Master Dilettante

(Photo courtesy Yelp user Anthony M.)

My brother and sister would like to see my Yelp reviews here, so I shall oblige.

I have a standing weekly dinner with three buddies. Each week, one person picks and pays. This week, Jason H. picked Junnoon in Palo Alto. Here’s my Yelp review of it:

Tasty, although certainly not authentic Indian. (My ex-roommate Shanthini R. would concur, I’m certain).

Junnoon occupies the space formerly occupied by a bad sushi restaurant just off the corner of University & High in downtown Palo Alto. The interior has been redecorated with modern furniture and rich colors, and the lighting might be good for a first date, I would think. The ambient noise is just right — not so noisy that conversation is difficult and not so quiet that the conversations of adjacent diners are conspicuously audible.

While waiting for a table, we tried the mojitos, which obviously aren’t Indian. But the bartender made a very good one here. And once seated, the waitress immediately brought roti and a addictive dipping sauce with peanut and coconut.

The menu markets. Conforming to the wisdom described in the book Mindless Eating, each item is described with positive adjectives.

For appetizers, we ordered the Darjeeling Steamed Wontons, Bombay Crab and Cob Cake and Tangy Semolina Shells. All were just a little bit different and interesting and good but not particularly special. I’m not sure what about the wontons and seafood cakes were Indian, if anything. The semolina shells reminded me of deep fried risotto or mac & cheese.

For main dishes, we ordered the Tandoori Black Pepper Steak, Old Delhi-Style Chicken (tikka), Rice-Flaked Sea Bass, Prawns in Coconut Mustard Sauce, and Junnoon Chicken Kaathi Roll (egg-washed paratha bread filled tandoori chicken tika and mint chutney). I thought the pepper steak was tough and tasteless, but one of my fellow diners (a beef fanatic) liked it best among all the entrees. The Delhi-style chicken was the most traditional dish we sampled and my favorite. The sea bass was okay, I recommend against the prawns and the Kaathi roll was different and worth trying.

Overall, I thought the service was great, the food good and the prices a bit steep for Indian. If I really wanted Indian, I’d go to Amber or (formerly) Sue’s in Mountain View.

See all of my reviews on Yelp.

From today’s strip:

See Dilbert.com for more.

It’s here!

Just two days ago I wrote that I was making the switch from PC to Mac. I had ordered an iMac Monday through my friend Lisa and was told to expect it “by the end of the month.” Aiyah! I require instant gratification! Imagine my delight when Lisa called me this afternoon to let me know the package already had arrived!

So far, so great. My early thoughts:

• The out-of-box experience is phenomenal. My friend Emily suggested I photograph each step of the process, but, hey, this was like unwrapping presents on Christmas, and I had no patience for documentation. Open the top of the box (~24 in. height x 23 in. width x 10 in. depth), and the first thing seen is a smaller 11 in. x 5.5 in. x 1.5 in. box labeled simply “Designed by Apple in California.” Centered inside this smaller box is a pamphlet labeled “Everything Mac” and an identically-sized sleeve beneath it labeled “Everything Else.” The “Everything Mac” pamphlet is a quick start guide containing simple, clear, illustrated startup instructions. The “Everything Else” package includes the warranty and two backup installation disks. Flanking these items are Apple’s Mighty Mouse on one side and the remote control on the other. The only other three items in the overall box, all carefully and cleanly packed in Styrofoam, were the keyboard, the power cord and, of course, the iMac itself. Utter minimalist simplicity. Just beautiful.
• Startup is as easy as advertised. Plug one end of the power cord into the back of the iMac and the other into an outlet. Connect the Ethernet cable. Connect the keyboard to the iMac and the Mighty Mouse to the keyboard. Press the power button. A few startup and registration screens later, and I was opening Safari (the Mac’s Internet browser) and surfing the Internet. That’s it. Really. I timed the entire process from the moment I opened the top of the box; it took 10 minutes, and only that long because I was taking particular care with the unpacking and placement of items on my desk and marveling at the clarity of the user interface. Shockingly easy.
• I just joined a fun fan club. Usually, I eschew online registrations and avoid mailing lists like the plague. With this first Apple, I was happy to provide contact information during registration and to opt into mailing lists. I wanted to be known and to know. Can you imagine thinking such things with a Dell or a Sony?
• Bigger is better (for displays). I thought my Vaio (PCG-K13) screen was huge compared to the tiny screen of the Dell laptop (Latitude D410) I have for work. This 20-inch iMac dwarfs those. This is not unique to Mac — of course, larger displays can be had for any computer — but it’s still contributing to the delight I’m experiencing.
• Small is beautiful (for footprints). With the CPU, display and disk drive all combined in a single unit, this desktop hardly takes more space on my desk than my Vaio did. Efficient.

