Grab bag of links

1. Moo: MiniCards -- these are awesome. And, by the way, what I'm going to use to create my next business cards. Just need to find the right art...

2. Why easy grading is good for your career -- your career if you're a teacher or professor, that is.

3. How to build an upside-down fire -- haven't tried this, but it looks really cool. If anyone does try it, let me know how it works out.

4. 7 concepts of natural language learning -- the short version: stimulate your brain with lots of the target language, and don't worry too much about grammar.

5. Average is not normal -- a fast presentation that shows that despite the stock market returning an "average" of 10% a year, your results will probably be anything but. (Furthermore, only 2 years in the last 80 returned 9-10%.)

6. Bad habits slap us down, but a theme encourages -- not sure I agree with this one, but it's certainly food for thought for people thinking of developing a new habit.

7. A different way to think about genius (TED talk video by Elizabeth Gilbert) -- wonderful talk. Apparently, back in Greek and Roman times, people were considered to "have" a genius, like a muse who would inspire them. In the Renaissance, master creators were considered to "be" geniuses, putting a ton more pressure on them.

That time of day

It's 3:45. I leave in 2.5 hours. I've already worked on nine short featurettes today, and while I no doubt have time to work on a few more, my brain feels fried. I don't have enough time to work on a longer episode of something (even a 22-minute episode tends to take 2-3 hours) but it's still WAY to early to be leaving without raising eyebrows.

Le sigh. Now I try to make myself look inconspicuous, which is difficult when our coordinator can see my screen from her desk.

The joys of Skype

There's a certain lovely feeling of knowing that I just spent an hour and a half on a long distance call and paid, essentially, 61 cents for it. I don't know why I didn't switch over to Skype unlimited earlier.

Also, my headset of awesomeness is awesome. (And I got it for 1/3 the retail price, which only adds to its awesomeness.)