Kelowna Real Estate

Some national recognition of the stupidity of the housing market where we live: Kelowna house prices move ahead of Calgary, Toronto. In Canada, only Vancouver remains more ridiculous.

Take Back Your Time Day

Bet you didn't know that today is Take Back Your Time Day:

"Overworked and time-starved Canadians and Americans need to take time Tuesday to cancel an appointment, play with their children, go for a walk or plant a tree, says a group promoting Take Back Your Time Day."

Update: I missed the CBC's In-Depth feature on the topic -- By the numbers: time poverty. Lots of fascinating stats about work and overwork, particularly in comparing the U.S., Canadian and European situations.

Work and Depression

CBC reports that 1 million Canadians are dissatisfied with their jobs, many depressed. Although that does sound like a bummer, does that mean that the other 90% of workers are pretty happy with their jobs?

Decision-Making Biases

I was fascinated by this Wikipedia list of decision-making and behavioral biases, with links to each one (including references!) like the
Planning Fallacy.

Update: Mutual Improvement deconstructed a suspect study connecting alcohol consumption and higher incomes with another list of cognitive biases taken from Wikipedia.

Update 2: I was looking through a list of del.ici.ous links on decision making and found this article: 10 reasons people make stupid decisions -- it's funny and references some solid background material.

More Happiness Research

A Jolly, Socratic Science takes a look at the best of happiness research and digs up this excellent presentation from Daniel Gilbert: How to Do Precisely the Right Thing at All Possible Times. The other item in the post was a link to How Not to Buy Happiness (pdf) by Robert Frank, which covers some very interesting territory:

"Considerable evidence suggests that if we use an increase in our incomes, as many of us do, simply to buy bigger houses and more expensive cars, then we do not end up any happier than before. But if we use an increase in our incomes to buy more of certain inconspicuous goods–such as freedom from a long commute or a stressful job–then the evidence paints a very different picture."

Aerons and Air Hockey

In Aerons and Air Hockey Kathy Sierra explains why cool workplaces matter, reminisces about the workspaces she's had that really worked, and gives everyone a peek at her new office -- a beautiful vintage Airstream trailer. Love it!