Again, so far, so great! The two early drawbacks I noticed:

1. Installation of new applications was marginally confusing. I installed Firefox and Skype during the first 30 minutes but experienced minor difficulty getting their icons to persist in the Dock. I expect to be able to do this more efficiently with familiarity.
2. The ergonomic designs of the keyboard and mouse aren’t very good. I think the spacing of the keys on the keyboard is too close, but I’m prone to think that because I use a Goldtouch keyboard at work. The mouse doesn’t feel great either, but I’m prone to think that, too, because I use a Whale Mouse at the office. I expect I’ll replace both Mac input devices to suit my idiosyncratic needs.

Overall, I’m very happy and looking forward to learning how to play with my new toy!

BuzzSugar and other sites (e.g., Yahoo) are carrying the official trailer to Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix! Watch for the k-i-s-s between Harry and Cho-Chang (uh, did that happen in the books?)! The movie opens 13 July 2007, just a few weeks before the final book in the series is released.

Three years ago, I loved my then-new Sony Vaio (Pentium(R) 4 CPU 2.79 GHz, 448 MB RAM), with its vibrant, luminous display and blazing speed (at least seemingly then). It succeeded a long series of PC laptops and desktops. But, after 18 years of PC use, I’m making the switch to Mac.

Why?

(1) My laptop is dying

• Disk Space Is Full. I’m out of disk space. 30 GB seemed like a lot to me in 2004. The internal hard drive was bursting at the seams, so I added an external LaCie hard drive and moved most of my media off of the laptop. Before I added the external hard drive, if I wanted to add a new application, I had to delete an old one. Yes, I could upgrade the internal hard drive, but why bother? I’m throwing the baby out with the bath water.
• It’s Breaking Down. The internal CD/DVD drive broke over a year ago. I didn’t bother fixing it, because I didn’t want to ship my laptop away for any extended period of time and I was prejudiced the cost of repair would be more than an external drive. So I bought an external combo drive. Neither the internal drive nor the replacement have worked well or allowed me to burn DVDs. Also, the fan in the laptop runs 24/7 and is loud enough to be heard in an adjacent room when the door is closed. Finally, last year, I spontaneously began experiencing complete operating system failures which miraculously healed themselves. This is a disaster waiting to happen.
• Glaciers move more quickly. See below on why I am speculating Windows is to blame.

(2) Windows is pushing me away from the PC

• Speed Degradation. I’m tired of the consistently degrading performance of my three-year-old Vaio running Windows XP. Slower and slower and slower. I’m convinced that this pattern will repeat itself with any successor PC running Windows, because it has with every other PC I’ve owned. I’m tired of having to comb through my directories to look for things to remove that might be affecting performance.
• File Clutter. I’m tired of temporary Internet files (yes, I know I can delete them). I’m tired of the myriad programs listed under “Add or Remove Programs,” half of which I don’t recognize or remember installing.
• Poor Usability. I’m tired of the time it takes me to install any new software or hardware. After I switched routers recently, it was hours and days and phone calls to technical support before I could restore Internet access to my laptop.

