Monthly Archives: December 2002

law school

Law School Exam Fun Facts

Exams are right around the corner (where the weekend = the corner). I have Copyright Wednesday, another corner, and then Evidence and Administrative Law next Wednesday and Thursday. For those unfamiliar with law school exams, here are a couple things I was surprised to find out last year:

  • The exam is 100% of one’s grade. This makes the question, “How did you do in that class?” the equivalent of “What grade did you get on the exam?”
  • You can type your exams in law school! This doesn’t mean, however, that you can bring a computer to the exam (though I’ve heard of some schools providing special software for exam taking). At BU at least, you must provide your own typewriter. The typists take the exam in a separate (and much noisier) typing room.
  • Generally, law school exams are open-book. Often you can bring in your own notes too. This makes things easier.
  • There’s almost always a curve. At BU at least, most professors are bound by the school to enforce a rigid grade distribution. Thus there is no such thing as an entire class doing well or poor, and statements made to the entire school such as, “good luck on exams” or “grades are important to employers, so study hard” are empty, meaningless statements.
    • earth

    More Snow

    It’s been snowing again in Boston and I have to say I’m enjoying it. Snow makes for a nice change of scenery and Boston deals with it well. I keep hoping for a storm big enough to disrupt the routine of the town, but so far the plows, salt, and shovels seem pretty efficient.

    misc

    Lego Scene

    The only thing more fun than playing with legos is to make silly scenes with them and put them on the internet. Lego Death (via blogdex) features various death scenes while [link removed] features various, um, sex scenes (warning, rather graphic, adults only!). It’s still resonably clever to make a lego version of yourself, but don’t try making a lego version of the bible, it has already been done.
    If lego scenes are cool, it must be even cooler to make lego movies.

    people, technology

    AOL Scam

    AOL to Announce New Focus on Taxing Confused Internet Users
    Perhaps I am missing something, but to me AOL is a company that sends me lots of plastic and paper in an attempt to get me to spend $20 a month for slow internet access guarded by a minefield of advertising. (I don’t know if they’re still doing it, but you used to have to click “no thanks” just to get started.)
    Why then, does AOL think that they can charge high-speed users $15 a month simply for access to their “content”? I don’t know what they have to offer, but I can’t imagine that it’s worth anywhere close to $15 a month. AOL would have to pay me to get me on their website. People have been discussing paid content for a long time, and I’ve noticed a few magazines that require payment for access to older articles. Still, outside of porn, the only content for which most people are willing to pay comes through a cathode tube, a newsstand, a book store, or a movie theatre – not the internet.
    Conceivably, pure stupidity alone will enable AOL to survive: “Perhaps as many as half of the roughly four million people who get access to AOL through a high-speed connection do it by continuing to pay $23.95 for their subscription to AOL over a phone line even after they pay someone else $40 a month for high-speed access, effectively overpaying.” Someone should tell these people!

    earth

    City Size (Counting the Miles)

    A week ago I posted the population data of the 20 largest metropolitan areas. Population is interesting when you’re thinking about city economies, cultures, influence, etc.; but it doesn’t tell you a damn thing about how far you’d have to walk to get from downtown to midtown, from the Bay to the breakers, or from the Fenway to the Beacon Hill. To compare city sizes, Rob Cockerham has developed a niftly little web page that shows two same-scale city maps side by side. I’d be nice to see more cities, but it’s worth a quick look.