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Colossal got its eye on the newest hypnotizing mathematical GIFs by Dave Whyte. Here are my favorites. Pop an Ambien and zoom in.
via Gizmodo
New brain-twisting mathematical GIFs so pretty I want to lick them
It’s one thing to dislike your job, but it’s another to feel physically ill walking in to work. If your job just doesn’t have redeeming qualities, your work environment may be toxic in more ways than one. Here’s how to handle it, especially if you can’t just quit.
In short, a toxic work environment is any job where the work, the atmosphere, the people, or any combination of those things make you so dismayed it causes serious disruptions in the rest of your life. Make no mistake, every job sucks sometimes, but you know a job is toxic when you can’t find joy in anything there. Some of your coworkers may be great, but others drag you down. The policies are stifling and the managers nitpick and micromanage. The only good thing about your job is the end of the day. If any of those things sound familiar, it’s time to do something. Let’s start with the obvious, and then talk about what else you can do to get a little relief—or at least protect yourself.
Frankly, too many people stick it out in toxic environments when they don’t have to. Sometimes a toxic environment is really just a manageable one that’s gone south and is beyond saving. Either way, if your job is causing you serious emotional or physical stress, you should get out as soon as possible. I’ve seen people quit toxic jobs without anything lined up because they simply couldn’t bear the notion of going back another day. If you can, get a new job first or prep your safety net—but do leave.
If you decide to stay, there are some things you can do to protect yourself, but unless the root cause changes, it won’t get much better. If you think the root cause may change soon—like a horrible manager on his or her way out, or the potential for a transfer to a new group—then it makes sense to hang tough. Just make sure you’re not sticking in a situation that promises to change but never does. Similarly, don’t let your job’s toxicity drain your willpower so much you’re too wiped to look for something better. Of course, don’t just take anything that comes along as a way out, either. Make sure your next move is to something that’s a step forward, or you may find yourself back in the same pit, just with different walls.
If you’re in no position to quit, or you don’t have the luxury of just walking off a job because it’s making you crazy, there are a few things you can do, at least in the short term. First and foremost, make sure you have coworkers who’ll watch your back. This can be difficult if your coworkers are guilty of chronic backstabbing or under-bus-throwing, but if you can rally a few to the cause, it’s a good idea. When one of you hears something that’ll impact everyone, like some micromanagerial change that’s about to sweep the department or new policy everyone will be held to before they’re actually told about it, you guys can share that information and protect yourselves.
The idea has its roots in high-school lunch room logic: you hang out with the people who are most like you and most willing to watch your back—or at least those with whom you’re in the same boat. Toxic work environments are eerily similar to those days, so you have to treat them the same way. Frankly, the fact that cliques form at all in your office is a sign of a bad work environment, but if you have to stay in it, you’re better off finding a group you can ally with than staying on your own. Sometimes the best thing to do is to make sure you know who your friends are and keep your head down as much as possible.
Even if your job isn’t exactly "toxic," you should consider documenting everything. Documentation isn’t foolproof protection from overbearing managers or coworkers determined to throw you under the bus for their mistakes, but it can offer some defense. We’ve mentioned that it can be useful to keep a work diary for your own growth, but it can come in handy here too. For those of us in office environments, this means saving and organizing every email related to every project you work on, making sure you take notes in meetings and on phone calls, and never trusting someone to recall and agree when you remind them of something they said or did. It’s tiring, but it’s a solid way to make sure your ass is covered.
Good work relationships are built on trust, and if there’s no trust where you work, the only person you can depend on is yourself. Embrace tools like Evernote to keep all of your various documents and projects organized neatly, and treat your inbox like a filing cabinet—there should be folders and labels for everything you work on, or even for every person you interact with. That way anytime anyone tries to go back on their word, you can drag out an email or document where they said otherwise, or if a manager tries to pretend their policy says one thing when it really doesn’t, you can pull out the policy document.
Like we said, it’s not foolproof—some managers will take that level of documentation as a threat, while others will back down and leave you alone. However, this technique is especially useful if your HR department is the root of the problem, or the tension at work is because of poor relationships between groups, as opposed to within your own team. Tread carefully, but it’s better to have the documentation and then pick your battles than not have it at all.
As much as we’d like to say "toxic work environments aren’t personal," in many cases, they really are. Sometimes a manager may have it out for you, or just want to make you a convenient scapegoat for their own incompetence. Maybe it’s another colleague who wants to boost their career by currying favor with managers, and you’re today’s target. Whatever it is, it can be very personal—maybe you’re new to the company, or that person has it out for you because of the way you look, dress, or the career threat you potentially pose to them. Whatever it is, remember that it may be personal, but it’s not your fault. Don’t let yourself get caught up in the swirl of negativity that likely surrounds the whole affair.
