Saturday, July 04, 2009
OBAMA'S BIRTH CERTIFICATE
I spend some of my time reading the web site named Free Republic. One thing you can encounter on that site fairly often is people who post who are apparently not satisfied that our president satisfies the constitutional requirement of American citizenship by birth. A few people have actually brought lawsuits, apparently to get the courts involved in the business of presidential background-checking.
Over the past few months, I've paid only passing attention to this notion that we may have an unqualified person assuming the role of president. Yesterday, I had an a bunch of free time, and I decided to go ahead and do the legal analysis of what could possibly happen with this subject.
The final conclusion is that the "birfer" movement does not have legs. In case you didn't know, "birfer" (an atavistic homonym for "birther") is used on the internet to refer to a person who believes that Barrack Obama may not have been born in the United States.
So, here I will give you my valuable piece of legal analysis, and I will even give it for free. My only caveat is that I am not a lawyer. This analysis is the product of a careful reading of a number of constitutional law and criminal law textbooks and treatises.
In summary, the courts have no role to play in investigating Obama's nationality by birth. That is not what a court does. There are, instead, three principal channels by which a lack of constitutional qualification by Obama could be meaningfully redressed in our nation. First, a voting, taxpaying citizen could bring a suit seeking a declaratory judgement and/ or injunctive relief to the effect that Obama is not qualified to hold office. Second, John McCain and Sarah Palin could bring a civil suit seeking a similar declaratory judgement or injunction. And third, Congress could impeach Obama.
At the end of the analysis, all three avenues will fail because in each case, the party initiating the action would bear the evidentiary burden of affirmatively proving that Obama was not born within the United States. The reason I say that any such action would fail, is because if such evidence already existed, it would already be known about, and it would have already had its effect.
That is, imagine as a hypothetical that a video surfaced which depicted unequivocally Barrack Obama being born in Siberia. The news stations would run it non-stop, and it would spread instantly around the globe via the internet. Because we have not seen that outcome, then we can conclude that such evidence does not exist.
As a housekeeping matter, you might be (you should be) asking, "At what point does Obama have to make a showing that he satisfies the constitutional requirements to hold office?" The answer is his oath of office. When he swore, two different times, to uphold the constitution--which ceremonies were both officiated by John Roberts--he satisfied the entire legal burden of establishing his credentials.
This is because, if affirmative proof were publicized, showing him not to meet the constitutional requirement of being a natural-born citizen, then each waking minute since his inauguration, he would have been violating his oath of office. And any member of the House of Representatives who got their hands on evidence of foreign birth would have to, under their own oath, have a duty to start an impeachment proceeding.
But enough about impeachments. That subject is too easy. If the evidence surfaced, the no duh, Congress would impeach. So, what about private law suits?
A random taxpayer citizen is going to face many challenges. That guy off the street probably does not have standing, and probably does not have an "actual case or controversy", and so probably would have their case dismissed under the White House counsel's 12(b)6 motion.
But assuming, for the sake of an argument, that a civil suit made it past that stage, here's the reason the birfer concept is DOA: to go any further, the burden of proof would be on the plaintiff. The birfer who brought this suit would have to produce evidence which convinced a judge (this would be a suit in equity, and would not go to a jury) by a preponderance that Obama was foreign-born.
Again, I say that if such evidence existed at all, it would cause a thermonuclear explosion in the press, and Obama would probably just resign. But the take-home point is that the birfers should shut their mouths until they have evidence to go on. The burden is on them to produce the evidence. Obama's sworn oath is sufficient to establish his credentials, and federal courts have no role or duty to investigate it beyond that.
Even if such evidence existed, and Obama did not reseign, there is still a chance that a private citizen would not have standing. In that case, McCain might have standing. But if you think he's going to spend his political capital... Well, maybe. That's an interesting, but non-legal, question. McCain might have standing, but would certainly not bring a civil suit without good evidence. And if McCain had good evidence, again, that would trigger a whole cascade of other events (most noteably, an impeachment (interestingly, which McCain should arguably recuse himself from the trial thereof)), and the civil suit would probably end up being moot.
So, in summary, this birfer movement does not have legs, because the evidentiary burden in on the birfers, and they don't have anything. If affirmative evidence of foreign birth were to show up... well, speculating about that is like speculating about what life will be like if they invent teleportation. Call me when it happens.
(0) comments
I spend some of my time reading the web site named Free Republic. One thing you can encounter on that site fairly often is people who post who are apparently not satisfied that our president satisfies the constitutional requirement of American citizenship by birth. A few people have actually brought lawsuits, apparently to get the courts involved in the business of presidential background-checking.
Over the past few months, I've paid only passing attention to this notion that we may have an unqualified person assuming the role of president. Yesterday, I had an a bunch of free time, and I decided to go ahead and do the legal analysis of what could possibly happen with this subject.
The final conclusion is that the "birfer" movement does not have legs. In case you didn't know, "birfer" (an atavistic homonym for "birther") is used on the internet to refer to a person who believes that Barrack Obama may not have been born in the United States.
So, here I will give you my valuable piece of legal analysis, and I will even give it for free. My only caveat is that I am not a lawyer. This analysis is the product of a careful reading of a number of constitutional law and criminal law textbooks and treatises.
In summary, the courts have no role to play in investigating Obama's nationality by birth. That is not what a court does. There are, instead, three principal channels by which a lack of constitutional qualification by Obama could be meaningfully redressed in our nation. First, a voting, taxpaying citizen could bring a suit seeking a declaratory judgement and/ or injunctive relief to the effect that Obama is not qualified to hold office. Second, John McCain and Sarah Palin could bring a civil suit seeking a similar declaratory judgement or injunction. And third, Congress could impeach Obama.
At the end of the analysis, all three avenues will fail because in each case, the party initiating the action would bear the evidentiary burden of affirmatively proving that Obama was not born within the United States. The reason I say that any such action would fail, is because if such evidence already existed, it would already be known about, and it would have already had its effect.
That is, imagine as a hypothetical that a video surfaced which depicted unequivocally Barrack Obama being born in Siberia. The news stations would run it non-stop, and it would spread instantly around the globe via the internet. Because we have not seen that outcome, then we can conclude that such evidence does not exist.
As a housekeeping matter, you might be (you should be) asking, "At what point does Obama have to make a showing that he satisfies the constitutional requirements to hold office?" The answer is his oath of office. When he swore, two different times, to uphold the constitution--which ceremonies were both officiated by John Roberts--he satisfied the entire legal burden of establishing his credentials.
This is because, if affirmative proof were publicized, showing him not to meet the constitutional requirement of being a natural-born citizen, then each waking minute since his inauguration, he would have been violating his oath of office. And any member of the House of Representatives who got their hands on evidence of foreign birth would have to, under their own oath, have a duty to start an impeachment proceeding.
But enough about impeachments. That subject is too easy. If the evidence surfaced, the no duh, Congress would impeach. So, what about private law suits?
A random taxpayer citizen is going to face many challenges. That guy off the street probably does not have standing, and probably does not have an "actual case or controversy", and so probably would have their case dismissed under the White House counsel's 12(b)6 motion.
But assuming, for the sake of an argument, that a civil suit made it past that stage, here's the reason the birfer concept is DOA: to go any further, the burden of proof would be on the plaintiff. The birfer who brought this suit would have to produce evidence which convinced a judge (this would be a suit in equity, and would not go to a jury) by a preponderance that Obama was foreign-born.
Again, I say that if such evidence existed at all, it would cause a thermonuclear explosion in the press, and Obama would probably just resign. But the take-home point is that the birfers should shut their mouths until they have evidence to go on. The burden is on them to produce the evidence. Obama's sworn oath is sufficient to establish his credentials, and federal courts have no role or duty to investigate it beyond that.
Even if such evidence existed, and Obama did not reseign, there is still a chance that a private citizen would not have standing. In that case, McCain might have standing. But if you think he's going to spend his political capital... Well, maybe. That's an interesting, but non-legal, question. McCain might have standing, but would certainly not bring a civil suit without good evidence. And if McCain had good evidence, again, that would trigger a whole cascade of other events (most noteably, an impeachment (interestingly, which McCain should arguably recuse himself from the trial thereof)), and the civil suit would probably end up being moot.
So, in summary, this birfer movement does not have legs, because the evidentiary burden in on the birfers, and they don't have anything. If affirmative evidence of foreign birth were to show up... well, speculating about that is like speculating about what life will be like if they invent teleportation. Call me when it happens.
Thursday, July 02, 2009
I CAN HAS CAPTION?
Here's another, less flattering, pictures of my new family member, my little bundle of joy.
I call this picture "Professor Scratchy." She obviously needs LOLcat captions. Any suggestions?
Here are mine, so far, to get you started:
I CAN HAS CONTRACTS OUTLINE?
MR HYDE, YOU DIDN'T DO YOUR READING TODAY, DID YOU?
I ARE NOT AMUSED
I WAS EXPECTING FRESH KIBBLEZ
(0) comments
Here's another, less flattering, pictures of my new family member, my little bundle of joy.
I call this picture "Professor Scratchy." She obviously needs LOLcat captions. Any suggestions?
Here are mine, so far, to get you started:
I CAN HAS CONTRACTS OUTLINE?
MR HYDE, YOU DIDN'T DO YOUR READING TODAY, DID YOU?
I ARE NOT AMUSED
I WAS EXPECTING FRESH KIBBLEZ
MY NEW CAT
It's one minute past midnight, so it's now Friday, July 3rd of 2009.
I am sitting in a cheap motel room somewhere in the coal fields of Pennsylvania* after having spent my Thursday working and driving. I'm heading down to North Carolina to pick her up. Her name is Scratchy Cat a.k.a. Butter's Kitty. Of course, she'll need a new name soon.
I'm not looking forward to the 16 hours in the car with her, Asheville to Boston. But I do like her very much, and I look forward to having her around. I'm a little sad that she will be stuck in my apartment, given that she's used to being an indoor/ outdoor cat.
Oh, and she's a real badass.
*Paste these coordinates into Google maps for my exact location: 40.334422, -76.735877
(0) comments
It's one minute past midnight, so it's now Friday, July 3rd of 2009.I am sitting in a cheap motel room somewhere in the coal fields of Pennsylvania* after having spent my Thursday working and driving. I'm heading down to North Carolina to pick her up. Her name is Scratchy Cat a.k.a. Butter's Kitty. Of course, she'll need a new name soon.
I'm not looking forward to the 16 hours in the car with her, Asheville to Boston. But I do like her very much, and I look forward to having her around. I'm a little sad that she will be stuck in my apartment, given that she's used to being an indoor/ outdoor cat.
Oh, and she's a real badass.
*Paste these coordinates into Google maps for my exact location: 40.334422, -76.735877
Saturday, June 06, 2009
AMUSING ANECDOTE
Sometimes you find inside of a book a slip of paper from the publisher announcing some kind of correction. You see this more in academic books than anywhere else, and you find the slips more often in such books when they are housed in university libraries than, say, at a yard sale.
For instance, a small rectangle of paper may fall from a treatise on linear algebra that you open in your university's library. If you examine that paper, you might find that it says:
I was delighted once when someone showed me a book of random numbers with one of these slips. Yep, the entire book consisted of 600 pages of random numbers. Who know what purpose such a book serves. Maybe it has something to do with encoding your credit card number for security during internet transactions. But regardless of the reason, there are books, hundreds of pages long, which consist of nothing but column after column of random numbers between 0 and 1, calculated to seven decimal places.
And one such book, housed in Lockwood Library at SUNY Buffalo, has a correction slip that may fall out if you open. This correction slip reads:
(0) comments
Sometimes you find inside of a book a slip of paper from the publisher announcing some kind of correction. You see this more in academic books than anywhere else, and you find the slips more often in such books when they are housed in university libraries than, say, at a yard sale.
For instance, a small rectangle of paper may fall from a treatise on linear algebra that you open in your university's library. If you examine that paper, you might find that it says:
The first complete sentence on page 57, which reads "This allows you to calculate the eigenvectors," should read, "This allows you to calculate the eigenvalues."
I was delighted once when someone showed me a book of random numbers with one of these slips. Yep, the entire book consisted of 600 pages of random numbers. Who know what purpose such a book serves. Maybe it has something to do with encoding your credit card number for security during internet transactions. But regardless of the reason, there are books, hundreds of pages long, which consist of nothing but column after column of random numbers between 0 and 1, calculated to seven decimal places.
And one such book, housed in Lockwood Library at SUNY Buffalo, has a correction slip that may fall out if you open. This correction slip reads:
The list beginning on page 332 which reads "0.2455014 0.29995381 0.7039217" should read "0.2455014 0.29992804 0.2789102".
Thursday, May 14, 2009
MIRACLE ENOUGH TO STAGGER SEXTILLIONS
September 10, 1943-May 5, 2009
(0) comments
September 10, 1943-May 5, 2009
Sunday, May 03, 2009
PERFECT ROCK SONGS MISSING ENDINGS
There's an old story you hear about once every ten years that says that Navajo Indians were master blanket weavers, but that they always purposefully wove one flaw into their blankets. Apparently, this custom was meant to affirm that the weaver did not pretend to be perfect. The story goes on to relate this affirmation to some kind of piety. I don't know if it's true, but I do know that a lot of our greatest rock songs have a certain flaw woven right into them.
A number of the most nearly perfect rock songs in recording history are missing an ending. Obviously, I am thinking of Dinosaur Jr.'s cover of 'Just Like Heaven' and Jawbreaker's cover of 'You Don't Know What You Got.' How do I know that these are perfect rock songs? Because anyone with a soul who listens to them will want to jump into a '77 Ford LTD with a case of cold beer in cans and take off on a cross country road trip at 100 miles per hour.
So therefore, I have proven that each of these is an example of a perfect rock song. So what's with the endings? Both songs end abruptly, not only mid-passage, but outright mid-melody. I don't think the bands were respecting a pious need to distance themselves from a god.
But if the four-track just ran out of tape, why did they put that take on the release? Why not put in another tape and re-do it? Perhaps in each case they knew they had just done a perfect take. Perhaps they were running out to the corner store to get a case of cold beer and take off on a cross country road trip.
Each of those songs contains an abrupt ending that would make any recording professional freak out. But to imagine the world without either of those songs, is to imagine a world as a dead and colorless place, in which our only hope is that we might die by sudden brutal violence and be spared having our life drained from us over a seeming eternity by our starving souls. Without those flawed, but perfect rock songs, our share of this world would amount to no more than a shopping cart with a squeaky wheel and the occaisional morsel of fermenting gruel.
Lest you think that those un-written endings are random, there is evidence that it is a tradition in rock. Jawbreaker and Dinosaur Jr may have been evoking contemplations of the very template of perfection in rock. Of course, I don't even need to remind my readers of what the template of perfection in rock is, but just to avoid any hint that I may be acting like it's name has become like the unspeakable name of the lord Jehovah or Yaweh or whatever that one you are not supposed to say is, I obviously speak of 'Sweet Jane' by the Velvet Underground.
Ah-hah! It's right there at the root of the family tree, and it has no ending. But, but, but, you protest, that song has an ending. Go back and listen to it again. From its signature opening chords, to that one little squeak of feedback--the most powerful and understated use of recorded feedback in the history of rock--through its timelessly strange lyrics and beguiling bridge, its the perfect song.
Incidently, there is a model of a Stutz-Bearcat in the Boston Museum of science. I saw that and I had to declare to everyone around, "Hey look everybody... You there, boy, I know your parents have taught you about the Velvet Underground. You've probably been wondering about the line, 'Riding in a Stutz-Bearcat Jim, you know those were different times.' Well here you go. This model shows you what Lou Reed was talking about." The security gaurds came over to express their appreciation for me helping out, but I had to go.
So in a song that perfect, how could it end the way it does. Go back and listen to it again? Or, I'll just tell you. It's a steady "across the board" fadeout. The band couldn't have even played that ending. You can't fade out drums. It's a studio trick. Whiskey Tango Foxtrot? Well, the rumor is that the band had a falling otu. They were fighting, and they couldn't agree how to end that song. So, they managed to record the album, but they never settled on a few odds and ends, like how to end 'Sweet Jane.' So what you get is what the studio producer decided on.
Okay, so maybe three examples doesn't quite make a tradition. But it's a theme. Certainly there are more.
Hidden in this post is a nod to another worthy post, which I will not do right now. But the idea is a post about music studio interference which has created great moments in rock. The obvious example is repeated piano introduction to Pete Seeger's 'Old Time Rock and Roll.' He didn't write that song to have that piano riff played once, then again, and then to have the song proper kick in. But he was doing numerous takes at Muscle Shoals studio. In the final version, he played the riff, didn't like it, figured it could be edited out later, played it again, and started the song. When they listened to it in editing, they liked the effect, and kept it, thus giving rise to an iconic song beginning.
(0) comments
There's an old story you hear about once every ten years that says that Navajo Indians were master blanket weavers, but that they always purposefully wove one flaw into their blankets. Apparently, this custom was meant to affirm that the weaver did not pretend to be perfect. The story goes on to relate this affirmation to some kind of piety. I don't know if it's true, but I do know that a lot of our greatest rock songs have a certain flaw woven right into them.
A number of the most nearly perfect rock songs in recording history are missing an ending. Obviously, I am thinking of Dinosaur Jr.'s cover of 'Just Like Heaven' and Jawbreaker's cover of 'You Don't Know What You Got.' How do I know that these are perfect rock songs? Because anyone with a soul who listens to them will want to jump into a '77 Ford LTD with a case of cold beer in cans and take off on a cross country road trip at 100 miles per hour.
So therefore, I have proven that each of these is an example of a perfect rock song. So what's with the endings? Both songs end abruptly, not only mid-passage, but outright mid-melody. I don't think the bands were respecting a pious need to distance themselves from a god.
But if the four-track just ran out of tape, why did they put that take on the release? Why not put in another tape and re-do it? Perhaps in each case they knew they had just done a perfect take. Perhaps they were running out to the corner store to get a case of cold beer and take off on a cross country road trip.
Each of those songs contains an abrupt ending that would make any recording professional freak out. But to imagine the world without either of those songs, is to imagine a world as a dead and colorless place, in which our only hope is that we might die by sudden brutal violence and be spared having our life drained from us over a seeming eternity by our starving souls. Without those flawed, but perfect rock songs, our share of this world would amount to no more than a shopping cart with a squeaky wheel and the occaisional morsel of fermenting gruel.
Lest you think that those un-written endings are random, there is evidence that it is a tradition in rock. Jawbreaker and Dinosaur Jr may have been evoking contemplations of the very template of perfection in rock. Of course, I don't even need to remind my readers of what the template of perfection in rock is, but just to avoid any hint that I may be acting like it's name has become like the unspeakable name of the lord Jehovah or Yaweh or whatever that one you are not supposed to say is, I obviously speak of 'Sweet Jane' by the Velvet Underground.
Ah-hah! It's right there at the root of the family tree, and it has no ending. But, but, but, you protest, that song has an ending. Go back and listen to it again. From its signature opening chords, to that one little squeak of feedback--the most powerful and understated use of recorded feedback in the history of rock--through its timelessly strange lyrics and beguiling bridge, its the perfect song.
Incidently, there is a model of a Stutz-Bearcat in the Boston Museum of science. I saw that and I had to declare to everyone around, "Hey look everybody... You there, boy, I know your parents have taught you about the Velvet Underground. You've probably been wondering about the line, 'Riding in a Stutz-Bearcat Jim, you know those were different times.' Well here you go. This model shows you what Lou Reed was talking about." The security gaurds came over to express their appreciation for me helping out, but I had to go.
So in a song that perfect, how could it end the way it does. Go back and listen to it again? Or, I'll just tell you. It's a steady "across the board" fadeout. The band couldn't have even played that ending. You can't fade out drums. It's a studio trick. Whiskey Tango Foxtrot? Well, the rumor is that the band had a falling otu. They were fighting, and they couldn't agree how to end that song. So, they managed to record the album, but they never settled on a few odds and ends, like how to end 'Sweet Jane.' So what you get is what the studio producer decided on.
Okay, so maybe three examples doesn't quite make a tradition. But it's a theme. Certainly there are more.
Hidden in this post is a nod to another worthy post, which I will not do right now. But the idea is a post about music studio interference which has created great moments in rock. The obvious example is repeated piano introduction to Pete Seeger's 'Old Time Rock and Roll.' He didn't write that song to have that piano riff played once, then again, and then to have the song proper kick in. But he was doing numerous takes at Muscle Shoals studio. In the final version, he played the riff, didn't like it, figured it could be edited out later, played it again, and started the song. When they listened to it in editing, they liked the effect, and kept it, thus giving rise to an iconic song beginning.
Friday, May 01, 2009
MY RESTAURANT IDEA
I have this idea for a restaurant that has been stewing for almost a decade. In short, my idea is to serve bar food, but with a Dim Sum delivery method. Mind you, I'm not a huge fan of sports bars, but I think this idea would be really well suited to a sports bar.
You sit at a table, and waitresses push wheeled carts around. Each cart is loaded with small plates, each bearing a small portion of some bar food. If you see a plate that you want, you just grab it. A plate might carry a couple of chicken wings; a couple of jalepano poppers; a slider (miniature cheeseburger); a breadstick; a small piece of pizza; a little salad; a ramekin of gelatto; a hard-boiled egg; two stuffed grape leaves; a stuffed potato skin; some nachos; a carnitas taco; a fish taco; a lamb kabob skewer; some humus and pita; or a couple of mozeralla sticks.
Beer would by the pitcher, and you would get it when you first sat down, and there would be ample beer for your entire visit. There would be some pachinko machines or other interactive doo-hickey along one wall, to encourage you to get up and go do stuff every now and then. This way, you would ultimately eat and drink (and spend) more.
Everytime you take a plate from the cart, the waitress puts a tick-mark on your card. Prices are clearly displayed on the carts, and all are low. Perhaps there's just three prices: some plates are a dollar, some plates are two; and some are three. A little medallion of steak or pork chop might be three, especially with some aus ju sauce or char-broiled scallions. But two chicken wings or two mozerella sticks should just be a dollar.
This place would probably have sports on big-screen tvs. There would probably be an informational table tent, explaining how the service works; listing beer choices; and reminding you to tip your server.
Interestingly, it would be easy to have a private function room off to the side, because the servers wouldn't really have to do anything different to serve that room. They would just push their carts through there as well when doing a lap. Because the big-screen tvs are an important part of my business plan, the function room could be rented by any group that wants to, say, watch a movie. This could be a good corporate or organizational activity, and it could be done with or without alcohol. So, function room: think some kid's birthday party and play their favorite Star Wars movie; local office retreat, and they watch The Office; or screening (via satellite tv) soccer games from around the globe at whatever weird time they are being played.
That's my idea. The Dim Sum of fried appetizers. You and your co-worker can go in their at 1 pm, have a couple of salads and a couple of sliders, with soda or lemonade or coffee, and get out of there for six bucks each. Or you and some friends can double-date there, and watch the Red Sox game, have a few pitchers and eat a little of everything.
My tentative name for this restaurant is "And Then Some" or "An' Den Sum". But I'm not sure.
(1) comments
I have this idea for a restaurant that has been stewing for almost a decade. In short, my idea is to serve bar food, but with a Dim Sum delivery method. Mind you, I'm not a huge fan of sports bars, but I think this idea would be really well suited to a sports bar.
