Links for 2006-09-13
September 13th, 2006-
National Campus Voter Registration Project
Links for 2006-09-12
September 12th, 2006-
in Spanish
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Anyone have experience with this service? It looks intriguing, but a few places I’ve been recently that I thought would have it didn’t so I wonder if it’s worth it…
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on Google Maps
Links for 2006-09-11
September 11th, 2006-
Evanston Honda/Acura specialists
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Windows program for snapping to grid program windows on a PC
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ID cart maker
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Zoli E reports on HP’s new camera with slimming effects, yikes!
In California now
September 10th, 2006I have moved to California, temporarily. I will be at the Center for Advanced Study in the Behavioral Sciences (CASBS) at Stanford for the next nine months. I have started posting some pictures (slideshow) for those who are curious about my new environment. The place is amazing. I had heard a lot of positive comments about the year at the Center from former fellows, but wow, it’s even more amazing than what one could imagine. And the interactions have barely started, my comments for now are based on the physical environment, not the intellectual one. I can see now that this will be an incredible year. I am extremely grateful for this opportunity.
Links for 2006-09-10
September 10th, 2006-
Analysis of the K-12 age range of data from the Current Population Survey Sept ’03 Computer and Internet Use Supplement
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latest SRBI/Times polls
New bookmark tag: ToRead
September 9th, 2006I’ve started using a new tag on del.icio.us and so you’ll see this under some of the Web sites that get posted under my Links entries automatically published here on each day I bookmark a site on my del.icio.us account. The new tag is “ToRead”. As you may be able to guess, the point of the tag is to note that I have yet to read the contents behind the link. By adding this tag, it should be easy for me to find these sites when I have a bit of time to catch up on reading. The purpose of the tag here is twofold though. It also signals to you, dear reader, that the link under which this tag appears is not one I looked at much at all so you should not assume that I am familiar with its contents. I don’t guarantee that I have read the entire contents of the other sites either, but these I have glanced at so briefly that they may not even remain on my links list long-term. I guess they will remain on my blog though. In any case, just thought you should note this bit of change around here.
Links for 2006-09-09
September 9th, 2006A shout-out to my Acura dealership
August 30th, 2006Car buying is usually a pretty stressful process. I went through it last December and January. I didn’t realize I hadn’t blogged about it, but it looks like I hadn’t. (I did post some photos of my new car on the companion of this blog, my Flickr account.) In sum, the process ended up being just fine and I came away happy with the outcome.
I am now at the McGrath Acura Dealership in Morton Grove, Illinois where I bought my wonderful car. There is nothing wrong with the vehicle, there never has been, I just brought it in for a check-up before my long drive out to California soon. I figured I’d get an oil change as well. It turns out that the first one after the purchase of a new vehicle is free. That’s nice. So is the full check, and the car wash, too, of course. (I knew that, I’ve taken advantage of that a few times already.)
An additional perk of sitting in the comfy waiting area sipping hot chocolate is that it turns out they have free wireless here. Who knew. I brought my laptop to do some work, but I wasn’t expecting to be able to go online. Nice.
In general, I’ve had great experiences with McGrath Acura, so if anyone in Chicagoland is reading this, take note. (And if you decide to go and buy a vehicle at this dealership, be sure to mention me as a referral so I can get the referral bonus.:)
One more point: the Acura RSX is a really great car, and much more affordable than most other Acura models, fwiw.
Links for 2006-08-30
August 30th, 2006-
new gadget with all sorts of functionality (open for developers to tweak)
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sending voicemail without calling a phone
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“I would like to report a Gmail user who has sent messages that violate the Gmail Program Policies and/or Terms of Use.”
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“I would like to report a Gmail user who is attempting to sell an established account.”
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“I would like to report an incident involving a Gmail user.”
