Home improvement
Every time something goes wrong with my house (which is frighteningly often), I'm presented with a dilemma:  Should I pony up the money to get a professional to fix it and risk know that I'll be overcharged, or should I attempt to learn a new skill by doing it myself?  The latter pretty much always wins that battle.  I'm under this strange belief system that says that if I'm physically able to do a job/project/thing, I'll do it.  When I'm 80 and/or a quadriplegic, I'll get somebody else to do it.  If it's a question of whether I'll pay someone to climb on my roof to remove my satellite dish or do it myself, I'll do it myself.  If it's a question of digging a stump out of my backyard or hiring a company to do it with a machine, I'll do it myself (probably).  But if it'll most likely cause serious injury, death or financial loss, I'll probably shy away.  Anything electrical scares me, so I usually don't even attempt it.  I'd most likely hire a guy to cut down a tree that has a good chance of falling on my house.  But everything else is fair game, which is weird because I have no discernible skills in anything other than academics.  I'm the product of a lifetime of honors classes.  I'm useless.  I'm skinny and pale.  I don't like getting motor oil on my hands or clothes. 

But like most new (cheap/poor) homeowners, I'm willing to give things a try.  And after several mildly successful projects, I've learned a few important lessons: 

1.  Everything is easy the 2nd time.  All do-it-yourself projects look so simple on the back of the box and in the Home Depot displays.  But when it comes right down to it, there's this little thing called reality.  Reality accounts for the fact that things rust over time, which means they won't be easy to take apart.  Reality has all the right tools.  Reality realizes that things break when you bang them too hard.  A single step on the back of the box could mean 45 minutes of intense physical struggling followed by 3 separate trips to Home Depot to find the right tools and parts.  And in the end, you might just end up using a hacksaw to achieve your goal.  The instruction manual tends to leave out certain aspects of reality, so first-time projects become difficult and seemingly impossible.  But after you do it once, you find out it's incredibly easy, and you become a self-certified expert. 

2.  Projects escalate and multiply.  Everything starts off with a simple idea:  "I think I'll try to fix this leaky pipe."  Upon further examination, I found that the pipe was hardly the problem.  Most of the ceiling was rotting and moldy from stagnant water dripping onto it.  After ripping the ceiling down, I found the real problem:  A rotten and leaking window sill.  Oh, and a cracked drain pipe.  Oh, and uninsulated and therefore sweating supply pipes.  Oh, and ... the list goes on.  What starts as a simple afternoon job turns into a several month overhaul.  But if you don't start it when you do, things will only get worse. 

3.  The end result is all that matters.  I usually have some sort of idea of how a certain project or task will work out in the end.  But the middle is a vast wasteland of changed plans, banged up fingers, broken tools, and bleeding head wounds.  When the project calls for "fixing a broken piece of pipe", the end result will achieve that goal, whether it involves actually fixing a broken pipe or using osmosis and black magic.  How it's done doesn't matter as much as the fact that it's done. 

4.  Hacks are great.  I wrote about this before.  Anything that can produce the end result by making life easier or by covering up mistakes is worth its weight in gold.  Things like caulk, expanding foam insulation, insulating tape, Teflon tape, silicone tape, duct tape (notice a pattern?), wood glue, molding, etc. come to mind.  Don't feel like replacing a section of drywall to fix a hole under the stove?  Load it up with some expanding foam insulation.  Something wrong with your bathroom?  Caulk to the rescue!  Bad with cutting straight edges?  Molding takes care of that.  Don't feel like using nails for the molding?  Use wood glue. #lifestyle

Rocket science vs. brain surgery
This Yahoo News article talks about the controversy between rocket scientists and brain surgeons concerning which group is smarter. 
Rocket scientists, long considered the gold standard in intelligence among all professionals, are not nearly as smart as originally thought, according to a controversial new study published today by the American Association of Brain Surgeons.

The study, which appears in the organization's monthly publication, Popular Brain Surgery, is entitled "The Intelligence of Rocket Scientists: Myth Versus Reality," and suggests that rocket scientists' reputation for smartness is largely undeserved.

The article drew an immediate rebuke from a spokesperson for the American Society of Rocket Scientists, who blasted the study as "state-of-the-art pro-brain surgeon propaganda."
Yes, this is a joke.  (via Digg) #science