Ouij's Board

Q: What do Miley Cyrus and Tupac have in common with Mad Max?

2009-10-21T06:35:01Z

A: THUNDERDOME

One of my colleagues, who will remain nameless was singing Miley Cyrus's "Party in the USA" to himself as he edited a paper.

As luck would have it, I would soon be linked to the music video. Pay close attention to the metallic, dome-like structure in whose shadow Miley's shakin' her hips (like yeah!):

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=M11SvDtPBhA

Hmm. Los Angeles, lots of AutoTune--THAT'S IT. Return with me, teenyboppers, to '95 and Tupac's sublime video for "California Love," about a minute and a half in:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FWOsbGP5Ox4

This is, of course, THUNDERDOME:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3hQC3nkftrk

So, my gentle readers, let me put it to you: Two tunes enter, one song leaves. Who's it gonna be? Tupac or Miley?

Well

2009-08-30T04:56:14Z

The lottery ticket didn't work out, naturally. Plan B?

Attention all PACER users

2009-08-15T14:52:16Z

If you haven't already heard, there's a nifty Firefox extension out there called RECAP.

Say you're on PACER (the electronic document archive for the U.S. Federal courts). You want to pull a document, but you don't want to cough up the dime per page that PACER will charge you. What to do?

Well, RECAP has a free public archive of things that people have already downloaded off PACER. Of course, to give back, RECAP will upload any PACER documents that you yourself download to its own archive. The goal, eventually, is to have a large, free, database of public documents.

Overall, I think this is a great thing. Some people need to follow ongoing litgation on PACER, even if they're not a party to the litigation. Maybe they want to keep an eye on a case to advise their clients of the up-to-the-last-filing bleeding edge. Maybe they're students who want to see how complex litigation plays out in the federal courts, one filing at a time. Either way, RECAP's free archive will make available, gratis, filings in the more popular cases.

Start of term jitters

2009-08-11T03:57:32Z

Journal orientation was this past weekend. The first set of assignments is out with my staffers, who even as I write this are busy verifying citations and editing copy.

The new term has begun.

And just like the start of every new year, there are jitters. The usual and expected ones are back, of course: classes, books, and the rest. This term should be good: Immigration, Remedies, Copyright, and Federal Courts. Nothing I don't want to do--but then, isn't that why I worked so hard 1L summer and 2L? At least now I'm in a position to take things easy, schoolwise, and pick my shots.

The state of the economy, oddly, eliminates one major source of stress--there are so few jobs about that it's almost pointless to worry about finding work. It's cold comfort, of course, but I can always tell myself that it's a bad year for everybody.

There's also the unaccountable anxiety of the unknown and the unknowable. I find myself unusually on edge--sometimes giddy, even--and I can't even think why.

I guess I just can't wait to get started--even if I wish I could have just a little more time before I do.

Books for boys?

2009-07-24T01:27:44Z

Clocked out at the office and headed to my local suburban chain bookstore. Based on what I saw prominently displayed on the shelves, there's only one conclusion to be drawn: the next generation of literary consumers will be almost exclusively female.

It's more than the wall-to-wall Twilight. The shelves are packed with "Young Adult" fiction--and most of it is aimed right at tweenage girls.

I suppose we, as a society, should feel good about this. After all, we're only a few generations removed from the notion that educating girls at all was a total waste of time. And I can't be discouraged at the sight of young people in bookstores wanting to buy books--any books at all.

But I keep thinking to myself--where are all the boys? I didn't see any tweenage boys running about in the bookstore with anything near the same enthusiasm.

What, if anything, do boys read anymore? Do they read Sci-Fi or Fantasy? Do they devour, like I did, Sherlock Holmes or Edgar Allan Poe?

Can it be that we've slowly been constructing boyhood--and now manhood-- in a way that excludes books, or reading, or any intellectual pursuit at all? And, if we've managed this, where are we going to put all those boys in a world that so desperately needs them to be intellectually curious and culturally literate?

