The Cone of Silence

Ever eat in the mall's food court? Be careful of your conversations.

Teenaged science fair project alert! Go to the Boise Town Square Mall and map at which tables you can hear other people's conversations.

It used to be that my daughter and I would sit over by the windows when eating in the food court. From that vantage point we could hear - CLEARLY - several conversations people were having if they were seated at tables in the middle of the eating area. It thought the effect was caused by the configurations of the windows.

Wrong!

If you sit inside the main dining area, you can clearly hear conversations of people seated over by the windows. Looking up the patron will notice the oval dome over most of the dining area. Apparently that is where the nice directional 'echo' is occurring.

Has mall management noticed? Are they going to do anything about it? I hope not. Some of those very personal conversations can be quite entertaining.