Comments(0) BIG is holding its Fall auditions this Saturday at 12pm at the Hamilton Arts Collective. For more details, check out BIG’s official MySpace blog, where I am now blogging.
Comments(0) This is an idea I hear a lot from people that until recently, I took for granted. “Writers are in high demand” or “it’s so hard to find people who can write well.” Anecdotally, this rings true for me, but when I went looking for jobs as a writer, I found that the market wasn’t so hot. Go to Craigslist and you’ll find that many of the listings for writers don’t pay anything. Most writing jobs have starting salaries in the 30 to 35k range, if you can find one.
And so I think that writing is an excellent skill to have, but in the job market it’s more valuable as a secondary skill. A good manager is very valuable, and a good manager with excellent writing skills is marginally better. Same for engineers or software developers or any other profession. But from my limited experience on the job hunt, I don’t think writers per se are in high demand.
When I shifted my job search from writing to marketing/web/technology, I really started getting interviews, call-backs, and interest.
Comments(0) This season of Curb has been a little slow but that was a great line.
Comments(1) Seth Godin is like this never-ending generator of cool ideas and insights. Every time I read something that he writes, I can feel the connections forming in my brain…
My philosophy then, and my philosophy now, is that learning the first 80% of something new takes 20% of the effort. My goal in college was not to become an expert on phenomenology or civil engineering; my goal was to understand the framework of as many disciplines as I could.
That’s me. I love learning the first 80% of something. It’s a personality trait that serves me well. I try lots of new things because they fascinate me and I find myself knowing a little bit about a lot of things. And the more ideas or subjects or philosophies or careers that you sample, the more likely you are to find one that you really love. Then you can spend the effort of learning the last 20%.
So much in life is simple luck. Finding your passion is the same. When I read about people who always knew what they wanted to be, I think yeah, that’s because so many people start that way. How many people, at age 12, decide they want to be actors or dancers or firefighters? Lots. So when people end up in those professions, it’s not uncommon for them to have started down that path at an early age.
What you don’t hear about is all the people who started out dreaming of becoming an actor, only to discover later that what really excites (or pays) them is accounting or software or engineering. People overestimate their ability to predict what they will enjoy. To overcome that bias, you have to lean towards experimentation.
Comments(0) He trumpeted around his pen for a few minutes, and then keeled over on his side. Horrified, the researchers tried to revive him, but about an hour later he was dead. The three scientists sheepishly concluded that, “It appears that the elephant is highly sensitive to the effects of LSD.”
From The Top 20 Most Bizarre Experiments of All Time.
HT: Marginal Revolution.
Comments(0) Chris doesn’t have a blog, but you can still find him on the internets, saying goodbye to his white coat. Last night he asked me to bring back some of my old blog posts from back in the day, you know, the one about the blind lady you worked with. Oh yeah, here it is:
I returned from lunch this afternoon to discover that not one, but two residents of aisle C were sound asleep. I’d like to protect their identities, so let’s just call our first subject “the blind Asian woman.” Apparently she doesn’t have much work to do because she literally sleeps half the day. How does this happen? What kind of manager tolerates this? Seems to me, if you’re blind, you better go out of your way to justify your space on the payroll. Otherwise people might start wondering…
It gets worse though. The other sleeping co-worker is the guy whose job is, get this, to help the blind lady! She’s a programmer and she has trouble seeing the screen. So he goes into her cube–ostensibly–to help her with her program. Usually they just fight:
“Why you touching my screen!”
“I’m looking for an email I deleted!”
“No touch my screen!”
“Listen blind Asian woman, I need to find an email that I deleted, ok?”
“It’s not there!”
“How do you know? You can’t see the screen!”
How long does this take? How much time does he spend ‘helping’ her? Maybe 30 minutes a day. Wanna know what he’s doing now? Let me go check. Big fucking surprise! He’s passed out in his chair with a book in his hands! I love the government. Nap time.
Comments(0) Nora told me I was her hero for not having a real job and that she doesn’t want me to change. Chris agrees. All this time I felt somewhat like a bum, but no, I’m not. I’m a hero. That’s right. It’s not just firefighters that get to be heroes. It’s people like me. People brave enough to say “no” to the 9 to 5, even if it means living in your parents house for months at a time, sleeping in a little bed that’s two inches shorter than your body. The search for meaning is long and the examined life is hard. Don’t give up brave soldiers, don’t ever give up.
Comments(0) “An Incomplete Manifesto for Growth.” Especially…
1. Allow events to change you. You have to be willing to grow. Growth is different from something that happens to you. You produce it. You live it. The prerequisites for growth: the openness to experience events and the willingness to be changed by them.