My Life According to Radiohead

2009-07-22T03:30:42Z

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Using only song names from ONE ARTIST, cleverly answer these questions. Pass it on to as many people you like. You can't use the band I used. Do not repeat a song title. Repost as "My Life According to xxx"

Pick Your Artist: Radiohead

Are you a female or male: Bishop's Robes
Describe yourself: Paranoid Android
How do you Feel: Packt Like Sardines in a Crushd Tin Box
Describe Where You Currently Live: Planet Telex
Describe Where You Wish You Could Live: Palo Alto
If You Could Go Anywhere, Where Would You Go: Sail to the Moon (Brush the Cobwebs out of the Sky)
Your favorite form of transportation: 15 Step
Your best friend is: Idioteque
Your favorite color is: Nude
Your favorite animal is: Weird Fishes/Arpeggi
Favorite Time of Day: Morning Bell
What's the Weather Like: High and Dry
If your life were a tv show, what would it be called: Reckoner
What is Life to You: House of Cards
Your Relationships: Like Spinning Plates
Your fear: A Wolf at the Door (It Girl. Rag Doll.)
What is the best advice you have to give: I Might Be Wrong
If you could change your name, you would change it to: Kid A
Thought for the Day: True Love Waits
How I would Like to Die: A Punchup at a Wedding (No No No No No No No.)
My Soul's Present Condition: Lull
My Motto: Bullet Proof...Wish I was

I can't stop watching this

2009-06-26T05:19:24Z

USA 2 - 0 Spain: DEMPSEY SHOWS NO MERCY!

2009-06-25T11:44:48Z

Finally got to look at video of yesterday's stunning upset at the Confederations Cup:

[edit: looks like they pulled the video with the great commentary. I'm leaving my translation up, because it, more than anything else I've read lately, sums up how stunning and how awesome yesterday's performance was, especially to the rest of the sporting universe.]

[edit 2: I've found another highlight reel. The video feed is the same for both goals, so just imagine the commentary is in Mexican spanish and not in Croatian:]

This is from a Mexican broadcaster. Gems from the commentators, here. The first goal:

"It looks like Dempsey and Donovan have changed places--now Dempsey through the left side--Davis gives it back--They filter it forward for Altidore--The United States is playing well GOOOOOOOOOL! GOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOl! THE UNEXPECTED, THE INCREDIBLE IS HAPPENING IN THIS MATCH! IT LOOKED LIKE SPAIN WAS DOING BETTER, BUT THE AMERICAN UNION [note: Spanish-language commentators love riffing on team names] SCORED JUST LIKE THAT! WE WERE JUST SAYING "THEY'RE PLAYING WELL. . . THE SCORE IS ONE-NIL!"

(during the replay)

"The North American team was going to be trouble for Spain, because they're cold, they know how to attack, not like South Africa, which looked absolutely innocent even in the moment of the attack"

The second goal:

". . . and, including since the arrival of Cazorla, Spain has not had a single good offensive play. They haven't gotten used to the change. And Sp--Spain with problems. LOOK OUT. ATTENTION--THIS COULD BE IT--DONOVAAAAAAAAAN'S GOT IT--[Donovan crosses to Dempsey] NO GOOD, HE STRUCK IT TOO SOFTLY--[Dempsey finishes] THE BALL IS IN THE GOAL! DEMPSEY! DEMPSEY SHOWED NO MERCY! DEMPSEY SHOWED NO MERCY! UNITED STATES! AND THIS LOOKS LIKE A HOLLYWOOD HORROR MOVIE--ONCE AGAIN, A DEFENSIVE ERROR, THE BALL STAYS THERE, AND DEMPSEY PUTS IT IN. THIS IS INCREDIBLE!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!"

Tables.

2009-06-23T22:25:59Z

Resolved: If I am ever in a position of authority, and an underling gives me a spreadsheet that contains no mathematical operations or numerical data, I will at minimum have him fired, and, ideally, have him flayed and his bleeding carcass displayed from a gibbet above my door, bearing the legend: I DID NOT USE THE PROPER TOOL FOR THE JOB.

I am convinced that, in most offices, spreadsheets are used in three ways:

Actually performing mathematical calculations on numerical datasets. Even though this is the whole reason why this particular piece of software actually came to be, it is probably the least widespread use of the technology.
Collecting data--e.g., addresses--. This is far more common.
Displaying text in a tabular format. If I had to guess, I would say that 99 percent of all spreadsheet files currently in existence are nothing more than text in a tabular format.

