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August 29, 2008
Palin Problems
Okay. Let's set aside the facts she is pro-life, a lifetime member of the NRA... Palin is a disaster of a choice for vice president. Here's why:
1. Does McCain really think Palin will appeal to Hillary voters? Seriously?? It's ridiculous for someone who really believed in Hillary to support McCain in the first place. If you believed in Hillary's policies, McCain is not your man. But Palin? See my first sentence. She's a pro-life (and doesn't even support rape/incest exceptions) and lifetime member of the NRA. How on Earth does that appeal in any way to someone who supported Clinton??! When Palin gave her line about the glass ceiling, my wife turned to me in disgust and said, "That is such blatant pandering. How stupid do they think we are?"
2. I think there is some (not a lot, but surely some) validity to the argument that Obama lacks experience. However, Palin was the Mayor of a city with a population of less than 6,000. She's the Governor--only for two years--of a state with a population of less than 700,000. Palin was elected Governor after receiving 114,697 votes. Last February, my wife won her primary election here in Cook County with 302,347 votes. My wife got nearly three times as many votes in a local election. With no disrespect to Alaskans, I'm not saying the Governor of Alaska isn't an important job, but it cannot be compared with serving as a Senator for the fifth most populous state in the United States.
3. The experience thing is a big deal. I wish John McCain no ill will, but we have to acknowledge that he is 72 and will be one of the oldest presidential candidates in history. I think it's even more critical that his vice president choice is someone who can readily step into the role of President. Sarah Palin is not even close. Obama might have "little" foreign policy experience--Palin has none. She doesn't even have any national policy experience.
4. Did McCain really only meet her in person once??! That, to me, is even worse than her lack of experience. I'm sorry, I'm a pretty good judge of people, but I don't hire systems administrators without two or more interviews. He met her once?? You can talk all you want about her status and her accomplishments, but if it is true that McCain only met her once in person before making this decision then McCain definitely doesn't have the judgment to be President.
Here's the other problem--I can't believe no one has mentioned it. Everyone defending her seems to be saying, "Oh, but it doesn't matter that she's not experienced. She's an outsider! She's not some good ol' boy with 30 years in politics." I even heard one of McCain's spokespeople say that he chose a reform minded outsider while Obama chose a typical Washington insider. But, um, what is McCain??? He's been in Washington for 26 years. He's not that much of a maverick--he's a rich, old, white guy who has been in Washington for decades. I'm sorry, you can't have it both ways.
I will be very interested in seeing how Palin performs on a national stage. I think the national press and the pressure of a national presidential campaign are going to eat her alive. Of course I could be wrong, but this choice has really left me scratching my head.
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August 24, 2008
Some thoughts on the Olympics...
1. The Opening Ceremony. Wow. I was floored, I honestly could care less that the "feet" fireworks we saw on television were CGI... they were a cool concept and looked great. But beyond that, there were the awesome drummers, the wrap around screen in the Bird's Nest, and that completely cool "community" painting that was created at each stage. Oh, and the light up dudes. Oh, and the human version of the Bird's Nest. And the "movable type" dance. Very impressive. Not to mention all the fireworks. I tend to think of Olympic ceremonies as hokey and boring, but China's were the first Opening Ceremony that really impressed me. Really impressed me. China should be proud.
2. Volleyball. What the hell is with Beach Volleyball?? Seriously, what the hell? When did this become such a major sport? And couldn't we have missed a few of the Misty-May/Walsh matches? And why was she always "Misty-May" instead of "May-Treanor"? Because it sounds cuter? Lame. Speaking of which, why do the women wear skimpy two-piece bikinis, while the guys are in baggy shorts and shirts? Either let the ladies cover up or make the guys play shirtless... in Speedos, I say.
3. Swimming. Who knew it could be so exciting! I didn't.
4. Gymanstics. Um, if the age limit for the sport is supposed to be 16, shouldn't they actually be 16? I'm actually saddened that the Chinese would do this... the games were such a triumph overall, it's a shame they tarnished them with the whole under-age gymnast debacle. Speaking of debacles, Nastia Luikin deserved to share a gold with He Kexin--why can't their be ties in the Olympics? Both girls were fantastic, they had identical scores, why not reward them both in the spirit of the Olympics? I call B.S. Speaking of B.S. what the hell is with the new scoring system??? They couldn't split the difficulty level and subjective and still make it so a perfect score is a 10? sigh It's like the people that run the sport of gymnastics have no damn clue.
5. The venues. Another shining moment for China. The Bird's Nest is unique and impressive venue. And the Water Cube was very cool as well. Combined with the killer Opening Ceremony, the Chinese managed to create one of the most memorable Olympics in my lifetime before any of the athletes even began to compete.
