Viewing profile — 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 …

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 chas…

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…

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 an…

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 t…

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…

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 ta…

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 s…

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 …

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 whi…

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. …

"... 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 h…