Read-Think-b4-u-Write

In April 2012, The UK Guardian ran a story entitled "How to Download Your Data From Google and Facebook" and offers the following step-by-step instructions into your digital life. Google The Google user data which you're able to access through the site's transparency services are split across three places. Dashboard: The dashboard is the principal place to get information on all your Google services – and includes data from Picasa, Gmail, YouTube, search histories and more. You can get to it at www.google.com/dashboard/ – expect to have to re-enter your password, even if logged in. Account Activity: The dashboard has been going for three years now, but Google have added a new monthly monitoring feature with a few extra bits of information in the last month. Called Account Activity , it gives info on how much you've used different services, from which computers and browsers, and some extra bits of information. It's delivered to your inbox after si...

The Chronicle of Higher Ed 's article Employers and Public Favor Graduates Who Can Communicate displays ambivalent attitudes and a complete lack of real world experience--not by students or employees--but by managers, employers, and professors that peddle such nonsense to students and the community-at-large. What nonsense you ask?  Being "well-rounded with a range of abilities" will land you that fab job you've been dreaming about. Why the attitude?  Here's why.  If a company is hiring for a position that requires a Bachelor's Degree in marketing, finance, or business, it doesn't matter that upper management or your local professor believes "Being well-rounded with a range of abilities is more important than having industry expertise because job-specific skills can be learned at work." Upper management is never going to meet that well-rounded person because that well-rounded person will never pass the initial screening process.  This ...

It's amazing how many newbies to the job market, aka I just got out of college and need a job, think that employers do NOT Google them. Google is the greatest screener available to a Human Resource department AND it's FREE!  Why wouldn't they use every tool available to them to find that perfect employee? So what's a perfect employee?  Well, that depends on the job, but let's think about what the employee from hell looks like. The Ranter - the person who goes on Facebook, Twitter, RateMyProfessor, or the myriad other social media outlets and rants about his or her job, friends, teachers, or parents.  The last thing an employers wants is an employee with the potential to rant about their job, fellow employees, or boss! The Grammatical Nincompoop - the person who can't be bothered spell checking or proofreading their posts.  Think about it.  Have you ever used Facebook--especially if you like text messaging language--and then go back and read how spell c...

How did I run across this great comic?  I was procrastinating of course!  Instead of grading papers, working on lesson plans, or writing the myriad papers that are coming due, I was cruising through Facebook and this little gem from Mashable caught my eye. What kind of procrastinator am I? The Cleaner - definitely - my house could always use a good scrubbing before I actually start grading papers or writing.  Although, lots of thinking gets done as my bathroom starts to shine (that's justification on top of procrastination). The Sidetracker - yes, sometimes writing about comics is a lot more fun than grading papers (no offense). The Social Sharer - my Facebook page is always open AND thank goodness I have never really figured out how to twitter. The Internet Researcher - but it is legitimate research.  After all, I teach short film. A friend once said, "You can get a lot of procrastinating done in twenty minutes."  It took me twenty minutes to fi...

Visual Academy recently released a graphic outlining the pitfalls of multitasking. According to the studies they reviewed only 2 percent of us can multitask with any credibility. Here's something I bet you didn't know - you will actually spend LESS time doing any set of activities if you do them one at a time AND that includes studying and homework. Do you know that the majority of students spend over an average of 100 minutes per day on Facebook?!  I know we like to stall as long as possible instead of actually studying, but  that's almost two hours extra time spent "doing homework"! AND...worst of all studies connect a correlation between dropping GPAs and increasing time spent on Facebook.  The average non-Facebooker has a GPA of 3.82 while you Facebook junkies have an average GPA of 3.06. Yikes. Not to mention Pinterest, Twitter, YouTube, and Instagram, Google+, etc., etc., etc. Oh, and when you're finished looking to see what your "...

It is amazing how many college students, 1) Don't know their total student loan obligation; and, 2) Don't know the amount of their loan payments.  This is especially puzzling since students will be repaying their loans for TEN years! Don't get me wrong, I understand how it happens:  students borrow a little or a lot each semester and between school, part time jobs, and homework fail to keep track of all those loans--and they add up! According to Forbes Magazine , "College graduates with the average $27,000 in student loan debt can end up making payments of over $300 a month for 10 long years. There are only so many dollars to go around, and because of the student loan burden, these are people who have difficulty carving out funds to save, pay down debt and invest for retirement. They may have to delay purchasing a home because they are paying up to 15% of their incomes for the college degree that landed them the job." "Oh, well," you say....

Try the hyperloop and get there in 35 minutes-at least that's the proposal of Elon Musk, creator and founder of Paypal and Tesla Motors.  According to Musk, his proposed system would cost $6 billion compared to the high speed rail now being taxpayer funded for a whopping $68.4 billion.  Best of all a round trip ticket would cost $20. How does it work?  According to Visual News , "Musk and his team think that by pumping much of the air out of the tube and creating an atmosphere equivalent to that at 150,000 feet (45,720 meters) the drag within the system would be lowered to such a state that near supersonic speeds are attainable with little resistance. Wheels at this speed are no longer an option (due to stability and drag issues) so instead an ‘air bearing’ would be employed. These would be extremely strong metal plates on the bottom of the pod that blow air through their center; supporting the pod much like the puck on an air hockey table." Passengers wo...