(3) I hear the siren call of the Mac pulling me in . . . . Clearly, this is a decision steeped in pure logic based on extensive research . . . .

• It’s pretty. The first iMacs, in their candy colors, were cute . . . too cute. How could such machines possibly be functional and powerful? The present iMacs, with their sleek minimalism, clean lines, pure white color and compact footprint so obviously are a design and engineering marvel.
• I like the commercials. I’m a recovering lawyer working in the technology industry in the Valley. Who wants to be the dork in the suit? We all want be the chill, young dude with the long hair in the jeans and t-shirt.
• It certainly seems easy to use. I mean, the commercials wouldn’t lie, would they? Plus, so many of the computer enthusiasts I know are Mac advocates (and I’m quite susceptible to the power of suggestion). I’m lured by the promise that I can just take it out of the box and plug it in and everything will work immediately and well together.
• I need only basic functionality. I figure I use my computer 90% to access the Internet, 5% for iTunes (also Internet-based) and 5% for a poker results tracking program. I’m also intending to resume using Quicken, which can rely on Internet access. Of these applications, only the poker tracking program is built only for the PC, and Apple now has software that may still allow me to use it. Given my usage, I just want easy and fast.
• It seems reliable. The notion of having to fix my PC, whatever the issue, is daunting. I have a positive belief that the presence of Apple outlets throughout the Bay Area will allow me to fix my iMac as painlessly as possible.
• It’s not all that costly. I had the notion before that Macs cost a lot more. The delta isn’t that wide, and the trade-offs are acceptable. A new 20″ iMac retails for $1499.

Yesterday, through the help of my friend Lisa O. and her friend at Apple, I ordered an iMac 20″, which arrives within the week. I’ll write soon on the out-of-box experience!

Mindless Eating: Why We Eat More Than We Think by Brian Wansink, Ph.D., is a fantastic book for anyone trying to control his or her diet. The book does not prescribe a particular diet — you won’t find a single menu or food choice in it. Rather, the book uses anecdotes and studies to demonstrate that a plethora of environmental factors influence how much and what we eat. The unstated presumption is that awareness is the first step in change. Each chapter describes a principle that causes overeating or eating poorly and then provides practical solutions. The solutions are common-sense yet compelling in their simplicity. Still, as with any diet, discipline is the key to success.

A summary of each chapter:

