Rendering fog without washing out colors close to the camera

Game devs: when rendering fog, you can avoid putting a haze all over your nice colors by using an equation like this one.  (If you look close at the curve, there is a small dip at the start.  If you take x as the distance from the object to the camera, and the height in y as the amount of fog, the dip at the start means that objects that are very close to the camera won't have too much fog applied and have their colors washed out.)  It works well in practice and gives you a nice range of darks and saturateds up close and ramps up smoothly without looking weird.  (Curve originally from John Hable's Uncharted 2 tone mapping presentation.)

I'd love some kind of video mashup playing in the background when I have to write the boring kind of code.  I want high res video from cool scenes around the world -- like crashing waves, or underwater footage, or even webcam views of different locations.  I don't want people talking in the videos or even sound because I can't code and do talking at the same time.  Just something to make me feel more connected to the world.  Being in a text editor is a bland, isolating experience.

I was incredulous at this This American Life episode about a drug court judge in Georgia and indignant enough  to send judge Amanda Williams and the court my thoughts on the matter.

It's fraudulent for an author to write a book about how to be financially successful if a large portion of their net worth came from sales of the book.  Legal, yes, but wrong.

(Rich Dad, Poor Dad comes to mind -- and what a confused mess of lessons he tries to impart.  It struck me that he didn't really understand what he wanted to teach.)

Panic at the Disco was streaming their new album for free on facebook, the catch was that I had to click "Like" on their facebook page to listen to the whole thing.  I wouldn't click on it because I didn't know if the new album is good or not, so I left the page without listening to any more.  I don't think they understand how facebook really works:  If I say I like something, I'm putting my credibility on the line.   My friends trust that I won't sell out my opinion or sell their information for a reward/bribe from some company.

This algorithm does an f'ing gorgeous job of calculating normal vectors.  Ignore the wacky URL.

Would a judge ever reduce a sentence if he thought there was a 97% chance a person was guilty and maybe 3% that he was innocent?  (Like for having mercy on this guy?)

Our justice system seems to be predicated on an all or nothing mentality, either 100% guilty with a penalty of 100%, or else innocent.