I have never understood why so many people insist on using spreadsheet applications--e.g., Excel-- to display text. There are other packages on your computer that can display text in a more sane way.

What I understand less is people pretending that they're organized by dumping data into an Excel spreadsheet--and then not doing any data processing on the sheet at all. If you're keeping, say, addresses, a spreadsheet is probably the worst way to do it. You really should be using a real database--that way you can run useful queries over your data set, and sort the information you want in the way you want it for the reason you want to use it.

It has been pointed out to me that Excel, for its part, has a number of excellent text-formatting features. This may be so, but the only reason that the program has bloated to include those features is because people see grid lines on screen and treat the spreadsheet as if it were a physical, tangible piece of graph paper.

This is one of the most glaring examples, to my mind, of why WYSIWYG isn't all it's cracked up to be. A less "cuddly" user environment might actually have nudged people into using the right tool for each job. But instead, we end up with a blank sheet of graph paper, and users just doodle on it. That'd be fine, except that they have very definite ideas what that doodle should be--ideas which have little or nothing at all to do with the designed function of the software. So developers have to bloat otherwise good software with needless complexity to satisfy the myriad demands of their users--who could have made life easier for themselves by stopping to think whether they were using the right tool for the job in the first place. A framing hammer and a pipe wrench are both heavy tools, and I suppose I could hammer a nail with a pipe wrench if I had nothing else--but I'd be a damn fool to do it, if I knew I had a hammer handy.

Tehran's Tiananmen

2009-06-22T04:47:15Z

With thousands of security forces pouring into Tehran, it would appear that Iran's June uprising is at an end. The BBC notes that no sizable demonstrations seemed to have formed in Tehran on Sunday--although the Twittersphere continues to buzz with confused retweets.

I'm not hopeful. The rumors of a possible Army mutiny outside Tehran seemed to have been just that--rumors. Unless and until some of the security forces join the dissidents, I fear that the Islamic Republic has once again suppressed a possible revolution.

ouij @ 2009-06-16T18:52:00

2009-06-16T22:54:58Z

The Iranian protests seem to be spreading. Via the Twitter hive mind, there seems to have been a vast rally in the city of Isfahan:

People Power in Tehran?

2009-06-16T05:24:03Z

The images coming out of Tehran are amazing. A million people on the streets of the capital, forming a procession nine kilometers long, demanding, well, change they can believe in.

As a Filipino, I can't help but think back to the 1986 EDSA Revolution. There, too, the people came out in force to protest what turned out to be massive ballot fraud. In the Philippines, the Marcos regime's last attempt at legitimacy was by calling the snap election of 1986. When the fraud became too obvious, the people turned out in such numbers that one by one, the regime's allies defected.

There's a tragic difference. Apparently, government-backed paramilitaries have fired upon the protesters in Tehran--something that the security forces in the EDSA revolution famously refused to do. Now that the shooting has begun, it's anybody's guess what will happen next.

Mehdi Karrobi, one of the defeated candidates, has refuesd to wear his clerical garb any longer, a sign of his dissatisfaction with the regime. If his counterparts in the Guardian Council begin to do the same, that will spell the end of Ahmedinejad and his hard-liners.

The Asia Times is carrying an excellent report on the internal maneouvering within Iran. The piece gives an excellent summary of the election:

The polls closed at 10pm on Friday, Tehran time. Most main streets then were fully decked out in green. In an absolutely crucial development, the great Iranian film director Mohsen Makhmalbaf told Radio Farda how Mousavi's main campaign office in Tehran received a phone call on Saturday at 1am; the Interior Ministry was saying "Don't announce Mr Mousavi's victory yet ... We will gradually prepare the public and then you can proceed." Iranian bloggers broke down the vote at the time as 19.7 million for Mousavi, between 7 and 8 million for Ahmadinejad, 7 million for Karroubi, and 3 million for Rezai.

