Nudum Pactum

Pinky, Are You Pondering What I'm Pondering?

2005-06-12T13:35:00.000-05:00

But Brain, who's actually interested in 13th century legal texts?

It's time to unveil one of my summer projects: a transcription of an English translation of Britton. I've not found a copy online, and I believe that I can get an out-of-copyright translation from the library. If I'm correct about this, then, starting the day after tomorrow, I will be putting about 5-10 pages (they're short pages) online each day. That should guarantee that I'll be able to get the entire text done over the course of the summer, spening a reasonable (but non-substantial) amount of time each day. Tomorrow I will put up some general background information about Britton and the project as I plan to undertake it.

Note that I would love any comments or questions that people have as I go along. I am undertaking the project both to get a copy of the text online, but also so that I can do a slow, thorough reading of the text. There are a lot of foreign/archaic concepts;¹ I will try to give a gloss on them as they come up, but will invariably miss a lot of the finer (and some of the more important) points. If people ask about something in comments, I will do my best to do a bit of research and to come back with a response. Of course, I would gladly welcome others who might help to fill in such gaps.

So there you have it. One of my new projects. Hopefully it will turn out well; interesting for both me and some readers. Perhaps a group of interested readers will even develop around the project -- which would be rather nice. First things first though, I need to find an out of copyright translation; and then the fun can begin.

--Gus

(1) For instance, the text starts right of (Book 1 chapter 2) talking about the Coroner. While the ancestor of our modern coroners, the original role of the coroner in English history was not to determine causes of death, but to keep the pleas of the crown -- that is, to record crimes -- so that when the next general eyre came about to actually hear the pleas (which might not be for several years) there would be a plea to hear. As with much early English procedure, the real purpose of the coroner was the king's finances. King Richard was broke. The Sheriffs controlled the local legal systems, which meant that they were able to redirect fines and taxes meant for the king into their own pockets. The coroner served as the king's agent in the local legal systems, to ensure that money meant to go to the king didn't end up in the sheriff's pockets instead. The term coroner comes from the Latin ``coronas", or crown (think coronation); the coroner was the crown's agent. And that is a brief explanation of the office of the coroner. It has nothing to do with cutting up dead bodies.

Please, No sMore!

2005-06-12T12:53:00.000-05:00

I just watched Bobby Flay try to make smores. He started by saying that he'd never been a boy scout. He put coconut on them. And he used gourmet marhmallows made by ``one of his good friends". And he grilled them. After pre-melting the marshmallows (which he put directly on a grill), he wrapped the pre-assembled smores in tin foil and threw them on a grill.

That's right. Bobby Flay made grilled coconut smores with gourmet marshmallow. Is nothing holy?

--Gus

Domestic Zen

2005-06-11T16:28:00.000-05:00

So, these past several weeks I haven't done anything except eat (fairly well, if not well enough to stay healthy), sleep (a proper amount), study (whenever awake), exercise (enough to prevent atrophy), and take exams. This has led to a backlog of all sorts of ``work".

Today I've been taking care of the housecleaning aspect of this work: 6 loads of laundry, 3 loads in the dishwasher. I discovered that my mattress is a ``no-flip" mattress; which is good, insofar as it means that I've not been abusing it beyond spec these last few months; but which is bad, insofar as I'm skeptical of ``no-flip" mattresses (I call them ``can't flip"), and I'm disappointed with myself for not having known that when I bought it. I've got about 3 hours of sorting, filing, shredding and packing papers left. Then I have another few hours of kitchen cleaning to go.

Which is why I write now. I'd forgotten how much I love kitchen cleaning. One thinks of doing dishes as a chore, of scrubbing oven pans a loveless manual labour, of degreasing oil-stained counter tops as thankless drudgery. But I love it. I get into a zone, and can spend hour after hour cleaning without thinking anything but good thoughts. I almost always need to take a few breaks to jot down notes about whatever paper I'm outlining in my head at the time. And when I'm done, I have a bright, clean kitchen.¹

What I don't understand, however, is that I hate doing laundry. Sometimes I enjoy folding the laundry once I'm done... but usually only the socks. There is something rewarding about folding socks; I think it's how simple and repetitive it is, which leads to a continuous firing of the brain's ``job done" neurons. I also enjoy hand washing the shirts than need to be hand washed. But the rest of the process feels unsatisfying and work-like.

Anyhow, I'll be done with all the cleaning sometime tomorrow, at which point this will all be in the past. Then I can start working on the Law Review write-on. Yep, the work, she never stops.

--Gus

(1) Incidentally, some trivia: The two dirties places in most people's houses? The kitchen sink, and computer keyboards. The cleanest? Usually the toilet.

And, Of Course

2005-06-11T11:20:00.000-05:00

Manifold congratulations to all who've just graduated. I've gotten to know far too few of y'all; but those few whom I have gotten to know have left me uniformly impressed. Y'all probably don't remember being 1Ls (unless you re-lived it as a 2L; in which case you're a true superhero) -- but, as a 1L, seeing 3Ls doing real work and real good and having real lives is a daily reminder that the pains of law school are a passing condition,¹ and that they do have a greater purpose.

It's been a pleasure and a privilege. All that I ask is that, once y'all've made minced meat of the bar exam, you not sue me. That would suck.

--Gus

(1) And, sadly, this too means that the pleasures of law school are a passing condition. But every pancake, no matter how thin, has two sides.

Tim Wu's Latest

2005-06-10T18:48:00.000-05:00

Tim Wu's latest paper, ``Intellectual Property, Innovation, and Decision Architectures", is up on SSRN. It's some good reading.

Also, Prof. Baird has a paper up on SSRN (``Property, Natural Monopoly, and the Uneasy Legacy of INS v. AP") which looks to be a good read (not that that's any surprise). I've yet to give it a real read, but a quick read makes me look forward to sitting down with it tomorrow.

Oh boy, Oh boy! Am I ever glad that summer is here. It means that I can start reading papers again.

--Gus

Weirdest Night Ever

2005-06-10T03:39:00.000-05:00

In which everyone I know hooked up with everyone else that I know. It was like middle school, with prophylactics.

But I suppose it's been a long year and a cathartic day; so who am I to judge.

All I know is that I spent far too long sitting in cabs next to open windows, which means hours will be spent on the morrow detangling my hair. Alas.

--Gus

A Template Change

2005-06-09T14:49:00.000-05:00

To reflect that I'm done.

I'm now a Pre-2L. Didn't want to be so presumptious as to label myself a 2L. But I'm glad to say that I'm done with 1L.

Now all that I have is a bunch of waiting to do. Oh, and that law review write-on thing. And get work underway on my summer research assistantship. And start writing the paper I'm working on this summer. Oh, and I just got a CFP for a paper I was working on while at LANL that I might try actually write.

Oh, and I should clean, and put books away and do laundry and get more food and sleep for a while.

But first. First. First is a lot of drinking. Drinking, with the advantage of my new knowledge that voluntary (which surely this will be) intoxication is not a defense (well, unless... I'll spare you).

--Gus

Comfort Food; or 7+5=12

2005-06-07T11:44:00.000-05:00

We all need some comfort food. Sometimes it isn't food, but it serves the same role, and we need it just the same. Just now, I put down my MPC s.2.02, forgetting about feeling guilty for a moment, and opened up a book which I've not read it too long. Just the first few words brought much comfort, both in a historical and phenomenological sense; and in a broader sense of putting exams in their proper context.

With that, I give you a bit og Kant, from the Critique of Pure Reason. (Text taken from here.)

I. Of the difference between Pure and Empirical Knowledge

That all our knowledge begins with experience there can be no doubt. For how is it possible that the faculty of cognition should be awakened into exercise otherwise than by means of objects which affect our senses, and partly of themselves produce representations, partly rouse our powers of understanding into activity, to compare to connect, or to separate these, and so to convert the raw material of our sensuous impressions into a knowledge of objects, which is called experience? In respect of time, therefore, no knowledge of ours is antecedent to experience, but begins with it.

But, though all our knowledge begins with experience, it by no means follows that all arises out of experience. For, on the contrary, it is quite possible that our empirical knowledge is a compound of that which we receive through impressions, and that which the faculty of cognition supplies from itself (sensuous impressions giving merely the occasion), an addition which we cannot distinguish from the original element given by sense, till long practice has made us attentive to, and skilful in separating it. It is, therefore, a question which requires close investigation, and not to be answered at first sight, whether there exists a knowledge altogether independent of experience, and even of all sensuous impressions? Knowledge of this kind is called a priori, in contradistinction to empirical knowledge, which has its sources a posteriori, that is, in experience.

But the expression, "a priori," is not as yet definite enough adequately to indicate the whole meaning of the question above started. For, in speaking of knowledge which has its sources in experience, we are wont to say, that this or that may be known a priori, because we do not derive this knowledge immediately from experience, but from a general rule, which, however, we have itself borrowed from experience. Thus, if a man undermined his house, we say, "he might know a priori that it would have fallen;" that is, he needed not to have waited for the experience that it did actually fall. But still, a priori, he could not know even this much. For, that bodies are heavy, and, consequently, that they fall when their supports are taken away, must have been known to him previously, by means of experience.

By the term "knowledge a priori," therefore, we shall in the sequel understand, not such as is independent of this or that kind of experience, but such as is absolutely so of all experience. Opposed to this is empirical knowledge, or that which is possible only a posteriori, that is, through experience. Knowledge a priori is either pure or impure. Pure knowledge a priori is that with which no empirical element is mixed up. For example, the proposition, "Every change has a cause," is a proposition a priori, but impure, because change is a conception which can only be derived from experience.

* * *

IV. Of the Difference Between Analytical and Synthetical Judgements.

In all judgements wherein the relation of a subject to the predicate is cogitated (I mention affirmative judgements only here; the application to negative will be very easy), this relation is possible in two different ways. Either the predicate B belongs to the subject A, as somewhat which is contained (though covertly) in the conception A; or the predicate B lies completely out of the conception A, although it stands in connection with it. In the first instance, I term the judgement analytical, in the second, synthetical. Analytical judgements (affirmative) are therefore those in which the connection of the predicate with the subject is cogitated through identity; those in which this connection is cogitated without identity, are called synthetical judgements. The former may be called explicative, the latter augmentative judgements; because the former add in the predicate nothing to the conception of the subject, but only analyse it into its constituent conceptions, which were thought already in the subject, although in a confused manner; the latter add to our conceptions of the subject a predicate which was not contained in it, and which no analysis could ever have discovered therein. For example, when I say, "All bodies are extended," this is an analytical judgement. For I need not go beyond the conception of body in order to find extension connected with it, but merely analyse the conception, that is, become conscious of the manifold properties which I think in that conception, in order to discover this predicate in it: it is therefore an analytical judgement. On the other hand, when I say, "All bodies are heavy," the predicate is something totally different from that which I think in the mere conception of a body. By the addition of such a predicate, therefore, it becomes a synthetical judgement.

Judgements of experience, as such, are always synthetical. For it would be absurd to think of grounding an analytical judgement on experience, because in forming such a judgement I need not go out of the sphere of my conceptions, and therefore recourse to the testimony of experience is quite unnecessary. That "bodies are extended" is not an empirical judgement, but a proposition which stands firm a priori. For before addressing myself to experience, I already have in my conception all the requisite conditions for the judgement, and I have only to extract the predicate from the conception, according to the principle of contradiction, and thereby at the same time become conscious of the necessity of the judgement, a necessity which I could never learn from experience. On the other hand, though at first I do not at all include the predicate of weight in my conception of body in general, that conception still indicates an object of experience, a part of the totality of experience, to which I can still add other parts; and this I do when I recognize by observation that bodies are heavy. I can cognize beforehand by analysis the conception of body through the characteristics of extension, impenetrability, shape, etc., all which are cogitated in this conception. But now I extend my knowledge, and looking back on experience from which I had derived this conception of body, I find weight at all times connected with the above characteristics, and therefore I synthetically add to my conceptions this as a predicate, and say, "All bodies are heavy." Thus it is experience upon which rests the possibility of the synthesis of the predicate of weight with the conception of body, because both conceptions, although the one is not contained in the other, still belong to one another (only contingently, however), as parts of a whole, namely, of experience, which is itself a synthesis of intuitions.

But to synthetical judgements a priori, such aid is entirely wanting. If I go out of and beyond the conception A, in order to recognize another B as connected with it, what foundation have I to rest on, whereby to render the synthesis possible? I have here no longer the advantage of looking out in the sphere of experience for what I want. Let us take, for example, the proposition, "Everything that happens has a cause." In the conception of "something that happens," I indeed think an existence which a certain time antecedes, and from this I can derive analytical judgements. But t the conception of a cause lies quite out of the above conception, and indicates something entirely different from "that which happens," and is consequently not contained in that conception. How then am I able to assert concerning the general conception- "that which happens"- something entirely different from that conception, and to recognize the conception of cause although not contained in it, yet as belonging to it, and even necessarily? what is here the unknown = X, upon which the understanding rests when it believes it has found, out of the conception A a foreign predicate B, which it nevertheless considers to be connected with it? It cannot be experience, because the principle adduced annexes the two representations, cause and effect, to the representation existence, not only with universality, which experience cannot give, but also with the expression of necessity, therefore completely a priori and from pure conceptions. Upon such synthetical, that is augmentative propositions, depends the whole aim of our speculative knowledge a priori; for although analytical judgements are indeed highly important and necessary, they are so, only to arrive at that clearness of conceptions which is requisite for a sure and extended synthesis, and this alone is a real acquisition.

Incidentally, I would be interested to know if anyone actually read this post. :)

--Gus

Go Me

2005-06-07T11:23:00.000-05:00

Yep. I'm sick. Not quite big-time sick. But serious sick, of the ``I didn't sleep well last night despite 10 hours of trying becuase my stomach hurt too much and now I'm scared to eat food" variety. I should be better by tomorrow; but if not, tomorrow will be a go to the doctor day. All I know right now is that my stomach is feeling a bit better, but every joint in my body is sore and I am hyper-sensitive to temperature changes.

Figures this would happen during exam time. Go me.

Of course, the ironic part is that I have been taking super good care of myself the past two weeks. I've been eating regularly and well, getting sleep, and even exercising. OK. That might not be ironic, but rather unfortunate. But I'm not past blaming my ailment on the fact that I am taking better care of myself. In which case, it would be ironic.

--Gus

Ouch

2005-06-06T14:02:00.000-05:00

My only response, I hope that there is truth to the maxim that the worse you think you did the better the results.

Other than that, Raich, after a bloody long time, has been decided. I'll let the pros do the analysis. The 6-3 decision was for the federal governmnet.

Now I am recklessly relaxing for a few hours, watching the tele and eating all sorts of food. Reckless, it is, because I should out be working on Crim; but I think the break will be for the best.

--Gus

T-Minus 13 Hours

2005-06-05T20:00:00.000-05:00

Yep, the countdown begins again.

All I can say about it is that my outline is one of the wierdest that has ever been made. I realised this morning that I didn't have a section on consideration; after thinking about it a bit, I decided that I didn't really need one, so I added a few words here and there just to remind be to talk about it.

I think it's just going to come down to the exam itself this time. Most of the old exams I cleaned the floor with; but some have left me staring at the page wondering what class I had been in for the past two quarters. So long as there's some Placido Domingo on there, I think I'll do OK.

Incidentally, I think I've settled on a Rachmaninoff/Mozart mix for the soundtrack. And I'm going to stay away from too much opera-proper. I realised that I have a bad habit, when listening to such, of closing my eyes and either singing along (to what little I know) or waving my hand around like a schizophrenic, blind, deaf, conductor. Both of these could be distracting to fellow exam takers, and neither are compatabile with my taking the exam. So there it is.

