Links post for the week. As usual, these are linked as stimulating grist for the mill or sources of amusement: I have key disagreements with a number of the pieces below.
1. All Technology is Assistive Technology
2. A Guide to Proper Comma Use
3. Wind Turbines are Either Making People Sick or Driving Them Crazy
4. Winning the Distraction War, Losing the Distraction Peace
6. N.T. Wright on the Apostle Paul
7. The 5 Bad Blogging Habits I Dislike the Most
8. 5 Tips for Finding Your Theological Balance
9. The Surprising Science Behind Napping
10. A World of Equal Districts
11. Everything Concerning Himself: Part 1, Part 2
13. 5 Reasons a Student Shouldn’t Blog: #5 Prioritized Writing, Conclusion
14. 28 Reasons Why You Should Blog About Your Research
15. The First Mechanical Gear Found in a Living Creature
16. Have We Got Matthew Shepard All Wrong?
17. ‘A Town Destroyed For What Two People Did’: Dispatch From Steubenville
19. The Fruitful Callings of Childless By Choice
20. The Incredibly Important Statistic That Just Keeps Getting Better
22. David Attenborough’s Population Problem
23. Exclusive Interview With Pope Francis
24. The Most Depressing Discovery About the Brain, Ever – Is this really a discovery about brains, or about persons?
26. Why the Church and the World Need Celibate Gay Saints
27. US Nearly Detonated Atomic Bomb Over North Carolina
28. On Redshirting
29. The Story of Scott Boswell and the Yips
30. Stephen Hawking’s Big Ideas … Made Simple
31. Can Smart Economics Turn Us Into Better Parents?
32. Lockheed’s Skunk Works Promises Fusion Power in Four Years
33. The Stock Market May Have Crashed 18,000 Times Since 2006—And No One Noticed
34. Lady Gaga’s Scandalous Attempt to Rally Fans, J-Pop Style
36. Father Builds Pneumatic Tube System for Delivering Teeth to the Tooth Fairy
37. In Treatment
38. Study: Sometimes Diets Fail Because of a Stomach’s Insensitivity to Fullness
39. The Dark Side of Peter Pan
40. ADHD, or Childhood Narcissism
41. The Rational Choices of Crack Addicts
42. Bruce Alexander’s Rat Park: a ratty paradise that challenges our assumptions about addiction (and a 40-page comic about the experiment)
43. What Authors Influence Pastors Most?
44. A Boy Named Humiliation: Some Wacky, Cruel, and Bizarre Puritan Names
45. Apollo Robbins: The Art of Misdirection
46. Guy Finds His House Plumbed With Beer
47. True Facts about the Frog
48. Flying Eagle Point of View
49. How to Make a Paper Airplane Fly Forever
Alastair's Adversaria 
This is a really interesting visualization of the stock market: http://johncarlosbaez.wordpress.com/2012/08/08/high-speed-finance/
In fact, the battle for speed is so intense that trading has run up against the speed of light.
For example, by 2013 there will be a new transatlantic cable at the bottom of the ocean, the first in a decade. Why? Just to cut the communication time between US and UK traders by 5 milliseconds. The new fiber optic line will be straighter than existing ones
Absolutely fascinating! Thanks for sharing.
Two quickies:
First, I’ve GREATLY enjoyed your links, so thank you for collecting and posting them.
Second is a comment on the article on commas. One thing I learned in my curriculum in TESL is that English grammar is far more complicated than almost anyone realizes, including (especially?) professional grammarians. We had a short lesson on commas in one class, giving a list of rules similar to that in your linked article. Our instructor also handed out a short essay,which happened to be by Dan Rather, and asked us to categorize each of the commas which appeared in it. It became apparent rather quickly was that about half of the commas seemed appropriate without having fallen into any of the listed uses.The one example I remember was “loose commentary”, consisting of any sort of side remark. I happen to be fond of that sort of usage myself.
Thanks for the comment, Paul.
I’m really pleased that you have been enjoying my links posts. They take a little time to compile, but I have received very positive feedback so far.
Very interesting point. It is fascinating how difficult it can be to formally articulate principles of which many of us have an instinctive apprehension.
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