Then all hell seemed to break loose. Phones, SMS, text messaging, YouTube, political blogs, opposition websites, foreign media websites, all communication networks, in a cascade, were shutting down fast. Military and police forces started to take over Tehran's streets. The Ahmadinejad-controlled Ministry of Interior - doubling as election headquarters - was isolated by concrete barriers. Iranian TV switched to old Iron Curtain-style "messages of national unity". And the mind-boggling semi-final numbers of Ahmadinejad's landslide were announced (Ahmadinejad 64%, Mousavi 32%, Rezai 2% and Karroubi less than 1%).

The fact that the electoral commission had less than three hours to hand-count 81% of 39 million votes is positively a "divine assessment".

It would also appear that the reformist faction--Mousavi's faction, backed by Rafsanjani, president of the Council of Experts-- has begun mobilizing their own religious scholars to denounce vote-rigging as "a mortal sin" and to call on the government to hold fresh, properly-monitored elections. Disturbingly, a delegation of Interior Ministry workers have published a letter that casts doubt on the election's legitimacy, saying: "As dedicated employees of the Ministry of Interior, with experience in management and supervision of several elections such as the elections of Khamenei, Rafsanjani and Khatami, we announce that we fear the 10th presidential elections were not healthy." (emphasis added).

Repost: Some Advice from your Public Defender

2009-06-11T05:25:17Z

Someone just forwarded me this-- which is quite possibly the best compilation of advice from a PD I have ever seen in my life. Some Advice from your Public Defender (via craigslist)

I’m a lawyer, not your fairy godmother. I probably won’t find a loophole or technicality for you, so don’t be pissed off. I didn’t beat up your girlfriend, steal that car, rob that liquor store, sell that crystal meth, or rape that 13 year old. By the time we meet, much of your fate has been sealed, so don’t be too surprised by your limited options and that I’m the one telling you about them.

AMEN. There's only so much that can be done.

Summer in the real world

2009-06-08T06:42:27Z

I've been pretty quiet for a while--but that's not for lack of things to do.

This summer, I'm working at Legal Services of Northern Virginia; we represent indigent clients in civil matters. I've been on the job a week now, and I can say that it's been an education in itself.

Law school didn't prepare me for a lot of things that I'm seeing on the job. In law school, I read appellate opinions, and think about complex legal problems at a pretty high level. Practice, I'm finding out, is much grittier. It's one thing to know that the relevant rule of procedure allows you to propound 30 interrogatories, and quite another to know how to draft those interrogatories in a way that will ultimately result in meaningful discovery.

My problems tend to be intensely factual rather than legal. Did the landlord provide the tenant with the correct notice? How have the children been spending their weekends since Mom and Dad separated?

As far as the law goes--I find myself having to learn a great deal in an awful hurry. I haven't studied family law, or secured transactions, or landlord/tenant--but I have to learn quick, because that's what's on my desk. The ethical duty to exert reasonable diligence in learning the law means a lot more to me. Real clients now depend on my ability to figure out what their rights and remedies are.

A good chunk of my working day is spent on the telephone, calling clients and finding facts. This is hard enough under normal circumstances. But because I speak Spanish, I tend to conduct a lot of interviews in that language. That's been quite a struggle. It's not that my Spanish is terribly rusty--although it has atrophied somewhat from disuse. A Spanish call demands my total attention: I have to listen to what the client is telling me, then think about what legal import it has. One side of my head is dealing with Spanish facts; the other is frantically trying to match them with legal knowledge acquired in English. Somewhere in between, I have to respond in Spanish, usually in a way to gain more and better facts for the whole processing loop to begin again.

It's exhausting work. I'm completely drained at the end of the day--usually I just make it into bed and crash.

Just the same, this is probably the best thing I could have done for myself over the summer. As a lawyer-in-formation, I'm thrilled to be given this much autonomy and responsibility. I'm amazed at how much lawyering I've had to do in just a week on the job. On a more personal level, I like the fact that I can actually make a difference for people who may not have much else going for them.

Many of the people I'm dealing with immigrated from countries where the law was nothing more than a tool for the powerful to abuse the powerless. I hope that the work that I do can, in some small way, show that things are different here.

