Posted by TDot on Nov 20, 2009 in
Friday Drive-by I feel like I’m slacking off with the Friday Drive-by, but there isn’t one this week. I’m currently on the way to Boone for the November business meeting of the UNC Association of Student Governments, and after tonight’s business meeting the Student Body President of Appalachian State University is hosting a bonfire and related festivities so I’m not going to have time to cobble an entry together.
Hopefully none of you are heartbroken 
Have a great night folks! 
Tags: SG, UNCASG
Posted by TDot on Nov 19, 2009 in
The 1L Life My friend Delta the 2L is taking the Trial Practice course this semester, and asked me a few days ago to be a witness for a mock trial that was held earlier today. I enjoyed myself. Immensely 
The fact pattern for the trial centers on a high school delinquent-turned-professional baseball player with a cocaine addiction, who bumps into me (an old friend and fellow delinquent) at a rock concert and asks me to procure some illicit substances on his behalf. He robs a jewelry store to pay the $16K expense I quote him for a half-kilo. The cops find the drugs in my car after I’m pulled for suspicion of DUI, so I offer details I know about the jewelry store heist in exchange for only getting straight probation on the DUI.
Since this is a mock trial for a class, the “witnesses” are either fellow Legal Eagles or the parents thereof. We were all given three basic directives: 1) be truthful in all your responses; 2) where the fact pattern is silent, feel free to improvise; and 3) be as uncooperative with opposing counsel as possible. The lack of “uncooperative”-ness wasn’t terribly exciting though since most of the witnesses read straight from their fact pattern materials on the stand.
Not I…
Since I was doing this for Delta the 2L — a person who’s helped guide me through law school thus far — I figured I’d have some fun with it for her benefit. That led to a handful of exchanges that were mildly amusing for the jury, mildly annoying for the defense counsel, or a combination of the two.
An example:
[From the fact pattern: I've been convicted of filing a false police report, included in the fact pattern to provide an opportunity for the defense to attack my credibility]
Defense Counsel: On January xx, you were convicted of filing a false police report, were you not?
Me: I can explain that. ::turns to the jury:: I was doing my Christmas shopping, see, and I had this lady friend. Gorgeous. And she had this kid. So I figured I’d buy her kid the last Tickle Me Elmo they had at Wal-Mart. And then this porcine-looking guy pushed me out of the way and grabbed the last one off the shelf. So I was mad and told the police he threatened to kill me. It was a mistake. But for her it was worth it.
::laughter::
And…
[From the fact pattern: I've previously been in prison and don't want to go back]
Defense Counsel: You have an intense incentive to lie today don’t you?
Me: No sir. If I testify untruthfully I get sent back to prison.
Defense Counsel: And you don’t want to go back to prison, do you?
Me: Hell no I don’t want to go back. Last time I was in there were these 2 guys, Bubba and Pookie. Those guys were hungry, and I don’t mean for Big Macs.
::laughter::
And…
[From the fact pattern: I occasionally read the Sports section of the local newspaper]
Defense Counsel: Do you read the Courant sir?
Me: Every now and then I read the Sports section, yes sir.
Defense Counsel: So you read the news story about the robbery in which my client was identified? Could that have influenced your identifying him today?
Me: I don’t think they print robbery stories in the Sports section…
::laughter::
Part of me felt like an ass afterwards for subjecting the defense counsel to it, but technically it was my job. And it was fun
Tags: 1L, Delta the 2L, NCCU Law, Trial Practice
Posted by TDot on Nov 18, 2009 in
TDot's Tips I think one of the reasons I decided to get my bachelor’s degree in Computer Science was the reliability of modern technology.
Your laptop will never beg you to come visit because you haven’t seen each other in awhile, text you that it’s on the way to the pizza joint where everyone is gathering, and then stand you up when you get to town because “cell reception was bad” (apparently along with the reception of the dozens of other friends at the party it was attending who had mobile phones and could have contacted you on its behalf so you didn’t hang around for nearly 2 hours worried something bad had happened).
Your desktop won’t invite you at the last minute to a University Housing event its throwing, call you various unpleasantries when you decline attending because you’ve got another event at that same time, then (after you’ve rearranged your schedule to be a good friend and make an appearance) ask a mutual friend to ask you to leave since its ex-boyfriend was there and it “didn’t want things to be awkward.”
And they both certainly wouldn’t do it on the same day within a few hours of each other 
No, folks, computers aren’t that capricious. Once you’ve programmed your computer to execute a given chain of commands, it can do so over and over again in perpetuity. Sure things occasionally fail every few years — I’ve had a couple hard drives die over the past 4 — but you usually get tipped off in advance as startup times slow to a crawl or certain data gets corrupted.
But even when a hard drive fails, the data loss is easily fixed when you have an up-to-date backup.
And you know what else a data backup guards against? Theft.
