Author: kempton

I’ve wanted to write an article after I heard the case of the Christmas Underwear Bomber and what the US and Canadian governments decided to do in the name of “enhancing our safety”. If I had written that article, it would have been a mostly emotionally one where I would have questioned how a “failed terror attempt” managed to successfully disrupt our lives. And why that kind of scenario where we, the public, always loose is just not acceptable.

Fortunately I waited patiently and saved myself some a few hours in writing time as security expert Bruce Schneier has finally spoken (was more insightfully and eloquently than I can) to shine some light and shared his insights. Remember, I don’t blindly trust anyone, including Bruce. But so far, he speaks with the most wisdom that government officials sadly lack.

Bruce Schneier’s MSNBC interview on The Rachel Maddow Show (starting at 2:45)

Bruce’s email interview with The Atlantic’s Jeffrey Goldberg.

And an article “Is aviation security mostly for show?” at CNN written by Bruce. Very insightful and intelligent.

[HT Bruce Schneier]

Posted in Canada, insightful, Law, people, politics, security, united states, Video, World

From TorStar “U.S. appeals court backs T.O. firm over Microsoft“,

“Microsoft Corp. has lost an appeal against a small Toronto company in a patent fight that cost the world’s biggest software maker $290 million (U.S.) and forced it to alter its ubiquitous MS Word program.”

i4i v. Microsoft (CAFC 2009-1504)

Since 2003, versions of Microsoft Word, a word processing and editing software, have had XML editing capabilities. In 2007, i4i filed this action against Microsoft, the developer and seller of Word.

These two commentaries on the case in The Patent Prospector were fun to read,

“As with other issues in this case, Microsoft screwed its own pooch with procedural sloppiness.”

“There was no hesitation to rub salt in that wound.”

[via The Patent Prospector]

Posted in Business, Canada, Entrepreneurship, Law, patent, Science & Technology

“A voodoo doll must find the courage to save his friends from being pinned to death.”

Another great film from the National Film Board (NFB) of Canada competition.

“Joaquin Baldwin is an Annie Award nominee director and animator from Paraguay. Living in Los Angeles, he is now finishing his MFA in animation at UCLA. He has received over 50 international awards for his animated films Sebastian’s Voodoo and Papiroflexia, and also several grants including the Jack Kent Cooke full Graduate Scholarship in 2006.”

And here is a bonus chat between Joaquin Baldwin, director of Sebastian’s Voodoo, and Lucas Martell, director of Pigeon: Impossible.

Posted in animation, Comedy, Fun, funny, NFB, Video, YouTube

Lucas Martell writer/director/producer/animator spent 5 years to create Pigeon Impossible, a wonderfully told and funny story. Over 2 million views since it was posted on Nov 8, 2009. Highly recommended.

[HT Pogue]

Posted in animation, united states, Video, YouTube

Today (Dec 29th, 2009) is Prof. Ronald Coase’s 99th birthday. I like to wish him a happy birthday and good health. I’ve added time codes and brief notes to his 2003 Coase Lecture (in 6 parts). Enjoy.

(note: This is a followup to an earlier entry.)

Part 1

Time Codes added to the Youtube info

0:30 Coase Lecture,
1:21 Law and Economics,
1:40 Mr. Toad The Wind in the Willows,
2:14 First year students,
2:40 What Coase did as a young student,
3:14 The events that lead to the emergence of the subject known as Law and Economics,
3:36 Professor of Economics and not a Professor of Law and Economics,
3:47 knowledge of law as an undergraduate,
4:32 following the precedence,
4:44 The Law Courts,
5:03 American cases

Part 2

Time codes

0:00 Theory of international trade. (Never thought I would laugh so hard!)
1:24 More likely to become a lawyer than an economist in university. Study of industrial law.
2:25 Go to US to study why industries are organized in different ways.
3:28 Plant was opposed to government’s schemes of coordinating production.
4:00 Benefited from taking a B.Comm degree rather than an economics degree. Visited factories and businesses in America and talk to businessmen.
4:45 By the summer of 1932, Coase got the answers to his questions. Firms vs market transactions. Transaction costs.
5:43 The explicit introduction of the concept of transaction costs
6:00 Return from America to UK. Appointed assistant lecturer.
6:15 Content of first lecture. The argument of “The Nature of the Firm”.
7:02 In 1934, completed first draft of “The Nature of the Firm”. Published in 1937.
7:20 How the paper was received by Coase’s elders was “extremely instructive”. And how this should be a lesson.
8:15 The only support Coase got was from his contemporary. “… new ideas are most likely to come from the young who are also the group who are most likely to recognize the significance of those ideas.”
9:00 The problem of social cost.

