bad-advice

Fuck Your Arms

Hamilton Nolan · 05/28/15 09:28AM

Uh oh, summertime is here and you know what that means, ladies—time to obsess over your arms, for some reason! Wow! Arms! Appendages! What to do?

Today in Awful Ideas: Day Trading With Your Retirement Fund

Hamilton Nolan · 07/09/12 10:57AM

Are you panicked to the point of irrationality about the unpredictable ups and downs of the Dow Jones Industrial Average? Are you as far as one could possibly get from a "Wall Street insider," yet still overconfident in your ability to beat the market? Are you unable to control your urge to do something, even something stupid, when you begin to feel the slightest bit of discomfort? If so, you may be qualified to join America's hottest horribly ill-advised financial trend: day trading with your retirement money.

No Print Media Welfare — Except For Me

Ryan Tate · 11/26/08 05:09AM

Web publishing zealot Jeff Jarvis like to yell Darwinian slogans at print journalists . "There is no divine right for newsroom jobs," he wrote earlier this month. "Nor is printing and trucking an eternal verity of the field." It was surprising, then, to hear the media futurist's complaint about today's cover story on him in the Observer: The paper didn't promote his new dead-trees book! And after he gave the reporter so much of his precious time:

John Doerr to startup CEOs: Be more like Scoble

Owen Thomas · 10/30/08 02:40PM

Kleiner Perkins venture capitalist John Doerr is the guy everyone vaguely remembers as being important a decade ago but can't recall anything he's funded recently besides Friendster. Even so, he's full of advice for entrepreneurs — so full of advice that his 10 tips for startups spilled over to 11. The 11th tip: "Overcommunicate with everyone -– employees, investors, partners and particularly customers. Don’t sugar coat things, communicate your resolve." Where have we heard that before?It just confirms the notion that Doerr hasn't been paying attention. Anyone who's been reading Robert Scoble's blog knows about the virtues of oversharing. It makes for great entertainment. But if there's any correlation between checking FriendFeed every 15 seconds and business success, it's lost to us. Next time, John, just mention your daughter and cry a lot. It worked wonders at TED last year.

What Yahoo got for its $37 million

Owen Thomas · 10/22/08 12:00PM

Henry Blodget, the former stock analyst who kicks himself every day for still being a Yahoo shareholder, notes that Yahoo spent $37 million on advisory fees in the third quarter. What did it get? A botched Microsoft buyout; a search deal with Google that's getting a rough reception by antitrust cops in Washington, D.C.; and Carl Icahn on its board — a man Jerry Yang and company called a technological nincompoop on Yahoo's own homepage. In other words, nothing — save for cutting its operating income by more than a third. That $37 million did, however, result in one concrete cost-saving initiative.Bain Consulting, the firm that's working on Yahoo's cost-cutting plans, has come up with what a Yahoo finance-department insider calls its "first major breakthrough":

Julia Allison's Therapy Chat Could Change Her Forever

Ryan Tate · 03/03/08 07:46PM

Julia Allison went to sunny South Florida for sunbathing and a geekfest this weekend and got, perhaps, more Gawker coverage than she bargained for. A bunch of people leered at her nipple, there was rampant speculation about her connection to Digg founder Kevin Rose, and after the whole thing was over Allison posted some angsty words on her Tumblr. Then, today, Allison entered into some impromptu unlicensed counseling with, we are reliably informed, Gawker blogger Nick Douglas, in a chat Allison posted to her blog. Douglas' advice? At the moment Time Out New York columnist and Star editor Allison's fame is at new heights, she should "step away from the camera" and "run everything by Rachel Sklar," the Huffington Post editor. Hmmm. Given Allison wrote she finds blogging "FUN!!!" even in the wake of having her chest ogled on the Web, why retreat now, when a big media gig, trophy husband or both could be right around the corner? Read Douglas' advice and post your own after the jump. Read at least the last couple of lines of the Allison chat, they are priceless:

'Four Hour Workweek' Guru Tells You How To Waste Less Time Hanging Out With Jerks Like Him

Emily Gould · 11/15/07 10:45AM

Timothy Ferriss—remember, the bestselling gimmick-book author who "gets most of his news by asking waiters"— has become a guru to tech geeks by preaching the counterintuitive gospel of abstention from electronic gadgets and email as a route to a shorter workweek. Now he's dishing blogstyle about how to save time in your social life, too! He advocates "test-driving" your new friendships and romantic relationships by doing some "behavioral cross-referencing": basically, acting like a total asshole and seeing how much your new pals are willing to put up with.

Emily Gould · 10/11/07 04:15PM

One week apart, Slate's Dear Prudence and Salon's Cary Tennis answer the same dumb letter, about how to deal with a religious child who thinks you're going to hell. Neither of their answers are illuminating or entertaining in the slightest.

Cary Tennis Cannot Take His Own Allegorical Advice

abalk · 07/26/07 12:41PM

A troubled young man relates a recent unpleasant experience to Salon agony aunt Cary Tennis. The poor fellow was stranded on the tarmac after his flight was canceled when a trauma occurred.