In Praise of the Palm z22

Are you looking for the perfect little gift for that lawyer, law student, or just about anyone else in your life? Have I got a suggestion for you!

My wonderful girlfriend recently gave me a Palm Z22 and I have just fallen in love with this thing. I don't know how I ever lived without one! As the cheapest and smallest PDA Palm has ever made, the poor thing has taken some hits from critics as being too small, having a poor quality screen, etc. I think the critics are missing the point of a device like this. The Z22 is small and cheap; that's it. If you don't want small and cheap, you don't want this. But small and cheap are exactly what I wanted for one reason: I can drop this tiny thing in my pocket and have it with me all the time, anywhere, and since it was relatively inexpensive I'm not constantly worried that it's getting scratched or damaged—I can just use it and not think about it.

And use it I have! The absolute best thing about it is reading ebooks on the metro or any other time I find myself sitting or standing around waiting for something. The other day I got stuck waiting in court for about three hours. What to do? I pulled my Z22 out of my pocket and read several chapters of The Burden of Proof by Scott Turow. The time just flew by!

But, of course, it's also great to have all my contacts' names and numbers at my fingertips, and this little thing makes it worthwhile to keep my calendar up-to-date so I'm less likely to forget an appointment or to-do item. Plus, there's always a quick game of solitaire or Word Wiggle if I just have a few minutes to fill. Finally, I need never be caught w/out pen and paper again—the Z22 is always in my pocket to capture a note or bit of info I would otherwise forget.

For you lawgeeks, here's something very cool you could do with the Z22: Carry around your state's civil or criminal code and/or reference materials in your pocket! For example, here's Illinois Criminal Procedure, Virginia Crimes and Offenses 2005, and the Michigan Code of Criminal Procedure 2004. Not every jurisdiction is available, but if yours is, this could be an incredibly handy reference tool.

And did I mention how small this thing is!? It's about the size of a full-size iPod but weighs less than a deck of cards. It's so small and light that sometimes I even forget it's in my pocket.

Of course, as much as I love this thing, it's not perfect. I find myself wishing a little that it accepted flash memory cards to expand its 20MB of usable memory (I've already used over 17MB of that). And if it had the expandable memory, it would need a headphone jack so it could be your portable mp3 device along with everything else. It might be nice if it had bluetooth and/or wifi capabilities, but I haven't found a time when that would really be super-usefulyet. And, of course, I also dream of the day that something this small and light can do everything this device does, plus be a phone. You can already buy Palm devices that do some or all of these things (the Treo does them all, I think), but they are all either bigger or heavier, and all of them are definitely more expensive. For my needs right now, the Z22 is the perfect compromise of size, weight, and functionality, and I bet it would be perfect for someone on your wishlist, too.

(Note 1: Palm is going to give me $5 for every one of you who buys one of these things in the next ten days, so get shopping please.)

(Note 2: Note 1 is a lie.)

Posted 08:48 AM | Comments (1) | TrackBack | life generally

Things You Should Know About

1. GotVoice: Get your voicemail messages emailed to you as MP3s or listen to them online.
2. TrioBike: A mountain bike, stroller, and people-mover all in one.
3. WikiLaw: A wiki for legal reference. It's pretty empty right now, but there are a bunch of law students on break right now who I'm sure could do something about that!
4. Your government is spying on you. But you probably knew that already.

Posted 08:20 AM | Comments (1) | TrackBack | lists

Get Mine Firsters Are Losers

My final thoughts on this season of Survivor and particularly Cindy's decision about the cars. Unless you're a Survivor fan I promise your time will be better spent moving to some other location on the internets.

First, Professor Yin has posted some thoughts on the subject in terms of both game theory and morality/ethics. In terms of the game, he notes that Cindy could have taken home $15,000 more if she'd stayed through just one more vote.* In terms of morals/ethics, he suggests that the cost of those four cars has to be paid by someone, which means eventually to all car buyers (I guess); therefore, maybe Cindy did us a favor by taking just one car rather than taking four. I find that a rather implausible argument; I doubt GM just gave the cars to CBS in the first place and even if it did, such an expense is the least of GM's burdens future car buyers will be paying.

That said, I understand that we live in a “get mine first” world and that Survivor especially is a “get mine first” game. Without reviewing past seasons too closely, it seems that the “get mine first” players almost never win. The players who tend to win are those who are either:

1) Nice, mostly under-the-radar, and in good enough shape/smart enough to win crucial challenges to stay in the game. I'd put Tina Wesson (Season 2), Ethan Zohn (S3), Jenna Morasca (S6), Amber Brkich (S8), and Danni (S11) in this category.

2) Canny manipulators who are just good enough at getting people to do what they want that they earn respect for being so ruthless and capable and therefore end up winning. I'd put Richard Hatch (S1), Brian Heidek (S5), Sandra Diaz-Twine (S6), and Tom Westman (S10) in this category.

Group 1 wins because people underestimate them, they make it to the end, and then they have fewer enemies than their counterpart. Group 2 wins because they are able to see the big picture and give things up when necessary to get further in the game. My point is that neither of these types of players are “get mine firsters.” Hence, I continue to maintain that what Cindy did was just dumb in the context of the game.

