saturnine

"[T]here are mostly men at the top [and] at the bottom"

That's consistent with analysis by Howard Wainer[1] on gender differences:

"[I]t has been well established that there is an overabundance of boys at the high end of test score distributions. [S]ome observers have used such results to make inferences about differences in intelligence between the sexes. [H]owever, most enlightened investigators have seen that it is not necessarily a difference in level but a difference in variance that separates the sexes. Thus, while there are more boys at the high end, there are also more at the low end."

[1] The Most Dangerous Equation http://press.princeton.edu/chapters/s8863.pdf

I've found this to be one of the better ones http://www.ispeech.org

This incident sounded familiar so I pulled my copy of James Bamford's Puzzle Palace[1] (1982) and managed to find it on page 215:

"Another high-priority target for the signal chasers at Karamursel [Turkey] is the Soviet space program. On April 23, 1967, a number of analysts were routinely copying the return of Soyuz I, bringing Soviet cosmonaut Vladimir Komarov back from twenty-six hours in space, when problems suddenly developed on re-entry. Recalled one of the intercept operators:

'They couldn't get the chute that slowed his craft down in re-entry to work. They knew what the problem was for about two hours...and were fighting to correct it. It was all in Russian, of course, but we taped it and listened to it a couple of times afterward. Kosygin called him personally. They had a video-phone conversation. Kosygin was crying. He told him he was a hero and that he had made the greatest achievement in Russian history, that they were proud, and that he'd be remembered. The guy's wife got on too. They talked for a while. He told her how to handle their affairs and what to do with the kids. It was pretty awful. Toward the last few minutes he began falling apart, saying, "I don't want to die, you've got to do something." Then there was just a scream as he died. I guess he was incinerated.'"

[1] http://www.amazon.com/Puzzle-Palace-National-Intelligence-Or...

if banks could confirm electronic transfers within a few seconds

Banks do this millions of times each day on the global ATM network. I can swipe my bank card at most any ATM in the world and within seconds the funds are removed from my account and dispensed into my hand.

In that case, the card is indirectly linked to my bank account. It's only when you know the exact bank account and routing number from which you want to remove the funds that you're forced to use the archaic ACH system.

Clearly the technology for instantaneous confirmation of funds transfers already exists, but it has yet to be expanded beyond its original purpose.

One of the disadvantages of traditional ad media is the lack of a negative feedback mechanism to the advertiser from the consumer. This wastes advertiser money and consumer time and goodwill. But with the web, there's no excuse not to have this.

In a recent example, Yahoo News has been displaying an ad for Allstate Insurance containing lots of motion. Once or twice, fine. But after dozens of times, it's sufficiently far into the realm of irritating that I'm writing this comment. I should be able to right-click on the ad and indicate I never want to see it again. Presumably that's something the advertiser would want to know, and I want to tell them.

I don't use ad blockers. I'd rather not and I shouldn't have to. Web marketers, please fix this.

This book was suggested in Dave Barry's 2002 Holiday Gift Guide. It just keeps on giving.

http://www.davebarry.com/gg/2002giftguide/4605133.htm

True story: I owned a small business in the late 90s. At some point we had a billing dispute with Sprint long distance. Briefly, we required our (large) telephone bill to be sent to us electronically (diskettes at that time) so we could rebill our customers. For some reason which I don't recall, we only received the paper invoice for a month or two.

Every time Sprint called looking for payment, we told them to just send us the electronic data and we'd pay the bill. They never did, and eventually it got turned over to a collection agency, which began hounding us.

When that happened, I created a fictitious lawyer working for our company and had him author a sternly worded letter to Sprint. It reiterated the facts, firmly stated that we have no intention of paying, and demanded that they remove (I recall using the word 'extirpate') all traces of this obligation. The amount in dispute was much more than $100, so the time involved was worth it.

I mailed the letter and we never heard anything more about it.

The captain of the marine salvage ship Odyssey complained about this system on one of the Treasure Quest TV episodes because it allows competitors and amateurs to know the location of his ship. He has to employ countermeasures, such as not staying over the location of a promising site for too long. That suggests it cannot legally be turned off.

http://dsc.discovery.com/tv/treasure-quest/ome.html

http://www.supercook.com/ is a front-end to allrecipes.com

I surmise his software ventures never succeeded because he hated the IRS more than he loved programming. In 1987 alone, he says, he spent at least 1000 hours railing against the tax code -- about 20 hours a week.

His obsession with, and resentment of, the IRS started when he and others tried to create their own religious organization, ostensibly to draw attention to the capricious laws exempting religious organizations from taxes. How this plan was supposed to work is unclear. L. Ron Hubbard saw the same opportunity and was better at exploiting it.

People don't respond well to acts of violence directed against them or those with whom they empathize. Timothy McVeigh's act caused shock and anger yet achieved nothing. Whatever message Stack wanted to convey has been utterly discredited by attempting to murder people going about their day. And if he wanted to give the government a way to dismiss him, he couldn't have made it any easier.

Once removed it doesn't seem likely you'd be able to hold onto your garments in a 120MPH wind. Then again, you just survived the breakup of an airplane traveling 500MPH, so maybe somebody is really fond of you.

To keep track of my running workouts, I bought a Timex Ironman Datalink watch which has a USB interface, and I wrote a plug-in for it for SportTracks[1]. It does the job, but it's missing some things.

For one, I'd like to capture ambient temperature too, which this TI watch has, so I took a closer look. The manual states, "The temperature is measured inside the watch right inside the CC430 device. When the watch is worn, the temperature of the watch may be different due to the body heat. For accurate temperature measurements, do not wear the watch and allow a sufficient amount of time for the watch to adapt to the surrounding temperature."

Great feature, poorly implemented. No thanks.

Eventually I'll get a GPS watch, but not until Garmin releases one that has decent battery life. A temperature sensor would be nice, too.

[1] http://www.zonefivesoftware.com/SportTracks/

Interesting article, but I was left with a somewhat troubling question about British Intelligence. They developed this elegant crypto algorithm, but felt it may have a weakness which they were unable to find. Being spooks, wouldn't their next thought be, "What if our enemy develops this too and starts using it? We really need to find that weakness!"

Then again, maybe it was ...

When dealing with contracts I've often reflected on the parallels between lawyers and programmers. Both attempt to craft their writing such that it's interpreted the intended way. Both try to anticipate changing environmental conditions and account for them. Both find their argot inscrutable to outsiders. And both can be torpedoed by a missing comma.

"... if she gave up 7 cents per copy in royalties, she could have the extra paper needed to print Galt’s oration. That she agreed is a sign of the great contradiction that haunts her writing and especially her life."

Nonsense. She may just as well have concluded that adulterating her work would have made it less potent and thus reduced its impact, resulting in fewer sales.

That the reviewer believes conceding to accept less money in the short term contradicts capitalism betrays his or her understanding of capitalism.

Disclosure: I've never read any of Rand's writings.