If you know the name Robert Bork, it's probably in the context of his failure to secure Senate confirmation when Ronald Regan put him up for the Supreme Court (his sins from his days in the Nixon administration caught up to him). Read the rest

My latest Locus column is "Steering with the Windshield Wipers," and it ties together the growth of Big Tech with the dismantling of antitrust law (which came about thanks to Robert Bork's bizarre alternate history of antitrust, a theory so ridiculous that it never would have gained traction except that it promised to make rich people a lot richer). Read the rest

In 2017, a 28-year-old law student named Lina Kahn turned the antitrust world on its ear with her Yale Law Review paper, Amazon's Antitrust Paradox, which showed how Ronald Reagan's antitrust policies, inspired by ideological extremists at the University of Chicago's economics department, had created a space for abusive monopolists who could crush innovation, workers' rights, and competition without ever falling afoul of orthodox antitrust law. Read the rest

The Boston Globe has published a giant weekend package of responses to Elizabeth Warren's proposal to break up the Big Tech monopolies. Read the rest

Do you own an iPhone 8? Is it borked? Like REALLY, unusably borked? Good news: There might be a free fix in the cards for you!

From The Verge:

Apple quietly announced the launch of a free repair program for the iPhone 8 this afternoon, revealing that a “very small percentage” of units need replacement logic boards due to a manufacturing defect. The logic board is essentially the main printed circuit board of a computing device, containing the CPU, device memory, and other integral components. Apple says its faulty logic boards may have been causing random restarts, screen freezes, and defective startup initiations that prevent the iPhone 8 from turning on properly.

Apparently, the only phone from Apple’s 2017 iteration of their handsets that are screwed is the iPhone 8. If you own a wonky iPhone X or iPhone 8 Plus, you’ll have to see if your handset’s woes can be cured under warranty or on your own dime.

So, if you bought your handset in the United States, Australia, New Zealand, China, Hong Kong, India, Japan or Macau, head on over to Apple’s repair page. By entering your iPhone’s serial number (look for it in the About section, under Settings/General Settings) you’ll be able to quickly discover if your pocket computer can be repaired on Apple’s dim or not.

If you're not covered by AppleCare or Apple's repair program, maybe hold off on buying a new handset for a few weeks. With Apple set to announce their new iPhones in a couple of weeks, you'll likely be able to get a screaming deal on a new iPhone 8 from your carrier before the end of the month. Read the rest