6. The Closing Ceremony. Not as impressive... not even close. The dudes in bike helmets, playing giant Gouda drums wasn't very spectacular. The monowheel bikes were cool, and the "memory tower" flame thing was pretty cool, too. But that Bejing song? The typical pablum I tend to expect from the Olympic ceremonies. I half expected to see Ewoks come out singing "Small World" or "Hakuna Matata". Enough already. The Closing Ceremony had a couple of cool moments, but it was not the cohesive amazathon that the opening ceremony was.
But the worst was the London transition. Oh, London. London, London, London. Terrible. Leona Lewis and Jimmy Page, making fools of themselves on a crappy looking double-decker bus stage?? No wonder Robert Plant doesn't want to tour with Page. I wouldn't tour with Page. London, you have so much work to do before 2012 to not make fools of yourselves. Not a very good start. I was embarrassed for London. First that god awful logo, then this. Then that horrible Michael Phelps thing. Does London want to suck? Sure seems like it.
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August 14, 2008
Great News for "Open Source" Licensing
Good news for open source/Creative Commons licensing proponents. It seems the Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit has issued an opinion in Jacobsen v. Katzer.
The case involved some open source code which was licensed under the Artistic 1.0 license. The District Court had determined that the alleged infringement constituted only a breach of contract, rather than copyright infringement, because the license was overly broad. The distinction between covenant and condition is important because a condition would revoke the license, while breaching a covenant would be a simple contract issue. This impacts evaluating the criteria for issuing a preliminary injunction: a mere breach of contract cause of action does not have a presumption of irreparable harm--so no injunction.
The CAFC relied heavily on the language of the license in its analysis, noting that the license used the term "condition" frequently and that other language was consistent with creating conditions under California law (the applicable law in this appeal).
Reading the terms of the license as conditions, which I think is pretty clear in this case, means that a violation of the condition results in revocation of the license, and therefore the use in question is infringing.
[Via Lessig]
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August 3, 2008
ATT: Nationwide? Shamsionwide.
I have Sprint service, had for years, with no real reason to switch... until the iPhone 3G. My contract with Sprint was up some time ago, so I go to the ATT store today, to sign up and switch, but apparently AT&T are retarded.
You see, I have a family plan. I have my phone, my wife's phone, and one phone for her mother and one for her father. My wife and I live in Chicago. Her parents live in Columbus, Ohio. This is not a problem for Sprint. It should not be a problem for AT&T.
Every month, for years now, Sprint sends a bill to my house. It has all four numbers on it. I pay $10 each for the additional lines. We all share our "family" minutes. Easy!
So, the AT&T employee at the store insisted that AT&T couldn't do that. All of the numbers had to be in the same area code. Then he checked with his manager. His manager said, they have to be in the same "market". So they wouldn't do it. This couldn't be right, I thought. Surely, this must just be something that the 16 year old working the counter at the local store can't figure out.
So I go home, and call AT&T. No, the representative on the phone explained to me that "the system won't let us enter it that way, so we can't do it".
Am I the only one who thinks this is utterly ridiculous??! It's 2008. AT&T is a nationwide provider. OTHER CARRIERS CAN DO IT. It makes absolutely no sense to me that AT&T can't do it because they can't "bill across markets". I don't even care if I have to pay "Chicago" rates for them. The point is to have consolodated billing and share minutes. It's supposed to be about convenience for families Am I really the only/first person to want to do this with AT&T? Is AT&T really this clueless?
I'm frustrated.
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August 2, 2008
The Waiting is the Hardest Part...
Well, the July 2008 Bar Exam is over and I've mostly recovered, thanks to some good meals and some good wine (more on those, later). I don't want to say much about the exam, from sheer superstitious paranoia, but here are a few impressions...
Day one is essay day. Three Illinois essays in the morning (90min), followed by the Multi-state Preformance Test (90min) and then three hours of Multi-state Essay Examination in the afternoon. That equates to a whole lotta writing. And to someone like me, who types for a living (essentially) it sure sucked. My hand was numb by the end of the day, and I'm just getting over the soreness. Seriously, Illinois limited the number of people who could take it on a laptop to 800. Out of nearly 4,000 people taking the exam. That has to change. Either that, or Barbri needs to include one of those hand grip exercise things.
Day two is multiple choice. Believe it or not, it's harder than the essays. At least for me. I'm not going to go into content or how I think I did. I'll just say that the essays were easier than I thought, and the morning of the Multi-state Bar Exam was much harder than I thought. Overall, I suppose it balanced out to a pretty tough exam. How'd I do? I honestly have no idea.
That's the worst of it. The test was July 29-30. I get my results sometime in mid-October. That is truly the worst thing about the Bar Exam.
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