Jason's Notes About Stuff

Here's an idea for word processors and spell checkers. They already underline words in red that they don't find in their dictionary. How about if obscure words were underlined in yellow ? For instance, I have a habit of typing "manger" instead of "manager" when I'm typing too fast. The word "manger" is probably not used much except around Christmas. It'd be nice if it were flagged in yellow and I could right-click to get a list of more common words with a similar spelling. Have any spell checkers already implemented something like this? Let me know if you've seen it anywhere.

I recently came across this article from July in the Financial Post stating that RIM "... blasted Canadian cellphone companies ... for their high data rates and for not competing against each other strongly enough." This has been a problem in Canada for more then 5 years, and I'm glad to hear that people are starting to make some noise about it. High-tech companies can't and won't develop innovative mobile services in Canada until the current wireless cartel is broken up.

It's been my experience that, most of the time, delayed responses are bad. If I ask a question, and don't hear back from someone soon, it usually means the answer is negative. In various psychology classes, I remember learning that people tend to give positive answers quickly, but are reluctant to say "no". This was noted as especially true in Asian and Indian cultures. That said, there are a few exceptions: People going on vacation, not getting the message, emergencies coming up, etc. In general, if I send a request and don't hear back within 1-2 business days, I assume about a 90% chance of some sort of negative response. Does anyone know of any empirical research on this subject? If so, please post it as a comment.