Death Not Worth Discussion?

Amidst all the hullaballoo about Grokster and the ten commandments cases and Kelo v. New London, no one seems to be talking about Bell v. Thompson. You can see from this brief discussion that it was an insanely complicated case, procedurally speaking, but let me see if I can simplify it: Thompson was sentenced to death, he lost his state-level appeal, he filed a habeas petition in federal court and it was dismissed and the Sixth Circuit affirmed the dismissal. Thompson then filed for cert. with the Supreme Court and was denied, and finally he filed another habeas petition. Sometime after the Sixth Circuit dismissed the first habeas, it found new evidence that convinced the court it had made a mistake, so the Sixth Circuit tried to change its previous decision to correct its mistake. The Supreme Court said no, you can't do that. Kill him!

To put it even more simply: The Supreme Court said in America we don't care if we screw up and kill people by mistake.

Awesome, huh?

This decision is outrageous, but no more so than the fact that intellectual property or ten commandments issues seem to be more important to Americans than their own complicity in state-sponsored killing. Priorities? Not so much. Oh, and you know those people who care so much about the ten commandments? I'm pretty sure one of them says something about not killing.

Funny, for some strange reason the chorus of this song just popped into my head.

Posted 06:45 AM | TrackBack | law general

Hearsay Exception: Blawgcoop Throttled!

In a first, Dreamhost, my host for this domain, blawgcoop.com, and others, sent me an email today that said in part:

This is just to let you know that per your request, we have now “throttled” your domain blawgcoop.com.

I was sort of expecting that, since earlier I'd noticed a certain Hearsay Exceptions Movie was getting a lot of hits. It turns out someone named “Will” at MSNBC found it interesting (scroll down a bit), and apparently, lots of people follow links from Will's site. Will was kind enough to link to another version of the movie hosted elsewhere, and after a bit of adjustment, things are now back to normal. (I had the “throttle” threshold set pretty low and simply raised it to accommodate the extra traffic.)

For the record, this cool movie originated with Energy Spatula—one of her classmates made it for evidence class and was kind enough to share it with her, then I posted it on Blawgcoop because she wasn't sure where to host it. I'm telling you, this guy should make a whole series of Law Schoolhouse Rock videos! His audience wants more!

Being the geek that I am, I only hope that someday I will create something remarkable enough to shut down this website. You know you might be a web geek when...

Posted 10:32 PM | Comments (3) | TrackBack | meta-blogging

Running & Fundraising: T-Shirts All Around!

Things I've learned by this point in my marathon training:

• Hydration is a process, not an event.
• Bodyglide is no longer optional. Ouch.
• Great running/workout song: Skydive by Nuspirit Helsinki.
• Getting out the door in the morning is the hard part; once you've run for about two minutes you're always glad you're doing it.

The running is going well, actually; the fundraising is a different story. But since I like you so much I'm going to give you another chance to help out and this time you get a great t-shirt out of the deal! That's right: If you buy one of these two shirts below from Law School Stuff, a percentage of what you pay will go to the Whitman-Walker clinic and my marathon fundraising efforts. But be sure to buy by clicking the links below; if you buy directly from Law School Stuff (or if you buy any other shirt) you'll still get a great shirt, but you won't be helping out the whole marathon effort. Mmmkaay?

Buy a shirt, support the marathon imbroglio!Yay! Thanks!

Posted 06:34 AM | Comments (3) | TrackBack | marathon

Thanks GW Class of 2005!

This just in from the GW law school student body president:

This year was the first time a graduating class of our law school has done an organized gift from the law school graduates. The Class of 2005 selected its donation to go to the Loan Repayment Assistance Program (LRAP) to benefit graduates going into public interest jobs.

The 2005 Class Gift had 52% of the class make a donation, raised over $10,000, and had an alumni donor match the gift 4 to 1 because the class reached 50% participation. In addition, this year's Graduation Speaker, Senator Harry Reid, donated $3,000 to the gift. In total, this year's class provided $56,250 to directly provide assistance for the LRAP program.

Color me impressed! I'm hoping to make GW pay for most of my student loans through this LRAP dealio, so thanks to everyone who donated—and especially to that alum for the 4-1 match! You people rock!

Just because I'm curious, does anyone have any anecdotes about other schools doing things like this?

Posted 06:21 AM | Comments (7) | TrackBack | law school

All Eyes on SCOTUS (Blog) for 10 Cs and Grokster

Today is the big final day of this term for the Supreme Court of the United States (SCOTUS), and with such huge decisions coming down today there's no better page to refresh in your browser than the SCOTUS Blog. To get ready, here's a preview of the decisions coming down today.

