The nice thing about the “Rule of Law” framing for an argument …

… is that it’s a really easy way to get people to ignore thinking about the ramifications and consequences of the particular situation, focusing their attention instead on the general opprobrium for the principle of order. The mind gets caught thinking about whether laws, in theory, are good on the whole, and forget to think … Read more

Klout: A good idea. Too bad it’s complete bullshit.

Oh, Klout.  I want to love you, but you just won’t let me.

Let me begin this post by saying that Klout, the web site that claims to measure social media influence, isn’t a terrible idea.  There’s a really good reason to want a decent methodology for determining influence online.  After all, if you’re going to be spending time and effort to reach out to your audiences through social media, it makes sense to try to target the audience members who are most influential, and most likely to use their influence to talk up your product or service.

The idea is solid.  But Klout’s implementation is terrible, for one simple reason.  Their algorithm is ridiculously bad.

I’m not the first person to point this out.  But until today, I was willing to give them the benefit of the doubt; maybe it works, mostly, with little problems here and there.  But in fact, their ratings just don’t bear any resemblance to reality.

To demonstrate, have a look at the screen caps after the jump.  These were all taken today.

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Are email disclaimers legally enforceable?

Another post inspired by a mailing list post.

Today, a young lady posted, without context of any kind, an email to a semi-public email listserv, asserting:

Disclaimer:  All communication sent from charityXXXXX@XXXXX.COM, or from Charity XXXXX
is privileged communication, owned exclusively by Charity XXXXX, as proprietary owner/ideas and information as copyright. No duplication, dissemination or profit from the above-mentioned material may occur without the express discretionary consent of owner, Charity XXXXX.
Copyright Charity XXXXX 1958-2012
All rights reserved

You see a lot of these kinds of things these days.  Problem is, they’re completely pointless.  As was pointed out by the Economist back in April of last year.  And by Slate, in 2004.  In fact, the only thing I can find which indicates these sort of stupid things have any merit is this guy, and then only in very limited circumstances.

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Why I’m never going to buy a Groupon

Does this look like good business to you? Photo via Techcrunch

A couple of evenings ago, I went to a little spot around the corner from my house, here in the far north side of Chicago.  It’s a friendly little place, and I like it quite a bit — their prices are fair, their food is decent, and some of the folks on staff recognize me and say ‘hi’ when I come in.  What’s even better is that they have a nice selection of microbrews, scotches, and even some really rare stuff from time to time.

So, I’m sitting at the bar, enjoying a burger and a Guinness, and a fellow comes in and stands next to me while he collects his order from the bartender.  He’d ordered a to-go order of some sort of food, and I noticed he was using a Groupon to help pay for it.

“So,” I asked the bartender, “what are your thoughts on the whole Groupon thing?”

The bartender surprised me with his reply.  “It may well put us out of business,” he said.

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Biological differences between the liberal brain and the conservative brain

CC-licensed image, courtesy of Mr. Physics, via Flickr

An excellent post today on the Dangerous Minds blog, and an ensuing discussion on Facebook got me to thinking about the differences between the minds of conservative folks and liberal folks.

Namely, why should it be that so many conservatives have such a hard time changing their opinions when presented with bald facts that contradict those opinions?

We normally think of humans as rational agents.  That is, we expect the beliefs we each hold are based on some sort of evidence and argument, and as more data becomes available to a person, they should update their model of how the world works.  But often, in practice, it doesn’t seem to work out that way.

(This is going to turn out to be a long post.)

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Transparency and objectivity in journalism: Possible? Desirable?

This post is an amalgam of several emails I sent to a private journalism-related listserv.  I’ve got a project brewing in the ol’ noggin relating to journalism, objectivity, and transparency.  I figured I’d post this publicly, in the hopes of soliciting more opinions, so please feel free to post in the comments. So, one of … Read more