Off to dinner; then one more practice; and then... sleep's descent.

--Gus

A Random Bit of Hegel

2005-06-04T18:29:00.000-05:00

We all need a bit more Hegel in our lives. To wit:

90. THE knowledge, which is at the start or immediately our object, can be nothing else than just that which is immediate knowledge, knowledge of the immediate, of what is. We have, in dealing with it, to proceed, too, in an immediate way, to accept what is given, not altering anything in it as it is presented before us, and keeping mere apprehension (Auffassen) free from conceptual comprehension (Begreifen).

91. The concrete content, which sensuous certainty furnishes, makes this prima facie appear to be the richest kind of knowledge, to be even a knowledge of endless wealth — a wealth to which we can as little find any limit when we traverse its extent in space and time, where that content is presented before us, as when we take a fragment out of the abundance it offers us and by dividing and dividing seek to penetrate its intent. Besides that. it seems to be the truest, the most authentic knowledge: for it has not as yet dropped anything from the object; it has the object before itself in its entirety and completeness. This bare fact of certainty, however, is really and admittedly the abstractest and the poorest kind of truth. It merely says regarding what it knows: it is; and its truth contains solely the being of the fact it knows. Consciousness, on its part, in the case of this form of certainty, takes the shape merely of pure Ego. In other words, I in such a case am merely qua pure This, and the object likewise is merely qua pure This. I, this particular conscious I, am certain of this fact before me, not because I qua consciousness have developed myself in connection with it and in manifold ways set thought to work about it: and not, again, because the fact, the thing, of which I am certain, in virtue of its having a multitude of distinct qualities, was replete with possible modes of relation and a variety of connections with other things. Neither has anything to do with the truth sensuous certainty contains: neither the I nor the thing has here the meaning of a manifold relation with a variety of other things, of mediation in a variety of ways. The I does not contain or imply a manifold of ideas, the I here does not think: nor does the thing mean what has a multiplicity of qualities. Rather, the thing, the fact, is; and it is merely because it is. It is — that is the essential point for sense-knowledge, and that bare fact of being, that simple immediacy, constitutes its truth. In the same way the certainty qua relation, the certainty “of” something, is an immediate pure relation; consciousness is I — nothing more, a pure this; the individual consciousness knows a pure this, or knows what is individual.

--Gus

T-plus 4 Hours

2005-06-03T13:12:00.000-05:00

As that last post might suggest, I'm done with the Civ Pro exam. It went well... probably too well. But now all that I can do is sit back and wait 6-8 weeks for delivery of my grades.

Actually, that's not at all what I'm going to do. I'm going to spend the rest of the day working on Contracts. Tomorrow I work on Crim. Sunday I review Contracts and do old exams. Monday I take the Contracts exam; then it's all Crim.

But this raises a new pressing question. What should I listen to during the Contracts and Crim exams? I listened to Luna (Prof. CivPro's favourite band), Death Cab for Cuttie, Moby, and Preston School of Industry (no Pavement on hand, unfortunately). Prof. CivPro is big into the indie scene, so this all seem bien apropos. But it just won't do for Contracts.

Prof. Contracts is far more refined, and so must needs be my music for the exam. I am tempted just to to Don Giovanni, and to finish off with Mozart's Requiem. But that might be a bit too much Mozart (if such a thing is possible). I want to go with an opera motif, at least for the base; otherwise I would stick with my favourite Mozart string quintets and sonatas. But that is too much of my taste, and not enough of Prof. Contracts's taste. So, does anyone have suggestions for what I should listen to during the Contracts exam?

And I'm not even thinking about Crim yet. The problem with music during Crim is that any appropriate music would also likely be distracting; at least if I were to theme it to the subject. I just don't know enough about Prof. Crim to know what she would have been listening to while writing the exam. So I'll probably just do the Mozart overdose then. Come to think about it, there is something somewhat Crim-like in the Requiem.

Suggestions are welcome.

--Gus

Weirdest Spam Ever?

2005-06-03T13:09:00.000-05:00

OK, maybe not. It'll be hard to top the ``disproof" of Heisenberg's Uncertainty Principle that floated around a few years ago. But today I got a mail trying to sell me high quality egyptian cotton sheets. Yes. Bed sheets. 600 threadcount, only $45.00. Not at all what I expected to find in the inbox.

--Gus

T-Minus 13 Hours

2005-06-02T20:05:00.000-05:00

Time to start wrapping up for the daiye, and getting ready to go off in the morning for an exam.

But first a note in passing, and a note of hope. Passing first: I've noticed that I have a particular tendancy to remember the names of the defendants in cases, both in terms of how I refer to the cases (Wichelhaus) and how I think about the story (such and such happened to Mr. D). I wonder what this says about my mentality and disposition as a future lawyer. I have always considered the law a shield, or at least a sword best used for defensive ends.

Second, I did a bit of flipping out earlier today when I read a model answer to an old CivPro exam. Half the stuff in it seemed wrong. As in, the student who wrote it directly contradicted half of my outline. Shit said I. So I did some looking around until I was quite certain that my outline was right. Confused as to why this was a model answer, I kept going through past exams and answers. Lo and behold, this CivPro stuff seems to leave everyone in a fuss. Every answer seems to take different approaches the the questions, get different results; and there are plenty of errors in them. This certainly makes me feel better going into the exam. I've got my method down, and it seems to cover most of the material that the model answers do, in one way or another. Though, I am as unoptimistic as ever about these round of exams, given my penchant for leaving the details to my assistants (of which I have none).

Oh well. Here's to 13 hours from now.

--Gus

Well That's a Big Phooey

2005-06-02T11:58:00.000-05:00

So, the last post might have been a bit premature. While it is substantively right, it appears that MS is being as sleazy as ever. They will likely be incorporating some DRM mechanism into the XML such that you need to be connected to a Windows server to access the data (wtf!), and are trying to patent the internal structure of the XML (a quick reading, that). (See here.)

I really need to look into all of this a bit more. Especially the patent-related stuff. It seems that MS might be going uber-invidious here; taking a viral licensing approach that will make any non-MS apps that can read MS files be necessarily infinging. This is a quick read, and I hope that it's not the case (and expect that it has some legal faults; but it if does, what's a few billion dollars for the lobbyists to get them patched up?). But alas, I've already spent too much time with this stuff today as it is.

--Gus

Some of the Biggest News

2005-06-02T10:37:00.000-05:00

Microsoft is switching its office programs to use an open, XML-based, format. As much as I dislike XML, this is seriously some of the biggest tech news of the past decade.

I feel like a schmuck that I don't have time to comment more. Long story short, the MS office formats are inefficient proprietary bloat, the primary historical function of which has been to lock people into using MS products. And to cause security problems when people release documents that contain complete revision histories. And to increase memory bloat, and waste disk space.¹ But mostly it has locked people into the MS Office product suite.

It will be interesting to see what comes of this move. Honestly, I have no idea why MS is doing it, but it can only be a good thing. Though, if memory serves, they did one try to create a ``proprietary" XML format (which is just stupid, self-contradictory, and they took a lot of flak for); I can't imagine that's what they're planning this time around.

This, along with other recent changes (they're doing away with the "My xyz" paradigm, and .Net sounds like it's being junked in the next version of their OS), have the feel of interesting harbingers of change.

--Gus

(1) I've even taken to opening MS doc files in OpenOffice and resaving them back as doc files to save space. OO gets rid of MS's bloat, often cutting file sizes by 90%+, without losing anything.

T-Minus

2005-06-02T09:01:00.000-05:00

24 hours until the CivPro exam. Today, I am making cosmetic changes to my outline, and doing a practice test. I'll probably hang upside down, sitting on the ceiling in the lotus position, while filling my room with incense and the sounds of the rainforest¹, for the rest of the day. Or not.

I expect tomorrow, after the exam is behind me, I'll finish off the Contracts outline's content. Saturday sees the return of the CrimLaw outline for a daiye; Sunday sees the Contracts outline being formatted and exams being done all day (which, for me, is like crack). Then, post exam on Monday, I'm into the final stretch, which will be all Crim, all the time.

Damn I love these exam things; the make my life even more exciting than usual.

--Gus

(1) Amazing what you can get on CD nowadays.

The Need for Mystery?

2005-05-31T21:44:00.000-05:00

No, this post isn't about sex or seduction; it's about Deep Throat.

For those living in a bubble, the identity of Deep Throat has been made public. He was W. Mark Felt, the number 2 guy at the FBI. He and his family let the cat out of the bag, and Woodward and Bernstein have since confirmed it.

And suddenly, the world feels unexpectedly smaller. One of the great mysteries of our time is a mystery no more, and there is nothing there to replace it but another day with one fewer question. What would we do if tomorrow we found Amelia Earhart, Jimmy Hoffa, and the grassy knoll shooters?¹ I'd feel empty the next day, that's for sure. Half of the shows (the half that don't involve motorcycles or recreating battles from wars) on the History and Discovery channels would be immediately obsoleted!

--Gus

(1) They probably all play poker with Mr. Felt on Friday evenings.

What Would Be Great

2005-05-31T17:14:00.000-05:00

You know what would be great...

I know that a lot of people will disagree with me on this -- some will think I'm crazy, others will find the suggestion outright evil -- but I think the results would be good.

So what is this thing that would be so great?

Closed book, no outline exams.

That's right. You can't use anything but what's in your head. Perhaps the prof could provide a quick case list; I expect the sheer amount of complaining he'd have to deal with would all-but require he give us that crutch.

And word limits! That'd be great, too.

I'd love to see a study about how exams have changed over the last decade, as we've gone from handwritten exams of 1500-2500 words, to typed exams of 3500-9500 words, and as searchable outlines have been introduced.

Now, back to outlining. My CivPro outline is pretty well done at this point, just needing to be formatted. And my Contracts outline is under way. Crim is on the back burner for the next few days.

--Gus

Rearrived

2005-05-29T22:52:00.000-05:00

I've just returned from a trip to Baton Rouge, LA, for a wedding. Various posts will be forthcoming; though many more will not. I just don't have the time (viz, I have exams coming up).

Needless to say, having been cut off from the real world for the past two days, I be spending the next few hours decompressing and getting back up to speed.

But at least I was able to get about half of my CivPro outline done.

--Gus

He was a good cat

2005-05-26T20:47:00.000-05:00

I just chatted with my mum.

Pumpkin, the cat that I grew up with, passed on last night. He was a good cat; pumpkin orange as you can guess, with a white belly that he shed all over the place. Lazy and fat, he lived a long life to the last, falling asleep yesterday morning in a pool of sunlight.

I don't think I have a picture. If I do, tomorrow I'm going to try to misappropriate my own cat for one last day.

--Gus

Not So Hot for Teacher

2005-05-24T21:48:00.000-05:00

Went I dancing, tonight I did. A bit of tango -- just the local class followed by practica. The new kids are starting to get better, which makes things more fun, and means that a few more advanced dancers are showing up. I'd missed the past two weeks due to work overload, &c; but I made myself go tonight so that I wouldn't fall out of the habit.

Two maxims about tango. First, it takes at least five years to learn to tango well. Second, a third of all tango dancers are also teachers. I'll add a simple fact to the list: most people don't keep with it for more than two or three years. A bit of math yields a surprising result: most of the professed teachers aren't all that good.

Unfortunately, but not surprisingly, the couple teaching the local class aren't all that good at teaching. The guy is an excellent dancer, and the girl a good follow. But neither has a particularly strong grasp on the mechanics of the dance. This isn't to dig them as dancers; they learned the way that they are teaching, which is a sink-or-swim method. Those students who ``get it" figure out how to dance intuitively, and usually become excellent dancers. But most people don't have the natural talent to learn that way; they need to understand the mechanics of the dance. In my experience, I would say that maybe 10% of students have the intuition. Another 20-30% are able to learn the mechanics and become just as good, if not better, than the first 10%. Another 30-40% are able to learn to be passable dancers by learning the mechanics; they will never learn to dance, but they will learn to execute the mechanics. More often than not, this group is interested in thinking they can dance (part of the reason that they never get beyond the mechanics), so they are perfectly happy with learning the basics and not going any farther. The remaining 20-40% are hopeless.¹

Getting back to my point. The class's instructors are good dancers, but not great dancers; and most of the follows in the class have figured out that I am a perfectionist when it comes to technique. This leads to some awkward moments. I really try to be a student, and to let the teachers do their thing. You really don't want to step on the teachers' toes in a dance class.² But sometimes it's hard. Occasionally I'll be dancing with someone, and I'll make a subtle ``suggestion", and she'll say ``but Ms. Teacher" told me to do it this way; and, as I bite my tongue so that I won't contradict the teacher, I'll tell her to give it a try. Suddenly Bam! no more stumbling around; we're dancing! And I quickly start apologising for the teacher, explaining to the follow that I learned a different way than we're being taught, but that she really should try it the way that the teacher told her; that the teacher was being didactic, and knew what she was doing. To some extent that's true. You can't tell students to do everything correctly right off -- see my previous post about learning to walk -- so you need to tell them to do some things wrong, until they know enough that you can correct them.

And sometimes tonight happens. During the practica after class a pair of students came up to me and asked if I could help them. I glanced sideways at the teachers, 15 feet away from me. I suggested that they might want to ask the teachers. ``Oh, we already did. We spent 20 minutes with Ms. Teacher and it still doesn't work." ``What about Mr. Teacher", I suggest. Their response is to stare at me, with a look that says ``yeah, right". It's evident that I'm not going to get out of this. I ask what they need help with. It's a fairly basic step, so I make sure that the follow is doing it right (she is), and give the lead a few pointers about what could be causing the problem. Normally, I would have the lead dance with me; but two guys dancing would definitely draw the attention of the room. They give it a try; I watch and immediately see what's wrong. I tell the lead to keep his left shoulder back as he rotates the follow; that he needs to work around her axis while rotating her. They try it again and do it perfectly. Ok, I think. Go me. Now I can escape; and I don't think that the teachers even noticed that we weren't just talking.

Then Bam! the follow is clapping and jumping up and down and squealing (yes, squealing); and she give me a hug and all but yells ``Thank you! We've been working on that all night and couldn't get it. That was so easy". Oh yeah. You know that the teachers saw that. And no matter how discrete I was trying to be, it was an affront to them. Especially the ``That was so easy" part.

But what're you going to do, eh? Keep on dancing, that's what I'm going to do. And, at all costs, be nice to the teachers. Hopefully, they'll come to understand that I'm just being helpful, and am not trying to encroach on their territory. Because, heaven knows, I need teachers too; and even these guys have stuff that they can teach me.³

Now, I'm off to go think inside of the box for while.

--Gus

(1) I really don't like to be so negative about it, but it's unfortunately true. I've not been breaking these percentages down by gender, but I would say 35-40% of guys have no rhythm. After a certain point, it becomes all-but impossible to ``teach" them rhythm. You'll spend hours with them doing nothing but tapping out beats; eventually they'll start to get it, so you'll have them try walking to that beat and they lose it, and it takes them just as long to get it back. About 20% of girls are ``unteachable", but more often than not this is because they aren't so much interested in learning to dance, as they are interested in dancing. My favourite are the ones who, when told that they're doing something completely wrong respond with ``don't be silly! there is no wrong." Well, in one sense, that's true. But when you're dancing with a partner, if the partner (especially the lead) doesn't know what you're doing, it isn't true at all. It kinda defeats the point of dancing with a partner. And, truth be told, most of these gals would rather be dancing at a club, but they're drawn to the romance of partner dancing. They're also usually the ones that are a bit too flirty for comfort; which might generally be fine and all, but not when they're older than my mother. Eww.