You sit at a table, and waitresses push wheeled carts around. Each cart is loaded with small plates, each bearing a small portion of some bar food. If you see a plate that you want, you just grab it. A plate might carry a couple of chicken wings; a couple of jalepano poppers; a slider (miniature cheeseburger); a breadstick; a small piece of pizza; a little salad; a ramekin of gelatto; a hard-boiled egg; two stuffed grape leaves; a stuffed potato skin; some nachos; a carnitas taco; a fish taco; a lamb kabob skewer; some humus and pita; or a couple of mozeralla sticks.
Beer would by the pitcher, and you would get it when you first sat down, and there would be ample beer for your entire visit. There would be some pachinko machines or other interactive doo-hickey along one wall, to encourage you to get up and go do stuff every now and then. This way, you would ultimately eat and drink (and spend) more.
Everytime you take a plate from the cart, the waitress puts a tick-mark on your card. Prices are clearly displayed on the carts, and all are low. Perhaps there's just three prices: some plates are a dollar, some plates are two; and some are three. A little medallion of steak or pork chop might be three, especially with some aus ju sauce or char-broiled scallions. But two chicken wings or two mozerella sticks should just be a dollar.
This place would probably have sports on big-screen tvs. There would probably be an informational table tent, explaining how the service works; listing beer choices; and reminding you to tip your server.
Interestingly, it would be easy to have a private function room off to the side, because the servers wouldn't really have to do anything different to serve that room. They would just push their carts through there as well when doing a lap. Because the big-screen tvs are an important part of my business plan, the function room could be rented by any group that wants to, say, watch a movie. This could be a good corporate or organizational activity, and it could be done with or without alcohol. So, function room: think some kid's birthday party and play their favorite Star Wars movie; local office retreat, and they watch The Office; or screening (via satellite tv) soccer games from around the globe at whatever weird time they are being played.
That's my idea. The Dim Sum of fried appetizers. You and your co-worker can go in their at 1 pm, have a couple of salads and a couple of sliders, with soda or lemonade or coffee, and get out of there for six bucks each. Or you and some friends can double-date there, and watch the Red Sox game, have a few pitchers and eat a little of everything.
My tentative name for this restaurant is "And Then Some" or "An' Den Sum". But I'm not sure.
Sunday, April 26, 2009
LAW SCHOOL FINALS 9.04
It's time for finals, so you can probably expect some posts on drinking beer and playing Grand Theft Auto. Today, I pretty much read Civil Procedure all day. So I needed something I could do that wouldn't take up too much of my attention, but would distract me every now and then when I needed a break. So I installed Kubuntu 9.04 on one of my laptops.
I have to say, I am very impressed. First, let me note that I think Windows XP is a better operating system than Windows Vista. That being said, so far, Kubuntu is as enjoyable to use as any Windows or Mac OS that I have experienced.
I think one big reason is that Ubuntu released a new version recently. Last time I ever thought about it, they were at 8-something. If you are wondering, Kubuntu is just exactly Ubuntu, but with KDE handling your visuals insted of Gnome. But if you are Linux curious, but also a little gun-shy about all the jargon, now might be the time to go ahead and do it. Installing Kubuntu from disc was easier than installing Windows (I had re-installed Windows XP on that same laptop about six months ago.)
Here's the steps I took, with some notes on time and difficulty:
1. I googled 'Kubuntu' and downloaded a Kubuntu 9.03 iso onto my desktop. Fifteen minutes, very easy.
2. I downloaded and installed "ISO Recorder 3.1" from: http://isorecorder.alexfeinman.com/isorecorder.htm. (This is one annoying step in the process, and it's because Vista doesn't have any built-in support for burning an ISO onto a blank CD. But, after the ISO was on my desktop, and I installed the ISO Recorder, then when I right-clicked on the ISO, "burn to CD" (or something like that) was one of my choices.) Two minutes, and mildly annoying because Vista won't just do the burning.
3. I put a blank CD in the drive and right-clicked on the Kubuntu ISO and chose "burn to CD". The burning took maybe ten minutes.
4. I put that CD in the drive of my other laptop, and re-booted it.
Here was a pleasant surprise: the Kubuntu installer noticed that I had Windows XP installed, and volunteered to make me a dual-boot system. I accepted all the default settings, and typed in answers to a few questions--like my name and what time zone I live in. The entire install probably took fifteen minutes.
5. Kubuntu was then installed and running on my laptop (A Gateway from about 2004, with a Pentium 4, and about 512 MB RAM). My network card, touch-pad, and crap like that all worked seamlessely "out of the box". Oddly, when I re-install the original Windows XP OS, those things do not work "out of the box." I have to use a separate "Utility CD" to get them all to work. You know what, fuck you Windows. Kubuntu worked out of the box.
I have not yet tried two things: my old USB laser printer, or any of my various wireless network cards. If any BPB readers are really, really curious, email me (hydez at bc dot edu) and I'll go test those. My external USB hard drive worked "out of the box", and faster than in Windows XP.
I discovered 2 minor annoyances with Kubuntu, but one of them proved to a feature, after I came to understand it.
The first, annoyance-only annoyance in Kubuntu is setting up user accounts. Within the KDE (i.e., like Windows) environment, there is no way to set up a user account. The system preferences window looks suspiciiously like the Mac OSX system preference window, but for the lack of a user accounts button.
I like to have three acounts on my computers--one in which I am an administrator, which I only use for installing software; one in which I am a user, which I use regularly; and one named 'visitor', for when other people use my computer. It turns out that to create additional accounts in Kubuntu, you have to open a terminal window, and issue the following command-line command:
sudo adduser visitor
The system them prompts you for a password. After you do that, the user account exists just as if you had done Windows' "add user account" or hte equivalent in mac. But I think casual users do not like the command line. After issuing the command, I rebooted the computer, and sure enough, I could log in as 'visitor', and there was a separate account.
The other minor annoyance, which I have quickly come to like, is the way to install new programs. There were three programs I knew that I wanted right off the bat: Flash player, to watch videos on Hulu; firefox, for civilized web-browsing; and VLC media player, for watching DVDs without sitting through annoying advertisements.
I tried to do what I am accostomed to doing. I went to the mozilla page and tried to download firefox and then double click on it to install it. For some reason, I couldn't make that work. Same thing for Flash player.
But then I went to "system preferences" and chose "add or remove programs." In that window, you type "firefox" (or "firef", you'll get an alphabetically relevant list) or "VLC" or "flash", and you get a list of results, with what you are looking for appearing near the top. You highlight your choice, you click a button that says "install" (or something like that), you wait a second, and then your computer has the program you went looking for.
There are a number of very minor things that are handled differently than in Windows or Mac. So when you are a new user, it's good for you to play around wiht an open mind, and not let yourself get annoyed when things work slightly differently than you expect. After you double click and single click and right click on a bunch of things, and play around with your system settings and appearances, and get used to browsing folders, it all starts falling into place. And, you start to realize that some of the differences are very cool improvements. KDE's equivalent to Windows' start menu is, at first, a strange hybrid between a menu and a window. You click on a little folder in your "panel" (taskbar), and a menu pops up, but it is also an interactive window. It's kind of cool, actually.
Once you get used to installing programs, you will quickly find all the ones you want. Then you realize that you ahve a computer with an OS with all your favorite programs, and you actually did less work than had you been putting Windows onto a PC. If I did a fresh install of Kubuntu onto a PC now, knowing what I learned today, it would be effortless.
One very cool thing about Kubuntu is that it comes with Open Office. I've been using that on a couple of computers lately, and I'm pretty impressed with how refined it is. The only major annoyance with OpenOffice is its slow start-up time, while you watch that stupid splash screen. But the fact that it is completely, legally, free, and does everything that Microsoft Office does, menas that you'd be silly not to use it. I am a permanent, forever convert to Open Office, so I was really happy to see it integrated into the Kubuntu package.
Kubuntu has widgets the way Mac OS does. When I had a mac (which Caleb now has) I thought those were just useless eye-candy. Kubuntu goes somewhere with them. They do all the same silly things that the mac ones did, but there's a few useful ones.
One widget makes sense only if you are familiar with linux's multiple desktops. A default Kubuntu installation provides you with a single desktop, but I quicly chose 4. I like having four different desktops that I can toggle between. One of the widgets is a thin bar that lists all your open programs and files regardless of which desktop you are in. I like it. YOu can switch to them or close them from the widget.
One widget that I really like is the "fuzzy clock". It is a small black rectangular clock that displays the time on the screen in natural language. And by natural language, I mean natural. At first, I thought it was cute. After I had it up for a little while, I came to really like it. It started feeling, well, natural. Some of the times it displayed were "twenty till six," and "half past seven," and, simply, "nine."
Fuzzy clock, ftw.
So far, I am very impressed with Kubuntu's ease of installation and use. It comes with enough programs, and it makes installing programs easy enough, that I could easily use it as my primary operatin system forever. Boston College Law School makes you take exams using a program that only runs in Windows, so I can not convert completely anytime soon. That being said, if all yoru computing is really home-use stuff, you could probably plunge into Kubuntu and stay there for a while.
The only major annoyances that I think they should actually fix are: inability to set up multiple user accounts from within the graphical environment; some details of the windows, like minimize button, close button, and scroll bar, are smaller than in Windows, and can't be made bigger, and cause a little bit of a hunt-and-peck game; the GUI has no equivalent to making a "shortcut" (in Windows, or an alias in mac). Even more minor annoyances that they could fix, if they wanted to make it eye-poppingly good: customizable desktops between multiple desktops; some interface things are so different from Windows or Mac that when you go to highlight, or "select" a document, you actually activate it, and it starts opening; making the "recycle bin" appear on the desktop is, unintuitively, "adding a widget" from the widgets.
And lastly, there is a thing in Kubuntu called a panel that you can add to your visual environment. I take it that the panel is suppoed to be the equivalent of the dock in mac-land or the sidebar in Windows Vista land. I can make a panel appear across the top of my screen (or side), but I can't get anything into it. So, there is something I am doing wrong. If I could figure out this minor annoyance, I would be a more empowered user.
But, really, never mind all these minor annoyances. I experienced more minor annoyances when I got my first Windows Vista OS. The evident quality and functionality of Kubuntu 9.04 elevates it to "valuable" status. It's a free operating system that work remarkably well. It's easy to install. It comes with free office software, a high-quality web-browser (Konqueror), a bit-torrent client, an mp3 player... in short, pretty much almost everything you could want. The few things you want that aren't there are easy to get once you figure out to click the button that says "add program."
I endorse Kubuntu as an OS that could be relied upon. For instance a small enterprise--a school, business or non-profit--could save a bundle by using Kubuntu on all their computers. Just save all your Open Office documents in the *.doc format, and no one on the outside will ever blink.
(3) comments
It's time for finals, so you can probably expect some posts on drinking beer and playing Grand Theft Auto. Today, I pretty much read Civil Procedure all day. So I needed something I could do that wouldn't take up too much of my attention, but would distract me every now and then when I needed a break. So I installed Kubuntu 9.04 on one of my laptops.
I have to say, I am very impressed. First, let me note that I think Windows XP is a better operating system than Windows Vista. That being said, so far, Kubuntu is as enjoyable to use as any Windows or Mac OS that I have experienced.
I think one big reason is that Ubuntu released a new version recently. Last time I ever thought about it, they were at 8-something. If you are wondering, Kubuntu is just exactly Ubuntu, but with KDE handling your visuals insted of Gnome. But if you are Linux curious, but also a little gun-shy about all the jargon, now might be the time to go ahead and do it. Installing Kubuntu from disc was easier than installing Windows (I had re-installed Windows XP on that same laptop about six months ago.)
Here's the steps I took, with some notes on time and difficulty:
1. I googled 'Kubuntu' and downloaded a Kubuntu 9.03 iso onto my desktop. Fifteen minutes, very easy.
2. I downloaded and installed "ISO Recorder 3.1" from: http://isorecorder.alexfeinman.com/isorecorder.htm. (This is one annoying step in the process, and it's because Vista doesn't have any built-in support for burning an ISO onto a blank CD. But, after the ISO was on my desktop, and I installed the ISO Recorder, then when I right-clicked on the ISO, "burn to CD" (or something like that) was one of my choices.) Two minutes, and mildly annoying because Vista won't just do the burning.
3. I put a blank CD in the drive and right-clicked on the Kubuntu ISO and chose "burn to CD". The burning took maybe ten minutes.
4. I put that CD in the drive of my other laptop, and re-booted it.
Here was a pleasant surprise: the Kubuntu installer noticed that I had Windows XP installed, and volunteered to make me a dual-boot system. I accepted all the default settings, and typed in answers to a few questions--like my name and what time zone I live in. The entire install probably took fifteen minutes.
5. Kubuntu was then installed and running on my laptop (A Gateway from about 2004, with a Pentium 4, and about 512 MB RAM). My network card, touch-pad, and crap like that all worked seamlessely "out of the box". Oddly, when I re-install the original Windows XP OS, those things do not work "out of the box." I have to use a separate "Utility CD" to get them all to work. You know what, fuck you Windows. Kubuntu worked out of the box.
I have not yet tried two things: my old USB laser printer, or any of my various wireless network cards. If any BPB readers are really, really curious, email me (hydez at bc dot edu) and I'll go test those. My external USB hard drive worked "out of the box", and faster than in Windows XP.
I discovered 2 minor annoyances with Kubuntu, but one of them proved to a feature, after I came to understand it.
The first, annoyance-only annoyance in Kubuntu is setting up user accounts. Within the KDE (i.e., like Windows) environment, there is no way to set up a user account. The system preferences window looks suspiciiously like the Mac OSX system preference window, but for the lack of a user accounts button.
I like to have three acounts on my computers--one in which I am an administrator, which I only use for installing software; one in which I am a user, which I use regularly; and one named 'visitor', for when other people use my computer. It turns out that to create additional accounts in Kubuntu, you have to open a terminal window, and issue the following command-line command:
sudo adduser visitor
The system them prompts you for a password. After you do that, the user account exists just as if you had done Windows' "add user account" or hte equivalent in mac. But I think casual users do not like the command line. After issuing the command, I rebooted the computer, and sure enough, I could log in as 'visitor', and there was a separate account.
The other minor annoyance, which I have quickly come to like, is the way to install new programs. There were three programs I knew that I wanted right off the bat: Flash player, to watch videos on Hulu; firefox, for civilized web-browsing; and VLC media player, for watching DVDs without sitting through annoying advertisements.
I tried to do what I am accostomed to doing. I went to the mozilla page and tried to download firefox and then double click on it to install it. For some reason, I couldn't make that work. Same thing for Flash player.
But then I went to "system preferences" and chose "add or remove programs." In that window, you type "firefox" (or "firef", you'll get an alphabetically relevant list) or "VLC" or "flash", and you get a list of results, with what you are looking for appearing near the top. You highlight your choice, you click a button that says "install" (or something like that), you wait a second, and then your computer has the program you went looking for.
There are a number of very minor things that are handled differently than in Windows or Mac. So when you are a new user, it's good for you to play around wiht an open mind, and not let yourself get annoyed when things work slightly differently than you expect. After you double click and single click and right click on a bunch of things, and play around with your system settings and appearances, and get used to browsing folders, it all starts falling into place. And, you start to realize that some of the differences are very cool improvements. KDE's equivalent to Windows' start menu is, at first, a strange hybrid between a menu and a window. You click on a little folder in your "panel" (taskbar), and a menu pops up, but it is also an interactive window. It's kind of cool, actually.
Once you get used to installing programs, you will quickly find all the ones you want. Then you realize that you ahve a computer with an OS with all your favorite programs, and you actually did less work than had you been putting Windows onto a PC. If I did a fresh install of Kubuntu onto a PC now, knowing what I learned today, it would be effortless.
One very cool thing about Kubuntu is that it comes with Open Office. I've been using that on a couple of computers lately, and I'm pretty impressed with how refined it is. The only major annoyance with OpenOffice is its slow start-up time, while you watch that stupid splash screen. But the fact that it is completely, legally, free, and does everything that Microsoft Office does, menas that you'd be silly not to use it. I am a permanent, forever convert to Open Office, so I was really happy to see it integrated into the Kubuntu package.
Kubuntu has widgets the way Mac OS does. When I had a mac (which Caleb now has) I thought those were just useless eye-candy. Kubuntu goes somewhere with them. They do all the same silly things that the mac ones did, but there's a few useful ones.
One widget makes sense only if you are familiar with linux's multiple desktops. A default Kubuntu installation provides you with a single desktop, but I quicly chose 4. I like having four different desktops that I can toggle between. One of the widgets is a thin bar that lists all your open programs and files regardless of which desktop you are in. I like it. YOu can switch to them or close them from the widget.
One widget that I really like is the "fuzzy clock". It is a small black rectangular clock that displays the time on the screen in natural language. And by natural language, I mean natural. At first, I thought it was cute. After I had it up for a little while, I came to really like it. It started feeling, well, natural. Some of the times it displayed were "twenty till six," and "half past seven," and, simply, "nine."
Fuzzy clock, ftw.
So far, I am very impressed with Kubuntu's ease of installation and use. It comes with enough programs, and it makes installing programs easy enough, that I could easily use it as my primary operatin system forever. Boston College Law School makes you take exams using a program that only runs in Windows, so I can not convert completely anytime soon. That being said, if all yoru computing is really home-use stuff, you could probably plunge into Kubuntu and stay there for a while.
The only major annoyances that I think they should actually fix are: inability to set up multiple user accounts from within the graphical environment; some details of the windows, like minimize button, close button, and scroll bar, are smaller than in Windows, and can't be made bigger, and cause a little bit of a hunt-and-peck game; the GUI has no equivalent to making a "shortcut" (in Windows, or an alias in mac). Even more minor annoyances that they could fix, if they wanted to make it eye-poppingly good: customizable desktops between multiple desktops; some interface things are so different from Windows or Mac that when you go to highlight, or "select" a document, you actually activate it, and it starts opening; making the "recycle bin" appear on the desktop is, unintuitively, "adding a widget" from the widgets.
And lastly, there is a thing in Kubuntu called a panel that you can add to your visual environment. I take it that the panel is suppoed to be the equivalent of the dock in mac-land or the sidebar in Windows Vista land. I can make a panel appear across the top of my screen (or side), but I can't get anything into it. So, there is something I am doing wrong. If I could figure out this minor annoyance, I would be a more empowered user.
But, really, never mind all these minor annoyances. I experienced more minor annoyances when I got my first Windows Vista OS. The evident quality and functionality of Kubuntu 9.04 elevates it to "valuable" status. It's a free operating system that work remarkably well. It's easy to install. It comes with free office software, a high-quality web-browser (Konqueror), a bit-torrent client, an mp3 player... in short, pretty much almost everything you could want. The few things you want that aren't there are easy to get once you figure out to click the button that says "add program."
I endorse Kubuntu as an OS that could be relied upon. For instance a small enterprise--a school, business or non-profit--could save a bundle by using Kubuntu on all their computers. Just save all your Open Office documents in the *.doc format, and no one on the outside will ever blink.
Saturday, April 25, 2009
NO VEHICLES IN THE PARK
Sometimes a document will contain a definition for a word. I saw this once in a complicated contract for the sale of some property documents. I'm simplifying for clarity, but the contract basically said, "Seller will produce all deeds, recorded liens, and judgments to buyer by June 1st. Judgment is here defined to mean any document issued from a court as a final determination of a controversy in relationship to this piece of property."
As a matter of contracting, this seems innocuous. If the Tampa police department contracts to purchase 1,000 Ford sedans from Ford Motor Company, the parties will probably draft a contract several hundred pages long. Sentences can appear throughout the contract that say, "Fifty police cars will be delivered in June. All police cars are warranted to be free of defects." Then you can stick an appendix on the end titled "Definitions," and put in there, "For the purposes of this contract, a police car is defined as a 2006 Ford Sedan, meeting the technical specifications in Appendix B, and painted blue, with a Mopar light bar on the roof."
I don't think this practice should bother anyone.
Laws sometimes contain definitions. The famous example, often used in law school textbooks, is a statute that says, "No vehicles in the park." This statute is used to annoy law students by omitting a definition of vehicle. But note that the statute could just as easily read, "No vehicles in the park. Vehicle is herein defined to mean any motorized conveyance with four rubber tires."
The point I am working towards is that in the above example, the definition of vehicle is not meant to have any normative function. People do not rely on it. Outside of choosing how to travel in the park, people do not form their definition of vehicle by reading the statute.
This is perhaps illustrated by the fact, or at least related to the fact, that you can reorganize the two sentences into one, get rid of the explicit act of defining, and get the same result: "No motorized conveyances with four rubber tires are allowed in the park."
You are banning vehicles and separately defining them for reasons to do with economy of language or ease of future editing.
(The federal laws governing the filing of a patent application do this with dollar amounts. They say, essentially, "Section 1: Filing a patent application will cost the amount set forth in section 4. Section 2: Requesting a copy of a patent application will cost the amount set forth in section 5. Section 3: Petitioning the director for an extended deadline will cost the amount set forth in section 6. Section 4: $500. Section 5: $30. Section 6: $100. " They do this because it makes it easy to raise all the prices without really tinkering with the rules--easy to raise them all at once, across the board, without missing anything.)
Definition of words internal to a law seem to me unobjectionable if that is done solely for some salutory purpose regarding writing, editing, clarity, or other organizational function.
But what about definitions offered by laws which are meant to induce reliance on that particular definition by the public? "The state of Dixie herein defines 'street racer' to mean any car capable of a top speed above 100 MPH." (And in the Dixie example, no other legal grant or limit of rights to "street racers.")
Never mind, for the moment, why a legislature would pass a law such as that. Is the law objectionable? In my earlier examples, I argued that a definition within a law is not objectionable. Is the Dixie street-racer case any different? I submit to you that it is. One challenge is to articulate the distinction.
Absent any other statutory significance of a car's being a "street-racer", the statute begins to smell like an attempt to shape our minds, to convince us of something, or to color our perception of certain automobiles. The guy who collects vintage Corvettes, and takes them on trailers to car shows, might think, "Hey, I don't want to be labeled as a dealer in 'street racers.'"
Okay, the street racer example is obviously absurd. What about a statute that labels an unborn fetus as "a human being, for the purposes of murder laws."? Well, you've got a definition that's tied back to some specific other statutory grant or limit of rights--if you murder a pregnant woman, you get two murder raps.
What about a zealous legislature that tried to pass the fetus definition, and forgot the murder qualification? That statute would read, simply, "An unborn fetus is a human being."
Your thinking, Zack, what's the point of all this? It's all very silly. To which I respond, yes. I think it would be very silly for a government to pass a law issuing a definition not in the context of a statute which specifically grants or limits rights. Come to think of it, such a statute could never be enforced by a court. You could sue, saying, "I'm a developmental biologist, and I've been pregnant for 48 hours, and I know my embryo doesn't yet count as a human being."
The court would say, "We can't really do anything for you. Even if we're convinced you're right, the law doesn't afford you any right or remedy."
Okay, that was my wind up. Here's the pitch. Absent a specific statutory grant or limit of rights (with imagineable remedies when violated), it seems we should conclude that the probably substantial effect of such a statute would be to govern the population's use of language. If we think such a law were passed intentionally, we might conclude that such language shaping was purposeful, and done with the intent to structure social norms. If it was done accidently, it may still be the substantial affect of the law to structure our social norms.
The collector can no longer deny that his Corvettes are street racers. The pregnant woman can no longer refer to her bump as, "An embryo that is not yet human." And lest any of these examples don't bother you because they comport with your values, you can imagine it just the other way. A state may try to codify the common-law "first breath" rule, and pass a law that says, "A fetus becomes a human when it takes its first breath of air." Then the law-abiding pregnant woman couldn't call her lump a human.
