A blogged dialogue? Or a dialogic blog?

A blogged dialogue? Or a dialogic blog?

Nobel laureate Gary Becker and judicial polymath Richard Posner have set up a joint blog in which they will have one posting a week arguing about a significant issue. I’ve been reading and admiring Posner’s stuff for years. This is a really interesting idea. Here’s how they introduce the concept:

“Blogging is a major new social, political, and economic phenomenon. It is a fresh and striking exemplification of Friedrich Hayek’s thesis that knowledge is widely distributed among people and that the challenge to society is to create mechanisms for pooling that knowledge. The powerful mechanism that was the focus of Hayek[base ‘]s work, as as of economists generally, is the price system (the market). The newest mechanism is the ‘blogosphere.’ There are 4 million blogs. The internet enables the instantaneous pooling (and hence correction, refinement, and amplification) of the ideas and opinions, facts and images, reportage and scholarship, generated by bloggers.

We have decided to start a blog that will explore current issues of economics, law, and policy in a dialogic format. Initially we will be posting just once a week, on Mondays. In time we may post more frequently.”

If you can’t beat ’em, buy them

If you can’t beat ’em, buy them

Alan Murray has a terrific column in the Wall Street Journal about the way the Computer and Communications Industry Association has been bought off by Microsoft.

The article begins…

“Ed Black, the head of a struggling computer trade group, spent a decade on a quixotic quest to slay mighty Microsoft for its antitrust abuses. “A rapacious monopoly,” he called it. The company’s behavior is “consistently, constantly illegal.” It “steamrollers companies” and “crushes the few who will not bend to their will.” When the government settled its antitrust case against Microsoft in 2001, Mr. Black said it was “selling out consumers, competition, and all those who want a vibrant, innovative high-tech industry contributing strength to our economy.”

Well … never mind. Microsoft is still every bit the monopolist it was a decade ago. But Mr. Black is a changed man. He will personally pocket millions of dollars as part of a nearly $25 million settlement he negotiated between Microsoft and his trade group, the Computer and Communications Industry Association. In return, he will abandon his antitrust efforts against the company.

It’s as if Ralph Nader had been bought off by General Motors. And everybody ends up happy.”

And it concludes…

“The Microsoft saga serves as a reminder of an important truth: Capitalists, for the most part, don’t care much for capitalism. Their goal is to make money. And if they can do it without messy competition, so much the better. As long as it keeps its monopoly, Microsoft can afford to share the wealth with its onetime rivals. For Microsoft, those fines and payments add up to less than a year’s profit from the operating system. For the others, it’s easier to take Microsoft’s money than fight.”

How to win at roulettte

How to win at roulettte

Bring some kit to the casino. Specifically a laser scanner inside a mobile phone linked to a computer. The scanner measures the speed of the roulette ball as the croupier releases it, identifies where it falls and measures the declining orbit of the wheel. The data is beamed to the microcomputer, which runs through thousands of possible outcomes to forecast which section numbers the ball will land on. These data are flashed on to the screen of the phone just before the wheel makes its third spin, by which time all bets must be placed. Having thus reduced the odds of winning from 37-1 to 6-1, you then place bets on all six numbers in the section where the ball is predicted to end up. Then pocket your winnings. And it’s all perfectly legal. See the Times story of the trio who won £1.3 million in the Ritz casino on London using the above method.

What next for IBM?

What next for IBM?

So IBM has found a buyer (Lenovo — China’s largest PC manufacturer) for its PC business. What will it do with the cash? One theory is that it will either try to buy Apple, or at least form a joint venture with Steve Jobs. Hmmm… IBM should remember what happened to Disney, which once gleefully partnered with Mr Jobs’s other company Pixar, and is now licking the resulting wounds.

The Pro-Am revolution

The Pro-Am revolution

No, not golf tournaments in which professionals team up with B-list celebs, but the title of an interesting Demos pamphlet by Charlie Leadbeater and Paul Miller about how amateurs are increasingly doing their hobbies to a professional standard — and in the process doing a lot of good for society. I’ve always been irritated by people who use the term ‘amateur’ as a term of disparagement. In doing so they impute connotations of incompetence or frivolity. But the word ‘amateur’ actually means doing something for the love of it (Latin amo = I love) rather than for mere money. The open source movement is a terrific example of a powerful movement driven by ‘amateurs’ who produce code to a ‘professional’ standard. Indeed, sometimes to a higher standard than the stock-optioned professionals working for certain software monopolists.

A deal a day keeps bankruptcy at bay

A deal a day keeps bankruptcy at bay

Here’s an novel twist — an e-commerce site that sells only one thing a day. That’s it — when it’s the stock is sold, the store effectively closes for the day. Think of it as an anti-portal. And yet Woot.com has apparently racked up sales of $10 million in about five months. When I last looked, it was selling a wireless adapter for Sony Playstations at $10 (plus $5 p&P) a go. Part of its success may be due to the fact that it makes intelligent use of RSS in a way that online stores selling thousands of items cannot do.

The dangers of MIT

The dangers of MIT

Well, well. How about this para from a report in Forbes.com?

“Aizenman said he is concerned that without such testing it is not known if, for example, a pregnant woman who is exposed to MIT could put her fetus at risk for abnormal brain development. People working directly with MIT are those most at risk, he said.”

I’ve often wondered about some of those folks from MIT. But, sadly, the story turns out to be about the dangers of shampoo. It turns out that an ingredient found in shampoos, hand lotions and paint causes neurons to die. The chemical, methylisothiazolinone, has been assigned the acronynm MIT by chemists. It belongs to a class of compounds called biocides which are are used in the manufacture of many common household products and industrial water cooling systems to prevent bacteria from developing. According to the National Institutes of Health, brands containing MIT include the shampoos Head and Shoulders, Suave, and Clairol, as well as Pantene hair conditioner and Revlon hair color.

Phew! This is one of the few cases where losing one’s hair puts one ahead.

(Thanks to Gerard for the link.)

Perspective on the US election

Perspective on the US election

John Perry Barlow has found a lovely passage:

“A little patience, and we shall see the reign of witches pass over, their spells dissolve, and the people, recovering their true sight, restore their government to its true principles. It is true that in the meantime we are suffering deeply in spirit, and incurring the horrors of a war and long oppressions of enormous public debt……If the game runs sometimes against us at home we must have patience till luck turns, and then we shall have an opportunity of winning back the principles we have lost, for this is a game where principles are at stake.”

Who wrote it? Answer: Thomas Jefferson, in a letter he sent in 1798 after the passage of the Sedition Act.