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WSJ: Go Directly to Success - Monopoly's Lessons

ESSAY
February 8, 2013, 7:42 p.m. ET

Go Directly to Success: Monopoly's Lessons

In real life, as in the game: Stay diversified, acquire railroads and don't fall for pricey prestige properties

By PHILIP E. ORBANES

Matthew Hollister

There must be something special about a near-octogenarian board game that still makes headlines. This week's big Monopoly news: Facebook fans voted to replace the playing piece shaped like an old-fashioned iron with one in the form of a cat.

As a longtime judge of Monopoly championships, I've figured out a prime reason for the game's staying power. For most of us, it provides one of life's first opportunities to handle money and practice the art of negotiation. Monopoly puts you through a financial wringer without real-world loss. Once you get the hang of how to win it, you can apply the game's "secrets of success" to real life—sometimes quite literally, always in principle.

Here are five of the most important:

Matthew Hollister

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1. Diversification : Monopoly makes a time-honored point about the importance of spreading your investments across several classes of property and not slavishly following the "smart money." The game's best investments are the orange properties (not the dark-blue ones, Park Place and Boardwalk, about which more in a moment). But the long-term value of the oranges isn't always clear: Entire games can be played in which they don't pay off, or at least not in time to stave off bankruptcy. To assure success, you need to have not only a powerful color group but also two or three railroads to generate income and a few key properties to block the formation of game-busting groups against you. This blend reduces risk and improves the odds of winning.

 

2. Cash Management: The game drills home this lesson: You can't win if you sit on cash, just as you can't hope to rapidly grow real-world assets if you settle for the rates of return that the banks offer. You need to take on risk. In the game, that means converting cash to deeds and buildings while retaining just enough of those colorful bills to pay for bad luck (penalties, taxes, small rents).

Matthew Hollister

3. Return on Investment: Every property in Monopoly has a different likelihood of earning a return (based on how frequently players land on it, its initial cost and cost of development, and its return per level of development). The green properties, for example, are awful; the oranges and reds are superior.

The railroads, because there are four of them, are the most visited set in the game, but they can't be developed, so they aren't enough alone for a win. They can provide you with cash, however, and that's what you need to develop a killer color group—just as high-earning investments like utility funds can give you money to augment your growth-oriented holdings.

One crucial point: There's a huge difference in rent between the two- and three-house level on any property. This is the game's investment "sweet spot"—something I look for in life as well.

Matthew Hollister

4. Complacency: Beware of it. In the 2009 world championship, a young Norwegian player paved the way to victory at precisely the moment when defeat stared him in the face. His opponents had concluded a three-way trade that provided each with a powerful color group. While each contemplated how many houses to buy, Norway offered his lone red property to Russia in return for the third light blue.

The trade looked lopsided; Russia already had the greens and eagerly accepted. Complacent, he hadn't noticed Norway's pile of cash—or the fact that all the shiny metal tokens were approaching the light blues. Norway rapidly developed them, and all the other players landed on his group. Paying the rents denied his rivals the chance to invest in their own pricey properties. In a few rounds, all were vanquished.

Just as once-spurned asset classes can suddenly enter the limelight in real life, so too can every group of Monopoly properties. Norway was able to use the lowly light blues to win the 2009 title, and I saw the so-so purples prevail in 2004.

Even Park Place and Boardwalk have won, in the 1979 U.S. championship—but that's a rarity. There are only two of them, and they cost a lot to develop. The three-property orange group, by contrast, gets landed on more than any other color group (because players who go to jail must pass through or over them upon exiting), and it can be developed at a reasonable price.

Matthew Hollister

5. Negotiations: Knowledge of the game's financial numbers is only half the story in Monopoly success; being a master of negotiations is the other part.

In the 2009 championship, the youthful player from Norway had one other advantage besides the inventiveness to turn his chances around. Respectful, pleasant and artfully assertive, he was the kind of player the others didn't mind losing to.

In real life, I've seen more people succeed with this sort of conduct than with noisy aggressiveness. Competence in human relations affects your career, your personal life, your options and thus your net worth—yet another great lesson taught by Monopoly.

—Mr. Orbanes's latest book is "Monopoly, Money, and You." He is the chief judge at the U.S. and World Monopoly championships.

Getty Images

A version of this article appeared February 9, 2013, on page C3 in the U.S. edition of The Wall Street Journal, with the headline: Go Directly to Success: Monopoly's Lessons.

WSJ: In Chinese Buildings, a Copycat Craze

ESSAY
February 8, 2013, 7:14 p.m. ET

In Chinese Buildings, a Copycat Craze

Duplicating Versailles, the Chrysler Building or the White House is seen as a mark of skill and superiority

By BIANCA BOSKER

In Beijing, the new Wangjing SOHO complex, a trio of curvy office buildings designed by the internationally acclaimed architect Zaha Hadid, is slowly rising in the smog-filled skyline. Meanwhile, 1,000 miles south, a set of two buildings is going up—and the design looks just like Ms. Hadid's, say the backers of the Beijing complex.

The other development company has denied copying the design and coined a slogan about its project. "Never meant to copy," reads a pitch posted on the firm's official microblog. "Only want to surpass."

Robert Harding World Imagery/Corbis

BONJOUR CHINA | An Eiffel Tower looms over a road in Hebei province.

That motto could be the mantra for China's massive movement in architectural mimicry. To show they are making it big, the Chinese have turned to faking it big.

In recent years, some of the nation's real-estate developers and even government officials have been churning out detailed counterfeits of the West's greatest architectural hits, from Unesco World Heritage sites to Le Corbusier gems to Manhattan skyscrapers.

Paris, Orange County, Interlaken, Amsterdam—all have their doubles in China. In Hangzhou, gondolas glide through the man-made canals of Venice Water Town, which boasts its own Piazza San Marco and Doge's Palace.

Last year, developers in Huizhou unveiled a brick-for-brick replica of the Austrian village of Hallstatt, complete with its cobblestone streets, historic church and even sidewalk cafes. Hallstatt residents were surprised to learn that Chinese planners had studied the village's buildings on location in Austria, according to news reports.

The award for the most copied building goes to the White House, says Yung Ho Chang, a Chinese architect and the former head of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology's architecture department. The building serves as the model for everything from seafood restaurants to single-family homes to government offices in Guangzhou, Wuxi, Shanghai, Wenling and Nanjing.

This "duplitecture" is not meant to flatter the West, nor is it a form of "self-colonization." The copies are built as monuments to China's technological prowess, affluence and power. The Chinese have seized on the icons of Western architecture as potent symbols for their own ascension to—and aspiration for—global supremacy.

It is an impulse with deep roots in Chinese architectural tradition, dating back thousands of years. In pre-modern China, emperors demonstrated their dominance by re-creating rival territories within their own: Sprawling imperial parks, which featured flora and fauna assembled from remote lands, buttressed rulers' authority by showing their ability to both create and possess an elaborate facsimile of the known universe.

