Pessimistic people 'live longer'

Victory for Victor Meldrew, as pessimistic people 'live longer'
It may be an unfamiliar concept to them, but the Victor Meldrews of the world finally have something to rejoice about.

Richard Wilson as Victor Meldrew in One Foot in the Grave Photo: BBC

By Hannah Furness

10:00PM GMT 27 Feb 2013

Older people blighted by pessimism and fear for the future are more likely to live longer, according to scientists.

A study, into 40,000 adults across ten years, has found those with low expectations for a “satisfying future” actually led healthier lives.

In contrast, people who were “overly optimistic” about the days ahead had a greater risk of disability or death within ten years.

The extraordinary research, published by the American Psychological Association, will not doubt prove comfort to anyone with a tendency to grumpiness.

Frieder R. Lang, lead author of the study from the University of Erlangen-Nuremberg in Germany, said: “Our findings revealed that being overly optimistic in predicting a better future was associated with a greater risk of disability and death within the following decade.

Related Articles

Where you live 'reflects how grumpy you are', study claims 20 Apr 2009

'Grumpy old man' is a myth 12 Mar 2012

Moan makes elderly feel better 31 Aug 2010

Sense of humour fails at 52 08 Oct 2010

"Pessimism about the future may encourage people to live more carefully, taking health and safety precautions."

The research, based on data collected between 1993 and 2003, asked 40,000 respondents to rate how satisfied they believed they would be in five years time.

They were interviewed again five years later, and their satisfaction levels compared with their own predictions.

Those who overestimated how happy they would be were found to have a 9.5 per cent increase in reporting disabilities, and a ten per cent high risk of death.

Older people, who tended to have a “darker outlook” on the future, were shown to be the most accurate in their predictions, with optimistic youngsters overestimating their success.

"Unexpectedly, we also found that stable and good health and income were associated with expecting a greater decline compared with those in poor health or with low incomes," said Dr Lang.

"Moreover, we found that higher income was related to a greater risk of disability.

"We argue, though, that the outcomes of optimistic, accurate or pessimistic forecasts may depend on age and available resources.

"These findings shed new light on how our perspectives can either help or hinder us in taking actions that can help improve our chances of a long healthy life."

Of those interviewed, 43 percent of the oldest group were found to have underestimated their future life satisfaction, 25 percent had predicted accurately and 32 percent had overestimated, according to the study

Research published last year by the Office for National Statistics found most people are now living six years longer than current life expectancy projections, with no sign of an upper age limit.

Previous studies have suggested that “unrealistic optimism” about the future can help people feel better while facing inevitable negative outcomes, such as terminal disease.

Another, published in 2009, noted that a positive outlook depended largely on where one lives, with those in London being the grumpiest and those in the countryside being the most relaxed.

How to Use Facebook to Boost Your Image and Get You a Job

How to Use Facebook to Boost Your Image and Get You a Job


When it comes to Facebook, most career advice sites are unanimous: The best practice, they say, is to avoid using the social network at all, or at the very least to keep your profile private. It is not difficult to understand how this conventional wisdom came to be. After all, we have all heard the horror stories of individuals who post drunk, slovenly photos of themselves to Facebook, only to realize that — shockingly! — this does not endear them to recruiters or hiring managers. The long and short of it is that unwise social media use can cost you your career prospects, which is why many career advisors say it is better to steer clear, or else to make sure potential employers do not have access to your private Facebook account.

This advice is not necessarily wrong, but it does offer a narrow view of online reputation, and a diminished understanding of just how powerful it can be. It may be true that a bad online reputation can hurt your career prospects, and that unwise social networking can prove disastrous. The inverse is also true, however. A positive online image can enhance your career prospects, and sound social media use can help to cast yourself as a more appealing figure among recruiters.

The bottom line: Recruiters and hiring managers are often inundated with resumes and applications, and as such they turn to social networks to help them weed out “red flag” candidates. By keeping your profile private, you can neutralize the threat of those red flags (the slovenly photos, and so on). By keeping it public and using it to enhance your appeal among recruiters, however, you can cast yourself as a truly standout choice for the job!
Using Facebook to Boost Your Online Image


By: John Young

Still, the question remains: How can Facebook be used to advance your career prospects? We all know what not to post, but what should we post to our Facebook pages? There are several considerations to make here:
The first one is obvious. You should make sure that, somewhere on your Facebook page, there is a link to your resume. You can do this by including a simple link to your LinkedIn profile. Some will question this, asking if it is really necessary; after all, can a recruiter not simply look to your LinkedIn page? Sure — but the simple act of putting that link on your Facebook account shows that you are serious about your career, and zealous to seize whatever opportunities you can.
On a related note, there is not necessarily any harm in letting potential employers know that you are, in fact, interested in finding work. This is not recommended for those who are currently employed, and do not wish for their employers to know they are looking elsewhere! For others, however, making it clear that you are in the market for a new job can only help your chances of using Facebook to effectively network.
You can also use Facebook to showcase your professional interests, in a way that a resume or a CV will not allow. For instance: Are you a member of any industry organizations or professional associations? If so, seek them out on Facebook, and make sure to “like” their pages. Again, this serves to showcase how serious you are about what you do, for the benefit of potential employers!
In a similar way, you can use Facebook to show off your personal side, in a way that would simply not be appropriate on your resume. When going through a stack of resumes, hiring managers do not want particularly care about your hobbies or your family interests; that is not what a resume is for, and it is frankly irrelevant to whether you are qualified for a particular job. However, by using Facebook to talk about a few of your hobbies, you can show how a different side of yourself, and perhaps “come alive” for recruiters and hiring managers!
One more thing you might think about including on your Facebook page: Information about non-profits and charities that you support. This goes a long way toward showing off how conscientious you are, which goes over big with companies that take social responsibility seriously. You can accomplish this by “liking” the pages of your favorite non-profit groups. Generally speaking, you should avoid overtly political or potentially controversial organizations; and, you should always avoid open bragging about your charitable giving. Liking the appropriate pages is enough!
Online Reputation, Facebook, and You

These days, everyone has an online reputation — so why not make an effort to make sure yours is positive? It all starts by cultivating a strong and positive social media presence. By being shrewd about it, you can ensure that your Facebook profile is actually helping you land job interviews and impress employers.

Author: Mike Zammuto is the COO of www.reputationchanger.com.

How to Use Facebook to Boost Your Image and Get You a Job The Undercover Recruiter - Probably the Best Recruitment and Career Blog in the World.

Filed Under: Recruiting • The Undercover Recruiter

Tags: boost • Facebook • HR • image • Job Search • Job Search and Career Secrets • Recruiters • Recruiting • Social Media • Undercover Recruiter- See more at: http://www.jobsdirectusa.com/blog/2013/02/how-to-use-facebook-to-boost-your-image-and-get-you-a-job/?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+jobsdirectusa%2FMCBi+%28Careers+and+Employment+Blog+%7C+JobsDirectUSA%29#sthash.BEiTEuoK.dpuf

Workers Over 50 Are The New 'Unemployables'

Workers Over 50 Are The New 'Unemployables'
By CNNMoney

By Annalyn Kurtz

On one hand, they're too young to retire. They may also be too old to get re-hired. Call them the "new unemployables," say researchers at Boston College.

Older workers were less likely to lose their jobs during the recession, but those who were laid off are facing far tougher conditions than their younger colleagues. Workers in their fifties are about 20 percent less likely than workers ages 25 to 34 to become re-employed, according to an Urban Institute study published last year.

"Once you leave the job market, trying to get back in it is a monster," said Mary Clair Matthews, 58, who has teetered between bouts of unemployment and short temp jobs for the last five years. She applies for jobs every week, but most of the time, her applications hit a brick wall.

Employers rarely get back to her, and when they do she's often told she is "overqualified" for the position. Sometimes she wonders: Is that just a euphemism for too old?

Her resume shows she has more than 30 years of experience working as a teacher, librarian, academic administrator and fundraiser for nonprofits. "I've thought about taking 10 years off my resume," she said. "It's not like we're senile. The average age of Congress is something like 57. Joe Biden is 70. Ronald Reagan was in his 70s when he was president. So what's the problem?"



More: Over 50? What To Expect From A JobThat's a question on the minds of many older workers.