The first note on one of the Ten Commandments cases is up:

Splitting 5-4 in the first of two rulings on government displays of the Ten Commandments, the Supreme Court on Monday upheld a federal court order against a display of the religious document on the wall of a courthouse in Kentucky.

Grokster will come soon, I'm sure...

UPDATE: Grokster loses big:

The Supreme Court ruled unanimously that developers of software violate federal copyright law when they provide computer users with the means to share music and movie files downloaded from the internet.

Crap.

UPDATE II: Now that the term is over, Half-Cocked is handicapping the retirements.

Also, from the ongoing discussion it looks like maybe this wasn't necessarily a huge defeat for Grokster. The Court merely remanded for reconsideration of what was previously summary judgment in Grokster/Streamcast's favor.

Posted 10:20 AM | TrackBack | law general

11 Gdunka Dunk

Hey, it's Sunday and it's been a little while since we had a list, so:

1. Blawg Wisdom today features a new Weekly Law School Roundup filled with hot profs, cocktails, getting baked, and surviving needles—none of which are probably what you're thinking.
2. imapd has quit her job and is getting married—congratulations! Her initial reflections on working as public defender are excellent:

   I will say, however, that since I stopped working there, I feel sure that a part of my identity has gone dormant. When people ask me what I do, I say, “I used to be a lawyer,” and as I say it, I feel a distinct sense of emptiness in not being able to talk about the law, my clients, or our society in the way that I used to--as someone who felt herself to be on the front-lines of the law. It is a rare and precious thing that a job can challenge you and change you on a daily basis in a way that makes you feel both alive and useful to the world. That is what being a public defender was to me.

   I hope she'll keep us all updated on where her great experiences lead her next.
3. And speaking of being a public defender, how much would it suck to work in a courtroom where the DA is sleeping with the judge? As if judges didn't sympathize with DAs enough already! And how much would it suck to be the guy sitting on death row after being tried in that court? Justice? What?
4. Hooray! Monica is back!
5. Denise has a new car and it sounds awesome. I want one, too! More importantly, Denise seems to be recovering nicely (for the most part) from her recent life-changing surgery. Congratulations and best wishes, Denise!
6. I've obviously been a little out of touch for a while, but I just noticed that DJ Sui G. has announced he's not going to law school this fall. (How many of us wish we could say that?) Maybe he'll be trying again next year, but for now, he's having a lot of fun with bikes. What is it about the single speed that makes it so cool these days? For the real cache, I hear you've got to go for the fixed gear. And if you check out a few of these pics, you can see why.
7. Unblague is a blog (imagine that!) by a 3rd-year law student who has been blogging for almost a year now. Who knew?
8. The Bitterness Strikes Back is another new-to-me law blawg. Although I'm not sure, I'm guessing its author is a rising 2L (U of MN, I believe) and she seems to be working in some capacity that lets her observe lots of criminal trials this summer, so that's cool. Her post titles rock.
9. Ambivalent kicks imbroglio's butt in a GoogleFight.
10. Ahem:

    If you work as an intern, whether in government or business, and you are interested in posing for Playboy, please send pictures...

    [Via Blawg Review #12] Two forms of ID required. Thanks!
11. I ran 12 miles this morning. Thank goodness for Advil. The pain will decrease with every dollar you donate. ;-)

Posted 02:06 PM | Comments (1) | TrackBack | lists

Lawyers, Knowledge Management, and OPML

If you've ever worked in a law office, you might be familiar with a common problem: Lawyers often do similar things over and over again, but they don't always have a very good way to keep track of what they've done before so they can efficiently reuse that work the next time they need it. For example, if you're a criminal lawyer, you're going to write a lot of motions to suppress evidence. How do you keep track of the work you've done on those motions to suppress so that you don't have to do it all over again the next time you have a related issue?

Another problem in law offices is collaboration. If you're working a case with other attorneys, paralegals, interns, etc., how do you keep everyone updated on what you've done, and how do you follow what others have done?

I believe this is what some people call “knowledge management”—how do you “manage” the knowledge in your firm? And I understand that there are lots of commercial packages available that attempt to help lawyers with these tasks. Many are built around an hourly billing model and are very complicated. For example, the GW clinics use Amicus “practice management software.” I found it to be slow, inflexible (you work the program's way or no way at all), hard for users to use and understand, and really too complex for what we wanted to do.

So what if you want something simpler—something without all the billing and client tracking features, something that just helps you keep track of your research and your collaboration with others? Enter OPML and Instant Outlining.

