Feb 1

Feb 1
University of Pennsylvania now offers a Masters degree in "Applied Positive Psychology" - focusing on how to achieve mental awesomeness for a large slice of the population rather than traditional psychology which ameliorates negative mental challenges for a very small slice of the population. Link
List of the best times to buy things: Link
Hoping some of the proposed changes to NCLB get through Link
Performance art at the Guggenhim Link
Some books on happiness. And not just the "believe it, receive it" kind. Link
Info on acceptance and laws about electric-assisted bikes Link
New dye-based solar conversion technology Link
Data collection gets smaller, smarter, and more able to use non-battery power. Forward looking. (http://www.nytimes.com/2010/01/31/business/31unboxed.html)

Feb 2
Some churches sponsor martial arts to get young men involved Link
Trying to curb military spending even as the budget grows Link
When you talk about the past, you lean back. When you talk about the future, you lean forward. The links between thinking abstract concepts and phsyical actions. Link
Russian government razes some housing. Residents get mad. Reminds me of the beginning of hitchhiker's guide. Link
Amazing food in the most basic setting. In this case a hole in the wall noodle shop. Link
A look into the life of a Chinese hacker. Link
Iguanas walked to Tonga rather than floating there on vegetation mats Link
Interesting snapshot of the mental health system.
Some info on treatment options for migraines.
Ideas on making learning fun and effective. Applicable to home school and public school.
Early chemistry on hot flashes.
Making fast food less bad for you.

Feb 3
Difficulties of training very low skill people as police in Afghanistan
Making people who possess child porn pay the victims
DNI says terror attack attempts certain
Homeowners whose home's values fall below 75% of what they owe consider stop paying even if they can afford to

Feb 8
A single arts donor has extreme control over the LA arts scene
FDA tries to fix serving sizes.
Letting kids pay for things they get online by going to the 7-11 w/ cash.
Using chemistry to match up prospective daters.
Kindle to sell $2 micro-versions of some books.
Upcoming budget cliffs for schools after the stimulus money runs out. Poor planning?
Beijing olympic area no longer in use.
Article about downtown SLC development by LDS church ($1B).
Article about large number of fights in the Philippines from bad Karaoke of Frank Sinatra's "My Way"
Dating culture in colleges with a 65% female student body (the norm). Apply to Bare Branches theories in China / India.
When reporting a doctor's malpractice got a nurse in legal trouble
Early-college programs extend to lower-income students. Yay.
Extremely deadly highways in Afghanistan
Plotting your photographs with math. Very awesome images.
Google plans automated on-the-fly language translation for phone users. Wow!
Slow motion of a water droplet sitting on the water, then collapsing into a smaller bouncing droplet.
A whole site dedicated to oddly-specific signs. Like this "don't park here or our elephant will trample you" sign. w00t!
Making cloud-computing power available to scientists
Google asked NSA for help researching hacks.
Bad communication between moms and nannies
Diatribe about Palin and Edwards being unethical
Infighting at Microsoft
Lobbying to kill student loan reforms
Art of Vietnam
How Victorian women invented photo collage way earlier than was thought
Football related concussions known to cause lasting brain damage. For the last 80 years. About ignoring science for profit.
Windmills frozen in colder climate.
Actual data on dinosaur color.
$700 ruggedized solar lighting solution

Feb 9
NYTimes readers email online content that is positive and intelligent. Loved this particular quote from the article:
Researchers at the University of Pennsylvania have intensively studied the New York Times list of most-e-mailed articles, checking it every 15 minutes for more than six months, analyzing the content of thousands of articles and controlling for factors like the placement in the paper or on the Web home page.

The results are surprising — well, to me, anyway. I would have hypothesized that there are two basic strategies for making the most-e-mailed list. One, which I’ve happily employed, is to write anything about sex. The other, which I’m still working on, is to write an article headlined: “How Your Pet’s Diet Threatens Your Marriage, and Why It’s Bush’s Fault.”

Stats on how much Americans spend on digital connectivity
A man who studied law in the prison law library and became a great lawyer
Japan coming to grips with military deals with the US
Bitter divisions cause political deadlocks in Nineveh in Iraq. Democracy has a ways to go. "stop slapping each other with fish"
Turning best selling novels into graphic novels with print runs way higher than normal. Reminds me of someone who turned an electrical engineering manual into a graphic novel.
Micro philanthropy. And making it fun and silly! Give people $100 to give away and make them report back on what they did.
During populist election years, an extremist will draw the incumbent further into radical territory. In this case, it's McCain.
Video game design principles, discussed over Mass Effect 2.
Article about transportation secretary who said "stop driving it" about Toyota cars and then back tracked. Thoughts about staying "on script" as a public figure.
New tech claims to remove fat by cooling and lasering - expensive but totally unbacked by evidence.
Ethnic mixes in Vancouver lead to great food.
Urban planning to turn abandoned roads and public-owned parcels into parks and usable space.
Alcoholism in Scotland and the attraction of caffeinated wine (Buckfast Tonic Wine)
Using FMRIs to communicate with a "vegetative" patient
Creating key copies from long distance photos of keys.
Lock picking using tin foil with slits in it.
Removing stripped screws using rubber bands.
If the hole is too big for the screw, use toothpicks or golf tees + glue / epoxy to make the hole smaller
Kiva.org is a website allowing you to make micro loans directly to distant entrepreneurs and then track their progress. Donate $25 and up. Local microfinance NGOs actually oversee the donor repayback.
Online site that promotes story telling. K may be interested in massify.com / behance.com for film writing.