(2) Sorry. That was a really bad joke.

(3) They might not know their technique, but they do know a goodly amount of advanced footwork.

Can't Argue With That

2005-05-24T18:15:00.000-05:00

The altial Mr. Wilson raises a sharp point. Sorry James, but anyone who applies economic analyses to love and ends up using phrases like ``asymmetric sex act" is even less of a ladies man than I am.

--Gus

Meta Updates

2005-05-23T19:20:00.000-05:00

[Yep, I really need to get the spell checker working...]

I've just finished updating my blogroll. Amongst other changes, I've added several blogs that I've recently taken to reading. This includes a few that are new to the blogsphere. As always, if I know who the author of an anonymous blog is, I keep it secret. That said, my class has a new blogger to add to the fold: welcome Konica!

I also added a few more blogs that link to me, and updated the name of Even Schaeffer's blog to reflect his recent (and interesting to follow) changes.

In doing so, I realised that a couple more blogs are linking to me (thanks go out), including one of my absolute favourites, UTR (thanks, A3G!)¹. I'm also getting a regular stream of visitors. I have a number of regular readers, and about as many new readers over any given period.

This suggests a programming note is in order. Mercifully, I hope to stop being so whinny; the summer should let me take up a few blog-based projects I've been interested in starting (basically on-line note taking of a few things that I mean to read, and a repository for research). It's interesting figuring out what a blog is, or should be. I had many reasons behind starting this blog. Generally, I had four: to keep friends informed about my life; to chronicle yet another law school experience; to help get Chicago into the blogsphere; and to force myself to write regularly (hoping to write substantive material). Most of these goals admit of my being whinny; but the latter to suggest a greater signal-to-noise ratio is needed. I'm not sure if any substantive changes will actually materialise; but we'll see.

--Gus

(1) Hmm... perhaps the speculation that you are Spencer has some merits? Nah. That's all been disproven.

The Pride of Being Ethical

2005-05-23T18:50:00.000-05:00

I checked on old e-mail account today. Since I last checked it, a friend used my computer to check that account. My web browser had saved his login and password (this, despite my having disabled auto-saving such; he must have clicked OK when asked if he wanted it saved). I noticed this, chuckled once, and erased the information without even a passing though of reading his mail.

Now, however, having passed this ethical hurdle with flying colours, I am torn. Realising what a morally superiour being I must be, I am inclined to point this out to the world at large. Hence this post. But does such moralistic exhibitionism detract from the very superiority it means to make known? Or is it in and of itself a unique flaw? It's all so complicated! (Said as a sarcastic melodramatist.)

--Gus

Scavenging for Something

2005-05-23T18:26:00.000-05:00

My last post indicated that I had missed Friday. Boy did I ever! I forgot that the deadline for journal write-on applications was Friday. Whoops! It was just a formality, and I know a few others who did the same; so hopefully it was a soft-deadline. If not, it's likely no biggie. Unless I pull off the best exam performance this school has ever seen, I rather doubt that I would grade on; and the competition for the small number of write-on slots is tight enough that I have no expectation of getting on the law review that way. Nay, my belief all along has been that I would write one to the review the old fashioned way: by writing something publishable. But we shall see.

On related. After a frustrating series of non-e-mails (that is, e-mails that I sent but which somehow never arrived; I need to figure out why), I've heard back from Prof. Legal Academia about paper writing for the summer and next year. I had sent her a list of about a half dozen topics, hoping that at least one would be worthwhile. The two that I am most attached to are worthwile (though one will require that I brush up on my Game Theory, probably by taking a class next year); and one might be usable as a comment. The rest are garbage. Phew!

Still on the subject of papers, I'm still working to churn out my last Roman Law paper. I'm not dragging my feet on it, and it's not giving me difficulties, but it's just taking a while to write. Fortunately, I don't think that Prof. Roman Law will mind; and I do think that it's the best of the papers I've written. Still, I don't think that it will get done tonight... the more prudent decision is for me to go to sleep early and finish it off tomorrow morning.

Enough on the boring stuff. Next posts will be shorter and less diarial.

--Gus

Missed

2005-05-21T10:31:00.000-05:00

Sorry kids, I missed Friday again, so no misappropriations this week.

--Gus

The Diagnosis

2005-05-20T20:05:00.000-05:00

A friend, on making me a better student: ``so you should start acting more like a tool".

--Gus

Today is White

2005-05-19T18:04:00.000-05:00

Two comments for the day:

I went to a lunchtime talk by Tim Wu¹ on copyright. The talk was based on a forthcoming paper. I think he dumbed down the material a bit more than he needed to, anticipating a softer audience than he had.² The talk itself, however, was very good, and it had a rather interesting thesis at its foundation: a wonderful division of the functioning of copyright between authors, distributors, and purchasers. Once the paper is up on SSRN I'll post a link.

Next, and the inspirator of the subject of this post. Today is white. Chicago is in a wonderfully dense fog. I got home this afternoon, and immediately opened up all of the window shades to look outside. The whiteness of the fog matched almost perfectly the walls of my apartment. It has cleared up a bit now; which only means that I can see the outlines of buildings some 400 feet away.

I probably like the feeling so much because it reminds me of the mountains, and being in the clouds.

--Gus

(1) On a side note, when I chose Chicago over UVa, the only regret that I had is that Prof. Wu is at UVa. Alas. Rubbing my nose in this, he was visiting at Chicago this year -- the one year during which I couldn't take any classes or work with him -- and he will not be sticking around over the summer.

(2) For instance, at one point he used the phrase ``derivative work" and notably cut himself off mid utterance to use a non-term-of-art.

Go Read It

2005-05-18T17:36:00.000-05:00

Bill Patry, who many of us will know well from our recently completed briefs, has a new blog on copyright law. It's been a good first few weeks for it, and I particularly like the current set of posts.

In particular, I like his posts because I tend to disagree with much of what he says -- but he is someone who I view as authoritative, which forces me really to struggle with understanding his perspectives. And he always has substantive posts and excellent arguments/explanations, which affords me the oportunity to do just that.

All in all, it's good stuff.

--Gus

Drowning

2005-05-16T17:35:00.000-05:00

I've a stack of posts I want to make; including an owed reply to James and a critique of a paper. But it's just not going to happen.

I've this nasty feeling that I'm drowning right now. I'm keeping up with work and all. But nonetheless, I'm swamped. I expect that I'm sick again (sigh), and just don't have physical energy. Or perhaps it's the lack of food. And exercise. All that I know is that I'm dropping the ball a lot lately.

It took me a week to send Prof. Get Me A Job In Academia a simple (though admittedly substantive) e-mail. I'm going on travel next weekend and still don't know where I'm staying. I've been meaning to update my blogroll and welcome some others to thie blawgverse for the past few weeks, and that's nowhere near happening. Hell, I haven't even procured tickets to see Star Wars, which means I'm probably not going to see it on opening night, which means I'm probably not going to see it on the big screen. Every day, on my way home from school, I think: ``maybe I should stop by the market and get some food for dinner" and I reply ``nah, you don't have time to eat tonight; just go home, get your work done, and go to sleep".¹

Even as I write this I can feel nervous tension building up in my arms; tension that screams ``GET BACK TO WORK". And this is me, screaming back ``RELAXING IS WORK FOR ME, YOU DOLT!" To which feel that nervous energy respond with furious twitching, an acknowledgement of just how true that statement is.

Honestly, though, I have been better this quarter. But not better enough. How I can't wait for summer to hit.

Now, that's enough relaxing for now. I've got to get back to work.

--Gus

(1) Though I did make some cookies the other day. I wanted to try a recipie for marble sugar cookies. Came out well it did.

Non Substantive

2005-05-14T19:53:00.000-05:00

Store Wars. May the farm be with you. No more need be said. (HT: Ken.)

--Gus

Some Substantive Content

2005-05-14T13:47:00.000-05:00

James has a post up in which he discusses a talk on the Grokster and Betamax cases given yesterday by Professor Picker. I was not at this talk, having gone to the law review writing competition meeting that was scheduled at the same time. I am somewhat miffed about having missed it.¹ Because I was not at the talk, I will only focus on James's post, which discusses Technology and Property rights.

His argument is that technological means of protecting property (generally) are inefficient. The orchard owner who needs build a fence to protect his trees from theft is making a negative investment -- spending money so that he does not lose more -- which has no social utility. We prefer, instead, offer him a legal solution: we tell him to invest his money in more trees, or ADM stock, or a yacht, because if someone steals his apples we'll let him bring an action against the thief for their recovery.

He then turns to the IP side of the question, with the point that it is very difficult (if possible at all, pointing to the analog hole) to build digital fences, and that hackers² are often (if not usually) better at building ladders than companies are at building fences. The apparent conclusion is that private enforcement by technological means is not only inefficient in this case, but impossible.

James tries to consider the other side of the coin, arguing that legal protections are not perfectly efficient. They both cost money to provide and enforce, and their principal enforcement means (court/jail) is an ex post solution. He rightly notes that ``we frequently supplement the law with technological protection as it is; to replace it entirely might not be such a big step when it comes to file sharing." In other words, even with the benefit of the law, we still lock our doors because we know that the law alone isn't enough.

He then makes a bizarre turn in his argument, saying that, because IP thiefs (copyright in specific) can build better ladders that either the government (ex ante detection is technically hard, and encryption makes ex post detection hard) or private parties (DRM circumvention, analog hole, &c), IP should be treated as any other form of property. Presumably, this is because, eg, the government can leverage its coercive power against technological miscreants (eg, by subpoenaing private keys to break encryption).

We must first acknowledge an implicit argument in James's reasoning: that IP is treated differently from physical property. The basis for this distinction seems to be (at least in this context) the Betamax case: VCRs are legal, despite being the tools of pirates, because they have ``substantial non-infringing uses". It sounds as though James's argument (and Prof. Picker's) is that the ``substantial non-infringing uses" standard is wrong, and therefore that VCRs, without some form of content control, should be illegal.

Fine. Let's do the law professor thing, admit this belief, and take it to its consequences. The implication is that an item with illegal uses (such as stealing) should be illegal, even if it has ``substantial non-infringing uses". There goes the legality of guns; perhaps this is a bad example, with some people thinking guns can have electronics added to prevent their misuse. But there, too, go baseball bats and iron pipes; both have substantial non-infringing uses relative to their illegal uses as weapons (which might sometimes be legal, mind you; as in the case of self defense). But this is perhaps too far removed from the idea of theft. So, there go metal files. Give me three keys that are all keyed to a single master (as with most apartment, office, school, &c, buildings) and a file and, in the case of most locks, I can give you a master key; and it's not enough to make ``metal files" illegal, given that most nail files are hard enough for the task.

My point here is that the ``sunstantial non-infringing use" standard is not unique to IP. Quite to the contrary, it is a risk inherent in nearly every material used in human activity.

What is really at stake in the debate is what activities we deem illegal. Do we let people collect keys or own files; do we let people own baseball bats and guns; do we let people trade files in peer-to-peer networks. There is another dimension: do we let people sell each of the above. Regulation of individual use might be impossible, so we might prefer to make it difficult to get necessary materials. Consider background check for guns, and licensing requirements for commercial or bulk chemicals. This is where the present question is focused. We don't particularly care whether individuals share files on an individual basis; at this level enforcement becomes nearly impossible.³ Instead, we target those people that enable such sharing.

Now we can understand what the question at hand is. Banning some non-infinging uses yields no substantial problem. You make people wait a few days before buying a gun -- they still get the gun. You require a license to buy tons of ammonium nitrate -- they have no use for it unless they are a farmer anyhow. Generally, we make illegal that which can be accomplished through other, more regulable or less dangerous, means. We let anyone buy baseball bats and metal pipe because we there is no better alternative way of letting people play baseball or do odd jobs around the house.

I challenge anyone to demonstrate that there is a better way to accomplish the legal ends enabled by P2P networks than that currently in place. Keep in mind that, at its simplest, the World Wide Web is nothing more than more-centralised, more-generalised, and less-optimised version of Grokster.

We return here to James's starting point: the fence around the orchard and the thiefs' ladders. Those who argue against the ``substantial non-infringing uses" principle appeal to the idea that the ``bad guys" can build ladders better than they can build fences. Often absent from this discussion is serious consideration of whether this is really a bad thing. James started his post by saying that fence building is a negative investment. I agree that the returns for the orchards has not been great. DMCA- and DRM-like mechanisms have proven to be little more than jokes; and where they have had effects, they have often been detrimental.

The work on the ladder-side of the effort, however, have produced substantial results. The techincal and research aspects of P2P networks are remarkable. Decentralised multi-participant multiplexed data transfers are not trivial to do in a static environment. New paradigms of colaborative work are being explored and used. Serious research into split-transfer protocol design is going on -- which could fundamentally alter the future internal design of the Internet.⁴ Normative and theoretical work is being done to study P2P networks as social networks. At a social level, it is very likely that P2P networks will play an important role in defeating repressive regimes (by which I mean China, not Sony and MGM). All of which raises the important question of whether the investment is really negative. Consider copyright in the long-term. Fourty years ago, technology was not a negative investment for the ``orchards" (music companies); however, with the advent of radio and the phonograph, learning to play music largely became a negative investment for the individual! Yet the net social benefit of this transition was positive.

I can't argue that the current net social benefit will be positive. While I believe that it will be, I do concede that I cannot see the future. I am always tickled by those who argue that corporations are being out-innovated and consequently need legal protections to protect their entrenched markets; I thought that corporations were supposed to be the innovative and competitive heart of our country? But that's neither here nor there -- I make no secret of my antipathy of the modern corporation. The basic point here is that the other side cannot use this argument (of negative investments) to its advantage any more than I can.

The question is therefore become: do we arbitrarily destroy one side in this battle, because we know that they can not co-exist, but do not know which is better; or is there a better solution? I believe that those who are fighting the substantial non-infringing uses battle are refighting the last battle in the face of changed technology.⁵ So, to answer James's question, should the law treat IP as property, I don't think that it matters. They are different beasts; but that is a normative assertion of principle, not of enforcement. Should I be punished if I steal your property, be it fruit from your apple orchard or songs from your Apple iTunes? Sure. But what constitutes stealing and how do we prove it -- that's what the law dealt with.

Whetever the law's answer today, someone will be disenfranchised. The technology has progressed to that point -- it has tipped the scales. The important question is whether technology will provide a way to reballance the scales. And that is a subject I mean to take up this summer... (the answer is yes. And, no matter which way the scales get tipped, the solution will be the same.)

I hate to leave on that note; but I've been rambling a bit, and am quite in need of eating breakfast. Sorry for the broken thoughts; I started this with a coherent thread, but was distracted a few times, lost the tread, and decided to push on through instead of starting over. Comment away, James.

--Gus

(1) It is one of three talks that I have been looking forward to for this past week and next; two of which I need to miss due to scheduling problems. Sometimes I really wish I were more a quantum being.

(2) Which James correctly separates from the general class of ``bad guys", but incorrectly labels as people who can write code. This is too broad, and is akin to calling a McDonald's fry cook a gourmet chef.

