Author Archives: Michael Froomkin

UMiami to Test Ability to Respond to Zombie Outbreak

Posted on September 6, 2012 by Michael Froomkin

Could be fun:

The University of Miami will test its ability to respond to a significant public health emergency by conducting a drill of its new closed Point of Dispensing (POD) plan on Monday, September 17 from 1:30 to 3:30 p.m. in the Whitten University Center’s Flamingo Ballrooms. The POD plan is designed to efficiently distribute, in a limited timeframe, medication to all members of the University community and their families in the event of a health emergency.

In an effort to engage students, the exercise will incorporate a popular theme: zombies. The scenario, a part of “Zombie U” preparedness month, will entail an outbreak of the fictitious zombie-causing Solanum virus and the dispensing of Zombivir (Sour Patch Kids) and Fishivir (Swedish Fish) countermeasures.

Students, faculty, staff, and other members of the University community are encouraged to stop by and participate in the POD exercise. All participants will be entered into drawings for various prizes including emergency preparedness supplies.

The University of Miami’s Office of Emergency Management, in partnership with the Miami-Dade County Health Department, Miami-Dade County Medical Reserve Corps-University of Miami Response Team, UHealth, the Miller School of Medicine, William Lehman Injury Research Center/TeleTrauma, and the Rosenstiel School of Marine and Atmospheric Science, will lead the exercise.

For more information, visit www.miami.edu/prepare or contact John Pepper, emergency manager, at 305-243-9466 or jpepper@med.miami.edu.

— Help UM Test its Ability to Respond to a Public Health Emergency

Photo © My name is Randy. Some rights reserved.

Posted in U.Miami | 1 Comment

How to Make Your Point in a Five-Page Amicus Brief

Posted on September 5, 2012 by Michael Froomkin

Bob Kohn opposes the DOJ’s proposed ebook pricing settlement with three book publishers. District Judge Denise Cote granted him leave to intervene as an amicus — but wouldn’t take his a 55-page brief. She gave him leave to file only five pages.

Kohn responded with the most unusual amicus brief I’ve ever seen: a comic strip. And it makes his point.

Here, if the embedding works, is the full text.

Kohn Amicus

(Spotted via EFF’s James S. Tyre’s posting to a mailing list.)

Posted in Law: Practice | 3 Comments

That’s a New One

Posted on September 5, 2012 by Michael Froomkin

Visiting the New York Times online dining section in order to link to What Restaurants Know (About You) for my seminar on ‘Regulation of Identification’, I get this popup:

Google has disabled use of the Maps API for this application. This site is not authorized to use the Google Maps client id provided. If you are the owner of this application, you can learn more about registering URLs here: https://developers.google.com/maps/documentation/business/guide#URLs

Coding error? NYT not paying its bill? The message popped up at the front page of a section, so it’s hard to see the NYT failing to have registered it.

Posted in Internet | 1 Comment

Checking In With Bitcoin (2)

Posted on September 5, 2012 by Michael Froomkin

Hacker steals $250k in Bitcoins from online exchange Bitfloor | Ars Technica

The future of the up-and-coming Bitcoin exchange Bitfloor was thrown into question Tuesday when the company’s founder reported that someone had compromised his servers and made off with about 24,000 Bitcoins, worth almost a quarter-million dollars. The exchange no longer has enough cash to cover all of its deposits, and it has suspended its operations while it considers its options.

This comes on the heels of news of the collapse of what’s been called a giant Bitcoin Ponzi scheme. See Official: Bitcoin Loan Shark ‘pirateat40’ Defaults for details:

A mountain of problems have been growing the past several weeks surrounding the recent drama around massive Bitcoin lender, pirateat40, as reports of fund inaccessibility came out of the wood work.

Purported to have had somewhere around 500,000 BTC in Bitcoin Savings & Trust, his fund that was offering deposit account holders up to 7% weekly interest on their holdings. The lending service provider announced a default on borrowed assets just a short while ago; the estimated value for the defaulted assets is $5,000,000 USD.

Actually, the amazing part is that Bitcoin isn’t totally dead.

Previously: Bitcoin & Gresham’s Law & Botnets (2/22/12); Checking In With Bitcoin (10/25/11) and Why Bitcoin Isn’t As Exciting as it May Sound (6/11/11).

Posted in Cryptography, Econ & Money | Comments Off on Checking In With Bitcoin (2)

A Strange and Sad Dispute

Posted on September 4, 2012 by Michael Froomkin

Chisom v. Jindal is odd and sad. A federal district judge is required to adjudicate a dispute between Justices of the Supreme Court of Louisiana as to who has the most seniority. The most senior will become the next Chief Justice of that court.

At issue is the time-in-grade of Justice Bernette Joshua Johnson who, if all her years of service to the Louisiana Supreme Court are counted, will soon become Louisiana’s first black Chief Justice. Her first six years of service on the court were in a special seat created pursuant to a federal consent decree designed to remedy longstanding Louisiana racial gerrymandering of judicial electoral districts that had prevented black majority districts from electing a Justice of their choice.

The sad part comes not only from a state Supreme Court’s members being unable to settle this among themselves but from the fact that this dispute happened at all. At least from reading Judge Susie Morgan’s opinion in Chisom v. Jindal, this doesn’t even seem like a close case: the consent decree said that the new, temporary, seat that Justice Johnson occupied was to be “equal” to all the others and that she would “receive the same compensation, benefits, expenses, andemoluments of office as are now or as may hereafter beprovided by law for justices of the Louisiana Supreme Court.” Thus her seniority began there, and not when (after redistricting) Justice Johnson won further terms.

I don’t know what it means when state Supreme Court Justices are suing each, or choking each other (details here; further proceedings here), but it can’t be good.

Spotted via WSJ Law Blog.

Posted in Law: Everything Else | 6 Comments

Shorter David Brooks

Posted on September 4, 2012 by Michael Froomkin

‘In his convention speech about his second term, Obama could promise to govern like the Green Party, like a Democrat, or like a Republican; I’d sure like the Republican best.’

Long-form column, The Elevator Speech, if you must.

‘Shorter’ concept pioneered by Daniel Davies and institutionalized by Elton Beard.

Posted in 2012 Election | Comments Off on Shorter David Brooks