Monthly Roundup – November 2013

Posts

Here’s the quick monthly roundup for what I’ve written this month, organized by subject. I’ve provided links to make it easier to read the articles.

General

  • Fear and Gratitude: Giving Thanks 2013 November 28
    Nobody told me that Lyme disease comes with constant fear attached. Antibiotics help with the physical symptoms; here’s how I’m working on the mental ones.
  • Try The Honey Badger Diet! 2013 November 10
    This… is the honey badger (diet)! You may be surprised to learn that honey badgers do care about some things. They’re actually very sensitive to the size bias and body loathing that are rampant among Mellivora capensis. Honey badgers receive a lot of negative messaging encouraging them to hate their bodies and feel stupid about their eating …
  • Why You SHOULD Get Chills From That “Homeless Veteran Timelapse Transformation” Video 2013 November 08
    Man, we loves us some transformations. Makeovers, interventions, whatever you want to call ‘em. We love the idea of saviors, too: people who come in and do the transforming/making over/intervening. This is enshrined on a pretty deep level of our culture, from religious transformers to Home Makeover shows to boot camps to alcoholism interventions to Teach …
  • Site Policies 2013 November 08
    Privacy policy, ad policy, comment policy, etc.
  • Honey Badger Empathy Survey 2013 November 07
    Survey conducted using Standard Empathy Instrument (Quantitative) version 2.5, n = 577. In light of the perhaps-surprising results of the initial survey, we attempted to repeat the survey to investigate whether the initial results were anomalous. Regrettably, nearly all the honey badgers had engaged themselves in other activities (seeking honey and larvae, hunting and eating cobras, …
  • Of Mice and Mindsets 2013 November 05
    What can we learn about growth mindsets from a video of a Russian mouse trying to steal a cookie? Quite a lot, actually.

Crisis hotlines

  • Compassion and the Little Prince 2013 November 19
    What can we learn about crisis work from the Little Prince and a retired counselor from Mississippi? We can learn how compassion and love connect in crisis.
  • Pathologizing Language 2013 November 06
    Most of you have seen the video about the Crazy Nastyass Honey Badger, with narration by Randall, somewhere in your travels around the internet. I delight in using the honey badgers to teach about crisis hotlines; we’re using the honey badger in our initial training to talk about inappropriate sexual callers, frequent callers, the …

Music

  • Frankenstein’s Musical Laboratory 2013 November 17
    Dr. Frankenstein cooks up a new musical instrument in his lab, combining the beauty of a violin with the speed of a typewriter.

Math

  • The Sheriff’s Star: Playing Math! 2013 November 26
    How can you make a regular 7-pointed badge for the Sheriff of El Dorado County without a protractor? Does it work with any number of points? We’re playing math!
  • Triangles and Pyramids: Playing Math! 2013 November 10
    Triangles and Pyramids Playing math! I like playing with math. These days, I don’t need that much math for my daily life–enough to calculate whether I’ve got enough gas to get from A to B, to balance my checkbook, to budget for the training class I’m starting, to figure out expenses on Frost and Fire‘s new album… …

Money

  • How Much Does Grad School Cost? 2013 November 14
    Grad school is expensive in lots of ways, but people often forget opportunity cost. In this post, we look at how much more money you have to make after graduate school to make up for the lost earnings and growth you missed during school, and we reach some conclusions about how much you need to …
  • How Much Does Grad School Cost — Followup 2013 November 16
    This post follows up on some things people have raised in the lively discussion about my earlier post, How Much Does Grad School Cost? Please start with that post if you’re just joining the discussion now. Thanks!
  • What’s Wrong With Your Savings Account? 2013 November 01
    People use savings accounts for the wrong thing. Savings accounts aren’t for making your money grow; they’re more like insurance policies. Here’s why.

Cooking and herbalism

  • Finishing the dandelion tincture 2013 November 15
    Straining and bottling a homemade dandelion tincture (whole herb), with lots of photos. Part two of a series.

Technology and fun

Words

Want more? Check the index or these recent/related posts: