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The Neuroscience of Comedy
May 10, 2015
Successful humor often involves distorting our assumptions, and more specifically our “scripts” – these are “hypotheses about the world and how it works based on our previous life experiences.” Richard Restak explains: “It is the brain’s frontal lobes that make sense of the discrepancy between the script and the situation described by the joke or illustrated by the cartoon. This ability is unique to our species… We are the only creatures that possess a highly evolved working memory,...
May 10, 2015
Successful humor often involves distorting our assumptions, and more specifically our “scripts” – these are “hypotheses about the world and how it works based on our previous life experiences.” Richard Restak explains: “It is the brain’s frontal lobes that make sense of the discrepancy between the script and the situation described by the joke or illustrated by the cartoon. This ability is unique to our species… We are the only creatures that possess a highly evolved working memory,...
Unless You Are Spock, Irrelevant Things Matter in Economic Behavior
May 10, 2015
Early in my teaching career I managed to get most of the students in my class mad at me. A midterm exam caused the problem. I wanted the exam to sort out the stars, the average Joes and the duds, so it had to be hard and have a wide dispersion of scores. I succeeded in writing such an exam, but when the students got their results they were in an uproar. Their principal complaint was that the average score was only 72 points out of 100. What was odd about this reaction was that I had already...
May 10, 2015
Early in my teaching career I managed to get most of the students in my class mad at me. A midterm exam caused the problem. I wanted the exam to sort out the stars, the average Joes and the duds, so it had to be hard and have a wide dispersion of scores. I succeeded in writing such an exam, but when the students got their results they were in an uproar. Their principal complaint was that the average score was only 72 points out of 100. What was odd about this reaction was that I had already...
The Revolution Will Be Digitized
May 10, 2015
From the instant he wakes up each morning, through his workday and into the night, the essence of Larry Smarr is captured by a series of numbers: a resting heart rate of 40 beats per minute, a blood pressure of 130/70, a stress level of 2 percent, 191 pounds, 8,000 steps taken, 15 floors climbed, 8 hours of sleep. Smarr, an astrophysicist and computer scientist, could be the world’s most self-measured man. For nearly 15 years, the professor at the University of California at San Diego has been...
May 10, 2015
From the instant he wakes up each morning, through his workday and into the night, the essence of Larry Smarr is captured by a series of numbers: a resting heart rate of 40 beats per minute, a blood pressure of 130/70, a stress level of 2 percent, 191 pounds, 8,000 steps taken, 15 floors climbed, 8 hours of sleep. Smarr, an astrophysicist and computer scientist, could be the world’s most self-measured man. For nearly 15 years, the professor at the University of California at San Diego has been...
Introducing Facebook’s Hello
May 9, 2015
Billions of calls are made everyday on mobile phones and people often have very little information about who’s calling...
May 9, 2015
Billions of calls are made everyday on mobile phones and people often have very little information about who’s calling...
Say Hi To Google Fi: A New Way To Say Hello
May 9, 2015
In today's mobile world, fast and reliable connectivity is almost second nature. But even in places like the U.S., where mobile connections are nearly ubiquitous, there are still times when you turn to your phone for that split-second answer and don't have fast enough speed. Or you can't get calls and texts because you left your phone in a taxi (or it got lost in a couch cushion for the day). As mobile devices continually improve how you connect to people and information, it's important that wireless...
May 9, 2015
In today's mobile world, fast and reliable connectivity is almost second nature. But even in places like the U.S., where mobile connections are nearly ubiquitous, there are still times when you turn to your phone for that split-second answer and don't have fast enough speed. Or you can't get calls and texts because you left your phone in a taxi (or it got lost in a couch cushion for the day). As mobile devices continually improve how you connect to people and information, it's important that wireless...
