As someone who read the World Book Encyclopedia for fun as a kid, I find the topic of the book The Know-It-All: One Man’s Humble Quest to Become the Smartest Person in the World intriguing. It’s Esquire editor A.J. Jacobs’s humorous account of his quest to read the entire 2002 edition of the Encyclopædia Britannica, all 33,000 pages. Time to add it to my Amazon wish list.

• Slashdot book review

I never thought I’d see this: CBS’ new series, NUMB3RS, is a drama where a math whiz helps his detective brother solve police crime cases. To make sure the math stays realistic, the head of Caltech’s math department, Gary Lorden, is consulting for the show. Also, the fictitious school in the show, “Cal Sci,” is based on Caltech, where part of the show is taped.

Caltech dons thinking cap for CBS • Pasadena Star News • January 10, 2005

Crime and Computation • Caltech News • Vol. 39, No. 1, 2005

Recently there’s been a bunch of articles about “second-generation traffic calming.” The basic idea is simple, but sounds crazy: remove all signs, traffic lights, and lane markings. Eliminate the curb separating the sidewalk from the street.

This does several things. It emphasizes the street as a space to be shared between pedestrians and drivers. It encourages drivers to slow down (although the street may also need to be narrowed as well). Once the speed is down to about 20 mph, then drivers are slow enough to negotiate around other drivers and pedestrians without the need for signs. And since intersections don’t have stop signs or traffic lights anymore, total travel time actually goes down, because you no longer have to come to a complete stop at intersections.

This is already being tried in Europe with good results. Could it work here in the U.S.? I could see it working in some downtown and suburban residential neighborhoods; in fact, it’s already working in West Palm Beach, Florida, and I wouldn’t mind seeing it tried out in my neighborhood. But doing this on a 6-lane arterial surrounded by strip malls would be a bit much.

A Path to Road Safety With No Signposts • New York Times • January 22, 2005

Roads Gone Wild • Wired Magazine • December 2004

Why don’t we do it in the road? • Salon • May 20, 2004

Recently my colleagues and I started to wonder why older PC keyboards have the Ctrl key next to the A key, while newer PC keyboards have Caps Lock there instead. It didn’t make sense: Ctrl is used more frequently than Caps Lock, so why is it now in a less prominent position?

The most likely reason is that the keyboards of most typewriters, like the IBM Selectric, have the Lock key in the same place. The Lock key was actually Shift Lock, not Caps Lock. As my friend Matt reminded me, pressing the Lock key also physically pressed down the Shift key as well, so it makes sense for the Lock key to be right next to the Shift key. Lock was used more frequently back then, because writing in all caps substituted for boldface or larger type, neither of which a typewriter can easily output.

When IBM released the PC in 1981, its keyboard had Ctrl next to A, which was similar to many other personal computer keyboards at the time. This resulted in messing up everyone who learned to touch-type on typewriters. So when IBM released its 101-key Enhanced Keyboard in 1986, it put the Caps Lock key back next to the A.

Unfortunately, this messed up everyone who learned how to touch-type on computers. Just in case anyone is wondering, all Apple II keyboards had Control next to A, but most Mac keyboards have had Caps Lock next to A. (In fact, the first Mac keyboard didn’t have Control.) I personally don’t mind where Caps Lock and Ctrl are now, because at this point, I’m used to it. Now I just wish laptop manufacturers would make up their minds where to put the Fn and Ctrl keys on their keyboards (I prefer Ctrl to the left of Fn).

I finally got a chance to watch the Iron Chef America specials that first aired on Food Network back in April. I really enjoyed it: it captures the atmosphere and the attitude of the original Japanese series. And it looks like a lot of people agree with me: it’s becoming a full series starting on January 16. Woohoo! There are a few things I would change though.

• As good as Alton Brown is as a commentator, he needs someone to talk with, just like Mr. Fukui bantered with Dr. Hattori on the original.
• They should never get another judge who is afraid of raw food.

By the way, the chairman of Iron Chef America is the real-life nephew of the original Chairman Kaga.

Here is the top story for The Onion on January 17, 2001: Bush: ‘Our Long National Nightmare Of Peace and Prosperity Is Finally Over’ (screenshot) They had no idea how true that would become.

Can you believe it’s already the middle of the first decade of this century? Whew, where did the time go?