Is there any reason it’s not possible to execute somebody while they’re under a general anaesthetic, so it happens painlessly? If not, is the reason this isn’t ever an option linked to the desire for revenge, i.e. if somebody’s to be executed, they have to suffer in the process? Are there any pro-capital-punishment campaigners who would support painless executions?

Update in the morning: question answered in the comments. Just one of those late-night wonderings

Blink author Malcolm Gladwell has a characteristically fascinating piece in this week’s New Yorker magazine, detailing how Enron’s massive financial problems were exposed. He uses the topic to explore the theme of puzzles versus mysteries - puzzles have a solution and simply require the correct information, mysteries require judgements based on huge amounts of disparate data - and how an ability to investigate the latter is becoming increasingly important in everything from financial markets to national security. En route he takes in second world war intelligence analysts and Watergate, and the article has some remarkably clear descriptions of economic machinations. It becomes clear that there was no whistleblower - all the information required to spot Enron’s problems was in the public domain:

But you can’t blame Enron for covering up the existence of its side deals. It didn’t; it disclosed them. The argument against the company, then, is more accurately that it didn’t tell its investors enough about its S.P.E.s. But what is enough? Enron had some three thousand S.P.E.s, and the paperwork for each one probably ran in excess of a thousand pages. It scarcely would have helped investors if Enron had made all three million pages public. What about an edited version of each deal? Steven Schwarcz, a professor at Duke Law School, recently examined a random sample of twenty S.P.E. disclosure statements from various corporations—that is, summaries of the deals put together for interested parties—and found that on average they ran to forty single-spaced pages. So a summary of Enron’s S.P.E.s would have come to a hundred and twenty thousand single-spaced pages. What about a summary of all those summaries? That’s what the bankruptcy examiner in the Enron case put together, and it took up a thousand pages. Well, then, what about a summary of the summary of the summaries? That’s what the Powers Committee put together. The committee looked only at the “substance of the most significant transactions,” and its accounting still ran to two hundred numbingly complicated pages and, as Schwarcz points out, that was “with the benefit of hindsight and with the assistance of some of the finest legal talent in the nation.”

Yet despite this it was journalists who studied the figures and broke the story, not financial analysts, and MG follows up on this point on his blog. He describes the article as a “semi-defence” of the company - they still behaved illegally, but there are interesting questions as to why the financial community didn’t notice earlier, when logic would suggest that’s its job and in its best interests. There’s no suggestion of wrongdoing, just that, perhaps, the current system isn’t capable of investigating this kind of mystery without outside help. If you check out the article, be sure to stick around for the final two paragraphs.

I continue to be amazed by Malcolm Gladwell’s writing ability. Anybody who can not only prevent my eyes glazing over but actually get me interested in stock markets, bank loan criteria and hedge funds must have quite the talent.

I have no problem with:

• People appearing dead to medical examinations but actually still being alive.
• People recovering from stab wounds in twenty minutes.
• Knocking people out by hitting them with a bow.
• Firing numerous arrows at the same time, and having them all go into separate bad guys.
• Breaking into Nottingham by climbing over a wall.
• Heroes who do absolutely nothing heroic.
• Bad guys holding a knife to somebody’s throat who are happy to wait around while good guys set up an elaborate scheme to foil said bad guy.
• Outlaws who spend all of their time whinging.
• Known criminals who hang about inside the town hall without any kind of disguise, yet go unnoticed by the many many guards.

This is all fine. It is, after all, not supposed to be real. But:

• Arrows will not bounce around a room like ricocheting bullets. This is just stupid.

There, that’s off my chest now

The Guardian reports on reading habits:

Stephen King has beaten JK Rowling to the title of the UK’s favourite literary guilty pleasure. A survey carried out on behalf of the Costa Book Awards 2006 has shown that the thriller writer is the most popular choice among readers looking for an indulgent read, with the adventures of Harry Potter coming a close second.

People are embarrassed to be seen reading Stephen King? How odd. I wonder whether it’s because he has a reputation for writing gory horror, when actually he hasn’t published anything like that for, what, twenty years? He’s certainly one of my favourites - I think his writing style is wonderful, and he’s one of few authors to actually get me shaking at dramatic moments. I’m not claiming any affinity with proper writers, but I’ve read and listened to many interviews in which King’s name is mentioned as an inspiration, too. It’s a shame if people really do think that about him. Maybe it’s the curse of being Popular.