Take Jill Cummings, 55, who has thought about dying her gray hair to improve her chances of landing a job. Then there's Tony Kash, 50, who wonders why his 30 years experience in manufacturing and management is no match for 25-year-olds fresh out of college with business degrees.

Nearly two-thirds of unemployed workers age 55 and older say they have been actively searching for a job for more than one year, compared to just one-third of younger workers, a recent survey by the Heldrich Center for Workforce Development at Rutgers University found.
Related story: Millions expect to outlive retirement savings

Older workers also have the longest bouts of unemployment. The average duration of unemployment for workers ages 55 to 64 was 11 months as recently as January, according to the Labor Department. That's three months longer than the average for 25- to 36-year-olds.

Given these circumstances, many workers can't help but think age discrimination is a factor. AARP's Public Policy Institute surveyed unemployed baby boomers in 2010 and 2011. While 71 percent blamed their unemployment on the bad economy, almost half also said they believed age discrimination was also at play.



More: How To Fight Age DiscriminationAbout 23,000 age discrimination complaints were filed with the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission in fiscal 2012, 20 percent more than in 2007.

Proving discrimination is next to impossible, though, unless it's blatant. "It's very difficult to prove hiring discrimination, because unless somebody says, 'you're too old for this job,' you don't know why you weren't hired," said Michael Harper, a law professor at Boston University.

Plus, employers may have rational qualifications that are inadvertently weeding out older candidates. Recent education and technological skills are two areas where older workers are more likely to come up short compared to the younger competition.

"When there's a large supply of unemployed workers, employers can afford to be choosier, and they're opting for workers they think are less expensive or more recently trained," said Sara Rix, senior strategic policy advisor for AARP's Public Policy Institute.

That's a hard reality for older job-seekers. "When you're at 55 or 60, you've had a lifetime of work. You've played by the rules, and the rug has been pulled out from you," Rix added.


Don't Miss: Companies Hiring Now

Hard-Wired to Hate Exercise?

Hard-Wired to Hate Exercise?
To Explain Why People Don't Work Out, Scientists Look to Chemistry, Biology

By SHIRLEY S. WANG




When it comes to exercise, many people seem to fall into two distinct camps: those who love a vigorous, sweat-soaked workout and those who view it as a form of torment.


Scientists have discovered that reasons for people not wanting to work out and go to the gym isn't just laziness. It is rooted in the body's chemistry. WSJ's Shirley Wang has details on the News Hub. Photo: Getty Images.

With hopes of getting more people up and moving, scientists are looking at the body's biological and chemical processes for clues to understanding what's behind differing attitudes toward exercise. That could mean there are factors beyond motivation and discipline to explain why some people enjoy exercising and others don't.


View InteractiveSources: Panteleimon Ekkekakis, Iowa State University

One finding so far: How people interpret their body's sensations during and after exercise plays a large role in whether they enjoy it. Also, researchers at Iowa State University found that people's physical capacity could be much lower than many realize, so many people push beyond their limits without realizing it. For example, for sedentary people, just cooking dinner could count as exercise and they need to build up to even walking, the researchers found.

Dan Cederholm has tried for years to find some type of exercise he could stick with. He finds the gym boring and basketball and baseball leagues unappealing. As for running? "My shins always hurt like hell," says Mr. Cederholm, 38, a Web designer from Salem, Mass.


His friend Rick Johnson, on the other hand, competes in 20 road races a year. He remembers that even as a kid, when he was told to run a lap during gym class, he would ask to do extras. "To me, it seems very foreign to say I don't enjoy sweating or running," says Mr. Johnson, 41, an editor who also lives in Salem.

From couch potatoes to Olympic athletes, everyone has a physical capacity for exertion, beyond which the body becomes stressed and begins to feel bad. How much stems from genetic factors—things like lung capacity, oxygen transport and the rate at which oxygen is used in the muscle cells—is still a subject of scholarly debate. Estimates vary from 10% to 50%, says Panteleimon Ekkekakis, a professor of kinesiology at Iowa State who has been studying the psychophysiology of exercise.

But many sedentary people push beyond their intrinsic range when they try to exercise too quickly or intensely, which can make them hate the activity and want to stop, says Dr. Ekkekakis.

The idea hinges on something called the "ventilatory threshold." Normally when people breathe, they expel an amount of carbon dioxide that is equal to the amount of oxygen taken in. But beyond the ventilatory threshold, the release of carbon dioxide begins to exceed the body's intake of oxygen. This excess release of carbon dioxide is a sign that the muscles have become more acidic, which the body finds stressful.

For most individuals, the ventilatory threshold is around 50% to 60% of the way to their maximum capacity, though there is tremendous individual variation. For elite athletes, the threshold may be as high as 80%, while sedentary people may hit it at 35%.





By using tricks such as listening to music, people can continue to feel good even slightly past their ventilatory threshold, Dr. Ekkekakis and his colleagues have found. As people approach their maximum capacity, however, the feel-bad reaction is unavoidable.

And while both ventilatory threshold and maximum capacity can be slowly increased, people have to have enough positive experiences to stick with exercise over time so they actually can boost these limits.

In continuing studies of obese, sedentary but otherwise healthy middle-aged women, Dr. Ekkekakis found that some individuals reach their ventilatory threshold after just one minute at a slow pace on a treadmill. Some women's thresholds are so low that they would reach their maximum capacity simply by doing the dishes or cooking, says Dr. Ekkekakis.

This means that though many weight-loss interventions suggest walking as the primary form of physical activity, it is probably too hard for many people.

How people interpret some of the physical sensations of exertion or fatigue, such as buildup of lactic acid in muscle or increases in body temperature, can also influence whether they stick with an exercise routine. Some people tend to read such physical cues as a sign of a good workout or progress, whereas many sedentary people just find them uncomfortable or painful, say researchers.

Elite athletes have even been dubbed "benign masochists" because they appear to enjoy the pain of exertion, says Dominic Micklewright, a researcher and curriculum director at the Centre for Sports & Exercise Science at the University of Essex in the U.K.

The sensation of how hard one is working also can be influenced by some surprising external factors. In one study published in the journal Environmental Science and Technology last year, Dr. Micklewright and his team examined how the color of the imagery participants viewed while cycling would affect their mood and perceived feelings of exertion. After viewing scenes that involved green trees, participants reported feeling happier and their exercise less difficult than when the same scenes appeared in black-and-white or red, suggesting that exercising in nature or simulated green spaces could be helpful for exercisers, says Dr. Micklewright.



Jason Henry for The Wall Street Journal

It wasn't until age 48 that Sharon Weinbar (in black) of Hillsborough, Calif., found a workout she looked forward to: rowing.

Researchers have found several other psychological factors and cognitive tricks that can help boost the motivation to move. Three that appear critical include how competent a person feels, whether he or she feels they have some control or choice in the matter and, for many, whether the activity fosters social relatedness, says Sarah Ullrich-French, a professor in kinesiology at Washington State University in Pullman, Wash.

Adults can be discouraged from exercising by not knowing what to do or how to do it. Those who were athletic in childhood may be frustrated by how their abilities have deteriorated over time. Dr. Ullrich-French suggests that adults try new activities where they won't be comparing themselves.

For Mr. Cederholm, the Web designer from Salem, going back to hockey, which he had enjoyed as a boy, wasn't an option. But the first time he played squash was an epiphany. "It was fun at the level that you don't even realize you're sweating your butt off," says Mr. Cederholm, who now plays three to four hours a week with a friend or practices shots by himself on the court.

Sharon Wienbar, a venture capitalist in Hillsborough, Calif., became a rower at the age of 48 because she enjoys the feeling of speeding along on the water, discussing her workout routines with her teammates and having a coach who helps her get better. "A couple months into rowing, it was like a light switch going on in my head," she says.

Once a "geeky, bookish" child who was always picked last for gym, Ms. Wienbar says rowing is now part of her identity and has prompted her to think of herself as an athlete.

And at age 51, she says she enjoys the physical feeling of pushing herself. "I don't even feel like I've reached the maximum," says Ms. Wienbar. "I'm in better shape now than I was 10 years ago. Maybe I'll be in even better shape in a decade."

Write to Shirley S. Wang at shirley.wang@wsj.com

To Charm and Make Friends Fast: Share, Don't Overshare

To Charm and Make Friends Fast: Share, Don't Overshare
To establish closeness between strangers, relationship researchers use a technique in which two people disclose information about themselves gradually and reciprocally.


