Chart of total carbon emissions and emissions per capita

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Miller-McCune has put together two charts showing total carbon emissions by country and also emissions per capita by country. See the two charts here.

This is colorful and vibrant. And it is nice to have the charts side-by-side as one can easily make comparisons. For example, the US is #2 in total emissions but #9 in per capita emissions. As The Infrastructurist points out, the chart gives some insights into how many countries might need to deal with per capita emissions rather than point fingers at countries with the largest amount of carbon emissions.

But there is a lot of information compressed in this chart – it is hard to see a lot of the smaller countries with small circles. Additionally, why are the countries in the order they are? It appears that regions are together but the order is not the same for both charts and it certainly isn’t rank-ordered (China and US are on opposite ends of the chart for total emissions). The color and vibrancy seems to be more important to the chart-makers than having a logical order to the countries.

h/t The Infrastructurist

The Chronicle weighs in

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Now comes the Chronicle of Higher Education to sound off on the problems of legal education:

While schools are taking small steps to incorporate more experiential learning and encourage students to broaden their job searches, they remain “remarkably resistant to change,” said Erwin Chemerinsky, the inaugural dean of the University of California at Irvine School of Law….One reason schools are sticking with a familiar playbook: “It’s a cost-effective method of education,” Mr. Chemerinsky said. “Putting one professor in front of a large group of students is very efficient.” Clinical classes and simulations, which require low student-to-faculty ratios, cost more, he said.

This is quickly becoming every journalist’s preferred subject of Monday morning quarterbacking…

Live event tickets and the first sale doctrine

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Daniel Indiviglio over at The Atlantic discusses the potential for eliminating all secondary markets in live event tickets:

If you have ever sold even[t] tickets through the online resale market StubHub, then you may have received an e-mail last week about the dangers of paperless tickets. It cautions that companies “like Ticketmaster” are moving to restrictive paperless ticketing systems, which could kill the secondary market for tickets….According to the Fan Freedom Project, a group speaking out against this product that StubHub links to in its email, there are essentially two kinds:

Restricted transfer (closed-loop system): Primary ticketing agencies have sole control over sales, restricting the transfer of tickets and allowing them to be resold only on their own proprietary exchanges – and with their price restrictions which are often unrelated to the market value of the ticket.

Prohibition of ticket transfer: You purchase paperless tickets with a credit card and must provide the same credit card and a photo ID at the event venue. A swipe of the credit card at the gate produces a slip confirming the location of the reserved seat. The ticket cannot be transferred, sold or given away to another consumer.

Hmm…this sounds suspiciously like book publishers’ plans to undermine libraries and software companies’ recent progress in eliminating the secondary market for software.  Doesn’t anybody want to actually own anything anymore?

Wired’s David Rowan certainly thinks renting rather than owning is the wave of the future, as I discussed in a previous post.  However, Rowan’s analysis focused on the “idling capacity” of personal assets (e.g., a lawnmower that you only use once a week) and how the Internet is helping individuals coordinate more efficient arrangements (e.g., sharing that lawnmower among a wide group of “neighbors”).  The idea here is to increase asset utilization and thus maximize the consumer surplus.  (To round off the example:  lawn mower manufacturers may be upset, but the economy is better off overall since resources are freed for more productive uses than making a ton of lawnmowers that will only be used for 2 hours per week.)

In contrast, eliminating secondary markets in tickets, books, and software only benefits the producer surplus.  It allows de facto monopolies (like Ticketmaster for live event tickets) and copyright monopolies (like those enjoyed by publishers of books and software by virtue of their rightful copyrights) to extend those monopolies over the entire market (since they no longer have to compete with resold tickets, used books, and previously owned software).  Under these circumstances, offering consumers something less than full ownership in their tickets, books, and software doesn’t benefit the economy — it simply increases monopoly, expanding inefficiency and the deadweight loss triangle.

For copyrighted works, the first sale doctrine was supposed to prevent owners from eliminating secondary markets, but that doctrine is under judicial attack.  As for tickets, it remains to be seen whether established industry players like Ticketmaster will be able to further their monopolies by choking off the secondary market.  But it doesn’t look good for consumers — or economic efficiency.

Chicago’s population loss, neighborhood by neighborhood

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After the recent news that Chicago lost about 200,000 residents between 2000 and 2010, the Chicago Tribune takes a look at how the population changed in each of Chicago’s 77 neighborhoods. Here are some of the trends:

Sixty of Chicago’s 77 neighborhoods lost population, according to the 2010 Census. The focus of the population growth was in the Loop, the Near South Side and the Near West Side, areas that experienced a boom in new residential high-rises and loft developments.

The city lost more than 200,000 people during the decade, many from predominantly black neighborhoods hard hit by crime and foreclosures. More than 27,000 non-Hispanic white residents, meanwhile, poured into the city’s downtown and surrounding areas.

