Which font, what is the weight and composition of the paper?
Legal pad. Our office is literally always out of them, to the point that I buy my own. Big firm conference rooms have stacks of them.
One of my lawyer friends is over the moon about getting a brief submitted to the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals.
Since most of us are familiar now with the blogosphere painting law school as a dystopian hells cape, I wonder if people have been seeing this in their law-school-attending friends. Among the people I know
- one guy who got one of those jobs helping poor people that everyone wants to get, he's happy
- a housewife
- someone who bailed out and now has "law school refugee" in her Twitter bio and is... a journalist?
- someone who is at NYU so I guess she'll be all right
- a guy who's basically insane and seems to be dedicating his life to making people feel awkward so they can learn their hypocrisy (reified in his person by being a genius who goes to law school and teaches himself multiple languages while covering himself with tattoos and getting ear gauges, among other things)
Law school is pleasant and entertaining. Getting a lawyer job these days is the hellscape.
And my witness can come back from the bathroom any time now.
I have an ethical question!
Later today I will be proctoring an exam for the course I'm teaching. Having drawn the short straw, I will be proctoring for the students who the accessibility office has decided need extra accomodation. This means more work (and probably more time) for me. Some of the students clearly have disabilities which make things tougher for them. Some of them... it is much harder to tell. So the ethical question: is it okay to silently judge some of them, and if so, how do I pick?
When I worked at an under-funded city "portable pool" one summer I would steal good chlorine from our well-stocked high school pool. Only ethical concern I had was the potential consequences of getting caught.
3:
- writes for an extremely high profile national magazine
- works in real estate
- househusband
- awesome public interest law job
- Stanley
So, dunno!
You can't just steal firm letterhead, cross out the name "Skadden" and write your own name in there. I mean you can but it's not super professional.
"Skadden, Arps, Slate, Liz and Flom"
Where are all the Heidegger jobs I was promised?
12: it is not the Heidegger jobs but the jobness of those jobs that is at issue.
6: Judge the ones who seem unsure which class they're taking or who seem stoned/hungover. I had a student who got 3X exam time - nine hours for a final. No idea how he managed a full-time course load.
Stamped with a name, or a plain legal pad? If so, serifs?
I have to say that my estimation for the legal community dropped some when I learned that senior people who will only read documents in Times Roman or something that look like it are apparently common.
My longtime boss was the king of this. He bought his own legal pads, but all other pads were pilfered. This was a major point of pride. Now that he's retired, of course, he's got a Mercedes, a place on Fifth Ave (quite possible CPE), and a summer house on Nova Scotia.
IOW, you should have taken the things, for your long term financial good.
Just read 2. I thought you meant letterhead pads, which is what he took.
He probably also took legal pads, come to think of it, but I know he also at least sometimes paid for those.
12. The twitter feed of Kim Kierkegaardashian has many followers, must generate some profit potential.
Simply identify a celebrity who could be productively interspersed with 80-character extracts form Heidegger, write the script, lean back, and profit.
If they are pilfered, they become, by definition, illegal pads.
The Heidegger Job was definitely the best episode of Leverage.
Is there any reason legal pads are longer than the regular kind? I find it intensely irritating that legal size paper does not conveniently fit into a standard sized file folder.
a guy who's basically insane and seems to be dedicating his life to making people feel awkward so they can learn their hypocrisy
In philosophy we call this the Socratic tradition.
Amusingly, I'm pretty sure that the federal ethics rules that apply to DOJ would bar LB from accepting a legal pad if voluntarily offered by opposing counsel, but I don't think they would apply to this situation.
6: a classmate in law school with no apparent disability bragged to everyone who would listen about the fact that he got 3x as long for exams because he had duped the school into believing he had a disability, and he couldn't believe how easy it had been to do it, and he didn't understand why everyone didn't do the same thing. (And people in the US were so gullible, and no one in India where he was from would ever fall for that, and and and...) I was never quite sure whether he was telling the truth, or if he actually had a disability that he was embarrassed about and so he told everyone he faked it to avoid the embarrassment. I chose to believe the latter. He always seemed deeply insecure generally, so it seemed like a real possibility, plus if his faking it had been real it seemed hard to believe he would have been quite so open about it. Anyway, he ultimately graduated magna cum laude, and now works for a big hedge fund (on the investment side, not as a lawyer). So, that's the moral of the story.
