Who knew that there are "dyslexia friendly" fonts? From Freakonomics:
As a lunch-table discussion here in England revealed, the University insists on certain typefaces that are dyslexia-friendly, particularly Arial, Trebuchet, and Verdana. It costs me or any other faculty member nothing to use one of these on exams; non-dyslexic students are not harmed by them, and dyslexic students are better off.
Is a lack of demand for skilled labor contributing to America's stubbornly high unemployment rate?
What explains the current low rate of employment in the U.S.? While there has substantial debate over this question in recent years, we believe that considerable added insight can be derived by focusing on changes in the labour market at the turn of the century. In particular, we argue that in about the year 2000, the demand for skill (or, more specifically, for cognitive tasks often associated with high educational skill) underwent a reversal. Many researchers have documented a strong, ongoing increase in the demand for skills in the decades leading up to 2000. In this paper, we document a decline in that demand in the years since 2000, even as the supply of high education workers continues to grow. We go on to show that, in response to this demand reversal, high-skilled workers have moved down the occupational ladder and have begun to perform jobs traditionally performed by lower-skilled workers. This de-skilling process, in turn, results in high-skilled workers pushing low-skilled workers even further down the occupational ladder and, to some degree, out of the labor force all together. In order to understand these patterns, we offer a simple extension to the standard skill biased technical change model that views cognitive tasks as a stock rather than a flow. We show how such a model can explain the trends in the data that we present, and offers a novel interpretation of the current employment situation in the U.S.
I might be one of a handful of people who will think this is exciting, but so what? Freakonomics coauthor Stephen Dubner is going to be playing a gig with his old band in Winston-Salem this week. From the Freakonomics blog:
A long time ago, I played in a rock band, called The Right Profile. It was a great deal of fun. We wound up getting a record deal with Arista…
But I quit the band about a year later. We were in the middle of making our first record. I decided I didn’t want to try to be a rock star after all, as much fun as it was. Writing suits me better.
I pretty much went cold turkey and have performed almost no music since then. But all these many years later, The Right Profile is set to ride again, if only for a few songs. We were asked to participate in a concert by the Vagabond Saints’ Society at a centennial celebration for the city of Winston-Salem, N.C., on Fri., May 7, from 7-10 pm.
I can’t wait. Winston-Salem has produced some amazing music over the years (the dB’s, Ben Folds, Let’s Active, the Alisons, Dillon Fence, and many more), and it will be great fun to hear these guys again and crawl backwards into the time capsule. Also I can’t wait to play again with my bandmates Tim Fleming, Jeffrey Dean Foster, and Jon Wurster.
The date is actually May 10 and according to the centennial celebration website the Vagabond Saints' Society show will be at 6th and Cherry. Should be a blast.
A story from Mt. Airy, NC highlights why you have to be very careful when you have a raffle or other fundraising contest at one of your events:
Vickie Riekehof was called out as the winner of the raffle for a 2013 limited edition Fiat Abarth, or that is what she thought. After arriving to claim the car, she said David Chaloupka, owner of Amadour Winery and Vineyards who oversaw the contest, told her that she had to toss a Frisbee into the car’s open window from a point estimated to be about 90 feet away.
She claims there was no such rule for the contest when she purchased the $100 raffle ticket.
Bob Meinecke, organizer of the festival and member of the Mount Airy Rotary Club, said it was his understanding the instructions would be printed on the ticket and on the literature about the event.
“There was a misunderstanding. We refunded her money and apologized,” said Meinecke. “It was a he said she said thing. My understanding was that verbal instructions were given to each person who purchased a ticket from the salesperson.” He said that person was Chaloupka.
Word of advice: whenever you're trying to separate people from their money, even for a good cause, never allow it to be organized in such a way that it come down to a "he said, she said thing."
One of the best parts of my job is being able to work with on community service project with our member companies. Each year we do a project related to housing and this year we worked with Housing Greensboro to help repair two homes for families that are facing some fairly serious difficulties due to illness. One of our members, THS National, sent along a videographer and the result is the video below.
Thanks to my job I'm occasionally interviewed by local TV stations. It's cool in the "I never thought I'd be on TV" sense, but on the other hand it's a little like jumping off a cliff because you learn pretty quickly that the TV folks can make you look as good or bad, smart or stupid, as they want.
Last Friday I was fried. We had our annual banquet the night before and my brain was little more than Jell-O as a result. Luckily I had a light schedule so I was cruising through my day until the phone rang at 12:30. It was the local Fox affiliate looking for some background on a story they were working, and also looking for a soundbite if at all possible. Knowing I was in no shape for an interview I claimed a full schedule. Nominally true, but I really just didn't want to do the interview. Eventually the reporter persuaded me to talk and we set a 2:30 appointment.
The result? A half hour of prep work followed by a total vapor-lock of the brain as soon as the camera was on. Luckily they took mercy on me and only used about five seconds of the interview, thus minimizing my on-camera freeze.
Befuddled 