On the Southwest Side, the number of Hispanics and Asians grew in historically white ethnic neighborhoods such as Bridgeport, Archer Heights, West Lawn, West Elsdon and Ashburn. White populations in those communities dipped.

So the population growth took place in two places: around the downtown where wealthier whites moved in and on the southwest side where Latinos and Asians moved in. Throughout the rest of the city, the population declined.

As the City of Chicago thinks about how to respond to these figures, should they focus resources on the areas that were growing (particularly the area around the Loop which is likely to get more attention) or figure out some way to boost the prospects of the 60 other neighborhoods that experienced population loss?

PC games

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Michael Arrington over at TechCrunch is reporting that Zynga recently removed “Wedding Chapels” from its CityVille game:

Players could previously buy “Wedding Chapels,” which looked like small country churches but without a cross or other religious symbols, to add to their city. But the virtual item has been removed and replaced with the more secular and nondescript “Wedding Hall.” With two gold ring things that somehow makes me think only of McDonalds.

No word yet from Zynga concerning their reasons for the change.  Arrington, however, thinks the company was just taking the easy way out:

I don’t know why this bothers me so much, since I’m not very religious myself. But it just seems so artificially politically correct.

As a leader in social network games, Zynga (Wikipedia backgrounder) certainly has a lot of constituents to keep happy.  But I have to agree with Arrington that this seems unnecessarily petty.

A-Rod real estate tax flap tied to incentive to construct affordable housing

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It appears that a number of luxury housing owners in New York City, including Yankees’ star Alex Rodriguez, are getting a major real estate tax break. While this is creating a stir, there is more to this story: these luxury units are getting a tax break because the developers have promised to build affordable housing elsewhere in the city.

Rodriguez and all the residents of his posh high rise will get tax breaks for 10 years under the city’s 421A tax abatement program. Luxury developers get tax breaks in exchange for making sure affordable units get built elsewhere. Rodriguez is one of some 45,000 New Yorkers who have scored the tax break.

“I think it’s outrageous,” Lewton said.

When Rodriguez’s moves into his $6 million, five-bedroom penthouse his tax bill will be $1,150. In contrast, Stephen and Phyllis Franciosa pay $3,100 in taxes one their one-family home in the Pelham Bay section of the Bronx…

The councilman said the law needs to be changed because this year alone the program will cost the city $900 million in lost revenue.

A-Rod’s taxes are so low that if he paid the going rate his tax bill would be 50 times higher. He should get such a break when he faces the Red Sox pitching staff.

City officials claim the tax breaks on Rodriguez’ building helped build over 575 units of affordable housing in the Bronx.

This is not an uncommon tactic for communities to encourage affordable housing: grant some tax breaks in exchange for the builder or developer constructing some units of affordable housing. It is often a struggle to get developers and builders to construct affordable units on their own as profit margins are lower. So communities have searched for incentives that would still allow builders to make their money while also providing for the public good.

In the long run, will this story simply be commentary about how the rich and famous get to play by different rules (and New York loves to pick on A-Rod) or can there be a reasonable discussion about how cities go about promoting affordable housing? I am guessing that the first option will easily win out. Why can’t New York news organizations go to those 575 units of affordable housing in the Bronx and talk to the other people who benefited from this tax break?

Selling a car by selling Detroit

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The troubles of Detroit have been well documented and discussed in the American media in recent years (see here and here). So why would Chrysler mount a full advertising campaign (and I see this commercial almost every commercial break at times) based on Detroit  for its new 200 model? See the long-form (2:03) video here.

The entire campaign seems to be built around this idea that Detroit is something different: the ad says it is not New York, Chicago, or Las Vegas. While we get some typical shots, of a high school team running and a woman ice skating, the emphasis is on their hard work. The scenes on the street are at night with steam coming out of manhole covers as the 200 rolls along. The longer ad features Eminen, perhaps the only celebrity known to most Americans as being from Detroit (does Kid Rock count?). And all of this is driven home by the tagline: “Imported from Detroit.”

Perhaps the strategy is this: why not take all of this talk about Detroit’s darker side (and the commercial mentions that this is a “town that has been to hell and back”) and turn it around so that the commercial makes a positive point about this gritty, tough, and edgy car. Will this explicit linking to Detroit, a city on the decline, boost sales of a particular car model? Do Detroit residents see this commercial as positive and representative of their city?

Mayors united

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It’s not just suburban Chicago mayors excited to work with Rahm Emanuel.  The Hill is reporting that basically every mayor in the U.S. is looking to Chicago right now:

The Chicago mayoral election results Tuesday weren’t just a triumph for Rahm Emanuel; they were also a victory for mayors across the country.

