[HN Gopher] You almost never see a clock at the mall
       ___________________________________________________________________
        
       You almost never see a clock at the mall
        
       Author : brycehalley
       Score  : 115 points
       Date   : 2024-02-25 12:31 UTC (10 hours ago)
        
 (HTM) web link (thehustle.co)
 (TXT) w3m dump (thehustle.co)
        
       | 082349872349872 wrote:
       | Sounds like "infinite scroll" (and maybe even "personalised
       | feed"?) were anticipated well before the smart phone
       | ("fondleslab") era?
        
         | ivanjermakov wrote:
         | I'm surprised tiktok/reels/shorts don't go fullscreen and hide
         | status bar with clock.
        
       | boomboomsubban wrote:
       | I like that they wrote this fine article, decided they needed to
       | jazz it up a bit with some graphs, then decided to further make
       | it pop by having seemingly the author pose as a topless DJ and a
       | trumpeter.
        
       | coldtea wrote:
       | What about at a store selling clocks in the Mall?
        
         | dynisor wrote:
         | I worked selling watches for a time in my life and we were
         | instructed that every watch on display had to be set and
         | stopped at 10:10. Looking that up it seems to not have been
         | specific to just the company I worked for.[1] So, counter-
         | intuitively, a store selling clocks at the mall might not have
         | the time displayed either. :)
         | 
         | [1]
         | https://www.frontiersin.org/journals/psychology/articles/10....
        
           | bitbckt wrote:
           | Fascinating. I don't remember where I picked up the same
           | habit of setting broken clocks to 10:10, but I do the same
           | with a couple of grandfather clocks I own for sentimental
           | reasons.
        
             | lambertsimnel wrote:
             | British comedian Dave Gorman claims the clocks are set to
             | that time (actually 10.08 in his example), because that
             | makes them look happy, and they sell better that way:
             | 
             | https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uSCRifY0H3Y
        
         | klyrs wrote:
         | Mall stores aren't selling high-end timepieces. If the clocks
         | are running, they will visibly disagree unless you pay somebody
         | to handle all of the merch every day, time that could be better
         | spent looking bored.
        
           | coldtea wrote:
           | > _Mall stores aren 't selling high-end timepieces_
           | 
           | Depends on the mall. I've certainly seen 5K and 10K
           | timepieces in mall stores. In some places abroad even seen
           | 100K timepieces next to high end clothing stores in malls.
           | 
           | > _If the clocks are running, they will visibly disagree_
           | 
           | Well, going the "low-end timepieces" case, the ones working
           | with GPS or NTP time sync, like Apple watches and sports
           | stuff will be on time...
        
             | klyrs wrote:
             | Sure, there will exceptions to any statement such general
             | statement. By and large the majority of mall-clock
             | offerings are going to be of the low-end variety. And even
             | when clocks are remotely synced, you still need somebody
             | going through and changing the batteries. Much cheaper to
             | just set them to 10:10 and leave them unpowered/unwound.
        
               | jerlam wrote:
               | I'd be surprised if I went to buy a watch in a store and
               | they handed me a dead watch. How do I know it even works?
               | If they offered to replace the battery when I purchased
               | it, I would take my business elseware, since I don't know
               | if I trust their ability to change a battery correctly.
        
           | WWLink wrote:
           | The most accurate timepiece is usually the one with a cheap
           | quartz crystal mechanism lol.
        
         | biscuits1 wrote:
         | They are correct twice daily. Frozen at 10:08!
        
       | hcks wrote:
       | Has the author tried the trick called free will
        
         | bsdpufferfish wrote:
         | A store owner does a marketing survey to find out what kind of
         | music customers might like. The narrative is that he turns on a
         | mind control device that makes you buy 5% more.
         | 
         | With the debunking of "Thinking fast, and slow" this branch of
         | psychology has hopefully run its course.
        
           | selectodude wrote:
           | I assure you behavioral economics has not run its course.
        
             | bsdpufferfish wrote:
             | That's pretty broad. I am referring to the style of
             | analysis that heavily attributes slight environmental
             | priming over all others factors (character, education,
             | religion, mood, etc).
        
           | T3OU-736 wrote:
           | "Thinking, Fast and Slow" has been debunked? Could you
           | provide a bit more context?
        