85% of those surveyed admitted to having an author they turn to for sheer gratification, but whom they might not admit to reading in pubic [sic]. Third place in the survey was tied between John Grisham and Dan Brown, while the fourth position was split between Danielle Steel and Catherine Cookson. Terry Pratchett’s Discworld novels were placed fifth.

Most of those have a stigma, I guess, but Terry Pratchett? Maybe it’s like Harry Potter in that people don’t want to be judged for reading “children’s books”. Can’t be bothered with that. I admit I’ve sometimes considered what people will think of my reading particular authors¹, although I try to fight it, but I’m certainly not going to be ashamed of reading something “for children”.

I think it’s great that people are secretly reading all these supposedly ’shameful’ books. Obviously it would be better if we didn’t care what other people thought, but that people are reading nevertheless is definitely something to be cheerful about. Far better to take pleasure in what you enjoy than succumb to peer pressure.

The UK also emerges as a nation of book hoarders, with 32% of readers reporting that they regularly buy books which are then put away to be read at a later date. Women are more likely to put books away for a rainy day, with 39% admitting to hoarding, compared to 24% of men.

‘Admitting’? What a completely made-up compulsion. It’s like saying ‘45% of the population confess to walking across bridges’ - it’s what bridges are for, isn’t it?

Incidentally, the Costa Book Awards website has downloadable replacement book jackets that say “You can’t judge this book by its cover!”. Quite nicely designed, too.

1. it happens in reverse, too - last autumn I sat in a hotel lobby reading The God Delusion, and found myself half-wondering whether somebody might notice and strike up a conversation. Nobody did. [↩]

From the BBC:

Celebrities have been asked to check their facts before lending support to scientific research and campaigns, rather than risk misleading people.

Some celebrity-backed campaigns have done more harm than good, such as linking the MMR jab to autism, says the charity Sense About Science.

Seems like a worthy sentiment. Then comes this:

[An advice pamphlet] offers advice such as “if it sounds too good to be true, it usually is”, and lists a phone number for concerned celebrities to call if they want to discuss anything with experts.

A helpline for celebrities requiring scientific advice. For some reason I find this incredibly funny.

Back to the non-Christmassy theme, then. Looks boring, doesn’t it? I’ll have to try and spice it up a little.

I’m back at home now after nine days at my parents’ house. It occurred to me in the middle of last week that nobody has any contact details for me, so the flat could have been hit by a custard ICBM and I’d have been clueless. Given that something has gone wrong the last few times I’ve been away I was a little nervous about returning, and when I opened the door to hear voices I was somewhat startled. Thankfully I can pretty much survey the entire flat from the front door, so I confirmed I was alone before the automatic ninja defence moves kicked in. A power cut had turned on the freeview box and speakers, so goodness knows how long they’d been chatting away to themselves. I later discovered that the main radiator’s thermometer has devolved to the binary settings of ‘hotter than the sun’ or ‘off’. It took me a while to realise as I was cooking and tidying up, and the flat was rather warm for a while.

My head’s still spinning from the heat of said radiator and I’m concerned I’m not making sense, so here are a few posts I’ve enjoyed recently:

• Bad Astronomy on the real meaning of ‘day’ and ‘year’ - I didn’t know about ‘tropical years’.
• Tom Hamilton on the Daily Mail and the BNP.
• The Partially Clips webcomic, via Pootergeek.
• A discussion of what constitutes the Worst Argument Ever, which inevitably quotes Intelligent Design advocates, including the brain-busting:

  Secondly, even if your thesis were accurate at least it is verifiable. When one dies, he returns to dirt. I have yet to hear of one dieing and returning to a monkey.

• Via Mur (who now has a posse), The Evil Monkey Guide to Creative Writing:

  For all of these reasons and more, writing is perilous work. It is more deadly than special ops. It is more boring than selling insurance. It is more exhilarating than jumping out of an airplane without a parachute. You may die from writing, but more probably you will be disappointed. That is okay, too. Disappointment, as we all know, builds character.

Right. Washing up or Torchwood? Torchwood, obviously. Oh, all right then.

I like this:

Hundreds of protesters in France have rung in the New Year by holding a light-hearted march against it.

Parodying the French readiness to say “non”, the demonstrators in the western city of Nantes waved banners reading: “No to 2007″ and “Now is better!”

The marchers called on governments and the UN to stop time’s “mad race” and declare a moratorium on the future.

Insert your own Conservative Party joke here.

And I’m surrounded by vacuuming. Nevertheless, happy 2007!