China's emperors also used copycat buildings to convey their mastery—actual or anticipated—over their adversaries. In the third century B.C., the First Emperor, Qin Shi Huangdi, commemorated his conquest of six rival kingdoms by ordering that exact replicas of their palaces be built in his capital. Today, the ersatz Eiffel Towers and Chrysler Buildings symbolize China's power to control the world by transplanting Europe and the U.S. into its domain.

Traditional Chinese attitudes toward replication also help to explain the trend. While Americans view imitation with disdain, the Chinese have traditionally taken a more permissive and nuanced view of it. Copying can be valued as a mark of skill and superiority. The director of China's National Copyright Administration has even praised copies as a sign of "cultural creativity."

China's expanding economy, along with the financial woes of the European Union and the U.S., could usher in a new era in which the Forbidden City replaces the White House as the coveted status symbol. Buildings modeled after traditional Chinese architecture are already appearing in some parts of the country, next to Versailles look-alikes.

Chinese people "realize now, 'We have money. We have a lot of money. We're even richer than our Western rivals,'" said Zhou Rong, a professor of architecture at Beijing's Tsinghua University—and this has led to new interest in Chinese styles. Rather than grousing about being copied, the West might instead worry about the day China stops looking to us for models.

—Ms. Bosker is the author of "Original Copies: Architectural Mimicry in Contemporary China," from which this is adapted.

A version of this article appeared February 9, 2013, on page C2 in the U.S. edition of The Wall Street Journal, with the headline: In Chinese Buildings, a Copycat Craze.

WSJ: Japan's Philanderers Stay Faithful to Their 'Infidelity Phones'

THE A-HED

January 11, 2013, 2:21 a.m. ET

Japan's Philanderers Stay Faithful to Their 'Infidelity Phones'

Cads Attracted to How Outdated Device Hides Calls, Texts; Juggling Three Girlfriends

By DAISUKE WAKABAYASHI

Philanderers in Japan prefer one particular model of mobile phone, as WSJ's Daisuke Wakabayashi reports. He runs down how the phone works.

TOKYO—Over the past few years, as many people rushed to trade in their old phones for smartphones, Japan's philanderers have remained faithful to one particular brand: Fujitsu Ltd.'s older "F-Series" phones, which feature some attractive stealth privacy features.

The aging flip-phone—nicknamed the "uwaki keitai" or "infidelity phone"—owes its enduring popularity to customers who don't believe newer smartphones are as discreet at hiding their illicit romances.

Bloomberg News

Older DoCoMo phones, shown 2009, are still popular because of privacy features.

A Japanese blogger who goes by the name Bakanabe and writes anonymously about picking up women, said he looked into buying a new device but found the privacy settings fell short of his current phone. Instead, he opted to refurbish his battered, three-year-old Fujitsu flip-phone with a new casing and a new battery.

"Women may want to check my phone for strange emails or calls when I'm not around. With Fujitsu's 'privacy mode,' they can't see that information at all," he said in an email. "The key is to give off the impression that you're not locking your phone at all."

Fujitsu's "privacy mode" is a layer of nearly invisible security that hides missed calls, emails and text messages from contacts designated as private. If one of those acquaintances gets in touch, the only signal of that communication is a subtle change in the color or shape of how the battery sign or antenna bars are displayed. If ignored, the call doesn't appear in the phone log.

The changes are so subtle that it would be impossible to spot for an untrained eye. When the privacy mode is turned off through a secret combination of keys, the concealed calls and messages appear, and voice mail becomes accessible.

This comes in handy to another blogger who calls himself "Poza." He claims to have various romances on dating sites while juggling three girlfriends. He said he was introduced to the Fujitsu phone nearly five years ago and uses the privacy features to keep from getting caught. He says he recently bought an iPhone, but giving up his Fujitsu phone to carry just a smartphone is "unthinkable."

"In terms of keeping my cheating hidden, this does more than enough," he wrote in an email. Poza, who says he works for a design company in western Japan, declined to provide his real name.

The older Japanese phones also run on software created for the domestic market. For years, this gave the manufacturers significant control over new features but limited their international reach. With smartphones running Google Inc.'s Android operating system—the main software option for today's handsets—the Japanese makers don't have as much control to develop new features.

Fujitsu started offering the privacy mode in 2002 as part of more stringent security requirements for all phones offered by NTT DoCoMo Inc., Japan's largest carrier. Takeshi Natsuno, a senior DoCoMo executive at the time, said he insisted on tougher security after hearing too many stories of couples splitting or workers landing in hot water because they left their phones out and unguarded.

FUJITSU F-03 PHONE

"If Tiger Woods had this Japanese feature in his phone, he wouldn't have gotten in trouble," said Mr. Natsuno, now a professor at Keio University's Graduate School of Media and Governance.

The phones, though, aren't available outside Japan.

With emails, phone calls and text messages all coming into the phone, it is also where many affairs are carried out. Toshiyuki Makiguchi, who runs Uwaki Rescue SOS, a Tokyo-based consulting company to help people find out if their partners are cheating, said more than half of his 600 customers a year find some evidence of cheating on their partner's mobile phone.

Fujitsu promotes the strong security of its phones, but does so without acknowledging its subset of loyal cheater fans. Fujitsu spokesman Naoki Mishiro said tight security is critical these days with so much sensitive information on handsets. He declined to comment on the infidelity phone nickname.

These days, the devotion of infidelity phone users is being tested. Both Japanese carriers and Fujitsu are starting to phase out the older phones for an all-smartphone lineup. And a growing number of so-called cheater apps are looking to bring similar functions to smartphones.

As a result, Fujitsu has added some of the privacy features to its smartphone lineup. The company's new models conceal calls and emails from contacts marked private. Like its older cousin, it alerts the users with a subtle change in the battery or antenna mark. However, the privacy mode requires a separate mail and address book app designed by Fujitsu, rather than the default email program and address book provided by the carrier.

"It's totally useless," said blogger Bakanabe, who researched the Fujitsu smartphone before sticking with his existing phone. "I hold out hope that Fujitsu adds the real privacy mode with its next smartphone."

Fujitsu said it aims to roll out more convenient and secure features in the future.

The world appears to be catching up with the infidelity phone.

Delaware-based CATE, or Call and Text Eraser, has been offering a similar level of security since last year. It is an app for Android-based smartphones that intercepts and hides text messages and phone calls from people on a selected "blacklist." Those texts and calls, as well as the app itself, remain hidden until the user punches in a code.

"I believe most cheaters use text and get caught by the text," said Neal Desai, a 25-year-old entrepreneur from Austin, Texas, who raised $70,000 for the $4.99 app on ABC's reality TV show "Shark Tank."

At $4.99 per download, CATE has been downloaded more than 10,000 times, and an iPhone version will be available soon, said Mr. Desai.

When told about Fujitsu's privacy features that have been available in Japan for several years, Mr. Desai was impressed: "That's more genius than my app."

—Miho Inada contributed to this article.

Write to Daisuke Wakabayashi at Daisuke.Wakabayashi@wsj.com

NY Times: Is Algebra Neccessary

 

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July 28, 2012

Is Algebra Necessary?

By ANDREW HACKER

A TYPICAL American school day finds some six million high school students and two million college freshmen struggling with algebra. In both high school and college, all too many students are expected to fail. Why do we subject American students to this ordeal? I’ve found myself moving toward the strong view that we shouldn’t.

