Thanks to those who offered suggestions for the random freezing problem, but as I mentioned yesterday, it seemed to abate as soon as Disk Doctor pronounced my hard drive healthy (perhaps all it needed was reassurance). I'm assuming it had to do with corruption in something in Virtual memory, but that's just uneducated guessing based on the outcome. As I also mentioned yesterday, the true explanation is clearly that F.M., or as someone (sorry, can't find the mail for the name) wrote in recalling as P.F.M. Same old F.M., the "P" is for "Pure."

Link of the Day: Scientific American: Taking Ballistics by Storm describes an electronic gun with no mechanical parts that fires a million rounds per minute. As Nick Altmann, who sent this along points out, "I bet quakers would still bitch about the slow firing rate."