“Dark Knight” Lasts 38 Hours Before Pirated

David K. Levine on keeping your monopoly just long enough to benefit from it — but not so long as to be, well, a monopoly. Further, Dark Knight did it without government intervention!
An interesting story in the LA Times about the movie “Dark Knight.” They went to great lengths to make sure that bootleg DVDs [...]

Why Trade is Broken, and How to Fix It

Patterson and Afilalo were never that optimistic about Doha.
They are international law and trade experts at Rutgers, who feel that the WTO procedure is based on an economic situation (beginning at Bretton Woods) that just doesn’t exist anymore — big western powers and all those other economies.
How to fix things? Make a trade council [...]

Lynch and Singh at the Hudson Institute

Did you miss Timothy Lynch and Robert Singh’s presentation at the Hudson Institute July 22?
I did. But my colleague Sadhika was there, and it was a fantastic discussion.
The event was moderated by Hudson CEO Kenneth Weinstein, and World Affairs editor Lawrence Kaplan provided commentary.
Luckily for those of us unable to attend, the Hudson has graciously [...]

University Endowments

What can’t they buy?
Did your university have a climbing wall, hot tubs, or en-suite bathrooms?
Mine sure didn’t. And I didn’t miss ‘em. Then again, it didn’t have a massive endowment either. Maybe because they built a giant sports complex that I didn’t use. I’m sure that exercise equipment is the surest way to attract top-notch [...]

NASA Goofed

Umm… oopsie?

Now, I’m not a rocket scientist. I don’t know how to make robots or use sensors or any of that kind of thing. I’m only mediocre at Fantastic Contraption. Anyway, with so much that can go wrong, and with Murphy’s Law in effect, NASA has their work cut out for them.
WIRED Magazine ran a [...]