The Rogers News

Blog

  • Subway Violinist

    The Washington Post recently ran an article with video depicting Joshua Bell, a violin virtuoso, playing in a Washington D.C. metro stop during morning rush hour. The article notes that of approximately 1000 people to walk by the violinist, less than a dozen even seemed to notice.

    If I still lived in D.C. and I came across the performance, would I stop? Probably not considering that it was in the morning and I would probably be late.

    The article points out how people in Europe or Brazil would stop to take in the world-class entertainment, but what does that say? That the foreigners have more lenient bosses? That they have higher job security? Although we all may like to “stop and smell the roses” on the way to work, the world in which we live often does not allow such leniences.

    If the violinist played in the evening during the homeward commute, I posit that the reception would be much warmer.

  • Big Decisions

    Most of the last eight years of my life have been trying to figure out what I want to do with it. Getting an education was always a driving force in my decision making. At the end of high school the persistent question was where to go to college. For half of college the big question was what to major in. And after deciding that, where to work when I graduated. Working after graduating was interesting, however it wasn’t settling because it reminded me I had a lot more to learn, and kept me eager to go to grad school. So, during the two years I was working I was also focusing on where to go to law school. Now that I’m in law school, I’ll be looking for a job soon – a continuation of the two-year cycle. And I’m sure it will continue well into my life.

    The clip below is from an essay titled “The Power of the Marginal” by Paul Graham. It’s interesting with regard to how to select a major. I think the general principles of the excerpt can be extracted and applied beyond the university setting.

    One way to tell whether a field has consistent standards is the overlap between the leading practitioners and the people who teach the subject in universities. At one end of the scale you have fields like math and physics, where nearly all the teachers are among the best practitioners. In the middle are medicine, law, history, architecture, and computer science, where many are. At the bottom are business, literature, and the visual arts, where there’s almost no overlap between the teachers and the leading practitioners. It’s this end that gives rise to phrases like “those who can’t do, teach.”

    Incidentally, this scale might be helpful in deciding what to study in college. When I was in college the rule seemed to be that you should study whatever you were most interested in. But in retrospect you’re probably better off studying something moderately interesting with someone who’s good at it than something very interesting with someone who isn’t. You often hear people say that you shouldn’t major in business in college, but this is actually an instance of a more general rule: don’t learn things from teachers who are bad at them.

  • Beyond YouTube

    We’ve all heard of people making fools of themselves on YouTube, but Justin.tv just seems weird to me. It is a 24/7 video and audio feed of a guy doing nothing special. He’s not an adventurer, a sports star, or a sweet sixteen-year old, which means he doesn’t qualify for A&E or MTV. It has been effective viral marketing, which has led to publicity – but publicity for what?

    It just seems like we should all have better things to do than watch someone else live their not-so-interesting life … or read my blog I guess. Ha.

    PS – I’m still trying to decide if the online mini-series “Prom Queen” is interesting. It is 80 two-minute episodes. They’re on episode seven or eight now.

  • My Oral Argument

    I have to present an oral argument in a week for a mock moot court case we’re doing in Legal Skills. It involves a police officer who, while off-duty, beat a man. There are two issues that I must argue. First, whether the court of appeals has jurisdiction to hear the plaintiff’s appeal. Second, whether the officer acted under the color of law. I represent the defendant (police officer) and kind of have my back up against the wall.

    I did a practice oral argument for Legal Skills today. It went OK, but I was nervous and it showed. Apparently, I said, “um,” 51 times in ten minutes. Someone was actually counting. I was advised to reference my case law before the judges do; this will put me on the offensive as opposed to the defensive because I will be able to highlight the stronger analogies. I also need to be less monotone and more detailed, however my pacing was good and I was direct and clear.

    The final question asked of me was, “How do you arrest an unconscious man?” To which I replied, “I would like to conclude my argument here…” I had no answer… I froze… but, now that I’m home I know how to answer it. So, I guess that’s one roadblock I know how to avoid when the real argument comes up.

  • Super Foods

    In trying to get fit, I’ve been paying closer attention to what I eat and drink. Here’s a list of super foods that I should probably incorporate into my diet:

    * Beans
    * Blueberries
    * Broccoli
    * Oats
    * Oranges
    * Pumpkin
    * Salmon
    * Soy
    * Spinach
    * Tea
    * Tomatoes
    * Turkey
    * Walnuts
    * Yogurt

    For help using these foods in a meal, try Google’s Base Recipe suggestions. Insert the ingredients you wish to you and it will suggest meals. Or, alternatively go to Allrecipes.com.

  • Ballpark Location

    Alex Reisner has made the observation that baseball parks are built differently depending on whether they are located in an urban or rural area. Further:

    Professional baseball teams must play in places where fans can go to see them. Before the 1950s this meant that they played in cities where the population was dense and public transportation available. In the 1950s, however, as cars became affordable and good roads the rule rather than the exception, the growing class of car owners began to move to the suburbs. It was no longer necessary to locate a ballpark in the city, and it became common practice to build on the outskirts where land was cheaper, parking safer, zoning rules more lax, and events generally less disruptive.

    He notes that ballparks built after 1960 when personal transportation was more widely used are more symetrical and larger, while the shape of ballparks built before that time are often irregular and smaller so they fit into a city center. Look at the New York Mets’ Shea Staduim on the left and the Boston Red Sox Fenway Park on the right below.

  • The Economics of Beanie Babies

    Here’s an interesting passage from Ty, Inc. v. Publications Int’l, Ltd., a case I recently read in Introduction to Intellectual Property. The case is concerning whether Publications Int’l is violating Ty’s copyright by publishing books with images of Ty’s Beanie Babies. The description of Ty’s marketing strategy is used to set up the differences and similarities between children’s and collectors’ approach.

    As a marketing gimmick, Ty deliberately creates a shortage in each Beanie Baby by selling it at a very low price and not producing enough copies to clear the market at that price. As a result, a secondary market is created, just like the secondary market in works of art. The secondary market gives widespread publicity to Beanie Babies, and the shortage that creates the secondary market stampedes children into nagging their parents to buy them the latest Beanie Babies, lest they be humiliated by not possessing the Beanie Babies that their peers possess. The appeal is to the competitive conformity of children – but also to the mentality of collectors.

    As far as I’m concerned, the best use for Beanie Babies was to wipe the dust off computer and TV screens.