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This post comes from Jacqui Kenyon at our partner site LearnVest.

Have you ever gotten absorbed in a project on your laptop, only to look at the clock to see that three hours have passed?

TODAY Money calls it the “hypnotic effects of technology,” and it’s just one of several factors contributing to a new and dangerous office trend: binge working.

With more and more employees connected at all hours, anxious about money and job security, and pumped up on good ol’ caffeine, working beyond any semblance of a normal office day is becoming more common—and sometimes with dangerous results.

Statistically, 80 to 90 percent of you live outside of California. When you read reports of the drought in California, then, your reaction may be something like, “Bummer for those dudes. Patti, please pass the peas.” You might want to reconsider, though, because chances are this drought could affect you more than you think.

Saying the drought in California is severe is a bit like saying the Queen Mary is a nice little boat. At least one Bay Area scientist says that, based on historic tree ring data, the 2013-2014 rainfall season is on pace to be the driest since 1580 (not a typo). That’s more than 150 years before George Washington was born!

How much longer will it last? A bigger question is: Will this drought continue, and how will it affect you if it does?

The initial public offering (IPO) of the international e-commerce company Alibaba recently attracted a lot of attention — not to mention a couple billion dollars of investment money. This might be okay if it were an isolated occurrence, but lately there has been a flurry of IPOs — and they make me feel a little itchy about the investment environment.

I understand the principle that growing companies opening themselves up to new sources of capital is one way the economy grows. However, when investors go overboard for IPOs — either by overpaying for specific stocks or supporting too many new issues at once — it raises questions about both individual stocks and the market as a whole.

What kind of questions? Well, here are nine things that IPOs make me wonder:

This post comes from Julia Chang at our partner site LearnVest.

First it was your phone records; now it could be your financial transactions.

The Wall Street Journal reports that the Central Intelligence Agency is collecting data from U.S. money-transfer companies such as Western Union in an effort to find or track suspected funding for terrorists.

With its focus on foreign intelligence, the CIA cannot target Americans in its investigations, but it can conduct domestic operations that aid its intelligence-gathering. The agency says it isn’t collecting transaction information that takes place within the U.S.—but it can obtain records through court order for those that happen between the U.S. and foreign countries.