Monthly Archives: September 2007

A Real Back-Handed Compliment

Posted on September 4, 2007 by Michael Froomkin

I can explain this.

You may think that this looks like media bias —

Crooks and Liars » Romney Fundraising Scandal Ignored By Liberal Media – Clinton Gets Hammered Over Hsu: In recent days, NBC, CNN, and Fox News have all aired reports or discussed the case of Norman Hsu, who The Wall Street Journal suggested may have funneled illegal campaign contributions to Sen. Hillary Clinton. However, when Mitt Romney’s national finance committee co-chairman Alan Fabian was charged with mail fraud, money laundering, bankruptcy fraud, perjury and obstruction of justice, the three networks did not report or discuss it during programs available in the Nexis database.

It looks like the media protect Republicans and go after Democrats, right? Well, that may be true of Fox News and the Wall Street Journal, but I have a different theory as to why the rest of the media falls into this pattern.

You see, it's not news when Republican officials are involved in sleazy financial deals. It is news when it happens to Democrats. After all, it happens to Republicans all the time and only happens to Democrats occasionally — despite the vast disparity in prosecutorial resources devoted to trying to find dirt on Democratic office-holders as opposed to that devoted investigating Republicans.

(And don't even get me started on the frequency of GOP sex scandals.)

Posted in Politics: The Party of Sleaze, The Media | Comments Off on A Real Back-Handed Compliment

Post Does Pickups

Posted on September 4, 2007 by Michael Froomkin

The Florida Third DCA decision that I wrote about in There Goes the Neighborhood? has grabbed the attention of the Washington Post: Appeals Court Finds Ugly Implications in City's Anti-Truck Law.

Posted in Miami | Comments Off on Post Does Pickups

How Did You Spend Your Vacation?

Posted on September 4, 2007 by Michael Froomkin

Monday was Labor Day, a federal holiday in these United States, making a three-day weekend.

I spent quite a lot of it looking at a computer that kept saying this:

We're sorry; the installer crashed. Please file a new bug report at https://launchpad.net/ubuntu/+source/ubiquity/+filebug (do not attach your details to any existing bug) and a developer will attend to the problem as soon as possible. To help the developers understand what went wrong, include the following detail in your bug report, and attach the files /var/log/syslog and /var/log/partman:

Traceback (most recent call last):
File “/usr/lib/ubiquity/bin/ubiquity”, line 210, in
main()
File “/usr/lib/ubiquity/bin/ubiquity”, line 205, in main
install(args[0])
File “/usr/lib/ubiquity/bin/ubiquity”, line 58, in install
ret = wizard.run()
File “/usr/lib/ubiquity/ubiquity/frontend/gtkui.py”, line 358, in run
File “/usr/lib/ubiquity/ubiquity/frontend/gtkui.py”, line 989, in process_step
File “/usr/lib/ubiquity/ubiquity/frontend/gtkui.py”, line 743, in progress_loop
RuntimeError: Install failed with exit code 139; see /var/log/syslog

Mind you, I was doing something that may be fairly silly:

  • take a moderately ancient machine with a tiny ISA drive with Windows on it,
  • shove a low-budget SATA card into it, a Rosewill RC-209
  • ignore the fact that the BIOS will see the drive but won't offer to boot from it
  • leave Windows XP on the ISA drive
  • install a massive (half-terrabyte!) drive on the SATA card
  • partition the drive to give Windows a little more room to play
  • install Ubuntu to the bulk of the SATA drive.

It was the last step that kept croaking. Even thought the CD I burned passed all integrity checks.

So I filed a bug report. Currently, I'm downloading the alternate Ubuntu installer, and doing a full scan of the (brand new) disk's integrity in case it has some physical fault. Takes a long time to scan half a terrabyte.

Earlier, a similar install using the same model card and a similar SATA disk alone on a similar computer (without the attempt to dual boot on two drives) went swimmingly.

But this one would croak even if I unplugged the ISA drive with windows on it. So There's Something Funny Going On….

Update: disk checks out fine.

Meanwhile, thanks to the Super Grub Disk I managed to rescue Windows from a non-functioning entry I'd put into the MBR. Three cheers for the Super Grub Disk! I'm now back to where I was 40 hours ago!

(Lest anyone feel too sorry for me, this isn't my main machine, and I actually like solving problems like this, even (especially?) if I caused them.)

Posted in Software, Sufficiently Advanced Technology | 8 Comments

Why Don’t You Come For a Visit?

Posted on September 4, 2007 by Michael Froomkin

My colleague David Abraham has taken over the lateral hiring committee (we have two, one for entry-level people and one for more experienced scholars). In addition to permanent hires, they find us interesting visitors (in some cases a prelude to something more permanent perhaps).

David writes with this year's call for visitors,

The University of Miami School of Law is looking for several visitors for the 2008-09 school year. We are particularly interested in commercial law, civil procedure, family law, and T&E.

If coming to Miami for a year of work and intellectual stimulation and is something that might appeal to you, please let me know of your tentative interest.

Prof. David Abraham
University of Miami School of Law
PO Box 248087
Coral Gables FL 33124

dabraham@law.miami.edu

(We do one-semester visits too if a year is too much tropical paradise for you.)

Posted in U.Miami | Comments Off on Why Don’t You Come For a Visit?

He Deserves This

Posted on September 1, 2007 by Michael Froomkin

Patrick Nielsen Hayden of Tor fame has won a Hugo.

He deserves it. Thanks in substantial part to him, my eye has been trained to look for the Tor symbol in the bookshop. I may not buy each one, but I think about each one. The only other publisher who's come close to this is Baen, and I buy a lot fewer of those.

Posted in Readings | Comments Off on He Deserves This

Science Fiction Writers of America Caught in DMCA Abuse

Posted on September 1, 2007 by Michael Froomkin

Cory Doctorow is mad, and he has good reason: Science Fiction Writers of America abuses the DMCA.

You'd think they'd know better.

Posted in Law: Copyright and DMCA | 2 Comments