Archives for February 2005

Morrissey signs £2m autobiography deal with Penguin according to Sunday Times

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Feb 27, 2005 | Comments Off

Blogging in polite company

Is the Becker-Posner Blog a blog? The Oxford English Dictionary defines the term as, “A frequently updated web site consisting of personal observations, excerpts from other sources, etc., typically run by a single person, and usually with hyperlinks to other sites; an online journal or diary.” Their blog is almost none of these things.

The way their site works is that about once a week they pick an issue to discuss (this week it has been immigration reform). Posner or Becker posts a long commentary on the subject, usually as long as 1,000 words. Then the other scholar posts a reply. These posts amass many (surprisingly intelligent and civil) reader comments along the way, and then Posner and Becker respond to the comments.

I guess it really doesn’t matter what you call it, but I think they’ve come up with a great new format for public discussions. It proves that online conversations can be highbrow and cordial. I would love to see more notable intellectuals and academics take the plunge. Traditional blogging may be too unrefined for someone with the stature of a Posner or Becker (note how Lessig is currently preoccupied with several petty flame wars on his traditional blog). This new format might help, so go tell your thesis adviser.

Feb 27, 2005 | Comments Off

Joanne McNeil

My favorite one-woman blog is back up an running. Go read it now.

Feb 23, 2005 | Comments Off

Merry election day!

Hillary Clinton and John Kerry have introduced an election reform bill that, among other things, would make Election Day a federal holiday. The last thing we need is another holiday with all the attendant legal consequences and economic loss. However, there’s is a noble aim; Tuesday doesn’t seem like the best day to have an election if you want to encourage turnout. The more sensible thing to do is to have elections on Sundays–like the rest of the world. Even more sensible would be to take a page from Florida–yes Florida–and make elections a week-long affair. Who says all the voting had to take place in one day? Of course, these aren’t the kinds of changes Congress could just ordain, but they could start laying the groundwork to get the states to go along. But then again, why try when it’s so much easier to make a new holiday?

Feb 20, 2005 | Comments Off

Clinton Wins Second Grammy

He won a first one? Link.

Feb 16, 2005 | Comments Off

Stamping out spam

hitchcock.jpgEvery once in a while you come across a good idea so simple and obvious you kick yourself for not thinking of it first. A story in today’s NYT sort of had that effect on me. The solution to e-mail spam, it argues, is to charge postage.

I’m taking a class on the regulatory process with former FTC Chairman Tim Muris of do-not-call list fame. Last week he was talking to us about the list and how the FTC started looking at spam and realized that there was no good solution because the cost of spamming is practically zero. And there I was nodding my head, yup it’s unsolvable. But why not shift the cost to the spammers by charging a tiny per e-mail fee?

Well, first of all, it would be very unpopular, as evidenced by the perennial e-mail hoax about Congress considering a 5 per e-mail tax and the turmoil it causes. Second, who exactly would be collecting the fee? And how do we go about re-engineering the Internet to do it?

Obviously, it would be very difficult to do, but a one penny fee per e-mail sent would turn the tables on spammers. It would be negligible to consumers but very onerous for spammers. The NYT article suggests a non-monetary fee whereby computers are forced to spend 10 seconds seconds sending an e-mail. Again, this would be almost transparent to consumers, but it would monkey-wrench spammers. The problem with that system, it seems to me, is that it prohibits all bulk mailing and I don’t think that such mailing is bad per se. If Amazon wants to send out an e-mail to all of its gazillion customers to announce a new service, they should be able to do it. And pay for it.

Feb 13, 2005 | Comments Off

Bug me (in exchange for content)

BugMeNot.com is a service that gives you fake names and passwords for sites that require registration. Want to read a NYT or WaPo article but don’t want to register with them? This is your site.

I’m not sure what to think of this. On the one hand it’s a simple way for privacy zealots to avoid registration and thus might help prevent a vocal minority from resorting to lobbying government for a “solution” such as banning voluntary data collection. On the other hand, it seems like a breach of contract that has negative externalities.

The NYT is giving us all the great content they do in exchange for relatively little: your name, e-mail address, age, etc. They use this information so that they can better target ads to you and thus charge advertisers more. If they couldn’t ask you this info, chances are they would make up what they lost by charging the reader for access to the content. If enough people use BugMeNot, it’s possible the current “free” system could be undermined. The same goes for sites that offer you a phone number to give CVS or Safeway in lieu of a registered card. Luckily most American’s have bigger worries than the supermarket knowing what they buy. Otherwise we’d be paying higher grocery prices too.

P.S. I wonder if they can be sued for tortuous interference with business relationships?

Feb 9, 2005 | Comments Off

Ayn Rand’s “New Man”

rand-filmstrip.jpgToday would have been Ayn rand’s 100th birthday. The NYT profiles her and points out this quote: “This is the motive and purpose of my writing: the projection of an ideal man.” This is nothing new, but stated so clearly it reminded me of Che Guevara’s identical mission in life: to create the “New Man,” as he called it.

Obviously, where Rand’s ideal was selfish and individualist, Che’s had no ego and was communist. And while Che saught to create his New Man at the point of a gun, Rand simply resorted to scorn and hectoring of those who did not meet her approval. What is interesting, though, is that we don’t hear calls to change the nature of man anymore. I think it’s a combination of things.

For one thing, I think we’ve come to accept that man has an innate nature that can’t quite be changed on a dime, and that it is somewhere between the two extremes. Perhaps it is best summed up in the concept of reciprocal altruism. Also, perhaps the horrors of the world wars inspired an instinct to change man’s nature that we don’t see today. Where we do see it today, though, seems to be in radical islamism–perhaps also as a reaction to corruption and oppression.

Anyhow, since I don’t know where I’m going with this, I’ll just say happy birthday, Ayn! Here’s to your ubermensch android future!

Feb 2, 2005 | Comments Off

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