Another Marvel Fix it Fic

I guess I'm finally in writing mode- last night I recalled a plot point that had made no sense to me in Marvel's 'Age of Ultron' movie & I fixed it.

If you're a spy/assassin and you've kept your family sequestered on a remote farm for years in order to keep them safe, WHY, when faced with a world-wide threat which has targeted the Avengers, and Tony Stark, in particular, do you bring the Avengers home with you?

Maybe because things aren't what they seem-- this is pure, delicious crack.

Laura's Melt Down (AKA Laura's Mock Death, AKA Laura Makes Dumplings)
http://archiveofourown.org/works/6628075

Wow, I guess I'm not the only procrastinator.

Posting date claims (April 30- end of May) opened at noon for the Cap-Ironman RBB. I signed up 2 minutes after noon & got the date I wanted. Then out of curiosity I went back at 12:15 & saw 30 signups, with 26 of them clustered into the last 13 days (2 posting claims allowed per day).

Too many choices is worse than too few. NOTE to Ficathon Organizers

Having finished the fic and read it over (made corrections) read it over (made corrections) read it over (made corrections) I decided to treat myself a random google. It's a long fic, I needed some randomness to reset my brain.

I started out with 'the last page of the internet' (a lot of samey, but I do still love the gif that purports to dl the internet to your computer- labeled in MB, hahahah) and then 'the middle page of the internet' (totally boring) and 'the first page of the internet' at which point I found literally The FIRST page.

http://info.cern.ch/hypertext/WWW/TheProject.html

The first ever World Wide Web site began in 1990. A copy of it from 1992 is now viewable. It's amazing how it seems like it's been around forever now, doesn't it?

I love the list of Things to be done, especially:
Search engines
Now the web of data and indexes exists, some really smart intelligent algorithms ("knowbots?") could run on it. Recursive index and link tracing, Just think...


And it's got a list of subjects you can find! Wow. Project Gutenberg was there- and offering TWO WHOLE classic books a month added to their library.

Here you can see a photo of the first web server- a NeXT computer with a label glued to it printed in red "This machine is a server. DO NOT POWER DOWN!!"
http://www.wired.co.uk/news/archive/2013-04/30/first-web-page

And from there I found a google book 'Folklore and the Internet: Vernacular Expression in a Digital World' (can't copy paste googlebooks, but I screen shot). Anyway, they're connecting the idea of the internet with its vast options with the psychology of choice (particularly as it relates to consumer marketing). The assumption is that increasing the range of choice is always better, as it gives the consumer more chance of matching their preferences.

Early psychological studies seemed to confirm this, people were happier when given the ability to choose between several activities rather than assigned one.

BUT, guess what? There is a limit to the level of choice and when you exceed it, it becomes undesirable. A study in 2000 used jam selection as a field experiment. Having previously determined and eliminated the most and least desirable jam options they set up a tasting booth on two consecutive Saturdays (neither on a holiday weekend) in a grocery store. One day they had 6 kinds of jam to choose from. The other day they had 24 types of jam.

The results were interesting- the larger selection drew many more people to LOOK, but nearly all the actual follow through with purchases came from the 6 jam table.

Other studies have been carried out and the consensus is- too many choices results in an inclination to take NONE of them.

So, you know, MCU AUs 96 relationship choices and 181 AU choices... yeah, not optimal. If I was running a ficathon, I think I'd try to figure out a way to limit each category of choices to 6 options.

Because you know-- the fandom equivalent to looking is signing up, but the equivalent to purchasing is actually writing/drawing.