If you don't read Scripting News I'm not sure why you would know or care about this, but Dave Winer has been building a new OPML editor, a sort of outliner on steroids that allows you to create what he's calling “instant outlines,” or outlines that people can subscribe to—almost in the same way that you can subscribe to RSS feeds.* I can't describe it much better than that because I haven't seen or used it, but from what I've read, it sounds like it could be a really awesome way for people in a law office to communicate about the cases they're working on.

To see what I'm talking about, read this thread describing how the outliner can work into a collaborative workflow. And here's another description of the outliner at work and some thoughts about how it compares to email, instant messaging, and other means of communication. With those descriptions in mind, imagine that you're an attorney in the lead on a murder trial. You've got two attorneys helping you out, and all three of you have interns doing research and investigation for you. Plus you have an investigator and a paralegal helping out with the case. How do you keep all of them informed about what's going on? Why not use an outliner to keep your notes and let them all subscribe? They can keep their own outlines so you can follow what they're all doing. This would mean you wouldn't have to repeat new news six times, and you could probably have fewer long meetings where everyone reports on what they're doing. I've only worked on a couple of cases like this, but in those cases, I really think instant outlining could have been a big help. Another big advantage is that it keeps time-stamped records of the case as it develops so it would be easy to go back through and see what you learned when and all of that should make it less likely that you'll lose or overlook any little aspect of the case.

In addition to its collaboration possibilities via instant outlining, this new outliner promises to be a great way to track legal research within a firm or legal office. Take those motions to suppress, for example. Every lawyer in your office could have a “motions to suppress” outline; when you needed to write such a motion, you could check in on those outlines and gather all the relevant research that people in your office have already done. In addition or in the alternative, the office could maintain one “motions to suppress” outline to which everyone could add. It could live on the office server so that everyone could access and update it. The top level nodes of these outlines could state a sub-issue related to suppressing evidence, and the subnodes could collect the relevant cites and points of law to deal with that issue. Then, the next time you have to do a motion to suppress, you scan through the outline for related issues and jump right to the research. If you find anything new about that issue, you add it to the outline.

Finally, this mythical outliner (which is still just in beta testing, apparently) can also be a blogging tool. I've long been jealous of the way Scripting News can combine little one-line posts w/longer, multi-paragraph posts -- each with its own permalink. Now the tool used to create that sort of blog is going to be available for everyone (or at least to all Windows users; maybe Mac users soon). This won't necessarily be great for lawyers or knowledge management or whatever, but it's certainly interesting.

* OPML is the format most feed aggregators use to keep track of your RSS subscriptions, and it's also the format used by outliners like Omni Outliner or Aquaminds NoteTaker. Its great virtue as far as I can tell is the ability to expand and collapse different levels of your outline, and to move those levels around easily so you can organize and navigate through a lot of information quickly and easily. I've found it to be a great format for taking notes in law school.

Posted 12:51 PM | Comments (2) | TrackBack | law general opml

Kelo v. New London

Because I can't resist throwing in my two cents: When I first learned yesterday that the Supreme Court said it's ok for the government to take private property from small, individual owners and give it to large, conglomerate owners so that those big owners can make tons of money from it, I was honestly a little conflicted.

On one hand, I'm happy to see the government exercise its takings powers for the public good. We take private property to an insane extreme in the U.S., and I like the government's takings powers because, theoretically, they put the public good over private profit in a very blunt and inescapable way.

That said, this decision is deeply offensive because it appears to turn that spirit of the takings clause and turn it against itself in a very perverse way. In short, Kelo basically builds trickle-down economics into the law of takings, and if you grew up in the 1980s under Reagan's “voodoo economics” (which is what George H.W. Bush called it) you'll know what that means: They're pissing on us! Or if you prefer another metaphor, the Supreme Court has said (once again) it's ok for government to give all the cake to those who already have the largest portions and we'll just hope that everyone else can survive on the crumbs that fall.

Awesome.

Ahem. If you'd like more erudite and measured discussion of the decision. don't miss the SCOTUSblog's metablog on Kelo. The decision itself is here from the LII.

And speaking of the LII, it is currently seeking donations. As far as I know, the LII was the first to have the Kelo decision available online, and that's just one of the invaluable services the LII provides. In the let-them-eat-cake economy of legal research, the LII is one way to make sure we get more than just crumbs, so please do your part to keep it healthy.

Posted 07:00 AM | Comments (3) | TrackBack | law general

Dating Industry

My email box was shouting at me this morning. “Men Needed!” it said. Sounds like spam, doesn't it? Of course, it is, but this message was not trying to sell me viagra or some other drug; instead it's trying to recruit me to a dating event—my “chance to experience a dozen first dates in one evening, and to have a friend along to help!”

