The 10 Best U.S. Cities to Live and Work

from Lifehacker.com

Personal finance site Kiplinger has released their annual list of the best cities in the United States to live and work. The key this year: It's all about where you can find—and keep—a good job.

(View Best Cities for Jobs in a map)

Here's the quick list:
No. 1: Huntsville, Alabama
No. 2: Albuquerque, New Mexico
No. 3: Washington D.C.
No. 4: Charlottesville, Virginia
No. 5: Athens, Georgia
No. 6: Olympia, Washington
No. 7: Madison, Wisconsin
No. 8: Austin, Texas
No. 9: Flagstaff, Arizona
No. 10: Raleigh, North Carolina

When our numbers guru, Kevin Stolarick, evaluated U.S. cities for their growth potential, he looked not just at the overall number of jobs, but also at the quality of those positions and the ability of cities to hold on to them when the economy softens.

Hit up the Kiplinger link for the full run-down, including stat sheets on each of the cities that made the top 10. If you've spent any time in the cities that made the short list, let's hear more about them—whether or not you think they belong on this list—in the comments. Meanwhile, if this year's list didn't excite you, a quick look at last year's list may provide some solid alternatives.

Best Cities: It's All About Jobs [Kiplinger]

In defense of distraction: Twitter, Adderall, lifehacking, mindful jogging, YouTube, Facebook, endless email, and the subtle benefits of overstimulation...

something that aldaily.com forwarded me to:

The Internet is basically a Skinner box engineered to tap right into our deepest mechanisms of addiction. As B. F. Skinner's army of lever-pressing rats and pigeons taught us, the most irresistible reward schedule is not, counterintuitively, the one in which we're rewarded constantly but something called "variable ratio schedule," in which the rewards arrive at random. And that randomness is practically the Internet's defining feature: It dispenses its never-ending little shots of positivity—a life-changing e-mail here, a funny YouTube video there—in gloriously unpredictable cycles [more]

AMAZINGLY SIMPLE HOME REMEDIES

forwarded from my Aunt & Uncle:

• Avoid cutting yourself when slicing vegetables by getting someone else to hold them while you chop.
• Avoid arguments with the Mrs. about lifting the toilet seat by using the sink .
• For high blood pressure sufferers: simply cut yourself and bleed for a few minutes, thus reducing the pressure in your veins. Remember to use a timer .
• A mouse trap, placed on top of your alarm clock, will prevent you from rollingover and going back to sleep after you hit the snooze button.
• If you have a bad cough, take a large dose of laxatives; then you'll be afraid to cough.
• You only need two tools in life - WD-40 and Duct Tape. If it doesn't move and it should, use the WD -40. If it shouldn't move and does, use the duct tape.
• Remember: Everyone seems normal until you get to know them.
• If you can't fix it with a hammer, you've got an electrical problem

Daily Thought:

SOME PEOPLE ARE LIKE SLINKIES; NOT REALLY GOOD FOR ANYTHING BUT THEY BRING A SMILE TO YOUR FACE WHEN PUSHED DOWN THE STAIRS

Study: time kids spend online not wasted after all

from lifehacker.com:
A large survey of studies that explore the use of the Internet by children in the second decade of their lives find that, in general, it's acting as just another social tool, while providing them new outlets for learning and creativity.
Read More...

Understanding the outbreak: an influenza biology primer

from Ars Technica:
Swine flu, bird flu, H1N1—tracking the influenza virus can be a confusing task, not generally made easier by the fact that most people only attempt to do so when addled by flu symptoms or in the midst of worries about a potential pandemic. We recognize that the latter appears to apply to the current situation, but we'll do our part to try to explain a bit of the biology of the virus. Putting together this explanation was made a bit challenging by the fact that anyone we could find who has detailed knowledge of the influenza virus appears to be busy actually working on the current outbreak.

On the surface: the HxNx nomenclature

Like most viruses, the currently spreading swine flu virus has a coat formed of proteins which surround the genetic material that allows the virus to hijack a cell and reproduce. These coat proteins are critical in a variety of ways: they determine which cells the virus can latch onto and infect and, being exposed, they're the things that antibodies recognize when your body generates an immune response to the virus. For the flu virus, the major coat proteins are called hemagglutinin and neuraminidase—the H and N of the commonly used nomenclature for identifying these viruses.
Click here to read the rest of this article