I am saying that we must be alert to any law which proposes definitions absent a limited, internal link to a specified grant or limit of a right. That links should be so proximate, that we could just as easily imagine it being edited out of the document. We must be persuaded that the explicit definition is a sensible and economical move, and the law is really meant to grant or limit some specific right.
For if the law does not grant such a right, I argue that a definition by statute is a violation of our first amendment right to free speech. Perhaps even more invidious than a straightforward prohibition of the use of certain words or phrases, it would be a mandate to only use certain words to mean certain things, and it would be a declaration that you would be violating the law if you meant to declare your words to mean certain other things.
(0) comments
Sometimes a document will contain a definition for a word. I saw this once in a complicated contract for the sale of some property documents. I'm simplifying for clarity, but the contract basically said, "Seller will produce all deeds, recorded liens, and judgments to buyer by June 1st. Judgment is here defined to mean any document issued from a court as a final determination of a controversy in relationship to this piece of property."
As a matter of contracting, this seems innocuous. If the Tampa police department contracts to purchase 1,000 Ford sedans from Ford Motor Company, the parties will probably draft a contract several hundred pages long. Sentences can appear throughout the contract that say, "Fifty police cars will be delivered in June. All police cars are warranted to be free of defects." Then you can stick an appendix on the end titled "Definitions," and put in there, "For the purposes of this contract, a police car is defined as a 2006 Ford Sedan, meeting the technical specifications in Appendix B, and painted blue, with a Mopar light bar on the roof."
I don't think this practice should bother anyone.
Laws sometimes contain definitions. The famous example, often used in law school textbooks, is a statute that says, "No vehicles in the park." This statute is used to annoy law students by omitting a definition of vehicle. But note that the statute could just as easily read, "No vehicles in the park. Vehicle is herein defined to mean any motorized conveyance with four rubber tires."
The point I am working towards is that in the above example, the definition of vehicle is not meant to have any normative function. People do not rely on it. Outside of choosing how to travel in the park, people do not form their definition of vehicle by reading the statute.
This is perhaps illustrated by the fact, or at least related to the fact, that you can reorganize the two sentences into one, get rid of the explicit act of defining, and get the same result: "No motorized conveyances with four rubber tires are allowed in the park."
You are banning vehicles and separately defining them for reasons to do with economy of language or ease of future editing.
(The federal laws governing the filing of a patent application do this with dollar amounts. They say, essentially, "Section 1: Filing a patent application will cost the amount set forth in section 4. Section 2: Requesting a copy of a patent application will cost the amount set forth in section 5. Section 3: Petitioning the director for an extended deadline will cost the amount set forth in section 6. Section 4: $500. Section 5: $30. Section 6: $100. " They do this because it makes it easy to raise all the prices without really tinkering with the rules--easy to raise them all at once, across the board, without missing anything.)
Definition of words internal to a law seem to me unobjectionable if that is done solely for some salutory purpose regarding writing, editing, clarity, or other organizational function.
But what about definitions offered by laws which are meant to induce reliance on that particular definition by the public? "The state of Dixie herein defines 'street racer' to mean any car capable of a top speed above 100 MPH." (And in the Dixie example, no other legal grant or limit of rights to "street racers.")
Never mind, for the moment, why a legislature would pass a law such as that. Is the law objectionable? In my earlier examples, I argued that a definition within a law is not objectionable. Is the Dixie street-racer case any different? I submit to you that it is. One challenge is to articulate the distinction.
Absent any other statutory significance of a car's being a "street-racer", the statute begins to smell like an attempt to shape our minds, to convince us of something, or to color our perception of certain automobiles. The guy who collects vintage Corvettes, and takes them on trailers to car shows, might think, "Hey, I don't want to be labeled as a dealer in 'street racers.'"
Okay, the street racer example is obviously absurd. What about a statute that labels an unborn fetus as "a human being, for the purposes of murder laws."? Well, you've got a definition that's tied back to some specific other statutory grant or limit of rights--if you murder a pregnant woman, you get two murder raps.
What about a zealous legislature that tried to pass the fetus definition, and forgot the murder qualification? That statute would read, simply, "An unborn fetus is a human being."
Your thinking, Zack, what's the point of all this? It's all very silly. To which I respond, yes. I think it would be very silly for a government to pass a law issuing a definition not in the context of a statute which specifically grants or limits rights. Come to think of it, such a statute could never be enforced by a court. You could sue, saying, "I'm a developmental biologist, and I've been pregnant for 48 hours, and I know my embryo doesn't yet count as a human being."
The court would say, "We can't really do anything for you. Even if we're convinced you're right, the law doesn't afford you any right or remedy."
Okay, that was my wind up. Here's the pitch. Absent a specific statutory grant or limit of rights (with imagineable remedies when violated), it seems we should conclude that the probably substantial effect of such a statute would be to govern the population's use of language. If we think such a law were passed intentionally, we might conclude that such language shaping was purposeful, and done with the intent to structure social norms. If it was done accidently, it may still be the substantial affect of the law to structure our social norms.
The collector can no longer deny that his Corvettes are street racers. The pregnant woman can no longer refer to her bump as, "An embryo that is not yet human." And lest any of these examples don't bother you because they comport with your values, you can imagine it just the other way. A state may try to codify the common-law "first breath" rule, and pass a law that says, "A fetus becomes a human when it takes its first breath of air." Then the law-abiding pregnant woman couldn't call her lump a human.
I am saying that we must be alert to any law which proposes definitions absent a limited, internal link to a specified grant or limit of a right. That links should be so proximate, that we could just as easily imagine it being edited out of the document. We must be persuaded that the explicit definition is a sensible and economical move, and the law is really meant to grant or limit some specific right.
For if the law does not grant such a right, I argue that a definition by statute is a violation of our first amendment right to free speech. Perhaps even more invidious than a straightforward prohibition of the use of certain words or phrases, it would be a mandate to only use certain words to mean certain things, and it would be a declaration that you would be violating the law if you meant to declare your words to mean certain other things.
Wednesday, April 15, 2009
RUPTURE
Someone used the word "disruption" in an email to me. I was writing them back, talking about a recent disruption, and I wanted to say that I did not feel disrupted.
So, naturally I figured that "dis-" negated a root, and in the interest of avoiding the double negative "I feel not dis-rupted," I wanted to understand the root. It seemed plausible that the word shared a root with "rupture", so negating it didn't seem right. So I did what I usually do when replying to an email, and got my Oxford Dictionary of English Etymology off the shelf.
It turns out that both disrupted and rupture come from the Latin rumpere which means "break". I can't think of any English cognate for rumpere. So in order to better understand the word, I embarked on my usual trip to discover what a word means. I tried to think of other English words that would logically have the same root.
"Rump" was out. It sounded to Anglo-Saxon. Those guys had all the good grunt words for pigs and swine and their parts. I ruminated on rumpere in my mind's ear, slowly turning it and inhaling deeply. Ah ha! I thought. Rumpus! As in, "Let the royal rumpus begin!"
Max's fantasy in Where the Wild Things Are involved all kinds of things being broken. If his revelry with the beasts was a rumpus, surely it was because all natural order was ruptured. Wasn't he breaking stuff when his mother sent him to his room? Wasn't his entire life disrupted by boating off to that strange land?
Surely Sendak was having Max regress into something more atavistic and closer to the orginal Latin with that, "Let the royal rumpus begin!"
So let's see what those pipe-smoking, tweed-wearing editors at Oxford have to say about rumpus:
That's their definition (IPA symbols omitted). They tell us it's fanciful, but they're not quite sure enough to commit to it. They feel the need to stick a question mark in parenthesis after it.
What do you think, amateur linguists (and a couple of proffesionals) who are BPB readers? Is it possible that the root word for "rumpus," disturbance, is the Latin rumpere, break?
(1) comments
Someone used the word "disruption" in an email to me. I was writing them back, talking about a recent disruption, and I wanted to say that I did not feel disrupted.
So, naturally I figured that "dis-" negated a root, and in the interest of avoiding the double negative "I feel not dis-rupted," I wanted to understand the root. It seemed plausible that the word shared a root with "rupture", so negating it didn't seem right. So I did what I usually do when replying to an email, and got my Oxford Dictionary of English Etymology off the shelf.
It turns out that both disrupted and rupture come from the Latin rumpere which means "break". I can't think of any English cognate for rumpere. So in order to better understand the word, I embarked on my usual trip to discover what a word means. I tried to think of other English words that would logically have the same root.
"Rump" was out. It sounded to Anglo-Saxon. Those guys had all the good grunt words for pigs and swine and their parts. I ruminated on rumpere in my mind's ear, slowly turning it and inhaling deeply. Ah ha! I thought. Rumpus! As in, "Let the royal rumpus begin!"
Max's fantasy in Where the Wild Things Are involved all kinds of things being broken. If his revelry with the beasts was a rumpus, surely it was because all natural order was ruptured. Wasn't he breaking stuff when his mother sent him to his room? Wasn't his entire life disrupted by boating off to that strange land?
Surely Sendak was having Max regress into something more atavistic and closer to the orginal Latin with that, "Let the royal rumpus begin!"
So let's see what those pipe-smoking, tweed-wearing editors at Oxford have to say about rumpus:
rumpus disturbance, row. Of fanciful formation (?).
That's their definition (IPA symbols omitted). They tell us it's fanciful, but they're not quite sure enough to commit to it. They feel the need to stick a question mark in parenthesis after it.
What do you think, amateur linguists (and a couple of proffesionals) who are BPB readers? Is it possible that the root word for "rumpus," disturbance, is the Latin rumpere, break?
Monday, March 02, 2009
KALEIDOSCOPE OF REGIONAL FOOD
I was watching the TV show Cops just now, and it was set in Florida. I was looking at the sad palm trees, the sagging-roof mobile homes, and the expanses of sweat-wet asphalt, and I wondered what the regional foods were. It's a prejudice of mine to wonder that there might be interesting foods where people who end up on Cops live. I mean, basically, the TV show Cops is a snapshot of where meth adicts live. And meth adicts live where poor people live. And poor people are historically associated with awesome food.
So the people in the TV show started talking about eating, and they said they'd go eat at a major fast food chain. I felt let down. I thought that surely there on the Florida coast, among all those palm trees, they must have some local food item and local food joint that they patronize? But my feeling of being let down won out as I gave myself over to the idea that any erstwhile Florida food regionalisms that may have once showed up on diner menus or on carts have been lost to fast food restaurants, as has happened nationwide.
But, as I lay back and looked at the ceiling to think (something I do often, especially when digesting some observation of the world) I realized I was wrong.
We have local foods.
I don't mean "local produce", that silly afectation of organic-food yuppies. I mean that our nation still does have local foods, and in every place that I have lived, those foods are cheap, they're sold on carts, and poor people buy them.
Downtown Portland, Oregon, has pretty good tacos. But if you go out to Hillsboro or SE 82nd and Ramona, you can find tacos that are definitely not available at any chain, and are very cheap. Sure, maybe these tacos don't pass some people's tests as "local" because they represent something available throughout the West and South-West and likely in Mexico. But they are a local food in the sense that no corporate chain has done it right, and it still is actually cheap. And besides, there is a difference between taqueria tacos from Portland, OR, and from Austin, TX.
But let's slingshot over to the East coast. Here, the pizza is done right. You can't get it at any corporate chain. I've had good East coast pizza in NY, Boston, and Buffalo. I (almost*) never experienced pizza done right on the West coast. $2.50 a slice, you get extra napkins, and there ain't no fucking artichokes or sun-dried tomaotes on it. It's really good out here. No chain has ever got it right.
(*the Portland exception is an under-recognized place named Rovente's.)
Asheville is the only place I regularly go where you can get biscuits and gravy done right. I grew up around some dirt poor motherfuckers who made biscuits and gravy, and the reason their shit tastes so good is because they're making the gravy in the cast-iron skillet after lifting the sausage out. Fucking stupid loser hippie vegan restaurants on Alberta in Portland don't seem to recognize this step. Gravy is not a vegetarian food. It's not even a meat food. It's an emulsified fat food. Luckily, whenever I head back down to the SE, I can find good biscuits and gravy.
The regions of regional foods get even smaller. What is called "Buffalo wings" in most of the U.S. wouldn't pass muster in Buffalo. A few Buffalo bars perfected the recipie (it's exceedingly simple, less than five ingredients). But around the rest of the nation, motherfuckers are always fucking it up. You can go into hipster eateries and order "Jamacia Jerk Buffalo Wings" or "Chile Lime Habenero Buffalo Wings" in various places around the country, but: those food items are not special, and, you will be paying about ten bucks for about five wings. In Buffalo, the food item is called "wings" (nobody there has ever said "Buffalo wings"), and old plumber guys eat them sitting at the bar, and they cost about 3 bucks for an order of ten. The only ingredients are wings, fried, Frank's red hot plus margerine, served with blue cheese.
I had beans and rice in Southern Lousiana once, and I was suprised to discover that it was an amazing dish. Done right, it comes in a cardboard rectangle, costs about 1.99, and tastes like pork and beauty.
I had eaten "chicken fried steak" many times in my life before I had it in Johnson City, Texas. Then I learned that chicken fried steak must be drizzled in white gravy, and served with sweet corn, and your whole dinner costs about five bucks.
The regionalisms begin to pile up as I think of them. High-quality salmon gets folded into your scrambled eggs at many breakfast diners in the Pacific Northwest if that's what you order, at the same cost as mushrooms. Bock beer is made in central Texas with an expertise known otherwise only to Czhecks. Almost every city in the great lakes region makes an incredible pilsner. You have to go down south for a "Bojangles cajun chicken biscuit." There really is something special about an "In-n-Out Burger", only available in California. But there is something differently special about Burgerville, in the NW.
There's also "beef on weck", a sandwhich so specific to Buffalo that like nobody has ever heard of it. There's all these low-rent roast beef fast-food restaurants in South Boston and along the north shore. Oh, there's "migas" in Austin, TX. I swear, one day I will open a restaurant named "no migas", but we will serve migas. Everyone whom I have cooked Austin-style migas for has loved it.
So, any BPB readers, please comment. Are there any truly-regional foods in your area? What about where you grew up? Are there things generall associated with your area of the country? And better yet, what about with your specific city or immediate area? Or specific city or immediate area foods that you have ever experienced?
I do not believe that American food has become completely homogenized by large corporate chains. I can get tacos in Boston, and I can get wings in Portland, and I can get slices of pizza anywhere, but they all suck! For non-sucky tacos, I have to go to specific places on the West coast or the SW. For non-sucky pizza, I need to be here in the NE. For non-sucky wings, I seem to need to go to Buffalo. For any beef on weck at all, I need to go to Buffalo. For any migas at all, I need to go to Austin. For decent biscuits and gravy, you gotta go to the south.
What can you share? Are there any mid-western foods? (my own knowledge seems to have covered much of hte coasts).
I am curious.
(6) comments
I was watching the TV show Cops just now, and it was set in Florida. I was looking at the sad palm trees, the sagging-roof mobile homes, and the expanses of sweat-wet asphalt, and I wondered what the regional foods were. It's a prejudice of mine to wonder that there might be interesting foods where people who end up on Cops live. I mean, basically, the TV show Cops is a snapshot of where meth adicts live. And meth adicts live where poor people live. And poor people are historically associated with awesome food.
So the people in the TV show started talking about eating, and they said they'd go eat at a major fast food chain. I felt let down. I thought that surely there on the Florida coast, among all those palm trees, they must have some local food item and local food joint that they patronize? But my feeling of being let down won out as I gave myself over to the idea that any erstwhile Florida food regionalisms that may have once showed up on diner menus or on carts have been lost to fast food restaurants, as has happened nationwide.
But, as I lay back and looked at the ceiling to think (something I do often, especially when digesting some observation of the world) I realized I was wrong.
We have local foods.
I don't mean "local produce", that silly afectation of organic-food yuppies. I mean that our nation still does have local foods, and in every place that I have lived, those foods are cheap, they're sold on carts, and poor people buy them.
Downtown Portland, Oregon, has pretty good tacos. But if you go out to Hillsboro or SE 82nd and Ramona, you can find tacos that are definitely not available at any chain, and are very cheap. Sure, maybe these tacos don't pass some people's tests as "local" because they represent something available throughout the West and South-West and likely in Mexico. But they are a local food in the sense that no corporate chain has done it right, and it still is actually cheap. And besides, there is a difference between taqueria tacos from Portland, OR, and from Austin, TX.
But let's slingshot over to the East coast. Here, the pizza is done right. You can't get it at any corporate chain. I've had good East coast pizza in NY, Boston, and Buffalo. I (almost*) never experienced pizza done right on the West coast. $2.50 a slice, you get extra napkins, and there ain't no fucking artichokes or sun-dried tomaotes on it. It's really good out here. No chain has ever got it right.
(*the Portland exception is an under-recognized place named Rovente's.)
Asheville is the only place I regularly go where you can get biscuits and gravy done right. I grew up around some dirt poor motherfuckers who made biscuits and gravy, and the reason their shit tastes so good is because they're making the gravy in the cast-iron skillet after lifting the sausage out. Fucking stupid loser hippie vegan restaurants on Alberta in Portland don't seem to recognize this step. Gravy is not a vegetarian food. It's not even a meat food. It's an emulsified fat food. Luckily, whenever I head back down to the SE, I can find good biscuits and gravy.
The regions of regional foods get even smaller. What is called "Buffalo wings" in most of the U.S. wouldn't pass muster in Buffalo. A few Buffalo bars perfected the recipie (it's exceedingly simple, less than five ingredients). But around the rest of the nation, motherfuckers are always fucking it up. You can go into hipster eateries and order "Jamacia Jerk Buffalo Wings" or "Chile Lime Habenero Buffalo Wings" in various places around the country, but: those food items are not special, and, you will be paying about ten bucks for about five wings. In Buffalo, the food item is called "wings" (nobody there has ever said "Buffalo wings"), and old plumber guys eat them sitting at the bar, and they cost about 3 bucks for an order of ten. The only ingredients are wings, fried, Frank's red hot plus margerine, served with blue cheese.
I had beans and rice in Southern Lousiana once, and I was suprised to discover that it was an amazing dish. Done right, it comes in a cardboard rectangle, costs about 1.99, and tastes like pork and beauty.
I had eaten "chicken fried steak" many times in my life before I had it in Johnson City, Texas. Then I learned that chicken fried steak must be drizzled in white gravy, and served with sweet corn, and your whole dinner costs about five bucks.
The regionalisms begin to pile up as I think of them. High-quality salmon gets folded into your scrambled eggs at many breakfast diners in the Pacific Northwest if that's what you order, at the same cost as mushrooms. Bock beer is made in central Texas with an expertise known otherwise only to Czhecks. Almost every city in the great lakes region makes an incredible pilsner. You have to go down south for a "Bojangles cajun chicken biscuit." There really is something special about an "In-n-Out Burger", only available in California. But there is something differently special about Burgerville, in the NW.
There's also "beef on weck", a sandwhich so specific to Buffalo that like nobody has ever heard of it. There's all these low-rent roast beef fast-food restaurants in South Boston and along the north shore. Oh, there's "migas" in Austin, TX. I swear, one day I will open a restaurant named "no migas", but we will serve migas. Everyone whom I have cooked Austin-style migas for has loved it.
So, any BPB readers, please comment. Are there any truly-regional foods in your area? What about where you grew up? Are there things generall associated with your area of the country? And better yet, what about with your specific city or immediate area? Or specific city or immediate area foods that you have ever experienced?
I do not believe that American food has become completely homogenized by large corporate chains. I can get tacos in Boston, and I can get wings in Portland, and I can get slices of pizza anywhere, but they all suck! For non-sucky tacos, I have to go to specific places on the West coast or the SW. For non-sucky pizza, I need to be here in the NE. For non-sucky wings, I seem to need to go to Buffalo. For any beef on weck at all, I need to go to Buffalo. For any migas at all, I need to go to Austin. For decent biscuits and gravy, you gotta go to the south.
What can you share? Are there any mid-western foods? (my own knowledge seems to have covered much of hte coasts).
I am curious.
Sunday, February 15, 2009
COLLECTOR
I'm making a collection. It's a collection of facts that I have in my head. It's a list of specific differences between the East coast and the West coast.
EAST COAST
Skunks are common
Long, skinny butter
Deciduous trees
Waiters and waitresses do not behave like college students at a keg party
Pizza
You call that a mountain?
WEST COAST
Earthquakes are common
Short, squat butter
Coniferous trees
People say, "Right on..."
Everyone has a tattoo
Real mountains
Sushi and tacos
Taquerias
Horrible restaurant service
(2) comments
I'm making a collection. It's a collection of facts that I have in my head. It's a list of specific differences between the East coast and the West coast.
EAST COAST
Skunks are common
Long, skinny butter
Deciduous trees
Waiters and waitresses do not behave like college students at a keg party
Pizza
You call that a mountain?
WEST COAST
Earthquakes are common
Short, squat butter
Coniferous trees
People say, "Right on..."
Everyone has a tattoo
Real mountains
Sushi and tacos
Taquerias
Horrible restaurant service
Friday, February 13, 2009
COMPUTER PERSON
I've never considered myself a "computer person" in the sense that computers are not a hobby or interest of mine. I think they're cool tools, and I think everyone should buy a netbook with their tax return this year. But I never thought of myself as that guy in the basement surrounded by Mountain Dew cans arguing on bulletin boards all night about the merits of one flavor of Linux over another.
But someone said something that made me think people might think of me like that. I hope that's not true.
But I remembered that at the law firm where I used to work, we once needed a thousand computer files, named according to a sequential numbering system, and each with a certain text document in it (with contents related to the number/ name of the file).
Someone started making all the files and documents in Windows Vista--a whole lot of right clicking and typing and stuff. So I logged into my thesis advisor's research server (which I negotiated forever access to contingent on my providing support for bioinformatic applications for his future grad students) and wrote a Perl script and had the task done in about fifteen minutes. Then, I ran a shell script which I had already created which converted all the line breaks from Unix to Windows. Then I put WinSCP on my work computer, and copied all the files to the law firm's server. So maybe I am a computer person. It's not what I want to be. Really, they're just tools.
(2) comments
I've never considered myself a "computer person" in the sense that computers are not a hobby or interest of mine. I think they're cool tools, and I think everyone should buy a netbook with their tax return this year. But I never thought of myself as that guy in the basement surrounded by Mountain Dew cans arguing on bulletin boards all night about the merits of one flavor of Linux over another.
But someone said something that made me think people might think of me like that. I hope that's not true.
But I remembered that at the law firm where I used to work, we once needed a thousand computer files, named according to a sequential numbering system, and each with a certain text document in it (with contents related to the number/ name of the file).
Someone started making all the files and documents in Windows Vista--a whole lot of right clicking and typing and stuff. So I logged into my thesis advisor's research server (which I negotiated forever access to contingent on my providing support for bioinformatic applications for his future grad students) and wrote a Perl script and had the task done in about fifteen minutes. Then, I ran a shell script which I had already created which converted all the line breaks from Unix to Windows. Then I put WinSCP on my work computer, and copied all the files to the law firm's server. So maybe I am a computer person. It's not what I want to be. Really, they're just tools.
Thursday, February 12, 2009
A SYSTEM AND METHOD FOR PRESENTING A DESKTOP OR SIMULATED OS GUI USING KNOWN TRANSFER PROTOCOLS AND MARKUP LANGUAGES
Today, February 12th, 2009, I had a realization. The cement that would bind together such emerging technologies as netbooks, web-based office software, and web-mail which allows for large attachments does not exist yet. That cement would be an emulated desktop created and maintained by a host server and presented on your local terminal.
I do not mean to limit the technical approaches, and what I am imagining is the broadest possible system of presenting--on a user's screen--a picture of a desktop, with icons and windows, where the rendering of said picture is directed by a host server, and said icons and said windows represent applications and open documents or open folders, the contents of which are stored on the host server.
In more plain English, I am saying that the hole in something like Google documents is that there is not a desktop environment. The obvious, trivial way to fill the hole is to imagine that after you boot up your computer, you open a web-browser. Then, you browse to Google and log in. Then, you click on a button which says "open my Google desktop". Then, a picture loads within your browser which looks like a home computer desktop.
Then, within your browser window, your mouse does things that it would do on your computer, even absent an internet connection or web-browser.
HARDWARE TRENDS
One of the fastest growing segments of the computer market is netbooks. A netbook is a laptop which: is very small, is cheap, is not advertised as having much memory; is marketed towards web-browsing and simple word processing. Many people buy and use netbooks because they are more "disposable" than a person's primary laptop. People who own a laptop that costs more than 1,000 dollars often purchase a 299 dollar netbooks so that they have something they can feel free to take on the train, or take to a bar, or throw into a tote-bag for a day of running errands.
This is a consumer-friendly piece of hardware that will likely see wide acceptance. The consequence of such wide acceptance is that many people will be faced with using a multitude of different computers, with no single computer being primary. People will no longer say, "let me get on my computer and do that." They will say, "let me get on a computer and do that."
WEB APPLICATION TRENDS
Many things that people do on computers that historically are strictly local have been emulated on the web. Google documents is perhaps the best example. You can now create and maintain a word processing document or spreadsheet all "on the web."
INTERNET CONNECTIVITY
United States residents have enjoyed a surge in the availability of high-speed internet access ("broadband") over the past few years. Arguably related to political power held by prominent ISPs, the US is behind other nations in having broadband available cheap or free to a multitude of citizens. For instance, Singapore and parts of Japan are exploring widespread, free, municipal broadband.
People have made possibly persuasive arguments that free or near-free municipal broadband is an economically sound and progressive policy. Some US cities (SF (? I need to check this) have rolled out such broadband. Portland, OR, tried and abandoned a municipal/ private sector broadband hybrid. At least one state (LA I think? Again, check this.) has outlawed local municipal broadband under pressure from ISPs doing business there.
The adage "the exception proves the rule" might apply here. Private broadband companies in the US might be weilding their clout in recognition of what we see in Singapore, Japan, and much of the rest of the industrialized world. Widespread broadband access may be the way of the future. Broadband might be, in a few years, what radio was in the past--available, free, and taken for granted. And like radio, a private citizen might soon only need a piece of hardware to
hook into it.
SUMMARY
Given the changing face of hardware and broadband access, consumers are likely to change their behaviors. As hardware becomes negligibly cheap, as does broadband, consumers are likely to have multiple computers, and they are likely to be always "online." Consumers like being able to create documents and spreadsheets, to save them, to edit them later, and to further print and distribute them.
Consumers are accostomed to doing these things in the GUI environments known as desktops popularized by such operating systems as Windows and Mac OS.
Because of consumers' changing behaviors, they need to not depend on a single computer hard drive as the box that stores all of their documents.
Thus, consumers could be well served by a system or method that presents to them the familiar environment of the desktop, of a traditionally local computer OS, but exploits internet transfer protocols to re-create that environtment on whichever piece of hardware--desktop, laptop, web-enabled PDA, gaming system, terminal, or netbook--said consumer happens to be using at the moment.
SOME FINAL COMMENTS
A service like Google documents may be greatly enhanced by programming in "drag-and-drop" icons and file structures. Also, even thought it's a fiction, icons for applications could be programmed in. People like familiar environments, and like double clicking on the "word" icon to get their word processor going.
The desktop environment which I imagine here could open entirely within a browser window, or it could be "maximized" to take up your entire computer screen. There could be single icon somewher which returns the user to the truly local OS GUI.
There could be degrees between "maximized" and "within a browser tab". As the user issues a command, differing amounts of screen "real-estate" could be granted to the web-based GUI that I herein propose.
The core of my proposal is that a company which offers applications over the web could also offer to deploy by offering a visual emulation of a desktop. But this idea also encompasses third parties who may program systems which create an emulated OS GUI on a local terminal which allows a user to invoke or access or edit or police or marshall files or applications which are not on the local memory of the user's computer.
It is within this idea that re-creation of such familiar icons as "my computer", "my documents", "my network connections", "trash", "recycle bin", "recycling", "hard drive", "local hard drive", "folder X", "shared folder", and so on, might appear as icons, displayed on the local terminal screen, and representing files, folders, applications, directory structures, shortcuts, links, commands, programs, typed character strings, command or other actions interpreted from speech, mouse motions, and/ or motions from pointing devices, light pens, touchpads, keypads, game controllers, joysticks, and any similar thing, could be exploited to represent to the user a familial "desktop like" GUI.
More on this later.
(2) comments
Today, February 12th, 2009, I had a realization. The cement that would bind together such emerging technologies as netbooks, web-based office software, and web-mail which allows for large attachments does not exist yet. That cement would be an emulated desktop created and maintained by a host server and presented on your local terminal.
I do not mean to limit the technical approaches, and what I am imagining is the broadest possible system of presenting--on a user's screen--a picture of a desktop, with icons and windows, where the rendering of said picture is directed by a host server, and said icons and said windows represent applications and open documents or open folders, the contents of which are stored on the host server.
In more plain English, I am saying that the hole in something like Google documents is that there is not a desktop environment. The obvious, trivial way to fill the hole is to imagine that after you boot up your computer, you open a web-browser. Then, you browse to Google and log in. Then, you click on a button which says "open my Google desktop". Then, a picture loads within your browser which looks like a home computer desktop.
Then, within your browser window, your mouse does things that it would do on your computer, even absent an internet connection or web-browser.
HARDWARE TRENDS
One of the fastest growing segments of the computer market is netbooks. A netbook is a laptop which: is very small, is cheap, is not advertised as having much memory; is marketed towards web-browsing and simple word processing. Many people buy and use netbooks because they are more "disposable" than a person's primary laptop. People who own a laptop that costs more than 1,000 dollars often purchase a 299 dollar netbooks so that they have something they can feel free to take on the train, or take to a bar, or throw into a tote-bag for a day of running errands.
This is a consumer-friendly piece of hardware that will likely see wide acceptance. The consequence of such wide acceptance is that many people will be faced with using a multitude of different computers, with no single computer being primary. People will no longer say, "let me get on my computer and do that." They will say, "let me get on a computer and do that."
WEB APPLICATION TRENDS
Many things that people do on computers that historically are strictly local have been emulated on the web. Google documents is perhaps the best example. You can now create and maintain a word processing document or spreadsheet all "on the web."
INTERNET CONNECTIVITY
United States residents have enjoyed a surge in the availability of high-speed internet access ("broadband") over the past few years. Arguably related to political power held by prominent ISPs, the US is behind other nations in having broadband available cheap or free to a multitude of citizens. For instance, Singapore and parts of Japan are exploring widespread, free, municipal broadband.
People have made possibly persuasive arguments that free or near-free municipal broadband is an economically sound and progressive policy. Some US cities (SF (? I need to check this) have rolled out such broadband. Portland, OR, tried and abandoned a municipal/ private sector broadband hybrid. At least one state (LA I think? Again, check this.) has outlawed local municipal broadband under pressure from ISPs doing business there.
The adage "the exception proves the rule" might apply here. Private broadband companies in the US might be weilding their clout in recognition of what we see in Singapore, Japan, and much of the rest of the industrialized world. Widespread broadband access may be the way of the future. Broadband might be, in a few years, what radio was in the past--available, free, and taken for granted. And like radio, a private citizen might soon only need a piece of hardware to
hook into it.
SUMMARY
Given the changing face of hardware and broadband access, consumers are likely to change their behaviors. As hardware becomes negligibly cheap, as does broadband, consumers are likely to have multiple computers, and they are likely to be always "online." Consumers like being able to create documents and spreadsheets, to save them, to edit them later, and to further print and distribute them.
Consumers are accostomed to doing these things in the GUI environments known as desktops popularized by such operating systems as Windows and Mac OS.
Because of consumers' changing behaviors, they need to not depend on a single computer hard drive as the box that stores all of their documents.
Thus, consumers could be well served by a system or method that presents to them the familiar environment of the desktop, of a traditionally local computer OS, but exploits internet transfer protocols to re-create that environtment on whichever piece of hardware--desktop, laptop, web-enabled PDA, gaming system, terminal, or netbook--said consumer happens to be using at the moment.
SOME FINAL COMMENTS
A service like Google documents may be greatly enhanced by programming in "drag-and-drop" icons and file structures. Also, even thought it's a fiction, icons for applications could be programmed in. People like familiar environments, and like double clicking on the "word" icon to get their word processor going.
The desktop environment which I imagine here could open entirely within a browser window, or it could be "maximized" to take up your entire computer screen. There could be single icon somewher which returns the user to the truly local OS GUI.
There could be degrees between "maximized" and "within a browser tab". As the user issues a command, differing amounts of screen "real-estate" could be granted to the web-based GUI that I herein propose.
The core of my proposal is that a company which offers applications over the web could also offer to deploy by offering a visual emulation of a desktop. But this idea also encompasses third parties who may program systems which create an emulated OS GUI on a local terminal which allows a user to invoke or access or edit or police or marshall files or applications which are not on the local memory of the user's computer.
It is within this idea that re-creation of such familiar icons as "my computer", "my documents", "my network connections", "trash", "recycle bin", "recycling", "hard drive", "local hard drive", "folder X", "shared folder", and so on, might appear as icons, displayed on the local terminal screen, and representing files, folders, applications, directory structures, shortcuts, links, commands, programs, typed character strings, command or other actions interpreted from speech, mouse motions, and/ or motions from pointing devices, light pens, touchpads, keypads, game controllers, joysticks, and any similar thing, could be exploited to represent to the user a familial "desktop like" GUI.
Thursday, February 05, 2009
PRODUCT REVIEW: NETBOOK
5 Stars!!!!! Thumbs Up!! A+++ Will buy Againz!!!111!!
I am a graduate student. My school program began in August of 2008. One thing that I was exited about was the prospect of using a computer in every class. You see, I went to college in the olden days, before the existence of wireless internet, and back when portable computers were often the size of a suitcase.
My current school--Boston College--offered a deal in partnership with a major computer company, and before I moved out here from Portland, I bought a pretty nice laptop for about $900. So I bought one, and I came to school. After about two days of school, I realized that did not like bringing my laptop to class. There are a number of reasons.
First, I like taking notes in a paper notebook, a composition book, actually. The laptop displaces a lot of real estate on my desk, and I don't take notes on it. Second, I haven't really made any friends in grad school, so no one g-chats me, so I have no time-specific incentive to have a computer in front of me. And third, I destroy shit.
I destroy shit. Every expensive thing I have ever owned has ended as rubble. Give Zack something fancy? Get a legless trunk of stone in the lone and level sand swept far away. I like to look at nice things, and take pretty things in my hands, roughly probing, bruising, using, and spoiling. I need to keep my nine hundred dollar laptop for finals. And I need to keep it because it is expensive.
Also, I walk to school. More specifically, I usually take the T to Newton Center and walk the remaining half-mile to school. First, I like my bag to be light; I don't want excess shit in my bag. Second, this means more abuse to my bag, as I jostle my way onto the T and drop my bag to the floor, as I dodge the maniacal cars at Centre Street and Beacon Street, and as I vie for position in the coffee line in Dunkin Donuts.
So in the interest of lightening my load, and prolonging the life of the most expensive thing I own, I stopped taking my laptop to school.
About a week ago, I got a bee in my bonnet that I wanted a netbook. I wanted one for two reasons: price and size. They are so cheap (Best Buy, WalMart, Staples, Office Depot, and Target all sell them for under $300) that I can destroy one per year and be better off than if I destroy my laptop anytime during graduate school. If I go to RonTons with some friends, and look up Richard Pryor videos on YouTube while we are there, and then wake up the next morning and realize that I've lost my netbook, it won't be a big deal. I mean sure, 300 bucks ain't chump change, but it's much less to get freaked out about than my 900 laptop.
And second, size. This laptop (I am writing this post on my netbook) is so frickin small that when I put it in my bag in the mornings, it doesn't make a difference. Many diners serve pancakes which are bigger. This netbook is about the size of my copy of E. Annie Proulx's 'The Shipping News' in paperback.
So enough with the story, you're saying, this is a product review. Here's my product review. I love it!
Sure it has a very small screen and keyboard. But I got used to each fast. I probably wouldn't recommend this to Antonio, but only because he'd bitch incessantly about the small keyboard. It's actually quite easy to get used to. The computer is just as functional as my laptop (excepting those few things which require a CD drive.)
I thought it would have limited capabilities, like only good for web-browsing and simple word-processing. But you know what? That's all we usually do. Here's a list of what I've done with my netbook so far, all of which has worked fine:
(It came with Windows XP Home installed, more on why "Home" is significant later.)
Downloaded and installed Firefox.
Downloaded and installed McAfee antivirus.
Downloaded and installed Open Office
Downloaded the various plug-ins and upgrades to make Netflix 'watch online' work.
Downloaded Flash so that Hulu will work.
Downloaded and installed iTunes.
Tranfered many gigs of mp3s from my laptop.
The main point is that this computer works just as well as my laptop. Sure, as an experienced bioinformaticist, I could imagine doing things that would bog down this netbook, but that my laptop could handle. But anyone working with a computer-specific specialty (graphic design, music recording...) will already have a computer configured to do that. Actually, for those people, buying a netbook might be an even better idea, because then they have something they can take to the bar to check their email, without risking their entire library of work.
I have been really exited about one unintended consequence of using a netbook. Because using it had the net effect of adding a computer to my regular, at-home computers, and because I started to take class notes on this computer, I was faced with the problem of "synchronizing" my notes.
Suppose I read for my Antitrust class on Wed night, and type up some notes on my regular laptop. Then suppose I'm in Antitrust on Thur, and taking notes on my netbook. This happened. I found I was writing notes that I knew overlaped with my Wed night notes. I did not want to have to interlace them later. So...
I finally started using Google documents! That might be the rub. (Never mind Hamlet, a "rub" is something that keeps you inside of a lane--the metaphor is from bowling--moving towards the ultimate goal.) With the need to coordinate my note-taking and other writings between different computers, I finally drew upon the tools--already in place--for doing just that. And there's the rub. That is, perhaps, exactly what netbooks are for.
Netbooks complement (and maybe recognize) the future of "cloud computing". Under the cloud computing theory, the computer you use is unimportant. Pre-laptop, a home computer was a box with a monitor, a keyboard, and a mouse. Under cloud computing, the box is almost irrelevant. Your home computer becomes just a monitor, a keyboard, and a mouse. So under this possible new theory of computing, let's call your computer a "terminal". It is the monitor, keyboard, and mouse which you use to connect to "the computer" which you can think of as "the internet" but which becomes a limited network of mainframes or servers hosting proprietary applications which mimic the functionality of the old home computers that we are familiar with.
It's a beautiful idea, but I've gone off-topic from my product review of my netbook. So, back on point. I know that product review is supposed to contain the brand and model name of the product somewhere within. But look, that's not important. Actually, I argue that focusing on that defeats the purpose of the netbook. The netbook is a cheap throwaway, capable of magnificent things.
Have you ever smoked? Did you ever use paper match-book? Were you able to use that paper match-book to create fire? Were you crushed if you ever lost a particular match-book? Can you name the manufacturer and brand name of your last paper match-book? I thought not.
And so go netbooks. If I've piqued your interest, and if you have an adequate tax return, and if you like surfing the web in smoky bars, on park benches near a bunch of houses, in law school classrooms, or other unsavory places, then get a netbook.
You will be able to look up "CJ-7" on Wikipedia in a flash, and learn that CJ is an abbreviation for "civilian jeep" (meaning that Jeep CJ means Jeep Civilian Jeep). You will be able to compose a sonnett to your lover on Google documents while she gets another pitcher from the bar, and to do a find-and-replace from your home computer the next morning at 2 pm. And if Bailey--the German Shephard/ Great Dane mix--knocks your computer onto the floor, you can have a $300 Oh Shit moment, instead of a $900 one. And when you put your computer in your bag to go to work, you won't notice a difference--it's transparently small.
(2) comments
5 Stars!!!!! Thumbs Up!! A+++ Will buy Againz!!!111!!
I am a graduate student. My school program began in August of 2008. One thing that I was exited about was the prospect of using a computer in every class. You see, I went to college in the olden days, before the existence of wireless internet, and back when portable computers were often the size of a suitcase.
My current school--Boston College--offered a deal in partnership with a major computer company, and before I moved out here from Portland, I bought a pretty nice laptop for about $900. So I bought one, and I came to school. After about two days of school, I realized that did not like bringing my laptop to class. There are a number of reasons.
First, I like taking notes in a paper notebook, a composition book, actually. The laptop displaces a lot of real estate on my desk, and I don't take notes on it. Second, I haven't really made any friends in grad school, so no one g-chats me, so I have no time-specific incentive to have a computer in front of me. And third, I destroy shit.
I destroy shit. Every expensive thing I have ever owned has ended as rubble. Give Zack something fancy? Get a legless trunk of stone in the lone and level sand swept far away. I like to look at nice things, and take pretty things in my hands, roughly probing, bruising, using, and spoiling. I need to keep my nine hundred dollar laptop for finals. And I need to keep it because it is expensive.
Also, I walk to school. More specifically, I usually take the T to Newton Center and walk the remaining half-mile to school. First, I like my bag to be light; I don't want excess shit in my bag. Second, this means more abuse to my bag, as I jostle my way onto the T and drop my bag to the floor, as I dodge the maniacal cars at Centre Street and Beacon Street, and as I vie for position in the coffee line in Dunkin Donuts.
So in the interest of lightening my load, and prolonging the life of the most expensive thing I own, I stopped taking my laptop to school.
About a week ago, I got a bee in my bonnet that I wanted a netbook. I wanted one for two reasons: price and size. They are so cheap (Best Buy, WalMart, Staples, Office Depot, and Target all sell them for under $300) that I can destroy one per year and be better off than if I destroy my laptop anytime during graduate school. If I go to RonTons with some friends, and look up Richard Pryor videos on YouTube while we are there, and then wake up the next morning and realize that I've lost my netbook, it won't be a big deal. I mean sure, 300 bucks ain't chump change, but it's much less to get freaked out about than my 900 laptop.
And second, size. This laptop (I am writing this post on my netbook) is so frickin small that when I put it in my bag in the mornings, it doesn't make a difference. Many diners serve pancakes which are bigger. This netbook is about the size of my copy of E. Annie Proulx's 'The Shipping News' in paperback.
So enough with the story, you're saying, this is a product review. Here's my product review. I love it!
Sure it has a very small screen and keyboard. But I got used to each fast. I probably wouldn't recommend this to Antonio, but only because he'd bitch incessantly about the small keyboard. It's actually quite easy to get used to. The computer is just as functional as my laptop (excepting those few things which require a CD drive.)
I thought it would have limited capabilities, like only good for web-browsing and simple word-processing. But you know what? That's all we usually do. Here's a list of what I've done with my netbook so far, all of which has worked fine:
(It came with Windows XP Home installed, more on why "Home" is significant later.)
Downloaded and installed Firefox.
Downloaded and installed McAfee antivirus.
Downloaded and installed Open Office
Downloaded the various plug-ins and upgrades to make Netflix 'watch online' work.
Downloaded Flash so that Hulu will work.
Downloaded and installed iTunes.
Tranfered many gigs of mp3s from my laptop.
The main point is that this computer works just as well as my laptop. Sure, as an experienced bioinformaticist, I could imagine doing things that would bog down this netbook, but that my laptop could handle. But anyone working with a computer-specific specialty (graphic design, music recording...) will already have a computer configured to do that. Actually, for those people, buying a netbook might be an even better idea, because then they have something they can take to the bar to check their email, without risking their entire library of work.
I have been really exited about one unintended consequence of using a netbook. Because using it had the net effect of adding a computer to my regular, at-home computers, and because I started to take class notes on this computer, I was faced with the problem of "synchronizing" my notes.
Suppose I read for my Antitrust class on Wed night, and type up some notes on my regular laptop. Then suppose I'm in Antitrust on Thur, and taking notes on my netbook. This happened. I found I was writing notes that I knew overlaped with my Wed night notes. I did not want to have to interlace them later. So...
I finally started using Google documents! That might be the rub. (Never mind Hamlet, a "rub" is something that keeps you inside of a lane--the metaphor is from bowling--moving towards the ultimate goal.) With the need to coordinate my note-taking and other writings between different computers, I finally drew upon the tools--already in place--for doing just that. And there's the rub. That is, perhaps, exactly what netbooks are for.
Netbooks complement (and maybe recognize) the future of "cloud computing". Under the cloud computing theory, the computer you use is unimportant. Pre-laptop, a home computer was a box with a monitor, a keyboard, and a mouse. Under cloud computing, the box is almost irrelevant. Your home computer becomes just a monitor, a keyboard, and a mouse. So under this possible new theory of computing, let's call your computer a "terminal". It is the monitor, keyboard, and mouse which you use to connect to "the computer" which you can think of as "the internet" but which becomes a limited network of mainframes or servers hosting proprietary applications which mimic the functionality of the old home computers that we are familiar with.
It's a beautiful idea, but I've gone off-topic from my product review of my netbook. So, back on point. I know that product review is supposed to contain the brand and model name of the product somewhere within. But look, that's not important. Actually, I argue that focusing on that defeats the purpose of the netbook. The netbook is a cheap throwaway, capable of magnificent things.
Have you ever smoked? Did you ever use paper match-book? Were you able to use that paper match-book to create fire? Were you crushed if you ever lost a particular match-book? Can you name the manufacturer and brand name of your last paper match-book? I thought not.
And so go netbooks. If I've piqued your interest, and if you have an adequate tax return, and if you like surfing the web in smoky bars, on park benches near a bunch of houses, in law school classrooms, or other unsavory places, then get a netbook.
You will be able to look up "CJ-7" on Wikipedia in a flash, and learn that CJ is an abbreviation for "civilian jeep" (meaning that Jeep CJ means Jeep Civilian Jeep). You will be able to compose a sonnett to your lover on Google documents while she gets another pitcher from the bar, and to do a find-and-replace from your home computer the next morning at 2 pm. And if Bailey--the German Shephard/ Great Dane mix--knocks your computer onto the floor, you can have a $300 Oh Shit moment, instead of a $900 one. And when you put your computer in your bag to go to work, you won't notice a difference--it's transparently small.
Saturday, January 31, 2009
ZACK'S BLOG
I've gone back and forth on whether to make this blog public. I abide by a rule not to write anything that I would not want a potential employer to know. Underlying that rule is a rule which I hold more dear. And that more basal rule is to not do or say anything offensive or objectionable. I believe that I can conduct myself in the public, and address societal and personal questions, in a manner which does not need to be hidden.
This blog has been hidden, or "invite only" for the past few months. This is because I am job searching, and I was concerned that potential employers might get my resume and punch myname into Google, and see that I had a blog.
I have not been afraid that potential employers might object to anything on my blog. I was simply being cautious under the thought that a potential employer might question the simple presence of a blog.