             | Strilanc wrote:
             | "Thinking, Fast and Slow" was written before the
             | replication crisis was found. I wouldn't call it
             | "debunked", but some of the research it used didn't
             | replicate. For example, see
             | https://replicationindex.com/2020/12/30/a-meta-scientific-
             | pe... :
             | 
             | > _It is likely that Kahneman's book, or at least some of
             | his chapters, would be very different from the actual book,
             | if it had been written just a few years later. However, in
             | 2011 most psychologists believed that most published
             | results in their journals can be trusted. [...]_
             | 
             | > _Kahneman also started to wonder whether some of the
             | results that he used in his book were real. A major concern
             | was that implicit priming results might not be replicable.
             | [...]_
             | 
             | Anyways, just google "thinking fast and slow replication
             | crisis" to get a bunch of information about this topic.
        
             | bsdpufferfish wrote:
             | I don't have links handy but the gist of it is that regular
             | people do not automatically interpret questions asked of
             | them in a technical manner (carefully parsing AND and OR
             | logically), but instead try to intuit the asker's intent
             | based on context.
             | 
             | So many of the studies concluded that the general
             | population is unable to reason about trivial problems
             | involving likelihood. However, when given more context
             | about what's being asked, they absolutely can.
        
         | sidewndr46 wrote:
         | I pretty much quit reading this when I read "emotional part" of
         | your brain. As if the brain has explicit distinct parts with
         | complete barriers between them and that they are selectively
         | turned on and off. We're not unemotional when making logical
         | decisions nor completely irrational when emotional moments
         | occur. If human consicousness were so simple we wouldn't bother
         | studying it.
        
         | HeatrayEnjoyer wrote:
         | Marketing works because free will is illusory. Humans are not
         | tht free agents they believe themselves to be.
        
           | bigstrat2003 wrote:
           | I make choices of my own free will all the time. Also,
           | marketing doesn't work on me (never has) so I'm not
           | particularly impressed by the claims that it works.
        
             | resolutebat wrote:
             | Please allow Miranda Priestley to disabuse you of that
             | notion:
             | 
             | https://youtu.be/Ja2fgquYTCg?feature=shared
        
       | karaterobot wrote:
       | > After 40 minutes, their brains effectively shut down. They
       | struggled to make any logical decisions.
       | 
       | I'm dubious. I haven't read the study they take this conclusion
       | from, but it does not accord with my experience of the world.
       | Your brain shuts down after 40 minutes in a supermarket, really?
       | Anyway, it's about supermarkets and not malls, and most of the
       | other evidence in this article is about casinos. Thin soup.
        
         | sidewndr46 wrote:
         | The article says "Using MRIs to gauge". I've never seen a
         | supermarket with an MRI. I have a seen a mall with an MRI, but
         | it was more of an opportune space. It didn't face inwards into
         | the mall concourse but was on the end.
         | 
         | So in other words, the study probably took people from a mall
         | or supermarket after a set amount of time and MRI'd them in
         | exchange for $25 or something. I really doubt they measured
         | anything relevant here.
        
           | tzs wrote:
           | They put people in an MRI and then asked them to decide
           | between various discounts and buy-one-get-one-free offers
           | like they would face in a supermarket.
        
             | dylan604 wrote:
             | Because the experience of shopping in a super market or a
             | mall is similar to laying in an MRI making all sorts of
             | loud and disturbing noises? How they can even attempt to
             | draw these conclusions is just farcical to me
        
               | throwup238 wrote:
               | Obligatory dead salmon study link:
               | https://blogs.scientificamerican.com/scicurious-
               | brain/ignobe...
               | 
               | fMRI studies are largely bullshit in the best of times.
               | Using it to study an abstract effect is doubly so.
        
               | verve_rat wrote:
               | From your link:
               | 
               | > Some people like to use the salmon study as proof that
               | fMRI is woo, but this isn't the case, it's actually a
               | study to show the importance of correcting your stats.
        
         | bbarnett wrote:
         | It's a mall, not a supermarket. Huge difference. Just look at
         | these shoppers, and you'll understand.
         | 
         | https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AgD0DkS7l6A
        
         | ryanjshaw wrote:
         | You (and I) are in the minority I think. The only time I browse
         | a shop is when looking for a unique gift. Otherwise I go into
         | the mall with a shopping list, get what I intended to get and
         | leave. I don't think I've ever bought an item on clothing on a
         | whim. I also can't stand casinos, I find the manipulative
         | atmosphere disturbing.
        
