The wet, cold sand squished between Arlo’s black socks and flip flops as he walked along the endless expanse of Copacabana Beach. His Bermuda shorts and Hawaiian button up shirt painted a caricature in more detail. His metal detector, swinging from side to side, completed the stereotype. A bright yellow, hooded rain slicker was just gilding the lily. The rhythmic hiss of the gray waves crashing against the shore and the palm trees sagging in the damp salty air pleased Arlo. It’s quiet when the tide’s low.

It was the rainiest month of the year and very few souls were braving the beach. Gone was the laughter mingled with bossa nova beats drifting from kiosks selling sizzling skewers. Gone were the brightly colored umbrellas dotting the sand like fallen confetti. Gone were the groups of young people standing in circles and kicking footballs. Gone was the smell of sunscreen.

Arlo had the beach largely to himself. A few dogs braved the rain and wandered nearby. A couple small groups of tourists, likely trying to force a beach experience on their last day of vacation, huddled under sad, misappropriated sun parasols.

As with most amateur treasure hunters, Arlo wasn’t sure what he was looking for. He just wanted to belong to a tribe. The nearly parodic outfit he chose to wear when hunting was meant to keep those not in the tribe from becoming curious. The first impression Arlo created was expected, unremarkable, and, most importantly, not worth investigating further.

The silence of his metal detector allowed Arlo to contemplate the Primacy Effect and whether it had valid applications as a cognitive shortcut. If there weren’t evolutionary benefits, the effect was likely just a bug in human reasoning. A potentially exploitable bug that had been noticed and leveraged by magicians, marketers, and other charlatans throughout history.

Take the rapidly disappearing art form of the music album. Almost since its invention, the first songs on an album were considered the best candidates for a hit. As such, albums were arranged with the Primacy Bias in mind. However, Arlo had noticed that some album-oriented artists seemed to pay equal attention to the last song as well. It was probably no coincidence that two of his earliest musical purchases were Business As Usual and Heartbreak City. Both leave the listener with a final track of melancholic melodies invoking lyrically happier times. That is the feeling that remains when the album is done playing.

The Recency Effect. Arlo had always found it a more useful mnemonic. It pushes back against the “first post!” motivation of primacy and instead rewards the persistent pursuit of perfection.

A loudspeaker from a nearby hotel snapped Arlo from his contemplations as he listened to the announcement:

zaphodvox v1.1.0 has been released. The “ABM – Always Be Manifesting” release includes the ability to create manifest plans, the ability to re-encode manifests (in whole or part), and a gaggle of code and documentation refactorings for improved readability. Forget v1.0.0. It has had Vogon Poetry read to it.

Arlo’s metal detector suddenly blooped and bleeped in his ears, jolting him out of his thoughts. Swinging the wand back and forth, he triangulated the burial location of the ferrous treasure. Squatting down, he reached into his pocket, removed a small plastic shovel, and started digging in the sand. Before long he exposed a one Real coin. Examining it in the light rain he noted the stainless steel surrounded by a ring of bronze-plating. Arlo made a mental note of the year the coin was minted (1997) and dropped it back in the hole. He used his foot to cover it with sand and then continued down the beach, detector swaying back and forth. Arlo’s smile radiated against the gray, cloudy sky.

It was never about the treasure. It was about a desire to overdose on pleasure.