But we are more sophisticated than that. As any reader knows, the content of my blog is limited to a few circumspect observations about the quality of my personal but public life. I describe camping in Oregon's national forests, and I describe attending Boston College Law School. I can stand by the wide palatability of these public notes, so my blog is now, again, public.
A new semester has begun, and you--my readers for whom I feel so much affection--can expect a report on the classroom conduct of my teachers. I don't think I ever shared the proceedings of one of my legal writing classes, so you can expect an entry on that. I am also lucky enough to have no less than two (2!) deans as teachers this semester. So keep checking back, and soon enough you will have a blow-by-blow of how dean Garvey conducts my class in constitutional law and dean Cassidy conducts my class in criminal law. Lastly, I have professor Olson for Antitrust. I will report on him soon, as well.
I have a number of other erratic matters to report. But it's late at night on a Saturday. I am going to watch my Netflix (Criminal Minds) and go to bed. I'll post more soon.
(1) comments
I've gone back and forth on whether to make this blog public. I abide by a rule not to write anything that I would not want a potential employer to know. Underlying that rule is a rule which I hold more dear. And that more basal rule is to not do or say anything offensive or objectionable. I believe that I can conduct myself in the public, and address societal and personal questions, in a manner which does not need to be hidden.
This blog has been hidden, or "invite only" for the past few months. This is because I am job searching, and I was concerned that potential employers might get my resume and punch myname into Google, and see that I had a blog.
I have not been afraid that potential employers might object to anything on my blog. I was simply being cautious under the thought that a potential employer might question the simple presence of a blog.
But we are more sophisticated than that. As any reader knows, the content of my blog is limited to a few circumspect observations about the quality of my personal but public life. I describe camping in Oregon's national forests, and I describe attending Boston College Law School. I can stand by the wide palatability of these public notes, so my blog is now, again, public.
A new semester has begun, and you--my readers for whom I feel so much affection--can expect a report on the classroom conduct of my teachers. I don't think I ever shared the proceedings of one of my legal writing classes, so you can expect an entry on that. I am also lucky enough to have no less than two (2!) deans as teachers this semester. So keep checking back, and soon enough you will have a blow-by-blow of how dean Garvey conducts my class in constitutional law and dean Cassidy conducts my class in criminal law. Lastly, I have professor Olson for Antitrust. I will report on him soon, as well.
I have a number of other erratic matters to report. But it's late at night on a Saturday. I am going to watch my Netflix (Criminal Minds) and go to bed. I'll post more soon.
Friday, January 09, 2009
ANTITRUST PRISONER'S DILEMMA
This post might not make much sense yet. I'm just thinking "out loud" here. I am reading about United States antitrust law for an upcoming class. US antitrust law has a couple of interesting aspects. First, it allows private suits with treble damages. Second it allows joint and several liability.
Under joint and several liability, and injured party can sue all the bad guys and can legally collect money to cover all of his damages from any one of the bad guys. Actually, the injured person can use just one of the bad guys, and collect all of the money from just that one bad guy. For instance, if your state allows joint and several liability among batterers, and two guys beat you up and put in the hospital, and you incur $1,000 in hospital bills, you can collect the entire $1,000 for either guy. Most states then allow the one guy who paid you to seek contribution--that is, in most states, that guy could turn around get $500 from the other guy.
Third, US antitrust law does not allow for contribution among companies jointly violating antitrust laws.
I am thinking that these three aspects of US antitrust law might create an interesting version of the prisoner's dilemma game when companies consider settling once they are on notice that they are potential co-defendents to an antitrust suit. The book I am reading now says that there is no contribution allowed in antitrust in order to encourage rapid settlements.
Imagine that five companies sell all the widgets wholesale in the great plains. Those companies are Danke, Delta, Dicta, Dopple, and Dukes. Parker is the president of a small firm who buys widgets, paints them, and sells them retail--to kids who eat them at home.
Parker realizes that he has strong evidence that these five companies entered into a price-fixing agreement about a year ago, and that he, Parker, has been injured to the tune of five million dollars.
Under this set-up, Parker can sue these companies for for five million dollars in damages under US antitrust law. If he names all five companies as co-defendants, and wins his law suit, he will collect treble damages--15 million dollars. If the lawyers and accountants meet to talk about this, they will probably agree to each give Parker 3 million dollars.
On the other hand, if Parker only sues Dopple, and wins, Dopple will be legally obligated to pay Parker 15 million dollars, and will not have a right of contribution against Danke, Delta, Dicta, and Dukes.
So what if Parker sues, and names all five companies as co-defendants?
The president and Chief Financial Officer of any once company can make Parker a settlement offer. If Parker accepts that settlement offer, that one company is out of the law suit, and shielded from further liability.
Parker is alleging that he's been injured to the tune of five million dollars. Thus, he is claiming (assuming equal market share) that each company has caused him one million dollars' worth of damages.
If you are the president of Delta, what do you do? Assuming that none of other four companies have been dismissed from the suit yet, you must conclude that no other company has made a settlement offer.
You certainly want to avoid a 15 million dollar judgement. You will certainly try to look at it from Parker's point of view. He thinks he's been hurt to the tune of 1 million dollars by each company. A successful antitrust suit against all five companies will get Parker a 3 million dollar judgement against each company. Maybe you offer Parker 2 million dollars.
The honest Parkers of the world would accept your 2 million dollars. You are offering him more money than you are alleged to have injured him.
In theory, the most efficient outcome of this lawsuit might be if each company offers Parker between 1.1 and 2 million dollars in settlement, with all five companies offering the same amount. Parker gets between 1.5 and 10 million--significantly more than his injury, while each company pays out more than the injury that they are alleged to have committed.
So, as president of Dopple, when you make your settlement offer to Parker, for how long do you keep your settlement offer open? If it's a low offer, you don't want it to stay open long enough that Parker will receive higher offers from the other defendants, and reject your and sue only you.
Of course, like the poisoned wine scene in The Princess Bride, you know that he knows that if you offer him a small settlement with a short window, that another co-defendant will offer him a larger settlement soon, but one that is still small enough to balance the risk of WPO. WPO is Worst Possible Outcome. Under WPO, four of the five defendants each offer Parker a high settlement offer--say 12 million dollars. Note that 12 million dollars is significantly lower than any one company's highest potential risk (fifteen million, if they are the sole loser of a lawsuit).
Under WPO, Parker accepts the four settlement offers of 12 million dollars each, and drops his lawsuit. Parker has earned 48 million dollars and not pursued an costly antitrust lawsuit. One of your peers has gotten off scott free, and four of the great plains widget wholesalers have paid out huge settlements.
Obviously, the suit has just been filed, and you are the lawyer for Dicta Widgets, Inc., your best course of action might be to sit down with Parker and ask, "What settlement offer could I make right now, that would convince you to drop Dicta from this case?" But Parker will say, "Twelve million dollars."
I have been working on this other idea involving a game in which all the players get to control robots that shoot each other. I wish I knew a programming language that made it easy for me to create these games. The thing in common between my Widget Antitrust Settlement Game and the Shooting Robot Game is that in each, the player would set parameters for their player, and then let them loose, and see how they perform.
(0) comments
This post might not make much sense yet. I'm just thinking "out loud" here. I am reading about United States antitrust law for an upcoming class. US antitrust law has a couple of interesting aspects. First, it allows private suits with treble damages. Second it allows joint and several liability.
Under joint and several liability, and injured party can sue all the bad guys and can legally collect money to cover all of his damages from any one of the bad guys. Actually, the injured person can use just one of the bad guys, and collect all of the money from just that one bad guy. For instance, if your state allows joint and several liability among batterers, and two guys beat you up and put in the hospital, and you incur $1,000 in hospital bills, you can collect the entire $1,000 for either guy. Most states then allow the one guy who paid you to seek contribution--that is, in most states, that guy could turn around get $500 from the other guy.
Third, US antitrust law does not allow for contribution among companies jointly violating antitrust laws.
I am thinking that these three aspects of US antitrust law might create an interesting version of the prisoner's dilemma game when companies consider settling once they are on notice that they are potential co-defendents to an antitrust suit. The book I am reading now says that there is no contribution allowed in antitrust in order to encourage rapid settlements.
Imagine that five companies sell all the widgets wholesale in the great plains. Those companies are Danke, Delta, Dicta, Dopple, and Dukes. Parker is the president of a small firm who buys widgets, paints them, and sells them retail--to kids who eat them at home.
Parker realizes that he has strong evidence that these five companies entered into a price-fixing agreement about a year ago, and that he, Parker, has been injured to the tune of five million dollars.
Under this set-up, Parker can sue these companies for for five million dollars in damages under US antitrust law. If he names all five companies as co-defendants, and wins his law suit, he will collect treble damages--15 million dollars. If the lawyers and accountants meet to talk about this, they will probably agree to each give Parker 3 million dollars.
On the other hand, if Parker only sues Dopple, and wins, Dopple will be legally obligated to pay Parker 15 million dollars, and will not have a right of contribution against Danke, Delta, Dicta, and Dukes.
So what if Parker sues, and names all five companies as co-defendants?
The president and Chief Financial Officer of any once company can make Parker a settlement offer. If Parker accepts that settlement offer, that one company is out of the law suit, and shielded from further liability.
Parker is alleging that he's been injured to the tune of five million dollars. Thus, he is claiming (assuming equal market share) that each company has caused him one million dollars' worth of damages.
If you are the president of Delta, what do you do? Assuming that none of other four companies have been dismissed from the suit yet, you must conclude that no other company has made a settlement offer.
You certainly want to avoid a 15 million dollar judgement. You will certainly try to look at it from Parker's point of view. He thinks he's been hurt to the tune of 1 million dollars by each company. A successful antitrust suit against all five companies will get Parker a 3 million dollar judgement against each company. Maybe you offer Parker 2 million dollars.
The honest Parkers of the world would accept your 2 million dollars. You are offering him more money than you are alleged to have injured him.
In theory, the most efficient outcome of this lawsuit might be if each company offers Parker between 1.1 and 2 million dollars in settlement, with all five companies offering the same amount. Parker gets between 1.5 and 10 million--significantly more than his injury, while each company pays out more than the injury that they are alleged to have committed.
So, as president of Dopple, when you make your settlement offer to Parker, for how long do you keep your settlement offer open? If it's a low offer, you don't want it to stay open long enough that Parker will receive higher offers from the other defendants, and reject your and sue only you.
Of course, like the poisoned wine scene in The Princess Bride, you know that he knows that if you offer him a small settlement with a short window, that another co-defendant will offer him a larger settlement soon, but one that is still small enough to balance the risk of WPO. WPO is Worst Possible Outcome. Under WPO, four of the five defendants each offer Parker a high settlement offer--say 12 million dollars. Note that 12 million dollars is significantly lower than any one company's highest potential risk (fifteen million, if they are the sole loser of a lawsuit).
Under WPO, Parker accepts the four settlement offers of 12 million dollars each, and drops his lawsuit. Parker has earned 48 million dollars and not pursued an costly antitrust lawsuit. One of your peers has gotten off scott free, and four of the great plains widget wholesalers have paid out huge settlements.
Obviously, the suit has just been filed, and you are the lawyer for Dicta Widgets, Inc., your best course of action might be to sit down with Parker and ask, "What settlement offer could I make right now, that would convince you to drop Dicta from this case?" But Parker will say, "Twelve million dollars."
I have been working on this other idea involving a game in which all the players get to control robots that shoot each other. I wish I knew a programming language that made it easy for me to create these games. The thing in common between my Widget Antitrust Settlement Game and the Shooting Robot Game is that in each, the player would set parameters for their player, and then let them loose, and see how they perform.
Tuesday, January 06, 2009
A DAY IN THE LIFE OF A BOSTON COLLEGE LAW SCHOOL STUDENT AS ILLUSTRATED BY HIS INTERNET SEARCHES
8:59 am, search "UPS tracking" on Google.
9:01 am, search "0298483903233" on UPS.
9:03 am, search "Understanding Criminal Law Dressler" on Amazon.
9:05 am, search "Criminal Law kadish" on Amazon.
9:11 am, search "Bosten College financial aid student loans" on Google.
9:11 am, search "Boston College financial aid student loans" on Google.
9:21 am, search "Bank of America online checking" on Google.
9:22 am, search "Criminal Law kadish" on Amazon.
9:50 am, search "Garvey Constitutional law" on eagleionline outlines database.
9:57 am, search "0298483903233" on UPS.
10:17 am, search "martin hunter's lessee" on Google.
12:27 pm, search "middle eastern green line" on Google.
12:27 pm, search "greek diners brighton" on Google.
12:28 pm, search "boston greek middle eastern" on Google.
12:28 pm, search "best lebanese restaurant boston" on Google.
12:29 pm, search "phonebook:shwarma king" on Google.
12:30 pm, search "bank of america online checking login" on Google.
12:37 pm, search "0298483903233" on UPS.
1:15 pm, search "marbury v madison" on Wikipedia.
1:21 pm, search "federalist party" on Wikipedia.
1:28 pm, search "democratic republican party" on Wikipedia.
1:33 pm, search "mandamus" on Google.
1:35 pm, search "0298483903233" on UPS.
3:09 pm, search "is there much caffeine in decaffeinated coffee" on Google.
3:10 pm, search "caffeine in decaffeinated coffee" on Google.
3:15 pm, search "weather.com" on Google.
3:16 pm, search "02135" on Weather dot com.
3:18 pm, search "San Diego" on Weather dot com.
3:21 pm, search "timberland 10.5 waterproof" on eBay.
3:34 pm, search "Adaptation" on IMDB.
3:36 pm, search "mst3k" on Hulu.
3:37 pm, search "mst3k" on YouTube.
4:22 pm, search "Cassidy Criminal Law" on eagleionline outlines database.
4:30 pm, search "legal theories punishment" on Google.
4:35 pm, search "retributivism rehabilatation incapacitance" on Google.
4: 41 pm, search "Michael Foucault" on Wikipediea.
4:54 pm, search "Lacon" on Google.
5:00 pm, search "mandatory sentencing" on Google.
5:04 pm, search "strict punishment" on Google.
5:05 pm, search "clear browser history firefox" on Google.
5:09 pm, search "strict criminal sentences judicial discretion" on Google.
5:29 pm, search "0298483903233" on UPS.
7:15 pm, search "grocery store, boston, MA" on Google maps.
7:16 pm, search "Shaw's 02135" on Google maps.
7:17 pm, search "xdck" on Google.
7:17 pm, search "xkcd" on Google.
7:18 pm, search "bank of america online checking login" on Google.
8:28 pm, search "actus rea mens rea" on Google.
8:33 pm, search "mens rea MPC" on Google.
8:36 pm, search "puppycam" on Google.
8:37 pm, search "shiba inu puppycam" on Google.
8:40 pm, search "0298483903233" on UPS.
9:15 pm, search "marbury v madison" on Wikipedia.
9:18 pm, search "fuck marbury madison" on Google.
9:20 pm, search "section 13 judiciary act 1789" on Google.
9:32 pm, search "constitutional law" on Amazon.
9:40 pm, search "bank of america online checking login" on Google.
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(1) comments
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Thursday, January 01, 2009
REALLY DIFFICULT QUESTION
When you rate the songs in your iTunes library, should you set the curve as "absolute"--that is, take into consideration all the songs in the world--or should you set the curve as "local"--that is, taking into consideration only the songs in your iTunes library?
To set the curve as "absolute" is appealing because 1) the number of stars you assign will retain meaning outside of the library itself, and 2) your rating system will not be rendered meaningless by any future influx of songs. But the problem with an "absolute" rating system, is that you presumably have mostly (like more than 95%) songs that you already know you like.
So under an absolute rating system, the majority of your songs will be differentiated by a system that allows only 1 effective degree of difference. I am assuming, of course, that almost all of your songs will receive either a 4-star or 5-star rating.
That's not to say you won't keep low-rated songs in your own library. Nobody really wants to listen to "Tune this electric guitar..." by the Talking Heads, but it's important to have for completeness's sake. So that song gets a three. And maybe you collect songs that have a certain theme. I collect songs that have the phrase "rocknroll" in the title or chorus. So likely I will hang on to my copy of "Rock and roll Hootchie Coo," but give it 1 star.
But most of my library, under an absolute system, would be fours and fives. So how does one discern between the okay song "Alec Eiffel" and the all-time blast of greatness that is "U-Mass"?
Or given only the ability to use fours and fives, how do you let Tubeway Army's "Me I Disconnect From You" hold it's place near the top, just behind "Are 'Friends' Electric", while seriously discounting Gary Numan's "Cars"?
To get that kind of spread, you would need to rate all your songs on a "local" system. So all the super low-rent crap mentioned above would get 1-star each. "Cars" could be two stars. "Me I Disconnect From You," would get four, and "Are 'Friends' Electric" would get five.
Such a system would allow you distribute all your Lena Lovich songs where they rightfully belong--mostly 3s and 4s--just a shade above most Modern Lovers' songs, or above most of The Real Kids. But you could then still give "Pablo Picasso Was Never Called an Asshole" four stars, and you could give The Real Kids' "All Kinds of Girls" it's due five stars.
This question keeps me up at night.
(1) comments
When you rate the songs in your iTunes library, should you set the curve as "absolute"--that is, take into consideration all the songs in the world--or should you set the curve as "local"--that is, taking into consideration only the songs in your iTunes library?
To set the curve as "absolute" is appealing because 1) the number of stars you assign will retain meaning outside of the library itself, and 2) your rating system will not be rendered meaningless by any future influx of songs. But the problem with an "absolute" rating system, is that you presumably have mostly (like more than 95%) songs that you already know you like.
So under an absolute rating system, the majority of your songs will be differentiated by a system that allows only 1 effective degree of difference. I am assuming, of course, that almost all of your songs will receive either a 4-star or 5-star rating.
That's not to say you won't keep low-rated songs in your own library. Nobody really wants to listen to "Tune this electric guitar..." by the Talking Heads, but it's important to have for completeness's sake. So that song gets a three. And maybe you collect songs that have a certain theme. I collect songs that have the phrase "rocknroll" in the title or chorus. So likely I will hang on to my copy of "Rock and roll Hootchie Coo," but give it 1 star.
But most of my library, under an absolute system, would be fours and fives. So how does one discern between the okay song "Alec Eiffel" and the all-time blast of greatness that is "U-Mass"?
Or given only the ability to use fours and fives, how do you let Tubeway Army's "Me I Disconnect From You" hold it's place near the top, just behind "Are 'Friends' Electric", while seriously discounting Gary Numan's "Cars"?
To get that kind of spread, you would need to rate all your songs on a "local" system. So all the super low-rent crap mentioned above would get 1-star each. "Cars" could be two stars. "Me I Disconnect From You," would get four, and "Are 'Friends' Electric" would get five.
Such a system would allow you distribute all your Lena Lovich songs where they rightfully belong--mostly 3s and 4s--just a shade above most Modern Lovers' songs, or above most of The Real Kids. But you could then still give "Pablo Picasso Was Never Called an Asshole" four stars, and you could give The Real Kids' "All Kinds of Girls" it's due five stars.
This question keeps me up at night.
Wednesday, December 31, 2008
ROCK SONGS ABOUT RECORD COMPANIES ABUSING MUSICIANS
Biz Loves Sluts by The Riverboat Gamblers
Write Record Release Blues by The Jesus and Mary Chain
Dog and Pony Show by Consolidated
Interestingly, every one of these songs sexualizes the relationship. From the Riverboat Gamblers:
Of course this sentiment builds up to the chorus, "The biz loves sluts."
Compare to the Jesus and Mary Chains, "I won't be your record company whore." Similar sentiment, but The Riverboat Gamblers make it more personal. Oh, and the quoted passage in The Riverboat Gamblers song is followed by "I think you're golden and you know it," which has certain implications.
And finally, from Dog and Pony Show:
Of course one wonders if Consolidated (of all the ultra-PC music groups) didn't let through some latent homophobia. Some people might raise an eyebrow at apparent or implied sexism in any of the above quoted snippets, but I think such people would be stretching their sensitivities to read something that isn't there.
More notably, the sexual read on record company/ artist relationships in all of these songs is remarkably juvenile, and unsophisticated. But this reminds me of a magazine that once tried to lampoon the notable periodical Maximumrocknroll (MRR). They printed their back cover such that it mocked MRR's cut-and-paste xeroxed look quite well. And they printed the splashy headline on the cover, "Everything you need to know about rockandroll, as written by a 13-year-old."
It's hard to tell if they were missing the point, or speaking a higher truth. Rock and roll is about being 13 years old. Sure, the relationships between record labels and artists might seem one-sided and unfair. And what makes these rock bands so great is that they report on life with all juvenile angst.
That's why I love rocknroll. The bands aren't critical gender theorists or economists. They're teenagers in the basement being loud.
(1) comments
Biz Loves Sluts by The Riverboat Gamblers
Write Record Release Blues by The Jesus and Mary Chain
Dog and Pony Show by Consolidated
Interestingly, every one of these songs sexualizes the relationship. From the Riverboat Gamblers:
We think your songs might need a better hook,
I promise on the good book, it won't hurt,
I won't get it in your mouth.
Of course this sentiment builds up to the chorus, "The biz loves sluts."
Compare to the Jesus and Mary Chains, "I won't be your record company whore." Similar sentiment, but The Riverboat Gamblers make it more personal. Oh, and the quoted passage in The Riverboat Gamblers song is followed by "I think you're golden and you know it," which has certain implications.
And finally, from Dog and Pony Show:
First you get a call from A&R,
Lickin' my ass, saying, "I'll make you a star."
Then I'm hearing about band/label unity,
And I'm thinking, "Fuck that shit, sink the money into my community."
You talk about the trust you want to build, though,
When you change your mind get behind me with a dildo.
Of course one wonders if Consolidated (of all the ultra-PC music groups) didn't let through some latent homophobia. Some people might raise an eyebrow at apparent or implied sexism in any of the above quoted snippets, but I think such people would be stretching their sensitivities to read something that isn't there.
More notably, the sexual read on record company/ artist relationships in all of these songs is remarkably juvenile, and unsophisticated. But this reminds me of a magazine that once tried to lampoon the notable periodical Maximumrocknroll (MRR). They printed their back cover such that it mocked MRR's cut-and-paste xeroxed look quite well. And they printed the splashy headline on the cover, "Everything you need to know about rockandroll, as written by a 13-year-old."
It's hard to tell if they were missing the point, or speaking a higher truth. Rock and roll is about being 13 years old. Sure, the relationships between record labels and artists might seem one-sided and unfair. And what makes these rock bands so great is that they report on life with all juvenile angst.
That's why I love rocknroll. The bands aren't critical gender theorists or economists. They're teenagers in the basement being loud.
Thursday, December 18, 2008
GEEK CRED
I would like to take a moment to claim my geek gred. I did a wikipedia edit during a law school exam today. I think that counts as hardcore.
The proctors had officially started the exam--as in, you couldn't leave the room, you couldn't shut down your computer, and you couldn't look at any books or anything. But the computer software (ExamSoft) hadn't yet started the exam, and the IT guy was helping a few different people with their computers, so it was clear we had maybe ten minutes before ExamSoft would let us start typing.
The night before (Oh yeah, when most people are furiously studying for their law school finals) I had created a new entry in Wikipedia. So I took a moment to check. New Wikipedia entries are like puppies born near busy highways--they are likely to get unceremoniously smashed.
I saw that my new entry had been flagged as needing a number of edits, and I realized I could do a couple of minor ones right then and there. So I did.
So officially, for the record books, technically, I did Wikipedia edits during a law school exam. Oh yeah, I rock. I get points for that. Rock on.
