Ben Williamson's first published article

Congratulations to Ben Williamson (a friend of mine from Caltech, for those of you who don't know) on his first published article, which just appeared in Florida Law Review.

In certain ways, one's first published article is the one that is the most special. I know that my first article is nowhere near as good as most of my other articles, but I do remember being giddy when it finally appeared in print. There is a feeling of 'I actually contributed to scientific knowledge' that simply can't be beat when one gets it for the first time. (It still feels good, but the giddier feelings now tend to come only for my best articles.)

I only browsed through Ben's article because law is ridiculously far from my expertise. However, I am pleased to report that Ben's sense of humor shines through even in an academic article such as this one (rather than being the dry affair one normally expects). You can see some of his verve in the article and section titles, but the true masterpiece is the first paragraph of the conclusions. It is (1) really funny and (2) makes his point extremely well. (Also, this paragraph is vintage Ben. I especially love the last footnote.) Awesome!