(3) Except at the individual level, which presents a fascinating question. If Johnny breaks into Mary's computer and copies all of her music, does she have an action against Johnny? She has received damage without loss. Even at Roman Law recovery would be allowed for such (actio in factum). Here, I would propose is the real meat of the question. In the case of nonrivalrous product, there is no incentive for the consumer not to share the product, because he incurs no (apparent) loss when he does share it. The question, therefore, is not one of building fences around the orchard, but rather of giving consumers reason to buy more than one apple. The current paradigm is either to build fences around each apple -- which clearly fails -- or to use collusive power of the law to penalise people for sharing.

(4) Arguably, this research is some of the most important going on. The original design of the Internet was meant to be fault-tolerant, so that it could withstand multi-point failures resulting from Soviet attack. In recent years it has become obvious that losing one or two links can bring the Internet to a near stand-still. In this sense, P2P systems are one of the few active areas of reseach that still pursue -- and are really making progress towards -- the original design goals of the Internet.

(5) Huh. After I wrote that, I realised that, as per the schools web page, I might agree with Prof. Epstein on this front. (The quote changes randomly from a selection. Here's the one in question: ``The opponents of copyright liability are refighting the last war, only this one is much more complicated." Richard Epstein, Financial Times, January 27, 2005.)

Friday Cat Misappropriation

2005-05-13T17:07:00.000-05:00

Damn! It's already another Friday. Time is just going by too damn fast this ~~month~~ ~~quarter~~ year. But this means that it's time that I misappropriate another cat.

Meet Crane. Crane is only my cat in passing.

This is a picture of Crane taken outside of my bedroom window. For those keeping score, I live on the 25th floor of an apartment building in the city. I've named Crane Crane becuase I think he needs a crane to get up into the tree. He's only my cat in passing, because he's not mine; every now and then he climbs up the tree and meows at me while I'm working. I meow back. We have a conversation. I have better conversations with him than I have with most humans;¹ and I think he has better conversations with me that he has with most cats. Hence he keeps coming back; and I keep putting away my work and talk with him instead. Sadly, it's too far between my window and the tree (and 300 feet down) for him to come in. Probably better that way. If he were to move in, he'd probably pee on the couch.

Here's to another week; and another cat.

--Gus

(1) Not being bitter here; I said most; which, of a world with 6 billion people or so, admits of some 2-3 billion with whom I might have good conversations.

[Disclaimer: As always, this is not my cat; this is a cat misappropriation. My only association with this poor kitty is from google; and I know neither his name, geneder, or owner. Eh bien. He's nonetheless a better conversationalist than most.]

A Bit of Politics

2005-05-13T17:03:00.000-05:00

Sorry for the ``slightly" political post (and one of a similar persuasion of the other day), but, much as I hate the stuff, I need some more politics in my life; I've been keeping such at bay for these past several months, and starting to feel it.

That said, as linked to by Eschaton today:

--Gus

It's a Good Thing...

2005-05-13T15:49:00.000-05:00

``It's a good thing that I care more about being right than about grades."

That is the summary of the discussion I just had with my most favourite faculty member of all time [sic]. Long story short, I was right, and this was conceded, about many of the things she marked wrong; many of the more substantial such things were met with the response ``That makes sense, but I marked it off on a lot of papers, so I can't go back and change it now." And no, she wasn't blowing smoke just to appease me. To her credit, she was willing to spend a decent amount of time with me, and was receptive when I pointed to why she was wrong.

Of course, there's no real change in the grade, because ``that would be too difficult", and because it's not worth my time. However, this further supports my belief that LR&W should be pass/fail. Treating it otherwise benefits nobody, and harms many.

Now, to finish up the last bit of work I have for this week; and then I can start on my work for next week. Yes, Tinkerbell, this Friday night will see me outlining for CrimLaw.

--Gus

Day 8942

2005-05-12T20:09:00.000-05:00

Yep. I'm about 8942 days old. Go me. So, what happened today?

I spent my second night entirely unable to sleep; I am blaming changes in the barometer.

I was called on in Crim right off the bat. I was looking though my bag when I was called on, so I was completely taken by surprise (``Mr. Hurwitz" was the first thing out of Prof. CrimLaw's mouth today). This, ironically, despite being fairly certain that I would be called on today, having dropped the ball a bit on Monday; and so having been double sure to be on the ball for today, which, having been caught off guard, it took me a few minutes to get my bearings, so I was still off it. Though, compounding irony, a glance at Prof. CrimLaw's list of people to call on (she brings a list to class), revealed that I was probably called on entirely by chance. She uses a computer to randomly generate names; and my name was not at the top of the list (others before me were absent today), indicating that she was likely not seeking vengance.

I was told by Professor Roman Law that I was "smart + wacky at the same time", but that I should spend more time thinking inside the box. And it might also help if the box had sides and was roughly prism shaped.

I paid a lot of money for a plane ticket so that I can go to a friend's wedding in 15 days. I realised that I don't know what hotel to stay at, so I am still without lodging. I didn't have time enough to buy a gift.

I missed a talk that I really have been looking forward to (the Legal History lecture) -- because I had class. I did go to a panel discussion on the Airline Industry and Bankruptcy. It was a very interesting talk; if I remember to get the names of the speakers, I'll post more on it tomorrow. Having just bought one of the more expensive tickets of my life (and not just because I bought it so late), I think I know how the airlines are dealing with bankruptcy.

I noticed that the sound coming from my car has gotten worse and more peculiar. This is particularly frustrating because I no long have the time or facilities to look at it myself. Which means more money spent to take it to a mechanic that I don't particularly trust to have what is probably an easy inspection and joint lube done. It was one of the more depressing events in my recent life when I took my car to the shop the other week to have the oil changed and tyres rotated. I've always rotated my tires myself; paying someone else to do it, I felt a bit of myself dying.

I was subjected to a faculty member -- who I think has no place in academia -- joking about how she would like to get a job offer; this in the context of stories about a number of our top faculty considering offers from Harvard.

And I realised that I will need to hand deliver financial aid paperwork to some random building on campus tomorrow, which means wasting an hour walking around, probably in the rain; an hour that I don't have.

And I realised, just now, that it's 10:00, that I have 4 hours of work to do, am already nearing the point of exhaustion where one starts halucinating, and have an 8:30 class tomorrow; for which I need to get to school at about 7:15 to get parking (the side street where most of us park will be closed), &c, &c. So I'll take my leave now, and declare day 8942 of my life over and done with.

--Gus

Crim Hypo from the Tele

2005-05-12T07:22:00.000-05:00

I watched a new episode of L&O last night. The ex ante expectation bight be that I would have been better served by going to sleep, instead; ex post, however, the episode was uniquely useful as a Crim hypo.

Here's the fact pattern:

Nine years ago, M murdered his sister's boyfriend; M is white, her boyfriend was black, and M murdered him because of his race. M admits to this. M hid the murder weapon on the roof of a building adjacent to his apartment. Last week, an arsonist, A, burned this building, meaning to kill V1, the mother of his daughter. During the fire, the heat caused M's gun to discharge, hitting a firefighter, V2, that was on the roof. The firefighter went over the edge, to his death. It is not clear if he fell, or if he jumped; the fire was bad enough that he might of had no choice but to jump or to be burned to death. No one else died in the fire, and A admits to setting it, meaning to kill V1.

Who can be charged with what?

--Gus

[Sorry for spilling some atrabilious ink last night; what can I say, but that I have some bitterness in me?]

A Grudge and Reminder

2005-05-11T20:38:00.000-05:00

Well, LR&W, a/k/a Bigelow, is done. Good riddance. It's the only class that has made me question my choice to go to law school. And, sadly, it has (to a fleeting, minor extent; sorry, kids, but I ain't going nowhere); I don't want to deal with dilettante generalists who substitute expertise with pedantry, and substance with procedure. And, coming from a procedure-loving pedant like me, that's saying something. I won't say that this is aimed at anyone in specific; but rather at a system that demands substantive issues be explained in procedural terms, so that people who don't understand the substance can make decisions without having to wrestle with the material itself. Perhaps I've just spent too much time reading German authors -- whose procedure/style is inexplicable but as a consequence of the substance. There's a reason I hope to write articles, rather than memoranda.

Fortunately, just in time to pull me out of these bitter doldra, the Senate goes and does something stupid.¹ The Real-ID act is just the thing I needed to remind me that, no matter how uncomfortable I am with lawyering as a profession or how great my disdain for the work that 90% of lawyers do,² there are reasons that I chose this route and that there is good work to be done.

--Gus

(1) Where the stupidity here? Ignoring that the Real-ID Act was tacked onto an important spending bill, the very premise of the Act is another example of a procedural solution that ignores the substance of the problem; and that never asks whether the substance of the problem negates the ~~proffered~~ mandated solution.

(2) And, though the turnout was (unsurprisingly) light at today's Public Interest job talk, I don't mean to impute this disdain to my classmates, who I expect will generally do work in the ``good" 10%.

What Is Wrong With This Man?

2005-05-09T20:00:00.000-05:00

All politics about his current trip to Moscow aside, what is wrong with this man?

As Bush was leaving the performance, he took onlookers by surprise -- including those from his home country -- when he started dancing briefly.

Hands on his hips, he shook side to side for a few seconds, then took a few steps, turned around and did it again.

First lady Laura Bush seemed caught off guard as well, first clapping along then pointing to her husband and gently touching his back.

After waving to the watching crowd, Bush began to step into a car. Only putting his feet in, the president stood on the car's floor, raised his hands above his head and waved them back and forth to the music as he grinned widely.

--Gus

When Nothing Attacks

2005-05-09T13:26:00.000-05:00

It's springtime in Chicago. Trees are starting to flower; and those flowers' petals are starting to be blown about in the wind.

On my way home from school just now, I saw one of the most humorous (if depressing) displays of frailty that I have ever encountered. A group of girls -- about a dozen, probably high-schoolers -- were walking down the street. Along came a gust of wind. This gust was carrying thousands of white petals along with it; if anything, it looked like a light, big-flaked snow. As it hit the girls, they started screaming (loudly enough that I could hear them with my car's windows up); they turned about and ran the other way, except for the one that fell to the ground in the fetal position and pulled her overshirt over her head. Maybe, just maybe, such a reaction would have been reasonable if this had been a sand storm, or a swarm of hornets. But it wasn't. It was a soft, fluffy flower petal storm in a light gust of wind.

And that is my observation for the day.

--Gus

Friday Cat misappropriating Blogging

2005-05-06T18:17:00.000-05:00

So, I was called out today by the inimitable BradRobot for having abandoned my weekly cat misappropriation. I would try to blame it on Dyson for having been hogging the internet connection; but I couldn't blame my faults on a cat. It would also be dishonest. And I would never do anything dishonest. The real reason for my lackadaisy is that most weeks I don't realise that it's Friday until Saturday morning, by which time it's too late for a Friday post. The BradRobot did suggest that I could backdate the post; but that, too, would be dishonest. And I never do dishonest things.

But lackadaisy be damned. Here's my *ahem* weekly *ahem* catblog!

This is a picture of RoboCat. No, RoboCat is not a robot. Were he a robot, his name would be CatBot. What kind of crazy world do you kids live in nowadays, putting your adjectives after the nouns they modify! Sheesh.

I leave you with two things to ponder. First, and that which RoboCat is pondering: why am I crawling around on the floor with a camera? Just look at the angle in the picture. Either I'm nine inches tall, or I'm laying on my belly to take this picture. And, Second: find three ironical elements of this post.

--Gus

[Disclaimer: Alas, no, this is not my cat. I am not graced by feline companionship. Woe is and unto me! (Is that dirty? I can't tell.) This is a blatant cat misappropriation. And, I actually misappropriated the photographer's identity as my own, too. I would never crawl on the ground (it might be dishonest; which thing I am never); nor am I nine inches tall.]

A Comedy of Errors

2005-05-05T22:01:00.001-05:00

An update is in order. That's an ominous start to this rather non-ominous post. I've just not been posting as much lately; expect more of the less over the next several weeks, as I am shifting into exam mode, then into law review write-on mode.

The two quick updates. First, I have a job. A real bona fide research assistantship. Hot diggity-dog. Second, AAAaaaarrrrrrghhhhh! Prof. Roman Law didn't like my last paper too much. That's not too bad, but for that I had thought he would like it based what feedback I'd gotten on previous papers, and that I just turned in another similar paper. Unfortunately, due to some (understandable) personal issues, the previous feedback was incomplete, and had encouraged me to follow a disfavoured approach. The result is that I have now written two papers that, while not bad, were approached from the wrong perspective. Oh well. The next (and last) one is bigger, and I will be able to scratch back some points.

But, for the thing of real interest: I had my practice mock oral argument today. It went well; though it is the inspiration for the title of this post. The judges did not receive copies of our briefs for this argument. Rather, they were given a bench memo that covered the argument that most of us made. I made a very different argument. The result was the my oral argument started with me saying ``I argue xyz" and them saying ``how does that relate to abc" and me responding ``it doesn't", and them ``then what do you argue", and me ``xyz", and them ``but that isn't abc", and me ``I agree, I don't argue xyz", and them ``oh, well we want to know about def", and me ``ok, but that's irrelevant to my argument", and them ``well, will you please just tell us about def", and me ``I suppose".

It might not have gone quite like that, but it's not too far off. There were about 2 minutes at the beginning where what I was saying was so different from what they had been told I would say that I may as well have been speaking Finnish. Quickly enough we got on track; it was just a practice, and they didn't have my brief, so I backed off my argument and -- though I had not prepped notes to present it -- went the route of the ``traditional" argument.

All said, it was a good practice -- and fun, too. My partner, Nancy, did an absolutely incredible job. The other side also did well, especially considering that they were arguing the losing side of the case. Perhaps the most useful part came afterwards, when I was explaining what my actual argument is to a couple of people. I was surprised with how concisely I was able to explain it, which bodes well for the real arguments next week (when the judges will have read my brief!).

Perhaps the most important lesson that I came away with, however, is that I've got to prep both the argument that I want to make and the tradtional argument for next week. And I need to find an elegant way to switch mid-stream from my argument to the traditional one, in case the judges have been brainwashed¹ by the Bigelows to expect a the traditional argument.

--Gus

(1) Not to imply brainwashing for the practice judges; they just hadn't been given a copy of my brief. That's what I get for making a different argument.

Raise a Generation on Mozart

2005-05-03T21:53:00.000-05:00

Raise a generation on Mozart, and you get a generation of people with good taste in music. Raise a generation on Nintendo, and you get... well...

On my way to the bank today I walked under one of the undergrad dorm music practice rooms. Last time I did this and heard someone playing, I heard a surprisingly good rendition of Rachmaninoff's 2nd. But not today. No. Today I heard someone playing Nintendo music. This, I expect, on the heels of The Video Game Pianist.

And now this. I can't explain it beyond to point to it. Just think... in another fifteen years, we'll have professional musicians playing ring tones.

That said, I think it's time I put on some Mozart string quintets. Yummy. G minor, here I come (K.516, though you simply have to listen to K.515 in C first; doing otherwise is a sin).

--Gus

Pasta and Placement

2005-05-03T15:40:00.000-05:00

So, despite having no classes today, I went in to school. I went to hoping to talk to Prof. Academic Jobs Guru, and to stop by the bank. Looking at the weather online, I was told that it was 55 and mostly sunny; excellent walking weather. I also looked outside, and opened a window; it was overcast, windy, and about 45. I looked back at the computer, hit reload, and was assured that it was 55 and sunny. Having been won over by the computer, I decided to walk to school.