Part 3

Time Codes

0:00 British Broadcasting: A Study in Monopoly (1950)
0:18 Visited US in 1948 to find how a commercial broadcasting station operated. Migrated to US in 1951. And later wrote the famous FCC paper which lead to the modern subject of law and economics.
1:00 About that student note in University of Chicago Law Review. Coase clarified the misconception of who actually originated the idea of using price to determine the use of frequency spectrum. Idea of FCC should lease a frequency channel to the highest bidder.
2:26 The weak reply from FCC that convinced Coase the merit of using price to determine the use of frequency spectrum.
4:06 Wrote the article on FCC in 1958 & 1959.
4:50 Talk about Pigou and a few examples.
7:42 The way resources are used are independent of the legal decision of ownership.

Part 4

Time Codes

0:00 To cover cost and to maximize profit are essentially two ways of expressing the same thing.
0:45 Discussion of Chicago economists’ objections of Coase’s FCC idea.
2:19 The famous 2 hour long meeting of the minds of Coase at Aaron Director’s home with Milton Friedman, George Stigler, and others.
4:19 Coase correcting Stigler’s account of the discussion at Director’s home.
5:00 The Problem of Social Cost.
6:28 Talking about “Coase Theorem” (or more precisely, Stigler’s “Coase Theorem”).

Part 5

Time Codes

0:00 Discussing the cave example. Coase’s humour.
1:37 Concluding comments on Law and Economics.

Part 6 Q&A

Time Codes

0:30 Q1&A Can the highly mathematical approach of modern economics incorporate ideas and methodologies that re so different from it?

2:10 Q2 (part 1) The first year law students might find it disheartening to discover the wrongfulness means that which reduces transaction cost. Before they encountered law and economics they didn’t think that the purpose of law is just about allocating resources most efficiently. Q2 (part 2) &A Do you think that since you introduced these ideas there has been a growing acceptance or resistance to that notion of wrongfulness and what do you see in the future?

4:02 Q3 (part 1) In a lot of the behaviour empirical work done in economics, the people who are studying things use the answers people give on surveys to try and reveal how people are not rational actors. Q3 (part 2) &A Do you believe that the answers on the surveys are a good source of empirical data or do you think you need to go to competitive markets to really see true prices?

Posted in Economics, GreatMindsOfOurTime, Law, Nobel-Prize, Ronald Coase, World, World Affairs

Congrats Happiness Brussels for winning a Grand Prix in interactive for its really cool Toyota iQ Font campaign. And also receiving the title of Interactive Agency of the Year at Eurobest.

Posted in advertising, Business, Love, Lovemarks, Marketing, World

In the following YouTube video, you will see where and how they make the world smallest snowman at the NPL UK. They sure make science fun and turn it into entertainment.

Posted in Love, Science & Technology

From BBC (emphasis added),

Leading Chinese dissident Liu Xiaobo has been jailed for 11 years for “inciting subversion of state power”, after a trial condemned in the West. […]

Mr Liu is a prominent government critic and veteran of the 1989 Tiananmen Square democracy protests.

A writer and former university professor, he has been in jail since 2008, after being arrested for writing a document known as Charter 08.

The charter called for greater freedoms and democratic reforms in China, including an end to Communist one-party rule.

Mr Liu is the only person to have been arrested for organising the Charter 08 appeal, but others who signed it have reported being harassed.

From VOA,

Rights groups suspect the date of the verdict, Christmas day, was chosen to reduce international attention to the case.

Diplomats from the United States, Canada, Australia and several European countries were among those who stood outside during Liu’s trial Wednesday, after they were denied entry to the court house.

