Author Archives: Michael Froomkin

Al Franken’s Fourth Grade Teacher Endorses Him

Posted on January 16, 2008 by Michael Froomkin

I love this campaign commercial by Al Franken, who's running for Senate from Minnesota. It features his fourth grade teacher, Mrs. Molin:

Posted in Politics: US: 2008 Elections | Comments Off on Al Franken’s Fourth Grade Teacher Endorses Him

Eno Watch

Posted on January 16, 2008 by Michael Froomkin

Brian Eno has agreed to serve as adviser on youth affairs to the UK Liberal Democratic Party.

Good for both of them.

Posted in UK | Comments Off on Eno Watch

DoJ Claims It Ran Out of Bits

Posted on January 15, 2008 by Michael Froomkin

The Bush Department of Justice today claimed that it has run out of bits. It seems that it can no longer send press releases to Talking Points Memo (a real thorn in its side due to thorough reporting of DoJ scandals) because — get this — there's no room on the mailing list!

Posted in Politics: The Party of Sleaze | Comments Off on DoJ Claims It Ran Out of Bits

OK Web Hosts, But World-Champions at Apologies

Posted on January 15, 2008 by Michael Froomkin

I find Dreamhost to be pretty decent web hosts, although I also could give you a short but pungent list of complaints (timeouts, timeouts, timeouts). But give them credit, when they screw up, they are world champions at writing apologies.

This morning I got a large bill that clearly wasn't due. I wrote back. They said it was my bill. I wrote back. Then I got The Apology:

Ack. Through a COMPLETE bumbling on our part, we've accidentally attempted to charge you for the ENTIRE year of 2008 (and probably 2009!) ALREADY (it was all due to a fat finger)!

I'm really really realllly embarassed about this, but you have nothing to worry about. Please ignore any confusing billing messages you may have received recently; I've already removed all those bum future charges on your account (######) and already refunded the $####.## charge on your credit card.

You should get the money back on almost immediately, within a day or two max, and there's no need to contact your credit card company or bank for the refund.

Again, I feel terrible about this whole thing.. there will be a blog post soon at blog.dreamhost.com fully explaining how this bug was even allowed to happen..

Thank you very very much for your patience with this.. we PROMISE this won't happen again. There's no need to reply to this message unless of course you have any other questions at all!

Sorry again,

Josh!

And, indeed, a more detailed explanation is now on their blog, at Um, Whoops..

This sort of stuff works on me. It is very hard to stay mad.

Update: More at Unofficial Dreamhost Blog, DreamHost Accidently Bills Customers $7,500,000.

Posted in Discourse.net | 2 Comments

First Day of Classes

Posted on January 15, 2008 by Michael Froomkin

Today is the first day of class for both my Internet Law class and my Jurisprudence class.

Today is also the day that my office desktop displayed a blue screen of death when I booted it up this morning.

And it's the day that the nice people from IT carted it away….

Posted in Law School | 2 Comments

A Tiny Note From the Frontlines of Democracy

Posted on January 14, 2008 by Michael Froomkin

I had occasion to visit the Coral Gables public library at opening time this morning (a fruitless search for a lost cell phone which turned out to have never left the house).

The library is one of the local polling places that is open for early voting, and there were actual voters there (not me, I'm waiting for the last minute). There were also actual canvassers, four of them, stationed by the entrance to the library parking lot.

Keeping in mind that we have some ballot amendments as well as the two party primaries, what candidates or causes do you suppose that these four people were supporting? (Hint: there was more than one working together, but not all four were there for the same reason.)

Answer below.

Continue reading →

Posted in Miami | 1 Comment