         | DavidWoof wrote:
         | If you follow through to the study, they displayed products on
         | a screen to people in an MRI scanner, and asked them to
         | evaluate the offers they were seeing. Unsurprisingly, after
         | about 40 minutes their minds start to wander. Because in some
         | warped researchers mind, being in the dark staring at a screen
         | for an hour is _exactly_ like being walking through a
         | supermarket.
         | 
         | Sociology studies are such a joke.
        
       | effed3 wrote:
       | This apply not only the mall, even in a museum, disco, party,
       | crowds, time perception will be altered, i suspet the key is in
       | the moltitude moving around the person, this can be distracting,
       | dimming the simple original task we have entering... random
       | observation: mall with sad music sell better than those with
       | happy music.. and so on. And this work in large numbers, having
       | thousand entering such environments and with a substantial part
       | being less or more influenced.
        
         | Solvency wrote:
         | This guy's entire post history is incoherent word salad from
         | what appears to be a 1992 LLM bot.
        
           | joebob42 wrote:
           | Wow thank you for pointing out. It's definitely an
           | interesting read
        
           | amenhotep wrote:
           | This is such a rude thing to say. He has a very idiosyncratic
           | style and makes a number of typos or errors, but his posts
           | are quite clearly understandable imo and much more apposite
           | and interesting than LLM output.
        
             | Solvency wrote:
             | "Interesting article. Maybe taxes on (some)
             | capitals/property is (quite) equivalent to expiration.
             | Money (value) accumulated that not contribute to
             | development (probably) must be taxed, to enter it in the
             | development cycle. But made it expiring seems a waste of
             | value, decreasing it's value with time maybe is better, to
             | avoid it, must be invested in something productive.."
             | 
             | Things (like) this set off (my) suspicion radar.
        
           | mike_hock wrote:
           | Sounds more like Engrish to me, but I did get what he wanted
           | to say:
           | 
           | - It's not limited to malls and casinos but applies to many
           | other businesses
           | 
           | - All the commotion distracts you from the task you
           | originally had in mind when you entered the store
           | 
           | - The effect is seen in large numbers of customers, i.e. it's
           | a statistical effect.
        
       | nickjj wrote:
       | From the article:
       | 
       |  _> Retail stores also use sound and music to manipulate the
       | environment. A study from the early 1980s showed that slow-tempo
       | music led to shoppers moving more slowly through the store and
       | spending more money than if fast-tempo music played._
       | 
       | I wonder how big this sample size was. The linked study is locked
       | behind a login. The public page indicates maybe it was only 52
       | stores and it was done by surveying the managers of the store.
       | They even explicitly mention it was a "belief". Too bad the next
       | few sentences are behind a login because it sounds like that
       | would shed more context.
       | 
       | One of the local grocery stores here will play a bunch of 80s
       | hits. They play Eye of the Tiger regularly. That song is one of
       | the most purpose driven songs ever. If you had a mission to pick
       | up 7 items in your list you can be sure you'll be done in record
       | time.
       | 
       | I will say this though, I've absolutely stayed longer in a store
       | because I wanted to wait until I heard a specific part of a song
       | but that feeling is completely unrelated to buying things.
        
         | sillywalk wrote:
         | > One of the local grocery stores here will play a bunch of 80s
         | hits. They play Eye of the Tiger regularly. That song is one of
         | the most purpose driven songs ever. If you had a mission to
         | pick up 7 items in your list you can be sure you'll be done in
         | record time.
         | 
         | As somebody who likes to finish their grocery shopping quickly,
         | I picture myself in a video montage with that song as the
         | soundtrack.
         | 
         | Sidenote: I felt old when I heard Gangsta's Paradise being
         | played in a grocery store about 10 years ago.
        
           | Smoosh wrote:
           | Been spending most our lives
           | 
           | walking up and down in aisle 5
        
           | koolba wrote:
           | > I felt old when I heard Gangsta's Paradise being played in
           | a grocery store about 10 years ago.
           | 
           | What store was it?
        
             | sillywalk wrote:
             | A Metro (or maybe it was still A&P) in London, Ontario.
        
           | spc476 wrote:
           | It won't be long until Nine Inch Nails starts playing at
           | nursing homes.
        
