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Tuesday, May 1, 2012

The Cynical Girl: Stop Comparing Yourself to Other People

The Cynical Girl: Stop Comparing Yourself to Other People

Link to The Cynical Girl

Stop Comparing Yourself to Other People

Posted: 30 Apr 2012 06:45 AM PDT

I’ve been super-busy and missed my OBGYN appointment in January. I called to reschedule my annual exam and my doctor is on maternity leave.

What? Is that allowed?

Fine, okay, whatever. I found another OBGYN and made an appointment.

The new doctor is 42. How did it happen that I have a doctor who is only five years older than me? I need a good 10 years to make me feel secure about my youth.

My new doctor is fab, though. Really. But the whole time we’re talking, I kept asking myself — How did this guy make good life decisions in the 1990s and 2000s? I basically took the easy road and coasted through my career. How did he make it through medical school and his residency when I could barely make it through the drive thru at Del Taco?

Dang it. I am lazy and unsuccessful.

Then I drove home and saw a pregnant woman with two kids who was waiting for the bus. She was seated on a bench with her kids. They were quietly staring out at the road. I’m pretty sure she was asking herself — Who are these people with cars? What did they do in life that I didn’t do?

And I am sure some totally stressed out man or woman in a minivan or Honda Odyssey drove past this woman waiting for the bus and thought — How did this woman get so lucky to have two beautiful and well-behaved kids? She’s just staring out into space and her kids are sitting quietly next to her on the bench. And she has another on the way? My kids are monsters. I walk them on leashes at the mall. How fabulous for her!

Hm.

In short, we all compare ourselves to other people. And it’s stupid. We should stop. Life really only goes according to plan for unhappy people. They expect to be miserable and their expectations are met.

So that’s my zen job search lesson for the day. You are who you are. Accept it. Work to your strengths and minimize your weaknesses. Heck, even I’m trying to find peace with myself.

Except I came home from my OBGYN and opened up this lovely email message.

Oh, yeah, being a blogger is fabulous. Much better than your job. Hm.

I will stop comparing myself to normal people who don’t have bat-shit crazy readers right after you stop sending me these crazy email messages, people!

Forget everything I just wrote. I should have been a veterinarian.

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Monday Morning HR Humor: Larry Winget

Posted: 30 Apr 2012 03:45 AM PDT

I’m off to NYC and Texas, this week, for HR-related conferences. While I’m away, let me introduce you to Larry Winget via Lance Haun.

Your kids are your own fault. Here’s the other problem. You’re telling your little princess she is special. Let me help you with this. Not to me!

“You can’t make employees happy. Here’s why. You can’t make anyone else happy. Not if they don’t wanna be. The last thing I want is someone showing up trying to make me happy. You can’t happy me into happy.”

OMG. It’s not funny but it sorta is.

But this dude has been on Larry King and I have not.

It’s called work for a reason. So true. Can’t argue with any of it.

I will not be this engaging. Ever. In my whole life. Because I don’t have a goatee, obvs.

ScienceDaily: Top Technology News

ScienceDaily: Top Technology News


Scaling-up production of biopolymer microthreads

Posted: 30 Apr 2012 01:44 PM PDT

Development of new therapies for a range of medical conditions -- from common sports injuries to heart attacks -- will be supported by a new production-scale microthread extruder. The system is in the final stages of testing and validation and will soon be manufacturing thousands of hair-like biopolymer threads a day.

High-yield path to making key ingredient for plastic, xylene, from biomass

Posted: 30 Apr 2012 01:42 PM PDT

Chemical engineers have discovered a new, high-yield method of making the key ingredient used to make plastic bottles from biomass. The process currently creates the chemical p-xylene with an efficient yield of 75-percent.

Remarkable outburst seen from old black hole

Posted: 30 Apr 2012 12:17 PM PDT

An extraordinary outburst produced by a black hole in a nearby galaxy has provided direct evidence for a population of old, volatile stellar black holes. The discovery provides new insight into the nature of a mysterious class of black holes that can produce as much energy in X-rays as a million suns radiate at all wavelengths.

Rogue stars ejected from the galaxy are found in intergalactic space

Posted: 30 Apr 2012 11:00 AM PDT

Astronomers have identified nearly 700 rogue stars that appear to have been ejected from the Milky Way galaxy.

Molecular spectroscopy tracks living mammalian cells in real time as they differentiate

Posted: 30 Apr 2012 08:49 AM PDT

Cells regulate their functions by adding or subtracting phosphates from proteins. If scientists could study the process in detail, in individual cells over time, understanding and treating diseases would be greatly aided. Formerly this was impossible without damaging the cells or interfering with the process itself, but scientists have now achieved the goal by using bright infrared beams and a technique called Fourier transform spectromicroscopy.

Redefining time: Extremely precise clock signals transmitted over long distances

Posted: 30 Apr 2012 07:54 AM PDT

Scientists have successfully sent a highly accurate clock signal across the many hundreds of kilometers of countryside that separate two institutions.

Conquering LED efficiency droop

Posted: 30 Apr 2012 07:54 AM PDT

Like a coffee enthusiast who struggles to get a buzz from that third cup of morning joe, light-emitting diodes (LEDs) seem to reach a point where more electricity no longer imparts the same kick and productivity levels-off. Now a team of researchers has devised a new design for green and blue LEDs that avoids much of this vexing efficiency droop.

Electric charge disorder: A key to biological order?

Posted: 30 Apr 2012 07:53 AM PDT

Researchers have shown how small random patches of disordered, frozen electric charges can make a difference when they are scattered on surfaces that are overall neutral. These charges induce a twisting force that is strong enough to be felt as far as nanometers or even micrometers away. These results could help scientists to understand phenomena that occur on surfaces such as those of large biological molecules.

Old star, new trick: Astronomers have detected arsenic and selenium in ancient star for first time

Posted: 30 Apr 2012 07:53 AM PDT

For the first time, astronomers have detected the presence of arsenic and selenium, neighboring elements near the middle of the periodic table, in an ancient star in the faint stellar halo that surrounds the Milky Way. Arsenic and selenium are elements at the transition from light to heavy element production, and have not been found in old stars until now.

Record-breaking radio waves discovered from ultra-cool star

Posted: 30 Apr 2012 07:10 AM PDT

Astronomers have discovered flaring radio emissions from an ultra-cool star that is not much warmer than the planet Jupiter, shattering the previous record for the lowest temperature at which radio waves had been detected from a star. The detection technique may be used to hunt for giant planets outside our solar system.

Restoring hearing with discrete device: A middle-ear microphone for more convenient cochlear implants

Posted: 30 Apr 2012 07:10 AM PDT

Cochlear implants have restored basic hearing to some 220,000 deaf people, yet a microphone and related electronics must be worn outside the head, raising reliability issues, preventing patients from swimming and creating social stigma. Now, engineers have developed a tiny prototype microphone that can be implanted in the middle ear to avoid such problems.

Superconducting strip could become an ultra-low-voltage sensor

Posted: 30 Apr 2012 07:10 AM PDT

Researchers studying a superconducting strip observed an intermittent motion of magnetic flux which carries vortices inside the regularly spaced weak conducting regions carved into the superconducting material. These vortices resulted in alternating static phases with zero voltage and dynamic phases, which are characterized by non-zero voltage peaks in the superconductor.

Attosecond lighthouses may help illuminate the tempestuous sea of electrons

Posted: 30 Apr 2012 07:09 AM PDT

Scientists have developed an elegant new method to study electrons' fleeting antics using isolated, precisely timed, and incredibly fast pulses of light.

Monday, April 30, 2012

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