By ELIZABETH BERNSTEIN
LIKE THIS COLUMNIST


MORE IN HEALTH & WELLNESS »

Carla Madrigal knew nobody in Seattle when she moved there last year after 38 years in San Francisco. She wanted to make new friends. "It was pretty devastating to be so anonymous," the 68-year-old artist says.



Dave Klug

The Start of a Beautiful Friendship: The early stages of a relationship are the time to take advantage of a technique used in research to establish closeness between strangers. The key is gradual self-disclosure.

To meet people, Ms. Madrigal made herself get out of the house every day. She joined a gym and a community garden, took yoga classes and visited a teahouse. And although she considers herself a shy person, she struck up conversations on the bus and at the grocery.

But she still had trouble making lasting relationships. Many people were nice, but she had nothing in common with them. Others resisted getting close.

Then two months ago, Ms. Madrigal was in a store when a woman complimented her hair. They began to chat and discovered that they both liked to work with textiles and to write. After a few minutes, Ms. Madrigal took a risk: "Would you like to come over to my house for coffee … now?" she asked.

The woman accepted her invite—and the two are now close pals.

"I thought all friendships had to be 'slow cooking,' taking years of experiencing life together," Ms. Madrigal says. "This experience was a marvelous revelation."

Is it possible to forge an intimate friendship quickly?

Research psychologists say yes. To study friendship in the lab, many use a protocol called "Fast Friends," which helps strangers establish "interpersonal closeness" in 45 minutes. The key? Both subjects need to gradually disclose personal information.

Here's how it works: Researchers give people working in pairs three sets of 12 questions written on index cards. The questions must be answered in order, with partners taking turns answering each question.

Questions in the first set are only slightly personal ("Before making a telephone call, do you ever rehearse what you are going to say?" "When did you last sing to yourself? To someone else?"). In the second set, they are a little more personal ("What is your most terrible memory?" "Is there something that you've dreamed of doing for a long time? Why haven't you done it?"). The last set is personal ("When did you last cry in front of another person? By yourself?" "Of all the people in your family, whose death would you find the most disturbing?"). Each set of questions also includes a relationship-building exercise ("Tell your partner what you like about them").

The point is to build connection gradually, even if it's happening in a 45-minute window.

"You want to be slow and reciprocal," says Arthur Aron, professor of psychology at Stony Brook University, in New York, who developed the protocol. "If you disclose too much too fast, you put someone off."

Not sure how to find the sweet spot between disclosing too little and disclosing too much? Remember how badly you wanted to get off the plane the last time someone in the next seat downloaded way too much information.

Oversharing is often seen as one-sided, overwhelming and socially inappropriate, Dr. Aron says. How can you tell if you are doing it? The other person may seem tense, fidgety or at a loss for words.

The Fast Friends technique can be used to improve business connections, relationships between neighbors and romantic bonds, Dr. Aron says.

Researchers have used it when studying how to create closeness between individuals of different ethnic backgrounds and between groups that often distrust each other (for example, police officers and residents of low-income neighborhoods).

I've made great friends quickly while condo hunting, waiting in line to vote and interviewing people for this column. Of course, not every effort has been a success. There's a special spark or chemistry that has to be there. When I meet someone I think I might like to know better, my secret is to share something about myself that is both personal and maybe a little embarrassing or self-deprecating (I often tell people that I am divorced.) That tends to spark their curiosity and open them up.

I made one of the best friendships of my life over just one lunch. I was stressed and confused about an encounter I'd had the night before with a man I'd just met but really liked. My lunch companion was a social psychologist, luckily for me, whose research I thought I might want to write about. Before we'd even ordered, I asked him if I could get his opinion on something personal, but told him I would only feel comfortable sharing if he would then tell me something about himself. That lunch became the beginning of many hours of mutual support and laughter.

"The only way to establish intimacy is to be willing to open up about yourself," says David Bakke, 46, an editor at a personal-finance website. "Once both parties see an initial connection, it's quite easy to open up about more intimate details." One of Mr. Bakke's closest friends, he says, is a former co-worker, a man almost 15 years his junior who became a friend within a matter of days. Although some of his colleagues teased him about the age difference, Mr. Bakke says, he values the friendship because the two can talk about both work and personal issues.

When Ms. Madrigal's new friend, Susan Hanover, 61, came to her house on the day they met, they talked about art and their creative projects. "The more she talked about herself, the more I realized she is like me," Ms. Madrigal says.

Before long, Ms. Hanover hinted about a sad time in her own life. Then Ms. Madrigal shared a story she doesn't often tell, about the end of her first marriage and how she had to rebuild her life afterward. The sharing, Ms. Madrigal says, was "careful … a conscious kind of building thing."

Ms. Hanover calls her friendship with Ms. Madrigal "an unexpected gift. The sharing and spontaneity is mutually beneficial," she says.

It has been exciting, Ms. Madrigal says, to discover she could make a deep friendship so quickly. "I learned that life can be shared in the moment and be just as alive as if it had been experienced together," she says.

Getting to Know You

Relationship researchers use these questions as part of the 'fast friends' protocol, which helps establish a feeling of closeness between strangers in about 45 minutes. While it might be awkward to start a dinner-party conversation with a question like these, they illustrate how two individuals mutually revealing information a little at a time can build a friendship

• Would you like to be famous? In what way?

• Before making a telephone call, do you ever rehearse what you are going to say? Why?

• When did you last sing to yourself? To someone else?

• Do you have a secret hunch about how you will die?

• If you could change anything about the way you were raised, what would it be?

• If you could wake up tomorrow having gained any one quality or ability, what would it be?

Source: Arthur Aron, Stony Brook University

Do you think you're bothersome when networking?

Do you think you're bothersome when networking?


02.18.2013

Do you think you're bothersome when networking?


PBS recently sat down with hiring expert Nick Corcodilos to learn how job seekers can make lasting contacts and avoid being overly aggressive when networking.

While many people say they feel uncomfortable asking someone at a company if they know anybody that could put them in touch with an HR manager, it's a necessary process of getting new contacts. According to the news source, Corcodilos broke it down by separating networking into two simple categories — good and bad.

"Sadly, people squander many of the good relationships they already have because they don't stay in touch," he said, adding that it is crucial to stay in touch with any contact you make so you can avoid the worst part about networking — "obnoxious requests for introductions."

"Good networking is not about going to meetings, being on lists, and being seen. Woody Allen was wrong: Showing up is not 90 percent of success," he said. "While those things might work, they easily become rote and thoughtless behaviors that mark you as selfish."

Good networking
If bad networking is simply making yourself known, then good networking is going a step further by participating and contributing. Even if you show up 90 percent of the time, as Corcodilos put it, you still must have something to offer. This could come in the form of a good idea, a move to help something run better, help a person achieve success, taking a risk or always being a part of a solution.

Corcodilos told the media outlet that it's true that this approach takes more thought, work and time, but that it will certainly pay off. You can't expect to merely show up and sit through an informational meeting and get noticed right away.

"Good networking is an investment," he said. "You must do good work again and again without expecting a return."

Keith Ferrazzi, business coach and author, told CIO magazine that networking is vital for finding a job, but it can be a huge struggle for shy people. However, even these job seekers can break out of their shells by starting small, such as a trusted friend, and seeing where the network can spread from there.


Job Search State:

Relevant Articles
Crafting an ideal-length cover letter
The NHL lockout is over, now it's time to get back to work like the players
For job security and high pay, look to engineering
Tips to get you going on writing a better resume
Conquering the over-60 job search

Search Jobs
Post Resumes
Working with Aerotek
Transitioning Military
Career Articles
FAQ
Videos
Careers at Aerotek

Multiple Hard Drives Working Together: All about RAIDs

Multiple Hard Drives Working Together: All about RAIDs

Lincoln Spector@lincolnspector
Feb 14, 2013 7:39 AM
print

Stevey, admitted confused by the benefits of RAIDs, asked theAnswer Line forum to explain these hard drive groups.

A Redundant Array of Independent Disks (RAID) puts multiple hard drives together to improve on what a single drive can do on its own. Depending on how you configure a RAID, it can increase your computer's speed while giving you a single "drive" that can hold as much as all of the drives combined. Or you can use a RAID to increase reliability, so that your computer will keep working after a hard drive crash. Some RAIDS allow you to do both.

