When Rail Becomes Ridiculous

Megan McArcle writes about some of the challenges with the Obama administration-backed Tampa-Orlando high speed rail. Not matter which side of the debate you are on, it's definitely worth your time to read this article in the Atlantic. (Thanks, Corinne!)

Grant Hill’s Response to Jalen Rose

“The Fab Five,” an ESPN film about the Michigan basketball careers of Jalen Rose, Juwan Howard, Chris Webber, Jimmy King and Ray Jackson from 1991 to 1993, was broadcast for the first time Sunday night. In the show, Rose, the show’s executive producer, stated that Duke recruited only black players he considered to be “Uncle Toms.” Grant Hill, a player on the Duke team that beat Michigan in the 1992 Final Four, reflected on Rose’s comments.

Read Grant Hill's response in the NYT. He's a admirable Duke ambassador. (Thanks, Jules)

Lack of sleep makes for a more reckless bet

Do you take on more risky decisions when you are sleep-deprived? Maybe something good to show to all those ibankers working 90+ hour weeks...

Read the article in the New Scientist.

California student from Japan finds family alive on YouTube

Read the CNN article.

Profit From Your "Groupon Remorse" With DealsGoRound App

It's a brilliant solution: Buy others' unused, unwanted Groupons with a new iPhone app. Call it the "day after" deal. Read the FastCompany post.

Personal Finance for Dictators: Where to Stash the Cash

If you were a dictator about to get kicked out of your country and you needed to stash your cash, how would you do it? NYT has the answer!

The Other Obama: Michelle Obama and the politics of candor

Check out this New Yorker piece written about Michelle Obama before her husband won the democratic nomination by Lauren Collins. It's inspiring! It's a longer, deeper read. (Thanks, Lucy)

Green Development? Not in My (Liberal) Backyard

"Park Slope, Brooklyn. Cape Cod, Mass. Berkeley, Calif. Three famously progressive places, right? The yin to the Tea Party yang. But just try putting a bike lane or some wind turbines in their lines of sight. And the karma can get very different."

Read the NYT post. (Thanks, Claire)

Golden Girl

Here's a fun piece on Blake Lively. I especially admired her grace and drive in this part:

...After greeting the designer Tory Burch and Vogue’s event director, Sylvana Soto-Ward, and hopping up and down in wobbly heels upon seeing John Galantic, the president of Chanel, Ms. Lively eventually made her way to a table. “I was just having a conversation and I looked down and saw ‘Chanel: Dinner in Honor of Blake Lively’ ” she said, pointing to her menu. “It’s crazy.”

And yet there is nothing haphazard about Ms. Lively’s current perch atop fashion’s hierarchy. “I had other opportunities and I would say, ‘Thank you so much, but I am holding out for Chanel,’ ” she said. “That’s who I want to be the face of. And people would say, ‘Well, that’s unrealistic, they only hire Europeans,’ and I said: ‘Well, how great. I’ll be the first then.’ ”

Read the NYT article.

My problem with “Just Say No”

Dan Ariely just wrote another Admitting to another irrationality post called My own worst enemy: procrastination and self-control. Check out this section:

...My friends Gal Zauberman and John Lynch, who have done research on this topic, recently gave me some interesting advice. They suggested that I imagine every single event I’m asked to attend will occur exactly four weeks from the present. With this exact schedule I mind, I should then ask myself whether I find it important enough to squeeze it in or cancel something else. If the answer is “yes,” then I should accept the invitation; but if my answer is “no,” I should pass. This is easier said than done, and I have not yet been able to consistently cultivate this frame of mind, but I am starting to adapt this mindset...

Also, Ariely made the McKinsey Quarterly! (Thanks, Jamie!)


This was the 1,000 Blue Jaguars post!

NSFW

Check out the fuck yeah dementia!!1! blog. Amazing, hahaha. Definitely subscribed to it on my Google Reader. (Thanks, JC)

Where’s The Money In America?

The household-wealth piece was enlightening! Check out the Mint post. (Thanks, Gloria)

Japanese quake and predicted tsunami wave heights

All my thoughts go out to those affected by the earthquake in Japan. Check out the FlowingData post.

Do Women Leaders Matter?

The article also touches on the Yunus-Grameen controversy and how the female Bangladeshi PM is involved. Check out the NY Times post. (Thanks, Alessia)

Up-Inspired Floating House

National Geographic just built an "Up"-inspired floating house! Check out the pictures.

(Thanks, Jillian)

Top 10 Low Pass Flybys of All Time

(Thanks, Shauna!)

Absolute Powerpoint

Can a software package edit our thoughts? Check out the New Yorker article. Love the PowerPoint Ranger part.(Thanks, JJ and Jamie)

Wordle

"Wordle is a toy for generating 'word clouds' from text that you provide. The clouds give greater prominence to words that appear more frequently in the source text. You can tweak your clouds with different fonts, layouts, and color schemes."

So cool! (Thanks, Dan)

Monk Mind: How to Increase Your Focus

Leo Babauta of Zen Habits writes a short post on how to increase your ability to Focus. I definitely agree with the clean desk and shutting down computers / notifications!

(If you don't read Zen Habits yet, it's one of my favorite blogs.)

How to Get a Private Equity Job in 2,550 Words

Trying to figure out if you want that PE job for 2012 (... or better yet, still trying to figure out what PE is...)?

Check out this guide on Mergers and Inquisitions. (Thanks, Kristyn)

Don't Text and Drive: ZoomSafer Automatically Locks Your Phone While on the Road

Brilliant app -- and they even have a version for teenagers that sends out an auto-response. Find out more at FastCompany.

What Salary Buys Happiness in Your City?

From the WSJ:

A new study has gained a lot of attention that shows after a worker earns $75,000 the measurable effect on happiness of pay increases stops, but that figure may vary widely from city to city.

As our colleague Robert Frank notes on the Wealth Report, $75,000 in New York doesn’t buy as much as the same amount in, say, South Dakota. That got us thinking, if $75,000 is the national average salary level for happiness, what is the variation from city to city?

Woo Houston! Find out your city's happiness level in the WSJ. (Thanks, Joyce!)

Microcredit Pioneer Ousted, Head of Bangladeshi Bank Says

Muhammad Yunus got kicked out of Grameen?! Why would the bank he founded do this? I'm sure more details will come out soon. (Thanks, Jules)

Keeping Women Safe Through Social Networking

A scary stat:

In Egypt, according to a 2008 study by the Egyptian Center for Women’s Rights, 98 percent of foreign female visitors, and 83 percent of Egyptian women, said they had experienced some form of sexual harassment on the streets, mostly verbal but sometimes worse.

Learn more about the websites, like Ihollaback.org, in the NYT article.