I really don't know what to make of that, except that, well, I'm glad I have no reason to go. Now I just want to know: How did these jokers get my law school email address? Is it possible GW sells its students' email addresses to marketers?

Posted 05:35 AM | Comments (2) | TrackBack | life generally

Wexis and the Sheeps

Reader “Charlie” recently left a lengthy comment on a post from nearly two years ago in which I complained about how Lexis and Westlaw get special opportunities at law schools to get law students hooked on their services from the beginning of their legal careers. Charlie says I'm stupid and lack business experience and just plain wrong—and more! He suggests I do some research before posting “stupid statements about something you know little or nothing about.”

I guess Charlie doesn't know that I actually have done quite a bit of research into this topic. He and others like him might be interested in some of that research, such as this 1994 article from Wired magazine explaining how West essentially stole a public database and took it private—with the implicit cooperation and approval of the DOJ, of course. Some might say West has earned its preeminent position in the online legal research market; others might say West just took it.

This page links to the 2nd Circuit cases in which West attempted—unsuccessfully—to claim it owned (and could control via copyright) the page numbers on which cases and other legal materials are printed. What you don't see there are the 8th Circuit cases that said West could copyright its page numbers. See e.g. Oasis Publishing Co. v. West Publishing Co., 924 F. Supp. 918, 39 U.S.P.Q. 2D (BNA) 1271 (D. Minn., 1996). According to my research, this split between the 2nd and 8th Circuits has not really been decided because the dispute was ended by a consent decree before it could be resolved by the Supreme Court; that decree ordered West to allow competitors to license its page numbers for a stipulated fee. U.S. v. Thomson, 1997 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 2790; 1997-1 Trade Cas. (CCH) P71,75.

But while I have done some research into this issue, that doesn't mean I know it all and I'm always interested in learning more or to be corrected where I've made a mistake. To that end, I figured readers like Charlie might enjoy more of my stupidity about Wexis, so here are more posts in which I mention Wexis and its antisocial effects on society and the legal profession:

• The ABA Is Broken (8/12/03)
• Procrastination (links to discussions of the topic elsewhere; 10/04/03)
• Week In Review #1 (5/24/04)
• Five Things (6/24/04)
• Wexis Data, Anyone? (2/26/05)
• Wexis the Pusher (2/28/05)

None of those posts lays out the full case against Wexis or gives much detail about what I see as a better system for electronic legal research. Perhaps I'll work that into another post sometime or post the article I wrote on the subject. Meanwhile, for critics like Charlie who would prefer to talk about how business works rather than consider how society could be improved, I say: Enjoy your life as a sheep!

(And, of course, I say that knowing full well that I'm a sheep too and it's only my illusion that I could be otherwise since, as L. is fond of saying, power is everywhere intentional and nonsubjective. Also, as I am often reminded, there is no Zion outside the matrix.)

Posted 06:13 AM | Comments (4) | TrackBack | law general

Sum Sum Summertime

I'm pretty sure today is the official start of summer. It should also be just about the longest day of the year, since it's the summer solstice (I think). The weather here in D.C. is beautiful! I wish it would stay like this for the next three months... But anyway, happy summer!

Posted 07:23 AM | Comments (1) | TrackBack | 2L summer

Drama What?

Loner 94% Punk/Rebel 63% Geek 56% Drama nerd 56% Stoner 44% Goth 38% Prep/Jock/Cheerleader 13% Ghetto gangsta 6% What's Your High School Stereotype? created with QuizFarm.com

Just for the record, I was never in any sort of dramatic performance thingy. I'm sure I would have enjoyed it, but I never had the, um, as Popeye would say, noive. Otherwise, this looks more or less right, although probably I was a lot less stoner than 44%. [link via SuperD]

Posted 06:10 AM | Comments (6) | TrackBack | life generally

Ten Miles

Yesterday was something of a milestone on the road to running the Marine Corps Marathon this fall—we ran ten miles! That explains why my legs hurt and I'm walking around like I'm an 80-year-old man. Of course, the fact that I did none of my “maintenance runs” (we're supposed to do 2, 30-40 minute runs during the week between long weekend runs) last week, and didn't do the long run (9 miles) last weekend might also have something to do with the 80-year-old achy feeling.

But minor aches aside, the fact that I could do ten miles yesterday and feel mostly fine with it gives me a great deal more confidence that I'll be able to make it to 26. I was pretty skeptical that the training program would be sufficient to get me into marathon shape—running 30-40 minutes twice weekly, plus a long run each weekend, just didn't seem like it would be enough. But it's working so far. I'd never run 10 miles before and now I'm not too worried about the 12 coming up next weekend.

