Start the Weekend Right – JerseySmarts.com

Start the Weekend Right Link Series – Volume #5, Edition #5

Posted on July 31, 2020 by Joe

This week, I have some links that relate to much of what is going on in the world including how you can build a great home office for these working from home times. I continue to recommend using Feedly as an RSS reader (and, again, I am not getting any payment for recommending this product – I just really like it as a replacement for the old Google Reader). If you already have a Feedly account, then you can follow my blog by clicking here.

Build the Perfect Home Office, Men’s Health
This very quick read was published way back in 2014 and gives five great tips for improving your home office. I agree with – and follow – all of these but one. They recommend painting the home office red because that color helps you focus more on your work. I just couldn’t imagine my workspace being red (my entire home office is shades of gray and black). Also, they suggest not having a television in your home office. Though I have a small television mounted to one of the corners of my home office, I do not keep it on unless there is a major, historic event going on (incredibly rare these days).

Civic Engagement: Teaching Students to Be Partisan Activists, Minding the Campus
This is another old link, from 2013, where a professor of political science indicates his concern about the enthusiasm around civic engagement education. Before he passed away, Dr. Lawler was a professor at Berry College and, in addition to writing about political science, he would occasionally write about higher education (one of my favorite topics to study). Reading about his perspective on how earning credit for civic engagement should be avoided.

Higher ed faces pressure from students to cut tuition, Axios
Just a quick aside, these days I use Axios as my primary news source. They are a low-glitz, web-based platform that is designed to give you a story quickly and efficiently without embedding an opinion. In this story, they talk about how some colleges are cutting tuition due to the COVID-19 pandemic and others are actually raising their costs. I know some of the colleges here in New Jersey are upping their tuition… and I know that their students are angry about it.

Brian Fargo on a Pending Golden Age for RPGs, Tides of Numenera Dev Blog
Years ago, I used to scour sites like Kickstarter and IndieGoGo looking for new and exciting projects to support. I typically supported projects related to writing (new pencil styles, notebooks, pens, etc.) and those related to classic Japanese Role Playing Game (RPG) video games. With hindsight being 20/20, I now know that I got infinitely more use out of the writing projects (I write in a journal every day) versus the video game projects (I rarely play video games and have not played them regularly in 20+ years). With that out of the way, this link takes you to a very short developer blog entry where one of the folks behind the Tides of Numenera game suggest that we may have been entering a golden age for RPGs. This was posted 7 years ago and while I do not know if the video game industry entered a new golden age, I do know that video games seem to be as popular as ever.

Seven Surprising Truths About the World, Reason
Seven years ago, the folks at Reason put together a great little article about seven surprisingly good things going on in the world… at the time. Among the surprising “good news” stories: cancer rates were on the decline, average IQs were increasing, and local biodiversity was increasing. I wonder how those stories hold up 7 years later, especially with everything going on in the world today.

A random note before I end this one, folks. As I went through my old links for this entry, I noticed that a lot of them from what used to be bodybuilding-styled websites were gone and that those websites had all closed up. In fact, some of those now-former writers have become born again Christians because they suggest that they led horrendous, sinful lives for far too long. That, in itself, is an interesting development and if someone ever writes about it, then that story may find itself as a link on a future edition of this series. Anyway, though I would share that commonality since it was so, well, uncommon in my experience.

Have you come across any great articles lately? If so, then please share those links in the comments below. And one more time for those of you who love reading online articles, I strongly recommend using Feedly as an RSS reader. You can follow JerseySmarts.com on Feedly or you can add us to your existing RSS aggregator. Enjoy!

Start the Weekend Right Link Series – Volume #5, Edition #4

Posted on July 24, 2020 by Joe

Back, once again, with another Start the Weekend Right Link Series. I hope that the links in this week’s offering give you some fun articles to read to get your weekend started right. And I know that there are more people out there reading these updates today than a few weeks ago and I have heard your feedback, so I am going to try to include some more contemporary links each week, too. I continue to recommend using Feedly as an RSS reader (and, again, I am not getting any payment for recommending this product – I just really like it as a replacement for the old Google Reader). If you already have a Feedly account, then you can follow my blog by clicking here.

