(Roughly) Daily

Timing is everything: risk and the rhythm of the week…

The seven-day week originated in Mesopotamia among the Babylonians, and it has stuck around for millennia. However, it’s not inherently special. Egyptians once used a ten-day week, and Romans used an eight-day week before officially adopting a seven-day week in AD 321.

Still, the seven-day week is so ingrained that we may notice how days “feel.” I was recently caught off guard by a productive “Tuesday”, realizing halfway through the day that it was actually Monday. Recent research shows that a big player in the psychology of weeks is a tendency to take risks.

“Across a range of studies, we have found that response to risk changes systematically through the week. Specifically, willingness to take risks decreases from Monday to Thursday and rebounds on Friday. The surprising implication is that the outcome of a decision can depend on the day of the week on which it is taken.”…

“Feels like a Tuesday: research explains why days ‘feel’ certain ways,” from Annie Rauwerda @BoingBoing. The underlying research, by Dr. Rob Jenkins, is here.

* Virgil

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As we take a chance, we might recall that it was on this date in 1908 (a Thursday) that Thomas Etholen Selfridge became the first American to die in an airplane crash. An Army lieutenant and pilot, he was a passenger on Orville Wright’s demonstration flight of the 1908 Wright Military Flyer for the US Army Signal Corps division at Ft. Meade, Maryland. With the two men aboard, e Flyer was carrying more weight than it had ever done before…

The Flyer circled Fort Myer 4½ times at a height of 150 feet. Halfway through the fifth circuit, at 5:14 in the afternoon, the right-hand propeller broke, losing thrust. This set up a vibration, causing the split propeller to hit a guy-wire bracing the rear vertical rudder. The wire tore out of its fastening and shattered the propeller; the rudder swivelled to the horizontal and sent the Flyer into a nose-dive. Wright shut off the engine and managed to glide to about 75 feet, but the craft hit the ground nose-first. Both men were thrown forward against the remaining wires and Selfridge struck one of the wooden uprights of the framework, fracturing the base of his skull. He underwent neurosurgery but died three hours later without regaining consciousness. Wright suffered severe injuries, including a broken left thigh, several broken ribs, and a damaged hip, and was hospitalized for seven weeks…

Wikipedia

Two photographs taken of the Flyer just prior to the flight, show that Selfridge was not wearing any headgear, while Wright was only wearing a cap. Given speculation that Selfridge would have survived had he worn headgear, early pilots in the US Army were instructed to wear large heavy headgear reminiscent of early football helmets.

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