Outside the game she's probably not too worried about it. Everyone who remained after her got enough money to buy 3-4 cars or more, so it's not like she totally shafted them. Still, I can't help thinking about the great sensation Cindy would have made if she had chosen differently. Her generosity would have made her a media darling, if only for a few minutes. It would have been shocking to the majority who thinks she did the right thing, and would have given tv-watchers a moment to consider giving rather than taking the next time they faced such a choice (by which I mean a choice between giving and taking generally, not a choice between taking one car or giving four away).

But whatever. That's not what happened. In the end, Cindy got more than she deserved (a new car plus $55,000) and a worthy contestant ended up winning. So goes Survivor.

I'm really not thinking 24/7 about Survivor, although from recent posts here it might seem that way. Still, since finals are over, what else do I have to think about? Getting a job? Oh, well, Survivor is clearly more fun.

* Wikipedia has a breakdown of how much money each contestant ends up with. Scroll down 5-6 screens to “prizes.”

Posted 11:06 AM | Comments (1) | TrackBack | tv land

Good news from the MPRE!

I'm pretty sure the highest scaled score any state requires is 85, so at least I won't have to worry about taking the MPRE again. The email telling me this came last night and was a great cherry on top of the fact that my semester is over. Sure, I still have clients for the clinic and I'm scheduled to testify for someone else tomorrow, but it's nice not to have to worry about classes or finals for a while.

Can it be that I really only have one semester left? Hard to believe. Now I just have to find a job....

Posted 09:53 AM | Comments (4) | TrackBack | 3L

What's wrong with you people!?

Ok, so I was waiting to see the big Survivor finale until after my final final of the semester. That's over now. It was decidedly mediocre. I sense a potential C in my future. Do I care? Sure. Am I moving on? Duh.

So let me just get right to it: I'm appalled! How could so many of you think it was perfectly ok for Cindy to give up the chance to give four cars away!? I guess I'm just totally out of it, but my answer was Option 3 -- both 1 & 2. The choice was selfish, greedy, and stupid. And look here, people, Heather Havrilesky agrees with me, so I must be right. ;-)

That Havrilesky piece was almost funny to read because it so closely mimicked the conversation L. and I had as we watched last Thursday's episode of Survivor. I'd seen a preview for this show so I knew the choice that someone was going to face. I told L: “This is going to be good. Someone is going to win a car and then they're going to have to give it up.” Why? she asked. “Because if they give it up, they can give the other four players a car each so of course they have to give it up.” Havrilesky was obviously thinking the same thing:

OK, chickens. Answer me this: Who pauses to think at this point? What kind of a mind wraps itself around that question and comes up with any answer other than “I'll give up the car, Jeff!” Four people get brand-new cars, four people, one of whom has never owned her own car in her entire life. Who could even consider taking a new car for herself, knowing that she cheated four people out of that experience?

And that's without factoring in the millions of people watching. When you consider all those people out there, millions of people, lots of them young and impressionable, watching as you decide between doing the right thing, or doing the selfish thing?

As we watched the show and saw that Cindy was not doing what we expected, we were appalled. We went through the same analysis as Havrilesky—it was both strategically and morally stupid to keep the car:

“But hey, it's just a game,” you say, so let's cast all moral considerations aside and consider the game. No matter how they feel about you, I guarantee you that the other contestants would be physically unable to vote you out, after you gave them all cars. By giving up your car, you might just have won yourself a million dollars -- you'd at least have a great shot at it.

And then you throw in the long-term picture: You give up the car, and millions of people are watching. Here's what happens next: 1) Everyone at camp loves you, and feels a personal sense of obligation to make sure you make it into the final three at the very least, 2) everyone at home goes “Awww, that was so nice of her!” which means that 3) you'll be sitting down with Katie Couric and Matt Lauer and God knows who else to discuss your huge, generous heart, which means that 4) you'll demand a good sum as a public speaker for a few years and 5) you might just earn a hefty sum for appearing in a few print ads and, hey, even if you don't want any of that stuff 6) you can spend the rest of your life with your head held high, knowing that you did the right thing.

Now let's look at what happens when you keep the car: 1) Everyone at camp instantly dislikes you, and for a very good reason, 2) everyone at home goes “Ewww” and tries to pry your mean little face out of their minds forever, 3) you get voted off at the next tribal council, 4) not even the host of “The Early Show” on CBS really wants to speak to you, 5) your 15 minutes of fame are reduced to five minutes and 6) you spend the rest of your life known as the Selfish, Morally Bankrupt Idiot Who Sold Her Soul for a Pontiac.

This is exactly what we were thinking. And then Havrilesky summed it all up:

Look, we're all busy and we all have our own factories to run, usually with limited resources. But it's downright disconcerting how different we are from each other, ethically. That reward challenge wasn't a choice, it was just a veiled opportunity, courtesy of the producers, to do something generous and honorable, if not just to appear generous and honorable. Seeing someone turn down that chance is like wandering into your neighbor's house and finding a herd of preteen girls sewing together Gap sweatshirts until their fingers bleed.

But then, shock of all shocks, a majority of (the admittedly small number of) readers of this blog made the same choice Cindy made. What were you people thinking? I obviously couldn't hack it on Survivor so I guess it's a good thing I never applied. I'm thinking it's time I finish that damned application, though. Someone needs to be there to save humanity from the savages. Meanwhile, I'm loving the Survivors Strike Back blog written by previous contestants. It's a good thing I didn't learn about this sooner or my grades this semester would have been even lower.

So people, please: Explain to me how you justify your choice in the previous poll. Why was Cindy right? I just don't get it.

Posted 12:15 AM | Comments (4) | TrackBack | 3L tv land