jessicaholt.net

Love wins in the White House.

Randy Murray:

Do other people’s emotional states, their attitudes, sometimes set you on edge? “Don’t be that way,” you want to tell them. “Snap out of it.”

Do you sometimes want to tell that same person or others, “Here’s what you should do …”

It’s time to strike those phrases from your vocabulary.

This post struck a nerve. I am guilty of saying these things, or variants thereof, and it’s something I’m really trying to work on. I have been told that I’m a good listener, and yet I sometimes let my desire for control spill out with those I am closest to – probably because I feel there is so much at stake. It’s extremely hard for me to let the outcome be ambiguous; and yet, that’s just how life is at times. Uncertain. It will often surprise you in the best of ways and the worst of ways, and all we can really do is roll with it.

Adapt, don’t cling. Let it be. And don’t judge.

(via Instapaper)

bigweek:

Edmunds sent a writer under cover as a car salesman.

As I waited I tried to look like a promising candidate for a job selling cars — whatever that looked like. I tried to look eager and hungry. These are not traits that come easily to me so I studied the other sales people around me. They stood in poses of assertion and power: legs spread, hands on hips, arms folded across chests. All the men (which were 99 percent of the sales force) wore white shirts and ties. Their hair was slicked back and they favored jewelry.

I had read this undercover report by Edmunds when shopping for my first new car a few years ago, but when I saw that Dan had posted it on bigweek.co, I decided to reread it. This is probably the best single thing someone buying a new car could read–especially the last section about lessons to take away from it. I recently traded in a two-and-a-half year old used car for a new one and got $1,000 more than my trade was worth (according to Kelly Blue Book) and got the new car for $1,000 under invoice, and lowered my monthly payment. If you do some research about the process and the numbers, it’s not that hard to get a great deal.

Know the numbers. And always be willing to walk away.

I love the Internet because it makes it that much harder to deceive people due to an imbalance of information. Now the information is out there, you just have to find it. I understand that for some people, the no-haggle way of buying a car is fine and worth the potentially higher price, but I actually enjoy getting the best deal possible by having the information I need to see through the salesman’s tactics. An understanding of psychology and how persuasion works doesn’t hurt either. Neither does the fact that I probably look like an easy sell–young, soft spoken, and female. Makes it all the more satisfying when I show them how much I really know.

Thanks, Weekend Edition, for making me SOB while drinking my coffee this morning.

No, really, thanks. Seriously, listen to this story and I dare you not to cry if you have a dog in your life that you love.

Wow. It’s an interesting comparison. Surely people buy cell phones more often than computers, but Apple would probably like it if people bought computers every couple of years as well. My three year old Macbook Pro is now old enough to be excluded from some features of Mountain Lion, which is basically Apple’s cue that I should be upgrading soon. Hopefully my next Mac will have more staying power.

(via Daring Fireball)