Does he get 6 and 60 while the rest of his partners get the standard fees?
https://i.chzbgr.com/maxW500/8102142464/hFD0F7049/
Is there any reason legal pads are longer than the regular kind?
Lawyers liked longer paper so that they could take more notes than would fit on a normal page.
6 You won't necessarily know. I had special accommodation for all exams consisting of being allowed to type everything, no extra time. I have a fairly minor fine motor control problem that is only noticeable in certain pretty specific types of activities like tying or untying knots, threading needles or.writing with a pen or pencil. But I can type just fine so if you were proctoring me you would see no reason whatsoever why I should be allowed to type rather than write.
LB: does "pilfering stationary" mean you are just using one or more of the pads of stationary that are available in the conference room, are are you actually packing away a stack of pads to take back to your office? Because kudos if the latter, but the former hardly counts.
3.1: I hope the elation lasts him through the two years it's going to take him to get an actual decision out of that court. The backlog is insane.
3.[everything after 1]: 4 is correct. Tangentially, I remember one of my professors telling me that he remembered finishing law school and feeling sad because there would never be anything in his life he would do as well as take law school exams. I mean, there was obviously some irony there, given that he was tenured and well-thought-of-in-his-field. But I don't think it was all irony. Personally I have sometimes had the same feeling about having been a law clerk.
31: Right. For instance, you probably used the toilet paper while there, but actually stealing a roll would be noteworthy.
I'm currently suing what I take to be LB's client (very broadly speaking). I think we'll manage to avoid depositions, but if we don't it'll be very tempting to arrange especially lavish piles of office supplies. Just out of reach, of course.
22: they're longer so that they'll fit snugly in oversized legal Redwelds.
It's quite hard to take notes on a roll of toilet paper without tearing, but I wish someone would bring back scrolls; I waste so much time either flipping back to the previous page or copying the last thing I wrote on the next.
A huge number students at Stuffwhitepeople Like University, like maybe 1/4 of them, had documentation saying that they needed time and a half on exams. None needed it.
Now that I'm at Last Chance Community College, I regularly encounter students who could benefit from time and a half, either because of physical handicaps or learning disabilities. They rarely take advantage of them, either because they are proud or unaware that they qualify.
Eggplant and L. Ron Hubbard: Hence the rumors that L. Ron Hubbard had redesigned a typewriter for faster keyboard action and pounded out manuscripts on a continuous roll of butcher paper to save the precious seconds it took to insert a single sheet of paper into manual typewriters of the day.
36: In college I would do take-home exams on the backs of IBM printer paper for that reason. I'd then transfer the good parts to the blue book.
re: 36
One of my philosophy tutors at Glasgow told me that when he taught at Oxford, in the 60s I believe, he had a student who used to write his entire essay as a single strip in red pen, on a till roll.
Oh great, now I'm in with cult leaders, philosophy students, and JP.
None needed it.
I may have mentioned this before, but I'm very uncomfortable with this claim. How would you know? The point of accommodations like time and a half is not to make sure that poor students get better grades. It's to make sure that people with e.g. attention deficits or trouble with fine motor skills or trouble with expressive language are tested on their knowledge rather than their ability to complete a test in the given amount of time.
I'm sure rich kids get more diagnoses than poor kids, and I'm sure some kids have diagnoses that aren't actually accurate. And it's definitely true that not every accommodation is necessary for every class/exam/situation. But I do not believe that individual professors/proctors can tell from observation who needs which accommodations and who is faking it or gaming the system.
I wish someone would bring back scrolls
Scrolls are for wimps. Cuneiform on clay tablets is the way to go.
I really don't want my notes to last thousands of years.
You could write them in the blood of your enemies on tablets you've hewn by hand: tough, but ephemeral.
And, more to the point, have we had a clear definition of "stationery"?
Ballpoint pens? Legal pads? Highlighters? Dry-wipe board erasers? Printer cartridges? Flat-panel computer monitors? Desks?
40: a colleague has just pointed out that this method means that your essay's easy to edit: just snip out the offending sentence or paragraph and tape the ends together. Like editing film. Can't do that when you're writing on normal paper, you'd have to recopy an entire page.
I may have mentioned this before, but I'm very uncomfortable with this claim. How would you know?
