Monthly Archives: October 2003

The Practical Nomad Learns to Blog

Posted on October 21, 2003 by Michael Froomkin

Ed Hasbrouck, aka the Practical Nomad, has taken his wonderful mailing list on travel and privacy issues and turned it into a blog. A must-read if you fly or if you care about privacy, and a double must if you fit both categories. There's also an online archive of the traffic from his mailing list.

Posted in Blogs | 1 Comment

How NOT to Install Computer Hardware

Posted on October 21, 2003 by Michael Froomkin

Anyone can put out a small, incomprehensible, and illegible sheet purporting to explain (in a language vaguely like English) how to install computer hardware. But only Hardware Analysis had the forethought to write a crisp, clean, manual on How NOT to install computer hardware. (Found via Slashdot

While an excellent and clearly presented exposition of the basics, this account does not include some of the more advanced subjects serious tyros might expect to see covered. For example, I did not see any discussion of the powerful advantages of bleeding on motherboards, subsequent to cutting onself on the sharp edge of the removed side of the computer case.

Furthermore, too much attention is paid to the dramatic effects caused by removal of large parts which should stay fixed. As a result, insufficient attention is paid to the magnificent effects that can be achieved by dropping a very small screw into invisible and inaccessible crevices. The process of picking up, shaking, and turning over the computer in an attempt to make the loudly rattling screw appear can, I recall, threaten to cause injury not just to the internals, but to the operator and to surrounding furniture as well.

Posted in Sufficiently Advanced Technology | Comments Off on How NOT to Install Computer Hardware

A Case To Watch

Posted on October 21, 2003 by Michael Froomkin

Court Takes Police Identification Case The Supreme Court will hear arguments in Hiibel v. Sixth Judicial District Court of the state of Nevada, 03-5554, this term. The case—which is nominally about whether a state can require you to identify yourself to the police—could have important implications for the right to be anonymous, laws governing any national ID cards, and a host of other interesting things.

It seems to me that at least in some special cases, admitting to one's name could be a form of constitutionally prohibited self-incrimination. And even when it isn't, it's an intrusion on one's privacy. Choosing not to give one's name to the police ought never to be grounds for arrest on its own. And I'm having trouble coming up with a scenario when it ought to be one reason among a totality of circumstances, either. (Obviously, giving a name will sometimes rebut a suspicion that would suffice for an arrest, e.g. demonstrating one is an authorized person not a trespasser in a government building. But that's different — I am trying, and failing, to come up with a hypothetical case where it's proper to consider the failure to give a name as sufficiently suspicious in itself to permit arrest where it otherwise would not be permitted.)

The Nevada case raises this issue directly, since the law in question makes it an offense to refuse to identify yourself to police when suspected of an offense.

Posted in Civil Liberties | Comments Off on A Case To Watch

The Power of Brad

Posted on October 21, 2003 by Michael Froomkin

Get linked to by Brad DeLong, watch traffic spike:

Which raises a question: is there some level of readership needed to justify the effort? I don't think I'm writing to myself. I don't expect a million readers. Somewhere, on the low end of that spectrum, is a happy steady state. Right now, I have no idea what it is, and suppose I won't be in a position to know until the novelty has worn off.

I suspect, though, that in the long run I care about who's reading even more than how many people click in. Judging from the email I'm getting, and the occasional linkage, that's going reasonably well for a startup.

Hits are not everything. Before I started posting my articles online, I wrote one called Still Naked After All These Words . It still gets many more hits than anything else I ever wrote on administrative law.

Now, about that blogroll of yours…

Posted in Discourse.net | Comments Off on The Power of Brad

Admirable Republican Discipline

Posted on October 21, 2003 by Michael Froomkin

Washingtonpost.com: GOP Sees Gephardt as Toughest Rival for Bush. You have to admire the Republican ability to stick to the talking points. There is no way that Gephardt is the candidate they worry about the most in the White House, and yet “nearly two dozen Republican strategists, lawmakers and state chairmen across the country, including several close to the White House,” managed to stay on message in the hope of maybe doing a little damage to the Democrats.

Gephardt is not a fresh face. (Indeed, he violates Jonathan Rauch's rule of 14 [link will stop workig soon], leadinig Rauch to say that he he's past his elect-by date.) Gephardt's anti-free-trade message can be caricatured as unrealistic; indeed, even I — a person deeply suspicious of the small army of devils lurking in the details of recent and proposed trade agreements — can't bring myself to buy into Gephardt's protectionism.

Gephardt's health plan is not something he could get through Congress.

And even the much-vaunted union support is of limited value — the unions are being fairly cautious this year. They want a winner, and are not themselves sure that he's it. And they, like so many Democrats, will turn out for whichever of the major candidates get the nomination.

But of those major Democratic candidates, Gephardt — who they will say is bought and paid for by the unions — is surely the one the Republicans most want to run against, not the one they fear. The very unanimity of this Republican block (is not one of them the least teensy tiny bit worried about Clark or Dean or even Edwards?) demonstrates to me that the fix was in. Admirable party discipline indeed.

As for this “midwest is key to the election” stuff, well, there's some truth to it. But I think I know where the key to election is. Right here in Florida.

Posted in Politics: US | 5 Comments

This Begins to Explain the Voting on Resolution 1151

Posted on October 20, 2003 by Michael Froomkin

The UK's Daily Telegraph reports Bush gives in to UN over cash for reconstruction. There's slightly less to this story than the headline suggests as it appears from the text that the UN will get supervision over new, non-US Iraq aid, not over US aid. Still, if there were another secret concession out there somewhere it might begin to explain how the US got all those votes in favor of Security Council Resolution 1151.

Posted in Law: International Law | Comments Off on This Begins to Explain the Voting on Resolution 1151