Via Paul Krugman’s blog,
Here’s a comparison of changes in government employment (federal, state, and local) during the first four years of three presidents who came to office amid a troubled economy:
The Obama bump at 16 months is temporary hiring for the Census.
I am curious how much of the dropoff in the Obama years is due to state and local government cutting jobs in an attempt to balance their budgets.
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Amanda Hesser, bestselling food writer, dishes out some advice to future food writers.
About 2 years ago, I stopped giving this advice: I can no longer responsibly recommend that you drop everything to try to become a food writer. Except for a very small group of people (some of whom are clinging to jobs at magazines that pay more than the magazines’ business models can actually afford), it’s nearly impossible to make a living as a food writer, and I think it’s only going to get worse.
But it’s not all bad news. Even though people won’t pay much for writing anymore, the best course of action is still to immerse yourself in your topic. Worth a read.
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This should be interesting. Personal development blogger Steve Pavlina is writing a series of articles on generating passive income.
If you simply follow these steps with me, including getting into the passive income mindset, then this year you’re going to create at least one new stream of passive income for yourself. This series will focus on helping you create that specific result. If that’s a result you want, then we’re on the same page.
I’m undoubtedly going to weave personal growth lessons into this series because passive income ties in with personal growth in such amazing ways, especially with respect to setting and achieving goals, self-discipline, and overcoming limiting beliefs.
I highly recommend Steve’s writing. Subscribe to his RSS feed here.
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I’ve never hunted, but I like the argument this Op-Ed makes in favor of it: when you hunt, you become aware of animals and the environment and the entire ecosystem of life on this planet.
If more people hunted, we’d need more green space, and we’d have more appreciation for animals as living, breathing, thinking creatures.
As it is, most people (like me) buy meat from the store. When you do that you’re still killing an animal, but often you’re doing it without conscious awareness of either the animal or the environment.
Anyway, back to the Op-Ed, their main point is that the N.R.A. is not really pro-hunting so much as they are pro-gun.
On its Web site, the N.R.A. calls itself the “largest pro-hunting organization in the world.” Yet during election season, the N.R.A. makes endorsements based largely on candidates’ voting records on gun control — with little if any concern for their views on other issues of interest to hunters. Candidates who voted to allow the ban on assault weapons to expire, for example, are labeled “pro-sportsmen” often despite their weak voting records on environmental issues.
So the moral of the story is:
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Inc columnist Norm Brodsky shares a specific example of how to negotiate from a place of strength.
I’d decided to wait until the framework and the outside walls went up. If you’ve ever built a warehouse or some other structure, you know that, with the walls in place, it appears as though the majority of the work has been done, although you’re probably just a quarter of the way there. You still have to do all the interior construction, the wiring, the plumbing, and so forth, but most people don’t see that. What they see is a building that—from the outside—looks very similar to the finished product. They assume the rest of the work will be completed in short order.
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I was trying to limit the front page of my Thesis blog to include posts from a specific category. This works:
function limit_front_page() {
if (is_home()) {query_posts( 'cat=1');} //or whatever category number
}
add_action('thesis_hook_before_content', 'limit_front_page');
…but for some reason it breaks the pagination on the home page. Meaning, when you click “previous entries” on the home page, it just shows the home page content again.
After some searching I found the answer in this comment from Kristarella on artofblog.com
function limit_front_page() {
global $query_string;
if (is_home())
query_posts($query_string.'cat=1');
}
add_action('thesis_hook_before_content', 'limit_front_page');
I am not entirely sure why this works. I mean, Kristarella explains it as follows, and I kind of get it, but not completely:
Good tips, but just so that you know, you only have to use
global $query_string;if you’re going to use it in the query, e.g.,query_posts($query_string . '&cat=-21');. What that does is take all the parameters that were in the query and then changes only the only that you want to change (i.e., excluding category 21 in the example). This can avoid things like destroying pagination.
globaldoesn’t do anything in itself, it just makes a variable that is specified elsewhere available for use within your function.
It works though.
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From Inspiration and Chai:
I think #1 and #2 are really the same thing. That is, I think people regret working so hard on things they didn’t truly care about.
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Nice NY Times Op-Ed from David Brooks about the benefits of focusing on creativity instead of competitiveness.
Think about the traits that creative people possess. Creative people don’t follow the crowds; they seek out the blank spots on the map. Creative people wander through faraway and forgotten traditions and then integrate marginal perspectives back to the mainstream. Instead of being fastest around the tracks everybody knows, creative people move adaptively through wildernesses nobody knows.
I recall that Paul Graham, entrepreneur and investor, has described this as “running uphill”. If you’re a small company, the best thing to do is run uphill, because big companies will never be able to catch you if you do difficult things. I can’t find the actual essay though, so you’ll have to trust me.
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A good explanation of Twitter from Courtney Carver. She likens being on Twitter to conversing with people at the grocery store — a few nice words here and there to your fellow humans. I like that analogy.
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I enjoyed this trailer from the Walkmen. They know how to make the nice musics.
I tend to think of trailers being the exclusive province of movies, but I’ve increasingly seen them in other areas.
The first non-movie trailer I can recall was for Tim Ferriss’s book, The Four Hour Body. Later I saw one for Jonathan Fields’s book, Uncertainty.
And now this one for the Walkmen. It’s the first one for an album I can recall seeing.
This trailer thing is getting big.
Jordan suggests maybe a good business idea is a service that helps people create trailers for their children. She is probably right.
Maybe I’ll make one for Luc’s 5th birthday party. “FROM THE PEOPLE THAT BROUGHT YOU LUC’S FOURTH BIRTHDAY PARTY…”
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