Yael’s Variety Hour: Three Great Resources

June 9, 2014 By Yael Grauer Leave a Comment

I wanted to let you know about three great resources I’ve come across that I haven’t written about yet.

Shakespearances

If you go to see Shakespeare any chance you get, this site will save you an awful lot of Googling. You can see a list of where’s playing what if you want to look up your town, or anywhere that you’re visiting. Or, if you want to go on a special trip to see Troilus and Cressida or All’s Well That Ends Well, check out the list of what’s playing where.

Geek Feminism Wiki Resources For Therapists

The geek feminism wiki is a treasure trove of information, and this new resource for therapists has been put together to get therapists up to speed on the background, issues and incidents relating to gender issues in tech, gaming and other related fields that are unfortunately rife with bullying, harassment and misogyny. Even though the resource is intended for specifically for mental health professionals, I think it’s a really good primer to get anyone up to speed. If you are writing about these issues or are just curious, I’d really recommend taking a look.

Reachable

Reachable is a great resource for trying to track down a decision maker or someone else you want to meet, using social media profiles, provided that you’re okay getting intros to intros to intros until you meet someone who can introduce you to the person you’re trying to reach.

Yael’s Variety Hour: Dinosaur Muscles, Freelance Life, Health and Fitness & Be The Change

April 28, 2013 By Yael Grauer Leave a Comment

Welcome to this week’s Variety Hour, my collection of posts that drew my attention from around the internets. Unfortunately, I’ve been using Instapaper far too much, so I only have 9 posts to share.

Freelance Life

The Complete Guide to Setting and Negotiating Freelance Rates (LifeHacker)

The Story Of How I Went From Broke Wannabe Writer to Living The Freelance Life. (The Renegade Writer) By Linda Formicelli, who also helped me through this transition.

Really Annoying Things People Say To Freelance Writers. (The Freelance Strategist) These are things I hear every week.

Be The Change

Boston Marathon Bombings: How To Help. (Boston.com). A nice collection of ways to help out.

What To Do When You’ve Made Someone Angry (Harvard Business Review). It’s simple, but it’s not easy.

Health and Fitness

We’ve Solved 90% Of Supplement Confusion. (Examine). This is pretty incredible. Finally, research presented in a way that’s accessible!

Baby Dinosaurs Flexed Muscles Inside Their Eggs. (National Geographic) To promote bone growth, a new study says.

Paleo Shrimp-Stuffed Mushrooms (NomNomPaleo) My favorite recipe this week.

Humor

Local Man Knows He Moved to Minneapolis For Something, But He Can’t Remember What (Onion).

Yael’s Variety Hour: Medical Ethics, Superheroes With Winter Apparel & Ways To Annoy Your Ex

April 11, 2013 By Yael Grauer Leave a Comment

This week’s variety hour is pretty short, considering there was a week-long hiatus. I blame Instapaper. However, I did manage to compile 13 interesting posts while scouring the interwebs. Enjoy!

Reframing

Success dysmorphia. I’ve linked to this before, but it’s come up for me a bit recently. An oldie but goodie from the amazing Pam Slim about how we need to find new ways of defining success rather than chasing other people’s vision.

Don’t Believe The Hype. If you think there’s one formula for a successful business strategy, think again. In this post, Noah Kagan shares his click-through rate on twitter and email. Always important to keep evaluating what works and what doesn’t–it may not be what you expect!

Upworthy Says We’ve Been Doing Viral All Wrong. Apparently, sharing serious posts is better than LOLcats. But, again, your mileage may vary.

Communication

7 Steps To Better D.I.Y. PR. Some spot-on tips from Forbes magazine.

5 Tips For Writing For Online Markets–and 8 Sources of Markets. For aspiring freelancers, from Kelly James-Enger.

Girl Power

Fully Clothed Female Superheroes Finally Look Like They Can Fight Crime in the Winter. And since it’s snowing in April here in Minneapolis, they’ll need it!

Family Guy: That’s What… My sentiments exactly!

Ugh. Skip This If You’re Squeamish

Lloyd Irvin Continues Purchasing Rape-Themed URLs, Turning Them Into Marketing Sites. If you’re tired of hearing about the messed up things “Master Lloyd” continues to do, realize that people who are working hard to make sure this DOESN’T get pushed under the rug are helping women in DC know what they’re getting into before they step foot into a new gym or attend a self-defense seminar they’d otherwise steer clear of (to put it mildly).