That was the situation when I got to class this morning. One of my classmates — who asked me to leave her name out of this blog entry — walked up to me, eyes red from crying, and pleaded “Mr. Computer Science, I need your help.”
Those first three words are the ones most tech folks dread hearing. When someone wants an advice on a computer purchase or a minor issue with their browser, they’ll usually refer to you by name. “Hey TDot, what do you think about this particular laptop configuration?” or “Good morning TDot. Can you help me fix this random non-critical issue with my Firefox theme?” etc.
But when someone drops a reference to the CSC degree when they approach you, they’re implicitly elevating you to near-deity status in the hope the added pressure to meet their expectations will enable you to fix whatever catastrophe has befallen them. In this particular case, my fellow 1L had been saving all of her work all semester — outlines, case briefs, mock exams, the whole shebang — on a single portable flash/keychain drive that had been stolen while she was visiting the law library at a neighboring law school. There were no copies on her laptop. There were no backups on an external disk somewhere. There weren’t even old email attachments she could retrieve. It was all on that pilfered disk.
After scouring her laptop hard drive for anything usable, I found a few corrupted temp files that I was able to extract some text data from courtesy of a couple Unix tools. It helped save her from being totally behind now that we’re only 2.5 weeks before finals, but even my best efforts still left her with a lot less data than she originally had.
Moral of the story: back up your data.
And once you’ve backed up your data, back it up again somewhere else. Keep copies on your laptop. Store duplicates on a flash/keychain drive. Open a Gmail account and email files to yourself occasionally. Buy a Mac and use Time Machine. Consult Google for other options.
Just don’t let yourself be the one forced to start a sentence with “Mr. Computer Science…”
Tags: Tech Talk, Tips
Posted by TDot on Nov 17, 2009 in
Tweet-sized Tuesdays Absolutely -0- motivation to do anything today 
Eager for finals to get here and get done. Meeting prep for this weekend then bed. Night!
Tags: 1L, Tweet Tweet, UNCASG
Posted by TDot on Nov 16, 2009 in
Technology Just kidding
It does seem to be that time of year though. From new blogs I just discovered this week to that guy who unknowingly got me blogging, it seems to be a post-summer of discontent for law students. My own fingers are firmly crossed that I don’t get hit with the Reality Stick until after the J.D. is mounted on my wall… 
The thought of getting out of law school did cross my mind earlier today, but it had nothing to do with exams.
Madame Prosecutor wanted to start a new web-based venture (I’ll let her furnish the details at a later date/time) and mentioned it to me a couple days ago. She asked for my help. And since I graduated with a degree in Computer Science, used to build websites professionally, and already run law:/dev/null, I figured I’d walk her through buying a domain name and set her up with a WordPress installation on one of my own servers since I could do it all at next-to-no cost.
And from the minute she sat down next to me, there was a steady stream of back-and-forth commentary between us over legalese. From figuring out who was going to register the URL (my GoDaddy account, her billing information, and whenever she sets up her own account I’ll transfer the domain to her) to the details over the WordPress installation (I keep root access for emergencies and leave 100% of all daily operations to her) to ownership of the content (she keeps it) to liability for illegal activities taking place (she keeps that too) and more, we hammered out the rudiments of a full-blown contract.
It made me wish I was back in politics.
My travails in the WakeGOP notwithstanding, the political arena largely operates on trust. Now you can differentiate between what I call “positive” trust and “negative” trust: the former is where you actively trust someone because you know them / have worked with them / think they’re a good person / etc, and the latter is passive / the basis of economic game theory / “rational people respond predictably to incentives” / you know what someone will do without even meeting them / etc.
But trust is ultimately at the root of the system. It’s the implied foundation of one of my rules of politics: loyalty is more important than competence (in politics at least).
So when I used to build websites for politicians, there were no extensive formal contracts. Somebody told me they needed a website, I’d quote a price, they’d counter-offer if it was too high, we’d settle on an amount, I’d get the site specifics and go to work. Out of the dozen or so sites I put together there was never a dispute over me getting paid or over the customer being satisfied with the finished product. No one needed or contemplated reducing everything to writing, much less having a choice of venue clause.
And here I was helping out a friend with comparatively miniscule project, and both of us are trying to make sure we formally protect ourselves from getting screwed by the other’s activities 
shootmenowplzkthxu
—===—
In other technology-related news, I went ahead and installed a FeedBurner plugin for law:/dev/null. I’m still not sure what it does, but I was told by a fellow blawger I needed to have it — and since Fight the Hypo and No634 used it, I figured it was legit. You can access the “Subscribe” page up at the top of the blog.
And at some point I’ll fix the little “Subscribe” links that show up on each post to actually go where they’re supposed to go… just as soon as I figure out why I can only see them on some posts and not on others
Finally, I stumbled upon a blog by one of my fellow Legal Eagles earlier today. It’s not solely law-focused and the updates have been sporadic, but it’s worth checking out. The guy’s got one of the sharpest wits in the class — his Facebook status routinely keeps people rolling, and I’ve jotted down a snippet or two on occasion. Enjoy: http://realgoesright.blogspot.com/
That’s it for tonight folks, I’m off to enjoy the Parol Evidence Rule and more defeasible estate festivities Don’t forget to go watch the Leonid meteor shower around 2am EST!