         | matham wrote:
         | What you're quoting is their literature review, not _their_
         | study. Their study was:
         | 
         | >... conducted in a medium-size store operated by a large,
         | nationally known chain of supermarkets ... The study covered a
         | nine-week period starting on January 28 and ending on March 31,
         | 1980...
         | 
         | ... M0=no music, M1=slow, M2=fast music...
         | 
         | ...they measured (1) traffic speed (2) daily gross sales (3)...
         | 
         | ...for (1) they found: traffic flow was significantly slower
         | with the slow tempo music (Ml mean = 127.53 seconds) than for
         | the faster tempo music (M2 mean = 108.93 seconds) ... Ml
         | stimulated an even slower pace than no music (a mean of 127.53
         | seconds for Ml compared to a mean of 119.86 for Mo), although
         | not statistically significant...
         | 
         | ...for (2) they found: The higher sales volumes were
         | consistently associated with the slower tempo musical
         | selections while in contrast, the lower sales figures were
         | consistently associated with the faster tempo music (MI mean =
         | $16,740.23 compared with M2 mean = $12,112.85). This difference
         | is significant...
        
         | triceratops wrote:
         | According to at least one store manager interviewed in
         | _Grocery: The Buying and Selling of Food in America_ , the
         | employees at the store are responsible for selecting music
         | because they're the ones who have to listen to it all day.
         | There isn't a lot of deeper thought going into it.
        
           | bobthepanda wrote:
           | it's not quite that simple, because stores play music they
           | have licensed. And of course during the holiday season the
           | employees are subject to a lot of songs they most likely
           | never want to hear again, like the prolific Mariah Carey and
           | Wham songs.
        
         | tetris11 wrote:
         | N=1, I've definitely tried to work in coffee shops during the
         | christmas period that played the same obnoxious christmas songs
         | on a loop to drive the customers out.
        
       | drcode wrote:
       | You almost never see a clock anywhere
       | 
       | except in places where people aren't allowed to check their
       | phones
       | 
       | (such as in schools or certain types of work spaces or a
       | therapist office)
        
         | grecy wrote:
         | I don't have a phone, and it's always an interesting exercise
         | to either try to find a clock, or ask someone for the time.
         | 
         | Thankfully there is no cell reception at our local ski
         | mountain, so nobody carries a phone, and clocks are prominent.
        
           | SoftTalker wrote:
           | There's a thing called a wristwatch that solves your problem.
        
           | BadHumans wrote:
           | Why not just get a watch at that point?
        
             | nfieidnrn wrote:
             | not whimsical and quirky enough
        
             | analog31 wrote:
             | Anecdotally I wear a watch and the ski mountain is one
             | place where it's a lot more convenient to glance at the
             | clocks the bottom of the lifts.
        
             | bluGill wrote:
             | I hate the feeling of something on my wrist. I used to have
             | a pocket watch, but once cell phones became pocket sized I
             | switched.
        
           | pquki4 wrote:
           | I am pretty certain of two things
           | 
           | (1) many still carry a phone despite not having cell
           | reception because it is convenient and many use their phones
           | to take pictures (2) many have an Apple watch/other
           | smartwatch/dumbwatch on their wrist
        
             | jerlam wrote:
             | I would still carry my phone into a place I already know to
             | not have reception. I would want to check my messages when
             | the phone does get signal and someone may have been trying
             | to contact me. Also, it is reasonably secure on my person.
             | Leaving it in a car or locker increases the chance it will
             | get lost or stolen.
             | 
             | People still carry their phones on airplanes, even though
             | we're not even allowed to turn on the cell antenna.
             | Although now we have onboard wifi.
        
         | twic wrote:
         | And at railway stations, although there are somehow never
         | enough clocks at railway stations.
        
         | tsol wrote:
         | This article might have made more sense a few decades ago.
         | They're no longer considered as expected as they once were
        
         | robomc wrote:
         | but also... my local mall, here and where I used to live, both
         | have clocks
        
       | schindlabua wrote:
       | I was without a phone for a month last year and it made me
       | realize that there aren't clocks _anywhere_ anymore. And if they
       | are, they 're not working.
        
       | flembat wrote:
       | Just as well given that no two clocks in a modern town centre
       | ever agree with each other.
        
       | jeffgreco wrote:
       | Where _do_ you see clocks?
        