Medical Ethics

When A Famous Hospital Didn’t Want An Expensive New Drug. Rejecting new drugs for cost is, apparently, extremely rare.

Drug Marketing Blamed For An Increase In ADHD Diagnosis. Sickening.

Miscellaneous

Recruitment Ad Requires Skilled Tattoo Artists To Accurately Shade in a QR Code.

George Bernard Shaw’s Polite But Firm Autoreply Postcard For Unsolicited Mail.

How To Annoy Your Ex On Facebook. Evil…but funny.

Yael’s Variety Hour: Workout Music, Sketchy Publishers, the R Word & More

March 25, 2013 By Yael Grauer Leave a Comment

Welcome to the Variety Hour, where you will find random posts about things I think about regularly, along with things I don’t ever think about. Variety is the spice of life!

If you’re looking for stuff I wrote, just go to http://yaelwrites.com/2013/03/24/stuff-i-wrote-cool-trophies-social-media-tips-making-complex-topics-accessible/.

Love and Marriage…

Getting Married? 5 Things Your Wedding Probably Doesn’t Need. A great post by Susan Johnston.

Diamonds Are Bullshit. I love my conflict-free diamond from Brilliant Earth, but I agree with the sentiment behind this piece. Hat tip to the amazing Leo Babauta.

The R Word

Was That a Rape Scene in Girls? One of my fave new writers, Amanda Hess, talks about ‘gray rape’ and the limits of verbal consent.

The Shortest PSA on How to Handle Drunk Girls Passed Out On Your Couch-EVER. This video should go without saying… but it’s great. Thanks, Upworthy!

My Inappropriate Relationship. On Salon, Jillian Lauren discusses her fling with a camp counselor–she was 12, and he was 20. Great writing about a complex and nuanced situation.

Why Railing Against CNN for the Steubenville Coverage is a Waste of Time. This Poynter piece by Kelly McBride offers some good food for thought.

Life After Steubenville. Amy Davidson of the New Yorker explains why she thinks juvie was the right punishment for the crime in this instance.

Fitness

Let’s Get Physical: The Psychology of Effective Workout Music. Scientific American’s Ferris Jabr discusses the latest research on music and exercise in this interesting piece.

Becoming the All-Terrain Human. Times writer Christopher Solomon writes about Kilian Jornet Burgada, “who has won dozens of mountain footraces up to 100 miles in length and six world titles in Skyrunning.”

Sketchy

Meet the Most Suspect Publishers on the Web. AdWeeks’ Mike Shields write about “the rise of ghost sites, where traffic is huge but humans are few.”

The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks: The Sequel. I wouldn’t want my family’s genetic information posted online without my knowledge, let alone consent–would you?

Video of the Week

Kids React to the Harlem Shake (Video) This hilarious video, shown to me by a 6-year old, made me feel less old about not getting the whole Harlem Shake thing. Check it out.

Yael’s Variety Hour: Journalism, Facebook, Flu Risk, & Anne Hathaway

March 12, 2013 By Yael Grauer Leave a Comment

I’ll be blogging from the Association of Healthcare Journalists’ annual conference in Boston later this week… but for now, here’s my completely random selection of interesting posts this week.

Journalism

Matter’s $2.5 Million Bet on Journalism Startups. My article for the News Hook on the media-based tech accelerator.
When People Write For Free, Who Pays? Why having rich parents puts you at a distinct advantage in the world of media.

Facebook

Facebook ‘Likes’ Reveal More About You Than You Think. “The study notes that Likes that are the best predictors of high intelligence include ‘Thunderstorms,’ The Colbert Report, ‘Science” and ‘Curly Fries.’ Low intelligence was indicated by liking (Facebook pages for) ‘Sephora,’ ‘I Love Being A Mom,’ ‘Harley Davidson’ and ‘Lady Antebellum.’ Researchers gave no further explanation of these findings.”

Three Ways Facebook Is Ruining Our Lives. I’m still helplessly addicted, though.

Health

Flu Risk and Weather: It’s Not the Heat, It’s the Humidity. Some interesting new research shows that the flu spreads differently in different climates.

Video of the Week

WATCH: Anne Hathaway Address Crotch Question LIKE A BOSS. A video of the Les Mis star answering a really unnecessary question in the most perfect way.