• Think 20 Percent—More or Less. “We overeat because there are signals and cues around us that tell us to eat.” Wansink describes two experiments, one in which subjects tended to eat more popcorn when given larger bags than when given smaller bags and one in which California-branded wine enhanced the overall perception of a meal relative to South Dakota-branded wine. Because Americans tend to stop eating when full rather than when no longer hungry, eaters should dish out 20% less than they think they want to eat and, in doing so, when it comes to fruits and vegetables, dish out 20% more.
• See All You Eat. Lack of awareness of the quantity we are consuming allows us to overeat. For example, study subjects that continuously saw the bones of the chicken wings they consumed ate fewer than study subjects for whom the bones were continuously cleared. Prison inmates in the Midwest gained 20-25 pounds over six months, because their orange baggy jumpsuits concealed that they were gaining weight. And diners eating from rigged, “bottomless” soup bowls ate 50% more than those eating from normal soup bowls. “See it before you eat it” by pre-plating all food to be consumed and “see it while you eat it” by leaving, for example, empty wine bottles and glasses on a table when pouring fresh glasses.
• Be Your Own Tablescaper. The “tablescape” is “the placement and types of dishes, silverware, drinking glasses, and serving bowls” and “is filled with hidden persuaders” that can increase or decrease how much we eat. American kitchens and food packages tend to be larger than in other parts of the world and lead Americans to make bigger meals and eat more food. For example, study subjects given larger boxes of spaghetti, larger jars of spaghetti sauce and more ground beef prepared 23% larger meals than those given smaller boxes — and diners in both cases ate 92% of what was served. Control the tablescape by (1) mini-sizing boxes and bowls (repackage larger boxes into smaller bags and containers), (2) becoming an illusionist (serve food on smaller plates and beverages in taller, thinner glasses) and (3) being aware of the “double danger of leftovers” (take a limited amount of leftovers out of the refrigerator to avoid overconsumption).
• Make Overeating a Hassle, Not a Habit. Most people are on “See-Food” diets, eating everything they see. Opaque-covered dishes of candy in an office get consumed from less than clear-covered dishes (out of sight, out of mind), and the knowledge that donuts are in the office kitchen makes them more likely to be consumed; the same power of suggestion works for healthy foods, too. At warehouse clubs like Costco, individuals tend to spend and buy more — of jumbo-sized packages. Create barriers to overconsumption: (1) “leave serving dishes in the kitchen or on a sideboard” (out of reach), (2) “‘de-convenience’ tempting foods” (e.g., store them in remote areas of a pantry or at the back of the refrigerator) and (3) “snack only at the table and on a clean plate” (making impulse snacking “less convenient to serve, eat, and clean up”).
• Create Distraction-Free Eating Scripts. We tend to follow routines, or “eating scripts” when we eat. We tend to eat more when eating with family or friends who eat a lot or quickly. Men tend to overeat and women tend to under-eat on dates. And everyone tends to eat more while watching TV. Certain types of cuisine, odors and even the weather influence what and how much we eat. Re-script your diet danger zones (the patterns of eating) around dinners, snacks, parties, restaurants and desks/dashboards. Distract yourself before you snack (”make your snacking life less distracting and less alluring by eating in one room only, such as the dining room and kitchen”). And serve yourself before you start (dish out rations rather than eating directly from a box, bag or serving bowl).
• Create Expectations That Make You a Better Cook. “Taste” is as much mental as physical; we taste what we expect to taste. Soldiers eating in the dark couldn’t differentiate between strawberry and chocolate yogurt. Lemon Jello dyed red could be mistaken for cherry Jello. Menu descriptions and brands affect food perceptions. When serving food, use positive and descriptive words — any adjective! — to make healthy food taste better. Also, fix the atmosphere when you fix the food (soft lights, soft music, soft colors, nice plates, nice tablecloth, nice glasses — the details matter).
• Make Comfort Foods More Comforting. Comfort foods can be both healthy and unhealthy, and what comforts varies by gender. The comfort comes from conditioning from prior associations, often from childhood. Wansink advises against depriving yourself of comfort foods but instead eat them in smaller amounts and emphasize the healthy ones. He also suggests rewiring comfort foods by developing routines featuring smaller portions and healthier combinations.
• Crown Yourself as the Official Gatekeeper. A “nutritional gatekeeper” in a family controls around 72 percent of what the family eats and, over the course of a child’s early life, affects that child’s food preferences. Be a good marketer of healthy food when describing it, offer a wide variety of foods to children, fill half of every main meal plate with vegetables, salad, etc. and make serving sizes official by giving snacks in children in sealed bags or other containers (avoiding the sight of extra snacks).
• Portion-Size Me. Fast food appeals to our desire for variety, convenience and value. Fast food restaurants have begun to make nutritional information more available, but consumers don’t actually read the information or monitor caloric intake. Consumers tend to believe Subway is more healthy than McDonald’s because of Subway’s marketing of health claims. Similarly, food labels in grocery stores can provide the illusion that food is healthier than it is. “Beware of the health halo” that allows people to eat significantly more quantities of a food perceived as healthy. Also, “think small or super-share” by ordering smaller combinations, discarding extra fries on the way to the table or ordering a value meal combination and sharing it with another.
• Mindlessly Eating Better. Finally, Wansink concludes with a chapter on “Mindlessly Eating Better.” He recognizes that better eating means different things to different people, from eating less to eating without guilt to eating more nutritiously to eating with greater enjoyment. Wansink suggests individuals follow the chapter-ending tips he provides. Two additional tips are (1) making food-trade-offs (bargaining for when and what to eat) and (2) developing food policies (e.g., serve 20% less, no second helpings of any starch, no eating at the desk, etc.). Wansink sugests choosing three (3) 100-calorie changes in a year.

