Monthly Archives: April 2012

Coming Soon to an Internet Near You

Posted on April 6, 2012 by Michael Froomkin

ratemyprofessorsandhotels.com. Only a matter of time.

Via Unqualified Offerings, Sites that need to be created.

Posted in Completely Different | Comments Off on Coming Soon to an Internet Near You

A Very Cute Respose to Employer Demands for Facebook Passwords

Posted on April 6, 2012 by Michael Froomkin

I hereby (fictionally) resign is a great, if alas so far fictional, account of blowback from an employer’s demand for Facebook passwords.

Spotted via Emergent Chaos, Chaos Emerges from Demanding Facebook Passwords.

Posted in Law: Everything Else, Law: Internet Law | Comments Off on A Very Cute Respose to Employer Demands for Facebook Passwords

I Wish They Had Sought Recusal

Posted on April 5, 2012 by Michael Froomkin

Text of DOJ Letter to 5th Circuit Panel in Phvsician Hospitals of America v. Sebelius.

This letter is a temperate reply to the intemperate request by Judge Jerry E. Smith. I think Judge Smith’s impartiality could reasonably be questioned after his outburst. Cf. 28 USC § 144.

Update: Kevin Drum exposes the contempt of court hidden in plain sight in the DOJ letter. [link fixed, sorry]

Posted in Law: Constitutional Law | 1 Comment

We Robot News 4/4/12

Posted on April 4, 2012 by Michael Froomkin

We’ve now got the first batch of papers online:

More soon.

Today’s robopromo is Amir Rahmani on, “Micro Aerial Vehicles: Opportunity or Liability”. It begins:

Unmanned Aerial Systems (UASs) pose a number of legal and regulatory issues when operating in national airspace. As a result, Congress tasked the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) with safely integrating UASs into our national airspace by 2014. However, Micro Aerial Vehicles (MAVs), which are small to medium-sized UASs, present additional concerns because they do not qualify for the 2014 FAA integration.

I think this sounds bad for the taco copter?

Posted in Robots | Comments Off on We Robot News 4/4/12

We Robot News 4/3/12

Posted on April 3, 2012 by Michael Froomkin

The big news today is that the papers have started coming in, and as they are received I’m linking to them not only from the relevant robopromos but also from the We Robot Program page. I hope to have them all Real Soon Now.

Today’s robopromo: Sinziana Gutiu on “Sex Robots and Roboticization of Consent”. And yes, there’s a paper linked to from there.

Posted in Robots | Comments Off on We Robot News 4/3/12

Things You Do Not Expect to See

Posted on April 3, 2012 by Michael Froomkin

My first thought was that this was an unusually good piece of Photoshop. My second was that it had to be an impostor or double.

But then I started to think, despite April 1 being just behind us, that it might be real.

And now I just don’t know: There seems strangely little coverage of this amazingly informal entrance to a serious conference, although I have found one other source reporting it as real. So goes the Internet.

Via South Florida Daily Blog: SFDB Cool Of The Day, via Jesus’ General.

[Insert #OBJoke about Obama skating through Presidency here.]

Posted in Completely Different | 1 Comment