       | biscuits1 wrote:
       | You almost always see an abandoned mall in an American suburb.
        
         | biscuits1 wrote:
         | "Time is passing, are you?"
         | 
         | You almost always see a Simplex Clock in each American
         | classroom. How about we remove them - what would be the effect?
        
           | sgbeal wrote:
           | > How about we remove them - what would be the effect?
           | 
           | It would eliminate the only reason kids have to _want_ to be
           | able to read an analog clock ;).
        
         | jabroni_salad wrote:
         | The mall might be abandoned, but the tj maxx is still thriving
         | and the psychological concept is the same.
        
       | sgbeal wrote:
       | Where does anyone actually see a clock nowadays? i haven't had a
       | clock in my home since i threw out my digital alarm clock when
       | moving in 2004.
        
         | bigstrat2003 wrote:
         | I see plenty of clocks in people's homes. Libraries too. I
         | don't think they're all that uncommon.
        
         | nottorp wrote:
         | Hm i have a wall clock in the living room, one in my home
         | office and one of those alarm clocks that project the time on
         | the ceiling in the bedroom. Mind, the wall clocks are mostly
         | decoration, it's only the bedroom one that really gets any use.
         | 
         | Even you probably have a clock on the microwave and the coffee
         | machine in the kitchen :)
        
         | WWLink wrote:
         | I just got one for my desk. Sure the time is on the corner of
         | my computer screen, and on my watch and my phone, but I'm not
         | wearing my watch right now and my phones are just chilling on
         | my desk. I can see the clock from across the room.
         | 
         | I have a clock in my bedroom, too. It has a cute rainbow light
         | frame that serves as a nice little ambient night light. Since
         | the plug is behind my bed I unplug it when there's lightning
         | nearby, and those nights I end up missing my clock.
        
       | someperson wrote:
       | A lot of the tricks described in the article are relevant to
       | programmers trying to achieve flow state.
        
       | cafard wrote:
       | The mall? These days I almost never see a mall.
       | 
       | And in age when everybody carries a cell phone, how important is
       | a clock?
        
       | Kwpolska wrote:
       | Ever heard of wristwatches? Or phones that show the current time
       | prominently on the lock screen?
        
       | justsomehnguy wrote:
       | Since ~2003 I didn't wear a watch, because I always had a _clock_
       | with me.
       | 
       | But a decade+ later I wear them again, because the process of
       | checking the current time on the wrist watches is one of the
       | easiest[0] and less obstructive things. So if I need to track the
       | time then I just need to have a vague idea of it in my mind and
       | therefore I would just occasionally look it up and have at least
       | some understanding of how much time I spent doing something.
       | Well, most of the time. Doesn't work good in a bar, but still
       | _does_ work.
       | 
       | And for the shops/mall and whatever - just write a goddamn list
       | of the items beforehand! Be it a paper list[1] or an app in your
       | _mobile clock you always have on you_ , you would check out the
       | items in no time and (if you are living not in the US) you would
       | even know how much you would spend on it even before you enter
       | the shop.
       | 
       | [0] well, partially, because I wear black Axiom, heh
       | 
       | [1] I recently bought a thin pocket sized notebook (not moleskin!
       | soft cover) and an automatic pencil. Yes, a decade+ later. The
       | most amusing situation was recently when I needed to do some
       | explanations, the notebook (14", an electronic one) was on the
       | last breath, phone was on the charger quite far away and I just
       | casually pull out that paper notebook and a pencil - my visavi
       | just burst out laughing. The best part is what yes, the pen on
       | paper did make the _explanations_ fast and easy!
        
       | buggeryorkshire wrote:
       | I used to live in Cheltenham UK, and one of the malls there had
       | this clock as a feature
       | https://www.regentarcade.co.uk/LocalInformation
        
         | pricechild wrote:
         | I always see someone post that before Telford's:
         | https://www.atlasobscura.com/places/the-frog-clock
        
           | buggeryorkshire wrote:
           | Ha, it's the same artist who did both, TiL.
        
         | anotheruser13 wrote:
         | Quite a few Japanese malls and department stores have very
         | intricate clocks.
        
       | 486sx33 wrote:
       | Las Vegas used to be a lot more strict about no cellphones
       | (camera phones). As you were not allowed to take photos or video
       | inside a casino. At some point the tsunami of every phone has a
       | camera, and the Japanese tourists who take pictures and video
       | everything sort of took over.
       | 
       | I always figured it was partly to avoid the clocks and keep you
       | in the fantasy.
        