China has denounced the foreign diplomats for what it calls “meddling.” Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Jiang Yu told reporters Thursday that Liu is a Chinese citizen and, as a result, his case is an “internal” affair.

Liu has been in detention for more than a year for his role in writing the pro-democracy manifesto called “Charter 08.”

The U.S. State Department said Wednesday that China’s prosecution of Liu is an action “uncharacteristic of a great country.” A State Department spokesman, P.J. Crowley, said the U.S. will continue to have frank discussions with China about human rights and China’s future.

Prof. Liu Xiaobo YouTube video at PEN American Center,

An earlier AP report,

Posted in China, Chinese, Democracy, Law, politics, united states, Video, World Affairs, YouTube

Happy Holidays. O Holy Night.

Posted in Calgary, Canada, Fun, Music, people, Video, YouTube

The Discovery is Norman Rockwell’s final Christmas cover for The Saturday Evening Post. I am looking forward to review Norman Rockwell: Behind the camera by Ron Schick more when I find some time.

Posted in Arts, GreatMindsOfOurTime, Love, Lovemarks, Norman Rockwell

A new quote I love from The Natural,

Iris Gaines: You know, I believe we have two lives.
Roy Hobbs: How… what do you mean?
Iris Gaines: The life we learn with and the life we live with after that.

Posted in Love, Quotes I Love

Avatar is an awesome film that looks great and, I think, is best seen in IMAX 3D. Now with a worldwide gross box office of $285 million as of December 22 according to LA Times report, are there some money to be made in buying IMAX stocks since Avatar IMAX 3D tickets seem to be the first ones to be sold out first?

Well, to make any informed investment decision, one should study the financial reports of a company and get to know about the industry first. In the case of IMAX, you can find many of the financial reports in the investor relations area.

One area that may send off additional signal is the insider trading activities of a company, that is whether the senior executives of a company are buying or selling stocks. Here is an insightful excerpt from September 2009 CNN Money article “Insiders sell like there’s no tomorrow” (emphasis added),

But against that improving backdrop, one indicator has turned distinctly bearish: Corporate officers and directors have been selling shares at a pace last seen just before the onset of the subprime malaise two years ago.

While a wave of insider selling doesn’t necessarily foretell a stock market downturn, it suggests that those with the first read on business trends don’t believe current stock prices are justified by economic fundamentals.

“It’s not a very complicated story,” said Charles Biderman, who runs market research firm Trim Tabs. “Insiders know better than you and me. If prices are too high, they sell.“

According to the IMAX’s insider trading records, you can find from Nov 23rd to Dec 22nd, 2009, there have been a number of insiders’ transactions. If you read the details, you will find almost all insiders have been selling IMAX shares including co-CEOs of IMAX, Mr. Richard L. Gelfond and Mr.  Bradley J Wechsler. It is worth noting that Messrs. Gelfond and Wechsler have adopted “stock appreciation rights automatic exercise plans” on November 16, 2009 (rule 10b5-1 trading plans) so Mr. Gelfond can sell up to 720,000 shares in equal monthly installments over a 12-month period, and Mr. Wechsler can sell up to 900,000 shares, in equal monthly installments over a 10-month period. To be fair, if the combined 1.62 million shares were to be sold throughout the duration of the plans, Mssrs. Gelfond and Wechsler would “continue to own approximately 65% of their combined share ownership in the Company” as stated in the press release.

IMAX stock price has increased substantially in three months (US$9.00/Sept 23rd, 2009) and one month ($10.48/Nov 20th, 2009) to yesterday’s close of $12.79, which amount to increases of 42.1% in three months and 22% in one month respectively.

Many moviegoers, including this reporter, have been rightfully impressed by Avatar IMAX 3D and see tremendous potentials in IMAX 3D. Therefore it is not surprising to see people wishing to invest in IMAX as we can see from recent IMAX stock trading volumes,

• 1.93 million shares on Dec 11th, 2009, a day after the Dec 10th London premiere
• 1.29 million shares on Dec 18th, world premiere
• 1.08m on Dec 21st
• 1.62m on Dec 22nd

The above volumes are high when comparing to the average trading volume of 586,000 shares and the recent low of 58,387 shares on Nov 27, 2009 (data from Google Finance).

