From Vanity Plates: Creepiness in 8 Characters or Less.

…to express a big concept. Witness the web site Indexed, which is described by its creator, Jessica Hagy, as “a little project that lets me make fun of some things and sense of others. I use it to think a little more relationally without resorting to doing actual math.”

Published “weekday mornings as the coffee brews,” these sardonic visualizations are a nice way to start yet another recession Monday. Some faves:

More work-related index cards here. And don’t forget, Christmas is just around the corner…

Click on an image to see it full size.

More photos here.

From the previously mentioned blog Unemploymentality.

In honor of today’s announcement of the horrendous unemployment rate, we bring you Unemploymentality, subtitled “Lifestyles of the penniless & downtrodden.”

According to the site,

The unemploymentality is a transformative state of mind that is the result of a sudden loss of job. Initial symptoms include spite and resentment towards the ubiquitous “economy.” People in these early stages can often be found at bars and Speakeasys, their heads hung low over a pint. Later stages of the unemploymentality are subtle as it adapts to the individual’s social, political and cultural environment.

Unemploymentality logs news items about unemployment from all over the Web, as well as original entries like Hey, it’s okay if…

Hey, it’s okay if…

• …You’re willing to take what you can get at this point, and I don’t just mean job-wise.
• …You send your mom’s friend’s cousin’s wife’s best friend your resume. And then consider your weekly job search complete.
• …You don’t make your bed. Especially if you never really get out of it.
• …You’re jealous of people with jobs. Even people with crappy jobs.
• …You romanticize your former employer – it’s like an old lover. You complained about it incessantly at the time, but now that it’s gone all you can remember is the good stuff, like free toilet paper.
• …You despise your former employer. Who’s a romantic? Not you!
• …You’re enjoying unemployment. Just a little bit.

Continue Reading

If you had to pick one company during these uncertain times that might provide the most job security (excluding those in the online porn sector, of course), a good choice might be Google. The Big G is everywhere, and if you really need proof of the search engine’s cultural relevance, just check out how many time’s it’s been satirized in The Onion. (Our faves: here, here, and here.)

Google lists lots of jobs on its web site, but its hiring process is notoriously stringent. So if you make it as far as an interview, perhaps this might help. A blog/advertisement called Seattle Interview Coach has aggregated what it says are 140 Google Interview Questions, culled from more than a dozen online sources. Whether all of these have been truly asked or are still in use, who knows? But here are some of the more interesting ones, anyway. I included only those, frankly, that I can even sort of understand.

For Product Manager:

• What is the most efficient way to sort a million integers?
• How many golf balls can fit in a school bus?
• If the probability of observing a car in 30 minutes on a highway is 0.95, what is the probability of observing a car in 10 minutes (assuming constant default probability)?
• Design an evacuation plan for San Francisco.
• You have eight balls all of the same size. 7 of them weigh the same, and one of them weighs slightly more. How can you find the ball that is heavier by using a balance and only two weighings?

Continue Reading

Low-income African American New Yorkers talk about their experiences with the city’s Work Experience Program. Produced by Community Voices Heard.

Posted on the Social Work/Social Action blog and blip.tv.

Of course, if you’d lilke the opposite view of New York City workfare, the American Enterprise Institute is happy to give it to you.

The Awl recently culled these facts about food stamps from various news articles:

1. “Nearly half of all U.S. children and 90 percent of black youngsters will be on food stamps at some point during childhood, researchers say.”

2. “The U.S. Department of Agriculture said nearly 200,000 retailers nationwide now accept food stamps, 20 percent more than in 2005.”

3. “In September, Texas processed 58.6 percent of applications within the 30 days required by the federal government. By the end of that month, nearly 42,000 families were waiting for a decision even though the deadline had passed.”

4. “Some 36 million Americans are on food stamps, an increase of nearly 10 million over the past two years…. Some 66 percent of those eligible participate.”

5. “A federal judge has ordered Indiana’s partially privatized welfare intake system to speed up decisions on food stamp applications, but the state has a year to meet its first target.”

That first item, by the way, comes from “Esimating the Risk of Food Stamp Use and Impoverishment During Childhood,” published in the Archives of Pediatric and Adolescent Medicine. Brief abstract here.

Fascinating post from the blog Impotent Rage called Some Personal Thoughts on Homelessness and Reciprocity, written by a social worker and advocate for the homeless. The writer serves a rep/payee for a homeless man, and it’s her job to pick up his disability checks, cash them, and disburse the money to him, which she does daily. The post describes a day waiting with the man and his girlfriend at the Social Security office, as well as what it’s like to work and maintain genuine friendships within a homeless population.

From the post:

I have many homeless people on my block and I have worked with homeless people for years as a social worker. I have loved some of these people and I have become exasperated with them. Chuck and Kelli are unable to make it in the paper world (the name I give the world of paychecks, identification cards, rental agreements and such). They have emotional problems from being raised in foster homes, they have anxiety, they are severe alcoholics, their behavior is disinhibited and bizarre, Kelli has an explosive temper that I attribute to a severe head injury she received as a child. She also has a personality disorder. I want to have hope for them but I am unable to. The paper world requires tremendous social grooming to fit in. They aren’t groomed, and they appear be ungroomable. To some extent they are comfortable in their own world of sleeping outside, prostituting, drinking, and getting by. But I fear they can’t be long for that world, either.

Continue Reading

According to the AP, “The worst U.S. recession since World War II and the lure of the Internet have combined to make the (newspaper) industry’s annual ad revenue $20 billion less than it was three years ago.”

But why read about the decline of newspaper circulation in, say, a newspaper or even on a newspaper’s web site when the situation is better expressed in this graphic from the blog The Awl? The chart maps from 1990 to the present. The plotting of L.A. Times circulation, you’ll notice, can also double for an illustration of Sir Isaac Newton’s concept of gravity. Click on the graphic and you’ll see the one newspaper that still appears to be thriving.