My question extends beyond algebra and applies more broadly to the usual mathematics sequence, from geometry through calculus. State regents and legislators — and much of the public — take it as self-evident that every young person should be made to master polynomial functions and parametric equations.

There are many defenses of algebra and the virtue of learning it. Most of them sound reasonable on first hearing; many of them I once accepted. But the more I examine them, the clearer it seems that they are largely or wholly wrong — unsupported by research or evidence, or based on wishful logic. (I’m not talking about quantitative skills, critical for informed citizenship and personal finance, but a very different ballgame.)

This debate matters. Making mathematics mandatory prevents us from discovering and developing young talent. In the interest of maintaining rigor, we’re actually depleting our pool of brainpower. I say this as a writer and social scientist whose work relies heavily on the use of numbers. My aim is not to spare students from a difficult subject, but to call attention to the real problems we are causing by misdirecting precious resources.

The toll mathematics takes begins early. To our nation’s shame, one in four ninth graders fail to finish high school. In South Carolina, 34 percent fell away in 2008-9, according to national data released last year; for Nevada, it was 45 percent. Most of the educators I’ve talked with cite algebra as the major academic reason.

Shirley Bagwell, a longtime Tennessee teacher, warns that “to expect all students to master algebra will cause more students to drop out.” For those who stay in school, there are often “exit exams,” almost all of which contain an algebra component. In Oklahoma, 33 percent failed to pass last year, as did 35 percent in West Virginia.

Algebra is an onerous stumbling block for all kinds of students: disadvantaged and affluent, black and white. In New Mexico, 43 percent of white students fell below “proficient,” along with 39 percent in Tennessee. Even well-endowed schools have otherwise talented students who are impeded by algebra, to say nothing of calculus and trigonometry.

California’s two university systems, for instance, consider applications only from students who have taken three years of mathematics and in that way exclude many applicants who might excel in fields like art or history. Community college students face an equally prohibitive mathematics wall. A study of two-year schools found that fewer than a quarter of their entrants passed the algebra classes they were required to take.

“There are students taking these courses three, four, five times,” says Barbara Bonham of Appalachian State University. While some ultimately pass, she adds, “many drop out.”

Another dropout statistic should cause equal chagrin. Of all who embark on higher education, only 58 percent end up with bachelor’s degrees. The main impediment to graduation: freshman math. The City University of New York, where I have taught since 1971, found that 57 percent of its students didn’t pass its mandated algebra course. The depressing conclusion of a faculty report: “failing math at all levels affects retention more than any other academic factor.” A national sample of transcripts found mathematics had twice as many F’s and D’s compared as other subjects.

Nor will just passing grades suffice. Many colleges seek to raise their status by setting a high mathematics bar. Hence, they look for 700 on the math section of the SAT, a height attained in 2009 by only 9 percent of men and 4 percent of women. And it’s not just Ivy League colleges that do this: at schools like Vanderbilt, Rice and Washington University in St. Louis, applicants had best be legacies or athletes if they have scored less than 700 on their math SATs.

It’s true that students in Finland, South Korea and Canada score better on mathematics tests. But it’s their perseverance, not their classroom algebra, that fits them for demanding jobs.

Nor is it clear that the math we learn in the classroom has any relation to the quantitative reasoning we need on the job. John P. Smith III, an educational psychologist at Michigan State University who has studied math education, has found that “mathematical reasoning in workplaces differs markedly from the algorithms taught in school.” Even in jobs that rely on so-called STEM credentials — science, technology, engineering, math — considerable training occurs after hiring, including the kinds of computations that will be required. Toyota, for example, recently chose to locate a plant in a remote Mississippi county, even though its schools are far from stellar. It works with a nearby community college, which has tailored classes in “machine tool mathematics.” 

That sort of collaboration has long undergirded German apprenticeship programs. I fully concur that high-tech knowledge is needed to sustain an advanced industrial economy. But we’re deluding ourselves if we believe the solution is largely academic.

A skeptic might argue that, even if our current mathematics education discourages large numbers of students, math itself isn’t to blame. Isn’t this discipline a critical part of education, providing quantitative tools and honing conceptual abilities that are indispensable — especially in our high tech age? In fact, we hear it argued that we have a shortage of graduates with STEM credentials.

Of course, people should learn basic numerical skills: decimals, ratios and estimating, sharpened by a good grounding in arithmetic. But a definitive analysis by the Georgetown Center on Education and the Workforce forecasts that in the decade ahead a mere 5 percent of entry-level workers will need to be proficient in algebra or above. And if there is a shortage of STEM graduates, an equally crucial issue is how many available positions there are for men and women with these skills. A January 2012 analysis from the Georgetown center found 7.5 percent unemployment for engineering graduates and 8.2 percent among computer scientists.

Peter Braunfeld of the University of Illinois tells his students, “Our civilization would collapse without mathematics.” He’s absolutely right.

Algebraic algorithms underpin animated movies, investment strategies and airline ticket prices. And we need people to understand how those things work and to advance our frontiers.

Quantitative literacy clearly is useful in weighing all manner of public policies, from the Affordable Care Act, to the costs and benefits of environmental regulation, to the impact of climate change. Being able to detect and identify ideology at work behind the numbers is of obvious use. Ours is fast becoming a statistical age, which raises the bar for informed citizenship. What is needed is not textbook formulas but greater understanding of where various numbers come from, and what they actually convey.

What of the claim that mathematics sharpens our minds and makes us more intellectually adept as individuals and a citizen body? It’s true that mathematics requires mental exertion. But there’s no evidence that being able to prove (x² + y²)² = (x² - y²)² + (2xy)² leads to more credible political opinions or social analysis.

Many of those who struggled through a traditional math regimen feel that doing so annealed their character. This may or may not speak to the fact that institutions and occupations often install prerequisites just to look rigorous — hardly a rational justification for maintaining so many mathematics mandates. Certification programs for veterinary technicians require algebra, although none of the graduates I’ve met have ever used it in diagnosing or treating their patients. Medical schools like Harvard and Johns Hopkins demand calculus of all their applicants, even if it doesn’t figure in the clinical curriculum, let alone in subsequent practice. Mathematics is used as a hoop, a badge, a totem to impress outsiders and elevate a profession’s status.

It’s not hard to understand why Caltech and M.I.T. want everyone to be proficient in mathematics. But it’s not easy to see why potential poets and philosophers face a lofty mathematics bar. Demanding algebra across the board actually skews a student body, not necessarily for the better.

I WANT to end on a positive note. Mathematics, both pure and applied, is integral to our civilization, whether the realm is aesthetic or electronic. But for most adults, it is more feared or revered than understood. It’s clear that requiring algebra for everyone has not increased our appreciation of a calling someone once called “the poetry of the universe.” (How many college graduates remember what Fermat’s dilemma was all about?)

Instead of investing so much of our academic energy in a subject that blocks further attainment for much of our population, I propose that we start thinking about alternatives. Thus mathematics teachers at every level could create exciting courses in what I call “citizen statistics.” This would not be a backdoor version of algebra, as in the Advanced Placement syllabus. Nor would it focus on equations used by scholars when they write for one another. Instead, it would familiarize students with the kinds of numbers that describe and delineate our personal and public lives.

