Author Archives: Michael Froomkin

A General Takes a Strong Stand on Torture

Posted on May 14, 2007 by Michael Froomkin

Gen. David H. Petraeus, the US military commander/viceroy in Iraq may be “overrated”, but he's done at least one thing right: taking a strong stand against torture.

Posted in Iraq, Torture | Comments Off on A General Takes a Strong Stand on Torture

Chicken!

Posted on May 14, 2007 by Michael Froomkin

It is clear that I don't go the the right conferences. No one at any conference I've attended has ever given a presentation even remotely like Chicken, Chicken, Chicken, presented by Doug Zongker at the AAAS humor session, February 16, 2007.

Posted in Talks & Conferences | Comments Off on Chicken!

The Real Problem with USB Flash Drives

Posted on May 14, 2007 by Michael Froomkin

Someone should write about the REAL problem with flash drives: they break too easily at the connection between the usb male plug and the body of the drive. The otherwise wonderful Flash Voyager is by far the most vulnerable I've encountered, but many others share the same Achilles Heel too.

Reviewers always seem to write about running a car over the drive. That mean putting pressure on the case. This isn't, in my experience, a common real-life scenario. In contrast, the real-life damage case is torque when your laptop bumps into something with that drive sticking out. It snaps easily. And no one ever talks about that.

The best drives I've had for performance (I want to be able to copy lots of small files quickly; reported tests usually concentrate on large file transfer, so my preferences may not be your preferences) were also the most delicate at that critical point: the Corsair Flash Voyagers. I've broken two. Second-fastest, the OCZ Rally2, were not as fragile, but were not exactly tough either. I bent one. It still works, but I don't trust it.

I've currently moved to a Cruzer Titanium, which not only looks a bit stronger, but has a nice retractable head so I don't have to worry about losing the little cap. The performance is good, although I don't think it is quite as good as the other two.

Unfortunately, the Cruzer came with the dreaded U3 software. I used the control panel to disable it, but haven't had the heart to delete it on the theory that this might be irrevocable (online opinions vary), and anyway it didn't take much space. But I may delete it soon, as it seems my Asus motherboard absolutely won't boot up with the drive plugged in, even though the BIOS is set to boot from the hard drive first.

Posted in Shopping, Sufficiently Advanced Technology | 4 Comments

For Those Who Came In Late

Posted on May 13, 2007 by Michael Froomkin

SCOTUS Blog has a very fine summary of the state of play of US law regarding detainees at Guantanamo and other offshore locations. Primer on detainees' status now — Part I and Primer on detainees' status now — Part II.

Recommended.

Posted in Guantanamo | Comments Off on For Those Who Came In Late

John Edwards to Organize War Protest Memorial Day Weekend

Posted on May 12, 2007 by Michael Froomkin

Democratic Presidential hopeful John Edwards is starting a new effort to “support the troops and end the war” and he's registered a very long domain name to organize it: supportthetroopsendthewar.com: Support the troops. End the war. Take action May 26th, 27th, 28th.

Take Action May 26th, 27th, 28th

As citizens, we honor and support our troops for their service and sacrifice.

As Americans, we are blessed by that sacrifice and support, which keeps us safe and keeps us strong.

As patriots, we call on our government to support our troops in the most important way it can – by ending this war and bringing them home.

This Memorial Day weekend, we will all take responsibility for the country we love and the men and women who protect it. We will volunteer, we will pray, and we will speak out. Each of us has a responsibility to act, a duty to our troops and to each other. Support the troops. End the war.

The site invites people to sign up for demonstrations and other activities in their neighborhoods.

I heard about this because for reasons never explained to me I was invited onto a very brief one-way conference call in which Edwards announced the initiative. He didn't talk long, but he said all the right things: that the movement to end the war was more important than a political campaign, that the point of the event was to support the troops by bringing them home.

My favorite two Edwards soundbites from the call:

“We're going to reclaim patriotism.”

…

“The best way to serve our troops is to end this war.”

Edwards also has a YouTube promo for the event.

Now I feel bad that I'm going to be at a conference in Bologna over Memorial Day weekend. So I won't be demonstrating in Miami. But I do agree that the time has come to be visible, and I'm going to have to find other ways to do that.

Posted in Iraq, Politics: US: 2008 Elections | 3 Comments

English Profs Lead Sheltered Lives

Posted on May 11, 2007 by Michael Froomkin

An English prof blogs about an unreasonable student request in “Most outrageous note evar.”

While I agree that this student's request is totally unreasonable (barring a medical emergency), I think this blogger's reaction shows that English profs lead sheltered lives. Here in law school, where we train people to be advocates, many students come to think they have nothing to lose by making pushy requests, even ridiculous ones, and they do it quite often. Given how things work, they may be right — there's not much penalty for being turned down and, as fund-raisers say, “If you don't ask, you don't get.” Figuring out where the line is between zealous advocacy and Rule 11 (sanctions for frivolous or vexatious arguments) takes judgment, and it takes some people longer to acquire that than others.

One tries not to get inured, but I suppose it creeps up….

Previous related post: If You Don't Ask, You Don't Get. But Some Things You Shouldn't Ask.

Posted in Law School | 1 Comment