prior probability

Did you know there are no less than 10 separate addresses (see map below) in the leafy Georgetown neighborhood of Washington, D.C. associated with John F. Kennedy and Jacqueline Onassis? My wife and I spent the day visiting some of these places; you can read about all 10 locations here.

Happy birthday, Mrs Robinson!

We just ordered our copy of Richard Posner’s new book (pictured below). Along with “Moral Machines” by Wendell Wallace, we will read Posner’s new book and report back soon. (For now, all we will say is this: we think Posner is onto something. Procedural rules can be very complex, so State and federal courts are very inhospitable to pro se litigants, i.e. regular people who aren’t able to afford an attorney. The question is: what, if anything, should we do about this legal failure?)

We are attending a symposium on “Internet freedom” at GW Law School in Washington, D.C. today (22 Sept.). My only complaint is that I wish the Federalist Society, which sponsored the conference, had invited Professor Larry Lessig, a champion of Internet regulation and “net neutrality,” to defend the social costs (see below) of Internet regulation. (Note: we will discuss the pros and cons of Internet regulation in future posts.)

Credit: Prof. Michelle P. Connolly

1. BFI: Are you a replicant?
2. Urban Dictionary: Voight-Kampff machine
3. All the tests: Voight-Kampff test questions
4. Google Scholar: Voight Kampf
5. YouTube: Ridley Scott’s favorite scene from Blade Runner (see below)

Estamos con la Ciudad de Mexico y la Isla de Puerto Rico.

Check out the fictional floor plans of the Cantina in Star Wars, the offices of Sterling Cooper in Mad Men, and many others here, via bizdaq. (Hat tip: digg.)

Is Donald Trump surrounded by white supremacists? Is it disrespectful and downright rude to sit down during the national anthem? Although we think Jemele Hill and Colin Kaepernick (pictured below) are wrong, as good libertarians (and good Bayesians!), aren’t we morally obligated to defend their moral right to express themselves? (After all, they might be right!) But that said, by the same logic, don’t NFL team owners and whoever calls the shots at ESPN also have the reciprocal right not to hire (or fire) people they disagree with? If so, whose right to speech should prevail in these cases? More fundamentally, what is the “optimal amount” of free speech?

Read more about the “Lego Mona Lisa” in Duncan Macleod’s post: Lego Masters in Pixel Art.

Hat tip: Cliff Pickover