Notes Upon Reading the Express

The Express is a free newspaper here in D.C. that you can pick up on your way into a metro station and read on the train. It contains ads, one-paragraph summaries of the biggest news, more ads, lots of little factoids and “news of the weird” type stuff, still more ads, and pages and pages of ads disguised as “information” about celebrities, tv-shows, movies, music, and crap for you to buy. It's published by the Washington Post and it has a more right-leaning competitor in The Examiner.

So anyway, yesterday's paper contained this real gem on page 8 I just couldn't pass up passing on:

“It is the government's job to deal with the hungry; we, the traders, are here for business.” —Ibrahim Bay, Millet Trader, on the high prices of food in Niger as the country faces a severe famine.

Oh yeah, I love free trade. And capitalism. It's a good thing that “the chief business of the American people is business.”

The Express also tells me that Gary Cole, aka “Bill Lumberg,” is going to play a tough cop on a new TNT show called “Wanted.” Don't get me wrong; I think Mr. Cole is a fine actor and I've enjoyed his performances in many things, but, well, a tough cop? Mmyeah.

Posted 08:13 AM | TrackBack | life generally

Voices Now Available

For the thousands one of you out there who would like to listen to the previously recorded ambivalent voices podcasts, they are once again available here. You can either download each one individually, or subscribe to this feed in iPodder or iTunes or some other podcast aggregator.

You know, if I were a real podcaster I could have done a podcast about all of this, huh?

UPDATE: Ok, so I made a podcast to update listeners on the changes to the location of the feed. I also rambled on about some other things, including primarily the Law School Podcast. Listening to it after the fact I realize my comments about self-censorship and whether the Law School Podcaster is putting too much personal info online are rather hypocritical in light of the fact that so much of my own life is online here, there, and everywhere. How will any of this affect the looming job search? I guess I'll find out, won't I? I also forgot to mention in the upcoming podcasts that once we both have the time I'll also be talking to Andrew Raff about his experience studying for and taking the bar. I also would still like to do something special for one of the Blawg Reviews I'll be involved in hosting, so stay tuned!

Posted 05:47 AM | Comments (1) | TrackBack | voices

Podcasting with Skype?

Does anyone know of a good way to record Skype calls on a Mac? I've followed these instructions and I think it works fine, but it's so damn complicated! It looks like Gizmo Project allows you to record your calls w/one button—that's the level of complexity I'm looking for. Unfortunately, I don't think anyone uses Gizmo Project and a lot of people use Skype. I guess I could just ask the people I'm interviewing to download the Gizmo so we could make it work, but barring that, does anyone know something simple w/Skype?

Posted 09:19 PM | Comments (2) | TrackBack | voices

My Doorbell

Last year at the beginning of the summer I heard a song that was so catchy and infectious I just knew I would play it all summer long -- that was Float On, by Modest Mouse. This year, now that the summer is finally over, I've got another song of the summer: “My Doorbell” by the White Stripes (lyrics/iTMS). Catchy. Infectious. Great when played very loud.

So when you gonna ring it?

And since y'all gave me so many great recommendations last summer (Killers, Snow Patrol, Franz Ferdinand and more), what should I be listening to now to make Paris Hilton say “that's hot”?

Oh, and speaking of listening to things, check out the latest Legal Underground Podcast for some great bits about John Roberts, blawgging, and podcasting. But also listen to check out how polished and professional the podcast sounds—it's amazing! When I said I was going to try to record more podcasts I didn't realize the quality bar had been raised so high since the early early days when I was just playing around. Yikes. But, well, I'm thinking I'll remain an amateur and just leave the pro field to Evan.

(Note: None of those old podcasts are currently available b/c of a server issue that is supposedly being fixed. I'm going to move them all soon to eliminate this problem and then I'll post the new links. Sorry about that!)

Posted 07:16 AM | Comments (8) | TrackBack | ai music voices

Locker Cleanout

I had to clean out my locker at school yesterday so that it will be available to assign to someone else in the coming weeks. It was the first time I'd been up there in months—probably since school ended in early May—so it felt a little strange to be back in the narrow and slightly dark halls of the 3rd floor. It was eerily quiet, as if I was the only one in the whole building, and I was surprised to feel something like, oh, I don't know, could it be fondness for the place? Suddenly it seemed impossible that I'd already spent so much of two years of my life in that place, and that my last year there was about to begin and would be over so soon and that I might never see the place again. As soon as I felt that I immediately checked the emotion. “You will have no reason to miss this place!” I scolded myself. But of course I will. That's the way these things work.

With that in mind, and with the semester really only a couple of weeks away (if you count the two weeks of “orientations” I'll be involved in w/clinic and journal), I'm going to try not to wish my last year away. It's easy in law school to always be thinking ahead to the next goal—finals, the summer job, graduation, passing the bar, whatever it is—and you end up not really being there fully for whatever it is you're going through at the time. I certainly did that last fall, maybe a little less so in the spring. But with only two semesters left, I think I'll slow things down a bit, try to smell the roses, so to speak. That's the plan anyway.

Maybe I should start now by enjoying what's left of summer, huh?

Posted 07:12 AM | Comments (1) | TrackBack | 2L summer 3L

OPML Editor for Mac!

I started playing with Dave Winer's new OPML Editor on Friday, but really I was just checking it out because at the time it was Windows-only. No longer! The Mac version is here!

I wrote about the OPML Editor about a month ago—just sort of thinking out loud about how it might be helpful to lawyers. I don't have anything to add to those ideas yet, but after playing with it just a little I can say it's definitely fun to use and it shows lots of potential. The fact that it's open source means any programmer who sees that potential can try to turn it into reality, and I'd put money on there being lots of great applications of shared outlines and outlines-as-blogs by, oh, I don't know, this time next year.

Why does this matter? How about this: Law students could create “instant outlines” of their class notes. Everyone in the same class could subscribe to that same outline. Whenever anyone updated the outline, everyone who was subscribed would instantly see the changes and have them in his/her own notes. Talk about the ultimate outline. Sure, it could get out of hand, but like I said, the potential is incredible.

Oh, it's also a blogging tool. That's cool, too, especially the fact that it doesn't use a web interface to control the blog and the way it's so easy to create new posts -- just hit return! However, the coolness will be limited until you have more control over where you host your stuff. It's also based on the same back end that Radio Userland was built on, so it works the same way—a mini-server on your desktop. That's obviously got its own pros and cons, but I think the pros are bigger.

p.s.: I am thrilled there's now a Mac version of this tool. The dock icon for the Mac version of the outliner totally blows, though.

Posted 10:54 AM | TrackBack | meta-blogging opml