Today was the first day of my $2,400 bar review course. For that amount, I get a massive stack of books and a special badge that allows me to go downtown and watch a video for four hours each day. A strange thing about the building is that you have to use a special bathroom key for the bathroom. Clearly the building has had problems with people coming in off the street, running past the security guards, getting into the elevators, going to the eighth floor, finding the bathroom, and using it in a manner that causes severe disgust among the floor’s co-inhabitants.
I’ll probably be complaining a lot about the BarBri course this summer, but in their defense I will say that I was happy with the first lecture from Professor Charles Whitebread. Check out his 1995-era web site.
Monthly Archives: May 2004
Some Music Online
I still haven’t had time to re-upload my songs to the new cnet service, but garageband.com has finally “restored” some tracks from the old mp3.com service. You can listen here: zegna music.
Third Party Pop-Up Ads Article
My first published article reaches the printed page this week. You can now read the pdf version online. The article is intended to be an update on third party pop-up advertising litigation that has now become a widespread legal issue. Originally, I was just looking at the WhenU v. Uhaul case, which is the first pop-up case to reach a decision (summary judgment in favor of the pop-up advertiser). Things take a long time to get published though, and I had to constantly update the article as new decisions came down. The new decisions (preliminary injunctions only, no other final decisions) made things interesting; they seemed to go either way on almost exactly the same facts.
Thus, it’s an interesting issue to watch. I think my article is a good primer for the decisive months ahead.
You might also be interested in some of the other articles in the issue.
Perrier v. Terrier
As the trademark dispute between Windows and Lindows rolls on, hundreds of law students are becoming JDs. What is a school like Boston University teaching their graduates about changing the first letter of a famous mark? Check out this bottle of water, distributed by the thousands at the BU Law graduation ceremony:
I doubt this would ever become a lawsuit, but I thought it was funny. I suppose the pronunciation difference could help BU’s argument. Props to Perrier for offering publicly useable images.
I Graduated from Law School
I graduated from law school yesterday. Whew – that was a lot of work. It’s nice to be finished, but it doesn’t feel like too big of a deal. There’s still a lot of work to be done (for example: the bar exam) and there will always be a million more things to do, and that’s okay.
Law School Discussion is Down Again
For anyone trying to access Law School Discussion today, the site is down again due to a hard drive failure. Let’s hope it wasn’t Law School Discussion that crashed the server. The hosting company estimates that the site will be up again around 1:30pm EDT, but we’ll see. I’ll continue to write updates here as I learn more.
UPDATE: The site is technically back online, but the discussion board parts (ie, the whole point of the site) are still not working. At the moment it looks like the database is gone, but hopefully it can be restored.
UPDATE: The database is now restored and the site is working again. A site being down for one day shouldn’t be the end of the world, and it’s not, but it is disappointing to see that there have been around 600 posts per day and then a day with only 15.
Ford Rouge Plant
I took a trip to Detroit last weekend and visited Ford’s massive Rouge manufacturing facility. Ford only recently resumed tours of the plant after closing the tour about 25 years ago. The new tour is a Disneyland style “experience” with giant video screens, flashy buses (old city buses painted over to look new – but obviously old), and tour t-shirts. It was actually quite interesting.
The tour and marketing campaigns make a big point of the fact that the new assembly facility is an environmentally advanced building. The US Green Building Council has given the site a Gold LEED rating. The building features a giant green roof and a (semi) permeable parking lot.
It’s nice to see companies developing environmental buildings, but the idea of an ultra-enviro-friendly car manufacturing facility is just a little bit ridiculous. Isn’t manufacturing hundreds of gas guzzling F-150 pickups in a green building something like building WMDs in a hospital?
Folding@home Team
Pre-Law students on Law School Discussion (now popularly known as “LSD”) are starting a Folding@home team. I’ve been using Folding@home for over two years now and I think it’s great way to donate your computer’s idle time to a good cause.
If you don’t already use the Folding@home screen saver, please give it a try. You can download it here. To join the LSD team, use team #37055.
Annual Street Cleaning
Most street cleaning I’ve seen is done on a weekly or fortnightly basis. For some reason, my street in Boston (Park Drive) only gets cleaned one time each year. It seems the city has mistaken the concept of spring cleaning (doing a thorough cleaning in the spring) to mean “clean only once, and do it in the spring”. Nevertheless, spring is upon us and Park Drive is now clean.
So what does a year’s worth of street filth look like?
Back in Beantown
I’ve been back in Boston for almost a week now seeing lots of friends and eating lots of good food. I’m essentially finished with law school as well, but there’s always little administrative things (and of course the bar) to get done.
Going to Leiden was a great experience. I’ll soon make a little photo page so you can see what the town looks like.