(1) comments
I would like to take a moment to claim my geek gred. I did a wikipedia edit during a law school exam today. I think that counts as hardcore.
The proctors had officially started the exam--as in, you couldn't leave the room, you couldn't shut down your computer, and you couldn't look at any books or anything. But the computer software (ExamSoft) hadn't yet started the exam, and the IT guy was helping a few different people with their computers, so it was clear we had maybe ten minutes before ExamSoft would let us start typing.
The night before (Oh yeah, when most people are furiously studying for their law school finals) I had created a new entry in Wikipedia. So I took a moment to check. New Wikipedia entries are like puppies born near busy highways--they are likely to get unceremoniously smashed.
I saw that my new entry had been flagged as needing a number of edits, and I realized I could do a couple of minor ones right then and there. So I did.
So officially, for the record books, technically, I did Wikipedia edits during a law school exam. Oh yeah, I rock. I get points for that. Rock on.
Monday, December 15, 2008
BEER, GRAND THEFT AUTO, AND LAW SCHOOL
After my property final today, I was in the hall outside of the classroom, heading out to catch the shuttle home. Jim said hi to me, and asked me what I was up to. I told him I was going home to study torts, seeing as how that final is in two days.
Jim did some gentle and appropriate joshing, along the lines of, "Oh you can't go study torts right now. We just got out of a final."
So I said, "Good point. Fuck studying. I'll go home and drink beer and play Grand Theft Auto."
It is now 1:39 am on Tuesday, December 16th, and I have my torts exam on Thursday. I should probably be studying, but I have to do these two missions. In one, I must chase the train until it stops and off the guys who get off of it. Then, in my other mission, I've got to chase the guy who runs away on a motorcycle.
I don't have any lime in the house, but I do, at least, have Tecate. I think I can complete these two missions before I go to sleep.
I don't know why, but it was important to me that I drink beer and play Grand Theft Auto during law school finals. Oh, wait, I do know why. [material deleted] Notwithstanding all of that, the true upshot of all of this is, is that I like being at my desk at 7:30, so I can spend 12 or 15 hours working on responding to an office action, and hopefully I will be doing that soon.
(0) comments
After my property final today, I was in the hall outside of the classroom, heading out to catch the shuttle home. Jim said hi to me, and asked me what I was up to. I told him I was going home to study torts, seeing as how that final is in two days.
Jim did some gentle and appropriate joshing, along the lines of, "Oh you can't go study torts right now. We just got out of a final."
So I said, "Good point. Fuck studying. I'll go home and drink beer and play Grand Theft Auto."
It is now 1:39 am on Tuesday, December 16th, and I have my torts exam on Thursday. I should probably be studying, but I have to do these two missions. In one, I must chase the train until it stops and off the guys who get off of it. Then, in my other mission, I've got to chase the guy who runs away on a motorcycle.
I don't have any lime in the house, but I do, at least, have Tecate. I think I can complete these two missions before I go to sleep.
I don't know why, but it was important to me that I drink beer and play Grand Theft Auto during law school finals. Oh, wait, I do know why. [material deleted] Notwithstanding all of that, the true upshot of all of this is, is that I like being at my desk at 7:30, so I can spend 12 or 15 hours working on responding to an office action, and hopefully I will be doing that soon.
BCLS REPORT. ON FINALS. I SLAY ME
When Zack takes a final at law school, Zack apparently can't resist the temptation to make jokes and cut-up. So please don't ask my about my grades later this winter, because I have probably sunk them.
Today, while answering a question on regulatory takings during a property final, I spent several sentences telling my professor about parthenogenic salamanders in order to make the point that an endangered species might not be extinct when it gets down to one specimen. Needless to say, this had nothing to do with the test, a traditional issue spotter involving X and Y. (I actually wrote out what X and Y were, but then remembered that the proctors told us not to disclose any content on the exam.)
I also spent some time funning around writing about the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act ("HIPAA"). I don't think my property professor meant to do this, but he gave us a fact pattern that invoked this statute in a number of ways. I've worked in a medical clinic before, overseeing HIPAA compliance, so I spotted the issue immediately.
The problem here is that I have fun on law school finals.
My contracts final asked me to describe the legal rights and remedies of a commercial X and of a prospective Y, given a certain conflict. I opened my last few paragraphs with the sentence, "Maybe these guys shouldn't go sprinting for the courtroom..." and proceeded to argue why the parties should just sit down at a table and negotiate.
In one of my tests, we had a fact pattern involving a person from the coast contracting for property in Nevada. I talked about her "spiritual retreats", and talked about the Nevada people's meetings in "the grange hall."
Well, when I waltz out of BCLS with straight Cs, at least I'll be able to say I had fun with my finals.
Torts is in 2 days.
(0) comments
When Zack takes a final at law school, Zack apparently can't resist the temptation to make jokes and cut-up. So please don't ask my about my grades later this winter, because I have probably sunk them.
Today, while answering a question on regulatory takings during a property final, I spent several sentences telling my professor about parthenogenic salamanders in order to make the point that an endangered species might not be extinct when it gets down to one specimen. Needless to say, this had nothing to do with the test, a traditional issue spotter involving X and Y. (I actually wrote out what X and Y were, but then remembered that the proctors told us not to disclose any content on the exam.)
I also spent some time funning around writing about the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act ("HIPAA"). I don't think my property professor meant to do this, but he gave us a fact pattern that invoked this statute in a number of ways. I've worked in a medical clinic before, overseeing HIPAA compliance, so I spotted the issue immediately.
The problem here is that I have fun on law school finals.
My contracts final asked me to describe the legal rights and remedies of a commercial X and of a prospective Y, given a certain conflict. I opened my last few paragraphs with the sentence, "Maybe these guys shouldn't go sprinting for the courtroom..." and proceeded to argue why the parties should just sit down at a table and negotiate.
In one of my tests, we had a fact pattern involving a person from the coast contracting for property in Nevada. I talked about her "spiritual retreats", and talked about the Nevada people's meetings in "the grange hall."
Well, when I waltz out of BCLS with straight Cs, at least I'll be able to say I had fun with my finals.
Torts is in 2 days.
Friday, December 12, 2008
A NOTE FROM THE EDITOR
Beer Powered Bicycle has recently undergone two modifications to its editorial policy. First, for a limited time, these notes are targeted to a very specific audience: law school applicants who are considering Boston College. Second, the editorial board has re-committed itself to one of BPB's founding principles, to entertain.
In pursuit of the first idea, we are featuring more notes that attempt to specifically and accurately describe the author's life and experiences while at Boston College Law School. I (Zack) am trying to create something that I looked for a year ago. When I was registering with LSAC and taking the LSAT, and then when I was considering schools, then when I applied and got answers, and after that, when I was choosing schools, and even up to the first day of classes, I wanted information about what this school is like. Now, as I get that information, I am trying to share it.
Second, when BPB began, in print only, (before I even had an email account, much less a computer) back in 1997, my first purpose was to entertain. I wanted to create something that people would pick up, read a sentence of, and want to read more of. At the time, that involved some theatrics and subterfuge. I originally vowed to write every paragraph while sitting at a typewriter with a beer in my hand. I also originally vowed to not back-space, to not correct mistakes, and to give my readers the thrilling jolt of my unadultered stream of thoughts.
The original format is still as true as it ever was. My astute original readers will have noticed upside-down letters in the supposed typing, your whispered clue that things weren't as un-edited as they pretended to be. But the product is true to the spirit. It is my purpose to entertain. I can't sing like Tom Waits. I can't play bass like Dee-Dee Ramone. So I do what I can do, report on the world around me.
BPB's ongoing mission to entertain has lead me to delete some dull, didactic, and repetitive posts. (I had a few on political subjects that I actually think mis-represented my political views on things.) My purpose is to write stuff that makes people kinda wanna read the next stuff.
My purpose for the next couple of months is to give info to kids thinking about, applying to, recently accepted to, or planning on attending Boston College Law School.
(Keywords: BCLS, newton center, newton centre, disney land, centre street, chestnut hill, cleveland circle, green line, reservoir, south street, commonwealth ave)
(1) comments
Beer Powered Bicycle has recently undergone two modifications to its editorial policy. First, for a limited time, these notes are targeted to a very specific audience: law school applicants who are considering Boston College. Second, the editorial board has re-committed itself to one of BPB's founding principles, to entertain.
In pursuit of the first idea, we are featuring more notes that attempt to specifically and accurately describe the author's life and experiences while at Boston College Law School. I (Zack) am trying to create something that I looked for a year ago. When I was registering with LSAC and taking the LSAT, and then when I was considering schools, then when I applied and got answers, and after that, when I was choosing schools, and even up to the first day of classes, I wanted information about what this school is like. Now, as I get that information, I am trying to share it.
Second, when BPB began, in print only, (before I even had an email account, much less a computer) back in 1997, my first purpose was to entertain. I wanted to create something that people would pick up, read a sentence of, and want to read more of. At the time, that involved some theatrics and subterfuge. I originally vowed to write every paragraph while sitting at a typewriter with a beer in my hand. I also originally vowed to not back-space, to not correct mistakes, and to give my readers the thrilling jolt of my unadultered stream of thoughts.
The original format is still as true as it ever was. My astute original readers will have noticed upside-down letters in the supposed typing, your whispered clue that things weren't as un-edited as they pretended to be. But the product is true to the spirit. It is my purpose to entertain. I can't sing like Tom Waits. I can't play bass like Dee-Dee Ramone. So I do what I can do, report on the world around me.
BPB's ongoing mission to entertain has lead me to delete some dull, didactic, and repetitive posts. (I had a few on political subjects that I actually think mis-represented my political views on things.) My purpose is to write stuff that makes people kinda wanna read the next stuff.
My purpose for the next couple of months is to give info to kids thinking about, applying to, recently accepted to, or planning on attending Boston College Law School.
(Keywords: BCLS, newton center, newton centre, disney land, centre street, chestnut hill, cleveland circle, green line, reservoir, south street, commonwealth ave)
BCLS REPORT--LIVING THROUGH FINALS
I've been frustrated all day because I'm behind in property, and I can tell. I am reading a really good book on the subject and typing my notes, and making and studying crib-sheets of all the concepts.
Earlier in the semester, the professor emailed us a number of old exams with example answers. So this evening I worked through half of one, and yes, I'm way behind. I got maybe 70% of the ideas about right, but didn't know all the "doctrine of x" type phrases you were supposed to use.
This test is closed-book, which I like. Most of our other finals allow us to bring in the textbook and our outlines. This one we have to take cold. It's more like ripping off a band-aid this way. It will be intensely painful, and then over.
I have never been one for cramming. During my entire graduate degree (in molecular biology, genomics and bioinformatics) I never studied even on the last day before a test. I studied a lot, but spread out over the semester. Now, that position is untenable. I have two full days left, and so much frickin' material that I don't know yet. Oh well, at least all the reading and studying distracts me from the soul-crushing loneliness of my new life.
I finally stopped studying today, at 11:20 pm. I decided to watch a movie, and I dug around under my rejection letters from law firms, and handouts from contracts class, an napkins from all of Cleveland Circle's best take-out restaurants, and I found my Netflixs.
I got a little excited. I haven't watched one my Netflix movies in like two months. I'm on the three-at-a-time plan, so I figured there'd be something I would want to watch. Of my three movies, two were open and one wasn't. The two open ones were The Golden Compass and West Wing, season 1, disc 1. Obviously, I opened these when they got here back in October. I haven't gotten to them yet, and I wasn't really in the mood right now.
But, after a long day of studying, I had an un-opened Netflix!
What could be more exiting than this? A surprise movie. Both of the above appeal to me in general, if not right now. So whatever this unopened Netflix was, it was going to be the recreational high-light of my week! It's friday night in Boston, time to do something fun.
And during finals time at BCLS, nothing could be more fun than watching 20 minutes of a surprise Netflix and falling asleep, so that you can wake up and spend another day sequestered in your apartment failing to learn about subleases, assignments, subrogations, and privity.
Phew, finally, 20 minutes of relief, and personal indulgence. I wondered what the movie would be. I tried to remember what I had put in my queue. I did the latest Indiana Jones movie long ago. I had finished the Wire. What could it be?
So I opened it.
House Party. The 1990 Kid 'n Play romantic comedy, featuring Martin Lawrence. Yep, Beer Powered Bicycle readers, I am stuck with watching house party tonight (btw, welcome, Anthony.) Maybe I will do another property practice test, instead. Maybe I'll mix it up and do one from the BarBri book, instead of from professor Findley.
(0) comments
I've been frustrated all day because I'm behind in property, and I can tell. I am reading a really good book on the subject and typing my notes, and making and studying crib-sheets of all the concepts.
Earlier in the semester, the professor emailed us a number of old exams with example answers. So this evening I worked through half of one, and yes, I'm way behind. I got maybe 70% of the ideas about right, but didn't know all the "doctrine of x" type phrases you were supposed to use.
This test is closed-book, which I like. Most of our other finals allow us to bring in the textbook and our outlines. This one we have to take cold. It's more like ripping off a band-aid this way. It will be intensely painful, and then over.
I have never been one for cramming. During my entire graduate degree (in molecular biology, genomics and bioinformatics) I never studied even on the last day before a test. I studied a lot, but spread out over the semester. Now, that position is untenable. I have two full days left, and so much frickin' material that I don't know yet. Oh well, at least all the reading and studying distracts me from the soul-crushing loneliness of my new life.
I finally stopped studying today, at 11:20 pm. I decided to watch a movie, and I dug around under my rejection letters from law firms, and handouts from contracts class, an napkins from all of Cleveland Circle's best take-out restaurants, and I found my Netflixs.
I got a little excited. I haven't watched one my Netflix movies in like two months. I'm on the three-at-a-time plan, so I figured there'd be something I would want to watch. Of my three movies, two were open and one wasn't. The two open ones were The Golden Compass and West Wing, season 1, disc 1. Obviously, I opened these when they got here back in October. I haven't gotten to them yet, and I wasn't really in the mood right now.
But, after a long day of studying, I had an un-opened Netflix!
What could be more exiting than this? A surprise movie. Both of the above appeal to me in general, if not right now. So whatever this unopened Netflix was, it was going to be the recreational high-light of my week! It's friday night in Boston, time to do something fun.
And during finals time at BCLS, nothing could be more fun than watching 20 minutes of a surprise Netflix and falling asleep, so that you can wake up and spend another day sequestered in your apartment failing to learn about subleases, assignments, subrogations, and privity.
Phew, finally, 20 minutes of relief, and personal indulgence. I wondered what the movie would be. I tried to remember what I had put in my queue. I did the latest Indiana Jones movie long ago. I had finished the Wire. What could it be?
So I opened it.
House Party. The 1990 Kid 'n Play romantic comedy, featuring Martin Lawrence. Yep, Beer Powered Bicycle readers, I am stuck with watching house party tonight (btw, welcome, Anthony.) Maybe I will do another property practice test, instead. Maybe I'll mix it up and do one from the BarBri book, instead of from professor Findley.
Thursday, December 11, 2008
BOSTON COLLEGE LAW SCHOOL REPORT--FINALS PART 1
I had my first final the other day. I want to describe some of that it was like.
But first, a side-note. I imagine newly admitted students to BCLS searching the web for info of what campus life is like. That's why I write these blog posts. I know that my blog is set to private right now, and that's because I am job-searching. It is not my intent to hide this blog from any friend or student. So if you know of anyone who wants to read it, tell them to send me an email, and I will invite them in. I might even return this blog to public. I'm undecided.
One thing they did at the exam was to remind us that there are some students who may not have taken the exam yet, so we may not talk about the content. Thus, I am committed do disclosing none of the content, although I may make up a fake analogy, and purport it to be true, in order to make a point.
The exam was three hours, and everyone brought a computer to take it on. There were about four proctors who I assume were other students of the law school. The professor was not there.
The proctors were very thoughtful, and walked us all through all the steps of getting the exam-taking software running on our computers. Everything went of very smoothly for almost everyone.
One woman's computer didn't work, and she had to take the exam by hand-writing it in a bluebook. I felt very bad for her. It is easy to get yourself stressed out before exams, and I can only imagine that not having your computer work would really aggravate the stress. I hope she did okay, and that it wasn't a big deal that she had to hand-write.
The exams were handed out on paper, and they also appeared on our computer screen. FitzGibbon--our contracts professor--puts a good number of his old exams in the course packet that you get at the beginning of the semester. So there really wouldn't be any excuse for not having looked at those.
Each years is exam is different than previous years. He doesn't recycle fact patterns. But he sticks broadly to his general format, so I didn't feel like there were any surpsrises.
We had plenty of time to get stuff in order. We were split between two classrooms, so everyone had plenty of elbow room. People brought coffee, water, and snacks. The only prohibitions are on commercially printed stuff that wasn't assigned course material.
I brought a 70 page outline. The first 25 pages was my shortest possible outline for the course. The remainder of the pages was different paragraphs and sentences I wrote to remind myself of things, organized in a way so that I knew where to get to it right away. (Which I guess is an outline. But it didn't contain legal rules so much as lists of questions.)
I looked at stuff in my outline twice. I looked up stuff in the Restatement about four times. I looked up two things in the UCC.
But here's my take-home point: I would have done just the same if I hadn't brought anything, or looked up anything at all. The one point I was trying to make from the UNIDROIT, I made totally wrong. That is, it said, "A is okay if you have B, and then if you don't have C you will end up with D," And I turned around and wrote, "Once you have A and B, all you need is C to get D." Which you see directly contradicts the rule I was trying to look up. I would have been better of either a) not making the point, or b) referring to the legal rule without saying anything, "This brings up the issue of whether A and B give rise to C and/ or D." See what a marvelous hedge that is?
The exam was two questions in three hours.
When the proctor announced the start time (10:16 am) and wrote it on the chalk board, I did the following. I took off my watch, and put it right where I could see it. A calculated 'half-time' (11:45 am). I wrote the half-time on a sheet of paper. And I read and started working on the first question.
My plan--and I stuck to it--was to quit working on question 1 at half-time, and go on to work on question 2. I did not read question 2 until half-time.
I finished each question "early" in the sense that I had something which I thought was a cohesive, reasonable answer about five minutes before the end of time. I used the extra time to re-read what I was written trying to correct spelling and typos.
The software we use has a spell-checker that the professor can opt to disable. FitzGibbon had disabled our spellchecker. About two years ago, I wrote a post on this blog about how Firefox 2.0's built in spellchecker was improving my spelling. This is because I actually do more typing in a web browser than in a word processor, and Firefox doesn't automatically correct for you. So I got into the habit of backspacing and trying new combinations until I got it right. That past experience served me well on the exam. Certainly if I wrote received or restaurant anywhere, I spelled it right, whereas I would not have 2.5 years ago.
I think I did well on the test. My grade is going to be kept low by how incredibly smart everyone is my class. I mean, I know that my answers were as good as anything handed out by our professors as "model answers" this year, or the schlock printed in the BarBri book (which has 4 contracts exams and model answers). But, people in my class are very, very smart.
When people talk in class, not only are they really very bright, and seem to anticpate legal doctrines that would control various fact patterns, I have seen my professors actually be impressed by how good the students get the material in class. I am certainly impressed. I would be intimidated, but I resolved long ago to be an average student. I can't kid myself, my strengths just aren't in this kind of academic scholarship.
I can't disclose any of what was on the exam, so this is hypothetical, to illustrate the kind of thinking you have to do. There are certain aspects of contract law that are covered by one big body of law. That is, if I contract to paint all your widgets, and then breach, the judge is going to use Rule 13. But then there are certain variations to the facts which would make Rule 13 not apply. That is, if contract to paint half of your widgets, then Rule 13 has an exception that says, "don't use this Rule. Instead just make that guy lose." Well, we had a question that sat on a distinction like that, and I almost didn't see it. I wrote the whole thing sayings, "Rule 13 says do this. Rule 13 says do that...." But when I had about 20 minutes left, I realized the exception applied. I deleted some paragraphs, and wrote furiously, so I was left with something like, "Rule 13 says do this, Rule 13 says do that, BUT, there is an exception here, so we have to consider the issue of exceptions to Rule 13."
(There is no such thing as a Rule 13 that I know of in Contracts law. I made that up so as not to disclose any real content from the test.)
That probably cost me a grade level jump right there, from B to B-, or from B- to C+.
Again, I must re-iterate, the thing that I corrected on had NOTHING to do with exceptions to Rule 13 based on fraction of widgets painted. I just made that up so I could talk about how one might fuck up on a test, what you might do when you realize it, and what it might do to your grade.
I have no idea how much I wrote. The exam software had a "character count", and I noticed the numbers, but I don't remember them. I feel like it might have been approximately 2000 characters per question, which is about 2 double spaced pages per question, which would be four pages for the entire exam. But I know I am a very fast typist, and that seems low, for an hour of typing. Maybe I saw "2000 characters" when I was partway through. Or maybe I was going much slower than I thought. I don't remember.
Finishing your first exam feels really good. I was euphoric for a little while. You don't get grades until late January. It's hard not to re-think the test in your mind, and try to figure out how you did. I keep telling myself there's no point to it, and to just forget about it.
Now I am studying property.
(0) comments
I had my first final the other day. I want to describe some of that it was like.
But first, a side-note. I imagine newly admitted students to BCLS searching the web for info of what campus life is like. That's why I write these blog posts. I know that my blog is set to private right now, and that's because I am job-searching. It is not my intent to hide this blog from any friend or student. So if you know of anyone who wants to read it, tell them to send me an email, and I will invite them in. I might even return this blog to public. I'm undecided.
One thing they did at the exam was to remind us that there are some students who may not have taken the exam yet, so we may not talk about the content. Thus, I am committed do disclosing none of the content, although I may make up a fake analogy, and purport it to be true, in order to make a point.
The exam was three hours, and everyone brought a computer to take it on. There were about four proctors who I assume were other students of the law school. The professor was not there.
The proctors were very thoughtful, and walked us all through all the steps of getting the exam-taking software running on our computers. Everything went of very smoothly for almost everyone.
One woman's computer didn't work, and she had to take the exam by hand-writing it in a bluebook. I felt very bad for her. It is easy to get yourself stressed out before exams, and I can only imagine that not having your computer work would really aggravate the stress. I hope she did okay, and that it wasn't a big deal that she had to hand-write.
The exams were handed out on paper, and they also appeared on our computer screen. FitzGibbon--our contracts professor--puts a good number of his old exams in the course packet that you get at the beginning of the semester. So there really wouldn't be any excuse for not having looked at those.
Each years is exam is different than previous years. He doesn't recycle fact patterns. But he sticks broadly to his general format, so I didn't feel like there were any surpsrises.
We had plenty of time to get stuff in order. We were split between two classrooms, so everyone had plenty of elbow room. People brought coffee, water, and snacks. The only prohibitions are on commercially printed stuff that wasn't assigned course material.
I brought a 70 page outline. The first 25 pages was my shortest possible outline for the course. The remainder of the pages was different paragraphs and sentences I wrote to remind myself of things, organized in a way so that I knew where to get to it right away. (Which I guess is an outline. But it didn't contain legal rules so much as lists of questions.)
I looked at stuff in my outline twice. I looked up stuff in the Restatement about four times. I looked up two things in the UCC.
But here's my take-home point: I would have done just the same if I hadn't brought anything, or looked up anything at all. The one point I was trying to make from the UNIDROIT, I made totally wrong. That is, it said, "A is okay if you have B, and then if you don't have C you will end up with D," And I turned around and wrote, "Once you have A and B, all you need is C to get D." Which you see directly contradicts the rule I was trying to look up. I would have been better of either a) not making the point, or b) referring to the legal rule without saying anything, "This brings up the issue of whether A and B give rise to C and/ or D." See what a marvelous hedge that is?
