prior probability

Social network playlist (part 1)

Posted on February 14, 2017 by F. E. Guerra-Pujol

If you have been following this blog, then you know that we have been using the movie “The Social Network” (and the book “Accidental Billionaires” on which the film is based) to teach our business law course. What you may not be aware of, however, is our “Social Network” music playlist: the songs we play at the beginning of each lecture (while we are setting up our slides and surveys) to set the tone for that class. So, as we approach the halfway point of this spring semester, here is our playlist thus far:

Class #1: Atticus Ross & Trent Reznor, “Hand covers bruise” (social network theme song)

Class #2: 50 Cent, “In da club” (instrumental) (#1 song of 2003, i.e. the year the opening of the movie is set)

Class #3: Beyoncé featuring Sean Paul, “Baby boy” (#1 song of November 2003, i.e. during the Facemash fiasco)

Class #4: Drake, “Back to back” (instrumental) (because in this class we consider the legal consequences of Mark’s back-to-back promises, first with the Winklevoss twins, then with Eduardo)

Class #5: Drake, “Fake love” (instrumental) (because we discuss the law of fraud in this class)

Class #6: Usher, “Yeah!” (instrumental) (#1 song of February 2004, the month Zuckerberg launched “thefacebook”)

Happy Valentine’s Day, Sydjia!

Posted in Culture, Music | 1 Comment

Why are abstracts of law review articles so damn long?

Posted on February 13, 2017 by F. E. Guerra-Pujol

Years ago, we blogged on the state of legal scholarship by posing the following question: why are modern law reviews so dull, tedious, and boring? The problem is that most law review articles today are way too long and have far too many footnotes for their own good. (As an aside, we are certainly not the first to rail against stodgy and tiresome scholarship in legal academia: check out this this blog post from 2006 or Fred Rodell’s classic essay “Goodbye to Law Reviews” published in 1936!) This troublesome trend is now spilling over into the domain of abstracts. Most law professors upload their papers on SSRN (the Social Science Research Network), which requires authors to post a short abstract of their work. But we have noticed that many of these so-called “abstracts” are quite lengthy and tedious themselves, often approaching a 1000 words or more, with multiple paragraphs. By way of example, the abstract of this fascinating work in progress by Nicholas R. Parrillo (Yale Law School) is over 600 words and takes up five separate paragraphs. But then again, I suppose 600+ words is not too bad, especially when compared to 91 pages and 478 footnotes–the total number of pages and footnotes in Professor Parillo’s paper!

Image result for average number of footnotes in law review articles

Credit: Douglas A. Berman (note: HLR = Harvard Law Review)

Posted in Academia, Bayesian Reasoning, Game Theory, Law | 3 Comments

Emancipation Proclamation

Posted on February 12, 2017 by F. E. Guerra-Pujol

In honor of Honest Abe’s birthday today (2/12), we pose the following essay question regarding the Emancipation Proclamation, one of the most famous executive orders of all time. Was President Lincoln’s historic proclamation constitutional? That is, did Lincoln have the constitutional or legal authority to liberate the slaves without direct authorization from the Congress?

Posted in History, Law | Leave a comment

Square-Mile Street Network Visualization Project

Posted on February 11, 2017 by F. E. Guerra-Pujol

As part of his PhD dissertation in urban planning, Geoff Boeing has developed a computer program that visualizes one-square mile of the road network of any major city in the world. (Check out his cool website here.) By way of example, below are the square-mile street network visualizations of midtown Manhattan, the central Place de l’Étoile in Paris, the medina quarter of the ancient city of Tunis in North Africa, and downtown Atlanta:

OSMnx: Figure-ground diagrams of one square mile of Manhattan New York, Paris France, Tunis Tunisia, and Atlanta Georgia shows the street network, urban form, and urban design in these cities with Python in the style of Allan Jacobs Great Streets and Nolli maps

Image Credit: Geoff Boeing

Posted in Art, Culture, History, Maps | 2 Comments

Black History Data Visualization

Posted on February 10, 2017 by F. E. Guerra-Pujol

In honor of Black History Month, we are reposting this hand-drawn visualization of demographic data created by W. E. B. Du Bois in the year 1900. You can find more such turn-of-the-century data visualizations here. (Hat tip: digg.)

Credit: W. E. B. Du Bois

Posted in Culture, Economics, History, Science | 2 Comments

Class No. 5 (Lies and Deception)

Posted on February 9, 2017 by F. E. Guerra-Pujol

When was the last time you were lied to, or when was the last time you told a lie? In our next class, we will study the law and ethics of deception. Generally speaking, it is morally wrong to tell a lie, but when does deceit in our daily interactions or in our business affairs cross the line of legal liability? Specifically, when does deception constitute the tort of deceit or fraudulent misrepresentation? (After all, most business deals and arms-length contract negotiations often involve some level of bluster and bluffing.) For example, in the movie “The Social Network,” does the fictional version of Mark Zuckerberg engage in unfair competition or commit business fraud (i.e. the tort of fraudulent misrepresentation) by pretending to be working on the Harvard Connection website when, in fact, he is really working on his own new facebook website? For what it’s worth, the common law defines the tort of deceit/fraud rather narrowly–see below for a complete listing of all the legal elements a plaintiff must prove in order to establish a case for fraud.

Continue reading →

Posted in Ethics, Law | Leave a comment

Visualization of a “design arms race” (soda can edition)

Posted on February 8, 2017 by F. E. Guerra-Pujol

Why do the designs of the Dr Pepper and Squirt soda cans change less frequently (i.e. are more stable over time) than the designs of Pepsi and Coke cans?

Hat tip: Michael Sandberg

Posted in Economics, Game Theory | 3 Comments

Mini maps

Posted on February 6, 2017 by F. E. Guerra-Pujol

Photo credit: F.E. Guerra-Pujol

Posted in Maps | Leave a comment

Skew dice

Posted on February 5, 2017 by F. E. Guerra-Pujol

Monday Math Day?! Meet Robert Fathauer and Henry Segerman, authors of the Dice Lab and creators of “skew dice” (pictured below)–strange-looking dice that still generate fair odds. In their words: “When tossed, a fair die yields its various numbers or symbols with equal probability, regardless of details of the surface or the toss. The shapes of dice are based on polyhedra, solids whose faces are polygons. To ensure fairness, each face of the polyhedron should have an identical relationship to the other faces …”

Just in case, here is a short explanation of the mathematics of their skew dice: “Considerable thought went into the numbering of the dice. The starting point was locating the largest number opposite the smallest number (on opposing faces), the next largest opposite the next smallest, etc. This convention is widely followed in dice design. The next priority was to distribute the numbers as uniformly as possible. That was accomplished by balancing the sums of the numbers on each group of faces surrounding a vertex … Note that the average numerical value per face for an n-sided die is (n + 1)/2.” (Hat tip: Cliff Pickover.)

Posted in Uncategorized | Leave a comment

Facebook’s birthday

Posted on February 4, 2017 by F. E. Guerra-Pujol

Facebook was launched from Mark Zuckerberg’s dorm room 13 years ago today (it was called thefacebook back then), yet there is still no DISLIKE button after all these years. But when should the billionaire CEO celebrate Facebook’s birthday: when he first registered the URL for thefacebook.com, when he created the first Facebook profile while the site was in beta, or when Zuckerberg and his fellow cofounders filed the legal paperwork to incorporate their company. (Thanks to Dino Grandoni for pointing out these alternative Facebook birthdays to us.)