The Well-Exercised Brain Does Not Misdial For Boobies

THAT $1.25 SEX CALL

Dan C.: ‘My phone number in Northern Virginia USED to be 266-2437, which spells ‘Boobies’ on the telephone. More times than I care to count people called my number looking for a sex line, so I can understand how mistakes could be made. After a while, it got to be almost amusing. We would refer them to the right phone number and tell them to have fun.’

☞ No, this is not particularly relevant, but it made me smile.

GET SMART

There is nothing like the thrill of getting an 11-point word in Web Boggle, but it doesn’t seem to have made me any smarter. For that (he says cravenly, riddled with conflicts of interest because he owns a sliver), you need the Brain Fitness Program from Posit Science.

From the latest investor newsletter:

October has been a busy month. It started with an article in Business Week drawing a sharp distinction between our proven exercises and games designed to entertain. Then the AARP Bulletin ran a moving piece on a son in his 40s doing our program with his dad in his 80s. The phone sure has been ringing.

We just got back from the Society for Neuroscience, an annual gathering of 30,000 brain scientists. We made four presentations there: showing that 85-year-olds can gain the auditory brain speed of 30-year-olds; that people in their 60s can match the visual speed and accuracy of people in their 20s; that brain fitness training can significantly improve skills used in daily living and that there are high correlations among speed, accuracy and memory. You can read about these studies here, here, here and here.

MONEY AND POLITICS

Not only does the stock market do better under Democratic administrations – according to this, the stocks of Democratic-leaning companies may do better than those of Republican leading companies.

VENGEANCE AND POLITICS

‘This has to be the non-surprise of the week: Lt. Cmdr. Charles Swift, the Navy lawyer who led the recent successful Supreme Court challenge of the Bush administration’s military tribunals for Guantanamo detainees, has been passed over for promotion to full commander and will have to leave the military,’ writes William Fisher.

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