Does any of this work? I lost five pounds in one month simply by eating a . . . little . . . bit . . . less. I’ve been departing from a number of the suggestions lately and gaining some of that weight back, but I’m so confident in the lessons that I know exactly how to get rid of it again!

For more information, buy the book and see Wansink’s Web site on Mindless Eating.

Despite the hype around this book, in part generated by Guy Kawasaki’s ~five blog posts on it, and despite my desire to be a deferential and gracious host (Professor Robert Sutton, Ph.D., the author, spoke at eBay), I must admit my disappointment with it. Perhaps my expectations were too high because Kawasaki hyped up the book and Sutton spoke at my workplace.

The basic premise — assholes in the workplace are bad for business and should be dealt with appropriately — is reasonable, but here’s why the book didn’t resonate with me:

• Availability Bias. The book presupposes the magnitude of the problem of assholes in the workplace. Naturally, the author appeals to the reader’s memories of any assholes encountered in the workplace to provide emotional support for the prevalence of the problem. These emotional memories, however, do not necessarily prove that the problem is significant. I have the opposite availability bias: I’ve been fortunate to work only at organizations with few if any assholes, so I tend to believe assholes in the workplace are the exception to the rule. (See, by the way, the Wikipedia entry on “availability heuristic” for further discussion on this cognitive bias).
• Fuzzy math. The few numbers Sutton cites to quantify the magnitude of the problem appear more as anecdotal and cursory than sound analysis. I was reminded of Steven Lewitt and Stephen Dubner’s Freakanomics, except that the analysis in Freakanomics appeared rigorous, and wondered what Lewitt and Dubner might reveal in Sutton’s calculations.

While I found the diagnosis of the magnitude of the problem lengthy and un-compelling, the discussions on how to avoid being an asshole and how to deal with assholes were a quick, diverting read.

Overall, Sutton takes a titillating subject matter and pens a novel where an essay would suffice. In fact, Sutton’s short article, “Nasty People” in CIO Insight, inspired the book. The book is relatively short, but, instead of reading it, I recommend reading the synopses in Kawasaki’s posts and taking the Asshole Rating Self Exam (”ARSE”) on which Sutton and Kawasaki collaborated.

Updated: 20 April 2007 (thanks to Jason S. and Caleb L. for their comments)

This post comes at the request of my friend Matt who has been watching poker on TV avidly and playing recreational, play-money games on Yahoo. If you’re like him in that you’re building up the courage to play for real money in a live environment but don’t know where to begin, here is what to do:

