Archives for January 2005

Is Your Senator Hot or Not?

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Link.

Jan 31, 2005 | Comments Off

Neighborhoodies

Hip t-shirts, hoodies and underwear that shout out local pride. I was surprised to find they had “Logan Circle” as an option. Link.

Jan 13, 2005 | Comments Off

Healthy, but poor and oppressed

Nicholas Kristof’s column in The New York Times today is about infant mortality rates in the U.S. Sadly, it perpetuates the myth of ideal healthcare in Cuba. The piece is titled, “Health Care? Ask Cuba,” and it leads with the point that we should be ashamed that our healthcare system and infant mortality rate is not as good as “impoverished and autocratic Cuba.”

We should not be ashamed. If you centralize complete control of the economy in one man, as in Cuba, you can allocate all your resources to healthcare if you wish. More children may survive infancy in Cuba, but they will grow up to struggle for food, clothing, and not to mention personal freedom. In our country we individuals, through the market, decide how much is spent on healthcare and everything else. As a result, we get the efficient amount of healthcare, food, clothes, stereos, and everything else.

As “unfair” as it might seem, the price a nation must pay to have a zero percent infant mortality rate, or illiteracy rate, at the stroke of a pen is to become “impoverished and autocratic.” I don’t think it’s worth it.

Jan 12, 2005 | 1 Comment

Apple, trade secrets, and journalism

Mac people are abuzz over Apple filing suit against ThinkSecret.com and other sites that disclosed information about a new computer that Steve Jobs is expected to unveil tomorrow at Macworld expo. Wired News covers the story by suggesting that the suit is baseless, that Apple knows it, and that they filed it just to get more press for their announcement. While I don’t question reporter Leander Kahney’s Mac evangelist credentials, I often find myself questioning his journalistic ones.

A lawsuit is serious business and I can’t believe that Apple would play games like Kahney suggests. While he quotes several marketing experts, Kahney apparently never interviewed a lawyer. If he had, he would have been told that no attorney would allow their client to file a suit just for publicity, and that if they did, the attorney and the client would face serious penalties. Could you imagine if every time a company wanted publicity it filed lawsuits all over the place?

The purpose of the suit is probably just what it states: Apple wants to stop leaks of its trade secrets. Again, instead of finding a lawyer to talk to, Kahney quotes a sociologist:

Fine noted the information published by ThinkSecret does not reveal sensitive information, even if it does wreck Apple’s surprise unwrapping at Macworld.

“It’s not really secret information,” he said. “It’s information that’s being released ahead of time.”

I don’t know much about California trade secrets law, but I doubt that the sociologist does either. I do know, however, that in most states as long as you make an effort to keep something a secret, it’s a secret before the law. And “wrecking Apple’s surprise” sounds like damages to me.

The real story here, which Kahney and Wired News missed, is picked up by the New York Times. The trade secret violation here, if any, wasn’t for a direct pecuniary gain–it was posted on a blog. So, is a blog part of “the press” and should it thus be afforded Constitutional protection beyond what anyone else would get?

I don’t think a story like Kahney’s would have made it through at The NYT. That it did get through at Wired News hurts the case for the electronic press to get the recognition it deserves.

UPDATE: Kahney’s article was published by Wired News today. Four days ago he wrote on his blog:

Maybe Apple is intentionally fueling the rumor mill? Yeah, it’s highly conspiratorial, but perhaps dePlume’s information was leaked from Apple HQ, followed by the legal attack dogs? … It’s unlikely, I guess, but marketers are increasingly turning to such tactics to get attention …

Despite acknowledging the improbability of the suit-for-press idea, he ran with the story any way. Again, thinking aloud like this in a blog is fine; that’s what blogs are for. But Wired News is supposed to be a credentialed press outlet.

Jan 10, 2005 | Comments Off

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