The exam was two questions in three hours.
When the proctor announced the start time (10:16 am) and wrote it on the chalk board, I did the following. I took off my watch, and put it right where I could see it. A calculated 'half-time' (11:45 am). I wrote the half-time on a sheet of paper. And I read and started working on the first question.
My plan--and I stuck to it--was to quit working on question 1 at half-time, and go on to work on question 2. I did not read question 2 until half-time.
I finished each question "early" in the sense that I had something which I thought was a cohesive, reasonable answer about five minutes before the end of time. I used the extra time to re-read what I was written trying to correct spelling and typos.
The software we use has a spell-checker that the professor can opt to disable. FitzGibbon had disabled our spellchecker. About two years ago, I wrote a post on this blog about how Firefox 2.0's built in spellchecker was improving my spelling. This is because I actually do more typing in a web browser than in a word processor, and Firefox doesn't automatically correct for you. So I got into the habit of backspacing and trying new combinations until I got it right. That past experience served me well on the exam. Certainly if I wrote received or restaurant anywhere, I spelled it right, whereas I would not have 2.5 years ago.
I think I did well on the test. My grade is going to be kept low by how incredibly smart everyone is my class. I mean, I know that my answers were as good as anything handed out by our professors as "model answers" this year, or the schlock printed in the BarBri book (which has 4 contracts exams and model answers). But, people in my class are very, very smart.
When people talk in class, not only are they really very bright, and seem to anticpate legal doctrines that would control various fact patterns, I have seen my professors actually be impressed by how good the students get the material in class. I am certainly impressed. I would be intimidated, but I resolved long ago to be an average student. I can't kid myself, my strengths just aren't in this kind of academic scholarship.
I can't disclose any of what was on the exam, so this is hypothetical, to illustrate the kind of thinking you have to do. There are certain aspects of contract law that are covered by one big body of law. That is, if I contract to paint all your widgets, and then breach, the judge is going to use Rule 13. But then there are certain variations to the facts which would make Rule 13 not apply. That is, if contract to paint half of your widgets, then Rule 13 has an exception that says, "don't use this Rule. Instead just make that guy lose." Well, we had a question that sat on a distinction like that, and I almost didn't see it. I wrote the whole thing sayings, "Rule 13 says do this. Rule 13 says do that...." But when I had about 20 minutes left, I realized the exception applied. I deleted some paragraphs, and wrote furiously, so I was left with something like, "Rule 13 says do this, Rule 13 says do that, BUT, there is an exception here, so we have to consider the issue of exceptions to Rule 13."
(There is no such thing as a Rule 13 that I know of in Contracts law. I made that up so as not to disclose any real content from the test.)
That probably cost me a grade level jump right there, from B to B-, or from B- to C+.
Again, I must re-iterate, the thing that I corrected on had NOTHING to do with exceptions to Rule 13 based on fraction of widgets painted. I just made that up so I could talk about how one might fuck up on a test, what you might do when you realize it, and what it might do to your grade.
I have no idea how much I wrote. The exam software had a "character count", and I noticed the numbers, but I don't remember them. I feel like it might have been approximately 2000 characters per question, which is about 2 double spaced pages per question, which would be four pages for the entire exam. But I know I am a very fast typist, and that seems low, for an hour of typing. Maybe I saw "2000 characters" when I was partway through. Or maybe I was going much slower than I thought. I don't remember.
Finishing your first exam feels really good. I was euphoric for a little while. You don't get grades until late January. It's hard not to re-think the test in your mind, and try to figure out how you did. I keep telling myself there's no point to it, and to just forget about it.
Now I am studying property.
BOSTON COLLEGE LAW SCHOOL REPORT
FINALS--FIRST SEMESTER
When I was in tenth grade at Asheville High School some people came to the school and administered aptitude tests to all the students. I remember filling in a bubble sheet with a number 2 pencil, answering absurd questions like:
Do you like to work on the details of a project, instead of the big picture?
A. All the time
B. Most of the time
C. Some of the time
D. None of the time
Do you prefer to work alone, instead of with a group?
A. All of the time... (You see where this goes.)
So every student in the school took the test, and about a week later, they passed out results. Other students opened their envelopes and read off lists of suitable careers, "Army officer, police officer, Army MP,..." or "Actuary, accountant, CPA,..." It was an interesting time of life to give such a test. I was young enough that I wasn't thinking very seriously about what I would do as an adult. I had no idea what really went into any real-life careers.
I wanted to be an architect. I already had opinions on what buildings were cool, and what buildings sucked. I thought that if you were an architect, you got to choose how new building would end up looking. What I was ignorant of , was that if you go to architectural school, you then work as a cad-monkey for years. You are not likely to be designing the hot new public library, or even some wild modern-art house.
I did have work experience at the time. I had been working illegally (I was underage when I started my first job) as a dishwasher at a restaurant for $3.50/ hour. So I already knew how enjoyable hard work could be, and how good it felt to have earned your own money.
I had bought myself a car ('77 Ford LTD), and would take my girlfriend out to eat. So I knew sort of what a working life was like--many rewards in money, autonomy, and self-respect. But I had no idea what adult careers would be like. (Maybe some sense of what specifically each of my parents' careers were like--Montessori school director and doctor. Enough to know that I didn't want either of those careers.)
So it was a very interesting time to get this aptitude test. I may have hoped that it said "architect" or "industrial engineer." I opened it. Most kids' test results listed numerous options. Mine only listed two: pastry chef, and pastry chef's apprentice. I shit you not.
But now I know what studying for finals is like in law school, and I could re-write their whole damn test for them. Here it is:
Do you like to read?
A. Yes
B. No
Do you like to eat take-out?
A. Yes
B. No
If you answered yes to both, you should become a law student.
All my "adult" life, whatever job I have ever had, my favorite thing to do was read and eat take-out. Nobody ever told me that that's what law school is all about.
Boston College is a reasonable law school, because you can live in Cleveland Circle, with reasonable take-out options. If I had known that law school would be such an indulgence in reading and eating take out, though, I might applied to different law schools. Schools in NY might have been higher on the list (I probably would have applied to Fordham, which I didn't). I would have been much more likely to have gone to Hastings.
Back when I was trying to decide between BC and Hastings, my damn roommate kept telling me to go to Hastings. On all the variables I was considering, BC won out. If my roommate had just said, "All you'll ever do in law school is eat take out." I would have compared the take-out options in the Mission to those in Newton Centre, and there I would be.
Okay, maybe this blog post purported to be a report on what finals time was like. If you've picked up on an intense mix of reading, eating crap food, and cabin fever, then I have successfully communicated it to you.
(0) comments
FINALS--FIRST SEMESTER
When I was in tenth grade at Asheville High School some people came to the school and administered aptitude tests to all the students. I remember filling in a bubble sheet with a number 2 pencil, answering absurd questions like:
Do you like to work on the details of a project, instead of the big picture?
A. All the time
B. Most of the time
C. Some of the time
D. None of the time
Do you prefer to work alone, instead of with a group?
A. All of the time... (You see where this goes.)
So every student in the school took the test, and about a week later, they passed out results. Other students opened their envelopes and read off lists of suitable careers, "Army officer, police officer, Army MP,..." or "Actuary, accountant, CPA,..." It was an interesting time of life to give such a test. I was young enough that I wasn't thinking very seriously about what I would do as an adult. I had no idea what really went into any real-life careers.
I wanted to be an architect. I already had opinions on what buildings were cool, and what buildings sucked. I thought that if you were an architect, you got to choose how new building would end up looking. What I was ignorant of , was that if you go to architectural school, you then work as a cad-monkey for years. You are not likely to be designing the hot new public library, or even some wild modern-art house.
I did have work experience at the time. I had been working illegally (I was underage when I started my first job) as a dishwasher at a restaurant for $3.50/ hour. So I already knew how enjoyable hard work could be, and how good it felt to have earned your own money.
I had bought myself a car ('77 Ford LTD), and would take my girlfriend out to eat. So I knew sort of what a working life was like--many rewards in money, autonomy, and self-respect. But I had no idea what adult careers would be like. (Maybe some sense of what specifically each of my parents' careers were like--Montessori school director and doctor. Enough to know that I didn't want either of those careers.)
So it was a very interesting time to get this aptitude test. I may have hoped that it said "architect" or "industrial engineer." I opened it. Most kids' test results listed numerous options. Mine only listed two: pastry chef, and pastry chef's apprentice. I shit you not.
But now I know what studying for finals is like in law school, and I could re-write their whole damn test for them. Here it is:
Do you like to read?
A. Yes
B. No
Do you like to eat take-out?
A. Yes
B. No
If you answered yes to both, you should become a law student.
All my "adult" life, whatever job I have ever had, my favorite thing to do was read and eat take-out. Nobody ever told me that that's what law school is all about.
Boston College is a reasonable law school, because you can live in Cleveland Circle, with reasonable take-out options. If I had known that law school would be such an indulgence in reading and eating take out, though, I might applied to different law schools. Schools in NY might have been higher on the list (I probably would have applied to Fordham, which I didn't). I would have been much more likely to have gone to Hastings.
Back when I was trying to decide between BC and Hastings, my damn roommate kept telling me to go to Hastings. On all the variables I was considering, BC won out. If my roommate had just said, "All you'll ever do in law school is eat take out." I would have compared the take-out options in the Mission to those in Newton Centre, and there I would be.
Okay, maybe this blog post purported to be a report on what finals time was like. If you've picked up on an intense mix of reading, eating crap food, and cabin fever, then I have successfully communicated it to you.
Friday, December 05, 2008
MILLIONS AND BILLIONS
(all number are reported as of early December, 2008)
Numbers are meaningless in isolation. The approximate population of the U.S. is 300 million people. The world population is 6.7 billion. Since 2003, the U.S. has spent much more than 600 billion on the war in Iraq (some estimates put it at almost 999 billion, or a trillion.)
Here are some current approximate state populations, in millions.
NY: 20
WY: 0.5
CA: 36
CT: 3
FL 18
ID: 1
MA: 6
NC: 8
OR: 4
TX: 23
Okay, so the current U.S. population is about 300 million people. The U.S. has spent about 600 billion on the war in Iraq since 2001. (Likely much more.) That is 100 billion dollars a year.
Let's divide 100 billion dollars over the 50 states. That's 2 billion dollars per state. Consider that North Carolina has about eight million people, and that Oregon has about four million. I want to split the difference and imagine a hypothetical state of five million people.
These five million people have spent 2 billion dollars per year on the Iraq war.
Or, if you divide the war cost over the U.S. population, we are spending more than 3 hundred dollars per person, per year, on the Iraq war.
Do you want to part with $300 this year, like you did in the previous 5 years, to continue the war in Iraq?
You have spent almost $2,000 on violence in Iraq. Why?
(0) comments
(all number are reported as of early December, 2008)
Numbers are meaningless in isolation. The approximate population of the U.S. is 300 million people. The world population is 6.7 billion. Since 2003, the U.S. has spent much more than 600 billion on the war in Iraq (some estimates put it at almost 999 billion, or a trillion.)
Here are some current approximate state populations, in millions.
NY: 20
WY: 0.5
CA: 36
CT: 3
FL 18
ID: 1
MA: 6
NC: 8
OR: 4
TX: 23
Okay, so the current U.S. population is about 300 million people. The U.S. has spent about 600 billion on the war in Iraq since 2001. (Likely much more.) That is 100 billion dollars a year.
Let's divide 100 billion dollars over the 50 states. That's 2 billion dollars per state. Consider that North Carolina has about eight million people, and that Oregon has about four million. I want to split the difference and imagine a hypothetical state of five million people.
These five million people have spent 2 billion dollars per year on the Iraq war.
Or, if you divide the war cost over the U.S. population, we are spending more than 3 hundred dollars per person, per year, on the Iraq war.
Do you want to part with $300 this year, like you did in the previous 5 years, to continue the war in Iraq?
You have spent almost $2,000 on violence in Iraq. Why?
Wednesday, December 03, 2008
SPOT THE LAW SCHOOL DEAN
I did a quick Google image search for something like "law school dean", and came up with a number of interesting results.
First, I found out that while a law school dean is particularly good at standing lobbies, they also seem to be happy standing out in front of a lobby:
Also, every law school needs a couple of decorator deans. For instance, if someone donates a valuable painting of an important judge, you can use a decorator dean to "flank" the painting, and make the scene appear more balanced and natural:
A good law school will also bring out its decorator deans when giving someone a check. Actually, decorator deans can hand over almost any piece of paper.
Do not forget that deans come in two outfits.
The primary purpose for putting a dean in a jogging outfit is to dress up the campus. Having an attractive dean come running up the front drive really increases your school's curb appeal.
My Google image search results for "law school dean" suggests that deans are a transnational phenomenon. Notice that the Asian law school deans behave just like their American counterparts, but they seemingly prefer to stand out in front of the lobby, rather than within it.
It occurs to me that the inclination to be in a lobby, rather than out on the front steps, could be a regionalism. It could be based on Boston's cold weather. I will have to establish where California law schools like to set up their decorator deans.
Here's a tricky one. Four people in suits, standing around doing nothing? Definitely a dean in the picture. But wait, the oldest guy has facial hair, thus he is not a dean. Think about this picture. what do you think is going on?
It is clear that the smiling bearded guy has just donated a bunch of money to the law school. If he donated anything around $300,000, then there will be a bench named after him, behind the main building, near the bus stop, in a few years. All the other people in the picture are deans. How do you know? They are standing in a lobby.
I need to ask people who go to other schools, how those schools use their deans. For instance, I think that Ben might know how MIT deploys its deans (is it the same ratio of decorator deans to jogging deans? Approx. 9:1?) And my mother would know how a private boy's high school in the south sets up their deans, and in what seasons. I wonder if California deans are kept out year-round?
(0) comments
I did a quick Google image search for something like "law school dean", and came up with a number of interesting results.
First, I found out that while a law school dean is particularly good at standing lobbies, they also seem to be happy standing out in front of a lobby:
Also, every law school needs a couple of decorator deans. For instance, if someone donates a valuable painting of an important judge, you can use a decorator dean to "flank" the painting, and make the scene appear more balanced and natural:
A good law school will also bring out its decorator deans when giving someone a check. Actually, decorator deans can hand over almost any piece of paper.
Do not forget that deans come in two outfits.
The primary purpose for putting a dean in a jogging outfit is to dress up the campus. Having an attractive dean come running up the front drive really increases your school's curb appeal.
My Google image search results for "law school dean" suggests that deans are a transnational phenomenon. Notice that the Asian law school deans behave just like their American counterparts, but they seemingly prefer to stand out in front of the lobby, rather than within it.
It occurs to me that the inclination to be in a lobby, rather than out on the front steps, could be a regionalism. It could be based on Boston's cold weather. I will have to establish where California law schools like to set up their decorator deans.
Here's a tricky one. Four people in suits, standing around doing nothing? Definitely a dean in the picture. But wait, the oldest guy has facial hair, thus he is not a dean. Think about this picture. what do you think is going on?
It is clear that the smiling bearded guy has just donated a bunch of money to the law school. If he donated anything around $300,000, then there will be a bench named after him, behind the main building, near the bus stop, in a few years. All the other people in the picture are deans. How do you know? They are standing in a lobby.
I need to ask people who go to other schools, how those schools use their deans. For instance, I think that Ben might know how MIT deploys its deans (is it the same ratio of decorator deans to jogging deans? Approx. 9:1?) And my mother would know how a private boy's high school in the south sets up their deans, and in what seasons. I wonder if California deans are kept out year-round?
A YEAR AGO
About a year ago, I was a newly admitted student at a number of middle-of-the-road law schools. (I got rejected from each of the 14 law schools that make up the "top ten" that I applied to.) I had no idea what law school would be like, so I did what I usually did when faced with an upcoming unknown: I read a number of books.
At the time, I lived with a lawyer who had graduated from law school during the time that I knew him. So I had no shortage of material lying around to draw from. I also lived equidistant between two well-stocked Powell's bookstores.
I read cases from my roommate's old textbooks. I read paperbacks about law school. I read a book about the supreme court. I read 'Long Goodbye' (Colby, not Chandler) and 'The Buffalo Creek Disaster.' I read '1L.' This is what I do when I am faced with a new situation--I read books.
There were two books that I read that have paid off. Two books stand out from the masses. That is, they gave me a "leg-up" in school. These two books (not in combination; they are very different, and do different things) gave me a broad perspective within which so much of what we talk about in classes makes so much more sense.
The two books that I read before law school that continue to pay off each day, in terms of making things make sense up-front, are 'An Introduction to English Legal History' by J. H. Baker and 'New Ideas from Dead Economists' by Todd Buchholz. These books are currently listed on Amazon for about $40.00 and about $4.00, respectively.
American law is shaped by English law, and English law apparently shaped by the caprices of hobbits (well, reeves living in shires, at least) and clerics and lords. But kidding aside, so much of our law--property law concepts, actions in tort, and procedural devices--is descendant from English law that much of what was weird about law was put into its place by my having read Baker's book.
To be honest, I only read the first half of Baker's book. The first half of the book is--more or less--a chronological history of the development of English legal stuff. The second half is more of chapter after chapter of taking some specific cause of action and writing about it in-depth.
But what I read has helped me greatly in law school. I think on many days I was able read a case in fifteen minutes, and know how all the big pieces fit together, because of this.
For instance, if you have read Baker's book, then the significance of FRCP 8(a)(2), "a short and plain statement of the claim showing that the pleader is entitled to relief..." is obvious at a blush. Actually, having just skimmed Baker lets you marvel at the beautiful and revolutionary power of that 1938 document, the FRCP.
And Baker's book is magnificent for preparing you to sort out your torts, and not get hung up over ideas like trespass on the case and conversion.
If you have an economics background, than you can probably ignore my endorsement of Buchholz's book. But I had no such background. And you should start law school with a basic understanding of "opportunity costs" and "marginal costs." Further, you should really grasp (regardless of what you believe or want to be true) the established wisdom of what makes for a 'healthy economy' and why growth is good.
Buchholz's book gave me the beginner's theory that I needed to understand why, say, Bush's stimulus package of tax rebate checks could be understood as a good thing. Regardless of your politics or bent, you will do well in discussing cases if you understand the broad strokes of current economic theory, and how it got there.
Law professors all abide by a rule that they secretly swore to, and that rule states that during the teaching of a course, a law professor must mention: "the Chicago school of economics" no less than eight times; "Richard Posner" no less than fifteen times; and "the law and economics movement" no less than ten times.
An incoming law student does NOT need to know anything about Posner. But having read an amateur's book on basic economic principles will be a great help when you do get to talking about Posnerian analysis (a real phrase used in the classrooms.)
The main point you get from Buchholz's book, and find in Posnerian analysis, is that free markets are hypothetically perfect at making everything perfect, and every other economic model is for imps and suckers. Goverment controls on markets are definately bad, like very way bad.
Then one day you will be reading a mundane case involving Walgreen's renting space in a strip mall, and the owner of the strip mall wants to modify the rental contract (so that they can rent to a competing drug store) and someone sues the other, and the judge upholds the contract clause that says "landlord can't rent to another drug store." Then your professor will ask you why the judge did this, when there are apparent "outs", apparent evidence that Walgreen's breached.
And the correct answer is to do a Posnerian analysis. You will get points for saying Walgreen's right to exclude Phar-Mor is best seen as a commodity. Walgreen's will not sell that right for less than their lost profit at having a competitor in the mall, and the landlord will pay for that right based on.... Blah blah blah, you have to read it, you have to figure out what to say. But it is what your professor is thinking of, and wanting you to say.
The 'New Ideas...' book--if you don't already have an economic background--will give you the 30,000-foot-view that will help.
(0) comments
About a year ago, I was a newly admitted student at a number of middle-of-the-road law schools. (I got rejected from each of the 14 law schools that make up the "top ten" that I applied to.) I had no idea what law school would be like, so I did what I usually did when faced with an upcoming unknown: I read a number of books.
At the time, I lived with a lawyer who had graduated from law school during the time that I knew him. So I had no shortage of material lying around to draw from. I also lived equidistant between two well-stocked Powell's bookstores.
I read cases from my roommate's old textbooks. I read paperbacks about law school. I read a book about the supreme court. I read 'Long Goodbye' (Colby, not Chandler) and 'The Buffalo Creek Disaster.' I read '1L.' This is what I do when I am faced with a new situation--I read books.
There were two books that I read that have paid off. Two books stand out from the masses. That is, they gave me a "leg-up" in school. These two books (not in combination; they are very different, and do different things) gave me a broad perspective within which so much of what we talk about in classes makes so much more sense.
The two books that I read before law school that continue to pay off each day, in terms of making things make sense up-front, are 'An Introduction to English Legal History' by J. H. Baker and 'New Ideas from Dead Economists' by Todd Buchholz. These books are currently listed on Amazon for about $40.00 and about $4.00, respectively.
American law is shaped by English law, and English law apparently shaped by the caprices of hobbits (well, reeves living in shires, at least) and clerics and lords. But kidding aside, so much of our law--property law concepts, actions in tort, and procedural devices--is descendant from English law that much of what was weird about law was put into its place by my having read Baker's book.
To be honest, I only read the first half of Baker's book. The first half of the book is--more or less--a chronological history of the development of English legal stuff. The second half is more of chapter after chapter of taking some specific cause of action and writing about it in-depth.
But what I read has helped me greatly in law school. I think on many days I was able read a case in fifteen minutes, and know how all the big pieces fit together, because of this.
For instance, if you have read Baker's book, then the significance of FRCP 8(a)(2), "a short and plain statement of the claim showing that the pleader is entitled to relief..." is obvious at a blush. Actually, having just skimmed Baker lets you marvel at the beautiful and revolutionary power of that 1938 document, the FRCP.
And Baker's book is magnificent for preparing you to sort out your torts, and not get hung up over ideas like trespass on the case and conversion.
If you have an economics background, than you can probably ignore my endorsement of Buchholz's book. But I had no such background. And you should start law school with a basic understanding of "opportunity costs" and "marginal costs." Further, you should really grasp (regardless of what you believe or want to be true) the established wisdom of what makes for a 'healthy economy' and why growth is good.
Buchholz's book gave me the beginner's theory that I needed to understand why, say, Bush's stimulus package of tax rebate checks could be understood as a good thing. Regardless of your politics or bent, you will do well in discussing cases if you understand the broad strokes of current economic theory, and how it got there.
Law professors all abide by a rule that they secretly swore to, and that rule states that during the teaching of a course, a law professor must mention: "the Chicago school of economics" no less than eight times; "Richard Posner" no less than fifteen times; and "the law and economics movement" no less than ten times.
An incoming law student does NOT need to know anything about Posner. But having read an amateur's book on basic economic principles will be a great help when you do get to talking about Posnerian analysis (a real phrase used in the classrooms.)
The main point you get from Buchholz's book, and find in Posnerian analysis, is that free markets are hypothetically perfect at making everything perfect, and every other economic model is for imps and suckers. Goverment controls on markets are definately bad, like very way bad.
Then one day you will be reading a mundane case involving Walgreen's renting space in a strip mall, and the owner of the strip mall wants to modify the rental contract (so that they can rent to a competing drug store) and someone sues the other, and the judge upholds the contract clause that says "landlord can't rent to another drug store." Then your professor will ask you why the judge did this, when there are apparent "outs", apparent evidence that Walgreen's breached.