[Email your tech questions to answer@pcworld.com or post them on the PCW Answer Line forum.]

Here are three of the most popular RAID configurations:
RAID 0

This type of RAID turns the two or more drives inside of it into one bigger, faster storage unit. But it significantly increases the odds of a crashed drive taking all of your files with it.

When you save a file, a RAID 0 splits it into sections and distributes it across the various drives. Since all of the drive heads are working together on different parts of the same file, the array can write and read much faster than a single drive.

It also gives you a lot of storage. If you've got four 1TB drives in a RAID 0 array, you effectively have a single 4TB drive.

But those four drives quadruple the likelihood that one of them will crash. And because every file is distributed across all of the drives, if one drive crashes, you lose everything.
RAID 1

Turn two 1TB drives into a RAID 1 array, and you get the capacity and speed of a single 1TB drive. So what's the point? Protection.

In a RAID 1 array, the two drives mirror each other, so that they both contain the exact same data. If one drive fails, the other keeps working. No files are lost, and there's no downtime.

But don't confuse RAID 1 with a real backup. A hard drive crash isn't the only disaster that can destroy your files. If a fire, burglar, Trojan, or bad mistake on your part hits one one of those drives, it will likely hit the other.
RAID 5

Here you can get the benefits of RAID 0 and RAID 1: capacity, speed, and protection. But you'll need at least three drives, and only two of those three will be used for storage.

Like RAID 0, a RAID 5 array breaks data into sections that are stored on two or more drives, resulting in increased speed and capacity. But it devotes one additional drive to parity, saving information on the other drives' information.

If one of the non-parity drive dies, the parity drive can look at what's on the working drive (or drives), and calculate what would have been on the dead one. The RAID and the computer will continue to work, although the extra calculations will slow things down.

Read the original forum discussion.



1
inShare

RELATED STORIES
Choosing the Right RAID Level for Your NAS Box
How to Set Up RAID on Your PC

The Impending Social Consequences of Augmented Reality

The Impending Social Consequences of Augmented Reality

WHAT'S THIS?

John Havens
It doesn't do any good to debate when Google’s Project Glass will become ubiquitous, or how many billions of dollars the Augmented Reality industry will make by 2015. You’re missing the point.

Augmented Reality (AR) is not just a technology. It’s a shortcut. Whether we can interact with data through a pair of glasses or contact lenses, the very nature of such technological immediacy will very quickly change human behavior.

First shortcut? We’ll get our hands back. Imagine your coffee and bagel, no spills — because you’re checking email on AR-enabled glasses.


SEE ALSO: 7 Ways Augmented Reality Will Improve Your Life



It’s the second shortcut that will be much more profound. Personalization algorithms already guiding your life will turn visual. And facial recognition technology combined with this articulated AR means your rose-colored glasses aren’t just a metaphor — you’ll only encounter the world you want, the people you want.

There’s a culture clash coming, only we're talking too much tech, not enough tact.
Process Paradigms

“There are consequences to the technology we’re using that we cannot predict,” says Vint Cerf, VP and chief Internet evangelist at Google, most widely known for being one of the inventors of the Internet. “We’re moving into a time we’ve never quite been in before. The information explosion has been with us for a long time. But the ability to process it has been less available to us.”

Machines process faster than humans. While we may have a richer sense of context than our cyber counterparts, we don’t have the same ability to interpret and communicate information on the scale and speed that currently exists for machines today.

As an example, Cerf notes how the wine industry has begun using sensors to monitor plants in real time to learn what nutrients are needed to maximize productivity for the overall vineyard. This maximizes yield and optimizes the quality of the fruit.

Along these lines, Cerf also notes Glooko, a company that manufactures a connector between an insulin monitoring delivery system and a mobile phone. The mobile gets data from the pump and reports a moment-by-moment record of a person’s metabolic condition. "You could not do this in the past, before devices had such portability," notes Cerf. "There is an enormous power when linking these mobile devices to the Internet.”

Along with faster computing power and device portability, it’s important to consider how these examples will manifest in an Augmented Reality world. The initial answer is obvious: It won’t make a difference to the majority of us. Wine owners will utilize portable AR while tending their vines to keep their hands free, and people with diabetes will use a visual prompt to avoid high-glucose items.

But how about the effect on the restaurant owner serving wine to the diabetic? In the future, they’ll likely see a visual marker above diners' heads, alerting them to food allergies. When offering a diabetic a wine list, they'll know not to offer a menu with high-glucose selections, as a point of culinary etiquette.

Our immediate future will focus more on these new cultural paradigms than technical concerns.
Cultural Quandaries








Screenshot courtesy of Girls Around Me

“The data that is being pulled by these technologies and in particular with AR is already public,” notes Polonetsky, director and co-chair of the Future of Privacy Forum, a Washington, D.C.-based think tank that seeks to advance responsible data practices. “Like the recent controversyover the Girls Around Me app, people get upset when information they may have shared via Facebook or Foursquare gets revealed in a different, but still public, context.”

Polonetsky notes that the stress we’re starting to see in such examples comes when data is portrayed in ways we weren’t expecting. The app Girls Around Me reveals women’s physical locations after inferring they're looking for dates — whether or not they actually are.






Many of these data-oriented stressors already manifest in our analog world right now.

Many of these data-oriented stressors already manifest in our analog world right now. For instance, mortgage data is publically available online. Who’s to stop me from cornering a neighbor at a block party and saying, “I cannot believe how much you paid for your house.”

The fact that humans can't avoid some level of insensitivity is a given. The bigger quandary is what happens when data is revealed in a visual context to people wearing AR technologies, especially when privacy preferences may fail. In the mortgage situation, what's to stop me from insensitively avoiding that neighbor because I’ve prejudged his financial status?

Similar situations will soon overtake driving. Ford’s MyKey technology, available since January 2011, lets parents program cars for teens, so they can’t go over 80 mph and can't listen to the stereo until all seat belts are engaged.

While the features were originally designed for teen safety, the technical framework could certainly be utilized in a different context. Polonetsky anticipates one could use the technology to vet whether or not a parent is worthy of driving children in a car pool. The issue, as with teens, is still about safety. If via my "You Drive Like a Squirrel" AR app, I see you score a two out of ten on safety, my kid doesn’t get in your car.

“We need to figure out what moral or social boundaries we want to draw,” notes Polonetsky. “We don’t know what the next adjustment or ethical framework looks like.”
A Direction for the Data

“Our job is to figure out compelling ways to engage people and improve their well-being through web and mobile apps.” says Chris Cartter, founder and general manager of MeYou Health (a subsidiary of Healthways), a company dedicated to helping people pursue, achieve and maintain a more healthy life by improving their well-being every day.

Most users sign in to the company's well-being product, Daily Challenge, using their Facebook IDs, which lets Cartter and his team quantify how users can support one another more effectively while trying to change behavior.

“We want to learn how to improve the well-being of the entire connected network, a community where people will share deeply personal health related information if there is genuine context and trust," says Cartter.

This environment could easily be possible in an AR-enabled world. People walking down the street could virtually reveal their health status, how it’s trending up and down. “And while there may eventually be facial recognition (via AR) for a billion people on the planet, I may only want to reveal my well-being score to a small selection of my Facebook friends,” he adds.

But the precedent of Girls Around Me brings up an important question:




How can we fully protect the original intention of any of our data?

How can we fully protect the original intention of any of our data? What will likely evolve is a visual taxonomy where people can set how they’re seen or perceived, via AR applications that work in conjunction with platforms like Google Glass.

An example of this is CacheTown, an AR technology initially being used to help retailers project offers for products or services in the virtual arena. But CEO and founder Andrew Couch is aware of the larger concerns of privacy; the company is currently building what is essentially a Visual Virus Protection system where users can determine how they’re projected in an augmented world.

“Our assumption is that privacy will be the No. 1 area people may abuse within the Augmented Reality space," says Couch. "When people are able to enhance the perception of the world around them, they also need to be provided with a responsible mindset for these new interactions.”

Couch is also working on a guide to ethics surrounding Augmented Reality that addresses these privacy concerns.
Robot Reflections








Image via iStockphoto, patrickheagney

“We tend to think about the future as something we don’t have control over. We need to create a future that we want to be a part of,” says Ramona Pringle, a faculty member at Ryerson University in Toronto, as well as host and producer of Rdigitalife, an online series that explores the relationships between humans and technology. She predicts that man and machine will inevitably merge on various levels, but insists that we need to discuss the ethics and culture of these advances over and above the technology itself.