         | pizzafeelsright wrote:
         | As someone who got thrown out for camera and video it was the
         | thoughts of exploiting to cheat.
         | 
         | After the casinos were saturated, the enforcement changed.
        
           | bluGill wrote:
           | There have been machines where the random number generator
           | was predictable. The solution was petter random numbers.
        
             | whaleofatw2022 wrote:
             | It's a weird industry. I only know a little about it from a
             | friend that worked for the gaming commission of our
             | state...
             | 
             | But fun fact, the code (at least in my state) gets audited
             | and one of the things they were doing even 15ish years ago
             | was pulling EEPROMs out and running through a machine to
             | make sure the final hash is an approved, audited progam
             | validated to have fair payout logic.
        
               | pizzafeelsright wrote:
               | State controlled - yes. Indian/Native American land or
               | International waters? Not State controlled.
        
         | mixmastamyk wrote:
         | Concert tickets in the US at least used to feature "NO CAMERAS
         | ALLOWED" prominently. I forget exactly when that fell by the
         | wayside but believe it was around 2010 or so.
        
           | buildsjets wrote:
           | Now it is frequently "No removable lens cameras", which seems
           | like a reasonable restriction.
        
           | bobthepanda wrote:
           | In ye olden days it was supposed to be preserving the
           | ambiance and protecting likeness.
           | 
           | In the modern (American) music industry people have realized
           | that
           | 
           | * your average concertgoer phone shot video is too crappy to
           | make much of an impact on that
           | 
           | * the whales who spend money on merch/etc at concerts will
           | happily pay for a production quality movie of a concert
           | regardless of the existence of these crap videos (e.g. recent
           | Taylor Swift and Beyonce concert movies)
           | 
           | * at best these videos also drive the desirability of going
           | to concerts up, boosting the main way artists make money
           | 
           | In countries like South Korea and Japan they still very much
           | focus on protecting the likeness and so cameras are banned
        
       | delduca wrote:
       | Same for casinos.
        
       | g-b-r wrote:
       | Well anecdotally I did find it harder to find clocks in malls
       | than other places, some years ago, at times when e.g. the phone
       | was dead (and even in watch stores they're most of the times set
       | at random hours)
        
         | xethos wrote:
         | > even in watch stores they're most of the times set at random
         | hours
         | 
         | I can't imagine the proprietor showing, rather decisively,
         | which of his products drift. Especially considering half the
         | time, you can't tell how long ago it was set (within the
         | current DST season or not), and so how much it drifts per day
        
           | WWLink wrote:
           | IDK. I've been in a timex store before where they actually
           | DID put the same time on all the watches. Of course
           | pranksters would enable the alarm on a lot of those watches
           | lol.
        
       | Tade0 wrote:
       | I noticed this as well, but to me a mall is less like a casino
       | and more like a simulated city - with notable exception of a
       | clocktower, which is nowhere to be seen.
       | 
       | Early designs show this in detail, as they were more like
       | sections of cities with skylights between the buildings:
       | 
       | https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Galleria_Umberto_I
        
       | DonHopkins wrote:
       | >Retail stores also use sound and music to manipulate the
       | environment. A study from the early 1980s showed that slow-tempo
       | music led to shoppers moving more slowly through the store and
       | spending more money than if fast-tempo music played. (There
       | wasn't a huge difference in results between slow-tempo music and
       | no music at all.)
       | 
       | >"It's almost mood maintenance," says Theodore Noseworthy, a York
       | University business professor who has studied the impacts of
       | sound. "They're trying to keep you in this positive state and
       | almost in flow [so] that if you're shopping, [you] just stay
       | shopping."
       | 
       | Dawn Of The Dead - Mall Music Collection / George A. Romero /
       | 1978 / Horror Movie Music
       | 
       | https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=t1NWcGZGD-M
       | 
       | >Unlike any other video on YouTube, this mall music collection
       | provides all tracks heard within the Monroeville Mall in George
       | Romero's 1978 zombie classic 'Dawn Of The Dead'. Finding the best
       | quality for these tracks let alone their full versions wasn't
       | easy. After a lot of research and editing, I give you the best I
       | could put together. This cliche Muzak really makes the film what
       | it is and captures a sense of slapstick comedy very much present
       | in the movie. As far as I'm aware, these were real tracks heard
       | in the actual mall back in the 1970s.                   TRACK
       | LISTING (HEARD IN ORDER OF APPEARANCE):               1.
       | Victorian Vintage         2. Shopping Music #1         3.
       | Shopping Music #2         4. African Drums         5. We Are The
       | Champions         6. Ragtime Razzamatazz         7. Tango Tango
       | 8. Fugarock         9. Restaurant music         10. The Gonk
       | 
       | (The Gonk is by far the zombiest:
       | https://youtu.be/t1NWcGZGD-M?t=1051 )
        
