I’ve been thinking about leadership over the past couple weeks in terms of how one may rise to the challenge of inspiring and motivating their teams… as well as how to avoid the Peter Principle of being promoted to a level of, well, incompetence. And when you read about leaders who were so very incompetent, you wonder why they’re often more studied than leaders who succeed… because not all of these studies come from the…
Continuing on the trend of looking back to some of the posts I referenced for my blogiversary last week, CGP Grey’s video ranking different state flags is still a great watch, but there’s Minnesota has a new flag! Alas, his videos about the initial finalists and the final design are for backers only, but you get quality critique for the final three: I long for more of the boring-blue-background-with-seals flags to be supplanted, but I…
What a difference 60-odd years makes! Well, okay, I would wonder how things wouldn’t change in 60-odd years in a particular area, but Jill Devine did an article this past December for Northern Virginia magazine that’s chock full of photographs and various milestones of how the region has changed… in many ways quite dramatically. For locals and naturalized locals, it’s sure to trigger some memories.
Having grown up regularly attending live theater and later doing it myself, I was keenly interested in what impact COVID made during the beginning outbreak of the virus and what theaters would do afterwards. Well, now we’re in the afterwards and Angie Ahlgren has an article for American Theatre that is close to my heart, because it focuses on the “hub of the wheel” of any good theater production: the stage manager. As someone who…
I’m interrupting my usual posting cadence for those seven or nine regular readers who might also have a number of Kindle purchases. Basically, as of February 26th, Amazon is removing the ability for you to download purchases as copies over which you have full control. For more information, you can check out Andrew Liszewski’s piece for The Verge that, like many of us, you may have missed on Valentine’s Day or read David Gewirtz’ article…
This Valentine’s Day, have you considered LEGO? If you or your significant other have considered this as a gift, you are more statistically likely to have a lot of LEGO bricks around your domicile. And that means you should have a way to organize the LEGO bricks you have. Enter LEGO enthusiast Tom Alphin and his LEGO Storage Guide over at Brick Architect. You can begin at the beginning, but this guide came on my…
Amidst all the changes happening in America at the moment, I suppose “ghost jobs” aren’t on the top of some people’s concerns, but for anyone needing to find a new place to work, the increased existence of ghost jobs is something to bear in mind. CNBC has a nice 12-minute piece from last August that walks through what now can account for four out of every 10 job listings. What I like about the newspiece…
Tomorrow will be the release of Civilization VII, the latest version of the video game series that has been tempting players with “one more turn” for over 30 years. In fact, certain users who pre-ordered the game got early access in case you were wondering if friends disappeared from online spaces and social gatherings. They almost certainly missed the Superb Owl this past Sunday. I have played all the versions of Civilization over the decades…
My now annual post about the Public Domain continues to a noticeable amount of traffic and I continue to find additional resources post-January 1st, so here’s two more. First is a video from energetic book-lover Jenny Fern whose 16-minute video about books entering the public domain. She is candid about not knowing some of the authors or characters at all, so don’t be hatin’ on someone who doesn’t know about Miss Marple, and enjoy this…
The Fantastic Four were never my favorite team of superheroes, certainly not wowing me in their various on-screen incarnations despite some of the cast. However, I always felt like there was a place for these public do-gooders and their matching “can-do” attitude… and by gum, I think this latest iteration seems to have tapped into the right tone! I also appreciate that they released it on the fourth (which I gotta guess is on purpose).