While the idea of implanting technology in our bodies or wearing an AR-enabled contact lens tends to make most people uncomfortable, Pringle points out that we’re used to the idea of a nose job, a form of trading in our uniquely human attributes for “brand features” that reflect a specific perception of beauty. Again, these questions are not about technology, but of culture and context.

Within Rdigitalife, Pringle also researches artificial intelligence, specifically whether people could fall in love with inanimate objects, or robots. While this may seem far-fetched, ask yourself how much time you stare at your mobile screen, compared to the faces of your loved ones. And as a parent, have you found yourself telling your kids to turn off the TV while you’re sending a text or email? How will that behavior change when the virtual world permeates your vision and surroundings? Will there be a time when you program your preferences to avoid seeing loved ones altogether, if you’re busy or preoccupied?

It’s this cultural paradigm Pringle most wants to address. “It’s the responsibility of every citizen to be a part of this conversation involving technology," she says. "You can’t wake up in 20 years and say, ‘I didn’t think this would happen.’”
The Vocabulary of Vision

“I’m not trying to sell technology just so people will use it. I want people to spend less time tasking so they can create more value with their lives,” says Christopher Rezendes, founder and president of INEX Advisors, which helps institutions understand how they can benefit from the deployment of Internet of Things, or M2M (machine-to-machine) solutions.

For someone so immersed in what many would call futuristic technologies, Rezendes actually points out networked technology has existed for years. His focus is on making intelligent and meaningful connections for people utilizing technology, versus moving forward with emerging media simply because they exist. He says, “Just because we can, doesn’t mean we should. We need to be intentional.”

He also points out that as the world becomes more interconnected, by definition, we’ll need to be more connected as communities. This isn’t an altruistic or socialist view of the future – it’s about business and functional operability.

Citing the idea of self-driving cars, Rezendes points out, “How can anyone release products that will hurt partners, if you’re a single entity in a tightly connected commercial chain? We won’t be able to operate independently of our upstream or downstream experience partners.”

Now consider this physical supply chain in the context of seeing one another’s well-being, needs or talents displayed via visualizations, viewable through lenses outfitted with AR. How will we perceive each other in the near future, beyond our physical appearances? How will our positive and negative traits combine to form a visualization that instantly defines who we are?

One thing that will change, according to Rezendes: our vocabulary. “I think in 10 years we’ll be actively working to redefine the citizen to stop calling them consumers. The term is outmoded and refers to a time when people’s primary value came from gathering goods or wealth."

Rezendes has a vision for the future citizen of the connected world, where our focus can widen to better provide value in a more holistic sense of a human supply chain: “We’re going to call people creators.”
Talk or Tunnel

Some say we’re losing serendipity, that the filters and personalization algorithms narrow our choices so we stop experiencing decisions we’ve dismissed in the past. But with AR, this form of tunnel vision will become literal.

I hope you agree, and I look forward to seeing you in the future. But evidently, that's up to you.


BONUS: 10 Amazing Robots We Met in 2012

Science Confirms The Obvious: Men And Women Aren't That Different

Science Confirms The Obvious: Men And Women Aren't That Different
A new psychology study brings "men are from Mars" gender stereotypes down to earth.
By Shaunacy FerroPosted 02.06.2013


From The Same Planet? Wikimedia Commons

We tend to think of the two sexes as a dichotomy. The most important question asked of new parents is "Boy or girl?" But as any tomboy could tell you, that doesn't always mean much. A new review of 13 past studies that showed significant differences has found that many of those differences are far less pronounced than the earlier studies implied.

The "Big Five" personality traits of psychology -- openness, conscientiousness, extraversion, agreeableness and neuroticism -- do not categorically vary between men and women. Contrary to stereotypes, women were not found to be significantly more intimate in their relationships, and science inclination did not overwhelmingly favor men. And masculinity and femininity, the study found, "are not all-or-nothing traits...they are truly a continuum."

"Sex is not nearly as confining a category as stereotypes and even some academic studies would have us believe," according to lead author Bobbi Carothers. The study, published in theJournal of Personality and Social Psychology, was part of her doctoral dissertation in social psychology at University of Rochester.

Physically, men and women did fall into very distinct categories in categories like height and waist-to-hip ratio. But psychologically, not so much. Men and women consistently overlapped in attitudes and traits like empathy, fear of success and mate selection, indicating that sex differences are not categorical, but more a matter of degree.

Carothers and Harry Reis, a psychology professor, reanalyzed data from 13 studies that had shown significant differences in the sexes, as well as collecting their own data on psychological indicators. They used three different statistical procedures to look for evidence that certain attributes could reliably identify someone as male or female.

Great Dichotomy: Physical strength between men and women using data from the National Collegiate Athletic Association's long jump, high jump, and javelin throw competitions shows distinct differences between the sexes. Assertiveness as based on self-reported measures of competitiveness, decisiveness, sense of superiority, persistence, confidence, and the ability to stand up under pressure does not show the same gender gap. University of Rochester



For 122 different characteristics, from empathy to sexuality to science inclination to extroversion, a statistical analysis of 13,301 individuals did not reveal any distinct differences between men and women.

Gender can be a predictor for stereotypic activities like scrapbooking or boxing, but men and women don't think about their relationships in "qualitatively different" ways, no matter what self-help books like Men Are From Mars, Women Are From Venus may claim.

While there are average differences between the sexes, they aren't consistent enough to accurately characterize the entire group. Just because a man or woman fits into one stereotype for their gender doesn't mean they will fit into another.

"The possession of traits associated with gender is not as simple as 'this or that'" the authors write.

The study was based on questionnaires, and the authors admit that the results may not encapsulate real-life actions completely, as people don't always self-report accurately. They leave the door open for research that establishes a gender through interpersonal behavior. But dividing men and women into neatly separated, simplistic categories could be harmful for heterosexual relationships, Reis says.

"When something goes wrong between partners, people often blame the other partner's gender immediately," he explains. "Having gender stereotypes hinders people from looking at their partner as an individual."

Being of the opposite sex isn't what makes it seem like your partner is from another planet. "It's not so much sex, but human character that causes difficulties," Reis says. It's not you, it's me.

How to Manage the Stress of Uncertainty

How to Manage the Stress of Uncertainty

BY NADIA GOODMAN



image credit: Shutterstock


Launching a business is riddled with stressful uncertainties. You worry about feeding your family, paying your employees, or investing your own money without a guarantee of success. As an entrepreneur, learning to manage that stress will make you a happier -- and more successful -- business leader.

Experienced entrepreneurs have a much easier time dealing with the stress of uncertainty, in part because they think and act in ways that virtually negate it.



"The expert entrepreneurs think in terms of control, not in terms of uncertainty," says Saras Sarasvathy, associate professor at University of Virginia’s Darden School of Business, who studies how entrepreneurs cope with uncertainty.

Thinking in terms of control empowers you to focus on the actions you can take to minimize risk. "Great entrepreneurs get very good at shoring up the downside, but embrace products with uncertainty on the upside," Sarasvathy says. That balance allows for both stability and freedom.

Here's how great entrepreneurs achieve a sense of control:

1. Start by gathering stakeholders. Experienced entrepreneurs don't act alone -- they take control by getting others on board before they start a new project. They look for stakeholders in all areas of the business -- potential employees, suppliers, investors, and customers -- and ask them to make a small commitment to the project.

That buy in is essential. If experienced entrepreneurs can’t get a couple stakeholders in each category, they kill the project. "They almost define a great idea by whether they're able to bring enough people together," Sarasvathy says. "If not, then your idea probably isn’t that great."

2. Place small bets at the beginning. Lower your stress and worry by starting with small investments -- things that you're willing to lose if the company fails. Maybe you're willing to work nights and weekends, or pay to create a prototype. "You still don’t know if you'll win, but if you lose, you'll lose very little," Sarasvathy says. "You have control over the downside."

Approach your early stakeholders this way as well. Ask them to place small bets that they would be willing to lose. For example, when Richard Branson created Virgin Atlantic, he asked Boeing to loan him a used 747 for a few months to test the idea. If it worked, they'd have a new customer; if it didn't, they lost very little. "Even a 747 is an affordable loss for someone," Sarasvathy says.