5 Reasons You Can’t Quit Sugar, Mark’s Daily Apple
And we can start this week with a link to an article posted just a few days ago! Mark’s Daily Apple is a great resource for those individuals looking to learn more about the paleo lifestyle, what it means to eat like a caveman, and what it means to be healthy for life. Some 9 years ago, I read and loved this website’s book called The Primal Blueprint. This article is an expansion of some of the great ideas that are in that book.

Why I Stopped Journaling, Art of Manliness
This is one of the articles where I might not completely align to the takeaway points. Last month, the author wrote a great entry talking about how they stopped journaling because they did not have any big decisions to make, they got better at managing their emotions, and they have friends now. For some, journaling helps in all of those aspects of someone’s life. For me, daily journaling is a stress reliever and a way to get my thoughts out of my head with a paper and pencil.

Why Ed Schools Are Useless, Minding the Campus
I have a doctorate from an education school where I loved the experience, and before I obtained that doctorate, I earned a post-master’s certificate from another educational school where I loved the experience. The argument in this article from 2013 says that education schools have “very little rigor and no incentives to excel academically” and they use some data to back that perspective. My instinct tells me that this is probably a case-by-case basis.

Joe Biden’s student-loan forgiveness…, Condemned to DEBT
Back in April, the very good Condemned to DEBT blog provided a brief analysis of Vice President Joe Biden’s student loan plan. If you are a student loan wonk like I am (I mean, I have been one of their bigger individual customers), then this is something that you want to read. However, based on what I read at this link, I was not that impressed with the plan. Admittedly, I’m usually not impressed with anyone’s plan for student loans.

The 10 Best Top 100 Books Lists, Book Riot
There’s nothing newsworthy in this link – it is being included here purely for entertainment purposes! This link will take you to a list of the top 10, top 100 books of the year lists. Again, the top 10 lists of the top 100 books… for the year 2013. This is one of the outcomes from keeping so many links bookmarked for so long of a period of time – I wind up with 7 year old links to lists of lists! I’m probably entertaining myself far more writing this than you are reading it!

Start the Weekend Right Link Series – Volume #5, Edition #3

Posted on July 17, 2020 by Joe

Back again with another Start the Weekend Right Link Series after last week’s successful offering. Just a note before we get started, I continue to recommend using Feedly as an RSS reader (and, again, I am not getting any payment for recommending this product – I just really like it as a replacement for the old Google Reader). If you already have a Feedly account, then you can follow my blog by clicking here.

Resignation Letter, Bari Weiss
Well, this is a complete and total destruction of the New York Times and their editorial page. Ms. Weiss is the now-former opinion editor at the New York Times and in this scathing resignation letter she tears apart what many of us have grown to begrudgingly accept about the newspaper – that its opinion page is more than far-left, it’s off the left side of the charts. As someone who is an avid New York Times reader, I know that they have a broken editorial page that, as Ms. Weiss says, operated by an “enlightened few whose job is to inform everyone else.” Yuck. If you enjoy reading about the behind the scenes in today’s media scene, then you want to read this resignation letter.

To Ask or Not to Ask: Experiments in Charitable Giving, Freakonomics
As you may know at this point, one of my favorite topics in the volunteering world is the business of philanthropic giving. In this 2011 post from the Freakonomics blog, they offer some commentary on a then-recent study of philanthropic giving related to the Salvation Army bell-ringers at the front of stores during the holiday season. One of their big takeaways is that giving increases 75% when you just ask someone to donate. Shocking, right?

Students Say No to Healthful School Fare, The NY Times Well Blog
This is another blog post from later in 2011 where the NY Times’s Well Blog wrote about how students in the LA Unified School District were rejecting the new, healthier food options. You might remember that about 10 years ago in this country, there was a push to make school breakfasts and lunches healthier (great idea, in my view). Well, this blog entry tells you how that played out some 9 years ago: “Students have been throwing away meals and bringing their own junk food to school, forcing the district to bring back some of the foods it worked so hard to replace.”

Higher Education is Still a Very Good Investment-Becker, The Becker-Posner Blog
The Becker-Posner Blog was a great read for many reasons, not the least of which is the fact that the two authors were renowned intellectuals who put their minds to work in the judicial and economic spheres. When Gary Becker passed away in 2014, Richard Posner cited that the blog would also be ending. Luckily, this blog entry is from 2013 and gives the authors’ take on why going to college is still a good investment, even in the face of increasing tuition costs.

