Blog: January 2008

NYPD: you need a permit to know if you're in danger

The NYPD has turned into just the sort of police force any dictator would love. Last year they gained the ability to arrest people for walking or biking in a group; now, they want to stop people from checking their own air quality. Dancing is already illegal. Meanwhile, many officers don't believe they should be forced to obey the law at all.

Readers of this book score higher on the SAT!

Via the Freakonomics blog, Freakonomics is one of the top five books ranked by the average SAT scores of colleges where it is popular. Steven Levitt makes the obvious point that most likely reading Freakonomics and the other top books does not improve your score, but rather highly-scoring people read it. One commenter, Dan, suggested,

You could put that on the cover of the next printing—"Readers of this book score higher on the SAT!" It would be risky, though. People might buy the book, read it and learn that correlation does not imply causation, and then protest the authors.

It's actually perfect: a statement that would be most likely to persuade people who don't understand correlation vs. causation to buy a book that would teach them about correlation vs. causation.

posted on Jan 31, 2008 2:33 pm (comment)

tags: economics, numeracy

Anti-bicycle plus hate radio mentality equals a long jail term

I don't know if Melissa Arrington's friends listened to Rush Limbaugh-style hate radio, but that type of attitude, plus an unhealthy dose of anti-bicycle mentality, cost her six and a half years of her life. After killing a cyclist while driving drunk, Arrington was sentenced to 10½ years instead of the minimum of four because, after hearing that "an acquaintance believed she should get a medal and a parade because she had 'taken out' a 'tree hugger, a bicyclist, a Frenchman and a gay guy all in one shot,'" Arrington remorselessly agreed. "Reminders," as the Charleston Post and Courier put in in their putting-it-mildly headline, "that drivers can be intolerant of cyclists."

posted on Jan 31, 2008 10:45 am (comment)

tags: bicycling, crime, politics

Money trumped justice in UW football

Just as money distorts copyright incentives, here's a chilling report from the Seattle Times of how money distorted far worse: adults' treatment of football star Jerramy Stevens, who kept his scholarship despite a felony assault and drug charge at the end of high school, had no charges filed after he (allegedly) raped a fellow student, received only a $119 fine for fleeing the scene of a car collision he caused, and more. "People make mistakes," said coaches, school officials, and prosecutors. And when a lot of money is at stake, people don't suffer the consequences. Stevens' case is only Part One of a five-part series on criminal conduct by the 2000 UW Huskies and even worse behavior by the adults in charge.

posted on Jan 31, 2008 8:56 am (comment)

tags: crime, Seattle, sports

Photographer sees big dollar signs in copyright

The world of copyright has sunk to a new low: a photographer/blogger excited when people use his pictures without permission, so he can hit them with big fat lawsuits for thousands or tens of thousands of dollars. Ka-ching!

Dan Heller calls this a "windfall" for photographers and offers tips on how to maximize the chance that the infringement counts as "willful", triggering the highest possible damages of $150,000 per image. Public Knowledge calls Heller a "copyright troll", analogous to the "patent trolls" who buy up patents not to build innovative products but to sue everyone in sight.

When a legal system gets out of whack, like the penalties for infringement that lead to a $220,000 judgment for sharing 24 songs, additional consequences are inevitable. Despite the dubious deterrent effect of raising punishments past a certain point, Congress keeps increasing penalties at the behest of the music industry. But copyright law doesn't just apply to music, and citizens are getting caught in the crossfire in many other ways. Maybe we need a different approach.

posted on Jan 31, 2008 8:42 am (comment)

tags: copyright, IP, law

Nice pictures

DCist ran a contest, DCist Exposed, to select amazing photos of DC for an upcoming show. Here are my favorites:

Dupont at Dusk by Sirchek
Bikers Break by intemporelle
You're about to... by krisetya
Cold Night in Arlington by sduffy
Stairs #4 (Red Lady) by andertho
Abandoned Bakery by Ronnie R
Red. Light. District. by chapulin colorado

Update: This rooftop panorama by morganglines (via DC Metrocentric) is spectacular.

posted on Jan 24, 2008 1:43 pm (comment)

tags: photos, Washington

Chiang Mai

I was surprised by Chiang Mai. It's an old city, dating back to 1296, and consists of an "old city" surrounded by a moat and a wall, with newer areas outside. Therefore, I expected the old city to have pretty, old buildings and dramatic public squares. But that's not the way it is.

Thai cooking

Day six of our Asia trip was the only one not scheduled in advance. On a recommendation from a friend, we signed up for a half day cooking class at Chiang Mai Thai Cookery School which was one of the highlights of the whole trip.

Get well Grandma

I haven't been able to post for a few days, because I was up in New York to see my grandma, who had heart surgery. She's ok so far, but nothing is certain yet.

posted on Jan 19, 2008 9:58 am (comment)

tags: family

Holidays with family

I posted some of these pictures a while back, but forgot to link to them from the blog. This year, we celebrated Thanksgiving with Stef's family on the actual holiday, then traveled to Boston the following weekend for Thanksgiving with my family and our annual Hanukkah-Christmas celebration with family friends. My parents visited DC two weeks later, followed by Christmas with Stef's family again, for a wonderfully family-packed month.