Honestly, it's looking like the really worrisome part of this whole marathon thing is going to be the fundraising. Thanks to the generosity of some of my readers, my fundraising is moving along a bit, but I've got a long way to go. As I mentioned here, if you've ever wanted to do something nice for the imbroglio, now is your chance—donate today! Your donation is also totally tax-deductible and goes to an excellent cause, so you win, Whitman-Walker Clinic wins, its clients win, we all win. Win win win win. Don't you want to be a winner? ;-)

Posted 06:13 AM | Comments (3) | TrackBack | marathon

About that Journal Thing

This weekend was a beautiful one here in D.C. After the last week of brutal heat and humidity, the last three days or so were absolutely heavenly—temperatures in the 70s and low 80s, relatively low humidity. . . to me it felt like October, which is often my favorite time of year. All of which explains why I am so not a friend of the journal right now, because instead of spending the weekend out and about enjoying the terrific weather, I spent it inside at my computer grading procrastinating grading journal write-on competitions. (And look—DG had to do it too!) Oh yeah, sure, I could have done this weeks ago so I would now be free to enjoy this wonderful weekend, but come on—would I do something today that I could put off until tomorrow? Of course not. That would just be too easy and make too much sense.

But hey, instead of feeling bad about being such a pathetic procrastinator I'd rather project my faults onto a terrific little scapegoat and say: Journal sucks. Don't do it.

p.s.: I'm on what is possibly the easiest journal in the history of journals and will actually end up doing very little for my four journal credits and that line on the resume, so in the bigger scheme of things I recognize that this whole journal dealio isn't bad. But I'm not thinking big scheme right now, ok?

Posted 05:45 AM | TrackBack | 2L summer

If It's Not For Profit, It's Just Not

Don't you just love this Republican Congress? It's working diligently to destroy just about every public service it can, clearing the way for the health and welfare of private enterprise. For example, the federal government printed its last postage stamps last Friday. This will supposedly save the Postal Service lots of money; it went mostly private long ago, so it's all good.

But that's just stamps. What about public broadcasting? Some in Congress want to cut its already meager funding. Cool. Public broadcasting is just a bunch of liberal propaganda, anyway. If it's not fair and balanced like Fox News, we don't need it.

And cross-country train service? We don't need that, either. Obviously the airlines are healthy and a totally efficient way to travel. Greyhound is always fun, too.

Seriously, the postage and Amtrak cuts may make sense. If the privately-printed postage is going to be so much cheaper, um, ok. But what makes it cheaper? Is it the fact that the private printers pay their workers $6/hour and dump their printing chemicals into the local watershed while the gov't printers had to pay a living wage and dispose of their waste in a more responsible fashion? And Amtrak, well, it's been too expensive for most people to use for a long time—probably since the last huge cuts in federal funding. Personally I think we're going to wish we had a healthy, efficient, and robust national passenger rail system as fuel prices continue to rise, but hey, what do I know?

The public broadcasting thing is pretty indefensible, though. MoveOn.org thinks so, too.

Posted 07:19 AM | Comments (5) | TrackBack | general politics

I'm Just, um, Catching Up

So what happens when you post to your blog nearly every day for a while and then suddenly stop for a few days with no good explanation? Apparently you get amusing email like this:

Listen here [expletive of endearment],

The only joy I get all week is to read your blog and natalie dee every morning and Gene Weingarten and Tom Sietsema's chats once a week. The rest of my time is spent giving birth—trying to learn things I didn't learn the first 1 billion times I tried, like con law. Don't give me excuses like that you are busy “helping people” and trying to make this world “better” by protecting people's “rights.” Just write thoughtful, insightful and clever shit every day. OK? And post it nice and early so I can read it during barbri.

Don't you just love it? I need more friends like this. Now that it's summer and I find myself living in a steam table.... oh, and since my days are a little longer than they are during the school year, well.... it's not that I don't want to post so much as there's just not always time. But hey, for you? I'll see what I can do. Thoughtful, insightful, and clever I'm not so sure about, but if all you're looking for is something more interesting than BarBri, that's a much smaller order and one I think I can fill. I'll try, anyway.

