is not everyone. Pretty much the same arguments are made in the latest Freakonomics column in the New York Times.

However, recently I've begun to realize that I was in error. The logical error in my previous thinking, and also in the Freakonomics column, is that no man is an island. If I don't vote, then my attitudes about voting may influence my friends to not vote. If they don't vote, maybe it's not a huge deal, but then they might influence their friends not to vote. Eventually, if the "not voting" meme spreads, this becomes a big deal, capable of influencing elections at any level. What I've described is a simple network that acts by contagion. I think the notion of contagion is what is missing from the Freakonomics column.

One might say that the best thing to do is to say you voted, but don't actually vote. While that seems pretty logical, I think honesty is persuasive. The "voting" meme will be more powerful if people actually honestly believe in it.