If you aspire to be a long term value investor like Warren Buffett, it is prudent to understand the industry and analyze a company’s financial reports first before making any investment decisions. For IMAX’s financial reports, you can find them in IMAX’s investor relations area. The annual reports and the “Management’s Discussion and Analysis” sections are good place to start reading.

(note: This article is cross-posted in examiner.com)

Posted in Business, Canada, Digital-Revolution, Economics, Entrepreneurship, investment, patent, Science & Technology, World

Toronto Star,

In a landmark ruling on freedom of expression, the Supreme Court of Canada has created a new legal defence to libel lawsuits that would shield journalists who fairly and responsibly report stories of public interest.

The new defence, dubbed “responsible communication” by the country’s top court, gives greater protection to broadcasters, writers and bloggers who do a form of reporting due diligence.

It is a huge legal victory for the Toronto Star, which along with a broad coalition of Canadian media outlets, and the Canadian Civil Liberties Association, had called for just such a defence.

The decision breaks new ground for Canadian common law, bringing it in line with decisions in Australia, New Zealand, South Africa and the United Kingdom.

CBC News (with video),

Two Ontario newspapers will get new libel trials, the Supreme Court of Canada has ruled, opening the door for journalists to defend themselves against libel using the defence of “responsible journalism.”

The Ottawa Citizen and the Toronto Star launched appeals under rules for the possible new defence that were outlined by the Ontario Court of Appeal two years ago.

Read the full SCoC “Grant v. Torstar Corp.” decision. I’ve excerpted three paragraphs 96, 97, 113 that are very relevant to blogging and bloggers (emphasis added). [HT Michael]

[96] A second preliminary question is what the new defence should be called. In arguments before us, the defence was referred to as the responsible journalism test. This has the value of capturing the essence of the defence in succinct style. However, the traditional media are rapidly being complemented by new ways of communicating on matters of public interest, many of them online, which do not involve journalists. These new disseminators of news and information should, absent good reasons for exclusion, be subject to the same laws as established media outlets. I agree with Lord Hoffmann that the new defence is “available to anyone who publishes material of public interest in any medium”: Jameel, at para. 54.

[97] A review of recent defamation case law suggests that many actions now concern blog postings and other online media which are potentially both more ephemeral and more ubiquitous than traditional print media. While established journalistic standards provide a useful guide by which to evaluate the conduct of journalists and non-journalists alike, the applicable standards will necessarily evolve to keep pace with the norms of new communications media. For this reason, it is more accurate to refer to the new defence as responsible communication on matters of public interest.

[113] As Lord Nicholls observed in Reynolds, news is often a perishable commodity. The legal requirement to verify accuracy should not unduly hamstring the timely reporting of important news. But nor should a journalist’s (or blogger’s) desire to get a “scoop” provide an excuse for irresponsible reporting of defamatory allegations. The question is whether the public’s need to know required the defendant to publish when it did. As with the other factors, this is considered in light of what the defendant knew or ought to have known at the time of publication. If a reasonable delay could have assisted the defendant in finding out the truth and correcting any defamatory falsity without compromising the story’s timeliness, this factor will weigh in the plaintiff’s favour.

See also “Quan v. Cusson, 2009“.

Posted in Canada, Law, politics, Video

Richard Feynman – 7 Lectures at Cornell (video).

[via Wikipedia Feynman page]

Posted in GreatMindsOfOurTime, Richard Feynman, Science, Video

Michelle Feynman fulfill’s his father Richard Feynman’s dream to visit Tuva. Check out the lovely photos and radio program.

BBC broadcast: Bombs, Stamps and Throat Singers (Aug 14, 2009) More details here.

[via Feynman.com]

Posted in audio, BBC, GreatMindsOfOurTime, Photography, Science, Video, World

Did some quick research on Richard Feynman for an email to friends and found the following lecture videos. Enjoy. 🙂

Richard Feynman: The Douglas Robb Memorial Lectures from The Vega Science Trust

[via Nobel Prize]

Posted in GreatMindsOfOurTime, Lovemarks, Nobel-Prize, Science, Video