Rachel Kroll writes about that time of night when you can choose between sleeping or pulling an all-nighter:

I call it “the stupid hour”. When talking about myself, I call it my stupid hour. It’s the point when I’ve been awake for too long and anything I create is sure to be suboptimal. The late hour has drained enough out of me to where I turn stupid and my output shows this.

I am, by nature, a night owl. I prefer to work late - with peak productivity between 10 p.m. and 3 a.m. This schedule changed by necessity after getting married. Still, I find myself drawn to that time slot. It is often tempting (and easy) to push past my urge to sleep. Kroll’s takeaway largely matches my own results. Continually pushing past tired generally leads to crap. A little sleep goes a long way - and so does time management.¹

Glenn Fleishman, writing for The Economist, on the quirky and antiquated audio copyright laws in the U.S.:

THE sound of Thomas Edison’s first recorded words in 1877 are lost, but he said they were, “Mary had a little lamb”. Had the cylinder containing that utterance survived, it would remain firmly under copyright protection in America at least until 2067. A quirk of the federal copyright law with regard to recordings means that nearly all music, spoken word, and other aural treats produced before the early 1970s are currently protected until the second half of the 21st century. Sonically speaking, the public domain is a wasteland.

Today marks the 107th Bedlam Football Series matchup between the University of Oklahoma (OU) Sooners and the Oklahoma State University (OSU) Cowboys.

This is a followup post to last year’s bedlam article.

In evaluating the previous 106 games, it is clear that the term Series is more fitting than Rivalry. This remains true despite last year’s 44-10 drubbing of OU by the Pokes. I even stated that last year’s OSU squad was more talented:

In fact, it may well be the case that OSU has the better team this year.

I’ve compiled some statistics that illustrate just how historically one-sided the series has been in favor of the Sooners.

• The overall record is 82-17-7 (.807) in favor of OU.
• OSU is 8-39-2 (.184) when visiting Norman.
• The last OSU win in Norman occurred in 2001.
• OU has outscored OSU 2959-1107 (avg. 27.9 - 10.4).
• OSU has been shut out 32 times, OU 11 times.
• OSU has beaten a ranked OU team only four times.
• OSU has beaten OU in consecutive years five times, only three of which were after World War II.

All of this isn’t meant as disrespect for Oklahoma State. They are clearly a team on the rise. Over the past five seasons, OSU has a 30-10 record in Big 12 games - the same record as OU. The point is that it seems very strange to refer to this game as a huge rivalry, especially when one team has managed to win less than one game out of every five for over a century. As Oklahoma State continues its national rise, the Bedlam matchup will become increasingly important. Just remember how lopsided it has been to date.

Sean Gallagher, writing for Ars Technica, on the technology side of the 2012 Presidential election:

In the end, the deciding factor wasn’t what the Obama campaign spent money on, but what it did with all that money. Insourcing gave the campaign a strategic flexibility that the Romney campaign lacked, as well as other intangibles that may have contributed to leading an efficient campaign.

Gallagher notes that Romney’s campaign outspent the Obama campaign by over $14 million on technology and related services. The key was insourcing which allowed a low-cost, high-efficiency operation.

Mat Honan:

Your email. Your bank account. Your address and credit card number. Photos of your kids or, worse, of yourself, naked. The precise location where you’re sitting right now as you read these words. Since the dawn of the information age, we’ve bought into the idea that a password, so long as it’s elaborate enough, is an adequate means of protecting all this precious data. But in 2012 that’s a fallacy, a fantasy, an outdated sales pitch. And anyone who still mouths it is a sucker—or someone who takes you for one.

Bingo. Social engineering is far more effective than brute force. Who cares how many weird character combinations your passwords contain when people are charged with their safekeeping? Just ask Honan - he was hacked this summer. The traditional username and password is a paradigm that must evolve.

Alexander George, writing for the Wirecutter:

For the foreseeable future, I will be shaving my face with a Merkur Safety Razor and Feather razor blades. This type of razor takes some practice, but once you get it down, no setup can match the price, durability, comfort, and overall simplicity of a solid double-edge (DE) safety razor like the Merkur.

After having spent my entire shaving life as a cartridge guy, I’m making the switch to the Merkur Safety Razor.

Also, if you generally hate trying to research technology, give Wirecutter a shot. They do the leg work and distill it down to an easily understood list of the best options.

Tim Kreider, writing for The New York Times, on the broader meaning of Amtrak’s Quiet Car:

We’re a tribe, we quiet ones, we readers and thinkers and letter writers, we daydreamers and gazers out of windows. We are a civil people, courteous to excess, who disdain displays of anger as childish and embarrassing. But the Quiet Car is our territory, the last reservation to which we’ve been driven. And we can be pushed too far.

I much prefer the quiet.

Paul Graham offers advice on formulating a startup plan:

The way to get startup ideas is not to try to think of startup ideas. It’s to look for problems, preferably problems you have yourself.

The very best startup ideas tend to have three things in common: they’re something the founders themselves want, that they themselves can build, and that few others realize are worth doing. Microsoft, Apple, Yahoo, Google, and Facebook all began this way.

Jean-Louis Gassée on Windows 8, the Surface, and what lessons and opportunities follow the departure of Steven Sinofsky:

This is Apple’s opportunity: Stick to its guns, keep laptops and tablets clearly distinct, but make iPads easier to love by business users. The comparison between a worst-of-both-worlds Surface hybrid and the iPad would be no contest. iPad mini for media consumption, everywhere; iPad for business and everything else.

Apple can finish the job Sinofsky started.

Scott Adams on word choice in news articles:

My advice is that whenever you see backpedalling or doubling down in an alleged news story, stop reading immediately. The writer and the editor for that piece are trying to manipulate you into a belief that would not necessarily be supported by the facts within their proper context.