The computer was wrong. Fortunately, I grabbed a coat on my way out, just in case. With the coat, the weather was fine for walking. I got to school just in time to find out that there was a mandatory lunchtime meeting for On Campus Interviews next fall. I went to the meeting's room 15 minutes early, got the free lunch, and dropped my stuff off while I tried to find Prof. Academic Job Guru. Success! I found her, and she had time to chat.¹ Seems I am doing a bunch of stuff right, and a couple of things wrong. The wrong things are being corrected, and the right things amplified. I also now have an alternative plan for the summer (alternative to sitting on my butt; though it pays just as well). After a 30 minute talk, I walked back in to the meeting and had my reasons for getting a firm job reinforced.

So far it's been a pretty full hour and a half. I go to the bank, do the bank thing, and go stand at the bus stop. After about two minutes, I realise that the bus is probably on the 45 minute schedule at that hour. So I head out on foot and walk home. Wow! Not only did I walk to school, but I walked back home from school! If I didn't have to carry the damned computer with me when I have class, I could do this every day! More reason to dislike the modern dependancy on computers.

I got home and decided to start working for the evening. Then I stopped. I stopped and decided to make dinner. At 2:30P? Well, by ``make dinner" I mean make the ingredients for dinner. I gave in to a day-old urge to hand make pasta. And now, after an hour of kneading dough, I have two days worth of pasta sitting in airtight containers in the fridge, the gluten doing its thing, waiting to be dunked in boiling water for a few minutes and eaten. Yummy.

But now I must needs get on to work. Contracts awaits.

Incidentally, I upgraded my web browser the other day, and spell check no longer works. I'll get it fixed soon, I promise.

--Gus

[Updated: a few clarifying words added.]

(1) You must understand here that I have been trying to find her for the past week and a half. So this really is a somewhat big event.

Silverware on the Honeymoon

2005-05-02T19:28:00.000-05:00

I've got a wedding to go to later this month; the latest in the string of my undergrad friends pairing off. This should be a big todo -- a big, old fashioned, southern wedding I expect. As usual with these things, gifts registries abound. Which prompts my question: what in the world do newlyweds need so much silverware (and other kitchenware) for? The registries are page after page of kitchen stuff. There will be the occasional ``other"; but they occur with such rarity that they may as well not even be there.

I'm thinking of getting these latest friends-bewed a set of nice heart shaped pewter spoons. Of course, only I would understand the humor. Nonetheless, it might be worth it.

And, given that a formal system of gifts exists (the registries), it is awkward to get people non-registry items. Some people explicitly request that you not deviate from the registry (not because they are grinches, but because they won't have a designated place for them, and worry that they'll get lost in the hustle&bustle of trying to get married). Which means that, unless non-registered gifts are allowed, the assumption needs to be not to deviate.

It's all rather frustrating. I mean, sure, I like a set of Wusthof knives as much as the next chap.¹ But there's just something distastefully impersonal about getting people knives. In fact, that's the type of gift that I would normally send to an enemy. But a spatula -- even one made out of sterling silver -- seems even less personal. Alas. I don't want to rock the boat at my good friends' wedding, however. So I guess I'll be a good little boy and stick to the registry. At least it means that I don't need to be creative in gift selection (ooh! but it would be so easy to get them stuff! quel frustrant!).

--Gus

(1) OK, fine. I'm a Henckels kinda guy. But I'd never refuse to use Wusthof.

Recovery

2005-04-30T21:58:00.000-05:00

So, I spent the day relaxing and getting some of my ducks back in a row. The room, it's been cleaned; clothes sorted and filed into the appropriate drawers (including moving the sweaters into the deeper recesses); a bit of food procured and lunch had; and a needed hyperabundance of sleep taken.

But the day wasn't all fun and play. I read the readings for Judge Easterbrook's talk on Monday. And I spent a few nice hours reading about the evolution of the coroner in English history. Before I knew where the day had gone, it was now (10P). My plans to come up with plans to do something tonight long since forgotten, it's time for dinner and a couple hours of contracts.

Don't you wish that you had my life? I'm spending Saturday night reading contracts because I got too caught up reading archaic English legal history to make plans. At least I've broken my Friday night bluebooking habit.

--Gus

Unsolicited

2005-04-28T21:19:00.000-05:00

I am hereby soliciting unsolicited advice. If you have any for me -- on any subject whatsoever -- pass it along.

--Gus

Ailmentarilly Yours

2005-04-27T21:56:00.000-05:00

Well. It looks like I'm going to pull off getting sick three times in three weeks. Is that a hat trick? Or would that be getting sick three times in a single week? Because I bet that I could do that, too.

But, my Roman Law paper is actually going pretty well. I might even be done with it within the hour, meaning that I can get to sleep by midnight, get a few hours shut-eye, get up at about six and hammer through enough reading to keep me competent tomorrow in class, and &c.

On an unrelated note, I got more conditioner today. I grabbed a new bottle (same brand, less strengthening, more building, new formula, &c, &c). Now my hair smells like peach. Don't know what I think about this. But, I do know that the Romans didn't have conditioner.

--Gus

A Good Ole Country Boy

2005-04-26T23:43:00.000-05:00

WTF? At least Chicago made the list:

>

American Cities That Best Fit You:

55% Austin

55% Miami

50% Denver

45% Chicago

45% Las Vegas

Which American Cities Best Fit You? (HT: JCA)

But really! I'd rather find random body parts in my freezer than live in Texas. Miami and Vegas? I would live in Texas before in Miama or Vegas. Denver's OK. And Chicago? I like it here.

But I guess that, truth be told, I'm not a city boy and I know it. But Austin! I need snow. And I don't mean for skiing. You can live in a non-snow area and get enough skiing in. I mean that I like to be snowed in for days at a time with nothing but a fire place and books to keep me alive. Not even enough food or wood; I want to have to go out in the snow and chop wood and gather the acorns for food; and I want it to be bad enough outside that each time I do this I am legitimately puting my life at risk. ou just don't get snow like that in Austin. I'd like to have a dog, too. And bears. Big, mean, black bears. I want to worry, when I hear things moving around in the night, that a bear has gotten into the house, not a burglar or a vagrant or an ex.

--Gus

The Pain

2005-04-26T23:28:00.000-05:00

Forget the pedophilia. Forget the look. Forget the dangling babies out of windows. Hell, forget even that the bastard stole the rights to The Beatles away from the The Beatles. This man should be tied, by his sensitive parts (no, not his nose), to the back of an airplane and flown around the world. Twice.

``Taking the stand in Jackson's child molestation trial, Cynthia Montgomery also said she advised flight crews handling private jet flights for Jackson to provide him with wine disguised in a soda can, after she was told by a flight attendant that Jackson had made that request."

Wine in a soda can!

I once bought a nice bottle of scotch and a pair of cheap flasks. The lady at the register looked at me and said: ``I hope that those flasks aren't for that scotch." I replied: ``I hope that, if I told you that they were, you would refuse to sell me the scotch." She smiled and gave me a discount.

Wine in a soda can!

--Gus

Vhen Vittgenstein Attacks

2005-04-26T23:24:00.000-05:00

Judge Traynor, channelling Wittingstein: ``The exclusion of testimony that might contradict the linguistic background of the judge reflects a judicial belief in the possibility of perfect verbal expression. [cite omitted.] This belief is a remnant of a primitive faith in the inherent potency and inherent meaning of words."

Not quite sure I get your meaning, your Honor.

--Gus

Bitter Irony

2005-04-26T19:00:00.000-05:00

I watched a pair of episodes of L&O today. The first was Jerry Orbach's first -- where he comes in as a defense attorney. I'd not seen it before.

The second ended with McCoy saying: ``She'll be in jail until 2003. I think the 60s will be over by then." He had just accepted a plea from a woman who had conspired and accompliced to kill a police officer in conjunction with her anti-Vietnam protesting. You would have thought, back in 1995 when the episode aired, that the 60s would be over by 2003. But this fictional woman would have been released just months after Iraqnam started.¹

--Gus

(1) Not to compare the wars, but yes to compare the politics.

My Evening As A Citation

2005-04-25T19:49:00.000-05:00

A friend just asked (via IM) what I am doing tonight. My response was to write myself as a rule, complete with citation:

``I'm either a) sleeping, or b) reading some of either i) Maitland, ii) Holmes, or iii) Britton. (Gus's Plans for the Evening at 1-4 (Tentative Draft April 25, 2005).)"

Look ma! I'm bluebooked.

In the spiritm but actually somewhat funny: Song lyrics in list format (HT: a friend at UMich sans blog). A sample, The Ghostbusters theme:

Things I ain't afraid of:
- no ghost
Strange things in the neighbourhood (partial list):
- seeing things running through head
- invisible man sleeping in bed
Things that make me feel good:
- bustin'
Who you gonna call:
- Ghostbusters
- I can't hear you
- Louder

--Gus

On Fast Mail and Stochastic Dating1

2005-04-25T18:31:00.000-05:00

So, the brief is done and turned in. I'm a bit miffed, of course; but this time for entirely different reasons. My head wasn't working on Saturday, so I ended up working all night on Sunday, cutting large chuncks of argument and altogether producing a mediocre result; my miffery comes because I really liked the argument that I was making; had I had another day, I tihnk that my brief could have been kick-ass calibre. Anyhow, I've basically been awake for 36 hours at this point; I was semi-delusional in class today -- meaning that I was halucinating at one point, and couldn't get out a two phrase thought without forgetting the second phrase before I was done with the first. Ironically, we were talking about diminished capacity in Crim today. And I will be kicking myself for the next 53 hours for not having stepped up to the plate in a post-class conversation with Prof. Contracts; I was asking about Easterbrook's ProCD opinion's failure to mitigate the concerns about arbitrage that undergirt the opinion, and Prof. Contracts indirectly referenced a passage from Bracton; I let the reference go by with no more than a nod, where I could have said simply, eg, ``as Bracton tells us", and thereby earned some mega-kudos. Oh well. As hard as it will be for people who know me to believe, I really am quite reticent when it comes to sharing esoteric references and facts. As a result, the people who don't care that I know them know that I know them, while those that would care to know not just that I know them but the extent to which I know them only know that I know of them but not the extent to which I know them.

I apologise for that last sentance. No, my brief does not read like that.

So, I went to a talk about getting a job in legal academia today during lunch. It was reassuring and refreshing; even given my lackluster marks on exams, it sounds like I have a very real chance of pulling this off; and that without having to waste any time at a firm (the advice is actually to avoid firm work if you want to get into the academy).

But, on to the title of this post. Living in Chicago is great for mail.I order stuff from Amazon, to be delivered "3-5 day" USPS (the standard), and I can count on it getting to me in two days. I once even had a package get to me next day. The upshot of this is that I ordered some books on Friday -- including a copy of The Common Law (I didn't have an actual printed copy... I know!) -- and they arrived today. Mind you, I am bloody exhausted right now. I should be asleep. I also should eat something. At this rate, I will be dead by week's end. But did I do any of this stuff? Hell no! I sat around on my bum and read Holmes. It is legitimate to worry that I will read myself to death; ironically, it would be by reading things by dead men about dead law.

Though, were I to be dead by week's end, I'd not need worry about the next titular reference. Prom is coming up. Yes, we, at law school, have a prom; and now that the brief is done, I can turn my thoughts to it. How cool is that? It's very cool; I much dig the idea and aspect. It's always nice to break out the tux, perhaps pick up some new accessories for it, and remind my fingers how to tie the bowtie.² But the social norm suggests that one ought to attend encourtant a date. Which means that I'm supposed to enter a half-blind auction with open bidding, threshhold prices, exploding and rivalrous offers, while having asymmetric and incomplete information; a system ill suited to parity or effeciency. Such really poses an interesting market problem, and conflicts with natural law expectations; though I wonder if it is possible to find an efficient solution in a market that requires any efficient solution to achieve parity -- the problem smacks of NP-completeness, but a necessary requesite is that it be solved in O(P) time analogue alternando, by the way). I expect it could be solved in a closed single-round double-blind auction. But such a solution is only ex post blind, and therefore cannot be considered as an efficient market solution.

And now I'm rambling, and have probably lost you. But, if I haven't, you just might have the endurance and patience to survive going to prom with me. Long story short, I need a date, insofar as social norms define need, and insofar as I am willing to comport myself to social norms for the event.

Understanding the norm as I do, I realise that I cannot use the meme of ``accepting applications", my role being that of datee, not the dator. However, I do not think this bars me from putting out a Call for Proposals (CFP). So: anyone who has read this far, and will be going to prom, and is willing to consider applications humbly submitted, should feel free to answer this CFP, indicating where and to whom applications should be submitted, along with requirements for said application.

And, when it doubt (or when no one responds to this CFP) I'll either go alone or as a mercenary. I mean, really, who needs the stress of such concerns (beyond their inherent interest as difficult market models).

--Gus

(1) This post guaranteed spellcheck free.

(2) Oooh! Wouldn't y'all just love it if I wore bowties to class!

T-Minus

2005-04-24T14:47:00.000-05:00

Nearing completion of this brief. I only have two comments to make right now. First, the legal writing and research class really should be pass-fail. Second, the client that I'm representing had better be paying well; by which I mean in ways that could get a real lawyer disbarred.¹

Oh well. At least it looks like I'll be able to get to other assignments tonight.

--Gus

(1) And, were I a real lawyer, I of course would never say, think, or partake in such.

Presumption of Innocence as a Default Rule?

2005-04-22T23:37:00.000-05:00

Blondie has an nice post up about the frustration of clients who refuse to take a good plea bargain because they want to go to trial -- to ``make them prove it" -- even when facing insurmountable evidence. To quote:

I try to analogize my position to that of a doctor - you don't like the advice that I'm giving, but it's my advice of what is going to be best for you. But, the truth is, the doctor has the advantage of science and things that are a lot more predictable than D.A.'s offers and jury verdicts and sentencing decisions. A doctor can say "I know you don't want to get this surgery, but if you don't there's a 60 (or 70, or 80) percent chance that you'll die." The best I can say is "If you don't take this plea, the D.A. probably will never offer anything better, and the case most likely won't get dismissed on speedy trial grounds or after hearings, and you'll almost definitely lose after trial, and then the judge could give you 2-4 years in prison." It's easy to see why, with all of these words that sound so indefinite, a client might say "Let's go for it."

Being the Chicago boy that I am, I think in terms of rules and incentives and the like. I would, therefore, say that the doctor's advantage is that he can explain the default rule better: ``if you don't do anything, you will die." Even if he only says ``you have a 70% chance of dying," this is heard as ``you will die." The presumption, that is, is of death. I expect that, if the risks are relatively low, perhaps below 30%,¹ doctors see disproportionate risk taking (along the same lines as Blondie sees in clients).

But if you can't tell a client that he has a 60% chance of going to jail, needing to use discriptive analyses like ``good chance" or ``probably," he will more likely fall into a ``it couldn't be me" mentality. This, however, seems likely to be significantly exacerbated by the ``presumption of innocence." Of course, you, dear reader, being wary of the ways of the law, know that the presumption of innocence does nothing to shift the burden of proof or the liklihood that your client is going to jail. To the client, however, he's going through this legal process, he's been arrested, he going to court and sitting through a trial; to the client, he's already in hot water, but he's still innocent. He's already been suspected, and arrested, and probably thrown in jail for a few days; and he's still free. His mindset is that the default rule is innocence; if he does nothing, ho goes free.

Now, obviously, a presumption of innocence is a good thing. But it's a dangerous mindset; it's the wrong mindset. The default rule is not innocence! It might be technically true that freedom is his to lose. But if he does not actively and competently defend it, there is no question that he will lose it.