Related: 5 Ways to Stop Stress Before it Starts

3. Get early commitment from customers. As experienced entrepreneurs often say, fail early and fail often. That strategy lowers stress by giving you opportunities to improve your idea before you have too much in the game, and the best way to do it is to talk to your customers early. "Preselling an idea is the surest way you can make the idea fail or succeed earlier," Sarasvathy says.

Pitch your idea and share rough prototypes as often as you can. You have to be prepared -- even excited -- for others to critique your product. If you keep it behind closed doors because you fear your customers' response, you are doing yourself a disservice and adding unnecessary stress.

4. Work within constraints. Having unlimited time and money to start your company seems like a luxury, but it actually adds a ton of stress and pressure. Working within constraints, such as limited time or money, lowers your emotional investment without hurting your passion or commitment.

Constraints also make you more creative. "People who start with a lot of money can be much more likely to lose," Sarasvathy says, in part because they have less impetus to innovate. For example, Pierre Omidyar created eBay on nights and weekends, which forced him to create a more ingenious system that would sustain itself with little central management. His constraints kept stress levels low and made eBay the success it is today.

Related: 5 Ways You Can Be Happier at Work Right Now

Storing Digital Data in DNA

Storing Digital Data in DNA
Technique One Day May Replace Hard Drives as Web Leads to Information Deluge

By GAUTAM NAIK


Scientists have used DNA stored audio and text on fragments of DNA and then retrieved them with near-perfect fidelity-a technique that may provide a way to handle data in the digital age. WSJ's Gautam Naik reports.

Scientists have stored audio and text on fragments of DNA and then retrieved them with near-perfect fidelity—a technique that eventually may provide a way to handle the overwhelming data of the digital age.

The scientists encoded in DNA—the recipe of life—an audio clip of Martin Luther King Jr.'s "I Have a Dream" speech, a photograph, a copy of Francis Crick and James Watson's famous "double helix" scientific paper on DNA from 1953 and Shakespeare's 154 sonnets. They later were able to retrieve them with 99.99% accuracy.

The experiment was reported Wednesday in the journal Nature.


Getty Images

A copy of Crick and Watson's famous "double helix" scientific paper from 1953 was among items scientists successfully encoded. Above, a DNA model.

"All we're doing is adapting what nature has hit upon—a very good way of storing information," said Nick Goldman, a computational biologist at the European Bioinformatics Institute in Hinxton, England, and lead author of the Nature paper.

Companies, governments and universities face an enormous challenge storing the ever-growing flood of digitized information, the videos, books, movies and songs sent over the Internet.

Some experts have looked for answers in biology. In recent years, they have found ways to encode trademarks in cells and poetry in bacteria, as well as store snippets of music in the genetic code of micro-organisms. But these biological things eventually die.

By contrast, DNA—the molecule that contains the genetic instructions for all living things—is stable, durable and dense. Because DNA isn't alive, it could sit passively in a storage device for thousands of years.

Among today's data-storage devices, magnetic tapes can degrade within a decade, while hard disks are expensive and need a constant supply of electricity to hold their information, creating huge need for power for the "data farms" behind cloud computing.

DNA could hold vastly more information than the same surface volume of a disk drive—a cup of DNA theoretically could store about 100 million hours of high-definition video.

While DNA-based storage remains a long way from being commercially viable—high cost is one major hurdle—the scientific barriers are starting to fall.

Last August, researchers at Harvard University reported in the journal Science the encoding of an entire 54,000-word book in strands of DNA.

"The experiments are very similar," said George Church, a molecular geneticist at Harvard and senior researcher for the project reported in Science. "Because these are truly independent efforts, we've shown there's a real field here rather than just one group."

Both experiments encoded similar amounts of information and had roughly similar accuracy rates, according to Dr. Church.

The European Bioinformatics Institute is part of the European Molecular Biology Laboratory, Europe's flagship life-sciences lab. The EMBL is funded by public research money from 20 European member states.




In their experiment, Dr. Goldman and his colleagues first downloaded onto a computer a 26-second clip of Dr. King's "I Have a Dream" speech, the sonnets and the other things to be stored. The data was in normal computer code—a long string of ones and zeros.

A software program devised by Dr. Goldman's team converted those ones and zeros into the letters A, C, G and T, the four chemical bases that make up DNA.

The single, long DNA-based string was chopped up into about 150,000 fragments, each 120 letters long. Each fragment contained about 100 letters encoding the data. The remaining 20 letters served as an index—instructions for later restoring the fragments in the right order.

The information was sent to Agilent Technologies Inc. A +0.81% of Santa Clara, Calif., where a laboratory machine used the data and appropriate chemicals to manufacture physical strings of actual DNA. Those fragments were shipped to Dr. Goldman's lab in England.

"I thought the vial was empty when it arrived," said Dr. Goldman. But the DNA was there—it lay like a speck of dust at the bottom of the vial, almost impossible to see.

After some lab work, the DNA was dispatched to an EMBL lab in Heidelberg, Germany. There, a DNA-sequencing machine fired lasers at the fragments and read their genetic code, yielding a computer file in the form of As, Cs, Gs and Ts.

Back in Hinxton, a computer program reassembled the fragments in the right order, and then converted them back into ones and zeros. When run on a laptop, those ones and zeros were interpreted as the audio clip, sonnets and other items. When the clip of Dr. King's speech was played back, it sounded just like the original version, said Dr. Goldman.

Plenty of challenges remain before DNA storage could become a cheap and reliable commercial process.

"In 10 years, it's probably going to be about 100 times cheaper," said Dr. Goldman. "At that time, it probably becomes economically viable."

Write to Gautam Naik at gautam.naik@wsj.com

What's Your Collar ID?

What's Your Collar ID?
Styles Abound, but Finding Collars to Fit the Occasion, Flatter the Face Is Knotty

By RAY A. SMITH
Charles Tyrwhitt

This abbreviated spread collar, which Charles Tyrwhitt calls a 'small business casual collar' falls in between dressy and casual.

What's happened to men's collars?

There are now not just spread collars but medium spreads and extreme spreads, and not just button-down collars but abbreviated button-down collars and short, rounded button-down collars.

There is the return of the snap-tab collar, which Hamilton, a 130-year-old high-end shirt maker in Houston, is aggressively promoting for spring.

Thomas Pink is among the brands launching "dressy" button-down shirts meant to be worn with suits and ties, traditionally a no-no.

The least familiar, and therefore most shocking to the eye, are the extremely short collars some designers have shown on runways over the past two years.
Associated Press

Harry Styles, a One Direction heartthrob, sports the club collar sans tie.

These new collar shapes and styles are in part due to the menswear industry's revival of looks that have long been out of fashion. For example, the club collar, with its abbreviated, rounded shape, is back.

The overall slimming down of the menswear silhouette calls for smaller collars. Designers and retailers also have been pushing clothes that fall somewhere in between work wear and casual wear, and adding more collar options along the way.

Brooks Brothers, which currently carries 10 collar styles, sells an English spread collar and a Londoner collar. (The spread, or collar width, on the English spread collar is 5 inches, while the Londoner is 6). There are tennis collars and golf collars, also known as club collars.

The upside: Men have more ways to communicate personal style through their shirts than color and pattern. The downside: Men who want to choose the appropriate collar for everyday or special-occasion events may need a scorecard.

Shirt makers and retailers recently began placing more emphasis on medium-spread collars, which work buttoned up with a tie but, conveniently, also can be worn with the top button undone and the collar falling neatly under the lapel of a sport coat without winging out.


View InteractiveMike Sudal and Joseph Shoulak/The Wall Street Journal

Banana Republic began re-engineering its shirt collars three years ago in pursuit of such a collar. The retailer conducted a series of wear tests where men wore the shirts with ties and different knots and then tried the same shirts with the top button undone.

Simon Kneen, creative director of Banana Republic, says the retailer also used a lighter fusable, or adhesive, in the collars to make them less rigid, trying to achieve collar "magic," Mr. Kneen says. "The magic is when the first button opens and the collar doesn't fly around your ears, which is never a good look."

Banana Republic calls the collar that resulted its "signature" collar—it is the collar shoppers will find on most of its non-button-down dress shirts.

Brooks Brothers, Hamilton, Thomas Pink and Turnbull & Asser say spread collars are their most popular, with medium or moderate spreads the top sellers, especially among men in their 20s to early 40s.

