Monthly Archives: September 2008

Tonight’s debate: Full of words.

Wordle visualizes which ones were most common:

(click the image to see the original Wordle generated from the debate transcripts)

SUBJECT: Request for URGENT BUSINESS RELATIONSHIP

I’ve seen this many other places, but I cannot help reposting it here. It is a great statement on the current economic crisis:

DEAR AMERICAN:

I NEED TO ASK YOU TO SUPPORT AN URGENT SECRET BUSINESS RELATIONSHIP WITH A TRANSFER OF FUNDS OF GREAT MAGNITUDE.

I AM MINISTRY OF THE TREASURY OF THE REPUBLIC OF AMERICA. MY COUNTRY HAS HAD CRISIS THAT HAS CAUSED THE NEED FOR LARGE TRANSFER OF FUNDS OF 800 BILLION DOLLARS US. IF YOU WOULD ASSIST ME IN THIS TRANSFER, IT WOULD BE MOST PROFITABLE TO YOU.

I AM WORKING WITH MR. PHIL GRAM, LOBBYIST FOR UBS, WHO WILL BE MY REPLACEMENT AS MINISTRY OF THE TREASURY IN JANUARY. AS A SENATOR, YOU MAY KNOW HIM AS THE LEADER OF THE AMERICAN BANKING DEREGULATION MOVEMENT IN THE 1990S. THIS TRANSACTIN IS 100% SAFE.

THIS IS A MATTER OF GREAT URGENCY. WE NEED A BLANK CHECK. WE NEED THE FUNDS AS QUICKLY AS POSSIBLE. WE CANNOT DIRECTLY TRANSFER THESE FUNDS IN THE NAMES OF OUR CLOSE FRIENDS BECAUSE WE ARE CONSTANTLY UNDER SURVEILLANCE. MY FAMILY LAWYER ADVISED ME THAT I SHOULD LOOK FOR A RELIABLE AND TRUSTWORTHY PERSON WHO WILL ACT AS A NEXT OF KIN SO THE FUNDS CAN BE TRANSFERRED.

PLEASE REPLY WITH ALL OF YOUR BANK ACCOUNT, IRA AND COLLEGE FUND ACCOUNT NUMBERS AND THOSE OF YOUR CHILDREN AND GRANDCHILDREN TO WALLSTREETBAILOUT@TREASURY.GOV SO THAT WE MAY TRANSFER YOUR COMMISSION FOR THIS TRANSACTION. AFTER I RECEIVE THAT INFORMATION, I WILL RESPOND WITH DETAILED INFORMATION ABOUT SAFEGUARDS THAT WILL BE USED TO PROTECT THE FUNDS.

YOURS FAITHFULLY MINISTER OF TREASURY PAULSON

(samples of scams parodied by the above letter)

links for 2008-09-24

links for 2008-09-23

links for 2008-09-22

links for 2008-09-19

  • Stanford is offering free computer science courses, such as introductory programming, robotics, machine language processing, machine learning, linear dynamical systems, fourier transform, and convex optimization. Includes all course materials!
  • "I was already in this mental cone of silence when the doctor lifted up the covers of my eyeball flaps using what looked like metal chopsticks, mixing around a stir fry while I watched, first-person perspective, from within the wok."
    (tags: medical)

links for 2008-09-18

  • A neat way to visualize stock market performance by industry sector. Similar to the disk space treemaps generated by http://www.derlien.com/ and http://windirstat.info/.

links for 2008-09-17

links for 2008-09-16

links for 2008-09-15

  • An MIT project to build autonomous undersea vehicles by duplicating the complex dynamics of a biological tuna. They used a genetic algorithm to search for optimal parameters for their simulations. Is the robotic tuna swarm dolphin-safe?