The craft of your career comes in picking the right hills. Hills just challenging enough that you can barely make it over. A series of hills becomes a mountain, and a series of mountains is a career.

Filmmaker Casey Neistat explores the hazards of text messaging while walking in New York City.

The Top Ten buzzwords include "Occupy," "Planking," and "Arab Spring."

In barely one generation we’ve moved from exulting in the time-saving devices that have so expanded our lives to trying to get away from them — often in order to make more time. The more ways we have to connect, the more many of us seem desperate to unplug. Like teenagers, we appear to have gone from knowing nothing about the world to knowing too much all but overnight.

Amid a swirl of science, hucksterism and genuine spiritual belief, prognosticators say Dec. 21, 2012, will usher in a new era of nonviolence and sustainability or bring about TEOTWAWKI — survivalist shorthand for The End of the World As We Know It.

Workers are dropping out of the labor force in droves, and they are mostly women. In fact, many are young women. But they are not dropping out forever; instead, these young women seem to be postponing their working lives to get more education. There are now—for the first time in three decades—more young women in school than in the work force.

Where exactly should you go in 2012? As always, some places will stand out above the rest when it comes to unforgettable things to do and see. To help you decide, we sought out recommendations from four travel experts: Robert Reid, U.S. travel editor for Lonely Planet; Martin Rapp, senior vice president of leisure sales at Altour; Anne Banas, executive editor at SmarterTravel; and Jeanenne Tornatore, senior editor for Orbitz.com.

The men who professionally put on the red suit are part of a special fraternity. They usher in a season, spreading cheer and appearing in family photos. They inspire magical thinking, offer hope and keep innocence alive. They stand, bellies out, as proud representatives of a storied tradition.

We share our world with many other species and live in an ever-changing environment. Fortunately, photographers around the world have captured the moments and beauty that allow us to see amazing views of this awe-inspiring planet. This is a collection of favorite photos from The Natural World gallery in 2011, a showcase of images of animals and environment that runs on Boston.com throughout the year.

On Tuesday, citing safety concerns, the National Transportation Safety Board called for a ban on all cell phone use by drivers. It's the most far-reaching recommendation of its kind to date, and it extends to wireless headsets. What will the fallout of the ban be? It's likely to cut down on sightings of drivers who appear to be having spirited conversations with their car's leather interior. But mightn't it also lead to other similar bans? So here's a speculative look at eight of the more questionable and dangerous activities that federal law might see fit to clamp down on.