They didn't take advantage of it. They were done before the full amount of time was up.
A big advantage of clay tablets is that it would be harder for LB to pilfer them if she visits your firm.
48: maybe the tests were just too easy!
Law school is pleasant and entertaining.
I'm intrigued that you say this. Friends who have been to English law schools tell me it consists largely of rote learning thousands of obscure cases, and is about as much fun as that sounds. They tend to conclude that getting the qualification requires the sort of brain that can tell you what day of the week was October 4th, 1927, whereas practicing law needs a lot of soft skills which are only imparted to students in pubs, if at all.
48- Maybe I misunderstood your claim. I believe you that they didn't need the extra time on your exam. That has nothing to do with whether or not they are eligible for the accommodation generally.
41: Oh great, now I'm in with cult leaders, philosophy students, and JP.
Come on in, the water's fine.
I'm very grateful to disabilities offices and I think they do an important and good job, and as a non-expert I would never question any particular students claims. That said, after teaching at an Ivy I think it's indisputable that most students who get time and a half do so because they have rich parents who raised them to take advantage of loopholes not because they have a disability.
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After two years of living with the prospect of imminent unemployment hanging over my head I now have a guarantee of two years full employment. Actually, there's overlap between jobs so I'll be working two jobs for at least a couple of months, which should be interesting. Also the new job has adequate funding for the thing we propose to do, which is a rare experience for me.
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Yay, togolosh! That sounds like a real relief, except the part where you'll have two jobs.
The disability conversation is sort of interesting to me, because I need to be scheduling IEP/504 plan meetings soon, I guess.
50, 52: You're right. My information is just about my tests, and I was generalizing to the conclusion that the students didn't need accommodations in general.
I hope I'm not being misunderstood here. I really appreciate the Americans with Disabilities Act, and I believe firmly in giving accommodation to students with learning disabilities. I just think that in practice, rich kids take advantage of the system while poor people who could actually benefit go without.
This really sticks in my craw because when most people talk about "taking advantage of the system" (any system) they have in mind the exact opposite of what typically goes on. They want you to think of lazy, poor minorities. But its the people at the top of the system who are best at gaming it (Not just the ADA, any system) because they made it and they have have all the skills that the system is geared for.
55: Congrats, togolosh! Are we now approaching full employment at Unfogged? Is it time to worry about inflation?
Hence the rumors that L. Ron Hubbard had redesigned a typewriter for faster keyboard action and pounded out manuscripts on a continuous roll of butcher paper to save the precious seconds it took to insert a single sheet of paper into manual typewriters of the day.
Wait, L. Ron Hubbard and Jack Kerouac were the same person????
It'd be interesting to have data on the number of students getting time and a half at different schools. There was just such an enormous difference between Berkeley and Columbia.
60: I was wondering about that too. I guess "Jack Kerouac" could have been just another one of Hubbard's pseudonyms.
60. Also P.G.Wodehouse! Evidently a versatile fellow. I wonder what an ersatz religion based on Dean Moriarty fetching up at Blandings would be like.
As Truman Capote didn't quite say about Scientology, "It's not religion, it's typing."
I propose a system in which the total available time for taking an exam is fixed, so that if one student gets more time, someone else gets less. What could possibly go wrong?
The truth is, no one ever really gets more time; "extra time" on an exam just an illusion. In the end, it means that much less time available for the rest of your life.
It's interesting, there were only a handful of students getting time and a half when I TA'd at Columbia. With less than five percent I basically assumed it was legit. Back when I was an undergrad at a different Ivy I was often the only kid getting any special accommodation in a given class. I don't think it was ever proctored. Either they'd give me the exam, tell me to take three hours or whatever the time limit was and drop it off in their mailbox by the end of the day or they'd sit me down in some office at the department where the secretary would hand me the exam and then disappear until time was up.
My parents, while UMC, were also somewhat oblivious about the whole issue. They only did something when my high school teachers collectively called them in for a special conference and insisted that they do something. They had tended to just think that if only I made more of an effort I'd write legibly and only previously intervened when a kindergarten teacher back in the US had wanted me put on the 'special' track because I couldn't use crayola or cut paper properly. The UMC advantage for me was that I assume that teachers in a private UMC/UC high school are more likely to do something like that, and that once prodded my parents had the social and financial capital to quickly get everything done. And back in kindergarten they'd gotten experts to say I'm fine, just a bit clumsy, also easier if you're UMC.