The Four Lessons I Learned By Taking a MOOC, AIR
Even though this link is some 7 years old already, it has particular relevance to me as I am planning on taking a MOOC this summer. I saw that one of the students I mentor (at a different school and in a different state) completed a MOOC earlier this summer and that got the ball rolling in my mind about whether or not I should take one of these. For those who are unfamiliar, a MOOC is a massive open online course where enrollment is usually free. These days, many institutions of higher education have MOOC offerings from their premier schools and you can purchase a low cost certificate after completing the course showing your efficacy in that subject matter. Again, I plan on taking a MOOC this summer so I will likely report back on my experience. Stay tuned!

The Paleo Diet Debunked?, Nerd Fitness
Nerd Fitness is one of the most entertaining websites when it comes to fitness tips and health information. The author writes from a nerdy world view (I love it!) and takes on big issues in the health and fitness field. In this entry, he writes about the popular Paleo diet (in short, eat like a caveman) and the common criticisms of that approach to consuming food. If you are looking for a really good defense of the Paleo diet and all of the reasons why it could potentially work for you, then this is the page to read. And I also recommend clicking around the website a little bit to learn about the Nerd Fitness approach to health (I use an old Nerd Fitness weightlifting program when I’m at the gym… during non-coronavirus times).

As an aside, the more I go through these old links that I have bookmarked or saved in Feedly, the more I realize many of them lead to content that no longer exists or has been taken down. When and where possible, I will try to replace that content with duplicate versions of the material as is the case above with the article from AIR (originally posted to a blog that I follow that has since taken down the old post).

Have you come across any great articles lately? If so, then please share those links in the comments below. All subjects count from money to volunteering to higher education to sports and more! And one more time for those of you who love reading online articles, I strongly recommend using Feedly as an RSS reader. You can follow JerseySmarts.com on Feedly or you can add us to your existing RSS aggregator. Enjoy!

Start the Weekend Right Link Series – Volume #5, Edition #2

Posted on July 10, 2020 by Joe

Following up on last Friday’s Start the Weekend Right Link Series, here are some more links that you might find interesting to browse through as the weekend begins. However, just a note on this week’s links – they will link you to old pages on the internet. At least one of them is 10+ years old. As I continue to clean out old bookmarks and look through saved stories on my Feedly, there are going to be some old stories posted. Speaking of Feedly, I continue to recommend using Feedly as an RSS reader (and, again, I am not getting any payment for recommending this product – I just really like it as a replacement for the old Google Reader). If you already have a Feedly account, then you can follow my blog by clicking here.

Solitude and Leadership, The American Scholar
This article was posted way back in March 2010, but the elements that it inspires about leadership are timeless. The core of the message, I think, is: “What we don’t have, in other words, are thinkers. People who can think for themselves. People who can formulate a new direction: for the country, for a corporation or a college, for the Army—a new way of doing things, a new way of looking at things. People, in other words, with vision.” I actually used those lines as the basis for a leadership presentation that I gave a few years ago – it is a great message.

Millennials No Slackers When It Comes to Volunteering, Poll Finds, The Chronicle of Philanthropy
Unfortunately, this link will only take you to a brief review of a study that I cannot seem to find a good link to here in 2020. Of course, this review was first published in December 2014, so it is understandable that the study results that it links to are no longer available. The reason why I kept a copy of this link is because I like what the data shows; namely, that the Millennial generation – those born between 1981 and 1996 – are more likely to consider volunteering than other generations. I have seen this in my own work in the nonprofit sector over the last decade and a half, so I was glad to see that there is a study validating those experiences.

Wanted: Blue-Collar Workers, City Journal
This one comes to us from the Autumn 2011 issue of the City Journal. What is great about this one is that it signaled what many folks in higher education having been talking about for a few years now. That is, there needs to be more people going into the physical labor force than we are currently producing as a nation. From the article: “For decades, Americans have been told that the future lies in high-end services, such as law, and ‘creative’ professions, such as software-writing and systems design. This has led many pundits to think that the only real way to improve opportunities for the country’s middle class is to increase its access to higher education.” The article goes on to say that the mid-career salaries for some of these “high-end” careers is in the mid-$60,000s. Certainly not something on which to build the Great American Dream.