14. Don’t be cool. Cool is conservative fear dressed in black. Free yourself from limits of this sort.
18. Stay up late. Strange things happen when you’ve gone too far, been up too long, worked too hard, and you’re separated from the rest of the world.
Comments(0) Clara touches on something that’s been running through my head for the past few months, that there’s this paradox between happiness and ambition. Happiness implies that you are content with what you have today, in this moment. And so I want to be happy, but I cannot square this desire with my other desires… to get a better job, to become a better improviser, to achieve and to change the world. There’s gotta be a way out of this; somehow you can be happy and ambitious, right?
My theory: Maybe contentment simply isn’t in our genes. Thanking one’s lucky stars serves no evolutionary purpose. As the dissatisfied and restless update their lives, always chasing what’s bigger and better, those who cash in too early get left in the dust. What’s more, life is short. Too much blissful rumination about the good things can distract a person from the bad that needs attention.
From an evolutionary standpoint, it seems that someone too easily contented will find himself too easily eaten by a large beast. Or his mate may sense his lack of ambition and head for greener pastures. I mean, to be 100% happy with your situation can only be a temporary thing. You’ll get hungry sooner or later.
Comments(0) I was almost disappointed to find my mystery tenant had moved on to greener pastures. I even brought my camera for the people who wouldn’t believe me when I say there was a bum living in my back yard. Alas, his timing was impeccable as the girl demanded a tour of the back. It’s so cute she said, yes, I thought you could even live here if you wanted…
Comments(0) I went to the city to get my scooter out of the back shed in my house in Baltimore.. And I notice that everything smells like shit… And I look around… And there’s blankets on the ground, in my little back yard. Yes, there’s a bum living there. A freaking bum living in my back yard. No wonder the house isn’t selling.
But this pales in comparison to the woman in my rental house who, after notifying me 2 months ago that she’s leaving, decides that in fact she wants to stay. Only she doesn’t tell me until two days before another family is scheduled to move in, and one week before I sell the house to another investor.
It pales in comparison because unlike the bum, who I can evict by moving his blankets and bicycle into the alley, I have to hire a lawyer to get the woman out. It’s my property, she has no right to be there, yet legally I’m forbidden from removing her. Tell me how that makes sense. If a stranger breaks into your house you can kick ‘em out at gunpoint. I don’t see how this is any different.
Comments(0) 1. The Federal Reserve and its role in the housing bubble. Artificially low interest rates create excessive demand for long-term assets (like real estate), until the inflationary pressure spreads to other sectors, driving rates back up, causing a painful “readjustment” in long-term asset prices. Like my house. That was appraised at $236,000 in January 2006 and now refuses to sell at $199,500. Via the Austrian Economists.
I blame myself, as well as the Fed for the mess I’m in now. Which leads me to wonder if people who are partial to a philosophy of individual responsibility will be more likely to mis-attribute their failure or success to their own actions, even if they are the victims of luck, circumstance, or bad Fed policy.
2. Tyler Cowen on the development of social conventions such as tapping your foot to signal your interest in gay escapades with your stall neighbor. Seriously, what bold pioneer was the first to initiate such behavior and how is it codified? Or is there a secret gay planning committee that governs the conventions of sexual solicitation? I favor a spontaneous order explanation.
Comments(0) It’s so refreshing to see the rebellious kids, skateboarding by my window in tight jeans.
Comments(0) What are the implications for marriage and dating when scientists cure aging and humans can live vastly extended lives? If we live to 200 or 300 years old, will we still be monogamous?
It seems to me that the answer is no. When we get married, we forgo all future romantic relationships. In today’s world, where you might expect to live into your 80s or 90s, the opportunity cost of marriage is relatively low. If I get married at 30, then I’m giving up 50 to 60 years of single life. But as every year passes, the returns to bachelorhood decline. Every year I’m a little more wrinkled and my body is a little less defined. Financial success can offset these losses in physical appeal, but only up to a certain point. The 70-year-old millionaire isn’t much competition in dating terms for a fit 30-year-old who makes $70,000 a year.
But all that changes if I’m not aging anymore. If my nominal age is 95, but my biological age is 42, then I’ll still be an attractive mate. And so the costs of marriage skyrocket. Instead of forgoing 15-20 years of eligible bachelor status, I’ll be forgoing 150-250 years of eligibility.
My prediction is that people will still get married but on more of an ad hoc basis. We’ll get married for say 30 years, during which we’ll join together with a mate for the purpose of raising children, but these relationships will end amicably and people will go their separate ways, to start new families with new mates.
