Radio Attack

Nothing to hide

chris — Mon, 10 Sep 2012 07:00:24 +0000

Debunking a common fallacy: If you’ve done nothing wrong, then you have nothing to hide.

Submarine cable map

chris — Mon, 30 Jul 2012 06:11:24 +0000

TeleGeography published this fascinating, interactive guide to undersea telecom cables.

Tiny Linux Systems

chris — Mon, 16 Jul 2012 07:49:30 +0000

The wave of interest in running Linux on very small ARM devices has resulted in some unique products. From the widely covered Raspberry Pi to lower profile Trim-Slice, variety abounds. Check out this list of a dozen such systems with hardware specs, motivations, and prices for each.

The Peace Prize President

chris — Thu, 12 Jul 2012 04:33:32 +0000

While raiding a house that turned out to be a wrong address, i.e. inhabited by an innocent family, DEA agents put a loaded gun to the head of an 11 year-old girl who was sleeping in her bed. Defending these agents, the Justice Department of our Nobel Peace Prize-winning President argued in court that it’s appropriate for law enforcement officers to maliciously terrorize young, innocent children. Read excerpts from the disgusting argument in Reason.

Patent pollution

chris — Thu, 05 Jul 2012 06:53:11 +0000

Dan Ravicher, lecturer at the Cardozo School of Law at Yeshiva University, spoke at Google about the intellectual property bureaucracy and patent quality. The presentation is a great introduction to the perverse incentives responsible for the miserable, innovation-hostile state of intellectual property in the USA.

LEGO Turing Machine

chris — Tue, 19 Jun 2012 15:35:51 +0000

To celebrate Alan Turing Year, researchers in the Netherlands built a LEGO Turing machine. Sadly, it doesn’t have infinite tape.

The Institutional Dependence Argument Is Invalid and Irrelevant

chris — Thu, 14 Jun 2012 07:36:32 +0000

Jason Brennan explains brilliantly:

The libertarian responds by saying, “Doesn’t the IDA undermine left-liberalism as well, not just libertarianism?” They respond by saying, “Oh, no, because civil liberties, unlike economic liberties, are special.” But this just means that the IDA is irrelevant to determining whether a government action violates our rightful liberties or holdings.

Against Utilitarianism, abridged

chris — Mon, 14 May 2012 07:24:05 +0000

Utilitarianism is false in ~1200 words.

Immunity for torturers, prison for whistleblowers

chris — Sun, 06 May 2012 09:17:06 +0000

Jesselyn Radack is a lawyer who worked for the Department of Justice Professional Responsibility Advisory Office. For insisting that the government obey the law when prosecuting Americans accused of terrorism crimes, she was fired and persecuted to the fullest abilities of the federal government. She is uniquely qualified to draw attention to the Obama administration’s scorched-earth war on whistleblowers.

The law-breaking telecoms who received retroactive immunity from Congress, the interrogators who tortured prisoners, the officials who gave the orders, the attorneys who authored the torture memos, and the CIA agents who destroyed the interrogation tapes have not been held professionally accountable, much less been charged with crimes. National security and intelligence whistleblowers have become the glaring exception to the Obama administration’s mantra of “looking forward, not backward.” If you committed crimes under the guise of national security and the war on terrorism, you will not be held criminally liable, but if you blow the whistle on crimes, you risk criminal prosecution under the Espionage Act.

Collateral and shadow money

chris — Tue, 10 Apr 2012 18:39:05 +0000

FT Alphaville has a great post about the money-like properties of collateral in the shadow banking system. It summarizes a note from Credit Suisse that tries to quantify how the repo market impacts the money supply. Both are majestic, especially the Alphaville post for how clearly it places collateral in the monetary policy framework. Diagrams like this make the subject accessible even to non-economists: