Word: actualizations
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...Falklands' British Governor, Rex Hunt, recounted the story of the actual fighting, a tiny force of Royal Marines battled determinedly and well for several hours against an overwhelming force of Argentine troops who stormed the tiny (pop. 1,050) settlement of Port Stanley. The marines finally laid down their arms at Hunt's command. He disputed Argentine claims that the assault resulted in only one Argentine dead and two wounded; at least five and possibly 15 invaders were killed, Hunt said, and 17 were wounded in the fighting...
...background is more strongly in drama. [...] It is a form I am really fascinated by and it shares so many qualities with playwriting. Each form helps me to think in the other one. The tools you need for dramatic writing cross over between the media, but the actual media is very different. You have to think in images and spare dialogue in movies whereas in the theater you have a compressed space and bodies on stage...
...thought of a weekend office picnic, for example, sounds tedious compared with a trip to the spa, but fun compared with working overtime on a Sunday. But these comparisons have little bearing on our actual experience of the picnic because once we arrive and start chatting with colleagues or playing softball, the experience draws our attention away from the alternatives. "The kinds of comparisons we're making when we're imagining the future aren't the kinds we make when we get there," Gilbert says...
Take the simple act of eating a potato chip. In a series of experiments, Gilbert invited Harvard undergraduates to a lab stocked with potato chips, along with either sardines or chocolate. To compare expected versus actual enjoyment of the experience, one group of students was asked to predict how much they would enjoy the chips compared to the relatively better food (chocolate) or the worse food (sardines); this forecasting group was asked to imagine eating the chips before, after or instead of the alternatives. Students in another "experience" group were instructed to eat the chips and the other foods. Turns...
...doing so. Only this time, two more groups were asked to eat - or imagine eating - to the beat of a metronome. Those who ate at a normal pace - one chip for every 15 seconds - came to the same misguided conclusions as other students: predictions did not correspond to their actual levels of enjoyment. Yet those who ate chips more slowly, one every 45 seconds, had very different results. Their forecasts were almost completely accurate...