Assorted Links from Around the Web

1. James Surowiecki reviews Bad Samaritans: The Myth of Free Trade and the Secret History of Capitalism. It’s terrific in its even-handedness and layman’s language.

2. Ask the Harvard MBA. Chris Yeh’s new Q&A site – ask him anything. In a recent answer he notes how men can be picky when filtering through woman:

Of course, the crowning example might be the friend whose criteria for a woman were: “Regular user of Twitter and del.icio.us. Must subscribe to the Atlantic Monthly.”

Now, who in the world would ever hold criteria such as these?!

3. Billionaires trying to fix the school system. A NYT Magazine piece which asks, “If I’m super rich and want to help education in America, what should I do?” An interesting conversation…

4. Podcast interview with me. I did about a 30 minute podcast interview (MP3) with life coach Christine Hassler. We cover a bunch of career/life issues. Skip the first five minutes.

5. Aguanomics. A blog called Aguanomics is an excellent take on water economics issues. Here’s his recent post on how farmers are trying to dodge water cuts even though they pay less to begin with. Farm policy in America is so fucked up.

6. How to make yourself look good and others look bad. In other words, things not to say in a meeting, courtesy of always-stimulating Gretchen Rubin. My favorites (and yes – it all depends on context and tone):

“You might be right.” You seem open-minded while simultaneously undermining someone else’s authority and credibility.
“I think what Pat is trying to say is…” You show that you’re a good listener and give credit to others, while demonstrating that you can take Pat’s simple thought further than Pat could.
“I can see why you might think that.” Variant: “I used to think that, too.” You sound sympathetic, while indicating that you’ve moved far ahead in understanding.

7. Marty Nemko on You U. How Marty acquired professional-level skills in career counseling, rose breeding, screenplay writing, and strong amateur-level skills as an actor and play director without ever having taken a course in any of the above. Hint: his answer is only one paragraph long.