onfocus

"It turns out that milder sanctions can be swifter and more certain." Interesting article in the Economist about alternate strategies for curbing crime.

A TextMate plugin that provides a better "find within project" feature. Nice!

Some samples of single-pane comics by H.T. Webster. Sadly, his collections appear to be out of print and there aren't any at nearby libraries.

Scan of the 1955 book with wonderful caricatures by Ronald Searle. [via peacay]

"So, this is why I say white supremacy is the only functional form of racism; the only kind that actually works."

"...you’re just making a fool of yourself when you go around telling users of singular they that they’re wrong, because they’re not."

It's going to be that time of year again soon. These Thule chains look nice, but I'd rather see real people putting on chains in freezing weather in the demo, not spinning/floating CG.

Eight rules for writing a short story. [via merlin]

"The fundamental problems with the American health care system are all linked, directly or indirectly, to the fact that the vast majority of folks get insurance solely through their employers." Amen, and go Wyden! [via Kattullus]

"The problem is Twitter isn’t really open. For Twitter to be truly open, it would have to be possible to use “Twitter” without an any way involving Twitter the institution. Instead, all data goes through Twitter’s centralized service." I'm not a fan of people pushing content to Twitter like it's an RSS reader for social reasons as well, but that's probably just me.

Linda Stone: "Email apnea - a temporary absence or suspension of breathing, or shallow breathing, while doing email." [via anil]

"Once Mischel began analyzing the results, he noticed that low delayers, the children who rang the bell quickly, seemed more likely to have behavioral problems, both in school and at home." [via MeFi]

"What to do when all else has failed to change your kid's behavior." [via kottke]

A new study finds that fitness/obesity, sadness/happiness might be some "contagious" states that pass from person to person like a virus. The study suggests that we clue into subconscious behaviors of people around us and modify our behavior to "normal" accordingly. [via Rebecca Blood]

Oliver Sacks on Migraine Auras: "I was playing in the garden when a brilliant, shimmering light appeared to my left -- dazzlingly bright, almost as bright as the sun. It expanded, becoming an enormous shimmering semicircle stretching from the ground to the sky, with sharp zigzagging borders and brilliant blue and orange colors." I've had these and it's always amazing to read that others have experienced the same thing. [via Ironic Sans]

Helpful step-by-step guide to fixing deadlock problems in SQL Server 2005.

"More than half of the internet’s top websites use a little known capability of Adobe’s Flash plug-in to track users and store information about them..." [via schneier]

"Parents and other caregivers teach young children by paying attention and interacting with them naturally and, most of all, by just allowing them to play." [via Daddy Types]

"Superfeedr is Real-time Feed Parsing in the Cloud." Great idea that could help build specialized aggregators. Bummed it's ATOM at the end. I'd prefer RSS.

This blog connects Mad Men episodes with advertisements and details from the time. [via kottke]

"Reassuring people about privacy makes them more, not less, concerned. ...sites would much rather obfuscate the issue than compete on [privacy] as a feature."

"Tests done since 1933 show that people who talk about their intentions are less likely to make them happen. Announcing your plans to others satisfies your self-identity just enough that you’re less motivated to do the hard work needed."

"On July 14th, 1999, a programmer named Matthew Haughey made the first post on a blog he'd set up for himself and a few friends in an attempt to collect interesting links." Nice profile of MetaFilter! [via MetaTalk]

Nice collection of icons for web applications. Click Preview to see them all. [via glass]

It'd be interesting to see how much performance you'd gain moving to HTML 5. Maybe I'll try it with one of my personal sites. [via anil]

"Is there a formula--some mix of love, work, and psychological adaptation--for a good life?" [via peterme]

"TweetPsych uses two linguistic analysis algorithms (RID and LIWC) to build a psychological profile of a person based on the content of their tweets." Interesting analysis. What I don't like is that it was built by a "Social Media Scientist" who is probably using the results to find better ways to sell things.

Michal Migurski is doing some interesting tagging with delicious to tease out his friends' top subject areas.

"In its final days before crashing into the surface of the moon on June 11, Japan’s KAGUYA explorer has been shooting high-definition footage of the lunar terrain from low altitude."

A father teaches his children the ancient art of rhetoric. "It was as if I’d given them advertising immunization shots."