And the correct answer is to do a Posnerian analysis. You will get points for saying Walgreen's right to exclude Phar-Mor is best seen as a commodity. Walgreen's will not sell that right for less than their lost profit at having a competitor in the mall, and the landlord will pay for that right based on.... Blah blah blah, you have to read it, you have to figure out what to say. But it is what your professor is thinking of, and wanting you to say.
The 'New Ideas...' book--if you don't already have an economic background--will give you the 30,000-foot-view that will help.
JOB SEARCH
I just put resumes in the mail. I am very careful to not put anything in my blog that I wouldn't mind having an employer read. But nonetheless, in the spirit of being conservative, I am going to make this blog "private" or "invite only" in about a day.
So if you are not on the list of invitees (from the last time I did this), and you want to be, send me an email at hydez at bc dot edu, or follow Blogger's instructions after this goes private, and you will be able to read.
If you are a recently-admitted student to BCLS, I will continue to post things that might answer your questions about what life as a 1L is like.
(0) comments
I just put resumes in the mail. I am very careful to not put anything in my blog that I wouldn't mind having an employer read. But nonetheless, in the spirit of being conservative, I am going to make this blog "private" or "invite only" in about a day.
So if you are not on the list of invitees (from the last time I did this), and you want to be, send me an email at hydez at bc dot edu, or follow Blogger's instructions after this goes private, and you will be able to read.
If you are a recently-admitted student to BCLS, I will continue to post things that might answer your questions about what life as a 1L is like.
Monday, November 24, 2008
BOSTON COLLEGE LAW SCHOOL THANKSGIVING REPORT
I. Disappearing Deans.
In your first week of law school, you will see about thirty Deans. They will be posted in hallways, and they will give magnimonious speeches about justice and service. You will wonder how a school of about 700 students can afford to have a two-score of Deans.
There will be a number of talks, and panels, and discussions during your first weeks of school. Some of these will be mandatory. At these talks, there will inevitibly be a table at the front of the room, and this table will be decorated with no less than three Deans. Even if the speakers consist all four of the 2Ls who are on the school's Diversity Committee, their table will be flanked by four or five Deans, wearing ties, with their ankles across their knees, jovially smiling at each other and the room.
One thing that Deans are remarkably good at is standing in lobbies. If you go in the front door of Stuart house between August 25th and September 7th, there will invariably be a Dean or two have a thoughtful discussion with someone in the middle of the tiled floor of the lobby. Unlike the other administrators or professors, these Deans don't require any props such as coffee cups, shoulder bags, or sheafs of papers.
When decorating the campus with Deans, the law school uses two different outfits. Most of the time, a Dean will be wearing a full suit and tie. The other outfit a Dean is allowed to wear is jogging clothes. The law school will often have a couple of Deans come jogging up the front drive for aesthetic purposes.
But now it is November, and all the Deans have dissapeared. They trickled off. I saw one of the jogging Deans in late September. Two of our most formal-looking, serious "decorator" Deans were disapearing into a little-used conference room a week or two ago. It is a mystery what happens to the Deans. Are they put away for the winter? Do they get sent somwhere else, to peform some other duty? Perhaps they are adorning tables at academic conferences in other cities. Or perhaps they are needed to stand in lobbies somewhere else.
II. Knowing Who's Who
Before you get to law school, you may not be able to tell a Dean from a law professor. Here are some tips.
A Dean's shirt is tucked in correctly, and a professor's is not.
If the jacket matches the pants, it's a Dean.
While the presence of a tie does not determine conclusively that you are dealing with a Dean, if the tie is coarse-knit and cut straight across the bottom, you are dealing with a professor.
Professors have stubble. Deans are clean-shaven.
III. Keys to the Good Life
As you undoubtably spent your student loans on a Playstation 3 and Grand Theft Auto, you are probably running out of money by thanksiving. You probably have enough money let for bread and peanut butter until your spring student loans arrive, so the challenge is to amuse yourself without spending money.
Note that it is imperitive not to break they law. You must take an oath to become a lawyer to uphold the law, and you have probably already signed a student honor code that binds you to obeying the law. These things are quite serious, and any finding that you break a law or violate your school's honor code, can jeapordize your future career. I mean this. I hear of some students being lacksadaisical about their moral fibre, and this is unconciousnable.
So, you must stop doing illegal things. Luckily, hulu.com covers that. You must immediately cease and desist from downloading Arrested Development using bittorrent. All three seasons of Arrested Development are on hulu.com, and you can watch them free there.
As a matter of fact, to preserve your future career as a lawyer, you should probably un-install bittorrent from all of your computers before your first day of law school. If it boots up and runs even once after you sign your school's honor code, you are probably in violation of that code. You will then likely perjure yourself when you swear your professional oath to your state bar later.
Luckily, Boston College has all seasons of Buffy the Vampire Slayer on DVD, in the library. See, you are surrounded by legal options. Undoubtedly, the law school asked the library to buy all the Buffy discs, so that law students would not have to download that content illegally.
Also, given how poor you are now that you've spent your student loans on a PS3, you need to adjust your shopping behaviors. Luckily, there a number of things you don't need to pay for in law school. The richest shopping center on campus will be your library's lost and found table, likely right near the entrance.
At the law school library lost and found, you can find a nice selection of nalgene water bottles, official school sweatshirts in a variety of sizes, copies of text-books for your upcoming 2L and 3L classes, travel mugs, iPod earbuds, gloves, and umbrellas. If you have an hour to kill between classes, I recommend a visit here just to do some window shopping and browsing.
I do not generally advocate setting foot in your law school's law library. As far as I can tell, anything past the lobby and circulation desk is some weird kingdom of the anxious. There seem to be turf wars relating to study carrolls, and a mysterious framework of unspoken rules governing acceptable behavior. I don't begrudge people whatever study method works for them. But for me, I see no reason to abbrogate my accepted custom: reading on my couch, with my coffee, and all my shit around me.
But if you're really bored on campus (which is usually when I blog), your library probably does have the New Yorker book of lawyer cartoons. That is good for fifteen minutes or so.
(0) comments
I. Disappearing Deans.
In your first week of law school, you will see about thirty Deans. They will be posted in hallways, and they will give magnimonious speeches about justice and service. You will wonder how a school of about 700 students can afford to have a two-score of Deans.
There will be a number of talks, and panels, and discussions during your first weeks of school. Some of these will be mandatory. At these talks, there will inevitibly be a table at the front of the room, and this table will be decorated with no less than three Deans. Even if the speakers consist all four of the 2Ls who are on the school's Diversity Committee, their table will be flanked by four or five Deans, wearing ties, with their ankles across their knees, jovially smiling at each other and the room.
One thing that Deans are remarkably good at is standing in lobbies. If you go in the front door of Stuart house between August 25th and September 7th, there will invariably be a Dean or two have a thoughtful discussion with someone in the middle of the tiled floor of the lobby. Unlike the other administrators or professors, these Deans don't require any props such as coffee cups, shoulder bags, or sheafs of papers.
When decorating the campus with Deans, the law school uses two different outfits. Most of the time, a Dean will be wearing a full suit and tie. The other outfit a Dean is allowed to wear is jogging clothes. The law school will often have a couple of Deans come jogging up the front drive for aesthetic purposes.
But now it is November, and all the Deans have dissapeared. They trickled off. I saw one of the jogging Deans in late September. Two of our most formal-looking, serious "decorator" Deans were disapearing into a little-used conference room a week or two ago. It is a mystery what happens to the Deans. Are they put away for the winter? Do they get sent somwhere else, to peform some other duty? Perhaps they are adorning tables at academic conferences in other cities. Or perhaps they are needed to stand in lobbies somewhere else.
II. Knowing Who's Who
Before you get to law school, you may not be able to tell a Dean from a law professor. Here are some tips.
A Dean's shirt is tucked in correctly, and a professor's is not.
If the jacket matches the pants, it's a Dean.
While the presence of a tie does not determine conclusively that you are dealing with a Dean, if the tie is coarse-knit and cut straight across the bottom, you are dealing with a professor.
Professors have stubble. Deans are clean-shaven.
III. Keys to the Good Life
As you undoubtably spent your student loans on a Playstation 3 and Grand Theft Auto, you are probably running out of money by thanksiving. You probably have enough money let for bread and peanut butter until your spring student loans arrive, so the challenge is to amuse yourself without spending money.
Note that it is imperitive not to break they law. You must take an oath to become a lawyer to uphold the law, and you have probably already signed a student honor code that binds you to obeying the law. These things are quite serious, and any finding that you break a law or violate your school's honor code, can jeapordize your future career. I mean this. I hear of some students being lacksadaisical about their moral fibre, and this is unconciousnable.
So, you must stop doing illegal things. Luckily, hulu.com covers that. You must immediately cease and desist from downloading Arrested Development using bittorrent. All three seasons of Arrested Development are on hulu.com, and you can watch them free there.
As a matter of fact, to preserve your future career as a lawyer, you should probably un-install bittorrent from all of your computers before your first day of law school. If it boots up and runs even once after you sign your school's honor code, you are probably in violation of that code. You will then likely perjure yourself when you swear your professional oath to your state bar later.
Luckily, Boston College has all seasons of Buffy the Vampire Slayer on DVD, in the library. See, you are surrounded by legal options. Undoubtedly, the law school asked the library to buy all the Buffy discs, so that law students would not have to download that content illegally.
Also, given how poor you are now that you've spent your student loans on a PS3, you need to adjust your shopping behaviors. Luckily, there a number of things you don't need to pay for in law school. The richest shopping center on campus will be your library's lost and found table, likely right near the entrance.
At the law school library lost and found, you can find a nice selection of nalgene water bottles, official school sweatshirts in a variety of sizes, copies of text-books for your upcoming 2L and 3L classes, travel mugs, iPod earbuds, gloves, and umbrellas. If you have an hour to kill between classes, I recommend a visit here just to do some window shopping and browsing.
I do not generally advocate setting foot in your law school's law library. As far as I can tell, anything past the lobby and circulation desk is some weird kingdom of the anxious. There seem to be turf wars relating to study carrolls, and a mysterious framework of unspoken rules governing acceptable behavior. I don't begrudge people whatever study method works for them. But for me, I see no reason to abbrogate my accepted custom: reading on my couch, with my coffee, and all my shit around me.
But if you're really bored on campus (which is usually when I blog), your library probably does have the New Yorker book of lawyer cartoons. That is good for fifteen minutes or so.
Sunday, November 23, 2008
STUCK IN MUD
I just got some Anglo-Saxon words from the web. Here is my list:
ale, ash, ax, bake, barn, bed, calf, cliff, crow, dark, dim, dreary, doom, drink, earth, eerie, end, fall, fast, floor, fright, game, grave, gray, hag, hang, hunt, ilk, ire, kin, knight, lair, lose, lust, mead, mold, moor, nail, never, night, oath, oil, out, pall, path, pound, quick, quell, queen, ram, rear, ridge, shear, shrine, stark, tame, tithe, thread, under, up, vane, vat, verse, wade, woe, worm, yard, year, yearn
I must be kin to these folk. In my task in my "Legal Writing" class, I just changed the teacher's "injured in a highway accident" to "hurt in a car crash."
Why use a word with three parts, when there is a small word that works?
The lists might show what life was like for Angles and Saxons. I see a man up to his knees in mud, with gray sky from up there, over brown fields. He might see some game--a goose or fox--on a good day. But the sky in his shire is dim at noon, and his clothes bear a coat of dun-toned mud. He has no use for the bright tricks from Rome, in his words nor in his mind.
My legal writing teacher gave us a fact-pattern to be used in a memo we're writing. I copied her words and pasted them into my memo. Now I am changing her words, to say the same things, but to say them straight. And I feel I have Anglo-Saxon roots in the Earth.
"To prevail, the plaintiff must successfully make a showing..." became "He must show."
I like the Anglo-Saxon words. Using one is like picking up a rock. If your job is to hurt the bad guy, you take the rock and smash. You do not need fancy French moves with your rapier. And while all the bloody Romans and French dance around with their damn fancies, I like to pick up a rock and smash.
(0) comments
I just got some Anglo-Saxon words from the web. Here is my list:
ale, ash, ax, bake, barn, bed, calf, cliff, crow, dark, dim, dreary, doom, drink, earth, eerie, end, fall, fast, floor, fright, game, grave, gray, hag, hang, hunt, ilk, ire, kin, knight, lair, lose, lust, mead, mold, moor, nail, never, night, oath, oil, out, pall, path, pound, quick, quell, queen, ram, rear, ridge, shear, shrine, stark, tame, tithe, thread, under, up, vane, vat, verse, wade, woe, worm, yard, year, yearn
I must be kin to these folk. In my task in my "Legal Writing" class, I just changed the teacher's "injured in a highway accident" to "hurt in a car crash."
Why use a word with three parts, when there is a small word that works?
The lists might show what life was like for Angles and Saxons. I see a man up to his knees in mud, with gray sky from up there, over brown fields. He might see some game--a goose or fox--on a good day. But the sky in his shire is dim at noon, and his clothes bear a coat of dun-toned mud. He has no use for the bright tricks from Rome, in his words nor in his mind.
My legal writing teacher gave us a fact-pattern to be used in a memo we're writing. I copied her words and pasted them into my memo. Now I am changing her words, to say the same things, but to say them straight. And I feel I have Anglo-Saxon roots in the Earth.
"To prevail, the plaintiff must successfully make a showing..." became "He must show."
I like the Anglo-Saxon words. Using one is like picking up a rock. If your job is to hurt the bad guy, you take the rock and smash. You do not need fancy French moves with your rapier. And while all the bloody Romans and French dance around with their damn fancies, I like to pick up a rock and smash.
Saturday, November 22, 2008
HOW TO KILL A BIG BLOCK OF DUPLICATE SONGS IN ITUNES
This post makes some assumptions. So for my idea to work, you have to recognize when my assumptions don't apply to you, and figure out what parallel phenomenon describes your block of duplicates.
1. Make a new play-list and name it "duplicates".
2. Choose "file", then "show duplicates"
3. Select all.
4. Hit the button in the center of the bottom of the screen that reads "show all".
You will now see your regular, familiar music library, but all instances of a song and its duplicate (and triplicates, etc.) will be selected.
5. Drag the selected songs into the "duplicates" play-list. You only need to click on one and drag it. They will all go in there.
6. Go into that play-list, and select none.
7. Right click on the bar that displays 'name', 'rating', 'time', etc... and choose "comment" from the menu that pops down. Also make sure "date added" is one of the visible columns.
8. Sort the songs in this play-list by "date added".
9. Now, you will most likely be able to select all of the duplicate copies of your songs, without selecting the originals.
This is where I'm making an assumption. I assume that you imported Ramone's Rocket to Russia on August 1, 2005, and then again on January 1, 2007. Thus, you can select the block of 2005 ones.
10. Once you have selected a block of songs that you know are duplicates, and you can see that the originals are un-selected, hit CTRL-I (on PC, or CMD I, on Mac).
11. In the set of common information fields that pops up, add into the comment field "Kill this duplicate".
12. Repeat above steps until you are satisfied that you have identified all of your unnecessary duplicates with the "kill this..." comment.
13. Go back to the "music" list. That is, stop looking at the play-list, and just look at your library.
14. Right click on the column headers, and add "comments" from the menu that pops down.
15. Sort your library based on comments.
NOTE, as of now, you have not thrown away anything. You have not threatened your library at all. You have done nothing that isn't completely easy to undo.
You are still safe.
16. Clear your head and think about something else.
17. Select all the songs in your library with a "kill this..." comment.
18. Re-sort your library by song name, and make sure--MAKE DAMN SURE--that all the songs which are selected are duplicates.
19. Hit delete.
Bye-bye duplicates.
(0) comments
This post makes some assumptions. So for my idea to work, you have to recognize when my assumptions don't apply to you, and figure out what parallel phenomenon describes your block of duplicates.
1. Make a new play-list and name it "duplicates".
2. Choose "file", then "show duplicates"
3. Select all.
4. Hit the button in the center of the bottom of the screen that reads "show all".
You will now see your regular, familiar music library, but all instances of a song and its duplicate (and triplicates, etc.) will be selected.
5. Drag the selected songs into the "duplicates" play-list. You only need to click on one and drag it. They will all go in there.
6. Go into that play-list, and select none.
7. Right click on the bar that displays 'name', 'rating', 'time', etc... and choose "comment" from the menu that pops down. Also make sure "date added" is one of the visible columns.
8. Sort the songs in this play-list by "date added".
9. Now, you will most likely be able to select all of the duplicate copies of your songs, without selecting the originals.
This is where I'm making an assumption. I assume that you imported Ramone's Rocket to Russia on August 1, 2005, and then again on January 1, 2007. Thus, you can select the block of 2005 ones.
10. Once you have selected a block of songs that you know are duplicates, and you can see that the originals are un-selected, hit CTRL-I (on PC, or CMD I, on Mac).
11. In the set of common information fields that pops up, add into the comment field "Kill this duplicate".
12. Repeat above steps until you are satisfied that you have identified all of your unnecessary duplicates with the "kill this..." comment.
13. Go back to the "music" list. That is, stop looking at the play-list, and just look at your library.
14. Right click on the column headers, and add "comments" from the menu that pops down.
15. Sort your library based on comments.
NOTE, as of now, you have not thrown away anything. You have not threatened your library at all. You have done nothing that isn't completely easy to undo.
You are still safe.
16. Clear your head and think about something else.
17. Select all the songs in your library with a "kill this..." comment.
18. Re-sort your library by song name, and make sure--MAKE DAMN SURE--that all the songs which are selected are duplicates.
19. Hit delete.
Bye-bye duplicates.
ABBREVIATIONS FOR HANDWRITTEN NOTES IN LAW SCHOOL
I am one of the minority of law students who generally do not bring a computer to class. I count about five of us in my class of 100. (For the record, the incoming class the BCLS is 300 students this year. We are divided into three sections, and we take all of our classes with the other students in our section. So it's me and the same 99 other people in all of my classes.) I could be underestimating. There might be about ten people not using laptops. I'll try to count on Monday and Tuesday, and give a more accurate number.
The advantage to taking notes by hand include:
1. Not having a computer and internet in front of you cut down on many distractions. On days when I do bring my computer, I check email, watch puppy-cam, read the news, chat with people, etc.
2. You must compose your thoughts. I type so fast I can essentially transcribe the class, which means I don't really have to digest or adsorb the information. To write, I must think about what the important point was, and write it down in a clear, short sentence.
3. The logical thing to do with all your handwritten notes is to type them up later, giving you another 'round' of thinking about the same information.
4. It is easier to make sketches to illustrate things (getting 1000 words into space that would otherwise accomodate 100).
That being said, there are somethings you write or say so many times in law school that it is helpful to have abbrevations for them. If your notes are to make good sense, you need to be consistent with abbreviations. Here are mine, after going through most of a semester. So this list reflects what really gets traffick.
I know it might be hard to read. It is also at:
http://web.pdx.edu/~zhyde/law-school-symbols.jpg
I wanted to put it up as a jpeg, in case people's browsers didn't show the Greek letters and special symbols.
These symbols are also very good for "book breifing". That is, reading and being very lazy about writing up any kind of formal notes, and hoping that by just marking up your margins you are prepared for class--which I have done all semester.
(2) comments
I am one of the minority of law students who generally do not bring a computer to class. I count about five of us in my class of 100. (For the record, the incoming class the BCLS is 300 students this year. We are divided into three sections, and we take all of our classes with the other students in our section. So it's me and the same 99 other people in all of my classes.) I could be underestimating. There might be about ten people not using laptops. I'll try to count on Monday and Tuesday, and give a more accurate number.
The advantage to taking notes by hand include:
1. Not having a computer and internet in front of you cut down on many distractions. On days when I do bring my computer, I check email, watch puppy-cam, read the news, chat with people, etc.
2. You must compose your thoughts. I type so fast I can essentially transcribe the class, which means I don't really have to digest or adsorb the information. To write, I must think about what the important point was, and write it down in a clear, short sentence.
3. The logical thing to do with all your handwritten notes is to type them up later, giving you another 'round' of thinking about the same information.
4. It is easier to make sketches to illustrate things (getting 1000 words into space that would otherwise accomodate 100).
That being said, there are somethings you write or say so many times in law school that it is helpful to have abbrevations for them. If your notes are to make good sense, you need to be consistent with abbreviations. Here are mine, after going through most of a semester. So this list reflects what really gets traffick.
I know it might be hard to read. It is also at:http://web.pdx.edu/~zhyde/law-school-symbols.jpg
I wanted to put it up as a jpeg, in case people's browsers didn't show the Greek letters and special symbols.
These symbols are also very good for "book breifing". That is, reading and being very lazy about writing up any kind of formal notes, and hoping that by just marking up your margins you are prepared for class--which I have done all semester.
Tuesday, November 11, 2008
SHINY JET CAT PLUNGE IN PLEASANT STAR BOX
This link is nicer than girl scout cookie day.
Footnote:
The puppies come and go, but here is a puppy cam.
(3) comments
This link is nicer than girl scout cookie day.
Footnote:
The puppies come and go, but here is a puppy cam.
Sunday, November 09, 2008
STUPID DESIGN
The Earth's atmosphere is about 78% nitrogen.
There is nitrogen throughout the bases of our DNA. There is also nitrogen in every protein in the human body. We need shit-tons of nitrogen to grow and live.
Oxygen and nitrogen are adjacent on the periodic table. They have similar atomic radii, and they both occur abundantly in a diatomic molecule.
We inhale the Earth's atmosphere into our lungs, and most of the gases therein diffuse into our cells. This is how we get the Oxygen which we use to produce ATP.
So you might think if you had hired a decent engineer to put shit together, we'd go ahead and get our nitrogen at this step too. We've got proteins that sequester and use the oxygen. We certainly need both the oxygen and the nitrogen. The oxygen and the nitrogen are both diffusing into our cells during respiration (repeated inspiration).
But no, that idiot that put us together skipped what would have been the most obvious and elegant step in the design. Even though we've arguably seen numerous hemoglobin gene duplications in evolutionary history, as evidenced by the fact that a human exclusively uses no less than three different hemoglobin variants during ontogeny, that great master designer never once duped a Hb gene and adapted it for the harvesting of nitrogen.
That was really stupid.
Stupid designer. If I was in charge, I'd fire that designer.
(0) comments
The Earth's atmosphere is about 78% nitrogen.
There is nitrogen throughout the bases of our DNA. There is also nitrogen in every protein in the human body. We need shit-tons of nitrogen to grow and live.
Oxygen and nitrogen are adjacent on the periodic table. They have similar atomic radii, and they both occur abundantly in a diatomic molecule.
We inhale the Earth's atmosphere into our lungs, and most of the gases therein diffuse into our cells. This is how we get the Oxygen which we use to produce ATP.
So you might think if you had hired a decent engineer to put shit together, we'd go ahead and get our nitrogen at this step too. We've got proteins that sequester and use the oxygen. We certainly need both the oxygen and the nitrogen. The oxygen and the nitrogen are both diffusing into our cells during respiration (repeated inspiration).
But no, that idiot that put us together skipped what would have been the most obvious and elegant step in the design. Even though we've arguably seen numerous hemoglobin gene duplications in evolutionary history, as evidenced by the fact that a human exclusively uses no less than three different hemoglobin variants during ontogeny, that great master designer never once duped a Hb gene and adapted it for the harvesting of nitrogen.
That was really stupid.
Stupid designer. If I was in charge, I'd fire that designer.
