• Best. Paper. Ever. - Miss Conduct's Blog - Advice column with manners and etiquette information - Boston.com - "Thus, when we conclude someone is 'simply a bastard,' we feel both relief (because we have finally hit on a way of interpreting their behavior that makes sense) and guilt (because we feel we ought to have done better)."
• Research Brief: Minorities Dominate Use of New Media - "According to the analysis, minorities have a higher regular usage of new media than Whites across all media types. They are more likely to use iPods, text on cell phones, play video games, use video/picture phones, instant messaging online and watch video on cell phones."
• The Web Developer's SEO Cheat Sheet - Very handy printable guide with white-hat advice and best practices for pleasing Google without spreading unnecessary cheese. - [via Global Nerdy]
• Research Brief: Online Video Viewing Surges - In March, "84.8 million viewers watched 4.3 billion videos on YouTube.com (50.4 videos per viewer)." Damn. Could you ever have imagined this, even 5 years ago?
• Video Road Hogs Stir Fear of Internet Traffic Jam - New York Times - Related: "Last year, by one estimate, the video site YouTube, owned by Google, consumed as much bandwidth as the entire Internet did in 2000."
• XBMC For Mac: XBMC Turns Your Mac into the Ultimate Media Center - Wowzers! Nice work, Gina. This looks like a go-to solution for using OSXBMC to turn a Mac Mini into a pain-free media center.
• Hacking the Kindle part 3: root shell and runtime system - Oh, sweet fancy Moses: here are some inexplicably undocumented key commands that will so improve yr Kindle world. Kiss me, ragged-right justification! (BTW: ♥ my new Kindle, and am collecting my favorite time- and money-saving tips for a future post)
• 8 fonts you probably don’t use in css, but should - Personally, I'm not so big on Copperplate or Impact, but I'm a fool for Gill Sans. Nobody asked me, but I'd also add Mac-friendly faves Hoefler Text, Futura, and American Typewriter. [via anarchaia]
• We're sorry this is late; we really meant to post it sooner - "Most people's New Year's resolutions are doomed to failure...Most self-help books have it completely wrong when they say perfectionism is at the root of procrastination...Procrastination can be explained by a single mathematical equation" In keeping with my return to posting here, yes: that's meta-research on procrastination. Swish.

And, in passing, a personal note: many thanks to you for your patience while I took some time to see to other projects; my more normal (which is to say, irregular, by most “pro blog” standards) habit of posting to 43f when I have something to share or say restarts now. I’m grateful for your hanging with me.

Two stories that I know I should be learning from:

• Paul Graham on overcoming distractions. By creating an Internet-Only computer.
  Quote:

  I now leave wifi turned off on my main computer except when I need to transfer a file or edit a web page, and I have a separate laptop on the other side of the room that I use to check mail or browse the web. (Irony of ironies, it's the computer Steve Huffman wrote Reddit on. When Steve and Alexis auctioned off their old laptops for charity, I bought them for the Y Combinator museum.)
  

Slate's special issue on procrastination. - - Slate Magazine

Slate is running a special issue this week on procrastination, a series of stories on why we waste time, what we do when we waste time, and how different types of people waste their time.

My favorites of the bunch so far:

The aptly named "Positivity Blog" recently had a rather compelling overview of Bruce Lee, Productivity Guru.

Like our own dear Merlin, Mr. Lee was from the Bay Area and took a lifelong interest in the fundamental rules underlying systems; unlike Mr. Mann, Bruce Lee could break Chuck Norris in half but never once listened to Zen Arcade.

• Can You Become a Creature of New Habits? - New York Times - "The small steps in kaizen don’t set off fight or flight, but rather keep us in the thinking brain, where we have access to our creativity and playfulness."
• How to answer the people who think you’re nuts? - "I’ve been doing a lot of radio interviews and I turn into a self-righteous bore when the host inevitably asks, 'How could you let your son take the subway alone?'"
• Dear Shaun, at bluishorange - "My writing is not some fragile vase that is going to shatter the second I split an infinitive..." [via mathowie]
• Clutterers Anonymous dot Net - "Clutter is anything we don't need, want, or use that takes our time, energy or space, and destroys our serenity."
• Spark 35: Your Digital Legacy - I'll be a regular contributor to the CBC's wonderful Spark (podcast). My first segment with Nora Young is on the basics of backup. (Hint: Next Christmas, send Uncle Joe a DVD with those hard-copy photos)
• TwitterSnooze! v0.13 - "TwitterSnooze is inspired by a Merlin Mann post and was written by Andrew Parker." Yay, nice!
  I think silent "snoozing" should be part of every social app. Warning, though; if your snoozed friend is the brittle type, note that re-following them will generate an email that gives you away. Caveat Twittor. [via del/andrewdparker]