57: Did you ever think the extra time helped someone get a grade higher than they should have? We usually had about 2% of a class who required accommodations, and in general, they did poorly in the course. Maybe the subject makes a difference here, but if they couldn't solve a problem, no amount of extra time would inspire them to a solution.
We always wondered what happened when they got to their post-college life. Many were pre-med, and my understanding is that med schools do not give accommodations like extra time on exams. A friend who has mild ADD but turned down extra accommodations said he worried that those students wouldn't ever develop strategies to complete tasks in real world environments. Luckily, college isn't the real world.
I wonder what an ersatz religion based on Dean Moriarty fetching up at Blandings would be like.
Kerouac's enthusiasts have pretty much ruined his output, while Plum's partisans reside all over the spectrum from the innocently mirthful of the church libraries of one's childhood to the creepy and joyless reactionaries of National Review and the WSJ, so I think the mashup creed would be an ungodly (chuckle) mess.
Re: the OP, the word is not "pilfer," but "liberate," as in "I liberated those pens and binder clips for the greater glory of Flippantervania!"
When I was teaching calculus at Columbia it was around 10% of students who were getting time and a half.
63: PG Wodehouse and Raymond Chandler, of course, went to the same school, but I learned from a recent biography that Chandler only arrived the year after Wodehouse left.
Following up on 65: additionally, if students finish the exam early, they can sell the time they didn't use to the highest bidder.
Let the Market decide how time should be allocated!
But I do not believe that individual professors/proctors can tell from observation who needs which accommodations and who is faking it or gaming the system.
I should mention, for the record, that I don't actually think this is true either.
Also it's only 4% of the class, so!
25: I have heard, anecdotally, that a lot of foreigners (especially Russians) see US institutions as babes in the woods when it comes to fraud.
Flippantervania, Halfordismo, Iranian Mexico, Pittsburgh, Knifecrime Island, Narnia.
I feel a map is warranted.
You say boost, yo.
I got the shotgun, you got the briefcase. It's all in the game though, right?
76. Beppo Severgnini thought so comparing US and Italy. The big difference between the US and the rest of the world is that petty bribery is really rare here. Also, widespread effective recordkeeping here means that when people get caught, prosecution is generally possible, even if it is rare.
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Oh crap. I am so sick of firefox misbehaving on my ancient-ish windows 7 machine, and chrome running out of memory that I have ordered some nice new bits and twice (8gb) the present memory. So, I need a 64bit windows. Kind people, bear with my boring question: should I attempt win 8.1 or does nothing but pain lie in that direction?
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The big difference between the US and the rest of the world is that petty bribery is really rare here.
At last, a social problem we don't have!
Petty bribery and corruption seems like a great problem not to have. I'm glad not to live in a bribery culture.
Where I teach now we have the problem of students who qualify for extra help not taking advantage of it because they want to prove that they can, which is admirable in theory but means they often bomb exams, so I've taken to making a big deal about how the student assistance center works (profs don't know the reasons why you need extra time, all you have to do is have a note, here are the % of students who qualify, honestly, people, we're all trying to help you succeed here, please let us help, that is why there is a big center for helping) because honestly I miss the luxury of having to worry that someone was maybe not really in need of time and a half over worrying that someone desperately needed it but thought that I would judge them for it.
80. Nobody is saying anything-- I don't run it, but the people I know who do report only irritating interface changes rather than chronic inability to function or crippling deficits.
How are you with switching systems and interfaces in general? If you have stickies reminding you how look for viruses or find a new printer, or if the machine is for livelihood, maybe consider hiring someone to walk you through common tasks the first time. If you're used to changing gears with no more than a few hours of cursing, this will be one more of those changes.
Now proctoring. Have opted to direct my inner irritation at society.
We always wondered what happened when they got to their post-college life.
I think this is a common but drastic misunderstanding of the purpose of accommodations. The idea is to mitigate the impact of a documented disability, in order to provide equal access to education. The specific purpose of extended time on exams (which, sidenote, I think is usually poorly supported and over-recommended) is to make sure that the format of the test isn't accidentally measuring the student's (completion-time-impacting) disability rather than their knowledge/aptitude/whatever.