       | stephenr wrote:
       | I was once onsite at a casino for basically 7 days straight
       | (barring trips off site for breakfast and some dinners) while
       | working on a client project.
       | 
       | Not having clocks is one thing. Unlike a mall, the casino had
       | zero natural light inside. Apparently, seeing that it's dark (or
       | light again) outside might be a hint it's time to leave, and
       | that's bad for business.
        
       | AlbertCory wrote:
       | The author is reaching. Casinos are well-known for this. As for
       | shopping malls: they're close to being the answer to a "remember
       | when?" question.
       | 
       | Like, "remember when you got letters from people you knew in the
       | mail?"
        
         | cookie_monsta wrote:
         | Hmm.. where I live (urban Australia) shopping malls have gone
         | through much the same process as hardware stores - the big ones
         | have muscled out the small ones. But those big ones are heaving
         | every time I go, even mid week during the day.
         | 
         | As a side note, my teenagers who are both very astute online
         | shoppers will often go to the mall with no intention of buying
         | anything, I guess for the same reasons as teenagers have always
         | gone to the mall.
         | 
         | It's a little early to be calling the demise of the mall, imo.
        
           | WWLink wrote:
           | That's kinda how it works in the US but the big malls are
           | very quiet in the middle of the workday
        
           | AlbertCory wrote:
           | not dead, but still not totally great:
           | 
           | https://www.resonai.com/blog/mall-foot-traffic
        
       | standardUser wrote:
       | I have a cool clock I was going to put up in my apartment, but I
       | decided against it because I sometimes have late night parties
       | and the presence of a clock seems like a buzzkill for many of
       | these same reasons. In fact, I'd even say that having fun and not
       | knowing/caring what time it is go hand-in-hand. And anytime I
       | need to pay close attention to the time is almost certainly a
       | stressful time, not a fun one.
       | 
       | As far as shopping - a sometimes tedious chore - I welcome
       | whatever social engineering they can muster to make it a more
       | automatic experience. Same with casinos. I'm not there to be
       | level-headed and use good judgement. I'm there to be joyfully
       | manipulated.
        
         | twic wrote:
         | The one kind of late-night party where you absolutely want a
         | clock is a new year's eve party!
         | 
         | Some friends of mine often host such a party. They have an
         | antique grandfather clock, which is ideal for this purpose.
         | Except it's in poor shape, and usually stopped. So now a
         | traditional element of the party is one of them standing on the
         | arm of a sofa wrangling the clock at a few minutes to midnight,
         | desperately trying to unstop the flow of time before we run
         | out.
        
         | boringuser2 wrote:
         | I want to know more about your demographic profile.
         | 
         | The concept of having frequent time-ambivalent late night
         | parties as an adult with a job is absurd to me.
         | 
         | Do you have a trust-fund? Are you in your 20s?
        
       | infradig wrote:
       | Welcome to the Gruen transfer.
        
       | jiveturkey wrote:
       | tvOS hasn't had a clock until the most recent major release.
        
       | rocky1138 wrote:
       | From the article:
       | 
       | > No other industry builds a world designed to maintain a
       | customer's fantasy so that they continue to partake in an
       | activity that, in the long run, advantages the house.
       | 
       | Videogames
        
       | torcete wrote:
       | I believe what the article explains is the reason why a plane
       | ticket with a stopover is cheaper than a direct flight.
       | 
       | Airport are big shopping centres with captive and bored
       | clientele. Even more, I find some airports (e.g. Gatwick in the
       | UK) extremely oppressive. No natural light, closed space and the
       | only way to escape is to expend money eating/drinking/shopping.
        
       | macinjosh wrote:
       | They do have stores full of watches in most malls though.
        
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