The sales reflect a man who wants to buy a shirt that can work with and without a tie. Traditional forward-point-collar shirts, are generally always worn with suits and ties, as the collars can look oddly long and pointy when the top button is undone.

David Elrod, a Dallas trial lawyer, says he prefers to wear forward-point collars with suits and ties rather than spread collars. "I try to dress more conservative in the courtroom," Mr. Elrod says. He wears spread collars while traveling with a sport coat and no tie.

But the 61-year-old says he would never wear a spread collar with a tie: "A lot of younger guys do that but most guys my age wear the more conservative point collar with ties."

Some traditional rules surrounding collars seem to be going out the window. Wearing a button-down collar shirt with a suit and tie has sometimes been frowned upon by purists. Yet men's fashion designers and fashion magazines have been showing button-down shirts worn with suits and ties in recent years.

Brooks Brothers launched a dressy button-down shirt in its higher-priced Luxury offering for spring. The retailer introduced button-downs in 1896 and they remain the clothier's second best-selling shirts, after Ainsley spread collars, according to Richard Cristodero, merchandise manager for men's furnishings.

Brooks Brothers decided to introduce a dressier button-down collar with a higher thread count and made with Italian-woven fabric in its Luxury shirt because sales staff had been getting requests from customers for such a shirt, he says. It is "something we were missing."

Men who choose a button-down shirt to wear with a suit and tie should consider a dressy fabric.

"Button downs are really American sport shirts, worn with a jacket and tie for an Ivy-League look or out of context with an Italian suit a la Gianni Agnelli," the late Fiat mogul known for his style, says Tom Julian, a New York-based men's style consultant.

Button-down collars usually work best when worn with a pair of slacks, or under a crew neck sweater. "A crew neck is a more casual American sportswear look and therefore, the American sportswear collar complements it best," says Mr. Julian, the author of two men's style guides. Button-down collars also work with a sport coat and no tie.

Another collar that goes well with a sport coat sans tie is the semi- or medium-spread collar as both "stand up on their own without a tie," and don't flare out.

Beyond point collars, Mr. Julian has a rule of thumb on which shirts call for ties: "The wider the spread on a shirt, the more it needs a tie." So shirts such as Thomas Pink's new extreme cutaway collar shirt, called Beaufort, or Brooks Brothers' Londoner should be worn with a tie. Also, the wider the spread, the larger the tie knot.

Shoppers should also consider a man's physical size. "A wide collar can broaden a narrow neck and face by drawing the eye outward," says Mr. Julian. "Conversely, a narrow-point collar can draw the eyes in and down when a man has a wide face and neck."

Tab and club collars, meanwhile, "are more novelty at this point, but fun for the more adventurous," he says. Pop star Harry Styles of boy band One Direction has been spotted wearing rounded club collars. Just don't try them with a V-neck sweater or crew neck, Mr. Julian advises. The collar is too short for either one, so the balance will be all wrong.

"A man wearing a slim suit or blazer with a narrow lapel to the office should opt for a narrow-point collar that is about 1 inch shorter than average to keep the lean proportions," Mr. Julian says.

That kind of collar might be too lean for a classic notch lapel sport coat, he says. A button-down would be more appropriate in that case. The proportions of a spread collar would work best with a double-breasted sport coat or one with wide peak lapels, he says.

Fans of a tweed sport coat with corduroy pants for the office should opt for the sporty feel of a button-down collar. For a dinner or drinks night, a spread collar pairs well with a sport coat or V-neck sweater and looks modern.




Nick Briggs/ITV for Masterpiece

'Downton Abbey' characters Matthew Crawley, left, and Lord Grantham wear stiff, detachable collars affixed by their valets.
The Era of Collar Sold Separately

There was a time when the most popular collar for a man was a detachable one.

Detachable collars, like the ones on TV's "Downton Abbey," were typically attached to the shirt using studs via a little button hole in the back of the shirt's band. Detachable collars also were often made of a stiffer material than the shirt so that the collar would "stand up," says menswear historian Alan Flusser. This was especially important with formal wear's "wing" collars.

Detachable collars also signaled social class. "You needed a butler or valet to help you put them on," Mr. Flusser says.

The idea for detachable collars was born out of the drudgery of 19th Century laundering practices.

In 1820, a housewife in Troy, N.Y., whose blacksmith husband insisted on a clean shirt each night to attend evening events, decided to cut off the collars and attach them to the body of the shirt with strings, according to Mr. Flusser, who recounts the story in his book "Dressing the Man." This way, a wife could clean just the collar, rather than laundering the entire shirt.

The collars caught on with other housewives and eventually commercial producers began making and selling detachable collars. "There were companies that just made collars," Mr. Flusser says. Men could have many different collars for one shirt, he says.

Detachable collars started to fall out of favor between World War I and World War II with the introduction of washing machines as well as cloth rationing. Also, men's style traditions such as wearing white tie, which usually called for wing collars, began to loosen and events requiring starched formal collars declined.

--Ray A. Smith

Write to Ray A. Smith at ray.smith@wsj.com

5 Ways to Succeed in Any Economy

5 Ways to Succeed in Any Economy

BY GRANT CARDONE | December 12, 2012



image credit: Shutterstock

The more difficult the economy, the greater the opportunities -- but only for those who are strong, well-prepared and persistent. Many people are fixated by national or even global economic doom and gloom. Many wait for a magic fix, only to realize it will never come.

We are now in what I like to call an “eat what you kill" environment, where the people who win are those who take the initiative without waiting for permission to create their own success.


Here are five ways I have found to ensure success in any economy:

1. Depend on no one.
Success will elude you until you realize that no one is the cause of your problems and no one can ensure you will achieve your goals. Your destiny is up to you and no one else. I began on the path to making a real difference in my professional life only after I decided I would not take the crumbs the government doles out through unemployment benefits and would get a job no matter what I had to do. As a college graduate schooled in accounting, working on an oil rig in the Gulf of Mexico was not my idea of a job, much less a career. But because I was willing to dowhatever it took to begin producing and making a difference in my life, I gained the confidence that led to major career advancements.

2. Assume the economy will not improve.
Be on full alert DEFCON 3 and do not take anything, especially the security of your job, for granted. You need to make yourself so valuable to your employer that there is no way the company could consider firing you. The new economy demands a shift to an entrepreneurial mindset that goes beyond the scope of work in your job description. The most powerful thing you can do is to figure out how to drive revenue or contribute to the bottom line. You also might consider taking on a second job or starting a side business from your living room. Have a meeting about your career and finances with your family and let them know they need to pull together with you and may need to make sacrifices.

3. Become more active.
When I started my first company, I experienced so much resistance due to a tough economy and other factors that little by little I felt like giving up. It wasn’t until I tried making 30 or 40 sales calls a day instead of just three or four that I began developing traction. After that, I took a hard look at everything else I was doing and set targets to increase the activity in my struggling business tenfold. Now, don’t get me wrong. I’m not saying you aren’t already working hard, but you could make a big difference over time by finding ways to get even more done. For example, you could plan your workflow better, put that new efficiency app on your smartphone or set limits on time spent in meetings.

4. Be bright.
The future is brilliant for those who are positive. Be the most optimistic person in the game, and that will separate you from others more than anything else. We live in a world rocked by a thousand little shocks interspersed with periodic economic and natural disasters. And at no time in our history, have I seen so many people turning to vices designed to relieve stresses and strains. Now, it seems that people who stay positive and have a can-do attitude are the exceptions. But you can be one of them by staying focused and learning to smile no matter the circumstances.

5. Become omnipresent.
Now is the time to be everywhere, to be seen and talked about. Obscurity is the single biggest challenge in business. You can’t succeed if potential customers don't know you, or existing clients are not thinking of you often enough. The good news is that you have more opportunities than ever to become omnipresent thanks to social media. I write a blog daily, create five videos each week, contribute at least 200 original posts on social networks every month, as well as continue to use traditional press releases, advertising and direct-mail marketing campaigns. The upshot: More prospects now reach out to us than my sales team contacts through outbound calls.

A stagnant economy is not something anyone would wish for, but let this be an opportunity for you to stand out and take market share. Don’t be afraid to show the world how passionate you are and how unwilling you are to take “no” for an answer. Know that you, your attitude and your ability to cut through the noise around you will determine your destiny.