It could, for example, teach students how the Consumer Price Index is computed, what is included and how each item in the index is weighted — and include discussion about which items should be included and what weights they should be given.

This need not involve dumbing down. Researching the reliability of numbers can be as demanding as geometry. More and more colleges are requiring courses in “quantitative reasoning.” In fact, we should be starting that in kindergarten.

I hope that mathematics departments can also create courses in the history and philosophy of their discipline, as well as its applications in early cultures. Why not mathematics in art and music — even poetry — along with its role in assorted sciences? The aim would be to treat mathematics as a liberal art, making it as accessible and welcoming as sculpture or ballet. If we rethink how the discipline is conceived, word will get around and math enrollments are bound to rise. It can only help. Of the 1.7 million bachelor’s degrees awarded in 2010, only 15,396 — less than 1 percent — were in mathematics.

I’ve observed a host of high school and college classes, from Michigan to Mississippi, and have been impressed by conscientious teaching and dutiful students. I’ll grant that with an outpouring of resources, we could reclaim many dropouts and help them get through quadratic equations. But that would misuse teaching talent and student effort. It would be far better to reduce, not expand, the mathematics we ask young people to imbibe. (That said, I do not advocate vocational tracks for students considered, almost always unfairly, as less studious.)

Yes, young people should learn to read and write and do long division, whether they want to or not. But there is no reason to force them to grasp vectorial angles and discontinuous functions. Think of math as a huge boulder we make everyone pull, without assessing what all this pain achieves. So why require it, without alternatives or exceptions? Thus far I haven’t found a compelling answer.

Andrew Hacker is an emeritus professor of political science at Queens College, City University of New York, and a co-author of “Higher Education? How Colleges Are Wasting Our Money and Failing Our Kids — and What We Can Do About It.”

WSJ: Anxiety Can Bring Out the Best

HEALTH & WELLNESS
June 18, 2012, 6:45 p.m. ET

Anxiety Can Bring Out the Best

Researchers Prescribe Just Enough Stress to Ace Life's Tests; Too Little Is Lazy

By MELINDA BECK

Anxiety gets a bad rap, but a recent brain-scan study found that just the right amount of worrying has some serious upsides. Melinda Beck has details on Lunch Break.

You have an important presentation tomorrow but your heart is racing and your mind is serving up a steady stream of what-ifs: What if I'm not fully prepared? What if it goes badly? You're running out of time. The last thing you need is all this anxiety.

Actually, a little anxiety may be just what you need to focus your efforts and perform at your peak, psychologists say.

Somewhere between checked out and freaked out lies an anxiety sweet spot, some researchers say, in which a person is motivated to succeed yet not so anxious that performance takes a dive. This moderate amount of anxiety keeps people on their toes, enables them to juggle multiple tasks and puts them on high alert for potential problems.

The Sweet Spot for Success

"Coaches and sports psychologists have always known that you don't want your athlete to be relaxed right before an event. You need some 'juice' to go fast," says Stephen Josephson, a psychologist in New York City who has treated athletes, actors and musicians.

It can be tricky to achieve. Some overly optimistic people and those with attention-deficit hyperactive disorder may lack enough anxiety to take action. Others—mostly procrastinating perfectionists—must create anxiety-producing situations in order to get anything done.

Regulating anxiety is also difficult because humans' ancient threat-detection system hasn't kept pace with modern man's ability to fret about the future, ruminate about the past and imagine all kinds of terrible scenarios, says Dennis Tirch, associate director of the American Institute for Cognitive Therapy in New York. So the body's primitive fight-or-flight response kicks in even when the threat at hand is a daunting social engagement or a 20-page report.

Of course, too much anxiety can be painful and destructive. Anxiety disorders affect about 40 million American adults—18% of the population—in a given year, according to the National Institute of Mental Health. Only about one-third of them seek treatment. The disorders run the gamut from panic attacks and specific phobias to obsessive-compulsive disorder, post-traumatic stress disorder and generalized anxiety disorder, a random kind of worry described as free-floating and relentless. Sufferers also have a high incidence of depression and physical ailments, including migraines, high blood pressure, heart disease, digestive disorders and chronic pain, according to NIMH.

The terms anxiety and stress are often used interchangeably, although stress includes anger and frustration, while anxiety is typically worry and unease.

The notion that moderate anxiety can be beneficial goes back at least to 1908, when Harvard psychologists Robert Yerkes and John Dodson posited that arousal (as they called it) enhances performance—but only to a point. When anxiety gets too high, performance suffers instead.

The Yerkes-Dodson curve—an upside-down U shape—is still taught in psychology courses, and modern neuroscience has helped confirm it. Studies have shown, for example, that the brain learns best when stress hormones are mildly elevated.

High anxiety can make even simple tasks more difficult, says psychologist Jason Moser at Michigan State University.

In a study published earlier this month in the International Journal of Psychophysiology, he and his colleagues monitored the brain activity of 79 female and 70 male students while they performed a letter-identifying exercise. The students performed equally well at first, but the women who identified themselves as highly anxious had to work harder at it. Those subjects showed far more activity in a part of the brain—the anterior cingulate cortex—thought to be a center of anxiety. And once the worrying women started making errors, they made them at a higher rate than the other subjects, suggesting that the extra effort the anxiety caused was taking a toll, Dr. Moser says.

How do you find the sweet spot between anxiety that energizes and anxiety that paralyzes?

Most therapists see more patients suffering from too much anxiety rather than too little, although withdrawal and lack of ambition can be a hallmark of depression. Dr. Josephson says that overly optimistic people with ADHD often have an insufficient sense of urgency to get things done. One form of treatment is what he calls "motivational interviewing: stressing the negative future consequences of not finishing and explaining that once the task is through, they'll feel a sense of calm and relief," he says.

Another group of people can't get anything done without some level of anxiety. "There are people who subconsciously set life up to give them a thrill, by always being almost late, nearly missing a deadline, spending more than they should," says Marianne Legato, a professor of clinical medicine at Columbia University in New York. "I call them fretters."

Stimulants like caffeine and cigarettes create the physical sense of anxiety artificially by constricting blood vessels and raising the heart beat.

Living with a constant anxiety buzz crosses the line into a disorder when people can't turn it off, or when it interferes with functioning. "Ask yourself: Is it causing significant impairment in my life, and is it causing significant distress?" says Dr. Tirch.

Anxiety is also dysfunctional if it is causing physical tension in the body, or if it is generated by a constant stream of self-criticism, which can be self-fulfilling. Being unable to sleep or relax without alcohol or medication are also red flags.

"Needing a glass of wine to relax is disconcerting," says Dr. Legato. "If you need solace at the end of the day, you are torturing yourself in some way."

Anxiety is especially self-defeating when people focus on the fear itself, rather than the task at hand. The best way to stay in the "sweet spot," Dr. Moser says, is to channel the anxiety into productive activity—like studying and acing the test. "I tell a lot of my patients that Nike really has a great slogan—Just Do It," he says.

