Ever since the dawn of email, there have been issues with email distribution lists and users who do not understand the difference between reply and reply-to-all (’r’ vs. ‘R’ in the old days) . It is always amusing to watch an incident unfold, because it’s always the same - the ’stop replying to all’ traffic so quickly outpaces the ‘reply to all’ traffic.
Flowing Data visualized an incident thus:
What if you desire to express your love to someone, but fear the consequences if he or she does not return your feelings?
It’s an age old problem - how many of us know someone who asks a friend to go talk to so-and-so to “see if she likes me?”
Just in time for Valentines day, I found this reference to this research paper, Romantic Cryptography, on Light Blue Touchpaper:
Abstract. We show how Alice and Bob can establish whether they love
each other, but without the embarrassment of revealing that they do if
the other party does not share their feelings.
This is a “secure multiparty computation” of the AND function, where
the participants cooperate in producing the result of the AND, but without
learning the input bit contributed by the other party unless the result
implies it.
It’s an interesting algorithm involving scales and “voting” with weighted balls such that no information is revealed unless both parties indicate interest.
They provide some interesting variations using Love/Don’t Love images that only produce an image if both parties fancy the other:
The paper is short, and is certainly worth a skim at the least.
I got this from GCFL.net: The Good, Clean Funnies List
My husband, Michael, and I were at a restaurant with his boss, a rather stern older man. When Michael began a tale, which I was sure he had told before, I gave him a kick under the table. There was no response, so I gave him another poke. Still the story went on. Suddenly he stopped, grinned and said, “Oh, but I’ve told you this one before, haven’t I?”We all chuckled and changed the subject. Later, on the dance floor, I asked my husband why it had taken him so long to get my message.
“What do you mean?” he replied. “I cut the story off as soon as you kicked me.”
“But I kicked you twice and it still took you awhile to stop!”
Suddenly we realized what had happened. Sheepishly we returned to our table. The boss smiled and said, “Don’t worry. After the second kick I figured it wasn’t for me, so I passed it along!”
I may not be ahem completely normal, but I really enjoyed this video.
Yoram Bauman, the stand-up economist translates Mankiw’s ten principles of economics into English.
“Microeconomists are people who are wrong about specific things. Macroeconomists are wrong about things in general”
If you liked that one, you might also enjoy this one.
My favorite line: “One of the challenges of being an economics comedian is that it’s very difficult to find places to practice.” No kidding.
At about 3:30, he compares the current economy to a hamster.
On this topic, I highly recommend several economics books I scored when my wife got them from the library. All make excellent in-the-car listening. No really.
 I never managed to take Econ in college.Basic Economics was clear, concise, well read (in audio), and fascinating. |
 The Housing Boom and Bust.
More on economics, but using the 2009 housing bust as a framework. Again, really interesting. |
 Applied Economcs: Thinking Beyond Stage One
I’m cheating to put this one up because I haven’t finished it yet. I listened to parts of several CDs of the audio version, and so far it sounds just as riveting as the others. It should be required reading for all voters. |
I got this story today from GCFL, who got it from ArcaMax Jokes.
Artist Pablo Picasso surprised a burglar at work in his new chateau. The intruder got away, but Picasso told the police he could do a rough sketch of what he looked like. On the basis of his drawing, the police arrested a mother superior, the minister of finance, a washing machine, and the Eiffel tower.
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