1. Find a local card room. If you are in Vegas, the San Francisco Bay Area or Los Angeles, card rooms abound. To find a venue in your area, try the online Poker Room Finder on CardPlayer.com.
2. Find “the board” for your game. Poker rooms typically arrange tables by stakes. High stakes, medium stakes and low stakes tables (or just high and low) each tend to be clustered together. For each area, “the board” is the mechanism by which a new player joins the wait list for a game or immediately enters it. Boards come in three forms: (1) a sheet of paper, usually on a clipboard at a podium (2) a chalkboard or dry-erase white board or (3) a computer-based system with display monitors. All three types of boards are maintained by a floor person, and columns with wait list names on the board will be arranged by game, e.g., $1/2 Limit Hold ‘em, $2/5 No-limit Hold ‘em, $15/30 Limit Hold’em, $8/16 Omaha Hi-Lo, etc. Depending on the size of the card room, multiple tables for each game might be “running.” Look around the card room, and find the board for the game you wish to join. If you need to read this, you are a rank beginner, and, as a rank beginner, you probably should join the game with the lowest stakes in the room.
3. Join the waitlist. Approach the floor person and ask, “Are there any seats open for $2/$4?” A quick visual peek at the board also will reveal whether the game has a waiting list of names. If a seat is open, you will get seated immediately. If it not, ask the floor person to “please add [insert your name or initials here] on the list for $2/$4″ or whichever game you wish to play. You are now in the queue. (Note: If the list is long, at many card rooms, a floor person will accept a $5-20 tip to move you to the top of the list).
4. When called, take your seat. When the floor person calls your name, the floor person typically will direct you to a particular table with an open seat. Sit in it.
5. Get chips.
   • You can get chips in three ways: (1) from a “chip runner”, (2) directly from the dealer or (3) from “the cage.” For card rooms with chip runners, a chip runner will usually approach you and ask for how much you want to buy into the game (your initial stake of money for the table). Alternatively, the dealer may ask you for how much you wish to buy and summon a chip runner or provide chips from his or her tray directly. If neither of these things transpire, tell the dealer, “Chips, please: $X.” Again, he or she will either give it to you or call a chip runner to get it. When you get your chips, some players will tip a chip runner a dollar or two.
   • How much to get? As a rule of thumb, for a low limit game ($10/20 or below), players buy in for “a rack,” or 100 chips. In a $2/$4 game, for example, a rack would consist of 100 $1 chips, or $100.
6. Enter the game. In most games, you will need to “post” a bet to enter the game. This means you may be required to post the minimum pre-flop bet amount before the cards are dealt. You can post in any position relative to the dealer button. The most common and financially prudent is immediately after the button passes you. (If you don’t know what a button is, you probably shouldn’t be playing at all at this point). Before the dealer deals, simply place the required amount, $2, for example, in a $2/$4 limit hold ‘em game, across the line in front of you. Because placing chips on the table is a binding action, you should first ask the dealer whether you need to post or tell the dealer to deal you in and ask if you need to post.

Congratulations, you’re now playing live poker in a cash ring game!

You should also be aware of the following:

• Protect your cards. Players are responsible for protecting their own cards so that the dealer does not inadvertently “muck” (fold) them. When you receive your two cards, place a chip or other object on them to prevent them from being mucked. When you look at your cards, cup your hands on top of them and lift the edges with the ranks and suits to see them. Avoid picking your cards up off the table. Protect them at all times from prying eyes.
• Beware of “string bets.” “String bet” definitions differ, but the basic rule is that raises must be made in one continuous motion. The underlying purpose of the rule is to protect other players from physical actions by the betting player designed to elicit a physical response. To illustrate, if you wish to raise the bet of a player, you cannot call his bet then return to your stack to add additional chips for a raise in two separate motions. Instead, place both the call and raise amount in front of you simultaneously or announce “raise” before taking any action. Caleb adds: “This does NOT work like in the movies. You should never say ‘I call your X and raise you Y.’ Once chips begin hitting the felt in front of you, you can only bet as much as that motion allows.”
• You can leave the game whenever you like. At any point between hands, simply tell the dealer, “I’m out” or “Deal me out” or “Seat open.” Rack up your chips and leave.

These instructions should get you through your first session. If you have a friend who is familiar with playing in live cash games, it might be even better to go with him or her as a guide in your first session.

And, now, a parting inspirational quote — albeit about 7-card stud, not Texas hold ‘em — from Mike McDermott, Matt Damon’s character in the classic poker flick Rounders.

All right, here’s the thing. You only play premium hands. You only start with jacks or better split, nines or better wired, three high cards to a flush. If it’s good enough to call, you gotta be in there raising, all right? I mean, tight, but aggressive. And I do mean aggressive. That’s your style, Professor. I mean, you gotta . . . you gotta think of it as a war.

Good luck!