Holmes and Watson – How Artificial Intelligence is Changing Law
May 9, 2015
In 1897, Oliver Wendell Holmes, Jr. wrote: People want to know under what circumstances and how far they will run the risk of coming against what is so much stronger than themselves, and hence it becomes a business to find out when this danger is to be feared. The object of our study, then, is prediction, the prediction of the incidence of the public force through the instrumentality of the courts. Holmes, laying the groundwork for his famed prediction theory of law, was referring to an attorney’s...
May 9, 2015
In 1897, Oliver Wendell Holmes, Jr. wrote: People want to know under what circumstances and how far they will run the risk of coming against what is so much stronger than themselves, and hence it becomes a business to find out when this danger is to be feared. The object of our study, then, is prediction, the prediction of the incidence of the public force through the instrumentality of the courts. Holmes, laying the groundwork for his famed prediction theory of law, was referring to an attorney’s...
Fifth Circuit Upholds Fee Award
May 8, 2015
In Campbell Harrison & Dagley, LLP v. Hill, the Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals analyzed the trial court's order that vacated most of an arbitration award. The arbitrators awarded the law firms their fees, based upon a hybrid hourly-rate fee (approximately $3.15 million) and a contingency fee (approximately $25 million). The district court vacated the arbitrators' award of the contingency fee, which was challenged on appeal to the Fifth Circuit. The Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals examined the Texas...
May 8, 2015
In Campbell Harrison & Dagley, LLP v. Hill, the Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals analyzed the trial court's order that vacated most of an arbitration award. The arbitrators awarded the law firms their fees, based upon a hybrid hourly-rate fee (approximately $3.15 million) and a contingency fee (approximately $25 million). The district court vacated the arbitrators' award of the contingency fee, which was challenged on appeal to the Fifth Circuit. The Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals examined the Texas...
In Federal Courts, the Civil Cases Pile Up
May 6, 2015
Record number of pending actions delays some suits for years Ronald Porter filed a federal lawsuit in 2007 after the Navy...
May 6, 2015
Record number of pending actions delays some suits for years Ronald Porter filed a federal lawsuit in 2007 after the Navy...
Bakers Chief Predicts Decline In Number of Top Law Firms
May 5, 2015
The number of leading law firms will shrink over the next decade but those that remain will be 'highly competitive and better organized', according to Eduardo C. Leite, global chair of Baker & McKenzie. Writing for Business of Law at Bloomberg, he says: 'Over the next decade we should see fewer major law firms, but those remaining will be highly competitive and better organized. Perhaps most importantly, they will be the firms that have ‘emerged’ as the best learners.' Globalisation Explaining...
May 5, 2015
The number of leading law firms will shrink over the next decade but those that remain will be 'highly competitive and better organized', according to Eduardo C. Leite, global chair of Baker & McKenzie. Writing for Business of Law at Bloomberg, he says: 'Over the next decade we should see fewer major law firms, but those remaining will be highly competitive and better organized. Perhaps most importantly, they will be the firms that have ‘emerged’ as the best learners.' Globalisation Explaining...
Legal Fee Tracking Cuts Fees in UK
May 4, 2015
Fifteen firms - including Macfarlanes, Norton Rose Fulbright and Taylor Vinters - have signed up to Apperio, a legal fees platform which claims to be cutting fees for clients by 12%. The other firms include Taylor Wessing, Mishcon de Rey, Charles Russell Speechly, Fieldfisher and Olswang. Similar systems are in operation in the US. Some schemes claim to offer equal benefits to law firms and clients by clarifying the billing process between them. Other systems claim that the main benefit is received...
May 4, 2015
Fifteen firms - including Macfarlanes, Norton Rose Fulbright and Taylor Vinters - have signed up to Apperio, a legal fees platform which claims to be cutting fees for clients by 12%. The other firms include Taylor Wessing, Mishcon de Rey, Charles Russell Speechly, Fieldfisher and Olswang. Similar systems are in operation in the US. Some schemes claim to offer equal benefits to law firms and clients by clarifying the billing process between them. Other systems claim that the main benefit is received...
