« May 29, 2005 - June 04, 2005 | Main | June 12, 2005 - June 18, 2005 »
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:
- Check out this cool new website for Rock Creek Writing. Looks good, doesn't it? Do you recognize the photo?
- John Siracusa is mourning the PowerPC.
- A majority of Americans have become smarter than not.
- Speaking of getting smarter, have you read the Downing Street Memo?
- 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
- 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.
- Would you like to listen to your favorite NPR programs via podcast? Tell NPR!
- This Rapid Afterimage thing is hours of fun.
- Did I mention Blawg Review #9 is up?
- Hey Kentucky Bar Association: fining lawyers for blogging is really stupid.
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...
- 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.
- Cop shoots his own leg while giving a gun safety demonstration to a classroom of kids and adults.
- What is torture?
[link via Balkinization 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. 
- 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]
- Have you played the Bush Brain Game?
- The Volokh Conspiracy is having a “VC Happy Hour” this Thursday in D.C. Is Eugene Volokh flying in from the west coast?
- Random lists like this really mess w/Google's ad bots—they can't figure out what to try to sell you.
- Fundable is a new way of trying to raise money online for some specific purpose. It looks pretty cool.
- GULC rising 2L Swanno has started a new group blawg currently called Postmodern Law. That could be interesting.
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