Ten things:

1. Blawg Wisdom has a new request for advice and a new Books category, both waiting for your generous and inspired commentary and input.
2. Dave! has picked up and run with the weekly law student blog roundup ball with a short but sweet snapshot of what's happening recently. Thanks to Dave!, this feature should be moving to Blawg Wisdom soon.
3. Energy Spatula is back in D.C. and she's already causing trouble. Welcome to town, ES!
4. Feeding my Mac obsession: Are Apple and Intel really going for broke against Microsoft?
5. And my political obsession: People love to bash Howard Dean but how can you not love stuff like this: “My view is that Fox News is a propaganda outlet of the Republican Party and that I don't comment on Fox News.”
6. “Either you repeat the same conventional doctrines everybody else is spouting, or else you say something true, and it will sound like it's from Neptune.” --Noam Chomsky
7. PledgeBank: Raise money for something you care about.
8. ConnectviaBooks: Make friends with people who like the same books you like? Hmm.
9. Chicago Crime: A freely browsable database of crimes reported in Chicago. What a cool use of Google maps.
10. My thumb hurts.

Posted 06:42 AM | Comments (3) | TrackBack | lists meta-blogging

Cumberland, Here We Come!

I'll be away for the weekend up in the wild mountains of Maryland. You didn't know Maryland had wild mountains? Me neither, but I'm going to attempt to find them, anyway. I'm into quixotic quests, you know?

A couple of notes for the road:

1. Check out this cool new website for Rock Creek Writing. Looks good, doesn't it? Do you recognize the photo?
2. John Siracusa is mourning the PowerPC.
3. A majority of Americans have become smarter than not.
4. Speaking of getting smarter, have you read the Downing Street Memo?
5. No link, just an observation: On NPR this morning I heard an attorney who recently worked in the White House Counsel's office say that whatever the “error rate” at Guantanamo (the number of innocent people currently being held w/out charges or any judicial review), it's low and acceptable. I bet he'd sing a different song if he was the innocent one locked up w/no access to the outside world and no end in sight.

Posted 07:11 AM | Comments (2) | TrackBack | 2L summer lists

Today's List: Smoke This

1. So you heard about the Supreme Court's take on medical marijuana. They said if federal law says no, states can't say different. The court's paranoia over the potential evils of marijuana would be laughable if it weren't so sad. In fact, I can't believe it myself, but I'm pretty convinced by what I've read of Thomas' dissent on this one. Admittedly, I've only read this from The Agitator, but, well, methinks the Court is going to regret this one.
2. Would you like to listen to your favorite NPR programs via podcast? Tell NPR!
3. This Rapid Afterimage thing is hours of fun.
4. Did I mention Blawg Review #9 is up?
5. Hey Kentucky Bar Association: fining lawyers for blogging is really stupid.

Posted 10:07 PM | TrackBack | lists

Studying for the Bar?

New updates at Blawg Wisdom talk about choosing a firm size and studying for the bar. If anyone else makes pretty pictures of their notes I think we should start some sort of online archive of them. Better yet, why not print them onto big sheets of fabric and sell them as table napkins or table cloths for law geeks? Perhaps LawSchoolStuff would be willing to enhance their offerings?

But seriously, do you have any bar study tips? Blawg Wisdom's Bar Review category is pretty empty, so if anyone has anything to offer there, I'm sure many readers would appreciate it. You can add to the comments here or there, or submit your wisdom here. Thanks!

Posted 06:06 AM | Comments (2) | TrackBack | advice

It's True: Say Hello to *cough* Mactel

Apple did it. It announced it is ditching the PowerPC in favor of Intel chips. MacRumors has a good summary of the keynote highlights with lots of discussion in the comments, while Engadget did a blow-by-blow, and MacInTouch offers more detail. The most interesting part of all of this as far as I'm concerned is that Apple claims (at the end of the article) it can and will prevent people from running OS X on non-Apple hardware:

Apple Senior Vice President Phil Schiller addressed the issue of running Windows on Macs, saying there are no plans to sell or support Windows on an Intel-based Mac. “That doesn't preclude someone from running it on a Mac. They probably will,” he said. “We won't do anything to preclude that.”

However, Schiller said the company does not plan to let people run Mac OS X on other computer makers' hardware. “We will not allow running Mac OS X on anything other than an Apple Mac,” he said.

So how can they do that? If A dell uses the same processor as a Powerbook, why won't they run the same OS? Another problem: OS X on Intel looks pretty damned slow.

Technicalities aside, if Apple can do this, it could be kind of cool. I know I would love to be able to partition my drive on my iBook and have it dual boot into Windows. Not that I love running Windows, but there are occasions when it's just sort of the only option (e.g. law school finals and the bar exam if you're using the damnable Extegrity). If a Powerbook or iBook could dual-boot OS X and Windows (and Linux, of course), but a Dell laptop could not, which would you rather buy?

Apple talked a lot about how long it would take Mac developers to port their software to run on Intel chips (not long for some, forever for others), but I haven't heard anything about how long it will take Windows developers to port their software to OS X on Intel. Will this move make it such a transition easier, and if so, will Mac users soon see an explosion of new software options? I mean, it doesn't matter that much if you could just boot your Mac into Windows for the $100 or whatever it costs to buy a copy of that OS, but still, I'd rather work in OS X so it would be nice if rebooting wasn't necessary.

