Cute kitten pictures make you more productive. Someone needs to do a study on geekier things.
Reihan Salam explains why Japan’s rail privatization worked, but Britain’s did not.
A foreign visitor takes a look at American anxiety. [NYT]
Bakadesuyo tells you everything you need to know about influence, persuasion, and negotiation.
East Germany is apparently the most godless place on earth.
Is The West Wing a terrible guide to American democracy? It depends who is watching. No, foreign dignitaries should not be taking it too seriously, but given the ignorance of the average American as to how the process works, you could do a lot worse.
Forbes contributor David K. Williams explains why it’s good for employees to stay at their job for more than ten years. For a variety of reasons, I’ve never had the opportunity. The next article needs to be an explanation to employers as to why you want employees to want to stick around.
DC turned its budget around with traffic cameras and rich dead people.
More on 3D Printers. It’s an interesting thought that as we presently replace manuals by regular printing, we may be able to replace parts in a similar fashion.
Woohoo! All is not lost for us long-term unemployed! Things are not looking so good in Europe, however.
Though it’s true that correlation does not prove causation, I too am tired of this being used as an intellectual way of saying “I refuse to consider your evidence.” At some point, you have to consider the data that you have. Demonstrating a correlation does not end a conversation, but it should at least be the beginning of one.
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xkcd on correlation:
http://xkcd.com/552/
Make sure you hover over the comic for the alt-text, which is where the joke is.
(Very anecdotal) evidence that maybe the job market is getting a slight bit better: back in 2010-11 I “worked” for a total of about 15 months with two life insurance companies. “Worked” is in quotation marks because these weren’t of course real jobs. They were straight-commission garbage without even expense reimbursements, and with failure rates in excess of 90%. When I left the life insurance scam, er, field for my (far better) current job, I made a solemn vow that I would sooner sweep up elephant dung at the zoo than ever again have anything to do with a life insurance company.
Anyway … within the past week I’ve gotten approached by both of these life insurance companies, one by telephone and the other by e-mail, informing me of their exciting employment opportunities and inviting me to apply. Both said that they came across my resume on Careerbuilder* and believe that I would be an excellent fit for their companies. Needless to say, I told both of them thanks but no thanks.
My point is that if these companies – which are completely separate from each other – are reduced to trolling through online job boards in an attempt to find suckers, er, applicants, they mustn’t be getting as many applicants as used to be the case. Neither company seemed to have any trouble recruiting people when I was involved with them. I’d say that “well, people today know about the life insurance scam,” but that’s been going on for decades.
* = a ridiculous idea, given that I haven’t updated my Careerbuilder resume since I started my current job months ago
A4, I think I’ve seen that before, but it’s awesome.
Peter,
I’ve been getting job pings from Monster.com more or less since I relocated from Cascadia. Of course, the jobs are in Cascadia. But that’s not bad for a resume that just got deactivated because I hadn’t updated it in 36 months.
In other parts of the country, of course, it’s a different story.