What follows is a list of examples of legislation or regulation that requires or recommends the use of all caps in communications with consumers. Fla. Admin. Code r. 2-18.002 (1996). 2-18.002 Disclosure and Cancellation:  . . .(2) It shall be an unfair or deceptive act or practice for the seller of future consumer services to fail to furnish…
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de gustibus non disputandum est This famous Latin maxim holds that on matters of taste, there can be no dispute. This saying seems self-evident; we are all different, so what’s the point of arguing over what smells nice, looks good, is interesting, or is engaging?  Well, the great economists Stigler and Becker took issue with…
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This post is a companion to my (draft) Essay: Slicing Defamation by Contract The first Truth Bounty, the Carbolic Smoke Ball advertisement The RNC Case Republican Nat. Comm. v. Taylor, 299 F.3d 887, 889 (D.C. Cir. 2002) (Credit: USA Today; special thanks to Culverhouse Law librarian, Blakeley L. Beals, who obtained a copy of the original….
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It is very common today for consumers to use peer-to-peer reputational information. Online reviews are the latest incarnation of the old social customs of gossip and word-of-mouth, and they generate considerable excitement among policymakers and scholars. There is a growing sense that, with the advent of the sharing economy and mega reputational platforms such as…
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Part of my recent work criticizes doctors and hospitals for taking advantage of patients, trying to circumvent liability for accidents by various means. This gets me, as expected, into a lot of arguments. Had my argument only been contested by doctors, that would have been understandable, but non-doctors make arguments that have very much the…
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Two new posts, one on Econlog and one on Facebook, made me reflect on poverty. The first is a post by (the incredible) Bryan Caplan, who talks about a research showing that people in richer neighborhood are not generally happier and sometimes less happy than people in less affluent neighborhoods.  The second was a long,…
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A friend ranted to me about the facts of a libel case (Israel). In this case, a Facebook discussion between a PUA and a feminist expectedly heated up. The feminist called the PUA a “low-life” and charitably added that she has no doubt that “throughout his life, he has committed rape.” Serious accusations, no doubt,…
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This Vox article has a few interesting tidbits, like the origin of the custom of the ‘toast’ and kethcup. But most interestingly it claims that people exhibit signs of a minor trauma when they write a one-star review on Yelp and the such: “Social psychologists have looked at cases of trauma and the language people use…
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This weird story has been receiving some attention on Facebook and elsewhere: Professor Edelman is a Harvard Business School professor who ordered Chinese food off the web menu of a local Chinese restaurant only to discover that he was overcharged for each of the four items by $1. Apparently, the restaurant updated their menu and,…
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One of the greatest sources of suspense, surprise, and mystery in DnD games comes from the sense that anything could happen.  For example, there is a convention that a roll of 20 could lead to extreme fortunate results (or unfortunate in the case of 1), which is a source of suspense, humor, and a lot of…
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