GOING TO PRESS

2009-05-20T22:36:38Z

They're gonna run my botnet paper, w00t!

sigh

2009-05-08T19:35:25Z

A kernel update hosed wireless on my eeeXubuntu install. I'm going to have to take this very carefully. After finals, it looks like I'm going to have to build me up my own *buntu, like I did with the Thinkpad 570e.

eeeXubuntu on the eee 701

2009-05-08T13:02:52Z

So I've installed eeeXubuntu on my eee 701. EeeXubuntu, as far as I can tell, is Xubuntu with a few eee pc tweaks---Tuxradar recently named it the best distribution to run on an eee 701.

Good luck getting a hold of it though---it seems to have been abandoned in favor of eeebuntu. But as much as eeebuntu appealed to me, recent versions ship with the awful ath5k wireless driver--which, I'm sure, will be great one day, but currently, is shit: latency measured in whole seconds and 75% packet loss make it unusable for all practical purposes. Fortunately, I was able to find a more recent build, based on Ubuntu 8.10 Intrepid Ibex, here.

True to form, this is essentially Ubuntu with a few extra shell scripts to configure all the ASUS-specific gubbins. There's a catch, though: the build I've linked to labels the shell scripts in Japanese, so it was a bit of a leap in the dark to get that configured right. Fortunately the rest of the OS was properly localized in English.

Once up and running, I was relieved to see that it uses the older madwifi driver, and Wi-Fi was running trouble-free. That's more like it.

If this is all fine and dandy, I think I'm going to run this until Ubuntu Intrepid gets EOL'd in April 2010--that'll be enough time for the ath5k driver to improve to where I can take a second look at it. And if that's true, then the next install will be probably use Fluxbox and be based off a usable eeebuntu core.

Pac-Man is the Best Pound-for-Pound Fighter in the World

2009-05-03T18:27:21Z

Watch Manny Pacquiao demolish Ricky Hatton. I had predicted a TKO in 9--I was totally stunned to watch Manny end it so emphatically in two rounds.

A longer essay on what Pacquiao means to the world later, I promise.

"ang mamatay ng dahil sa yo"

2009-05-02T05:05:08Z

Nike Philippines strikes a patriotic note, setting some Pacquiao highlights to the national anthem:

Lupa ng araw ng luwalhati't pagsinta,
Buhay ay langit sa piling mo,
Aming ligaya na pag may mang-aapi,
Ang mamatay ng dahil sa 'yo.

in the English version, sung during the Commonwealth period:

Beautiful land of love, oh land of light,
In thine embrace 'tis rapture to lie;
But it is glory ever when thou art wronged
For us thy sons to suffer and die.

Pacquiao by KO in 11--Simulator

2009-05-01T06:17:20Z

The San Jose Mercury News 's A+E Interactive blog passes on this interesting tidbit: Hatton goes down by KO in the 11th. Seems that the guys over at EA Sports' Fight Night ran Saturday's bout through their latest and greatest simulator, and came up with, what seems to me to be an overdramatic, yet still reasonably plausible scenario:

According to the simulation, an aggressive attempt by Hatton to limit Pacquiao’s movement early on was unsuccessful. Pacquiao’s used his speed and control of the ring to take advantage of Hatton’s aggression, picking his punches and keeping out of range. The tide turned in Hatton’s favor in Round 4 when he found some success trapping Pacquiao in the corner. With little room to work with, Pacquiao was forced to trade blows on Hatton’s terms. This relentless exchange proved to be too much for Pacquiao who went down to a powerful left hook at the end of Round 6. The later rounds saw the revival of the quick moving Pacquiao, who outpaced and out boxed Hatton yet again. Lightning fast left jabs wreaked havoc on Hatton through Rounds 7, 8 and 9 before a commanding right hand brought him to the mat in Round 10. Badly hurt and looking sluggish, Hatton was unable to beat the count after falling to another deadly right hook from Pacquiao in Round 11.

I'm picking Pacquiao by KO in 9. I'm hoping Hatton doesn't actually score that 6th-round knockdown--everything depends on Manny's ability to fight effectively from the outside and disrupt the Hitman's timing.

Here's hoping the cable wallahs have us hooked up in time for the bout.

One down.

