Merlin Mann, a smart & funny guy who has some helpful advice about managing Time & Attention for the fellow Knowledge Workers among us.  The slides are excerpted from a 45-minute presentation, distilled to the major points.

Insightful talk from a smart fellow, Mark Pesce. Follow the path of socialization and its impact from millenniums ago to the current day of 43 billion text messages. 25 minutes that is well worth your time - watch on your lunch break. Or if you prefer, you may read the transcript.

If you don’t know what “Star Wars Kid”, “Leave Britney Alone!” and “FTL” are… you might not get this video — my Der Untergang / The Downfall (meta) parody. If you do get it, then by all means favorite/rate it, and pass it along to everyone in your address book, lest you be stricken with cooties.

Heading out camping for the long weekend. Back on Tuesday. Enjoy your holiday, everyone.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=b6CsG4pPCMA

UPDATE: Sadly, my video has been removed by the Copyright Ges… er, Police after just receiving just under 60,000 views in 3 weeks.  I guess parody has no place under the DMCA.

Apparently, the happiest people on earth are those from Iceland.  They’re just a fun-lovin’, fornicatin’, feminist flock of frozen financiers.

MSNBC touches on an under-reported side effect of the housing crisis — underdeveloped, abandoned communities.  Places (Philly area featured) where hopes were high, but prices higher.  All the gold has been mined, and what’s left is a ghost town.

Susan Jacoby of the Washington Post recently lamented on The Dumbing Of America. She claims that Americans are not only becoming more and more ignorant, but increasingly proud of that said ignorance. “Anti-Rationalism” and “Anti-Intellectualism” are part of the new American Way - do you agree?

Personally, I think it’s one of the defining characteristics of what I call The IM Generation. The people entering today’s workforce have been weened on insta-culture, and simply do not pay attention to the basics… like, oh, spelling simple words correctly. Take a look around… I’ve noticed far more misspellings and simple grammar mistakes in the news, on billboards, commercials, etc. in the past 5 years or so then I’ve ever seen. Signs, often literally, of the vanishing attention span of America.