I guess the question is, as always, how do you get a client to appreciate his situation, and to understand it as a lawyer does. Perhaps, at least, thinking in terms of changing the default rule might be a different perspective. I wonder, for instance, whether there is a difference in willingness to take a plea between those who do and do not make bail?

--Gus

(1) I expect that it's not at 50% based upon a psychological hunch. I expect that risk aversion puts the normalised 50% at somewhere between 20-40%. If I had a few more minutes, I'd reframe this discussion in terms of bounded rationality, complete with considerations of anchoring and availability heuristics. Basically, while people tend to have a ``it won't be me" mentality for low-risk high-probability statistics, they adopt a ``not at any cost" mentality for high-risk high/low-probability statistics; but as the probability goes down, so does the risk, so at some point high-risk low-probability becomes low-risk low-probabilitiy. At least, in the first approximation.

Incidentally

2005-04-22T19:21:00.000-05:00

The forecast: Rain turining into a wintry mix tonight, with rain and snow showers tomorrow.

Yeah, I know I'm not going to get the two feet that I really have been hoping for. But at least I'm getting something.

--Gus

Dude! Where's My Laptop?

2005-04-22T15:34:00.000-05:00

A funny post at SoCal Law Blog (HT: Ken, again) about a professor whose laptop was stolen by a student looking for the exam. The professor makes all sorts of crazy threats. Odds are that he's bluffing (though some of the claims are at least possible; and if they aren't, they're the type of thing that he might believe are possible). But, if he isn't -- or if he did, in fact, have all the data that he claims to have had on that laptop, one must wonder what type of trouble he is in. He could well be in trouble with the NIH and the two companies for whom he was a consultant. The trade secrets are probably insignificant from the FTC's perspecitve; but the NIH data in particular, and pre-IPO data too, could have requirements for storage. If any of the data was classified, for instance, he could be facing jail time just for having had it on a non-secured computer; or, if it is health related data, there could be HIPPA, or similar concerns.

Whatever the case, it sounds like the student who stole this professor's laptop also stole the professor's career as a consultant; but that's the professor's own damn fault. You don't mix proprietary and non-proprietary use data. And you NEVER mix proprietary and non-proprietary use computers. Anyone who does, shouldn't be trusted with either.

--Gus

CSI Effect

2005-04-22T15:17:00.000-05:00

An interesting post over at Indiana PD (HT: Ken) about the ``CSI Effect" as a pro-defense phenomenon. As I indicate in comments to his post, I've heard of the ``CSI Effect" in the opposite, pro-prosecution, light. The basic gist of the effect is that jurors have come to expect the state to have CSI-like crime labs at its disposal. On the pro-defense side, it is feared that they expect the prosecution to present ``slam-dunk" forensic evidence, and if such isn't presented, they will acquit. On the pro-prosecution side, it is feared that jurors expect that ``slam-dunk" forensic evidence was used to find the defendant, but that it has been excluded on some ``technicality"¹: the defendant must be guilty, or the proecution wouldn't have him on trial.

It would be intersting to see some quantification of this effect; I don't know that any analysis more rigorous than US News quality reporting has looked at it. Also interesting would be to see how criminal attorneys are adapting to changing juror expectations.

Update: Should have taken a look at the Conspiracy before posting. Orin has a link to a related post over at PrawfsBlawg.

--Gus

(1) ``Technicality" is the layman's way of saying ``Bill of Rights" or ``Constitution" based reason.

When Chalk Attacks

2005-04-21T21:52:00.000-05:00

I had a piece of chalk thrown at me today. By a professor. Professor Roman Law, no less. It's been since my junior year in high school since I had a teacher throw chalk at me. But, as in high school, this was, perhaps, "chalk of laudatory disbelief." He mentioned Chudleigh's Case in passing, and asked if any of us had heard of it; as he moved on, on the automatic assumption that none of us had, he saw that my hand was raised. His response: ``No way! You've heard of it?!?" said while the chalk was flying through the air. (I nearly caught it, too, after overcoming my duck-and-cover instinct.)

Of course I've heard of Chudleigh's Case! It was a 1595 case, argued by Bacon himself, which is known as the Case of Perpetuities. It's of particular interest to discussions of numerus clausus and perpetuities (both generally and with respect to the RAP). And, it is particularly interesting to note how Bacon argued his point: he argued for alienability (contra ``perpetiuties" as created by, eg, unbarrable entails) by appealing to the crown's desire for increased tax revenue.

Though, as I look around on the net, to see if I can find a link to the case itself, I discover that the only substantial references to it of any sort (which are very insubstantial, I guarantee) are links to my own outline from Property. Huh. I'll try to dig up a copy of the case, and perhaps some commentary, and put it up here.

--Gus

Happy Birthday

2005-04-21T21:51:00.000-05:00

Happy Birthday to the Queen.

Incidentally, is it wrong that I hope to live until 2066, just so that I might be around for the millenium anniversary of Hastings?

--Gus

Virtual Property

2005-04-20T12:39:00.000-05:00

So, Sony has announced that it will facilitate the real-world sale or virtual-world property in games like Everquest. I've not done any research here, but I would be interested to know what type of property issues this might create. That is, for a blunt and immediate example, if I buy an island in Everquest (I assume that you can buy land), is that considered real or personal property? Probably not worth much consideration; but it could be worth some.

--Gus

Go Get 'Em, W, You Tiger!

2005-04-19T23:12:00.000-05:00

``Deputies suspended their session for an hour in protest at the incident involving Fatah al-Sheikh, a partisan of radical Shiite cleric Moqtada Sadr and member of the dominant United Iraqi Alliance (UIA) bloc. ...

``They should be put on notice and given two months -- no more -- to leave the Green Zone," he said before walking out.

``Another unidentified [Iraqi] MP shouted: `Yes, the end of occupation begins here. The Green Zone must be liberated from occupation!'"

Holden's got more here.

--Gus

Dateline Tuesday

2005-04-19T22:27:00.000-05:00

Another day is nearing completion. It sees me nearing completion of half of my brief; and tomorrow should see a first draft done. Of course, I'm on track to be about 1500 words too long. But hey, I'll have the weekend to reconcile verbosity with parsimony. It saw me decide to walk to school -- it was a beautiful day and the bit of exercise felt good. It saw me with a pleasantly sore back; I've started sitting on a ball again because I've been slouching too much and losing back muscles as a result, and I'm already feeling those muscles spring back to life. It saw me do a bit of Tango; including a pair of wonderful dances, and discovering a beginner who's going to be great. And, it saw me learn that there's no better way to ruin a perfectly good dinner than to inhale ground beef through the wrong end of the nose.

Ignoring that last part, I decided on a whim, while dancing, to share a story from my dancing past. Oooh, I have so many of those; maybe I'll make it a regular feature.

But to start, a simple one with relevance to today. The University's nascent Tango club has started regular classes; since we have a lot of beginners, we've been doing beginner-level classes.¹ But beginner level classes is a misnomer. To wit, today we worked on walking. Where comes my story. No one walks right when dancing. We all change something to make how we move non-natural. One of the ways that you know that you're getting better is that a (good) instructor will stop you at some point and spend a while teaching you to walk better. If you tell this instructor that you've already learned how to walk, he'll respond, in all sincerity: ``so you have, and you've so learned well that now I can teach you how you're really supposed to walk."

Anyhow, last summer I spent about three weeks working on how to walk. My instructor, a crazy short guy -- who looked like an angry pirate and who had been a professional hip-hop dancer for a decade before turning to tango --, was trying to fix some subtle thing that made my walk a bit funny. One day, after class, I put on my hiking boots, which I had been wearing earlier in the day, and started walking out of the studio. David (my instructor) yelled for my to stop. I was walking perfectly. For the next month, I was only allowed to wear those hiking boots while dancing. Imagine, those of you who have ever had your feet stomped on by a partner, someone dancing with cement blocks on his feet. Not only did I learn near-perfect foot placement (I only really clobbered one person's foot (sorry Carmela!)); but once I started wearing normal shoes again, I was walking like a champ.

And that's my story for the night. (Don't worry, I promise that others will be more interesting. Like the time a ``friend" of mine tried to sell drugs to Chelsea Clinton, or that my coach's tooth fell out during a warm up at a competition and we were all on our hands and knees, on the ice, looking for it. Ahh memories.)

--Gus

(1) Despite there being a few higher level dancers that come. This is one of the nice things about the tango community (see my previous post about the social protocols of tango): we all know that a) beginners will only get to be non-beginners by having the opportunity to dance with non-beginners, and b) if beginners stop becomming non-beginners, the non-beginners will soon not have anyone to dance with.

OK. I Give Up.

2005-04-19T14:14:00.000-05:00

Sorry for the light posting, people. I'm actually staying on top of this brief that's due next week. Which means that I have no time for things like blogging. Or friends. Or bathing. Or eating. Well, fine; that's hyperbole. I'm just multitasking. That is, I'm eating while bathing with my friends. The computer doesn't work in the tub, however, so not much blogging.

But I have to ask: What's so fascinating in my archives? Nearly half of the hits that this blog has been getting this past week or so have been to my archives. Mostly to month-by-month archives (specifically to last month); many yet to individual posts. I don't get it.

Now, back to the writer's cramp.

--Gus

Take that, Grades!

2005-04-16T15:31:00.000-05:00

I am worth nearly $2,500,000.00 on HumanForSale.com

Not quite as good as Blondie, but better than Ken. Good to know that I can be so easily quantified by a computer. But whatever happened to the standard value of $8,000,000 we use to value a human life in CrimLaw? Seems that HumanForSale is shortchanging us by quite a bit.

I guess the real question is, if two people into a bilateral contract for reciprocal sale, does the one with less value owe the other the difference of their values?

--Gus

Getting the Finger

2005-04-16T14:06:00.000-05:00

David Bernstein has a post up at the VC about the lady who claimed to find a finger in her chili at Wendy's. Not much meat to the post, other than the one-liner it's meant to draw attention to.

But it raises a question for me. Prof. Bernstein points out that most of this type of claim are false. So, where do people keep finding human fingers to put in their restaurant foodstuffs? Not that I'm in the market. It just strikes me that, if there are enough cases to make a normative statement about the statistical validity of these cases, there must be a market in fingers to fill the demand of the people wanting to make such claims.

Oh well. Some thing we might just not be meant to know.

--Gus

A Post

2005-04-15T18:30:00.000-05:00

It's been a couple of days since my last post; but I'm too tired now really to do anything but sleep for a while. So here's a quick one to tide you and your blog addiction over for a couple of minutes.

I went to Rajun Cajun today for lunch; it's an odd little Indian/Cajun/Soul-food hybrid. They were playing a techno-remix of a Kylie Minogue song when I walked in (I wish I hadn't been able to know that). It was the first time I'd actually gone there to eat (they cater for a number of the University food places). I got lost on my way. More accurately, I thought it was on 55th; it's on 53rd. I almost gave up and went to the Snail (Thai) instead; but I go there too often, and really wanted some quasi-Indian food. I ultimately found it; and I got a free mile or so of brisk walking in for free (oooh! exercise! I should start doing more of that, before my muscles turn into goo.). I over-tipped the guy who gave me my food; but it's OK, because they took credit/debit cards. Plasic money, even of the debit card sort, isn't realy money anyhow. Much better than paying with the quarters I still had in my pocket from doing laundry.

But my point here is being missed. While I was sitting there eating (I spend about an hour and a half there, reading for the brief I need to write), a mean looking ald lady came in and asked for tandoori rice. She meant basmati rice. The guy behind the counter asked if she meant basmati rice. Her reply, in a bitter tone: ``tandoori, basmati, whatever it is. I don't understand why you people expect us to learn another language just to order food."

The guy should have made her a special order of tandoori rice. Yummy. Rice, baked at 250 degC for about 10 minutes. That'd taste great; and maybe it would knock some class/sense/decency into her. Oh well.

I'd had something else to say, but I used too much time to write the above: my hot chocolate is getting cold, and I'm starting to wake up. I'm too tired to wake up now. So I'm going to go drink my hot chocolate, lay down on a couch in the last of the afternoon sun, and drift off to sleep for a few hours.

--Gus

In Which Our Brave Hero...

2005-04-13T22:10:00.000-05:00

In which our brave hero ignores both of the papers that he should be writing and goes dancing instead.

My second Roman Law response paper is due tomorrow; I also need to get cracking en force for my brief; and I feel a ailment-induced sore throat coming on. But no work from 7-10 for me. Rather, dance (whence I'm just re-arrived), despite now having to stay up until the wee hours of the morn to write a paper, such that I invariably will get sick and waste this weekend resting instead of writing my brief.

But is was for good reason; and with good results. Susana Miller, one of the greatest instructors in the world, is in from Buenos Aires this week teaching workshops; she taught one this evening on campus. I had to go, despite its being a low-level workshop. And there were beginners there; but, recalling my previous post, there were also several very good dancers -- the best take beginners' classes all their lives. And that for good reason; because she oozes insight and perspective.

But I mean not to bore with another dancing-heavy post. Rather, some ancillary observations.

First, there was a Scalia-lookalike there. Only he was dressed in the most horendous way possible. A neon pink shirt, with purple/brownish pants, and a dark brown belt. Now, I don't know how Scalia usually dresses; but I'm certain it that it's better that this guy.

And second,¹ I'm hideous. I forgot to shave, and my hair was mussed up. So I was looking a bit scraggly. Compound this with my general appearance -- which many people detest -- and I know that I was not one of the prettier things to look at tonight. In specific, there was one chica (as Susana calls the girls; she teaches in as much english as she knows, and the rest is spanish) who looked like she wanted to jump out of the nearest window when she saw me. Tant pis, ma soeur. Because, as with most all workshops/classes, we rotate partners.

Now, I admit that it's sadistic and cruel and just not nice that I would enjoy having someone dance with someone who they would rather lock in a closet and forget about. But we rotate partners for a number of other very good reasons. So let me live with my sadistic pleasure. Moving along -- my point here really isn't just that I'm hideous bastard -- when we first danced, her dancing was reticent. Even before we danced, her expression and posture both said ``do I have to?"; and this carried over into a rigid dance. But after the first dance (tango is danced in tandas of 3 or 4 songs each) her expression had softened, and she let herself actually follow during the next dance. And the last two dances, she was actually smiling. So, there you have it, James, empirical proof of the Mcdonnell hypothesis.

Now, I'm off to ponder the ownership of sand deposited on the banks of a river.

--Gus

(1) I'd had a few more; but I really do need to get to work.

A Couple of Quick Posts

2005-04-13T22:09:00.000-05:00

Dinner's a-cookin', and then I'm a-eatin'; so I have a few minutes to make a quick post or two.

First up, an observation and a rant.

The observation: I teaspoon of pure mint extract put straight in the mouth, I expect, would make a human being's eyes pop right out of their sockets. I'm surprised that drinking a bottle of mint extract isn't one of those stupid dares that niave younguns makes each other.

The rant: Learn how to park. All of you. This morning someone, trying to park in a small space, hit the car behind them (marking up both cars' bumpers), and the car in front of it (which was pushed into the car in front of it, leaving a small indentation in its bumper). Later, after the above, the frontmost of the cars left, and someone else parked in its spot, leaving about 8 inches between it and the car to its rear, and 5 feet between it and the car to its front. This left the car to its rear (the one that had been pushed into another car already) with about 1.5 feet total maneuvering space.

Seriously, I think people should need to got to a special class to learn how to park on the street. Or, I suppose we could be like the Europeans, who understand that bumpers are for bumping; in which case all of the above rant is misplaced. But we're not European. So obey social norms, and stop bumping into my car.