I frequently deny extended time on tests, because speed of response time is often part of what I am actually assessing. So taking that out of the assessment is changing what's being assessed, which is never required.
So, if timing is a part of what med schools are assessing, they don't have to allow accommodations that change that either (but neither do undergrad classes where that is the case). Med schools are, generally speaking, required to provide accommodations when the accommodations do not involve fundamental alterations of the content/assessment.
he worried that those students wouldn't ever develop strategies to complete tasks in real world environments.
I think this is misguided for a number of reasons but I have to give a midterm now so I can't explain them.
Students, there are only so many ways I can phrase "I'm not going to help you answer that question", so stop asking.
"You can have my answer now if you'd like. My answer to you is: nothing."
80: The only "crippling" thing I've heard of has to do with certain games which required fast mouse tracking. I think a fix came out before the end of the year, however. If you search you will find many gamer types discussing in detail.
As with 8 itself, I use the <Windows>-x key combo a lot to get to the stuff you need to manage the computer.
Maybe it will help them understand if you phrase it the same way each time. Or at least they'll get bored faster.
You can run .exes in Windows 8 comparability mode, but the limited experience I have had with that was negative.
80: A friend of mine had a horror story related to that on Sunday. She bought her first video card for a PC months ago in anticipation of a MMORPG she's looking forwards to, but either was unable to install it herself or didn't want to take the risk of screwing it up. She eventually took it to Best Buy, who said they had no problems with it, but she couldn't get it to work back home. After several trips she figured it out: after Best Buy staff plugged her computer into their monitors, the computer was defaulting to a dual monitor setup, and she only had one monitor at home.
Not too relevant to your dilemma, sorry, but it's the kind of thing to watch out for. The moral of the story is, if you have problems, get a friend to help at your home if at all possible rather than trucking the thing to a store.
51.2: U.S. law schools teach neither rote memorization (that tends to be reserved for the bar examination, which is a joke) nor soft skills (from the pub reference, I assume you mean interpersonal skills). A lot of it is learning general analytic and rhetorical techniques that can (in theory) be applied to a broad range of cases, statutes, and facts. A common phrase is "learning to think like a lawyer."
You of course pick up familiarity with specific legal principles, but at a pretty high level of generality. They're treated more as the raw material for the skills you're really learning than as the thing that is to be learned. Certainly most students don't come out able to cite any but the most well-known cases by name.
There is some variation depending on the school. The description above applies most directly to "elite" or "top-tier" schools (it is a hierarchical system; there is no reasonably accurate way to describe it in egalitarian terms). I suspect LB's description of law school as "pleasant and entertaining" applies to that group of schools. You might get more of an explicit emphasis on memorization at other places.
E. Messily, most students' letters told us that during exams, they needed (a) extended time in (b) a low-distraction environment. For a very tiny number of students, we were required to provide comprehensive class notes to supplement the students' own. I don't find any of these things unreasonable or onerous as far as instruction, but I hope that somewhere along the way, these kids find a way to record interactions (at meetings, for example) where they receive information that they will need later. I agree that we're not assessing their ability to focus or take notes or anything other than solve problems, but it's hard to imagine how the rest of their life will go. Unfortunately, I guess the answer is that it will be difficult?
As far as med school, a friend told me that part of his introductory paperwork said something he took to mean as basically no accommodations for assessments (shorthanding - I get that literally none is illegal). It came up as I was discussing how students would go from undergrad to med school and asking whether they would get the same accommodations there as in undergrad.
The friend with mild ADD was happy with his decision to figure things out himself and thinks it was to his long term benefit. It's not a reasonable policy prescription, but I think he has a better idea of what it might be like to be those students than I do.
94
U.S. law schools teach neither rote memorization (that tends to be reserved for the bar examination, which is a joke) nor soft skills (from the pub reference, I assume you mean interpersonal skills).
I feel I need to stand up for a friend or two here, who passed the bar on their third try. I also gather that they vary greatly depending on the state, for better or for worse.
Got special dispensation for a student to use the bathroom. He's been in there for like 10 minutes. Bang on the stall angrily?
96: Sorry. Would it help if I added "except in California and maybe New York"?