Steer clear of office gossip as much as possible (aside from the fair warnings of the people you know have your interests at heart) and keep your head down. Remember, the goal is to get your work done so you can leave at the end of the day, so you don’t want to go looking for confrontation. However, if it finds you, don’t back down or roll over. You don’t want others to get the message that they can regularly pick on you, make you a scapegoat, and blame their mistakes on you without you being willing to stand up for yourself, at least tactically. Pick your battles wisely, but don’t let personal slights and workplace bullying go unchallenged. Be assertive, and put a stop to their behavior early on.
I’ve seen many people stick it out in bad environments because early on in their jobs they were too frightened to stand up for themselves. They assumed they were lucky to have the job, and were intimidated by their manager’s or colleagues seniority, so they didn’t stand up for themselves. Remember, every job is a two way street: The team should need you as much as you need them, and if you get the feeling you need them more than they need you, it’s time to move on. There’s no reason to keep going to work every day to an office or group of people who don’t respect or appreciate you, or worse, behave like they don’t.
Whatever you choose to do, make sure to keep your options open. Sometimes toxic work environments only seem that way because we’re sensitive to a specific trigger. There are ways to shore up your defenses if you think that might be the case. However, if the environment is truly toxic—and mind you, sometimes all it takes is a spectacularly bad boss—and there’s no way you can save it yourself, it may be time to look for something new.
Finally, even if you can’t turn the situation around, try to make it as much of a learning experience as possible—without taking responsibility for it, of course. Author and entrepreneur Amy Rees Anderson, writing for Forbes, explains:
Another important coping step is to realize that you cannot control what other people say and do, you can only control your own actions and reactions. The sooner you accept that the better for your own mental well-being. This realization allows you to let go of owning other people’s negative behavior and it empowers you to focus on improving yourself. The more you can focus on improving yourself in a negative environment the better, because when you finally get the opportunity to escape the situation you are in, you will get to take all the personal growth you have made along with you. No doubt that growth will help you to be even more successful as you move forward.
Finally, try to focus on turning your bad situation into a good learning experience. Most often our strongest personal growth comes from living through our most difficult situations. When you are working in a toxic environment, try to pay close attention to the lessons you can take away from the experience. Perhaps you can learn the qualities in a leader that you never want to emulate. Perhaps you can learn the management mistakes that you would not want to repeat if the opportunity for management ever comes your way. In every bad situation there is something you can learn that will help you become a better person, so focus on each lesson you are learning.
She also advocates that you take the high road and never sacrifice your personal integrity in an attempt to get revenge or "fight fire with fire," which we wholeheartedly agree with. She suggests you stay engaged at work too—noting that as long as you draw a paycheck you have an obligation to bring your best to your job every day. We’d temper that point a bit—if your work environment is toxic to the point where you feel awful every day, you’re already not bringing your A-game. Do what’s required, but don’t dump energy into a job that doesn’t appreciate your effort. Disengage a bit and spend that extra time and energy looking for something better, whether it’s a transfer to a new department or a new job entirely.
In any case, remember, it’s just a job, and you’re working to live, not living to work. You’re not shackled to your desk, even if you need the paycheck. Don’t sacrifice your personal integrity in anger, but don’t let others walk on you. Toxic work environments come and go, and if you can learn something from it, great—but as long as you’re in it, watch your back, cover your ass, and keep your head down until the smoke clears or you can get out.
Title photo by hxdbzxy (Shutterstock) and Ollyy (Shutterstock). Additional photos by R/DV/RS, Hugh Millward, Eric James Sarmiento, Ingrid Taylar, and Martin Fisch.
The Schiller X1 has two propellers that are steered with the handlebars, eliminating the need for a rudder. It can be assembled and disassembled in 10 minutes and can fit in most vehicle bike racks and trunks. Video here.
via The Awesomer
Schiller X1 Water Bike
About a month ago I wrote about James Boyle and Jennifer Jenkins of the Center of the Study of the Public Domain at Duke Law School releasing a free download of an Intellectual Property Statutory Supplement (which normally big publishers try to sell for around $50). As noted, this was a kickoff for an even bigger project, an open coursebook in intellectual property. That Open Intellectual Property Casebook is now available. You can download the whole thing for free. If you want a nice printed copy, it’ll currently run about $24 on Amazon — which is about $135 less than other IP case books. The entire book weighs in at nearly 800 pages, so there’s a lot in there if you felt like delving into a variety of topics around copyright, trademark and patent law — including specific efforts by Congress around those laws and the way that the courts have interpreted them.
