Jason Harrow 3. Two Other Ways That Energy Doesn’t Work Like Information This is the third post in a multi-part series. In Part 1, I explained the idea of Moore’s Law, which states that computer technology gets about twice as good, for the same price, every two years. In Part 2, I argued that the goals President Obama set for clean energy in his State of the Union are overly optimistic, because energy technologies do not obey Moore’s Law. In this Part, I give two other reasons why energy …
Moore’s Law and The Future of Renewable Energy, or Why We Can’t Get to 80 Percent Clean Energy in 2035: Part 2
Jason Harrow 2. The Challenge This is the second post in a multi-part series. In Part 1, available here, I explained the idea of Moore’s Law, which states that computer technology gets about twice as good, for the same price, every two years. In this Part, I explain that it will deceptively difficult to get to 80% clean energy in 2035. Feedback is welcome to Jason.harrow@gmail.com. In last month’s State of the Union, President Obama told Americans that the “future is ours to win.” He then …
Moore’s Law and The Future of Renewable Energy, or Why We Can’t Get to 80 Percent Clean Energy in 2035: Part 1
Jason Harrow This is the first post in a multi-part series. New posts will appear every Friday. Feedback is welcome to jason.harrow@gmail.com. Moore’s Law describes how quickly computer technology evolves, and I do not know how many lawyers, policymakers, and law students are familiar with it. I would guess that most are not. This is probably because the rate of change of computer chips seems obscure, irrelevant to law and policy, and, anyway, a little bit made-up. How can it possibly be that …
Alabama’s Shelby County Once Again Battling the Voting Rights Act
Anthony Kammer Less than two years after the Supreme Court’s ruling in NAMUDNO v. Holder, conservative legal groups are renewing their efforts to invalidate the Voting Rights Act of 1965 (“VRA”). On Wednesday, February 2, Federal District Judge John Bates heard a challenge brought by Alabama’s Shelby County and its conservative backers claiming that Section 5 of the VRA was unconstitutional because it “arbitrarily impose[s] on Shelby County and other covered jurisdictions disfavored …
Continue Reading about Alabama’s Shelby County Once Again Battling the Voting Rights Act →
You have the right to remain silent, now hand over your iPhone
Jessica Jackson Last month’s California Supreme Court decision in People v. Diaz represents an unprecedented expansion of the government’s ability to search without a warrant. The defendant, Diaz, was arrested for possession of narcotics after an informant bought six pills of ecstasy from him. Ninety minutes after Diaz had been cuffed, the arresting officer confiscated and searched Diaz’s cell phone, finding a text that was allegedly related to the drug sale. The court upheld the officer’s …
Continue Reading about You have the right to remain silent, now hand over your iPhone →
The Administrative State is Still The State
Zach Luck In the Invention of Money, a Planet Money feature on This American Life last month, the reporters peel back the layers on the terrifyingly crazy fiction called money. But, in doing so, they are surprisingly quick to uncritically repeat another fiction: the idea that some government agencies somehow aren’t really part of the government. During his intro to this fascinating piece on the Federal Reserve’s response to the financial crisis, Ira Glass explains that “though the Federal …
Continue Reading about The Administrative State is Still The State →