Turning anxiety into action is also a major component of cognitive behavioral therapy, which is widely seen as the most effective treatment for anxiety disorders. Identifying and challenging self-defeating thoughts, and gradually facing the source of fears, can provide more lasting relief than antianxiety medications, psychologists say.

"If you have to take Xanax to get on the elevator, you never learn that the elevator isn't something to be afraid of," says Dr. Josephson. "You have to embrace the anxiety to overcome it."

That is often how psychologists help performers overcome stage fright or athletes snap out of a slump. Relaxation techniques such as meditation and deep breathing can bring a toxic level of anxiety down, but harnessing it can ultimately be more effective. Rehearsing a scenario repeatedly can help manage and defuse the fear.

"We'll say to athletes, 'You're going to be anxious. Great. Channel it and use it," Dr. Josephson says. "Being willing to feel some anxiety and not running away from it is huge."

Write to Melinda Beck at HealthJournal@wsj.com

Copyright 2012 Dow Jones & Company, Inc. All Rights Reserved

 

NY Times: Where Apps Become Child's Play

 

July 7, 2012

Where Apps Become Child’s Play

By NICOLE LaPORTE

AN iPad case that doubles as a teething toy? Yes, such a product exists. It’s known as the Fisher-Price Laugh & Learn Apptivity Case (also available for iPods and iPhones) and it sells for $35.

It’s well known that children are quick to learn new technology. But 6-month-olds? How did the idea arise for a toy that allows its user to gnaw on its brightly colored handles and drool on its protective screen, while also manipulating apps for counting and singing?

At Fisher-Price, such products result from a process known as spelunking, which in its literal sense means to explore caves. But in the realm of toy making, it refers to the simple act of watching children play.

A similar process is alive and well at other companies, like LeapFrog, maker of the LeapPad, a touchscreen tablet for children as young as 3; and at Hasbro and Crayola, which have partnered with digital media companies to create apps for very young children.

At Fisher-Price, “we bring babies in with their moms and watch them at play with different types of apps, different types of products,” said Deborah Weber, senior manager of infant research. Her job, she said, is to “understand the ages and stages of babies — what they can and can’t do, what their interests are, and the growing needs of families today.”

Spelunking has been around since the Fisher-Price PlayLab was formed in 1961, the same year that bricks made by a Danish company called Lego made their American debut. In its earlier days, the lab was filled with toys like a googly-eyed rotary phone known as the Chatter Phone, and the Corn Popper, a kind of mini-lottery machine on wheels.

Today, the lab, located at the Fisher-Price headquarters in East Aurora, N.Y., looks more like an Apple store. But instead of adults and teenagers, there are infants staring into computer screens, and parents and toddlers are passing iPads back and forth.

The setting is similar at LeapFrog’s Kid Lab in Emeryville, Calif., where digital devices and apps are tested by children who both have and haven’t had regular exposure to computers.

“Two years ago, it was harder to find kids who had used an iPhone or an iPad at home,” said Alissa McLean, a senior researcher in LeapFrog’s user experience group, which examines how children interact with online content and computers. “Now it’s not hard at all.”

“We used to talk about kids being the first generation of digital natives,” said Jason Root, chief content officer at the Ruckus Media Group, which has partnered with companies like Hasbro to create storybook apps. “Now we have a generation of newborns who are going to be weaned on touch devices.” 

At Fisher-Price, Ms. Weber said, “We see 6-month-olds batting at the screen, 9-month-olds swiping, and 12-month-olds pointing out objects to see.” Observations like these are passed along to toy producers and industrial designers, resulting in products like the iPad case and the Laugh & Learn Apptivity Monkey, which comes out in August.

The Apptivity Monkey would pass for just another stuffed animal if it didn’t have a thick, plastic iPhone case attached to its belly; the front of the case is made of see-through plastic. An iPhone can be placed inside, and a child can play apps on it, either by pressing on the iPhone directly or on the monkey’s paws, which interact with an array of alphabet and singing apps.

The monkey is big enough and soft enough so that the iPhone can sustain even major tumbles, Fisher-Price asserts. But the iPhone is not included. So doesn’t that make for a pretty expensive toy?

Maybe not. When Kathleen Kremer, another spelunker who is the company’s senior manager of user experience, was observing how preschool-aged children played with their parents’ iPhones and iPods, she stumbled on the “pass-back factor.”

“People are now on their second-generation iPad or second iPhone, so what they typically do with the old one is give it to their child, so the kids actually have ownership of these devices,” she said. She has also studied diaries and scrapbooks that parents were asked to keep, documenting their children’s behavior.

Because of the pass-back factor, the new Kid Tough Apptivity Case — similar to the Laugh & Learn product, but designed for older children — is made to fit all generations of the gadgets, Ms. Kremer said.  

Innovations like this are fueling the digital toy trend, according to Lisa Harnisch, senior vice president and general merchandising manager at Toys “R” Us. Last year, she said, the trend in children’s apps and app-related products “really started to heighten and explode.” Indeed, in the last year, there have been nearly three million downloads of Fisher-Price’s Laugh & Learn apps. By year-end, LeapFrog expects to have 325 apps at its online App Center, double the number at the end of 2011.

Not everyone sees this as a justification to ply infants with computers. “Infants learn best from real people and playing with real toys,” said Dr. Ari Brown, a pediatrician in Austin, Tex., and the author of “Baby 411.” “They learn how to communicate, how to engage with others and how to problem-solve using their five senses. While technology can offer a virtual way to learn some of these skills, they will never replace the value of interacting with humans or being able to manipulate and play with toys in one’s hands.”

In any case, it might be too late to stop an 18-month-old from discovering the joys of Netflix — selecting a movie or TV show to watch, or rewinding and replaying a favorite scene — something that Ms. Kremer has come across in her field research.

“It was pretty remarkable that she could master all those different steps,” she said of the tech-savvy toddler. “The motivation was there.”

E-mail: proto@nytimes.com.

 

Calvin and Hobbes: Starry Night

Not sure where this picture comes from but I grab it off a friend's FB page. Love Calvin and Hobbes.

 

NY Times: A Man. A Woman. Just Friends?

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April 7, 2012

A Man. A Woman. Just Friends?

By WILLIAM DERESIEWICZ

CAN men and women be friends? We have been asking ourselves that question for a long time, and the answer is usually no. The movie “When Harry Met Sally...” provides the locus classicus. The problem, Harry famously explains, is that “the sex part always gets in the way.” Heterosexual people of the opposite sex may claim to be just friends, the message goes, but count on it — wink, wink, nudge, nudge — something more’s going on. Popular culture enforces the notion relentlessly. In movie after movie, show after show, the narrative arc is the same. What starts as friendship (Ross and Rachel, Monica and Chandler) ends up in bed.

There’s a history here, and it’s a surprisingly political one. Friendship between the sexes was more or less unknown in traditional society. Men and women occupied different spheres, and women were regarded as inferior in any case. A few epistolary friendships between monastics, a few relationships in literary and court circles, but beyond that, cross-sex friendship was as unthinkable in Western society as it still is in many cultures.

