Urnial flies aren’t just for grown-up guys

Julie Power, a Nudge blog reader with 7-year-old twins, knows that boys can be even messier than men. As she points out, “Most moms know nagging kids only backfires. They end up deaf to everything. And harassing boys about peeing straight is a losing battle.” Inspired by reading Nudge in her book club, Julie set out to adapt the urinal fly lesson to her home. She writes about the mission in the blog Moms to Work.

I wrote AIM in big red sharpie on the wall of the toilet bowl…in a spot cannily designed not to splash the seat or rim above.

It worked. The smell and odor has improved.

Spillage, not the word we use at home, has decreased markedly.

Only problem, my Sharpie pen keeps washing off. Next time, I’m going to try putting a sticker on the back of the toilet.

Latest urinal fly sighting – Santa Monica, California

At a public restroom along the ocean. Actually, it’s a bee.

What is “urine sauvage”? A problem for Paris

What’s more amazing? The fact that Paris, France, has a special “elite” force known as the Brigade des Incivilités, or Bad Behavior Brigade? Or the fact that Paris, France, considered some aggressive choice architecture as part of its war on public urination? The basic problem: Parisians were going…everywhere. City architect Etienne Vanderpooten thought a little splash-back might nudge them.

In 2005, Mr. Vanderpooten unveiled a design for an anti-pipi wall, a jagged surface that splashes urine back onto the unzipped offender. The prototype was attached to a wall in one of the most affected areas at the time — a street called the Cour des Petites Ecuries on Paris’ Right Bank. Mr. Vanderpooten says he often goes by to check on his experiment: “The people who used to pee there don’t pee in the same place anymore.” The city has no immediate plans to erect more of the walls.

Hat tip: Tom Vanderbilt (two in a row!)

Addendum: “Urine sauvage” is translated as wild urine.

Urinals part IX

In Iceland, instead of flies, it’s bankers who fled the country following the financial meltdown.

Hat tip: Peter Warnock.

Urinals part VIII

Monica Hamburg sends over another goodie. Bring on the bathroom graffiti. Poetry, at least in Japan, can cut down on toilet paper usage.

A study by the research center Japan Toilet Labo showed that it can make a big difference – cutting down paper use by 20%. Written poetically, the posters send messages like: “That paper will meet you only for a moment,” “Fold the paper over and over and over again,” and “Love the toilet.”

Researchers said that toilet paper usage has been increasing in Japan as of late, and they hypothesize it’s because it’s free – people scrimp when they’re at home. So they’re pushing to have 1,000 posters put in public stalls to encourage people to cut down on how much toilet paper the use as one more small step to save the planet.

Assorted links

1) Pepsi is calculating the carbon footprints of popular food products like Tropicana orange juice, Quaker granola bars, and Pepsi cola. No plans yet to put those footprints on its boxes, a la Sapporo.

2) More on credit cards. Companies will change interest rates depending on where you shop. They call it behavioral financing. The minimum payment acts as an anchor, but companies don’t want to anchor you on such a low number that you pile up so much interest that you go bankrupt. They want to push your debt load right up to the penultimate straw that breaks the camel’s back. Ahem, yours.

3) A Council of Economic Advisers? How about a Council of Psychological Advisers, says one psychologist.

4) A German group adapts the fly-in-the-urinal idea to Bulimia. Reducing it, that is. Hat tip: John Hsu.

Assorted links

More college cafeterias are eliminating trays. Unfortunately, Time Magazine decided to call this decision an act of “war,” vitiating the editorial judgment of its headline writers.

Tim Harford and Pete Lunn debate the impact of behavioral economics in the Prospect (the U.K. version), which reviewed the book in July. Harford says behavioral economics isn’t a big deal; Lunn says it is.
Addendum: Harford also wrote a column for the Financial Times cautioning Tories about their eager embrace of “nudging,” and distinguishing it from libertarian paternalism.

Do behavioral biases affect the macroeconomy? The punch line: “Collectively, our evidence indicates that the high risk sharing potential of financial markets is not fully realized because the aggregate behavioral biases of individual investors impede state-level risk sharing.” (Hat tip: Mostly Economics)

One of the cheapest ways to channel your anger at the IRS.

Urinals part VII

Dean Karlan sends along this photo from the Bali airport as an example of poor urinal choice architecture. Think of it as the Balinese equivalent of putting a sports page above a urinal at a bar.

Urinals part VI: An interview with mr. www.urinalfly.com

With so many sightings of flies in urinals around the world, some readers have wondered about the urinal entrepreneurs enabling this choice architecture. Meet Doug Kempel, engineer and owner of Urinal Fly, aka. the “Fly Guy,” who sells flies, trees, and rifle-scoped targets for the benefit of men and janitors everywhere. (Price: Starting at 4 flies for $4.99 up to 100 for $59.99.)

Kempel also gives away a free four-pack of flies (like the one shown at the right) to anyone who asks, and advertises spillage reductions of up to 85 percent, slightly more than the results from the Amsterdam Airport experiment. Kempel, whose office is in Colorado, agreed to answer some questions about the flies, his elevator pitch, and where business is booming.

Continue reading the post here.