prior probability

Forty years ago Sol LeWitt created a piece of art called “The Area of Manhattan Between the Places I Have Lived Is Removed” in which he cut out the geographical area between all the places he had lived in New York City, superimposed on a satellite image of NYC. Fast forward to 2020 and check out this app on Glitch by Matt Miller, which allows you to make your own Sol LeWitt-style map. (Hat tip: @kottke.) For your reference, here is my “Between the Places” map from when I lived in San Juan, Puerto Rico from 1993 to 2009:

Compared to last year, I slowed down my scholarly production somewhat. In addition to my regular teaching duties, I published a full-length law review article in the Chapman Law Review on Guaranteed Income: Chronicle of a Political Death Foretold and wrote up a new academic paper on Adam Smith in Love, which is under review at the Econ Journal Watch. In addition, I authored two substantive book reviews, one titled “Cowen’s Capitalist Manifesto“, a review of the paperback edition of Tyler Cowen’s love letter to big business; the other on “Frank Ramsey’s Contributions to Probability Theory and Legal Theory“, a review of Cheryl Misak’s intellectual biography of the English polymath.

Lastly, and perhaps leastly, two additional mid-year scholarly contributions of mine were inspired by the current pandemic: Lockdowns as Takings, a mostly normative paper in which I explain why “non-essential” business owners are entitled to just compensation under the Takings Clause instead of meager scraps of PPP loans under the wasteful CARES Act, and Teaching Tiger King, to be published in the St Louis University Law Journal next year, in which I explain how I used the hit Netflix show “Tiger King: Murder, Mayhem, and Madness” to teach business law in an online format.

From our longtime friends at the Black Bean Deli on Colonial Drive in Orlando, Florida. ¡Feliz Navidad!

What other activities have our modern-day Puritans tried to ban? More details here, via OpenCulture.

That is the title of this report by Gareth Dorrian and Ian Whittaker, via phys.org. Today (21 Dec.) marks the winter solstice, the shortest day of the year.

… the label might look like this:

Lesson of the day: all of our foods, even all-natural ones, are full of chemical compounds. More details here and here, via James Kennedy. Hat tip: @pickover.

Speaking of human mortality (cf. my previous post), I just learned that Judge Ralph K. Winter has died. Judge Winter was my business organizations and securities regulation professor at my alma mater, Yale Law School, and along with Guido Calabresi, was my mentor and role model.

More details here, via Wikipedia. Hat tip: @pickover.