June 2010
5 posts
Rebranding the License Plate: 4 Designers →
Chinese Dream Up a High-Speed Train that Never... →
“Most people agree that today’s FDA would not have approved aspirin; even...”
– No Refills, The Atlantic
January 2009
3 posts
If the FIRED NY pubstaff are such hot fucking... →
“Indeed, Ethan Berman, the chief executive of RiskMetrics (and no relation to...”
– RISK Mismanagement - What Led to the Financial Meltdown - NYTimes.com
“As we approached his car, he began talking about his own performance in 2008....”
– RISK Mismanagement - What Led to the Financial Meltdown - NYTimes.com
December 2008
5 posts
Cayman waits on new political wind blowing from... →
In the Cayman Islands, on the way to the airport, there’s a building that looks like a strip mall, except there’s no H&M or Orange Julius: it’s all hedge funds.
Now, they say wind from Washington might blow it over. Somewhere, on some island, a golden spike is being driven into the ground to begin construction on a new strip mall. This time they’ll think to hide it...
Best Date Movie Ever.
Revolutionary Road
On Love Stories
Just saw Slumdog Millionaire, a fantastic story about a boy in the slums of India overcoming the most adverse circumstances, but, of course, it was all wrapped up in a Hollywood bow of love story. She, in the end, is why he does everything: why he endures.
Perhaps romantic love really is the most important thing in the world. It’s the one gesture of choice you have, the one conscious...
Best. Christmas. Ever.
A Christmas miracle happened today! I was starting to get anxious since I hadn’t started my Christmas shopping yet. (It was only yesterday I realized I wasn’t actually going to knit everyone sweaters like I’d been planning.) Then, I heard about this e-commerce site on NPR. It is one-stop-shopping with the perfect Christmas present for everyone, such as, “a malaria net for a...
"The secret of all victory lies in the... →
October 2008
1 post
“I see a changing landscape in which the emphasis is less on the sex than it is...”
– Well - More People Appear to Be Cheating on Their Spouses, Studies Find - NYTimes.com
September 2008
1 post
“The Japanese sociologist Mizuko Ito first noticed it with mobile phones: lovers...”
– Brave New World of Digital Intimacy
July 2008
1 post
Steve Schmidt - the guy who’s running John McCain’s campaign - is like Karl Rove’s son.
Schmidt is probably one of the best targeter of voters in the country. He really knows how to connect one-on-one with voters.
He doesn’t just do polling like other consultants - he uses commercial market studies.
He reduces voting to who shops at Wal-Mart, Target and Costco and how to...
April 2008
5 posts
“Wal-Mart pays some of its employees such a low wage that they must subsist on a...”
– Democratic Staff of House Comm. on Education and the Workforce (report by Rep. George Miller), Everyday Low Wages: The Hidden Price We Pay for Wal-Mart, 8 (Feb. 16, 2004).
shbrown: Mountain biking is the golf of venture... →
“Roughly two-thirds of new oil demand is coming from countries that have...”
– Christopher Ruppel, a senior geopolitical analyst with the consulting firm John S. Herold. in Where gasoline is cheap, and why it is making yours pricey - May. 4, 2007
“It is all about interestingness, and algorithmic detection of interestingness...”
– Paul Kedrosky: Productivity Note: Three Tools, and a Funeral
March 2008
14 posts
What Microloans Miss: Financial Page: The New... →
PowerPoint presentation about using principles of... →
On Professional Blogging
I dislike having a blog, particularly a professional one. It doesn’t seem a professionally wise move: you are bound to write something idiotic on them. However, while perhaps not wise, blogs are much too useful to ignore. So useful that I now consider it a professional responsibility to have one, and want everyone I work with to have one too. I find them to be the single most useful tool in...
(Notes from Legal Futures, Hal Varian)
The Kaplan program @ Santa Fe Institute. Everyone else wanted to prove their theory was correct, but I really needed the 10,000 prize. He let everyone else do the price discovery, then he snatched all the trades. An index fund — you’re letting markets decide on the price then you’re buying at the market. Soon, everyone else was doing this....
Self and its corollary as currency. Rise of the printing press prioritized the vernacular. Photography and its effects on war and photography. Africa — phone minutes as currency. HP a net jewel (energy) expenditure. Our conception of ourselves, our time, and the amount we touch other people.
New kinds of groups to share rewards and risks. Opening bank accounts, getting insurance, having...
shbrown: At Legal Futures listening to Kramer talk... →
Eben Moglen asking Kevin Martin about whether the FCC is going to require disclosure requirement for network management practices? He says yes, that this is going to be critical for whether the FCC determines whether this is an effective management practice. He says the complaint process gives them the opportunity to address this, and agrees that it would be helpful in being able to fully...
“Make visible, simple unifying metrics visible to the entire company.”
“Beware multiple simultaneous essential innovations. BART made this mistake: cars...”
“The 20th century was about sorting out supply. The 21st is going to be about...”
– This Psychologist Might Outsmart the Math Brains Competing for the Netflix Prize
“[A]s I’ve emphasized in three other postings, if you choose a good...”
– fluidinfo
“Data Property Rights, Not Portability”
– from GigaOm
shbrown: On Virgin America, GNU/Linux is booting... →
Legal Futures
The Google/Stanford conference about the future of law that I’ve been helping plan for months is finally finally happening. I thought I should at least announce it on my blog, since I’d been to busy to tell anyone, and a friend called to say: “Is that the conference you’ve been planning? He told me it’s all sold out (I’m not handling the, um, details) so you...
shbrown: @pierre: Being Chris Anderson's kids... →
February 2008
11 posts
Oh Google. You’re so clever. You ‘ve democratized the greek choir. Every so often I’ll glance over to the AdWords beside my emails, and I’ll hear the haunting warnings of my downfall.
Some pretend conversations. To illustrate.
> We have to stop this conversation. Right now.
> > Why?
> > > Because, an ad for a life coach just appeared
>...
“[I]f you can’t take their money, drink their whiskey, [sleep with] their...”
– Jesse Unruh, a former speaker of the California House, on lobbyists
The Problem With Politics: Not Enough Alcohol
Barbara Holland gives an account of the heavy drinking that went on in the evenings of the Constitutional Convention.
[A]djourned to a tavern for some rest, and according to the bill they drank 54 bottles of Madeira, 60 bottles of claret, 8 of whiskey, 22 of port, 8 of hard cider and 7 bowls of punch so large that, it was said, ducks could swim around in them. Then they went back to work and...
shbrown: Andrew said that Microsoft was like a... →
shbrown: Someone should do a study to find out if... →
How to Deal with the Problem of Corporate...
I’ve been studying corporate law, and find that it’s a fascinating problem in democracy. Corporate law is a question of how to align incentives and produce ethical behavior in a snake-pit of greed. Thus, I find it to be both more advanced, and more applicable to problems of regulating public integrity than most of our other attempts.
Case in point. In recent years, people have...
January 2008
11 posts
shbrown: Reading Gerard Manley Hopkins: "Margaret,... →
shbrown: Oh natural wonder! Oh spring! I just saw... →
“Giorgio warned me, “We have a saying in this business: ‘Privacy and...”
– US intel chief wants carte blanche to peep all ‘Net traffic