Author Archive
There’s nothing quite so entertaining as an incompetent bank robber. Alas, as digital banking marches forward, we may see fewer and fewer of them. Before the art all but disappears, here are some favorite tales of mishaps and ineptitude. • Never underestimate a teller. In Dallas, a would-be robber demanded a teller hand over the […]
You may have heard of the Fourth Amendment. It says, in essence, that if the cops want to search your home, they’d better convince a judge to issue a warrant. In theory, anyhow. It’s another matter in practice, for things have changed since the Amendment’s ratification in 1792. For instance, we didn’t have trash collection back then. […]
I needn’t tell readers of this blog what apparently came as news to a U.S. Senator: Advertising revenues keep the lights on at Facebook and account for Mark Zuckerberg’s $62.2 billion net worth. Nor need I point out that the more targeted an advertising medium, the more valuable it is to advertisers, and that it is with targeting […]
These days blockchain technology shows up in the news with regularity. Deservedly so. It promises a new level of security for a host of online transactions,[1] and not just for cryptocurrency. Blockchain has proved useful for ensuring the security of stock trades, currency exchanges, retail sales, contracts, diamond and gold exchanges, health care data, and […]
Never trust an absolute. (Irony intended.) The historical floor is littered with axioms once immune to challenge because, according to circular reasoning at the time, everyone knew they were true. Take, for instance: Running a mile in under four minutes is physiologically impossible, we’ll never put a human on the moon, only people use tools, […]