Social steganography is one privacy tactic teens take when engaging in semi-public forums like Facebook. While adults have worked diligently to exclude people through privacy settings, many teenagers have been unable to exclude certain classes of adults – namely their parents – for quite some time. For this reason, they’ve had to develop new techniques to speak to their friends fully aware that their parents are overhearing.

What I didn’t understand was that the value of some new acquisition wasn’t the difference between its retail price and what I paid for it. It was the value I derived from it. Stuff is an extremely illiquid asset. Unless you have some plan for selling that valuable thing you got so cheaply, what difference does it make what it’s “worth?” The only way you’re ever going to extract any value from it is to use it. And if you don’t have any immediate use for it, you probably never will.

(via Instapaper)

Marital happiness is far more important than anything else in determining personal well-being. If you have a successful marriage, it doesn’t matter how many professional setbacks you endure, you will be reasonably happy. If you have an unsuccessful marriage, it doesn’t matter how many career triumphs you record, you will remain significantly unfulfilled.

This mythical wave of girls’ violence and meanness is, in the end, contradicted by reams of evidence from almost every available and reliable source. Yet news media and myriad experts, seemingly eager to sensationalize every “crisis” among young people, have aroused unwarranted worry in the public and policy arenas. The unfortunate result is more punitive treatment of girls, including arrests and incarceration for lesser offenses like minor assaults that were treated informally in the past, as well as alarmist calls for restrictions on their Internet use.

One of my favorite readings from my undergrad Media Studies days was Mike Males, discussing the widespread myths and misconceptions about youth activity and supposed violence. Seems the media hasn’t come very far in the past decade, even though youth are actually getting *less* violent.

They recruit and train young Cambodians and Laotians who are trapped in the circle of poverty. These individuals are trained in various IT skills for 6 – 8 months. If they meet the DDD requirements, they are hired to perform IT services for global companies and spend half of their day in school, earning a degree in 3 to 4 years. DDD often hires graduates for management positions and many move on to other careers and fields where they can earn nearly 6 times the local salary.

I met these guys at the TOC Conference in February. Neat model and great mission.

If they were upfront with their employees and said something to the effect of, “we know that you’re not going to retire here; in fact, after two to three years, we know you’ll be ready to move on to a different job. But before that happens, we want to make sure that you feel that you’ve done an excellent job here and are leaving with some solid experience under your belt. Of course, there are a handful of architect and management positions available, but you’ll really need to demonstrate commitment before even being considered for those. Obviously, that path isn’t for everyone.

Time is the singular measure of life. It’s one of the few things you can not get more of. Knowing how to spend it well is possibly the most important skill you can have.