Hypno-Dilbert

I'm just adding another blog to my RSS feeds... and apparently it's the guy who writes Dilbert. How odd.

http://dilbert.com/blog/entry/morality_of_influence/

Mmm... Moist Robots.

Fen-Pen

You may remember that a group of Kentucky lawyers are in trouble for allegedly diverting millions of dollars from a fen-phen class action lawsuit into their own pockets. Yesterday that case took a fascinating twist when judge gave the lawyers in question a choice: stop asking for delays or spend the intervening time in jail. This event is viscerally very satisfying, and if these lawyers did screw their clients out of millions of dollars, I hope they spend the full 20 years in prison. But by putting these very rich white men in the position more often faced by very poor black men, a deep problem with our legal system is highlighted: when your options are to either waive your rights to a fair trial or to sit in jail before that trial, where is the justice?

In this specific case, the judge has basically abdicated his responsibility to make a determination. Bertelsman needs to decide either that the defendants are gaming the system and need to stop, or that in order for them to get a fair trial they require the time they have requested. To leverage them in to giving up their rights is not ethical, not appropriate, and unjust.

But much greater injustices are faced in less notable cases every day. When a poor defendant who cannot make bail is given the choice between a plea agreement and spending time in jail before trial, that choice is meaningless. Lose your livelihood, or lose your right to a fair trial.

So it is important that Bertelsman's decision, which is almost certainly based on his indignation over these lawyers' behavior, not be allowed to stand. But I would also urge that we addressed the bigger issue of pre-trial jail time. And if the fen-phen lawyers spend the time between now and when that larger issue is addressed in jail, my baser emotions will be telling my moral outrage to sit down and shut up.

http://www.cartalk.com/content/features/premium/questions.html

Cents and Sensibilities

A New York Times article about the work of Gregory Clark describes an enthralling new theory for how the seeds for the industrial revolution were planted. A part of that theory is that in the West from 1200 to 1800 the more affluent you were, the more surviving children you were likely to have. The remainder of the theory, which is a bit harder to research and will provide much opportunity for debate, is that the downward mobility that this created (at least relative downward mobility--either Clark or the article's author Wade has overlooked some Malthus) pushed upper class sensibilities into the the middle class. These sensibilities were "nonviolence, literacy, long working hours, and a willingness to save."

Two days ago, NPR ran a piece about children being the new status symbol. With the skyrocketing cost of housing, feeding, and educating children the rich are able to afford more children than poor. One commentator says that this runs counter to the last 100 years of history. Though the NPR piece turns toward the snarky, as parents (read "moms", apparently the dads are disembodied ATMs) "hire consultants to potty train their children." But this temporal juxtaposition of Clark's work and a recognition that children are being born proportionally more to rich parents is fascinating and leads me to ask: what sensibilities will be exported from the rich to the poor over this upcoming period of downward mobility?


http://www.nytimes.com/2007/08/07/science/07indu.html?ei=5087%0A&em=&en=b687b5b6f4a28423&ex=1186632000&pagewanted=print
http://podcastdownload.npr.org/anon.npr-podcasts/podcast/1090/12520633/npr_12520633.mp3

Explosions are no fun.

It's not fun when there's an explosion in a major city during rush-hour. Trust me on this one. But we can thank Bloomberg for accidentally giving us a little deadpan:

"there was cold water getting into the pipe, and cold water apparently causes these to explode"

Who's jumping the shark?

I'm noticing that my posts can sometimes be a little on the negative side. Perhaps I'll concentrate on identifying companies, people, and ideas that have jumped the shark. Of course, being consistently wrong could be just as useful as being consistently correct.

Calacanis is irrelevant

This post is about Jason Calacanis's appearance on TWIT 105: The Day the Music Died.

Listen about 31.5 minutes into TWIT where he talks about paying $75,000 for a domain name. And then says that he wouldn't sell it unless he was getting $7.5 million.

First off, it comes out as conceited. He prefaces it by saying "you can have her on your show every week" about a new employee of his. I would have no interest in working with someone who thought like that, but even less so someone who talks like that.

Second, is this 1999? Did you not notice little sites like Digg, Flickr, del.icio.us? What would possess you to invest in a company where the leadership is eager to spend that kind of money? It reminds me very much of the parties and penthouse office spaces that were a great way to fritter away money in the last tech boom.

You're only interested in 100X return on investment? It's going to be hard to build a fundamentally sound company when you're only interested in that kind of return. Unless you're only putting in $1,000, and clearly that's not you.