Thursday, May 24, 2007

Brawny Brain Building

Every once in awhile, I find a cool article on personality-building. Since I'll be having a kid of my own soon, it seems even more pertinent to figure out how we develop personality, character and talent in an uplifting and edifying way. That said, this article from Newsweek discusses some recent tests that prove some age-old techniques in building confidence and a desire to grow in people, especially children.

Basically, they gave an IQ test to two sets of children. To one group, they told them they did a good job and how smart they were. To the other group, they told them they did a good job and how hard they must have worked to get the score they did. The first group tended to view their accomplishment as a level of achievement that is fixed and can't be changed. The second group believed that their efforts got them to where they were and continued to push forward to new learning and growing. The first group even began lying about their scores because... well, read the article.

In another test, the therapist told one older group of children that the brain is a muscle and can be built stronger. The other group was told nothing. Obviously, the first group went on to work hard to grasp higher mathematics. The other group is now in prison... Oh wait, no, that's not right.

Anyway, it was interesting to see that not only do you need to praise your children and encourage them, or even friends and loved ones, but how you encourage people is very important, too. Or maybe I'm just full of all this phony-baloney, new-age psychology junk. Or maybe everyone already knows this but me... OH, I'M SUCH A LOSER!!!! GIVE ME SOME SORT OF DRUG TO MAKE ME FEEL BETTER!!!!!!! I'm okay now.

Monday, May 14, 2007

Gas Prices

If you're one of those people tired of paying high prices in gasoline and forward on emails about boycotting certain gas retailers, think again. Most experts say that won't have any impact on the market except to the individual owners of the gas stations themselves. Instead, according to this article, we must look at our own driving practices and change them, even if ever so slightly, to make a difference. The two points? Simple:
  1. Quit driving like a jerk (gunning the accelerator and braking at the last minute).
  2. Slow down (you don't have to be grandpa out there, just keep your RPMs lower on average).

That doesn't seem terribly hard. Apparently, even a 1% decrease in demand will settle down a simmering market much like turning down the stove slightly will stop water from boiling over (using the author's own metaphor). So if you can save even one gallon a month in gas by observing and changing your driving behavior, you can actually help make a small dent in demand. And a 7% decrease, which is what we had from August last year to January this year, dropped prices almost a dollar! Spam this info to the world instead of gas boycotts...

Monday, May 07, 2007

Kansas City, Here I Come!!

So any more of you single people moving here? Man, it's raining men... AND women! I think I've counted 5 new people that are moving or have moved out here (Cherie just got here tonight), and that doesn't even count Infinity who's moving only 100 miles to the east of here. We're glad to have ya'll, so let us know and we'll leave the light on for ya' (even if you're just passin' through).