I didn't mean it was misguided for him to want to go without. More power to him. Just that it's a misguided thing to worry about. I think it is almost always concern trolling. People figure out how to manage all sorts of situations (and employers are required to provide reasonable accommodations as well); there's no reason to sabotage your GPA in the name of overcoming a disability. And self-advocacy is at least as valuable a thing to learn how to do as passing is, in my experience.
Students, there are only so many ways I can phrase "I'm not going to help you answer that question", so stop asking.
I get persistent questions despite my pre-exam announcement: "As you know, we're not allowed to answer questions during the exam."
I'm reasonably competent around PCs - I built this one from bits myself and I used to do quite a lot of tech journalism when it was more interesting than the washing machine business. But in the last few years I have had no interactions with modern-ish desktops and not much interest.
97: Go in and look for notes after he returns? We had a policy of making them turn their pockets out and doing walk-throughs of bathrooms, ugh.
You really don't want to (god forbid) get to hear about the bad Mexican food he had last night.
98: Actually, yes, because I'm pretty sure at least one of those unsuccessful bar attempts was in California. Rereading what I wrote, I was unclear - I'm thinking of someone I know offline. I have no idea how many times any Unfoggers had to take the bar.
I think I gave two of the students more time than I was supposed to. Oh well!
9 students, 4 different test times, 2 different rooms, 3 different rules on computer use equals Sifu not really caring if he gets all the details exact or if some dude takes a fifteen minute dump while reading notes. Sorry not sorry, institution and/or Professor who couldn't be here today because vacation!
And my deposition is about to wrap up at the perfect time, late enough that schlepping back to the office would be silly, but early enough to take a nice daylight walk in Central Park. My witness did nicely, and I am glutted on free lawfirm cookies and rich in ill-gotten legal pads and pens.
The main issue that I have is that mild ADHD is really more of a personality trait than a disability. It seems unfair for me to get extra time for ADHD while not also getting a corresponding decrease in time for being mentally fast. I'm pretty happy that I never tried to get extra time for ADHD.
By contrast, I do sometimes wish I'd gotten an accommodation to type instead of handwriting due to my tremor. I can handwrite ok, but to compensate for the tremor I have to hold the pencil in ways that makes my hand hurt a bunch after a while. Realistically what I should have had was typing instead of writing, but 20% less time than everyone else since typing is so much faster than writing.
US law school is fun if you did well in undergraduate social science or humanities courses, because most of the professors know little about the practice of law and are interested in teaching vaguely law-flavored humanities or social science courses.
108
Realistically what I should have had was typing instead of writing, but 20% less time than everyone else since typing is so much faster than writing.
I'm sure all academics who read this are picturing how much individual attention this would require, and how much discretion they'd need to do this without fear of being second-guessed by the administration about every single student, and either wistfully smiling or sputtering bullets at the thought depending on how their day has been.
I'm kind of surprised Sifu has to proctor these tests. Don't you have a testing center or something specifically to deal with this kind of thing?
I had to go to the special accomodation office to get special networking-less laptops for the two students who needed laptops. Then they said "oh! It's multiple choice? I don't need a laptop for multiple choice!" Too bad! I don't have answer sheets for you!
It is a beautiful spring day, probably in the 60s, and the Central Park boat pond is still frozen over solid.
112: right? Or, at least, some support besides "one of the junior teaching staff, who has never proctored one of these deals before"? But no. Must be because the school is hurting for cash.
I'm kind of surprised Sifu has to proctor these tests. Don't you have a testing center or something specifically to deal with this kind of thing?
Me too! We certainly do, and it's swell.
Speaking of US law school, how is it that no one here has mentioned the fact that the Supreme Court just basically struck down the whole rails-to-trails program, because Justice Breyer is concerned that people are going to start riding bicycles through other people's living rooms, without warning:
"I certainly think bicycle paths are a good idea," [Breyer] said, but "for all I know, there is some right-of-way that goes through people's houses, you know, and all of a sudden they are going to be living in their house, and suddenly a bicycle will run through it."
Lots of people built houses on train tracks back in the old days. Great way to make friends.
117: It was an 8-1 decision. Were the other 7 justices swayed by Breyer's peerless logic?
Seriously, everyone in NYC should get outdoors. This may be the nicest weather literally ever.
120: I'm pretty sure this is our one day of spring. Winter returns tomorrow.