On the darkest side of all this is the argument that this whole shift from PowerPC to Intel is for Hollywood and so Apple can lock down digital media with the DRM built into Intel's new chips. I have little doubt this was a big factor in the decision, but I have a lot more doubt about the value of such a motivation on Apple's part. In a sense, Apple sold part of its soul to the RIAA with the DRM build into iTunes and the iTunes Music Store. Now it appears at least possible that Apple has sold the rest of its soul to Hollywood.

Listen to me talking about Apple's “soul.” It's a corporation. What I should probably say is that Apple may be selling out its users or betraying their best interests with these moves. I guess only time will tell whether the value of being able to download DRMed movies and music will outweigh the hassles and restrictions that come with all of that.

Posted 06:45 AM | Comments (16) | TrackBack | mac geek

More Apple, Cops with Guns, Torture, and more...

1. The NY Times is corroborating the story that Apple is switching to Intel chips and it's not hedging by suggesting that this is just for something peripheral like Wi-Max. Can it really be true? Daring Fireball doesn't think so; he's betting a dollar that what's really going on is that Apple has hired Intel to produce PowerPC chips.
2. Cop shoots his own leg while giving a gun safety demonstration to a classroom of kids and adults.
3. What is torture?

   While the public expressed outrage at the photographic evidence of torture at Abu Ghraib, the writers and architects of U.S. torture policy have been largely forgiven. Many have been promoted. There is something about bare-bones legal analysis that immunizes—even sterilizes—the contents of the message.

   [link via Balkinization
4. This is a few days old, but GW Law School has named Frederick M. Lawrence, Boston University professor of law, as its new dean. [link via JD2B]
5. Have you played the Bush Brain Game?
6. The Volokh Conspiracy is having a “VC Happy Hour” this Thursday in D.C. Is Eugene Volokh flying in from the west coast?
7. Random lists like this really mess w/Google's ad bots—they can't figure out what to try to sell you.
8. Fundable is a new way of trying to raise money online for some specific purpose. It looks pretty cool.
9. GULC rising 2L Swanno has started a new group blawg currently called Postmodern Law. That could be interesting.

Posted 06:55 AM | TrackBack | lists

Cheap Laptops?

Ok, it pains me a little to do this, but my sister is in the market for a *cough* Windows laptop. I have never before purchased such a beast so I have no idea where to look for the best deals. She's looking entry level, simple, basic, dependable, and cheap cheap cheap. Of course, it would be best if it weren't fall-apart cheap, but you know what I'm saying. Bells and whistles she's not looking for. She wants to run MS Office, surf, and do email. That's basically it. She might use it w/her digital camera, but that's not super-crucial. So where should we start shopping?

Posted 07:36 PM | Comments (8) | TrackBack | life generally

Will Your Dell Run OS X?

Everybody's talkin' about the rumor started by Cnet that Apple plans to ditch IBM and switch to Intel chips. The Unofficial Apple Weblog (TUAW) has what seems to be a pretty typical discussion of the news and Mac Rumors has another. Some are saying “no way, never ever,” while some are coming up with fairly plausible reasons why this might happen. For example, what if Intel is planning to start making PowerPC chips for Apple? That would make the rumor true—Apple would be using Intel chips—but that wouldn't mean OS X would run on any old Intel machine.

Dave Winer has a podcast about this and links to several interesting perspectives, including one from Robert Scoble, a Microsoft employee who claims the rumor is definitely true and asks some good questions about what will happen if it is. The Wall Street Journal has supposedly confirmed the Apple/Intel story, and AppleInsider is talking about rumors of 2GB iPod Shuffles with screens. Cnet is also reporting that an Apple/Intel deal will help pave the way to streaming online movies and all sorts of things.

I'm thinking this is all starting to look more and more like the typical hype-fest that always surrounds anything like the upcoming World Wide Developer Conference that starts tomorrow. I guess we'll see.

Meanwhile, Apple's got other problems. It just settled a class action lawsuit filed by iPod owners who claimed Apple oversold the iPod's battery life. Full details here. In Apple's other big legal battle, Blogcritics is reporting that “the Court of Appeals in California appears ready to overturn an order forcing bloggers to turn over confidential sources.” This would be a good thing.

Posted 06:15 AM | Comments (6) | TrackBack | mac geek

Loans, Wisdom, Juris Novis, Free Donuts, and...