Source: The Wall Street Journal Online (12 April 2007).

Thanks to my friend E. for passing this along to me.

Last week, the Wall Street Journal Online published the content of an interview with Intuit CEO Steve Bennett. Bennett and I both joined Intuit in 2000. During my four years at the company, I was consistently impressed with its internal dedication to customer-driven innovation without the sacrifice of financial and operational rigor. The heart and soul of Intuit’s innovation is founder and Chairman Scott Cook. The rigor comes from Bennett and his GE roots.

The Journal article, including the capsule above, speaks to Bennett’s management philosophy. (See “After GE: Intuit’s Steve Bennett on why some General Electric alumni succeed — and some don’t“). Two concepts from the article caught my attention in particular:

(1) Process and Rigor v. Innovation

I’ve always been fascinated by Bennett’s application of GE practices to Intuit, a mature company striving to innovate. More broadly, I’ve been interested in understanding how best to reconcile process, rigor and innovation during various stages of a company’s development.

Intuit, with its QuickBooks, TurboTax and Quicken franchises now mature offerings, focuses on deep customer insight to inform product improvements, product line extensions and new products, and the company takes an ordered, rigorous approach to this process.

Compare eBay, around half the age of Intuit, and arguably much less structured in its approach to innovation. As eBay matures and faces revenue growth and margin pressures, the company is going through the challenging process of deciding how deliberate to be with its innovation and how “corporate” in its operating processes. A recent International Herald Tribune article, for example, describes eBay’s co-location of engineers and business as an effort to “break patterns” of previous operation in functional silos.

(2) Customer-driven v. Technology-driven Innovation

Tip #1 from the capsule above is potentially provocative these days in the Valley. The Valley is peopled with both business and technology folk, sometimes in the same individuals and sometimes distinct. Where two camps exist and respect between them is lacking, religious debates tend to arise around how to approach problems and who is creating value.

The present renaissance of technology startups features a mix of companies trying to solve customer pain points with technology and technologies in search of business or consumer applications. Arguably, the Valley is filled with successful businesses that started from opposite ends of this spectrum, and the success of technology-driven companies that later found compelling customer applications seems to defy Bennett’s wisdom. The difference may be in genesis v. sustainability: It might be entirely feasible to start a company based purely on technology, but the road to sustainable growth may depend more on a lasting customer-oriented mindset.

Gene Weingarten of the Washington Post recently published a great article on the importance of context and experience to the appreciation of art, chronicling an interesting experiment conducted in January. Famed virtuoso violinist Joshua Bell performed at a subway station during rush hour in D.C. to test whether passersby would recognize his brilliance and stop to appreciate it. Bell took on the role of street performer, dressing casually and displaying his open violin case with a few dollar bills in it at his feet. Over the course of 43 minutes, he performed several classical music masterpieces on his $3.5MM Stradivarius violin

In that 43 minutes, 1,097 commuters walked by, but only 5 (<0.5%) paused or stopped to listen for any period of time, including only exactly 1 astute person who actually recognized Bell. For 43 minutes of performance, Bell received a total of around $32 in tips.

The experiment reveals two insights into the nature of art appreciation:

1. Context matters. Bell filled music halls for performances at Boston’s Symphony Hall three days earlier and at Maryland’s Music Center at Strathmore two weeks later. Take away the accustomed venue, the price of a ticket, an accompanying orchestra and concert attire, and what remained was an ordinary street performer whom the vast preponderance of passersby will ignore.
2. Experience matters. Of the five individuals who paused to listen to Bell, 1 recognized him from a previous concert, 1 had studied violin seriously and knew Bell (but didn’t recognize him) and 1 worked at a bakery in the subway station where he was exposed to performers daily. The remaining 2 were an adult and a child to whom the music had innate appeal. Without experience or other ability, passersby could not recognize Bell’s skill and talent.

A long but worthwhile read. See the complete Post article for more detail, including videos of the entire performance.