120: It looks very nice outside.
117, 119: Though admittedly it would be fun if you could cite Justice Breyer's wacky oral-argument hypotheticals (for which he is well known; it's just kind of a thing he does) as the holding of the Court.
Don't go out walking on the ice, LB!
94, 110: NZ law schools absolutely teach you rote memorisation, but primarily in the compulsory papers (ethics/torts/crimes/contract/public*/land) and not so much in the higher course generally which can be more law-flavoured humanities etc. Definitely the way to get an A+ in torts is to memorise every leading case and the ratio and be able to spit it out on command. Other papers involve less memorisation of cases and more memorisation of bits of statute.
(As an example, in the exam on causation in crimes, a friend said they got more marks for being able to cite the Harlot's Case than for their quick listing of leading academic theories of criminal causation.)
* public's often not so memorisation heavy
But if you do, serpentine!
That's in a different park.
I'm singin' this song in the middle of the house--
OT: Went to the new, fancy local bar. Very nice. There's a dog, a baby, and hipsters. Also, everybody here is closer in age to the baby than me.
They have a lot more basil than my usual bar.
Possibly, it's mint. Maybe I'll grab a bit to chew on.
I wouldn't start eating the potted plants until either you were sure of what they were, or you had Urple around to give you advice on what to do if things go wrong.
The apple brandy is bonded but it doesn't say what to.
134: It's cut already. I asked and it's mint.
I'm probably using a definition of hipster that reflects my sheltered life.
You appear to be at a mojito bar, which tend to swing a bit more dude-bro and a bit less hipster.
I probably went to the least elite law school of anyone in the Unfogged bar assoc. It was fun, and yes, you learn a bunch of cases, but they're usually kind of fun (because they're interesting narratives). The important skill to learn in school is analogizing. For which one needs referents.
In that rail case, I thought Sotomayor's dissent totally kicked ass, an don't understand at all why no one would sign on with her.
My depos are over too, and I'm sitting in the airp in Denver. It was snowing like a MF early this afternoon, but right now it's clear enough to see Nebraska. (Which can't be that far away, really, considering how long it took to get here from town). So I'm actually likely to get home.
Not a mohito bar. A locally sourced beer bar with a small, changing cocktail menu.
Also, I just made a joke about how it's almost as nice as the bar I usually go to. Turned out I was talking to the owner.
139.last: That's Kansas. Nebraska's further north.
139: Most of the lawyers in my family went to law school in Nebraska.
That depends on your definition of "family" and "lawyer".
143: I just discovered that there's a winery in the little town in west Nebraska our family's friends lived in.
Hence my surprise that there's a winery!
Maybe they make really tiny bottles of wine.
149: If wineries in big cities in Nebraska don't surprise you, you clearly have a lot a experience with either wineries or Nebraska.
Anyway, my dad and my mom's brother decided to make wine. They went to a Nebraska winery and asked to buy grapes. When they found out how few grapes were wanted, they insisted on giving them the grapes for free. My dad and my uncle made wine that was very good considering it was made by a lawyer and a HR guy who used Nebraska grapes and the recipe given them by a railroad mechanic. Which is to say, I couldn't drink it unless I had two scotches first.
This bar closes at ten on Tuesdays. Because real jobs, I guess.
55: Also the new job has adequate funding for the thing we propose to do,
Congrats togolosh, I hope this isn't the project where you blow up the moon.
80: I've heard that Windows 8 can be confusing, e.g., people with PhD's in physics can't figure out how to quit a program. 64-bit Windows 7 seems to work fine for me.
Yes, congrats, Togolosh! That's great to hear.
And this
Are we now approaching full employment at Unfogged? Is it time to worry about inflation?
is funny.
Man, full-time jobs don't leave much time for Unfogged commenting. Sigh.
Congrats, togolosh!
And speaking of situational ethics, antisemite!
That Heidegger thing is so weird. We already knew he was a Nazi, and now the big revelation is that he was also antisemitic? What a shock!
What I know about Heidegger is limited to the archives of the reading group, but I thought the prior state of knowledge was that there was nothing explicitly Nazi or antisemitic in his philosophical work, and now that's no longer true.
Phrase it as an Upworthy headline and maybe you'd get somewhere, teo.
One weird trick to get people to discount your work in the future.