Many mayors have been critical of cuts in President Obama’s proposed budget, and some of them are hoping his former chief of staff will lobby the White House on the needs of local communities.

The U.S. Conference of Mayors, which consists of mayors of cities with populations of 30,000 or more, is eager to work with Emanuel as soon as he is sworn in as Chicago mayor on May 16. With budget battles looming, the group hopes that Emanuel’s influence on the White House and Capitol Hill will significantly advance its agenda.

I’m not sure what to make of this.  On the one hand, I’m all for empowering state and city governments.  On the other, I’m not sure that the best way to do that is to further expand federal control over local governments via an increase in restrictive federal funding grants.

Quick Review: The King’s Speech

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The upcoming Oscars seem to be a battle between two films: The Social Network (see my earlier review here and sagescape’s here) and The King’s Speech. I just had a chance to see the second film and have some thoughts about this Best Picture contender.

1. Since this is a historical drama, I expected this film to be somewhat bland and formulaic. It was neither.

2. There is a little bit of a storyline about the gap between British royalty and the common people. In the film, this gap is between King George VI and his speech therapist, an untrained but effective practitioner. The question arises: how can someone rule a country (and empire) if either side has little idea of how the other lives? We could probably ask similar questions today about many of the people at the top of our social hierarchy.

3. The film had more humor, albeit fairly dry, than I was expecting. I don’t know that I would think of Colin Firth as a comic actor but he has some good lines spoken by a struggling character.

4. The context of the film is engaging as Europe inches toward World War II. Even if the timeline in the movie doesn’t quite match the historical record, the struggles of King George VI are heightened by the gathering storm.

5. The peak of the film is a speech by King George VI. Even though it is an important speech delivered at a key historical moment, I appreciated that the musical score and the editing was understated and intimate. Too often, I think films use music and editing as a crutch to cover up less-than-exciting climaxes. Good plots don’t need to be oversold.

6. I thought The Social Network was interesting but not great. In comparison, The King’s Speech is weightier, has better acting, and doesn’t have to rely on edgy dialogue or a current storyline. My vote for the Best Picture (between these two and the other nominees I’ve seen including True Grit, Toy Story 3, and Inception): The King’s Speech.

(Critics also like this film: RottenTomatoes.com says the film is 94% fresh with 188 positive reviews out of 199 total reviews.)

40,000 ways to file a lawsuit

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How do you file lawsuits against 40,000 people you think are infringing your copyrights?  Sounds like the answer is “one at a time”:

Thousands of unnamed “John Does” in P2P file sharing lawsuits filed in California, Washington DC, Texas, and West Virginia have been severed, effectively dismissing over 40,000 defendants. The plaintiffs in these cases must now re-file against almost all of the Does individually rather than suing them en mass.

Let’s unpack this.  Copyright owners often don’t know the names of people they suspect of using the Internet to infringe their works — they only know that such-and-such an Internet protocol address allegedly accessed a pirated file of their content.  In order to match that address with a particular person, they often have go to court to compel an Internet service provider to tell them what account/person is associated with that address.  They can only sue individuals once they have actual names.

Copyright owners have been in the habit of suing thousands of “John Doe” IP addresses in one lawsuit and then using those names to settle quickly:

These rulings may have a significant impact on the copyright trolls’ business model, which relies on being able to sue thousands of Does at once with a minimum of administrative expense. The cost of filing suit against each Doe may prove prohibitively expensive to plaintiffs’ attorneys who are primarily interested in extracting quick, low-hassle settlements.

In my view, courts’ rejection of this tactic brings some procedural balance back to copyright infringement lawsuits.  Copyright owners often sue alleged infringers in courts that are convenient for the owner, and this can effect a substantial injustice.

Perhaps a concrete example is in order.  Let’s assume an individual defendant that (1) is unquestionably innocent and (2) lives in Iowa.  Let’s further assume the plaintiff copyright owner is a movie studio based in California who wants to sue her in Los Angeles.  As a practical matter, this defendant has a difficult choice.  Litigation is always inconvenient and expensive, but hiring a California-based attorney from Iowa and flying out to Los Angeles is probably more than a typical defendant can afford.  Under these circumstances, she may pay the studio a $2,000 settlement even though she’s innocent just to make the matter go away.  After all, it’s pretty easy to burn through $2,000 with a lawyer and travel expenses.

Given this procedural tilt favoring copyright owners, it seems only fair that they be required to file their suits one at a time.  If a copyright owner doesn’t think her claim is even worth a filing fee, she probably shouldn’t be filing that lawsuit in the first place.  Copyright was, after all, designed “To promote the Progress of Science and useful Arts”, not to provide extra-judicial windfall profits to content owners.

Thanks to Matt Berntsen for the original link to the EFF write-up.