Then came feminism — specifically, Mary Wollstonecraft, the mother of feminism, in the late 18th century. Wollstonecraft was actually wary of platonic relationships, which could lead too easily, she thought, to mischief. (She had a child out of wedlock herself.) But she did believe that friendship, “the most sublime of all affections,” should be the mainspring of marriage.

In the 1890s, when feminism emerged from the drawing rooms and genteel committees to become a mass, radical movement (the term “feminism” itself was coined in 1895), friendship reappeared as a political demand. This was the time of the “New Woman,” portrayed in fiction and endlessly debated in the press.

The New Woman was intelligent, well read, strong-willed, idealistic, unconventional and outspoken. For her, relationships with men, whether or not they involved sex, had to involve mental companionship, freedom of choice, equality and mutual respect. They had, in short, to be friendships. Just as suffrage represented feminism’s vision of the political future, friendship represented its vision of the personal future, the central term of a renegotiated sexual contract.

Easier said than done, of course. But the notion of friendship as the root of romantic relationships started to seep into the culture. The terms “boyfriend” and “girlfriend” also began to appear in the 1890s.

We take the words for granted now, but think of what they imply, and what a new idea it was: that romantic partners share more than erotic passion, that companionship and equality are part of the relationship. A boyfriend is a friend, as well as a lover. As for husband and wife, Wollstonecraft’s ideal has long since become a cliché. Who doesn’t think of their spouse — or claim to think of them, or want to think of them — as their best friend?

So friendship now is part of what we mean by love. Still, that doesn’t get us to platonic relationships. For that we needed yet another wave of feminism, the one that started in the 1960s. Friendship wasn’t part of the demand this time, but the things that were demanded — equal rights and opportunities in every sphere — created the conditions for it. Only once the sexes mixed on equal and familiar terms at school, at work and in the social spaces in between — only once it was normal and even boring to see a member of the opposite sex at the next desk — could platonic friendships become an ordinary part of life.

And that’s exactly what has happened.

Friendships with members of the opposite sex have been an important part of my life since I went to high school in the late 1970s, and I hardly think I’m alone. Consult your own experience, but as I look around, I don’t see that platonic friendships are actually rare at all or worthy of a lot of winks and nudges. Which is why you don’t much hear the term anymore. Platonic friendships now are simply friendships. But doesn’t the sex thing get in the way? At times, no doubt. It’s harder for the young, of course — all those hormones, and so many of your peers are unattached. In fact, one of the most common solutions to Harry’s quandary is to have sex and then remain friends. If the sex thing gets in the way, the answer often seems to be to just get it out of the way.

But it doesn’t always get in the way. Maybe you’re not attracted to each other. Maybe you know it would never work out, so it’s not worth screwing up your friendship. Maybe that’s just not what it’s about.

So if it’s common now for men and women to be friends, why do we so rarely see it in popular culture? Partly, it’s a narrative problem. Friendship isn’t courtship. It doesn’t have a beginning, a middle and an end. Stories about friendships of any kind are relatively rare, especially given what a huge place the relationships have in our lives. And of course, they’re not sexy. Put a man and a woman together in a movie or a novel, and we expect the sparks to fly. Yet it isn’t just a narrative problem, or a Hollywood problem.

We have trouble, in our culture, with any love that isn’t based on sex or blood. We understand romantic relationships, and we understand family, and that’s about all we seem to understand.

We have trouble with mentorship, the asymmetric love of master and apprentice, professor and student, guide and guided; we have trouble with comradeship, the bond that comes from shared, intense work; and we have trouble with friendship, at least of the intimate kind. When we imagine those relationships, we seem to have to sexualize them.

Close friendships between members of the same sex, after all, are also suspect. Even Oprah has had to defend her relationship with Gayle King, and as for men and men, forget about it.

I cannot think of another area of our lives in which there is so great a gap between what we do and what our culture says we do. But maybe things are beginning to change. Younger people, having grown up with the gay-rights movement and in many cases gone to colleges with co-ed dormitories, are open to a wider range of emotional possibility.

Friendship between the sexes may no longer be a political issue, but it is an issue of liberation: the freedom to love whom you want, in the way that you want. Maybe it’s time that we all took it out of the closet.

William Deresiewicz is an essayist, critic and the author of “A Jane Austen Education.”

WSJ: Is the iPhone the Only Camera You Need?

TECHNOLOGY
Updated April 5, 2012, 8:27 a.m. ET

Is the iPhone the Only Camera You Need?

If you're armed with the right photo apps, editing tricks and shooting know-how, it just might be

By KEVIN SINTUMUANG

F. Martin Ramin for The Wall Street Journal (cameras, phone); Lisa Corson/The Wall Street Journal (sunset)

The iPhone simplifies the photographic process—you can shoot, edit, share and order prints using one device.

I, POINT-AND-SHOOT, hereby call to order the inaugural meeting of the Secret Society of Digital Cameras That Are Sick and Tired of the iPhone. Ultra Zoom. Micro Four Thirds. Budget Digi Camera that takes AA batteries. Thanks for coming.

Photos: iPhoneography

Lisa Corson/The Wall Street Journal

A photo taken with the Hipstamatic app

I, POINT-AND-SHOOT, hereby call to order the inaugural meeting of the Secret Society of Digital Cameras That Are Sick and Tired of the iPhone. Ultra Zoom. Micro Four Thirds. Budget Digi Camera that takes AA batteries. Thanks for coming.

I think everyone knows why we're here in the basement of this abandoned Circuit City in Ho-Ho-Kus, N.J. I mean, it's in the name of our club: the iPhone. A lot of you have been sitting in junk drawers, so I'll bring you up to speed. It ain't just a phone. It has a camera. And not one of those 1.3-megapixel numbers from a decade ago. This is the real deal. People have already started documenting their breakfasts with it. We're in trouble.

Have you checked out Flickr lately? The iPhone is the site's most-used camera. Instagram, an app that let's people share photos, reached 27 million users to become one of the world's biggest social networks. It hit that milestone purely with the iPhone. Last time I checked, we took photos. Where is our piece of the zeitgeist pie?

There was a time when we were renegades ushering in a new era of photography. Mavericks, really. We kicked those old film cameras into flea-market stalls. Now only pros and artsy types use them. Guess what? We're the ones starting to collect dust. And don't think anyone's going to revisit us. Film cameras occupy the same hip space as vinyl. Where are we going to fall on the technological nostalgia spectrum? Next to the LaserDisc.

The digital photography revolution was a promise to streamline things for the everyman. To let him shoot as many sunsets and cats wearing bread (seriously, Google it) as he wanted without having to worry about film. Anyone with a laptop could edit like a pro. Like the Brownie and Polaroid before us, we were democratizers of photography.

Not any more. The iPhone hijacked our vision for the future—our legacy!—while we were busy fooling people that more megapixels meant better pictures. (Sorry, Budget Digi Cam, it doesn't.) Talk about simplifying the photographic process—you can shoot, edit, share and order prints without taking your mitts off an iPhone. We're on our way to becoming a footnote on its Wikipedia page.