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pointers to interesting, somewhat unorthodox presentations
Links for 2006-08-29
August 29th, 2006-
create Web-based videos easily
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a Photojojo how-to
Links for 2006-08-28
August 28th, 2006-
predicts future prices of airfare letting you know whether you should buy now or perhaps wait
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NBER working paper series
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a small collection of some very clever ads
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listen to or create recordings of books in the public domain
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tool for selecting a personalized Illinois license plate
LIESNS PL8S
August 27th, 2006In addition to taking pictures of restroom signs, I also enjoy looking around for interesting license plates. There are plenty of these in Illinois, apparently one in five drivers has one. I find this somewhat surprising given their cost: $76 extra for personalized plates and $123 for vanity plates (and who knew there was a difference between those two categories?).
I used to take a lot of pictures of them, but given the volume I have decided to focus mostly on ones that I can decipher and find at least somewhat interesting. Some of my favorites: EUROPA, KODALY, MAKE ART, GENEVE 4 (although that would be cleaner without the number), GOOGLE and MR PHOTO. For that last one I reversed course and went back to park on the street and capture it. I am serious about my collection.:) Among others’ photos, I’ve especially appreciated finds that have some Internet-related meaning (FLICKR‘s the best), but some others are fun as well (e.g. GRUETZI) plus the ones that are not obvious to decipher (although if they are too cryptic I’m likely to miss the meaning). Others are just outright curious, for example, who knew emotional expressions about one’s Mom is a popular theme (I LOV MUM, ILUVMA).
The issue of vanity plates can get tricky quickly as certain expressions are not always allowed. One has to wonder how closely suggested plates get scrutinized. Or would the reverse of a plate be checked (say, you want to send a message to those viewing your plate in their rear-view mirror, do state official consider the reverse reading of submitted requests)? Then there is the issue of specialty plates that support certain causes. The environmental ones don’t cause much contraversy, but the pro-life ones do.
Illinois has a search program available so you can check whether your preference is available. It turns out that mine is, but I’m not ready to spend the $123. I guess I could always just get a bumper sticker.
I see that there are plenty of vanity plates in Calfornia so I look forward to capturing those when I move there in a couple of weeks.
Got a few seconds?
August 27th, 2006Links for 2006-08-26
August 26th, 2006-
a tool for speedreading
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another tool for speedreading
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Firefox extension to incorporate Getting Things done function into GMail
Firefox extension incompatibility problem
August 25th, 2006E-Blog readers have been extremely helpful in the past when it comes to technical difficulties around here so I thought I’d try to get some advice in a related realm once again.
For months I’ve had trouble installing some Firefox extensions. As soon as the xpi file downloads, I’m told that “[xyz extension] could not be installed, because it is incompatible with Firefox 1.5.0.6”. This is then usually followed by the following additional note: “[xyz extension] will only work with Firefox versions from 1.5 to 1.5.0.*”.
What I don’t get here is that 1.5.0.6 IS a 1.5.0.* version so why don’t these extensions work? Any ideas? I would really like to try some of these extensions, but I can’t right now. Thanks!
Links for 2006-08-25
August 25th, 2006-
Web polls that can be embedded in blogs
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keeping track of working out
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nominations accepted until Sept 15
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NYTimes op-ed by Tim Kreider
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Google Calendar on your desktop to use when you’re offline
Links for 2006-08-23
August 23rd, 2006-
search for terms from the AOL search data [thanks]
Links for 2006-08-22
August 22nd, 2006Being overqualified
August 21st, 2006I was catching up with a friend recently who, after receiving a Master’s degree, decided to move to a professionally less-than-ideal location for personal reasons. She’s been doing okay by picking up work here and there, but it’s been a long process. She was explaining to me the frustrations of being told that you are overqualified for a job. I could definitely see her perspective and was nodding throughout her desciption of various recent experiences. But after the responses I received to my recent post (posted on Crooked Timber, I seemed to have forgotten to post it here as well) about outsourcing advice, I am starting to understand the other side’s position better. A few people emailed me offering their services. The problem is, pretty much all of them seem to be overqualified, which puts me in a difficult position.