As mentioned in our last post, Boyle and Jenkins are doing this, in part, because they recognize the insane prices that academic publishers have been getting away with charging for their books:
Partly, we do it because we think the price of legal casebooks and materials is obscene. Law students, who are already facing large debt burdens, are required to buy casebooks that cost $150–$200, and “statutory supplements” that consist mainly of unedited, public domain, Federal statutes for $40 or $50. The total textbook bill for a year can be over $1500. This is not a criticism of casebook authors, but rather of the casebook publishing system. We know well that putting together a casebook is a lot of work and can represent considerable scholarship and pedagogic innovation. We just put together this one and we are proud of it. But we think that the cost is disproportionate and that the benefit flows disproportionately to conventional legal publishers. Some of those costs might have been more justifiable when we did not have mechanisms for free worldwide and almost costless distribution. Some might have been justifiable when we did not have fast, cheap and accurate print on demand services. Now we have both. Legal education is already expensive; we want to play a small part in diminishing the costs of the materials involved.
However, they also note that it’s not just about making the books cheaper, but better and more useful:
Our point is not only that the current casebook is vastly too expensive, it is also awkward, inflexible, lacking visual stimulus, incapable of customization and hard to preview and search on the open web. Casebooks do not respond well to the different needs of different professors. Students cannot easily be given free, searchable digital access to all the materials, on all their devices, anywhere, access that does not go away when the course—or the publisher—ends. We can do that.
There are also lots of people outside of law school, or outside this country, who would like to know more about American law—just as there are people outside of computer science who want to know about artificial intelligence. Free is a good price-point for them. Customizable is a good form. This book is merely a beta-test version, but it is an example of what can be done.
In case you’re wondering, while the statutory supplement was available on a CC: BY license (requires just attribution), this casebook is under a CC: BY-NC-SA license. The key differences: the former can be resold commercially while the latter has a block on commercial uses. It also has a "share alike" requirement. While I’m a huge fan of Creative Commons, I’ve been critical of its licenses that include the non-commercial restriction and believe there are strong reasons to remove them, in part because of a perception and branding problem that people have, which potentially do more harm than good to the Creative Commons brand. Many people believe that all CC licenses are "non-commercial" which has actually limited those who wish to use them to encourage commercial use. Separately, the definition of "non-commercial" can be pretty vague (though, to its credit, Creative Commons has worked hard to clarify).
While Boyle and Jenkins are using an NC license with the casebook, I’m happy that they at least put in a note defining their interpretation of commercial use:
Editor’s note: we interpret this to mean “providing the material above cost.” Digital cost is zero. You are free to reproduce the material in paper form and charge a fee to cover copying costs, but nothing more. This applies both to commercial and non commercial entities.
I still think it would have been fine if they’d skipped the "NC" altogether, but it does not appear to be a huge issue here. On the whole this is great news for folks who want to learn more about copyright, patents and trademark law — whether you’re a law student or just an interested bystander…
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via Techdirt.
Intellectual Property Casebook Now Available As A Free Download
An anonymous reader writes Duke Law School’s James Boyle and Jennifer Jenkins just published a CC licensed, freely downloadable textbook called "Intellectual Property Law and the Information Society." (Which includes a discussion of whether and when the term "intellectual property" is a dangerous misnomer). The book is apparently part of an attempt to lower what the authors describe as the "obscene cost" of legal textbooks. "This is the first in a series of free digital/low cost print legal educational materials to be published by Duke’s Center for the Study of the Public Domain—starting with statutory supplements aimed at the basic classes. The goal of this project… is to improve the pricing and access norms of the world of legal textbook publishing, while offering the flexibility and possibility for customization that unfettered digital access provides. We hope it will provide a pleasant, restorative, competitive pressure on the commercial publishers to lower their prices and improve their digital access norms." The book’s "problems range from a video of the Napster oral argument to counseling clients about search engines and trademarks, applying the First Amendment to digital rights management and copyright or commenting on the Supreme Court’s new rulings on gene patents.. [The book] includes discussions of such issues as the Redskins trademark cancelations, the Google Books case and the America Invents Act."
Read more of this story at Slashdot.
via Slashdot
Free Law Casebook Project Starts With IP Coursebook
This video gets submitted every now and then, but it’s been years since we last showed it off.
via (x)
via Clients From Hell
This video gets submitted every now and then, but it’s…
Homemade firearms are widely seized across china, a large number used illegally for pest control and hunting. Notable is the frequency at which handmade semi automatic pistols are encountered, loosely based on the Type-64 copy of the Walther PPK as well as the Type-77 in use by police and military. The poverty stricken county of […]
The post Homemade semi-automatic pistols illegally produced in China appeared first on The Firearm Blog.
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Homemade semi-automatic pistols illegally produced in China