I know what you're all thinking. Some of us can edit photos. Some of us can post to Facebook. But not like the iPhone. It's quick, intuitive. We're not. Great-looking pictures are so fun and easy to produce that it makes anyone with an Instagram account feel like Terry Richardson and Ansel Adams rolled into one. Camera Awesome might be the device's best photo app. And it's free! And downloadable in minutes! You know how people refresh their user experience with us? They wait two years and spend hundreds on a new camera.

OK, there's a bright side. The DSLR will always be king for serious photographers. All of us take better photos in low-light situations. Android phones may be getting Instagram soon, but they aren't a huge threat—yet. And, uh, we come in more than two colors. Look at Ultra Zoom. He's chartreuse!

If we lose to one of our own, that's one thing. This crazy Lytro camera that lets you choose a focal point after you've taken a picture? Innovative stuff. Maybe we'll invite her to the next meeting. But a phone? Not cool. That's not progress. It's game-changing. And we're in the wrong stadium.

Tara Howard/The Wall Street Journal

A Hipstamatic shot

I forget who, but a wise man once said, "A lot of times, people don't know what they want until you show it to them." Let's show it to them. First camera to figure out how to beat the iPhone wins an 8-gig SD card. And I'll throw in this lime-green neoprene case. Except for Micro Four Thirds. You're too bulky for it. Meeting adjourned—see you next year in the parking lot of the old Crazy Eddie headquarters.

 

HOW TO MAKE YOUR CAMERA PHONE EXTRA-SNAPPY

Illustration by Jason Lee for The Wall Street Journal, WSJ Studio, Tara Howard (photo)

Several iPhone apps can take your photo-taking to the next level.

1. Download These Essential Camera Apps

Wait, doesn't my iPhone already have a Camera app? Yes. And it's good—the latest one can automatically focus on faces, take crisp HDR shots and be launched quickly from the unlock screen. (Just swipe up.) Why limit yourself to one arrow in your quiver, though? You may have heard of these three Camera replacements before, but they're popular for a reason—out of dozens in the App Store, they're the best.

Camera+

Camera+

The Effects Master

Tara Howard/The Wall Street Journal

The original picture, above, isn't bad.

Tara Howard/The Wall Street Journal

With Camera+'s Clarity filter and Lo-Fi effect, it's infinitely better.

The Camera+ app has long been a popular iPhone camera replacement because it can do complex things in a very streamlined way. You can set exposure independent of focus, use image stabilization—it'll automatically take a shot when your hand is steady—and has a burst mode for capturing fast-moving objects or the fleeting smiles of toddlers. But the real reason Camera+ has a permanent place on many a home screen is its editing tools. The Clarity filter is iPhone photography's secret sauce—it adds pro-camera crispness to almost any shot. And the app's 36 FX Effects (Polarize and Magic Hour are two favorites) have adjustable intensities. Snappily adjusting just how much processing you want is what sets this app apart from the countless other camera-and-editing solutions. $1.99, campl.us

 

Hipstamatic

Hipstamatic

The Analog Spirit

Lisa Corson/The Wall Street Journal

Light leaks, vignetting and distorted colors are Hipstamatic trademarks.

Tara Howard/The Wall Street Journal

Even your accidental shots will look like high art.

This app helped launch the iPhone photo revolution when it debuted in 2009, not with bleeding-edge tech, but with a geeky love for the analog. Swap out lenses, films and flashes to create different retro-inspired photographs or simply shake the camera to randomize the configuration. As with real film photography, you have to wait for your image to "develop"—pictures take a few seconds to show up. No matter. The results are so cool you'll start thinking instant gratification is overrated. A tip: In the spirit of serendipity, the default framing is random. To take control, double-click the viewfinder. $1.99, hipstamatic.com

 

Camera Awesome

Camera Awesome

Everything but the Kitchen Sink

The camera of Camera Awesome, is, well, awesome: It has a lens stabilizer similar to that of Camera+; a Big Button feature that lets you snap a photo by touching any spot on the screen; and in camcorder mode, the app magically captures video seconds before you press record. Its editing tools are even more awe-inspiring: There are almost 300 sophisticated effects, filters, textures and frames at your disposal including the adjustable Awesomize feature, which automatically fixes things you might not have even known were wrong with your photo. Many effects are free. You can buy sets of effects a la carte, or all of them in one fell swoop for $9.99. It's worth it. The app was developed by photo site SmugMug—pictures taken with the program can be automatically uploaded to the site in full resolution if you're a member. Free, awesomize.com

Tara Howard/The Wall Street Journal

If you love a particular effect (this is Romany Holiday), you can opt to have all shots automatically processed that way.

 

2. Take the Fun Factor of Your Photos to the Next Level

Instagram

The Social Network

Instagram

You could just use this as a Hipstamatic alternative, but it's really all about the photo-centric social network that is Instagram. If you've ever doubted the quality of iPhone photography, browsing the "Popular" shots will change your mind and inspire you to always have your camera at the ready to take more artful pictures of the world, or, you know, your cat. Free, instagram.com

 

Cinemagram

The New Art Form

Cinemagram

Here's how it works: Shoot a few seconds of video with movement, like a dog's tail wagging. Then trace your finger over the area of the video that you want to keep in motion—the surrounding area remains a still image. The result is a Cinemagram, a cool mashup of video and photography. At their best, they look like the quirky special effects of a Georges Méliès film. Free, cinemagr.am

 

Incredibooth

The Party Pleaser

Incredibooth

An addictive pocket-size photo booth from the makers of Hipstamatic. You can use the rear camera to take shots of party people and the front-facing one for self portraits, which—because the photos appear in an old-school, vertical strip of four pictures—are disarmingly charming rather than vain. $0.99, incredibooth.com

 

DMD Panorama

The Landscape Sweeper

DMD Panorama

The easiest-to-use panoramic picture app on the iPhone. Just launch, take a picture, steadily move the camera to the left or right to slide an on-screen Ying symbol into a Yang symbol—How clever! How Zen!—and the program will automatically stitch together a slick panoramic photo.$1.99, dermandar.com

 

PicFrame

The Framer

PicFrame

Instead of asking graphic-designer friends to create triptychs of your vacation photos in Photoshop, easily crank images out on your own with PicFrame and share them on Facebook and Twitter. An additional $0.99 lets you overlay text on photos in tons of refined fonts. It's the most fun way to create holiday cards, make party invites and add ironic captions to snapshots. $0.99, picframeapp.com

 

3. Kit Up for Serious Shooting

F. Martin Ramin for The Wall Street Journal, Styling by Anne Cardenas

Belkin LiveAction Camera Remote

Forget about snapping a group shot with an outstretched arm and friends cramming their heads next to yours. Use the Belkin LiveAction Camera Remote with its accompanying app and shoot from afar. A detachable stand is included for easy iPhone propping. $35, belkin.com

 

F. Martin Ramin for The Wall Street Journal, Styling by Anne Cardenas

Try a lens attachment for your iPhone.

Lens attachments on iPhones look a bit gimmicky, but they really work and are a great way to change up your shots. The Ollo Clip comes with fisheye, macro and wide-angle lenses and can be stashed easily in a pocket when not in use. $70, olloclip.com

 

F. Martin Ramin for The Wall Street Journal, Styling by Anne Cardenas

Hipstacase

The iPhone is slick, which means it can get a little slippery. Keep the device strapped and secured to your wrist with the Hipstacase. It's amazing how much a little lanyard add can add to your confidence. $40, hipstamart.com

 

Can You Handle It?

