Greg Mankiw writes, and I wholeheartedly agree:

The AIG bonuses now being debated in Congress and everywhere else represent about .001 percent of annual GDP. If a typical Congressman spent that fraction of a 2000 hour work year on the topic, it would consume only about 1 minute of his or her time.

Yes, I know, that calculation is silly in many ways, but here is my point: Regardless of how outraged you are about the AIG bonuses, it is probably not an optimal allocation of resources for our elected leaders to spend large amounts of time and energy on the topic. The economy has bigger problems right now, and it would be better to focus attention on those.

aig, congress, credit crisis, economy, Politics

Happy end of Earth Day, everybody.  Speaking of exciting Earth Day news, I just read that in 2009, an all-electric vehicle will be sold in the United States:

A Norwegian automaker backed by Silicon Valley investors plans to sell in the United States an electric car that goes 110 miles without a charge and costs less than $25,000.

Downsides?  It only goes 65 miles per hour and only has two seats.  But hey, if you’re commuting to and from a city all the time, this is a sweet ride.  I’ll have to do some more research when I get a chance to find out more… looks neat!

car, earth day, electric, electric car, Environment, fuel economy, gas

Hulu.com is the coolest website ever.  On it, you can watch full length episodes of a ton of TV Shows and some full-length movies for free.  They have lots of popular shows like The Office, The Simpsons, etcetera, but they even have one of my favorite obscure shows of all time: Jack of All Trades!  The website just launched today, but based on my test viewing of one episode of Jack of All Trades, it runs really smooth and is very easy to use.  When watching, the only interruption is a commercial once every 10 minutes or so, and the commercials are only about 25 seconds each, which is not bad at all.  I highly recommend checking Hulu out.

free, full-length, hulu, movies, program, tv, tv show

I bought a Macbook Pro prior this past August, prior to my first semester of law school. Previously, I was using a Dell Inspiron 5100 I purchased four years prior, which gave me no problems, but was a bit slow and getting to be past its prime. I figured it was time for a new computer, so after a lot of consideration, I decided to buy the Macbook Pro.

The first and second computers my family ever owned were Macs, but there was simply no good software out there for Macs at the time so we switched to a PC. But over the past couple years, I noticed more and more people switching to Macs, so I became curious. One thing led to another, and I spent a lot of money to get the shiny thing I’m typing on right now.

Looking around at my law school classmates today, I notice a lot of people have switched to Macs, even during the semester. One day when I was working in the library, one of my friends asked me about whether or not I liked my computer. She said she was having trouble with hers, and wanted to buy a new computer. A few days later, she had a Mac. Similar situations have occurred with other friends.

And it seems like once people “convert” to Mac, they want to talk to each other about how great their computers are. I’ll admit I’ve done it. I don’t know why, I feel like such an elitist sometimes. It just feels like I’m the member of some oppressed group that started rising up to the top, even though I abandoned ship when Apple was in a downfall and jumped back on when things were looking sunny. I almost feel guilty… like I joined some sort of cult but I’m a B-class member.

Do other Apple users feel guilty like I do? I spoke to someone once who had an iMac, and asked him how he liked his computer. He quickly shot back that he was a “lifetime” Mac user and did not recently convert. Is there an elitist group within the Apple elite?

I’m certainly overanalyzing and rambling here. I’m just curious to see if there are any other Apple users out there that feel this way…

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For those of you who don’t know, Pandora is a free online radio service that plays music for users based on their individualized preferences.

Pandora is a wonderful, easy to use website.  To get started, you type in the name of one of your favorite songs or artists, and the radio begins playing similar music.  To fine tune the player, you can add more songs or artists, or mark a song with a “thumbs up” or “thumbs down” to indicate your preferences.

Pandora is also very good at finding good music, for me at least.  When I initially went to Pandora, I typed in my favorite artist, Ben Kweller, and was instantly showered with some of my other favorite artists including Weezer, Ben Folds, and the Barenaked Ladies.  In addition, I discovered more great artists I had never heard of before including Sherwood, whose first CD “Sing But Keep Going,” is on my list of all time favorite CDs.

But due to pressure from the RIAA, Pandora, along with many other similar online radio services such as Last.fm and Slacker, may be shut down.  From Pandora’s Founder:

Hi, it’s Tim from Pandora,

I’m sorry to say that today Pandora, along with most Internet radio sites, is going off the air in observance of a Day Of Silence. We are doing this to bring to your attention a disastrous turn of events that threatens the existence of Pandora and all of internet radio. We need your help.

Ignoring all rationality and responding only to the lobbying of the RIAA, an arbitration committee in Washington DC has drastically increased the licensing fees Internet radio sites must pay to stream songs. Pandora’s fees will triple, and are retroactive for eighteen months! Left unchanged by Congress, every day will be like today as internet radio sites start shutting down and the music dies.

A bill called the “Internet Radio Equality Act” has already been introduced in both the Senate (S. 1353) and House of Representatives (H.R. 2060) to fix the problem and save Internet radio–and Pandora–from obliteration.

I’d like to ask you to call your Congressional representatives today and ask them to become co-sponsors of the bill. It will only take a few minutes and you can find your Congresspersons and their phone numbers by entering your zip code here.

Your opinion matters to your representatives – so please take just a minute to call.

Visit www.savenetradio.org to continue following the fight to Save Internet Radio.

As always, and now more than ever, thank you for your support.

The RIAA is going to hurt and/or destroy competition by tripling online radio licensing fees.  Online radio does not have a large profit margin, and if licensing fees triple, most, if not all online radio broadcasters will leave the market.  At best, this will leave one or two firms in a monopoly situation, which is inefficient for society and need not arise because the internet is not conducive to any sort of “natural monopoly” in the way physical infrastructure like cable, water, and power are.  From here it will be easier for the RIAA to regain a stranglehold on what music is popular and gets played for the masses.  At worst, online radio as a market wilts and dies, and the great diversity of music individuals were able to listen to is gone, and the “Top 40″ of bland, overplayed music comes roaring back.  Get me some earplugs.

Please go to savenetradio.org and call your representative to save online radio.

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