Tags: #fml, About TDot, Blawg Love, Madame Prosecutor, Tech Talk, The Prophet
Posted by TDot on Nov 15, 2009 in
The 1L Life I guess it was only a matter of time. I’ve officially turned into one of those people who randomly pull up cases on Lexis-Nexis for the hell of it
It started earlier this week studying for CivPro. Venue is the last topic we’re learning before final exams, and one of the cases in the notes involved one of my favorite presidents — Livingston v. Jefferson (15 F. Cas. 660). Reading that case reminded me how under-developed our judiciary still was back in the early 1800s, which somehow in my mind prompted me to look up one of the landmark cases in American jurisprudence: Marbury v. Madison (5 U.S. 137).
Then I used Lexis’s built-in Shepardize thing — I didn’t actually discover what it was/did until a couple weeks ago — and started poking through cases that referenced Marbury. And once I ran out of reading material I started picking some other major cases we all learn about in high school history and civics classes.
Long story short: pulling up old cases is almost as addicting as reading blawgs
Finally separating myself from the laptop to go back to CivPro studying. Have a great night everybody!
Tags: 1L, About TDot, CivPro
Posted by TDot on Nov 13, 2009 in
Friday Drive-by You can tell it’s getting near finals when a good chunk of the folks you regularly rely on for impeccably-written divergences from LRA have been MIA
There’s still plenty of good stuff out in the blawgosphere this week though — here’s a few links for your enjoyment:
Enjoy the weekend everybody
Tags: ::facepalm::, Blawg Love, Tech Talk, Tips
Posted by TDot on Nov 12, 2009 in
The 1L Life No real time to write anything tonight — working on my law memo for Legal Reasoning & Analysis, which is our last assignment for the course!
::cue celebratory music::
I hate this class so much…
Tags: 1L, LRA
Posted by TDot on Nov 11, 2009 in
NotFail Every now and then it’s nice to know The Big Man Upstairs is keeping an eye out for you
I had to give some friends a ride to campus this morning (they go to a certain university in an adjacent town) so naturally I was significantly late for CivPro. Unlike Professor Contracts, the standing rule for late people in CivPro is that you don’t enter if the door is shut and/or MDG has started the lecture.
And as much as I love talking about venue, I wasn’t going to press my luck
So I finally make it to campus, end up parking in a lot now thoroughly muddy courtesy of the ongoing wind/rain leftovers from Hurricane Ida, slowly trudge to the law building… and hear a sound over the wind.
It’s faint. But distinct.
I look up from under the umbrella, and think I can see 1 lone strobe light flashing.
The sound gets a little louder as I walk a little closer.
In disbelief, I pick up the pace and walk as fast as one can with a wind-tossed double canopy umbrella in one hand and a 5″ binder + 3 textbooks in the other. I get to the granite porch outside the entrance and can’t believe my good fortune.
The fire alarm is going off
For a couple brief seconds I feel bad for my classmates who had to evacuate the building in this miserable weather (mid-40s and pouring rain a mere day after we broke 70ºF), but then I realize folks will have to be walking back into class and I might have an opportunity to sneak into CivPro. I double time it to the classroom, and sure enough see a pair of my classmates walking in.
I head to the door. MDG sees me, and gives me a raised eyebrow like he doesn’t remember seeing me in class before but he isn’t 100% certain. I give him a look along the lines of “Of course I was here earlier, I love CivPro!” I walk in, make it about a fifth of the way to my chair…
…and apparently the rest of my classmates noticed I wasn’t there when class started, because the whole room busts out laughing. MDG lets me slide though since I’m in my chair before he can say anything, then he starts laughing too and goes “Well I guess we know who pulled the fire alarm.” And the rest of class went off without a hitch… though I still didn’t sign the attendance sheet, out of recognition I was 30 minutes late to a 50-minute class
He did hit me with his trademark wit before class was out though, the price I paid for being late. My left-side neighbor Karl(a) raises her hand to answer a question, and in recognizing her he slips and goes “Mr. TDot. Miss TDot. I mean Miss Karl(a). I’m so so sorry, I done married y’all. And let me tell you, y’all would make some uuuuuuuuggggllllllyyyyy babies.”
The words can’t articulate how hilariously funny it was, both in terms of timing and delivery — even though it was a (well-deserved) swipe at me, I was laughing for a solid 2-3 minutes (as was Karl(a) and everyone else in class). The man is hands-down, without any sarcasm in this statement, my favorite professor this semester.
And all because of a serendipitously-timed fire alarm
Tags: 1L, CivPro, Gang of Eight, MDG, Serendipity
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