Author Archives: Michael Froomkin

Looks Good

Posted on August 18, 2010 by Michael Froomkin

The Surveillance Studies Network » Call For Participation: Cyber-Surveillance in Everyday Life

Not sure if I'm up to writing a good pitch yet; although by the time it happens I should be fit to go.

Posted in Talks & Conferences | Comments Off on Looks Good

David Rivera – Candidate as Demolition Derby Driver

Posted on August 18, 2010 by Michael Froomkin

This CBS4 story treads gingerly on the subject, but from the facts presented it would be possible to conclude that back in 2002, local GOP Congressional candidate David M. Rivera tried to drive a truck off the Palmetto Highway in order to insure that highly negative campaign mailers by his primary opponent did not make it to the post office in time to be mailed.

According to Howie Klein, the mailers were the ones that first revealed the domestic violence charges against Rivera.

Earlier posts: More Dirt on David Rivera (8/6/10); This Could Be an Interesting Lawsuit (7/28/10).

Posted in Politics: FL-25/FL-27 | 2 Comments

Nerdwear

Posted on August 18, 2010 by Michael Froomkin

Who knew there was an IETF LogoWear Store? But it's still a bit vestigial. And it seems to lack this classic.

So far, I like the Jotwear store better.

Posted in Internet | 1 Comment

First Day of Classes

Posted on August 18, 2010 by Michael Froomkin

It's time for Vosberg v. Putney again.

Posted in Law School | 2 Comments

Blog Changes

Posted on August 17, 2010 by Michael Froomkin

I've enabled gzip compression on most pages on this blog. This should be seamless to everyone, but please let me know if you get an error message that might be related. Amazingly, all I had to do was add

<? ob_start("ob_gzhandler"); ?>

to every page. You can test the results at the web page compression tester.

I've pretty much decided that I'm going to port Discourse.net to WordPress fairly soon. Why?

1. The sp*m-fighting tools available to me on that platform are a whole lot better than what I'm using now.

2. It will standardize me on one platform — every other blog-related project I do, from class blogs to Jotwell is on WordPress, and it will be a little easier to have that consistency.

3. I've gotten tired of the current dowdy look, and changes will be easier on WordPress, which supports themes (and widgets) much better than this ancient version of Movable Type.

The move raises three issues I need to resolve:

First, how to convert the archives to be compatible with the new system while maintaining compatibility for existing incoming links. That problem is complicated a bit by my frequent use of Textile 2 formatting when I write posts. It's not real clear to me that wordpress has a functioning and maintained plugin for this — it's Textile 2 plugin seems like it might be a bit of an orphan. I may have to hire help for this.

Second, what should I use for the new design? (I realize most readers use the RSS feeds these days, but I still care.) Graphic design is not my strong suit. Suggestions? Please?

Third, how will my shared server react to a blogging platform that serves up each page individually rather than creating static pages? WP-Super Cache here we come…

Posted in Discourse.net, Software | 4 Comments

Shorter Miami-Dade Ballot Guide

Posted on August 16, 2010 by Michael Froomkin

Here's a quick summary of my recommendations for the lower part of Miami-Dade ballot — the non-partisan races that often don't get the attention they deserve:

Circuit Judges – Group 45: Samantha Ruiz Cohen

Circuit Judges: – Group 62: Robert Kuntz

County Judges – Group 7: Edward Newman

County Judges – Group 11: Flora Seff

School Board District 6: Dr. Kitchka Petrova

Charter Amendment Eliminating the Office of County Manager: NO

Home Rule Charter Amendment Authorizing County Commission to Abolish Municipalities of Twenty or Fewer Electors: YES

Home Rule Charter Amendment Relating to Franchises: NO

Explanations for these suggestions will be found in these five blog posts:

Part I: Introduction
Part II: Circuit Judges
Part III: County Judges
Part IV: School Board, District 6
Part V: Miami-Dade County Charter Amendments

Early and absentee voting in Miami-Dade is now open. Details on how to register and vote are in Part I of this series. I'll try to remember to re-run this post on election day, which is Tuesday, August 24th.

(Meanwhile, perhaps this summary will attract the South Florida Daily Blog?)

Posted in Miami, Politics: 2010 Election | Comments Off on Shorter Miami-Dade Ballot Guide