Yearly Archives: 2003

Treasures

Posted on October 22, 2003 by Michael Froomkin

National Treasure Russel Baker discusses National Treasure Paul Krugman and the The Awful Truth in the current issue of the The New York Review of Books. A great read, as Russel Baker always is. I miss his weekly columns.

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A Catholic Law and Economics Argument for Respecting Picket Lies

Posted on October 21, 2003 by Michael Froomkin

You don't see stuff like this every day: Stephen Bainbridge's The LA Strikes and the Economic Analysis of Unions uses a prolix merger of Catholic Worker Social Teaching and Law Economics to explain why he doesn't cross picket lines.

Posted in Econ & Money | Comments Off on A Catholic Law and Economics Argument for Respecting Picket Lies

The Practical Nomad Learns to Blog

Posted on October 21, 2003 by Michael Froomkin

Ed Hasbrouck, aka the Practical Nomad, has taken his wonderful mailing list on travel and privacy issues and turned it into a blog. A must-read if you fly or if you care about privacy, and a double must if you fit both categories. There's also an online archive of the traffic from his mailing list.

Posted in Blogs | 1 Comment

How NOT to Install Computer Hardware

Posted on October 21, 2003 by Michael Froomkin

Anyone can put out a small, incomprehensible, and illegible sheet purporting to explain (in a language vaguely like English) how to install computer hardware. But only Hardware Analysis had the forethought to write a crisp, clean, manual on How NOT to install computer hardware. (Found via Slashdot

While an excellent and clearly presented exposition of the basics, this account does not include some of the more advanced subjects serious tyros might expect to see covered. For example, I did not see any discussion of the powerful advantages of bleeding on motherboards, subsequent to cutting onself on the sharp edge of the removed side of the computer case.

Furthermore, too much attention is paid to the dramatic effects caused by removal of large parts which should stay fixed. As a result, insufficient attention is paid to the magnificent effects that can be achieved by dropping a very small screw into invisible and inaccessible crevices. The process of picking up, shaking, and turning over the computer in an attempt to make the loudly rattling screw appear can, I recall, threaten to cause injury not just to the internals, but to the operator and to surrounding furniture as well.

Posted in Sufficiently Advanced Technology | Comments Off on How NOT to Install Computer Hardware

A Case To Watch

Posted on October 21, 2003 by Michael Froomkin

Court Takes Police Identification Case The Supreme Court will hear arguments in Hiibel v. Sixth Judicial District Court of the state of Nevada, 03-5554, this term. The case—which is nominally about whether a state can require you to identify yourself to the police—could have important implications for the right to be anonymous, laws governing any national ID cards, and a host of other interesting things.

It seems to me that at least in some special cases, admitting to one's name could be a form of constitutionally prohibited self-incrimination. And even when it isn't, it's an intrusion on one's privacy. Choosing not to give one's name to the police ought never to be grounds for arrest on its own. And I'm having trouble coming up with a scenario when it ought to be one reason among a totality of circumstances, either. (Obviously, giving a name will sometimes rebut a suspicion that would suffice for an arrest, e.g. demonstrating one is an authorized person not a trespasser in a government building. But that's different — I am trying, and failing, to come up with a hypothetical case where it's proper to consider the failure to give a name as sufficiently suspicious in itself to permit arrest where it otherwise would not be permitted.)

The Nevada case raises this issue directly, since the law in question makes it an offense to refuse to identify yourself to police when suspected of an offense.

Posted in Civil Liberties | Comments Off on A Case To Watch

The Power of Brad

Posted on October 21, 2003 by Michael Froomkin

Get linked to by Brad DeLong, watch traffic spike:

Which raises a question: is there some level of readership needed to justify the effort? I don't think I'm writing to myself. I don't expect a million readers. Somewhere, on the low end of that spectrum, is a happy steady state. Right now, I have no idea what it is, and suppose I won't be in a position to know until the novelty has worn off.

I suspect, though, that in the long run I care about who's reading even more than how many people click in. Judging from the email I'm getting, and the occasional linkage, that's going reasonably well for a startup.

Hits are not everything. Before I started posting my articles online, I wrote one called Still Naked After All These Words . It still gets many more hits than anything else I ever wrote on administrative law.

Now, about that blogroll of yours…

Posted in Discourse.net | Comments Off on The Power of Brad