--Gus

Things Not To Ask A Justice of The Supreme Court

2005-04-13T14:12:00.000-05:00

Oh. My. God.

I hate to use the One. Word. Sentace. motif two posts in a row, but the most horrific thing ever has happened. Needless to say, I don't think AS will be returning to NYU for a while.

--Gus

When Defenseless, Just Make Sh*t Up

2005-04-12T18:49:00.000-05:00

Best. Defense. Ever.: ``Someone we do not know was shot at a place where we were not at. Meaning, at the other party!"

--Gus

What About

2005-04-12T16:41:00.000-05:00

But James, what about poor, ugly, people who can't dance well? Basic economics seem to tell us that it sucks to be them.

And, on another note, if you ever find a carton in your fridge that has the following written on it: ``ultra-homogenized" (or just ``homogenized") and ``cream"; throw it away! Cream is not meant to be homogenized. Milk isn't meant to be, either; but for practical reasons, it is acceptible if it is. But homogenisation destroys the texture of cream, making it unsuitable for any use other than coffee (which is, of course, meant to be taken black; so why are you putting cream in it?).

That is all for now.

--Gus

Lessons Learned

2005-04-12T15:29:00.000-05:00

When taking bain-marie out of the oven, make sure not to spill several cups of near-boiling water on your (bare) feet. Methods of doing this include:

putting less water in the pan
taking ramekins out individually (replace immediately in a seperate bath of near-boiling water if they need be cooled!)
wearing shoes (preferable waterproof)
being careful not to tip the pan such that the near-boiling water spills out!

Oh well. I needed to mop anyhow; and the food wasn't hurt.

--Gus

Killing a Few

2005-04-12T14:10:00.000-05:00

I've a few minutes to kill while my custards set (I am making some creme brulee, entirely on a whim), so I thought I'd jot down a couple of notes.

First off, via the Conspiracy, go read this article from Sunday's SF Chronicle. A good read. My favourite part (not surprising given how much I romantacise the good ole days before computers and cars and, well, civilisation): (which incidentally is quoted just as Prof. Volokh quotes it)

Habitual excuse notes were starting to bug me until I realized that blogs perform much the same functions that personal letters used to, back in the days when the U.S. mail was associated with the agile pony rather than the pokey snail. After all, 98.7 percent of all personal letters ever written begin with the same apology. "I'm sorry it's taken me so long to write, but ... " ...

The worst letters were exactly like the most useless blogs, filled with daily trivia and accounts of hobbies or personal comings and goings that only a mother could struggle through.

---

Next up, tango. The University has a fledgling tango club. This is, of course, a ``very good thing." But it isn't my subject here. Not at all. My subject is, to summarise in a single (heavily hyphenated) word, prima-donna-people-who-claim-to-want-to-learn-to-dance-but-prefer-to-think-they-know-how-to-dance-so-they-don't-respond-well-at-all-to-constructive-criticism. I went to a practica last week and encountered such a beast. She was an advanced-beginner or beginning-intermediate level dancer; this is a dangerous level. At this point, you know the basics well enough that you can start to fumble through advanced steps; it becomes easy, since you are doing the advanced steps, to think of yourself as an advanced dancer. In reality, you are a beginning level dancer who should be working on mastering the basics, rather than learning bad habits by dancing above your level. An non-dance analogue: were she a pianist, she would have been at the level where she could pluck out the right hand of Rachmaninoff's 2nd such that her mother would say she could recognise it; but were she to play it in a public venue everyone would suddenly remember that they had rental videos that urgently had to be returned.

So we were dancing; I asked if she wanted any criticisms. This is a perfectly appropriate question -- we were dancing at a practica (a dance meant for practicing and learning, not for dancing). Some dancers will say yes, some will say no; either is fine. She said yes. So I told her to relax her right shoulder and put more pressure in her right arm (politely, mind you; explaining what the problem was and why it was a problem, along with the mechanics of how it affects the lead-follow connection; I've been teaching dance for a half dozen years, after all). It's a common problem that most people have in their frame; the correct dance frame, especially for tango, is not natural.¹ So all was good.

But then it happened. The thing that broke my heart. She ``returned the favour" of the criticism by ``correcting" my frame: raise my left arm, lower my right hand and give her more pressure on her back. No, no, and no! Nonono! All three are things done by leads to compensate for follows' poor frames. And here she was explaining to me they were ``correct". I could write a book on how and why this all happens; but the single sentance explanation is: Tango's lead-follow connection is one of compression (the partners push towards one another), not tension (the partners pull away from one another); when a follow doesn't give forward pressure, the lead needs to compensate by pulling her toward him, which both changes the lead technique from leading movements to leading steps and rotates the follow to open her frame relative to the lead.

The tragedy here isn't that she was correcting me (heaven knows I'm about as poor a dancer now as I have been in four or five years). It was that she had been dancing above her level for so long that she had not only learned bad habits, but had crystalised those bad habits into an understanding of what is ``correct".

---

And, last on the slate, e-mail salutations. Just a small note, I promise. I used to painstakingly fuss over how I started and ended every e-mail. The salutation had to be just right; I had to motivate the e-mail, justifying why I was writing it, just right; and I had to use the correct final salutation. Often I would spend more time on these than the actual content of the mail. Of late it seems that I've abandoned this obsession; for better or worse, I don't know. I've taken to writing the formalities last; but when I get to that point, I only give myself about 30 seconds. Whatever I've thrown onto the mail just gets sent. I don't know what I think about this; but I certainly get to send more mails this way.

Is an example in order? Sure, why not.

Old mail style:

Dear Mr. President,

When we last spoke, you requested that I put together a proposal for destroying the world's economy and environment. As per this discussion, I have put together such a proposal. The limitations to my research are: 1) ...; 2) ...; and 3) .... I commend the work that you have already done to this end; the groundwork you have so far laid out will make much of my plans superfluous.

The plans are attached to this mail.

Please do not hesitate to contact me with any questions.

Yours, and with my hopes that no more incriminating evidence about your presidency comes out,
xx

And the new mail style:

The plans we discussed when we last spoke are attached.

xx

Or even:

The plans are attached. &c.

xx

Sometimes, when I'm in a real hurry (or if it just doesn't flow with the rest of the mail), I'll even omit the ``xx" (which is really my signature). And I do love to abuse ``&c".

In one sense, from a liability perspective, the new style is better: I say less, so I'm accountable for less. Of course, it is bad form not to give some description. But alas. Description is so 21st century. One problem that I have noticed is that occasionally I will take this to even further extremes. Sometimes I'll even omit the ``The plans .. are attached" part; and sometimes I forego the attaching part, too.

Oh well. My custard is set. Now I need to go dry some brown sugar.

With my apologies to those who don't think poking fun at W is funny.
--Gus

(1) Actually, it's very natural. But most people do not stand with good -- or natural -- posture. It would probably be easier to teach a caveman proper dance frame than a typical American.

Oddly Funny

2005-04-12T12:18:00.000-05:00

Don't know how long it will last, but: these birds are hipper than you.

``Coldplay is the kind of music computers will make when they get smart enough to start making fun of humans."

--Gus

Cleaned Your Keyboard Lately?

2005-04-11T15:03:00.000-05:00

Keyboards are apparently a perfect breeding ground for antibiotic-resistant superbugs. Whodathunkit.

Quoting: ```The difficulty with keyboards is you can't pour bleach on them,' Dr. Allison McGeer, an infection control specialist from Toronto's Mount Sinai Hospital, tells The Canadian Press. `They don't work so well when you do that.'"

Not sure what to make of my initial reaction to the headline, however: Keyboards harbour superbugs, I took as an expression of the formal representation of an effecient cause. Of course keyboards are the effectient cause of superbugs! thought I they're what we programmers use to type our code, and bugs are just code. It took me the first paragraph of the article to realise that the headline wasn't an abstract expression of Aristotle cutely worked into everyday life. Silly me.

Anyhow. I'm off to shampoo my computer now.

--Gus

When The Past Rears its Head

2005-04-09T14:35:00.000-05:00

So, as reported previously, my 1st grade girlfriend googled and e-mailed me not to long ago.

Now I find out that Chicago has admitted two people I went to high school with into the class of 2008. At least one is definitely coming; the other is likely.

Quelle bizarrerie.

--Gus

Patience, My Friend, Is the Key

2005-04-09T14:34:00.000-05:00

At least when it comes to destroying the world.

--Gus

Best Post Ever?

2005-04-09T14:31:00.000-05:00

Not to speak in the superlative, but this post might just be the best post ever made. Anywhere. By Anyone. Of course, I just say that because Evan's advice is to go read Aristotle. And, for those who do not yet know, Aristotle is the way to my heart.

--Gus

Torpor

2005-04-06T20:54:00.000-05:00

In a bout of torpid confusion, I just now ordered (yet another) pizza for dinner. I went to the grocers the other day -- the day I made pollo frito (which turned out wonderfully, thank you for asking) -- and got lots of foodstuffs. But an hour ago, I went into the kitchen to make dinner and couldn't find any of it. So I begrudginly ordered a pepperoni pizza pie.

The pizza just arrived; as the delivery guy was on his way to my apartment (he get's called in to me by the front desk), I went into the kitchen to get something to drink. I wanted water -- cold water. So I took a glass, filled it up, and threw it in the freezer. Alas! Food! I, thinking clearly at the grocers on Monday, had indeed procured lots of food -- food that could be kept in the freezer (but not of the microwavable sort!). Genius! thought I at the time: ``This way you won't have to throw all of your shiny new food away before you have a chance to eat it." Little did I realise that confusion would conspire (with whom?) to starve me yet.

So, here I sit with my pizza, and a freezer full of perfectly good real food.

--Gus

I Prefer

2005-04-06T17:50:00.000-05:00

[I prefer that this post be at the top of this page.]

Incidentally, for any Hyde Parkers so inclined, the University has a new Tango Club, which is putting on weekly lessons. It looks like they'll have good teachers, and a good sized group of beginner-intermediate level dancers.

If you're interested, let me know and I'll hook you up with relevant information.

--Gus

Law School, Meet Life

2005-04-06T16:24:00.000-05:00

A post written while I let my hair dry, before I start writing my first response paper of my law school career. Ah the troubles that face me day to day! Which undershadows by far the meat of this post.

But first, for those interested in such things, curricular notes. Huzzah! Roman Law is great. I found myself in the library today translating passages from Justinian. The translation that we are using, while seemingly good meaning-wise, leaves something to be desired in terms of preserving the grammatical structure. All said, my bout with the lexicon was fruitful; and damn! it feels good to spend time agonising over the meaning of every word on a page. It's been since my sophomore year undergrad since I've used some of those neurons. And, I'm finding random facts about ancient Greek law popping into my mind -- things which I'd long since thought forgotten.

Unfortunately, reality is butting in, and I expect that I will abaondon my aspirations of auditing copyright. During a normal weeks, the workload is fine; but I expect that I will have at least three weeks of heightened workload this quarter, so aspirations be damned. Alas.

But now on to real life; one of those rare times when I'll step out of my shell and show the world that, underneath my beast-like academic pretenses, I am a soft-bellied turtle like everyone else.

I don't talk with my family much; not intentionally, but because I'm always too busy. I expect that y'all generally understand the feeling. And when I do talk with either of my parents, I too often forget that the activity is talking with them, as opposed to communicating material facts; so I get frustrated when they ask me parent-like questions, like how is school going or if I need any warm clothes (school is going just as it was when we last spoke, and I've been buying clothes for myself for nearing a decade). Now, I'm not terrible; I used to be -- only speaking to them once or twice a year --; but now I try to speak to them once a month. That despite their weekly calls.

The best part of the softball trip this past weekend was getting together with my brother. He's a Ph.D student in UVa's math department. We chatted for a while; he met a bunch of my law school friends -- we completely destroyed his concept of law school -- and I got to see his apartment (rather nice; it's a different world, having a school pay your tuition plus paying you to teach); and we talked about our parents. Mind you, he talks to both of our parents more often than I do. And the things I learned.

Apparently, our mum is considering getting remarried. This isn't too surprising, since she's been seeing the guy for the past several years, other than that she has previously been dead-set against getting remarried. I'm not sure what that's all about; but I'm not too worried about it. It's the type of thing, with her, that might have been a brief thought now passed that she bounced off my brother, or that she just forgot to tell me.

Our father, however. He's getting old, and having occasional health problems (he's been a diabetic going on two decades); he's cutting back his work schedule (thank god), and has started spending more time traveling.

A bit of background; he worked in the tech industry for all of his life, up until the dot-com bubble, where he was very successful. Late in the dot-com bubble, he got laid off from a job from which he had been trying to be laid off for half a decade; it was an mid-upper management job for a french telecom company. The french were terrible to work with, but had an appetite for American companies -- they acquired a new one every few months (this is how he got the job). Every time that they acquired a company, they consolidated management positions; so my father knew that he just had to wait long enough and he would be acquired into a good severance package. The french seemed to like him, so it took about a dozen restructurings before he was laid off. At last, success.

But success at one hell of a time. He was looking for a new management-level job towards the end of the bubble. He was able to find one -- with a company that I told him from day 1 was a sure loser; two years later, and after moving from Virginia to New Hampshire (fortunately, close to his sister), the company started shedding management positions. Having gone though one job-search during the end of the bubble, he knew better than to try and find a post-bubble management-level tech job. Already at the age where most people think of retirement, but as much in need of having work to do as I am, he changed careers, and is now a financial planner. This took a year of training for, and passing, various tests, and competing with a bunch of people my age for a job. And the jobs are all like BigLaw jobs, only with less pay -- 60+ hours/week expected for any kind of advancement. After a couple of years of that, he was recently able to transfer from the New Hampshire office of the company and move down to a Florida office.

So that's where he is now. In Florida, working they type of job that I intend with all my being to avoid, making a quarter of what he considers a decent sallary, with increasing health problems, and a son that he hardly every gets to speak to (let alone ever see). Which brings me back to last weekend in Charlottesville.

My brother told me about some of our father's recent health problems, and that he's been increasingly taking time off from work to travel. We both know that this reflects an increasingly pessimistic outlook on his part. Sadly, this might be the best thing for him. He's been working too damn hard, trying too keep up with people less than half his age, who are trying to establish careers that will amount to half the one he's already had. He doesn't need to be on that track, and it's good to hear that he's getting off of it.

But here's the thing. My brother told me about this. I'd spoken to my father the week before; and we had our usual conversation; none of this came out. I spoke to him on my cell phone, while I was in New Mexico visiting friends, about how I didn't know when I'd have time to take a weekend and come see his new house in Florida. (The trip to visit friends had been planned a year and a half ago.) I may not get down there until he's already lived there for a year; I'm just too busy, of course.

Of course, I know why he doesn't mention these things to me- because he knows that ``I'm just too busy." He doesn't want to add to my concerns. He wants me to think that he'll live forever.

[And, as I sit here wiping away some tears, I find myself thinking ``I don't have time to be writing this; I should be writing that Roman Law paper." And I remember, too, that I am writing this only as I take a brief break from work.]

All which makes me think all sorts of crazy thoughts. Perhaps I should go the BigLaw route so that I could send lots of money his way. Or that I should find a girlfriend, so that I can introduce him to one; or even just get a friend to pretend to be a girlfriend for holiday purposes. Or that I should take next week off and go visit him. Or emotion; between guilt over his not wanting to burden me, and indignation that I should even consider jeopardising my career goals, to fear, and sadness. And I remember the various dreams/plans that I've long had. One in particular -- growing up, we had a summer house on a lake in New Hampshire, which we sold when we moved to Virginia, that I've long imagined buying back -- keeps coming to mind.