Three esoteric grips for the aspiring camera phone Avedon

Jason Lee for The Wall Street Journal

The Covert Ops grip

The Covert Ops

Hold phone vertically as if checking texts or stocks. Advanced variant: Use headphones and singing to obfuscate your rule-bending shutterbugging.

Jason Lee for The Wall Street Journal

The Statue of Liberty grip

The Statue of Liberty

Most commonly used at concerts by short people. High angle is also effective in making pets appear antlike in photos.

Jason Lee for The Wall Street Journal

The Steady Poke grip

The Steady Poke

Apply death-grip to iPhone with one hand. Tap screen with other to reduce "lens shake" commonly caused by one-handed operation. Advisable to use free hand to pull 'chute at 2,600 feet.

 

No iPhone? No Problem. The best photo apps for other phones

While the iPhone has become the center of the camera-phone universe, Android and Windows Phone 7 devices have been diligently catching up. Instagram will be available to Android users soon, but meanwhile you can get your retro fix using the editing tools of PicSay Pro ($3.99). Also worth a download is Paper Camera ($1.99), which gives your photos a scratchy, cartoony look like that A-ha video.

If you like the idea of sending postcards, but always thought their photos were cheese-tastic, get Postagram (Free). Snap that perfect sunset shot and the app will send a postcard print of the photo with a personal message anywhere in the U.S. ($0.99) or internationally ($1.99). (It's available for the iPhone, too.)

If you own a device that's running the latest version of Windows Phone 7 then you know it has an excellent out-of-the box camera—they come with dedicated physical shutter buttons, scene modes and the ability to tweak everything from white balance to saturation—but you will still need a good photo editor. The filter-rich Thumba Cam ($0.99) is the simplest to use.

Corrections & Amplifications 
The PicFrame app is available at picframeapp.com. An earlier version of this article incorrectly said it was from i4software.com. The Cinemagram app is free. An earlier version of this article incorrectly said it cost $1.99.

A version of this article appeared March 31, 2012, on page D1 in some U.S. editions of The Wall Street Journal, with the headline: Is the iPhone the Only Camera You Need?.

NY Times: Watergate Reporting, the Second Draft

 

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April 2, 2012

Watergate Reporting, the Second Draft

By BRIAN STELTER

Rarely does reality intersect with role playing the way it did two Sundays ago in Bob Woodward’s living room.

Meeting him there were Carl Bernstein, his writing partner at The Washington Post during the Watergate scandal in the 1970s; Ben Bradlee, their top editor at the time; and Robert Redford, the actor who played Mr. Woodward in “All the President’s Men,” the 1976 film that dramatized The Post’s presidential detective work.

Jokes were cracked about the four decades that had passed since Watergate — “You guys, we’re really lucky we recognize each other,” Mr. Redford said — but the men were together for a serious reason. Mr. Redford was starting work on another project on Watergate, this time as a documentarian.

Commissioned by the Discovery Channel, the project, “All the President’s Men Revisited,” will be a two-hour television documentary about the scandal that doomed Richard M. Nixon’s presidency and will explore its effects on politics and the media in the 40 years since. It will have its premiere in 2013 but will be announced by Discovery this week at its annual presentation for advertisers.

“To be able to pull the fabricated and the real together, for the first time, is kind of a juicy opportunity for us,” Eileen O’Neill, the president of Discovery, said in an interview.

Discovery’s interest speaks to the enduring news media fascination with the scandal, which seems to inspire a new television special every 5 to 10 years. Discovery’s previous effort, a collaboration with the BBC, was a five-part series in 1994. The fixation endures in part, said Stanley I. Kutler, a pre-eminent Watergate historian, because “of all the presidents in the last 50 years, it is Nixon that’s the most interesting.”

For Mr. Redford the project represents the start of Sundance Productions, a new business that will make shows for television and the Web. His producing partner in the business will be Laura Michalchyshyn, a former executive at Discovery Communications and the Sundance Channel. Mr. Redford remains the creative head of that channel, but he sold his ownership stake in it four years ago; going forward, he said, his production company will be pitching shows to many channels.

“Television is just booming,” said Mr. Redford, who had a few television roles in the early 1960s before shifting to film, his medium of choice since then. On Monday, on a break from post-production of “The Company You Keep,” a thriller he directed and starred in about former members of the Weather Underground, he sounded passionate in a phone interview about the Watergate documentary, which he will produce and narrate.

Sometimes in life, he said, there’s reason not to look back, but as he talked through Watergate and its consequences in Mr. Woodward’s living room in Washington, he said, he felt increasingly confident that “it’s the right time to take a look at this moment in history to inform the present.”

Mr. Woodward, in a separate interview, said that the men discussed: “What’s the legacy of Watergate? What do we understand? What are some of the lessons? It’s been a long time.”

The answers not only change over time, but they also remain up for debate. One of Nixon’s wars, Mr. Woodward said, “is a war against history” — intentionally speaking in the present tense. He cited a book review in The Wall Street Journal two months ago by Frank Gannon, a former Nixon aide, who asserted that many questions about the scandal remain unresolved. “How did a politician as tough and canny as Richard Nixon allow himself to be brought down by a ‘third-rate burglary’?” Mr. Gannon wrote. “Your guess is as good as mine.”

Mr. Woodward was having none of it. “The voluminous record shows that there are answers to some of those questions,” he said. “When I read the review, I thought, the war continues, and it should be met with facts.”

He said he had guided Mr. Redford and the other executive producer of “All the President’s Men Revisited,” the media executive Andy Lack, to new material about the scandal, like information about the 2005 disclosure of Mark Felt, the onetime associate F.B.I. director, as the so-called Deep Throat source. The producers also plan to seek interviews with politicians and media leaders.

Ms. Michalchyshyn called the documentary “a look back, but it’s very much a look forward as well” at changes in the journalism industry, in campaign finance regulations and in political discourse, among other subjects.

The documentary comes as Discovery appears to be trying to out-history the History channel, a chief competitor, which has set ratings records with shows that stray far from the confines of history, like the reality show “Pawn Stars.”

Ms. O’Neill, Discovery’s president, said she had directed the channel’s staff to “make sure that we’re delivering in the history space,” particularly in what she called “baby boomer history.” In the presentation to advertisers this week her channel will promote specials about Amelia Earhart, Area 51 and Osama bin Laden, as well as “The Gatekeepers,” a series about White House chiefs of staff — including Nixon’s. H. R. Haldeman died in 1993, and Alexander Haig died in 2010; in their place, the producers have interviewed Mr. Haldeman’s deputy, Lawrence Higby.

This article has been revised to reflect the following correction:

Correction: April 4, 2012 

An article on Tuesday about plans for a documentary about Watergate on the Discovery Channel next year, which mentioned a series the channel has also planned for next year about White House chiefs of staff, including Alexander M. Haig Jr., misstated the year Mr. Haig died. It was 2010, not 2004.