Greetings readers! And apologies for my slap-happy blogging record of late. Among my several resolutions this year is a return to blogging at the rate of at minimum one substantive post per week, in addition to my bi-weekly linkage posts. We’ll see whether I can sustain or (more hopefully) exceed this while managing the transition of a teen from home to college, just as we’ll see whether I can keep up my regimen of 7-minute workouts, my plan to learn tango and get scuba certified, and my pledge to send one random thank-you note to some individual every week this year. (If you’re looking for other New Year’s Resolution ideas see this and this; for the science on how to stick with changes that work, see this.) Anyway, let’s start off some overdue linkage – the best of things I’ve read or glanced at over the last hectic weeks of grading/holiday travel/college application stress: Predictioneering 2014

• David Rothkopf on the year ahead in foreign policy.
• David Brin on why 2014, not 2000, is the start of the 21st century.

Human Rights:

• Human Rights Watch‘s Kenneth Roth reviews the year 2013 in human rights in an FP piece entitled “Silver Linings,” highlighting newly broken ground and causes for optimism. The year’s high points include the entry into for of a new Domestic Workers’ Convention; the exposure of the NSA’s surveillance strategy by whistleblower Edward Snowden; strides in marriage equality; and a successful pre-emptive humanitarian intervention in the Central African Republic (though it should be noted that Hayes Brown’s narrative of the US role in this success story is a bit skewed considering the French led the charge).
• Other 2013 successes in genocide prevention. On the other hand, extreme hate speech – often a prelude to mass murder – may be on the rise.
• Human Rights Watch reports on the year in anti-killer-robot campaigning. Also, a separate anti-drone NGO campaign has now officially been kicked off.

• Capital punishment is on its last legs. In the Atlantic, Bobby Costantino reports on his participant-observation experiment with the US justice system.
• Thoughtful post by Cara Leibowitz on disability binarism.

Academica

• Jennifer Roberts on the pedagogy of “immersive attention.”
• Mira Sucharov and Brent Sasley‘s PS and Politics article on public intellectuals and blogging is out. (See blog post trailer here).

Geekotica:

• Mars One project winnows its list of potential colonists.
• Mind-reading, talking dog collars may soon come to a store near you.
• Game of Thrones Season 3 filmography.
• Some concerns about Sauron’s battle plan.