A few months ago, I had the idea to create an iPhone app that would give me (us) compliments. It turns out that as humans, not only are we sensitive to rude remarks from strangers, but we are also very excited when we get kind words, even if they are just random; they just make us feel much better, even if these strangers don’t know us very well.

At a boy! is a completely free app, and you can find it here.

HOW TO USE: when you open the app you get a compliment and if you want a new one simply tap the screen.  To get a new compliment, simply tap the screen. I do want to encourage you to use the thumbs up/down to let me know which compliments make you feel the best — this way we will be able to figure out what kinds of compliments work better and worse.

Most important, users of At a boy! can submit their own compliments for other users to read: just tap the pen icon and type one in.

Here, for example, is a compliment that a French-speaking user of our app submitted (if you can please submit compliments also in English):

Doesn’t that make you feel good to read? We’ve had a few dozen great compliments already submitted, and we could always use more!

By the way, did I tell you that you look very nice today and that you are very clever?

Irrationally yours

Dan

The New York Times Sunday Book Review, just published a review of the Upside of Irrationality.

In general I think that the review is very good, but there is one point that made me wonder (and of course I focused on the one point that was less positive in the review).

One of the main differences between “The Upside” and PI is that this time around I wrote in a much more personal way about some of my experiences and how they got me thinking differently about different aspects of life (dating, adaptation, pain etc). It was very hard to write this way, and while writing I kept on wondering if this is a good approach to write or not.  The reviewer from the NYT reaction was that I was overly personal in my descriptions, and maybe she was correct…

Either way it would be nice to find out the reaction to this approach — is writing in a more personal way, useful or distracting?  I would love to get any feedback on this.

Thanks

Irrationally yours

Dan

This is an exciting day (but also a bit nerve-racking).

After a lot of hard work, “The Upside of Irrationality” is finally out, and now all I can do is to stand by and see how people react to it.  The Upside of Irrationality covers different topics from Predictably Irrational, but it is also much more personal (hence the nerve-racking part).

Here is a short intro to this book, and if you end up reading it, let me know what you think:

I am going to be on a book tour for a few weeks, and here is a list of places that I will give talks at:

NEW YORK

TUESDAY, JUNE 1; 7:00 pm

B&N

2289 Broadway at 82^nd Street

SAN FRANCISCO

THURSDAY, JUNE 3, 7:30PM

Berkeley Arts & Letters

Hillside Club

2286 Cedar Street

Berkeley CA 94709

MONDAY JUNE 7, 7:30PM

The Booksmith

1644 Haight Street

San Francisco CA 94117

SEATTLE

TUESDAY JUNE 8, 7:30PM

Town Hall Seattle

1119 8th Avenue

Seattle, WA

WEDNESDAY, JUNE 9, Noon

Chamber of Commerce lunch

Rainier Square Conference Center

5th and University

BOSTON

THURSDAY, JUNE 10, 6:00PM

Brattle Theater

40 Brattle Street

Cambridge

WASHINGTON, D.C.

SATURDAY, JUNE 12, 3:30PM

Politics & Prose

5015 Connecticut Avenue NW

ST. LOUIS

MONDAY, JUNE 14, 7:00PM

St. Louis County Library

1640 S. Lindbergh Blvd.

CHARLOTTE NC

TUESDAY, JUNE 15, 7:00PM

Joseph Beth Booksellers

4345 Barclay Downs Dr.

DURHAM NC

MONDAY, JULY 19, 7:00PM

Regulator Bookstore

720 9th Street
Durham, NC

After a short break, my podcast (Arming the Donkeys) is back..

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This week, my guest is Talma Hendler, founder and director of the Functional Brain Center at Tel Aviv University. She talks about solders and stress, including new research into how we can predict which soldiers may be most susceptible to conditions like PTSD.

April 29th — happy birthday to me.

Here are some reflections on Shaving, Squash, Sunk cost, and the “pain of paying”

Irrationally yours

Dan

As of today the paperback version of PI is out.

I took out the parts about the stock market, and added 2 new chapters: one about the effects of social norms, and one about the cycle distrust in marketers and markets.

Sadly I cannot distribute these digitally, but if you are every in a book store or a library (or if you think that this worth $10) ….

Irrationally yours

Dan

Here is the cover of my new book. Look for it June 1, 2010!

Finally, after a long time I got a new placebo — thanks to my mother.

What a relief…

Predictably Irrational was published two years ago today

Mazal Tov

It has been an amazing two years

Dan

One of our readers, Ms. Justine Chiu, has sent me two fantastic pictures of her Predictably Irrational outfit. If anybody else has fun ideas for how to dress Irrationally, please email them to me and I’ll put some more pictures up on my blog.