Feb 10
Scorpion robot pre-cursor
Hexapod robot with more organic movement
The geek group in MI allows people to come build prototypes
Free app to let you print a large poster one 8x11 sheet at a time
How to make hospital corners w/ sheets. Never could quite figure out what they were supposed to be.
Guy makes art using a pendulum with remote-controlled paint dispensers. Seems to have made some other great art.
Changing behavior by making things fun. Set up as a competition by Volkswagen. Example: Making a staircase into a playable piano to make people walk up and down it.
DSM V out today. Woo.
Source code for genetic algorithm car program written in flash w/ demonstration animation released. Tried tweaking the mass, friction, gravity, course, etc. I'd like to see all of those in one spot. Fun to play with since I know some action script.
Woman with many rarely seen illnesses.
Psychology of color for web design.
Relative age of parents at conception correlated with autism rates.
Site for determining what kind of learner you are (visual / auditory / motion)
Competitive social winnowing site for writers (think public slush pile). Sponsored by Harper Collins.
Interview with Michael Pollan, our national food champion. Interestingly, he says that HFCS is about as bad for you as sugar.
Linguistic development diagnosis.

Feb 11
The rise and fall and rise of food stamps - political analysis
Google to build demo gigabit/second consumer fiber network to show that it can be done
An interior designer living in 178 square feet chooses to fill it with some stuff he never uses.
Firefox extension that minimizes memory use by keeping unused tabs unloaded till you click on them.

Feb 15
PhD shoots people after being denied tenure.
Texas board of education - putting current partisan politics into the educational curriculum
Dick Cheney vs. Joe Biden on national security
Electric cars, charging stations, physical infrastructure
Performance art on columns, ceilings. Climbing in and out of clothes.
When it gets too snowy, consider hooking your car up to tank treads
Using art to make the gigantic numbers involved with waste and not recycling a bit more understandable
Showing how leaf vein patterns work with glow in the dark dye
Debating whether people arrested as terrorists should be read their rights

Feb 23
Some cancers can be treated extremely well using genetic targeting
12 step programs other than for alcoholics
James Wilson may have produced the original draft of the constitution
Secular vs. religious reasoning in public debate
Eating slowly makes you more full, leading to fewer calories.
Jewish woman with 2000 descendants by the time she died at 93 years old
White dwarfs and supernovas
Supportive touch enhances outcomes
Getting feedback from the community = crowd sourcing. Example: http://www.quirky.com/ for product design. Ex. http://www.yelp.com/salt-lake-city-ut for dining / shopping. Ex. http://www.angieslist.com for reviewing contractors / doctors (paid subscription though).
On small business strategies and lockable mailboxes
Airlines and the rapid unbundling of fees associated with tickets
Philippines, private militias, and using them to keep power.
Multi-year unemployment
Environmental plan for the great lakes
New proposed reading and math standards for public schools
Making your own underwater microphone. Also includes sound samples.
How to access my work email away from work.
A robot that tries to draw based on how artists draw. Still slow, not super accurate.
Apparently, the original Willy Wonka had a weird color palette that still worked. Color theory.
Cyber warfare wargames. Interesting but there are so many scenarios to choose from.
Architecture: looks like a monolith.
Using data mining to suggest improvements for those in the online dating game (self-referential).
Extensive trojan / botnet infection.
National parks let retirees stay there free in their RVs in exchange for maintenance work
Seriously intellectual podcast. Like an hour on the 1500s siege of Munster.
BBC documentary host admits on-air to euthanizing his male partner
Education: Early college
Those convicted of animal abuse in California will go on a public registry (names / addresses)
Arizona working to build a space hub with larger hangers, runways for virgin galactic.
Food: Restaurants that are open extra late to cater to people getting off work from a restaurant
Opinion piece on global climate instability
DNA forensics show that King Tut probably killed by malaria at 14.
Set of descriptions of Jackson Hole Wyoming rapids I paddled through on a canoe when I was a teen 1 2 3
Advertising: Google now allowing businesses to place ads on google maps like a yellow pages
Using localized plasma to clean hands safely in 4 seconds for hospital settings.
Canadians play hockey mostly left-handed. Americans play right-handed. Overall handedness isn't different between the countries.
How sports help girls in the long run.
98-year-old barber gives a fast, good cut
Tea-party political analysis. Linked to Patriot movement.


Travel
Cheap ways to book travel. Sites include kayak.com as a starting point, http://itasoftware.com/ to check other possible routes (log in as guest), http://www.cfares.com/ where you can get rebates if you book with them ($50 membership pays itself off after ~4 flights), flight price prediction at http://www.bing.com/travel/ and http://www.yapta.com/. For international travel, check http://www.vayama.com/ Next time I book a flight, I'll check the forecasting sites before booking. If you want to know what seats to pick, log on to http://seatexpert.com or http://www.seatguru.com/ What a lot of sites!
Another discussion here suggesting momondo.com for small carriers and lastminute.com for Europe.