Why I Stopped Giving to Duke, James G. Martin Center for Academic Renewal
One of my favorite blogs to read from time to time is the James G. Martin Center for Academic Renewal. They take a very proactive approach to redefining and breathing new life into higher education. In this article from December 2011, the writer talks about how he stopped donating to his alma mater because they moved in a more politically correct direction. Specifically, he writes about an English professor who commented that there is no such thing as free speech. That is… kind of… concerning. Especially when considering that colleges should be bastions of free speech.

Stealth savings: Sneaky ways to fatten your account, Get Rich Slowly
And for some financial reading for everyone, this time from back in January 2012 and updated this past October 2019. This article suggests aiming for a 20% savings rate and gives recommendations on how you might be able to achieve that rate. Some suggestions that they offer are to drop a hobby and save those funds, become symbolical (want to retire by a certain age? Then deposit that numerical value in the bank every week, month, or whatever), use a bank that does not have a branch in your neighborhood so it is a frustration to take money out of the account, and to use laddered CDs (a strategy that I use) from an online bank.

Start the Weekend Right Link Series – Volume #5, Edition #1

Posted on July 3, 2020 by Joe

The last time I put together one of these Start the Weekend Right Link Series posts was back in March 2016. Wow! Since then, I have come across a whole host of articles that I think you might find interesting. As I write this post, I am putting together a few more of these posts and setting them to automatically update over the next few Fridays. As always, you can stay up to date on the latest from this blog by following up and I recommend using Feedly as an RSS reader (I do not get any kickback for promoting Feedly, I just love their system!). If you’re already on Feedly, then you can follow us by clicking here.

Everything You Know About Fitness is a Lie, Men’s Journal
This one was interesting because it gives out advice like this: “maintaining cardiovascular fitness doesn’t really take much more than breathing uncomfortably hard for about 20 minutes, three times a week.” As a guy who has been told to do more cardio for all of my adult life, this is a welcome change to the standard message that many of us have received. This article shares five different “truths” about working out and if you are into working out, then I recommend giving it a read.

2045: The Year Man Becomes Immortal, Time
If you like science fiction-style articles that make bold predictions about the future, then this one is for you. The article predicts that artificial intelligence will be able to emulate the activities of the human brain by 2045. And when that happens, there will naturally be a shift in the world where computers begin to work on their own upgrades at a rate that humans will not be able to catch up with easily.

12 People At The Gym We Love To Hate, AskMen
This is a very old article that must have been updated since it was first published because there are 24 different types of gym goers that are on this list. If you have read this blog for a while, then you may know that I used to write about different health and gym-related content many years ago including posts like this one – people that irritate you at the gym. I remember coming across one of the #18s on their list back when I was at Planet Fitness. This guy was doing the most bizarre movements at 5:30am and… it was just all wrong.

The Buckley Approach to Higher Ed Reform, James G. Martin Center for Academic Renewal
One of my favorite topics to read about is higher education, specifically the business of higher education. And part of that business is the business of academic freedom and intellectual diversity on campus. In this piece, William F. Buckley’s arguments are used to fight against, “what he saw as the misuse of the term academic freedom, which was then (as now) used as a battering ram against traditional values.” This is a perspective that you do not hear on any large platform in 2020, so I think it is worth the read on that basis alone. Heads up, this article is 9 years old!

What is a Roth IRA?, Get Rich Slowly
This is another article that was published 9 years ago and it was published on one of my favorite personal finance websites – Get Rich Slowly. The methodology behind intentionally saving money and working to grow that savings over time (and, ultimately, becoming rich in the process) is what we ought to be teaching our students. In this article, you can learn about a Roth IRA and what it can do to help you improve your financial position.

Have you come across any great articles lately? If so, please share those links in the comments below! And one more time before you go – for those of you who love reading online articles, I strongly recommend considering a free Feedly account. You can follow JerseySmarts.com on Feedly or you can add us to your existing RSS aggregator. Enjoy!