But all of this, where does it leave me. About where I was before all of this, I guess; only with less certainty. And with some phone calls to make.

--Gus

Resuming Life

2005-04-04T18:46:00.000-05:00

Posting will be light the next day or two as I recover, and get back up to speed, from the softball trip. But I come bearing two brief notes. First, I am making pollo frito (fried chicken -- Italian style) tonight. Yum. And, second, is it any surprise that the brand-spanking new Washington Nationals lost their first game. Having spent most of the 90's with DC area sport, I fear I'm jaded for life. Good teams are away teams, or so it's always seemed.

--Gus

Blogging

2005-04-02T09:37:00.000-06:00

Blogger has been misbehaving lately. Primarily, it has been eating posts and refusing to publish new posts. The net result is that I've had fewer new posts. And my catblogging post from yesterday seems to have been eaten. Alas.

Also, regarding the confluence of softball and blogging. My hotel room has internet access; hence my ability to post now. When I got online, I immediately did my normal blog roundup. I was disappointed to see that there were very few new posts from the Chicago blogging contingent. But then I realised! Most of the bloggers are on the softball trip! I don't know what this says about us as a group, but I'm sure it says something.

--Gus

Rainy Softball

2005-04-02T08:55:00.000-06:00

So. I'm at UVa right now. With my 60 closest friends.

We drove down here for the annual softball tournament. It's raining. Actually, it's pouring. So, we're sitting around in our hotel rooms. Reading CrimLaw.

Yes, I drove 13 hours to read CrimLaw in a hotel room.

But I'm really not all that bitter; we've been having a good time. The trip down here was adventure after adventure. Including having gotten lost a few times, and running out of gas. We drove through Berkley Springs, WV and found a radio station that was playing four songs in a loop: The Teletubbies theme song, The Chicken Dance, Tie Me Kangaroo Down, and some fourth song. All said, we did make it here in one piece, and had a good practice yesterday.

Then started the drinking. Who would have ever thought: Chicago has a good group of softball players, and a championship level group of drinkers. The welcome/registration party last night quickly turned, under the direction of our drinking squad, into the largest ``flip-cup"¹ tournament ever played in the history of studentkind. And, our drinking squad, I hear, went undefeated the entire night. The net result of all of this was, of course, some ridiculous stories about crazy drunks -- the kind of stories that most of us had thought we had heard the last of when we finished as undergrads. My favourite was the friend who learned, after spending the night flirting with the hostess at the restaurant, that she was 17 and about to graduate high school. Ouch.

The lesson to take from this story is that Chicago students, while we certainly are hard core academic types, do occasionally poke our heads out of the library. And when we do, beware! For better or for worse. And, that when the softball game gets cancelled, you can always go read CrimLaw.

--Gus

(1) Flip cup, as I learned last night, as a beer-drinking game. Two teams line up, and at the call begin a race in which each member must drink a cup of beer, place the cup on the edge of the table, and flip it such that it lands upside down.

Some Days Bring Change

2005-03-31T19:25:00.000-06:00

Some Change is minor; but still noteworthy.

Last night was a whirlwind of reading because of Roman Law. I was on the waitlist, and had a good chance of getting in. Since I was not in, however, I also have been going to Copyright as an alternative fourth class for the quarter. The result is that I've been preparing for an extra class this first week of classes, in addition to preparing for the softball trip.

But enough whining, for it all has paid off. I am in Roman Law; I made it in off the waitlist. I will probably stick around in Copyright too, auditing the class. The clincher is twofold: Roman Law likely will not have an exam (instead relying solely on writing for the grade); and, since I will likely take copyright -- or similar -- next year, I will be able to get a lot more out of it then. Net sum, this reduces my stress, while allowing me to get more out of the classes, while covering more of the material I want to cover, and at the same time should positively affect my grades. At times like these, one is left but to think he has found himself in Eldorado.

On other notes. Professor CivPro2 seriously kicks bum; though I am not sure what to make of his calling us by first names. He's young and energetic and got so sharp a mind that I worry he'll put one of our eyes out; but the first name thing will take some getting used to. I come from a school where everyone is Mr. or Ms. So-and-so, in class and out of class, professor or freshman. But I'll cope.

I also had a nice chat with Professor Copyright after class today; it was tangentially related to one of the ideas I'm considering spinning into a paper, and it was well received. And Professor Roman Law. He's a hoot. Everything he says sounds crazy; but then you realise that he's just hit a nail on its head and you're left with an uncomfortable understanding that the person you're sitting next to is getting married because, as Gaius tells us, deep down she is a duck. And then he tells us to write a paper on it. This is definitely the class for me. And, one of the perks of the class (for me, at least) is that I will greatly increase my knowledge of latin; just today, I was able to follow most of the text in the latin. With a grammar, I expect I could have translated 90% of it with ease. Hurrah to that.

Now I am off to take care of life's necessities, and to prepare for travel. I managed to get through most of the day on half a bagel. It is now time to refill my tank. Then I need to pack, and to get ready to hit the road at 2AM. That's right! My van to UVa for the softball tourney leaves before dawn breaks -- perhaps even before the moon reaches its zenith (though that, probably, only if it's moving slowly).

--Gus

Hey! You're Hot and I Feel Great. Let's Get Married.

2005-03-30T18:01:00.000-06:00

In desperate need of a break from frantically reading a couple hundred pages for class tomorrow (like me)?

Take that break with some zany advertisments.

The famous I Feel Great ad for Nutrigrain.

And a newly discovered ad for Crunch Fitness. (HT: Darlyn.)

Let's not forget the song-and-dance joy of the Golf GTI.

If we go there, we must also hit the parodious (if questionably humorous) fake ad for the VW Polo.

Now! Back to work with me.

--Gus

Sharp Wits, Sharper Tongues

2005-03-29T21:13:00.000-06:00

From Gilmore,s Death of Contract, page 137 note 97: ``For a leter judicial attack on the excesses of `objectivism,' see the extraordinary law review article disguised as a concurring opinion by Judge Frank in Ricketts v. Pennsylvania R. Co., 153 F.2d 757 760 (2d Cir. 1946)."

--Gus

Ooh the Pain

2005-03-29T20:46:00.000-06:00

It's nice doing physical stuff; even if it reminds me of just how out of shape I have let myself get. And, too, even if it gets my body too near the breaking point.

To wit, I can't take notes right now. A word about my ``note taking" system. I take notes on half-sheets, folded into my books, or on a pink sticky pad, which sheets get stuck into my books; I write in very very small chicken scratch. Generally, I fit 2-3 pages of ``normal" notes onto each half page. But my poor arms are sore from throwing the softball around. So sore they are that my hands shake when I try to write.

I went to Medici this evening to get some substantial dinner. This was a very good idea, and I ate well. Of course, I brought work with me. I was only able to take notes on a single case before I had to give up. I felt so pathetically helpless, sitting there, book open in front of me, trying to write on my small scraps of paper; I was using my left hand to steady my right, but still my arm was shaking enough to make the silverware rattle and my pen jump. So goes life at times. Tomorrow my arms will again let me write. And, till then, I will resort to note taking on the computer.

On a final note, before I take a break to unpack my bags from last week's travels so that I can fill them in preparation for the week's trip to UVa; to anyone with a golden resume, cherish it. To speak in paralipsis by not mentioning my continuing (though still up-beat) efforts to secure an RAship, it is evident that you are doing something right that I am not.

Now, I'm off to find x such that d²f(x)/d²x>0 (where f(x) ::= the Slackitude Function).

--Gus

Oh It's Gonna Be a Long Quarter

2005-03-28T22:29:00.000-06:00

But for all the right reasons. Copyright is going to ruin my life. I've not had this much fun reading cases since 1st quarter CivPro and Elements; or maybe Property early last quarter -- but there I was more enjoying the ancillary readings than the actual cases. And yes, I had fun with that reading. It's like bubble gum. I just spent three and a half hours on 15 pages; of course, I looked up all the refererenced cases, and cross referenced the cases with discussions in a couple of other books.

If I do get into Roman Law, there'll be a hard decision to make. Alas.

Only problem is that it's 10:30, I need to go to sleep (yes, I'm a panzy; but I only got about 3 hours sleep last night), and I've not had anything resembling dinner yet.

--Gus

The Ring Cycle

2005-03-28T21:37:00.000-06:00

No matter how much I dislike Wagner, the chance to see The Ring Cycle -- which I have not before seen -- is one that will always give me pause to pass up; fortunately, I learn of it too late to give it serious consideration this time.

Alas, I expect that I will never forgive myself for have not gone, not one lone single time, to the Santa Fe Opera while I was out there. It is truly one of the most beautiful opera houses in the country;¹ and they had some performances that I would have loved to see. But alas. I was too busy being an important scientist to take a break for something I would have loved. Bad Gus! Bad.

Yet another character flaw which I must correct during my tenure in Chicago.

--Gus

(1) But Gus! You just said that you had never been there. Well, I was up there once for a visit; I was never there for a performance. And, I do not have much grounds to speak in the comparative tense, let alone the superlative; here I appeal to authority, and can only assert on my own experience that it is an incredibly beautiful opera house.

He's Jesus Christ, He's Larry Tribe

2005-03-27T19:01:00.000-06:00

HLS has a copy of a song from their annual musical lambast of all things holy and dear; their equivalent of our Law School Musical. 'tis a song about the Prof. Tribe; and it is certainly funny. My favourite series of lines:

``He's Jesus Christ. He's Larry Tribe. He's not just Harvard's best professor; he's the smartest man alive. He's got 41 degrees, and he speaks fluent Japanese. He's Larry Tribe; he's Larry Tribe. Hey-a-hey!"

Seems an appropriate a lyric for Easter.

But, while they might have Larry Tribe jokes, we have our own stud to keep in the stable... Speaking of which, I wonder when it'll be time to start working on next year's musical. Hopefully not until the end of the quarter, eh?

(HT: Howard Bashman)

--Gus

Saturday? What Happened to Friday!

2005-03-26T18:04:00.000-06:00

Apparently, I missed yesterday. Or at least entirely managed to miss that it was Friday. So, no cat was misappropriated.

I did, however, go through my web logs for the past week. Eric Schaeffer's link to my post about a recent talk by Justice Scalia -- in which he muttled up some case names -- generated quite a bit of traffic. This includes about a dozen or so hits from usdoj.gov and uscourts.gov sites. Now I'm left to wonder if Justice Scalia will ever talk to me ~~again~~; n'ah, he'll never remember the day that a pesky 1L called him out on a small blog. Right? Right! [Insert the melodramatic sound of a career as a Supreme Court litigator or clerk going down the toilet drain here.]

But, for redemption, here's the passage from a transcript of the oral arguments in Griswold that I referenced in the post:

``MR. EMERSON: And therefore, we say we are not asking this Court to revive Lochner against New York, of to overrule Nebbia or West Coast Hotel.

THE COURT: It sounds to me like you're asking us to follow the constitutional philosophy of that case.

MR. EMERSON: No, Your Honor. We are asking you to follow the philosophy of Meyer against Nebraska and Pierce against the Society of Sisters, which dealt with--Meyer against Nebraska--

THE COURT: Was the one that held it was unconstitutional, as I recall it, for a state to try to regulate the size of leaves of bread--

MR. EMERSON: No, no, no.

THE COURT: --because people were being defrauded; was that it?

MR. EMERSON: That was the Lochner case, Your Honor."

--Gus

A Meta-note

2005-03-25T13:38:00.000-06:00

I have finally broken down. I have increased the font size of this here blog; and, more painfully to me, I have switched to a sans-serif font. I might switch back to TNR or NewCent, because sans-serifed fonts are gimmicky abominations. But, because I can't setup everyone's monitors to properly display print, I am currently experimenting with the lowest common denominator.

Also, I have decided, for the time being, not to change the CSS layout of this blog. I spent the past week using IE and Safari. My conclusion was that each of these browsers misdisplays at least a third of the blogs that I visit. If you have difficulty reading this page, I therefore declare it to be your problem; I urge you to switch to either Opera or Mozilla/Firefox.

Finally, I have added Peter to my UofC Law Student's blogroll. Slowyly but surely, we're growing in number.

--Gus

Two Final Notes and a New Note

2005-03-24T21:02:00.000-06:00

First the new note: ellipses suck. For manifold reasons; but those punctuated as a consequence of a couple of recommendations. To the recommenders, thanks.

Now a question, complete with answer. How do you know that you're on an airplane departing from Albuquerque? If the flight leaves between 12:00 and 4:00, as you board the plane, you will see a dozen or so of your co-passenges sitting in their seats reading fancy-looking scientific papers (generally two column, 10pt tnr, with IEEE headings, and an average of 0.375 single column graphs per page, and 0.25 cross column graph pairs per page). These people are from Los Alamos, and they are reading research papers. I used to be one of them. I counted 13 of them as I got on the plane yesterday. They fly out between 12:00-4:00 because that allows them to either leave Los Alamos after breakfast (it's a two and a half hour drive to ABQ from LANL), or to get in a half day of work before leaving. So now you know.

And, one of the best parts of my trip: french. One of my friends who was there¹ has a degree in french lit, and is now doing graduate study in french. Now, once upon a time I studied french; I mostly translated, and am still pretty good at translating from a text (oddly enough, I'm generally better at translating middle french than modern french). I have, however, long been worried about my horrendous accent and my ability to actually make use of this knowledge. Well, she and I were actually able to chat around a bit in french; surprisingly enough, the vocabulary didn't fail me. More surprisingly, she could understand what I was saying in spite of my accent. Perhaps better still, she took a few calls from france, and I was able to understand what she was saying! (Sue me, I was eavedropping; that's what happens when you have a conversation in the same room that I'm reading in.) Now, I'm not claiming proficiency -- let alone fluency -- but I've long had a nagging fear that, were I to go to France, I would be reduced to carrying pre-written flash cards around as a way of communicating. I now actually have some hope that I could more-than survive. Which is a good feeling.

--Gus

(1) She is actually a friend-by-proxy. Everyone else down in New Mexico for this trip was a former classmate; whereas she is not. She is, however, best friends with one of my classmates, and is now dating another. So she has been amalgamated.

The Liberal Message Needs Some Work

2005-03-24T18:44:00.000-06:00

Juxtaposed with my take on Hewitt:

I just got an e-mail from MoveOn.org (whose efforts I do support). The title of the mail: ``Stand up against absolute power." The content of the mail is OK; but it doesn't match the title. The title ought to be ``Stand up against those seeking absolute power."

But my concern isn't the content, or how well it matches the title. It's the absurdity of the title itself.

Stand up against absolute power. What a great idea! While we're at it, let's defeat the indefeatable and break the unbreakable. And perhaps we can also fease the infeasable. Absolute power is that against which we cannot stand up. So let's not call that against which we're fighting that against which we cannot fight.

Such alarmist, defeatist rhetoric isn't the way to win a war. Let's change the rhetoric and try to cut them off before they reach the pass, instead of suggesting that they've already turned the corner.

--Gus

Calling All Cooks

2005-03-24T17:20:00.000-06:00

Anyone have advice on how to use Irish Bacon? I was planning on making some cabage wraps, so I picked up a slab. But I forgot to get the cabbage! In a pinch, I'll get creative with it; but if there's a good taditional use I can make of it, I'd love to give it a try.

--Gus