prior probability

Note: This blog post is from my most recent work-in-progress “A Short History of Adam Smith in Love.”

The earliest published account of Adam Smith’s love life appears in Smith’s first biography, which was written by his academic colleague and friend Dugald Stewart (b. 1753, d. 1828), a noted Scottish philosopher and mathematician in his own right, shortly after Smith’s death in 1790. More specifically, this intriguing account appears in an obscure footnote in Professor Dugald Stewart’s 1793/1794 biography of Adam Smith, which he read to the Royal Society of Edinburgh in January of 1793 and which he subsequently published in 1794. Below the fold is Professor Stewart’s full report of Adam Smith’s love life:

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Have you ever wondered why the great Adam Smith never married or if he ever fell in love? I shared the abstract of my lastest paper about this enigma in my previous post. In fact, the available evidence, though meager, suggests that Smith did fall in love, at least twice in his life! I will carefully review this historical record and evidence piece by piece in my next few posts; in the meantime, below the fold is the full introduction to my “Adam Smith in love” paper (no indentations):

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That is the subject of my latest paper, the full title of which is “A Footnote to the History of Sublimation? A Short History of Adam Smith in Love.” Update (10/29): I once again made additional revisions to my abstract and uploaded a revised and corrected version of my paper to SSRN. Below the fold is my re-revised abstract:

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For your viewing pleasure, pictured below are two sample screenshots taken from 100,000 Stars, a simple but sophisticated website containing a comprehensive and interactive three-dimensional visualization of our nearest 119,617 stars! More details about this beautiful galactic project are available here. Hat tip: @kottke.

Shout out to my colleague and friend Michael Conklin (Angelo State), who inspired the topic of Class #7 of my Advanced Topics in Law class and who is one of the most (if not the most) innovative and entertaining business law professors I have ever had the pleasure of meeting. But why does this question matter? For two reasons: (1) business firms are generally liable for the torts of their employees but not for those of their contractors, and (2) the business models of more and more new economy firms (like Uber and AirBnB) are built on independent contractors. Here are Professor Conklin’s thoughts about this matter, and here are my own previous thoughts on this important question.

Did you know the great rock guitarist Eddie Van Halen was not born in the USA? He was born in Amsterdam, my second-favorite city in the world, after La Habana! Also, check out this excellent essay by Matt Welch titled “Eddie Van Halen, Melting-Pot Virtuoso.” Below is one of my all-time favorite songs from my youth. Rest in peace, Eddie …

I have been watching this beautiful mural take form during my weekly commute to the university (I teach one face-to-face class on Wednesdays), and I finally got to meet the artist, Suhely, last night! Suhely’s mural is located on 517 W. Colonial in Orlando, Florida, and here is her Instagram page.

Given that the results of this year’s presidential contest will most likely be disputed, I will be speaking about these fascinating topics on Tony Suarez’s informative “I need to know” radio program later this week. I will post a link to the radio broadcast in the next day or two. The source for the image below is Akhil Reed Amar’s excellent 2005 book “The Constitution: A Biography.” Professor Amar is a national treasure. I was lucky enough to take a class with him when I was in law school, and he has since become my favorite living constitutional law scholar. (Update (10/8): I forgot to mention that this program will be in Spanish!)

Via David Noll (@davidlnoll), on this day in 2016 Nate Silver of “FiveThirtyEight” fame gave Hillary Rodham Clinton a 78.7% chance of winning the presidency. At the same time, as Mr Silver’s defenders like to remind us, Silver gave Trump a one-in-five chance of winning the 2016 election, while almost everyone else was writing Trump’s chances off completely. Will history repeat itself in 2020? Also, what about prediction markets?