2009-04-29T23:32:02Z

We join spokes together in a wheel,
but it is the center hole
that makes the wagon move.

We shape clay into a pot,
but it is the emptiness inside
that holds whatever we want.

We hammer wood for a house,
but it is the inner space
that makes it livable.

We work with being,
but non-being is what we use.

Today's exam was an exercise in non-being. I ended up drawing blanks on names that I should have known cold.

It's no major disaster; I'll certainly not fail, but I could have done better. The dripping rain doesn't make things any better, either.

I'd say I was looking forward to Pacquiao v. Hatton this Saturday, but I have an exam that morning, too. UGH.

2009-04-29T05:01:40Z

I've caved, and now I'm on twitter. The Zeitgeist strikes again.

Book meme

2009-04-17T05:34:26Z

From seishonagon

The best reading experience you have ever had?

Tough question. Emotionally, I think it might have been Kazuo Ishiguro's When We Were Orphans. Christopher, protagonist, who had been an expatriate child in the expatriate quarter of Shanghai, returns to Shanghai in the middle of the Japanese invasion of the city, in search of his mother. He encounters his former neighbor, Akira, who had grown up with him in the International District, and who had grown up to command a platoon of the invading Japanese forces. Christopher and a wounded Akira pick their way through the city/battlefield, and Akira assures Christopher that they cannot be lost, that he knows Shanghai "like [his] home village." Christopher stops him, and says: "This is our home village."

Nothing I had read before, or that I have read since, better captures the experience of expatriation. Christopher and Akira are out of sorts in their home countries and cultures, but "home" in a city and culture that wasn't even "theirs" in any meaningful sense. Few things have resonated with me more forcefully.

The worst reading experience that you have ever had?

Jane Eyre. I had to march through that stinking dung-heap of Victorian rot and sentimentality in a single day, because I had neglected to keep up with regular reading assignments. No academic punishment has yet been administered or threatened that compares with that.

Which book has affected or influenced you the most so far?

Another tough one. The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes--I started reading Sherlock Holmes stories as a little kid, and loved how Holmes could deduce answers from observation. The character of Sherlock Holmes probably inspired me to learn as much as I could about everything--because Holmes could use his grasp of general knowledge and keen powers of observation to see things that lesser people (Watson, Gregson, Lestrade) could not.

Have you ever read a book that you got really scared of?

No.

What do you use as a bookmark?
Train tickets, airline boarding passes, lottery tickets.

When do you usually read? At home, work, while cooking, in the morning, noon, afternoon, before you go to bed...?

In transit--on the train (Metro or inter-city), on planes and buses; in bed; in libraries (yes, the law library has to count).

Do you remember the first book that you read?

Yes. Fox in Socks, by Doctor Seuss.

Which do you prefer - paperback or hardcover?

Depends on the situation. Trade paperbacks are easily abused and travel well. Octavo-sized hardbacks are good as well, but less handy for travel. And if I have to read out loud from a lectern, I'd love a proper folio, board-and-leather-bound.

What are you currently reading? What page are you on?

Other than my casebooks, I'm skimming through A.P. Herbert's Uncommon Law: Being 66 Misleading Cases--a collection of satirical "law reports," purporting to come from English courts. A great bit of review for common-law doctrines--the humor comes from the correctness of the legal reasoning.

Do you ever leave "a mark" (deliberate and/or not deliberate) in your books? For example, write in them, underline quotes, coffeemarks or food crumbs and etc.

Yes and no. Some of my casebooks are marginated and annotated (Most notably my Contracts book and the statutory supplement thereto). Others are pristine (Constitutional Law). I tend to write my name in my books, too.

But "leisure" books tend not to be marked-up at all, other than, of course, my name.

Does the title, amount of pages and the cover affect you when you are considering a specific book?

Yes. Good book design (cover, type, etc.) will sell me a book. I have bought better typeset editions just because the type was more appealing. Historical books with good dust-jacket illustrations are interesting as well--see, e.g.,
Bradley K. Martin's Under the Loving Care of the Fatherly Leader: North Korea and the Kim Dynasty for an excellent example.

Do you ever browse through to the last pages in order find out the ending?
I used to do this when I was younger.