My motivation for looking into outsourcing was twofold: 1. to see whether I could find additional assistance with work since undergraduate students don’t always have as many hours to give to a project as is necessary and there are a limited number of graduate students locally; 2. to see whether I could save some money by hiring people elsewhere.
Certainly, removing the geographical constraint of the job helps and clearly there are people out there who could use some work that is open to a flexible schedule. However, it’s not at all clear whether there is much money to be saved.
First, my impression regarding outsourcing services available online is that they may be cost-effective if you need highly qualified people (specialized tech skills, for example), but there was nothing on the various Web sites that made me think I would necessarily come out ahead by hiring people from elsewhere for the jobs of interest to me (some data entry, transcription and such). I pay undergraduate students $8-$9/hour and the sites I saw didn’t seem to compete with that well.
Second, I got responses from people who sound like they would be very responsible and could definitely do the job well, but they seemed overqualified. Years ago I paid graduate students $10/hour so today that seems inappropriate. However, I wouldn’t want to pay more for these tasks than I do to people working on them locally. I have no idea what the going rate is in various fields. I know in computer science it is much much higher, but what is it in humanities fields? Perhaps what seems inappropriate to me would be fine for some people who are really just looking for something flexible to supplement their income.
I definitely know from experience that I don’t always do a very good job of estimating what may be a perfectly acceptable job and wage for a student. I sometimes feel badly about giving out very simple tasks, but then I remind myself that I was just fine with cleaning bathrooms and dishes – those were two separate jobs:) – in my first year in college and was outright happy later on with my job in the library and doing simple tasks for professors.
But when it comes to graduate students or people with advanced degrees, this all gets trickier. I do not want to insult someone with an advanced degree by suggesting a rate that seems way too low to me. At the same time, the potential employee does not want to mention a rate with the fear of asking for less than what I am willing to pay. Regarding this latter point, the potential employees don’t know that I won’t pay people in similar situations less than what I already pay others. (I would if the person lived in a country with much lower cost of living. Thus my inquiry about outsourcing.) That is, if an undergraduate student came to me to volunteer his or her services for free in my lab, I would still only hire him or her with pay, because I believe that a person will take the job more seriously if he or she is getting paid for it. Moreover, because others in the lab are getting paid, I believe everyone should unless there is a different payoff to the assistant. For example, an undergraduate student might work without pay on one of my projects if he or she is getting course credit as per his or her preference.
Of course, it is too simplistic to see this as nothing but an hourly wage issue. It is completely possible that people with more training or background with related work would do the job more efficiently and thus would not cost more on the aggregate even if their hourly rate is higher. But this would require quite a bit of logistics to figure out. (There is some cost to starting work with a new person and training them for a task so you don’t want to get too many folks involved.)
I will be hiring for a full-time position soon. I will make sure to post the salary up front to avoid the above complications. If people see what a position pays then it should be fair to assume that even if they are overqualified, they are willing to work for the offered amount if they decided to submit an application. That still doesn’t solve all concerns, by the way, given that the employer may fear losing the employee to a better opportunity. But at least it removes one point of confusion.
Links for 2006-08-21
August 21st, 2006-
“=”I think the message here is that as soon as you become a slightly more sophisticated searcher, then you’re breaking the spell of the Web” – yup, found this in my work years ago
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tell the system which photo you like better and it tries to guess things about you (it got a few things right, a few things wrong in my case)
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teachers post their needs, donors can fund projects of interest
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discussion following a quote from an article about my gender skills paper
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search engine for forums
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flash map of North Africa & Middle East
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“provides direct links to over 7000 scholarly periodicals which allow some or all of their online content to be viewed by ANYONE with Internet access for free” – key in there may be “some” as some only seem to allow sample issues
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360′ panoramic view from atop the Eiffel Tower
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another social bookmarking system, althoug this one seems to have quite a bit of scientific/publication focus
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finally a really easy way to geotag Flickr photos
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(yourDictionary.com)
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let people access info about some event, etc. by sending a text message to 41411
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get a prescheduled call on your cell phone
