Monthly Archives: January 2009

Comments Suspended Due to Flood of Junk

Posted on January 6, 2009 by Michael Froomkin

Due to an absolute flood of sp*m comments with links to ad sites, I've had to suspend the comment feature on the blog. I literally wasn't able to delete them as fast as they swarmed in.

I hope this is just temporary.

Posted in Discourse.net | 1 Comment

Jeb!less?

Posted on January 6, 2009 by Michael Froomkin

The Buzz reports that Senate bid by Jeb Bush iffy, friends say.

If true, I don't know whether to be sorry we won't have Jeb! to kick around again — I think he'd lose unless the Democrats really screwed up — or happy that there's no chance he'd actually get elected … Florida Dems are capable of giant screwups …

Update: It's official: Jeb's not running. Nobody ever said he wasn't smart.

Posted in Florida | Comments Off on Jeb!less?

Grading Update

Posted on January 5, 2009 by Michael Froomkin

I've done my (exam) grades.

Average score on Q1 (nine short answer questions, the least valuable part of the exam) was 5.08 right, a weakish showing. The median as 5.25.

Average score on Q2 was 3.084 (a hair above a “B”).

Average score on Q3 (the most points) was 3.266 (a very solid “B”)

Students had seen question 2 in advance, but tended to do better on question 3, which (a) they had not seen and (b) was much harder. That surprised me.

Average final score on the exam was 3.199 (a “B” – I round down to make up for my loosey-goosey grading impulses). But now I have to add my rather generous class participation credit to calculate the final score. I use a complicated system, in which I sort the class into three tranches based on notes taken in or after almost every class during the semester, tell my secretary who's in which group, then get back the blind grading numbers with just the tranche noted. So I don't know who's who until after I turn in the final grades.

I do not curve my grades, but the raw grades look vaguely bell-like; depending how the class participation falls out, I could be at, above, or below, the faculty average for upper-level courses.

Note: Averages don't tell you much — you can drown in a river that is an average of six inches deep. I haven't the energy right now to do medians.

Posted in Law School | Comments Off on Grading Update

It’s Catching On

Posted on January 5, 2009 by Michael Froomkin

I'm delighted to see that the “Great Grimmelmann” moniker that I launched some time ago is now catching on.

I doubt it will do as well as the “the Great Firewall of China” — which I believe I may have been the first to use — but there's plenty of time, he's so young.

Posted in Blogs | Comments Off on It’s Catching On

Dispatch from The War Against Photography

Posted on January 4, 2009 by Michael Froomkin

Miami blogger Carlos Miller has the latest dispatch from the war against photography in public places, Amtrak photo contestant arrested by Amtrak police in NYC's Penn Station.

Will the Obama admin calm people down when it comes to seeing terrorists under the bed? It won't be easy.

Posted in Civil Liberties | Comments Off on Dispatch from The War Against Photography

500 ‘Worst Passwords of All Time’

Posted on January 2, 2009 by Michael Froomkin

Amazingly, even my very worst, crummy, seemingly obvious, password that I use for many sites where no money changes hands did not make the list of alleged[*] The Top 500 Worst Passwords of All Time.

I should probably use more special keys; I tend to letter/number combos when it matters.

Many years ago I had a numerical password for a bank account that no longer exists. That number has been very useful worked into things since then.

[* -Why “alleged”? They don't actually say how this list was produced….]

Spotted via BoingBoing

Posted in Internet | 2 Comments