panic | Matthew Dicks

This is the real reason you go shopping before a snowstorm

By Matthew Dicks | March 18, 2015 |

Daniel Engber of Slate offers an explanation as to why people behave like idiots before a snowstorm, rushing off to a grocery store that will undoubtedly be open at some point the next day. The word is hunkering, in the specifically American sense of digging in and taking shelter. It’s the anxious form of self-indulgence,…

Emergency and Evacuation Plan maps should not be designed to produce panic

By Matthew Dicks | February 23, 2015 |

Just a thought, but perhaps your Emergency and Evacuation Plan map shouldn’t indicate your present position in an amorphous speech bubble that seems to engender a sense of flame, heat, and panic, and shouts the three words with the use of an exclamation point. The message should be: “You are here.” This one reads: “AH!…