9 Proven Sales Tips for Introverts

9 Proven Sales Tips for Introverts

BY GRANT CARDONE | January 3, 2013




image credit: Shutterstock

Meet me at a party and I won't have a lot to say. Sit next to me on a cross-country flight and I may not say a word to you the entire trip.

I am an introvert.

It has never been easy for me to start a conversation with people I don't know. But you wouldn't know it if you saw me on a Google Hangout, in a TV interview or at one of my sales seminars. When I got out of college I was terrified to go on a job interview until I realized employers weren't going to come to my house and hire me. At 23, I sold cars for seven years and never got comfortable saying hello to a customer. Yet I still figured out how to reach the top 1 percent of all the salespeople in the auto industry.

We can all be introverts or extroverts, depending on the situation. I know people who would be viewed as extroverts at a party they host, but when they are guests at a party where they know no one, they appear to be introverts. As a professional speaker and educator, I become extroverted in order to deliver information, but when I attend seminars I am much more introverted.

So, how do you become extroverted in a sales situation when you are not naturally comfortable with it?

This is what I do to step out of my comfort zone:

Get passionate. I become so excited about what I'm selling that I have to share it with the world. Becoming passionate about your product or service makes you less interested in how you are perceived and more concerned about showing excitement about what you have to offer.

Do one thing a day that you fear. It’s very important for me do the things that make me most uncomfortable. You need to be courageous and make a point of facing your fears, no matter how big or small. The single scariest thing for me was visiting my customers or prospects in person. So that is exactly what I did first thing every day to get over my fear. It instilled courage in me, belief in myself and changed my focus from limitations to possibilities.

Be so persistent you get criticized for it. In life and in business, especially sales, you won’t become successful if you never get criticized. Follow up on customers so much that they actually complain about it, and once they do, keep following up until they admire you for your persistence. If you believe in your product, company and yourself, then you will be willing to insist—and risk being criticized for it.

Say hello to everyone you pass. I refuse to walk past any person without acknowledging him or her. I force myself to look everyone in the eyes and say hello. This builds a muscle enabling me to decide at will when I want to be extroverted, whether in a sales call or other situation.

Observe people for their differences. After a series of failed sales calls, you may start to see all prospects as likely rejections. What you need to do is take a moment and observe how people are different from one another. This will stop you from thinking that everyone is going to respond the same way your last few prospects did.


Force yourself to be in public. Step out of your home and office often so you can socialize with people. When I move to a new city, I will go to the same place over and over until I am comfortable and know everyone there. I have done this same thing with my children, bringing them to the same grocery store every morning until they could talk to the people working there as family.

Deliver public speaking engagements. The only way to become comfortable speaking to people is to get in front of audiences. Join a supportive group such as Toastmasters International where everyone is learning how to speak in front of others.

Stay busy. When you're constantly on the go, you don't have time to be uncomfortable. You have to ask for help, get help and talk to people because you are running from one sales meeting or event to the next. So, get moving.

Help other people make sales. Anytime I go a few days without making a sale for myself, I immediately offer my help to other salespeople because it’s a great way to get outside yourself. After several failures to close, a salesperson can become introverted and anxious. But by working with someone else's prospective customers and having nothing to lose yourself, you will feel more relaxed and regain your confidence. Once you score a sale for someone else, it’s back to your own prospects again.

3 Golden Rules of Negotiating

3 Golden Rules of Negotiating

BY GRANT CARDONE




image credit: shutterstock

The art of negotiating escapes most of us, even good salespeople, because few take the time to correctly understand the word and follow the golden rules of negotiating.

The first and biggest error is a misunderstanding of the word. When I ask people at my Closers workshop what the word “negotiating” means, I get answers like, "how good a deal can I get" and "how cheap can I buy." For many people, it’s a process of painful tactics of stall and overcome or a give and take mostly involving the surrender of price and terms.

“Negotiate” comes from the Latin negotiatus, which is the past participle of negotiari, and means to carry on business. This original meaning is critical to understand because the goal of negotiating is to continue doing business by conferring with another to arrive at an agreement.

So, scrap the notion that negotiating means lowering the price to reach an agreement. A lower price does not make for a better deal; it only makes for less margin for you and your company. Your goal is to come to an agreement about a proposal, and the way to do this is to build value in your offer. The solution your product or service offers is the focal point of negotiations, not the price.

Here are three of my 12 golden rules, which I won’t allow myself to violate in any negotiation, whether simple or complex:

1. Always Start the Negotiations. You must initiate the process because whoever controls the start of the negotiations tends to control where they end. If you let the other party start negotiations, you will be constantly giving up control, often without even realizing it. For instance, when you ask someone what his project budget is, you are allowing him to start the negotiations. You will then spend your time chasing his number rather than finding the best solution. When I sit down to work out an agreement on the numbers involved in the decision, I will even interrupt to prevent the other side from controlling the starting point. Sounds bizarre, but that is how important starting the transaction is. I once had a client who wanted to offer his terms upfront. I politely said, "Excuse me, I appreciate your willingness to tell me what you can do and would like just a moment to share with you what I have put together for you. If it doesn't work, then please tell me." This allowed me to control the starting point.

2. Always Negotiate in Writing. I see so many professional salespeople make the mistake of discussing and working on the terms of an agreement without ever committing their ideas to a written agreement. But the purpose of negotiations is to arrive at a formal written agreement, not tell a story or spend time talking. From the first moment I make a proposal, I refer to a document that is being created in front of the client. It includes all the points of agreement and becomes real to the prospective customer. Negotiating first and then having to create a document adds unnecessary time to a transaction. But if you build your written agreement as you negotiate, you are prepared to ask for a signature the moment the decision to buy is made.

3. Always Stay Cool. The negotiation table can be loaded with agendas, egos and emotions. Great negotiators know how to stay cool, providing leadership and solutions, while the rest of the room becomes insanely invested in personal agendas and useless emotions. Crying, getting angry, name calling and blowing off steam may make you feel good, but such behavior will not benefit you while negotiating. When the rest of the room gets emotional, stay cool like Spock and use logic to negotiate and close.


Read more stories about: Sales, Negotiating, Grant Cardone

The Brazilian Treehopper may be the strangest creature we’ve ever laid eyes on

MONSTERS AMONG US
JAN 14, 2013 8:05 AM59,095 104

GET OUR TOP STORIES
FOLLOW IO9.COM



The Brazilian Treehopper may be the strangest creature we’ve ever laid eyes on
Robert T. Gonzalez

Because holy crap, just look at that headgear. Everyone, meet Bocydium globulare. Better known as the Brazilian treehopper, B. globulare excels at living a solitary life, hanging out on the leaves ofglory bushes, and head-sphering its way into your nightmares.

The Brazilian treehopper is 100% real, but the image up top is of a beautifully crafted model, created by legendary science sculptor Alfred Keller (1902—1955). Over on Why Evolution is True, Jerry Coyne reflects on a 2010 Nature profile on Keller (warning: paywall), his sculptures, and the utter weirdness of B. globulare.

"The first thing a biologist does on seeing a model like this is think, 'This can't be real,' and resorts to some Googling," writes Coyne. "Sure enough, it's a real insect."

He continues:

The second thing one asks is, "What the bloody hell is all that ornamentation on the thorax?" (Note that the "balls" on the antenna-like structure aren't eyes, but simply spheres of chitin.) A first guess is that it's a sexually-selected trait, but those are often limited to males, and these creatures (and the ones below) show the ornaments in both sexes. [Art Historian Martin Kemp, an expert on visualization in art and science] hypothesizes-and this seems quite reasonable-that "the hollow globes, like the remarkable excrescences exhibited by other treehoppers, probably deter predators." It would be hard to grab, much less chow down on, a beast with all those spines and excrescences.

Note, though, that the ornament sports many bristles. If these are sensory bristles, and not just deterrents to predation or irritating spines, then the ornament may have an unknown tactile function.


Full size



See more photos of living treehoppers like the one pictured above — along with several other photos of membracids, the headgeared group of insects to which Bocydium globulare belongs — over on Why Evolution Is True.

See also: this gallery of weird treehopper insects, courtesy of New Scientist, and this series of amazing membracid photographs by photographer Patrick Landmann.
Tip of the peduncular hat to Maria!
Top image of a sculpture by Alfred Keller; photo of live treehopper by Patrick Landmann