I’d like to say that the reason things have been so quiet around here for the last week or so is my insane study drive towards finals. Unfortunately, no.
Despite Wings&Vodka’s encouragement, I’ve spent a fair amount of time slacking, playing games, eating leftovers, and choosing new music from iTunes.
In other news:
The Solomon Amendment seems to be on the way out
Anonymous networks are cool, and supported by The EFF.
What are these people typing?
I’m sitting in a review for Torts class. It is a review. We are going over outlines provided by T.A.’s and comparing them to our own. There is no material, there are no surprises.
Yet, at least half of the class is typing like mad. Granted, I’m typing like mad at the moment, but only because there’s only so much I can learn for the third or fourth time.
Maybe everyone else is weblogging or something.
Here’s an interesting article passed along to me:
American Medical Association guidelines bar doctors from taking part, directly or indirectly, in executions. Kentucky requires doctors to follow the association’s ethical guidelines.
It’s an interesting question. I’d suspect that he would enjoy a privilege, as governor, excusing him from the law requiring him to follow the AMA guidelines in this case.
Ok, we’re going to take a poll among any other 1L’s out there listening. How many of you think that this has a chance of appearing in your Crim Law final?
Police plan to file murder charges against Sao Caetano club officials for the death of defenseman Serginho, who collapsed on the field and died of heart failure last month.
Police said Friday that the club’s president and doctor knew Serginho had heart trouble, but let him play anyway.
Murder charges will be filed against president Nairo Ferreira de Souza and doctor Paulo Fortes, police said. If convicted, they could face up to 20 years in prison.
Man, it’s tempting to get one of these. Although I’m not entirely certain what I would do with it. I wonder if I could sneak one with a “SCOTUS” nameplate into the library and hang it on
228 years and the federal judiciary system is still flying by the seat of its collective pants when it comes to application of law issues in diversity jurisdiction.
A wheel conspiracy involves an individual (or small group) – the hub, who transacts illegal dealings with the various other individuals – the spokes. The most common evidentiary issue in a wheel conspiracy is whether the separate transactions between the hub and individual spokes can be merged to form a single conspiracy.
In contrast, the chain conspiracy usually involves several layers of personnel dealing with a single subject matter, as opposed to a specific person. . . . A single conspiracy can be proven if each link knew or must have known of the other links in the chain, and if each defendant intended to join and aid the larger enterprise.
[ . . . ]
Perhaps a more accurate way to visualize a complex conspiracy case would be to view it as a three-dimensional organic chemistry molecule with each part interacting continuously with another thereby forming and adhering to the whole, for a common purpose.
People v. Macklowitz, 135 Misc. 2d 232, 236-237 (N.Y. Misc., 1987)
…and I thought I was done with three dimensional modeling…
It’s human nature – ever since the first great apes were able to comprehend time well enough to understand the concept of “later", they’ve been procrastinating.
Blame it on bad priorities. Blame it on laziness. Blame it on distracted ants. Blame it on the desperate assumption that somebody, or at least some force, is tending the light at the end of the tunnel.
In every project there comes a time when someone looks up and says “oh shit, we’re totally boned, we need to hurry up.”
At this point, the true motivation kicks in. The difficulty now comes in overcoming panic, and focusing the frantic energy it has produced.
…this is the anti-zen of project management…
Those Creative Commons people are at it again. This time with science-oriented licenses. Too bad I’ve got a memo to write and cannot even read their press release right now.
I suppose I’m now officially a student again. I just stayed up past midnight in order to finish a memo that only one person is ever going to read. And he’s going to get 35 copies of it.
“Our political history reeks of unfair, intemperate, scurrilous and irresponsible charges against those in or seeking public office. Washington was called a murderer, Jefferson a blackguard, a knave and insane (Mad Tom), Henry Clay a pimp, Andrew Jackson a murderer and adulterer, and Andrew Johnson and Ulysses Grant drunkards. Lincoln was called a half-witted usurper, a baboon, a gorilla, a ghoul. Theodore Roosevelt was castigated as a traitor to his class, and Franklin Delano Roosevelt as a traitor to his country. Dwight D. Eisenhower was charged with being a conscious agent of the Communist Conspiracy.” (Desert Sun Publishing Co. v. Superior Court, 97 Cal. App. 3d 49, 51 (Cal. Ct. App., 1979))
Looks like four more years.
And with the likely 3-4 Supreme Court appointments, it’s going to be 40-60 more years.
I’m not sure if there’s anyone in particular reading this, but if they are, and they’re in California, and they’ve not yet voted, you might want to pay attention to Prop. 66, which basically says that any general class-action lawsuit has to be brought by someone personally harmed or by the attorney general. Much of the rhetoric regarding this centers on the “bounty-hunting trial lawyers” that supposedly roam the land strongarming businesspeople and reaping huge fees.
This is pretty much B.S.
Anyway, here’s a really good explanation of how things really are.
Wow. I never thought it would be this bad.
Lexmark v. Static Control was decided the other day. It makes for interesting reading if you’re into the copy and use-protection debates.
In this case, Lexmark, who makes printers and toner cartridges, was attempting to force people to continue to buy their supplies from them (the Xerox business model) by including a chip in the toner system that would report back to the printer when it was low on toner. Anyone who wanted to make compatible replacements would have to duplicate or copy their software. Of course, they claimed a copyright on the content of the software in order to prevent this.
Static Control came along and created their own replacment toner carts, selling them for less (since they didn’t have to use them to subsidize printer sales.)
Anyway, no more commentary (gotta study for Crim Law) but here’s some choice quotes:
The Toner Loading Program for the T520/522 printers comprises 33 program instructions and occupies 37 bytes of memory, while the Toner Loading Program for the T620/622 printers comprises 45 program commands and uses 55 bytes of memory. To illustrate the modest size of this computer program, the phrase “Lexmark International, Inc. vs. Static Control Components, Inc.” in ASCII format would occupy more memory than either version of the Toner Loading Program.
(incidentally, I had never been aware that there was a “de minimus” level at which an idea becomes so simple that there is effectively only one way to express it – good to know)
Neither do the cited cases support the district court’s initial frame of reference. Franklin Computer, 714 F.2d 1240, and Formula International, 725 F.2d 521, involved copies of Apple’s operating system program—a program whose size and complexity is to the Toner Loading Program what the Sears Tower is to a lamppost.
Just as a mathematician may develop an elegant proof, or an author may express ideas in a spare, simple, but creative manner, see, e.g., e.e. cummings, Selected Poems (Richard S. Kennedy ed., 1994), so a computer programmer may develop a program that is brief and eligible for protection. But unless a creative flair is shown, a very brief program is less likely to be copyrightable because it affords fewer opportunities for original expression.
Note to self: cite e.e. cummings in more cases.
Powered by WordPress