Eubie's notes

NY Times: Life’s Work: Some Respect, Please, for the Afternoon Nap — More studies show that short periods of sleep during the day increase productivity and creativity while reducing stress.. Best part of article was where people went to take the nap, such as in their car in the parking lot — complete with alarm clock and sleep mask.

NY Times: Essay: Flame First, Think Later: New Clues to E-Mail Misbehavior — Social neuroscience offers clues into the neural mechanics behind sending messages that are taken as offensive, embarrassing or downright rude.

USA Today: Honda says odometers on 6M cars click off mileage at too-quick pace

Honda says its odometers were accurate to within 3.75% on the high side and 1% on the low side, within the SAE standard. But it says it will extend the warranty mileage 5% and will pay lease-mileage penalties due to fast odometers, at least $6 million just for overcharges on vehicles leased directly from Honda.

Settlement of the case expected to be in the summer.

NY Times Media Frenzy: The Old Guard Flexes Its Muscles (While It Still Can) — It has become evident that the question of who will rule video on the Web is incredibly tangled.

USA Today: Honda says odometers on 6M cars click off mileage at too-quick pace

Honda says its odometers were accurate to within 3.75% on the high side and 1% on the low side, within the SAE standard. But it says it will extend the warranty mileage 5% and will pay lease-mileage penalties due to fast odometers, at least $6 million just for overcharges on vehicles leased directly from Honda.

Settlement of the case related to this expected to be settled in the summer.

This is picking up more attention, but the fix is likely to be more costly to tax payers.

USA Today: Pension gap divides public and private workers

Governments’ generosity could have serious consequences for taxpayers and pensioners. Some states — including Illinois, Indiana, Michigan, New Jersey, Ohio and West Virginia — have troubled retirement systems that may require huge tax increases, spending cuts or even defaulting on promised benefits. The U.S. government has a bigger unfunded liability for military and civil servant retirement benefits ($4.7 trillion) than it does for Social Security ($4.6 trillion).

The pension gap will continue to widen because governments pump far more money into employee pensions than companies do. Civil servants earn an average of $12.38 an hour in benefits, about $5 an hour more than private-sector workers, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics. The difference was just $2.70 an hour in 1995.

In December: USA Today: States struggle to cover retirees

State and local governments are starting to take aggressive steps to reduce the enormous cost of providing health care benefits to retired teachers, police officers, firefighters and other public workers.

As 43 state legislatures prepare to convene next month, governments are cutting benefits, setting aside money to cover future costs and shifting expenses to the federal Medicare program. The efforts are the first to address a liability of more than $1 trillion for providing medical care promised to about 25 million current and future retired state and local civil servants.

In November: NY Times: Once Safe, Public Pensions Are Now Facing Cuts

Years of supporting court interpretations have enshrined the view that once a public employee has earned a pension, no one can take it away. Even during New York City’s fiscal crisis 30 years ago, no existing pension promises were reduced.

But now a number of state and local governments are quietly challenging those guarantees. Financially troubled San Diego is the highest-profile example, but a handful of states, cities and smaller government bodies have also found ways to scale back existing promises and even shrink some current payments.

Washington Post: The Pursuit of a New Career Takes Persistence. Chris Gardner’s rise from homelessness to the top of the financial world is familiar to readers of his bestselling autobiography, “The Pursuit of Happyness,” and the recent movie of the same name, which stars Will Smith as Gardner.

How important was networking for you and how can others develop a network in a new career field?

Networking has been incredibly important. You’ve got to develop it where the players are in your field. There are always meetings and conventions of people with similar interests. Be there, invited or not.

NY Times: Advertising: Don’t Like the Dancing Cowboys? Results Say You Do. The surprising success of the ubiquitous Web banners by LowerMyBills.com has led to a significant payday for the company.

Boing Boing: Clooney and SciFi making “Diamond Age” miniseries Neal Stephenson’s Hugo-award winning masterpiece The Diamond Age is being made into a SciFi Channel miniseries. . One of my favorite books.