Thursday, October 30, 2003

This is a website that tries to determine the gender of the author of text you submit to it. I cut and pasted from this blog and it correctly diagnosed me as male. I also couldn't resist doing some more analysis, so I looked at the separate scores for August, September, and October 1st-27th. In this manner I was able calculate a masculinity coefficient of sorts and see how it varied with time.
MonthFemale Score (f)Male Score (m)m/(f+m)
August22513284.593
September26504308.619
October35707587.680
August
(quotes excised)
21103004.587
September
(quotes excised)
22793581.611
October
(quotes excised)
31316567.677

Has my writing become more manly with time? I'll let my readers decide. Of course you can also test your own writing as well as read more (PDF) about the algorithm. Another interesting question: What fields of study are more manly in the algorithm's eyes? Do "real men" write math papers, physics papers, economics papers, etc.?

Monday, October 27, 2003

Why bother with democracy when force is so much more effective? (Note: this link doesn't seem to work for some browsers; try this if you have problems, or scroll down to "Coca Coup" on this page.)
OK, class. Repeat after me. Teachers' unions are a force for evil.
From reading this article, Janice Brown sounds uniformly awesome. (The articles start out saying she's offended conservatives, but none of the examples they cite (as least as they presented them) seemed particularly offensive to me.) Will she be confirmed? Bob Novak's latest column breaks news that offers some hope for her and other appointees. We'll see.

Friday, October 24, 2003

It is reassuring to read the leaked Rumsfeld memo, as it demonstrates Rumsfeld understands the nature of our problems in this war. Of course solving the problems is another matter; I'm not even sure a "solution" exists for all of them.