Monthly Archives: February 2011

Spot the Difference

Posted on February 21, 2011 by Michael Froomkin

Headline on front page of Miami Herald, Sunday February 20, 2011

The curse of negative home equity:

Hundreds of thousands of South Floridians are underwater on their mortgages, which could have profound impact on the region’s economic recovery, or lack of.

Headline on front page of Miami Herald, Monday, February 21, 2011:

Miami boat, art shows during Presidents’ Day weekend point to a brighter economy

As thousands pack this weekend’s boat and art shows, and fill hotels and restaurants in South Florida, all signs point to an economy on the upswing.

“[A]ll signs point to an economy on the upswing”???

It’s hard to see the headline on the fluff piece in today’s paper — and its placement as the lead story top of the fold — as anything other than a corrective for yesterday’s serious journalism which was a solid article and a welcome antidote to the Herald’s generally boosterish coverage of the local businesses that advertise in it.

The actual article today is a perfectly standard feature story on the Boat Show. It’s the unwarranted headline and the ridiculous placement on a day when revolutions continue in the Middle East and the US hurtles towards a government shutdown that make me suspect the editors.

Posted in Econ & Money: Mortgage Mess, The Media | 2 Comments

Interesting Things Online Today

Posted on February 20, 2011 by Michael Froomkin
Posted in Linkorama | Comments Off on Interesting Things Online Today

The Paperless Office (Like it Or Not)

Posted on February 19, 2011 by Michael Froomkin

The Vice Dean has sent round a memo announcing that in aid of forthcoming office construction projects (we’re hiring a lot of people and they do have to sit somewhere) all faculty file cabinets in common areas are to be taken away, and we must empty them forthwith — in the next four weeks or so (one of which I will be away).  According to reports of a meeting I missed because I was in New York, we may keep the files in our office, or the law school will scan them for us, or if we box them up it will transport the boxes to our home or another location of our choice.  Or of course, if we prefer, we may instead dispose of our files, for which purpose the law school has suggestively positioned large gray plastic dumpsters on wheels in highly visible locations, one partly blocking the entrance to my suite of offices.  The law school kindly promises to empty it as often as needed.

I am a professional pack rat, so I have *a lot* of files in cabinets in our storeroom and cabinets in our common areas. At least two large and wide vertical file cabinets, and a handful of small traditional file cabinets too.

I suppose I’ll have to spend a few hours doing triage on it all.  Perhaps a bit can be thrown away.  Perhaps a good fraction can be scanned, although I wonder how they will name the files in a way that makes them easy to use. And no one has said anything about OCR, so I imagine the resulting files will be inefficient.  Some of the older files, are primarily copies of articles or cases, and the main reason for keeping them is that they serve as a reference list.  Those files would be best if they could be converted into lists that hyperlink to the online versions of the material, but that would take trained labor willing to be bored.  I’m not sure we have that around in sufficient quantity; and I already have several other things I want my research assistant to do in the limited time I’m willing to distract her from studying.

But, at present either I’m going to the paperless office or I will have an office so full of paper (in hard-to-access boxes) that no student, and perhaps not even I, will be able to get in there.

Then again, the law school did say they would transport the boxed files to the location of my choice. Perhaps I should suggest the Vice Dean’s office?

Photo Credit: Mrs Magic.

Posted in Law School, U.Miami | 1 Comment

Is There a Searchable Tweet Archive? (Or Can I Build One?)

Posted on February 17, 2011 by Michael Froomkin

I gather the Library of Congress is archiving all Tweets for eternity. AFAIK, however, this isn’t searchable online.

Is there an online searchable archive of older tweets out there? As Twitter more and more becomes an awareness mechanism, it seems more and more imoprtant to keep an eye on it, or at least keep the option to keep an eye on it.

Failing an online searchable archive, is there a way to direct the increasing number of Twitter feeds I think I ought to read, but often actually don’t get around to reading, into some sort of easily searchable pile, ideally with a friendly front-end?

Posted in Software | 4 Comments

Google Analytics Opt-out Browser Add-on?

Posted on February 16, 2011 by Michael Froomkin

Do I want to install the Google Analytics Opt-out Browser Add-on?  On the one hand, I don’t mind letting the proprietors of web pages know I visited: they created the free content, and the least I can do is let them bask in the hits.

On the other hand, I don’t especially want Google, or anyone else, profiling me.

Posted in Software | 3 Comments

Where the Money Goes

Posted on February 16, 2011 by Michael Froomkin

Kevin Drum has a nice graphic on where federal spending goes.

I think most people don’t know this:

Note further that despite the 21% outlay, Social Security has for many years actually reduced the deficit, because the social security tax has been taking in more than social security pays out.   That said, this year may be different: due to the super recession, payroll taxes are down (few jobs) and involuntary retirements are up (ditto).  But the built-up surplus in the Social Security trust fund should cover it for a couple more decades at least; and the tax changes required to keep Social Security solvent until the age distribution bulge sorts out are pretty small. (Health care spending, aka Medicare, is a much harder story.)

Update: Here’s a really good CBO chart showing social security’s past and projected contribution to total federal spending, and thus to the deficit.

Posted in Econ & Money | 1 Comment