Has knowing the ending of a book (example, through spoilers or a movie) ever made you decide whether you will read the book or not?

Not really. I have re-read many books (see below). Plus, I have read books that have been adapted for film or television and been pleasantly, well, "un-spoiled."

Is there a book that you have read more than five times?
Several. The Phantom Tollbooth by Norton Juster (with illustrations by Jules Pfeiffer) was probably my favorite childhood book. I have probably read Frank Herbert's Dune a dozen times now, as well. Franz Kafka's The Trial probably ranks here, too.

Have you ever been in an accident where the book was the cause? (for example, almost getting hit by a car when reading while walking, or having stacks of books falling on you from a bookshelf...)

I dropped a deed book on my pinkie in the county land record office once. Those things HURT.

Do you sell/give away your books or do you keep them, even though you don't like one of them?

I hoard books compulsively, so no. I do give them away occasionally--but that's rare.

Do you have some kind of book system, where you write down what you are reading, have bought, will read, will buy and etc?
I used to, but they have failed.

A Modest Proposal

2009-04-15T18:21:15Z

With all the recent excitement about piracy, I have turned my mind to ways of fighting them.

Anciently, of course, pirates were considered hostes humani generis--enemies of the human race. That declaration of outlawry allowed anyone who seized a pirate to try and execute him summarily.

More recently, in the age before nation-states could maintain large standing navies, they would contract privateers to do their pirate-hunting. Granted, often it was hard to tell the pirates from the privateers, but this got me thinking.

The Congress of the United States is authorized "to grant letters of Marque or reprisal." U.S. Const., Art. I, sec. 8. The practice has fallen into desuetude, but apparently one vessel, the airship Resolute, operated by a civilian crew, was issued a letter of marque during the Second World War.

I see a business opportunity.

I propose to form a corporation, seek a Letter of Marque from the Congress, outfit an smaller ship for escort and pirate raiding .

The Navy is poorly-suited to anti-piracy operations. Sure, the gallant crew of the Bainbridge has twice steamed to the rescue of beleagured American freighters off the Horn of Africa, but the Bainbridge is a rather large vessel, better suited to hunting Soviet submarines than Somali pirates. More suited to the task, perhaps, would be something on the order of the Philippine Navy's Jacinto-class (formerly the Royal Navy's Peacock-class) corvette-- smaller, handier, more maneuverable, with armaments better suited to engaging the type of pirate craft likely to be encountered.

Enough privateers could secure and police the crucial shipping-lanes, while freeing the regular Navy for the strategic roles to which it is better suited.

LaTeX for Lawyers--some thoughts

2009-03-26T07:08:18Z

I've been looking into LaTeX for legal documents. I already use LaTeX for personal things, such as generating study outlines:

My 1L CivPro outline.

The best part about LaTeX is that it makes the structure of the documents trivially easy. I can forget about formatting, and concentrate on the content.

Of course, this is hardly WYSIWYG:

The green-and-black terminal window is what I see when I create a document in LaTeX--the finished product is shown up top.

Of course, TeX is generally a science, mathematics, & engineering thing; humanities types don't use it very much, and lawyers don't use it at all.

One problem is that we're already too wedded to our working methods. We rely on word processors to generate our documents--even though we could benefit from the more predictable behavior of a typesetting language like TeX.

Our citation style doesn't help, either. The Bluebook is needlessly complex, and its conventions are so idiosyncratic as to make it nearly impossible to use existing bibliographic styles and software to manage citations in a complex document.

That means that we're left fly-specking documents for stray commas or spaces. Not only is it annoying, I figure it's a waste of time.

Unfortunately, all the work implementing legal citation styles for TeX seems to be overseas. Jurabib was developed for German legal style--close, but not quite. biblatex doesn't quite do law. The most promising implementation, Camel, seems to have ceased development, and its lead developerhas dropped off the face of the Earth.

What I wish I had was the ability to bang out legal documents in TeX, and then specify my citations on the fly, in a way that's familiar to me as lawyer--something like LyX, with Camel support.

Sigh.

I suppose I shall have to make it myself, if I'm to have it--but I wish I had time to learn how to do that.