1. Divine Angst has much more information about consolidating student loans.
2. The Divine one has also begun posting (e.g.) at Blawg Wisdom. Watch that space for more contributions from a crack team of law students and pre-law students who have volunteered to help keep things up to date and more entertaining and useful for you. Thanks to all of them for their generous efforts!
3. Thanks to Juris Novis for putting ai in its mix of law student blogs. If you're looking for a good, compact snapshot of what the “blawgosphere” is talking about on any given day, Juris Novis appears to be a pretty good place to start.
4. Did you hear about the lawyer whose opening statement lasted 119 days? (via On Firm Ground)
5. Have you seen the latest Blawg Review over at Crime and Federalism? It's packed full of too much goodness to list here, so check it out.
6. I'm sure you've seen this, but I have to link to the Ten Most Harmful Books of the 19th and 20th centuries as compiled by a bunch of conservative free-marketers. All i have to say is that if the “Evil Empire” of the Soviet Union actually had put the Communist Manifesto into practice, the last 100 years would have been very different.
7. Free Donuts in Dupont (and Alexandria, and Rockville) today! What could be better!?

Posted 07:31 AM | TrackBack | lists

Happy Annibirthsaryday

This is a big day for the family Imbroglio—it's both my sister's birthday and my parents' anniversary. That may sound odd, but it's really mostly a coincidence, I think. My sister was born several years after my parents married, but it just so happened she decided that their wedding anniversary was the perfect day to see the world for the first time. I think they sort of planned it that way, sort of, but I'm not sure. The point is: I have a terrific family and I hope they all have a wonderful celebration day!

Posted 07:06 AM | Comments (1) | TrackBack | life generally

Aaack! Consolidate Loans or You Will Spontaneously Combust!

Memo to college law students: Consolidate your loans now or pay more later.

“The rates in effect right now are the lowest in the history of the student loan program,”   he said. “It's a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity.”

Yeah, that's right. Rates are low, but they're going up on July 1. You wanna pay even more for this already insanely-overpriced education? I don't think so. So what to do? Well, Access says it will consolidate for you. Access owns my soul, so perhaps I'll let them consolidate it, too. But if you don't want to go that route, NPR did a piece on this recently that might have more options. I'm assured that consolidation is possible even if you're still in school, which is a new thing. Probably everywhere you look you'll find banks jumping to help you with this. They know you're going to pay them lots of money over the life of those zillion-dollar consolidated loans. Mmmm. Feeding the machine. Satisfying, isn't it? Ok, so no, but still, what choice do we have? So consolidate your loans already, will you? You can send the money you save right here. ;-) UPDATE: It appears I don't know as much about this as I thought. (Shock!) If you know more than I do about loan consolidation pros/cons/strategies, or know where I (and others) could learn more, please do share!

Posted 08:30 PM | Comments (8) | law school

What My Inbox Tells Me, Among Other Things

1. Sitting checking my email box I realize: Wow. My ebay account has been suspended so many times it's not even funny. I wonder why ebay keeps reinstating it if they're just going to suspend it again. Also, PayPal sure does need me to verify my account a lot -- like every day and sometimes twice or more the same day. Not a very tightly run ship, that PayPal.
2. Yubbledew says we shouldn't listen to Amnesty International when it says America is abusing its prisoners—and especially when reports of abuse (see e.g.) come from “people who were held in detention, people who hate America, people that had been trained in some instances to disassemble -- that means not tell the truth” (emphasis mine). You tell 'em George! Now, should we listen to claims that something is absurd from someone who speaks in absurdities?
3. disassemble |ˌdisəˈsembəl| verb [ trans. ] (often be disassembled) take (something) to pieces : the piston can be disassembled for transport.
4. And speaking of language, do you speak Deadwood? (Caution: This link is absolutely not for those offended by, um, vulgar lingo.)
5. Is it just me, or has Daypop died? No matter when I try to load the page my browser says it cannot connect to the server. That makes me sad.
6. iMuffs: Cool. Now that portable music players are small enough to really fit in your pocket the most annoying thing is dealing with cords. No more cords, no more problems. Of course, if you have a shuffle or have something non-iPod, you could always just get a cord keeper.
Did you know that while I was whiling away the hours redesigning this site (to no purpose, since RSS is killing design; the horror!), I actually should have been grading about 100 journal competitions? Funny, I didn't know that either. Oops. I need to hire someone to keep track of my to-do list. If you see a help-wanted ad like that soon on the DC Craiglist, that's me.
7. Congratulations and best wishes to my Seester who has a job interview today. Knock 'em dead! (But not really, of course. More language games....)

Posted 06:53 AM | Comments (8) | TrackBack | lists