Daily Links 1-27-14

Good morning. Here are a collection of links to help get your week off to the right start. In today's edition: planning for the worst, too much media is bad for your brain, classic time management advice, and more.

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Some sage advice on dealing with temptation from Tim Challies:

Some time ago we implemented a plan in our home to protect the kids from some of what lurks out there on the Internet. We removed Internet access from some devices, limited it on others, and applied filters that keep tabs on what we are doing online. It has been very smooth from a technological perspective, but a little less so on the interpersonal level. 

Recently my son said, “Dad, you’re treating me like I’m addicted to pornography. But I haven’t ever seen it and don’t want to see it!” And he’s right, to some degree. If I’m not treating him like an addict, I am at least treating him like a pre-addict, someone who has the inclination, or who may well have it before long. In this way I think I understand him a little better than he understands himself. Of course our Internet plan is not designed only to protect the children from exposure to pornography, but that is still one of its major purposes. 

But his exasperation and hurt feelings gave us opportunity to talk about one of the principles I have found helpful in my own life: When you are at your best, plan for when you are at your worst. I see this as an application of 1 Corinthians 10:12-13: “Therefore let anyone who thinks that he stands take heed lest he fall. No temptation has overtaken you that is not common to man. God is faithful, and he will not let you be tempted beyond your ability, but with the temptation he will also provide the way of escape, that you may be able to endure it.”

Be sure to read the whole thing,

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Kathy Harris has a wonderful interview with one of my favorite historians, Jane Hampton Cook, about her book American Phoenix.

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More proof that too much media consumption can make you crazy: five mental disorders caused by media.

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Some classic time management advice worth revisiting. I've heard this same speech given by a time management guru and have long thought it was one of the best pieces of advice I had ever heard.

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This is spot on:

This describes our education system perfectly. pic.twitter.com/5I0gvW21eW
— Calvin and Hobbes (@Calvinn_Hobbes) January 21, 2014

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Timeless advice from famous authors on writing. The cool thing about this page is that it is constantly being updated with additional links.

Daily Links 10-23-13

In today's roundup of interesting things from the internet: an abandoned library, strengthening your writing, a how-to of the day, and more.

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Has texting destroyed proper spelling? I hope not.

I never took the home study course, but the texts and tweets and emails I send today are full of plz and thx and u and w and &, and that's true as well for most of the messages I get. I write coupla and wanna and lmk. i'm also -- the horror -- a lower case kind of guy. Many people rail against this as a degradation of language and a vandalizing of culture. I'm not one of them. I think it's efficient, occasionally ingenious, unpretentious and fun.

But I have my limits. Articles, resumes, professional work -- standard English only, please. In domains like that, I'm a hawk on spelling, grammar and punctuation. If you don't know the difference between your and you're, its and it's, affect and effect, I'm rigidly intolerant. I let myself get away with murdering the English language in an email, but for a job applicant I treat it like a capital crime.

The prescriptive case for standard English has always made sense to me. Good grammar, proper punctuation and correct spelling improve communication. Not only do they clarify the sending and receiving of messages, they clarify the thinking that goes into those messages. Plus there's a cultural argument: Language is constitutive of identity, and if the rules of language erode, the identity erodes.

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This is just......sad.(Hat tip: Book Riot)

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Settling the debate on who designed the famous shower scene from Alfred Hitchcock's Psycho. Well, sort of.

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10 words you should cut from your writing.  This list probably could be longer but it's a good start.


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How-to of the day: a primer on darts. While this is only a guide to playing one particular variation of darts it's still a handy guide.

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Having a messy desk isn't such a bad thing after all. Makes me feel better about the condition of my own desk. (Hat tip: Blogging Theologically)

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The (flawed) logic of the second glance. And it's not just a guy thing.

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The power of the word no:

Learning how to say no is one of the most useful skills you can develop I found, especially when it comes to living a more productive and healthy life.

Saying no to unnecessary commitments can give you the time you need to recover and rejuvenate. Saying no to daily distractions can give you the space you need to focus on what is important to you. And saying no to temptation can help you stay on track and achieve your health goals. In fact not being able to say no, is one of the most biggest downfalls that successful entrepreneurs claim as their own key mistakes.