Precision Soup

. . . was the word I couldn't think of about three months ago when I was writing my final paper for Public Law/Public Policy. "By this time, the case law surrounding the decision to withdraw life support from an incompetent patient had solidified into a five part test." It just came to me a few minutes ago.

Um, anyway, that all I had to say. That had apparently been bothering me for three months. So I thought I'd share.

So, I saw Watchmen this weekend. The reviews I'd seen had been really mixed, with some people saying it was a good, faithful adaptation, and some reports of mass walkouts. I thought it was pretty good, personally. I'm not sure how much sense it would make to someone not familiar with the comic, though. Even at nearly 3 hours long, the movie had to stick to the main plot, with most of the backstory and sidestory just hinted at, mainly in the opening credits*. Also, I didn't see anyone walk out, except the guy who brought a little kid. They left pretty early.

The movie was incredibly faithful, with many of the scenes recreating the comic panel exactly, and if you are familiar with the comic book, you could probably walk in at any point and know exactly what was going on. My biggest complaint would be the guy who played Ozymandias. I always pictured Ozymandias as a guy with a really powerful commanding presence, and the guy playing him just couldn't pull that off. And the movie is more action-y than the book, but for the most part it was well done action, so I'm not too bothered by that. Except, the movie has Laurie kill at least one of the muggers who attack her and Dan in the alley. In the book, I got the idea that most of the Watchmen didn't just kill people like that, especially when the people weren't really a threat (Except Rorschach, natch). And the ending changed, I suspect because "giant psychic teleporting squid monster" seemed a little too far-fetched. The basic idea was the same, though.

Oh, and despite the quote at the top, Tales of the Black Freighter never comes up.


Other than seeing a movie, I've been working at my new internship, working for a public health law advocacy place. For actual money, this time. And doing research and working on policy questions, something I actually enjoy doing. So that's been going pretty well.

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*The opening credits, incidentally, were unreservedly wonderful, and did a nearly perfect job of showing the backstory if you knew it already. If you didn't, they had to be confusing.

Next week is the last week of classes, then a week of exams, then a week of vacation, then my next internship. I'm looking forward to it, partly because it'll be nice to have a regular schedule again (having morning classes at either noon or 8 am, and evening classes until 8 pm is no way to develop a normal sleeping pattern), and partly because I got a paying internship this time around, doing public health research. If we assume I got the job because of the interview, then I was hired based on my impressive knowledge of magicians, which is what I wound up talking about.

I'm hoping to get my next job based on my ability to argue that video games can be a serious art form.

I got Fallout 3 for Christmas, and today was the first day I got a chance to play it. I'm not sure how long I played, but I do know that when I finally stopped, I had been curled up in one position for so long that my lower legs had gone to sleep completely, and I could barely stand up. So, Fallout 3=good game.

I spent most of the rest of the day in bed, because my apartment is at about 60 degrees. Which, while well above freezing, and I'm sure very economical for the building managers, isn't exactly toasty. I may go buy a space heater.

Other things I got for Christmas are the books: Them!: Adventures With Extremists, Death From the Skies!, and Past Imperfect: History According to the Movies. I am now ready to start my own extremist separatist group, that believes that the World Ruling Conspiracy is trying to destroy the Earth with a black hole, and brainwashing the masses with movies filled with shoddy history research.

I wonder if you have to move to Montana or Idaho to start an extremist group. Because from what I understand, those places are even colder than Boston.

Lobster can refer to:

An actual lobster.

A tree lobster, which is actually a type of bug that, as it turns out, isn't extinct.

A furry lobster, which isn't actually a lobster either, but a furry crustacean of some kind.

A furry old lobster, actually a kind of extinct and fictional sea otter.

A Rock lobster, actually a song by the B-52's and not a lobster of any kind, even a fake one.

I bought Time Capsule: Songs for a Future Generation today, and have been listening to it for hours. I think it might have done something to my brain.

At first, I was just bored. After a while, though, I really wanted to find a "extreme (noun or verb)" that didn't turn up any hits on Google. So here is a list of how extreme things are, ranked by Google hits:

"extreme knitting" - 8,440 hits
"extreme croquet" - 8,210 hits
"extreme sitting" - 4,280
"extreme listening" - 4,210 hits
"extreme extremes" - 3,480 hits
"extreme socks" - 3,190 hits
"extreme ballet" - 2,640 hits
"extreme dinosaur" - 1,430 hits
"extreme kittens" - 982 hits
"extreme quilting" - 861 hits
"extreme pirate" - 803 hits
"extreme rice" - 672 hits
"extreme cyborg" - 527 hits
"extreme bidet" - 384 hits
"extreme soup" - 357 hits
"extreme filing" - 307 hits
"extreme grammar" - 281 hits
"extreme beekeeping" - 233 hits
"extreme swan" - 217 hits
"extreme coffin" - 209 hits
"extreme carrot" - 173 hits
"extreme giraffe" - 162 hits
"extreme anteater" - 8 hits
"extreme wind chimes" - 5 hits
"extreme lion taming" - 1 hit

. . .And I gave up looking for something with no hits. ("extreme giving up" - 178 hits)

I only have basic cable, so I'm listening to the radio feed for CNN. Which means I just finished listening to Wolf Blizter talking about holograms, but didn't actually see it. Although I will say, the hologram sounded like it was really in the room with Wolf. I also have two pages of constantly updating election results up, as well as a few liveblogs. I feel. . . a bit overstimulated. Too much stuff to look at/listen to at once. And everything's happening too slowly. I need a TARDIS, so I could just find out who wins.

Wolf is very excited about holograms.

EDIT, 10:10 pm: And Obama wins. There's no way McCain can win at this point, barring the sudden appearance of God himself interfering with the votes. So I can stop listening to CNN, and just check the votes occasionally. Huzzah!

I'd celebrate more, but I don't know the Senate/House outcomes yet, and everything hasn't really sunk in.

One the one hand, today was wet and rainy and generally miserable.

On the other hand, leaving work at 5, there was an amazing double rainbow.

So.

Also, I mailed my absentee ballot off today. So I have now officially voted for Barack Obama.

I have no other news.

So, today I got back half my evaluations for summer classes. You would think that the fact that my school uses a pass/fail system instead of grades would make this process less stressful, but, as it turns out, that is not the case. Still, I've passed everything so far, and I haven't had a heart attack while checking the evals, so everything is good.

I haven't posted in a while, and my current job does not make for dramatic storytelling, so, for the sake of having something to post, I decided to post a story I found. The Massachusetts Court System has a 150th anniversary of something coming up, so when I'm not busy with other things, I've been doing some research to find historically significant cases. Two cases I found do not fall into that category, but both stem from the same interesting event. And by "interesting" I mean "it contains a giant explosion."*

So, In 1903 in a small town in Massachusetts, there were two warehouses, owned by two different groups, that shared a wall. One of these was rented to a cartridge company for the storage of gunpowder, and one was rented to a powder company for the storage of dynamite and gunpowder. I'm not sure who thought this was a good idea. The judges writing the decisions seemed a little puzzled by this as well. Anyway, as the town had no fire department, and no laws regarding the storage of gunpowder, no one with any authority was aware of this situation. One day, in the summer of 1903, the manager of the cartridge warehouse noticed some stains on the floor. After some investigation, he concluded that the stains were nitroglycerin leaking from the dynamite in the next building. He complained, and after a few weeks (no reason to hurry), the powder company agreed to clean up the nitroglycerin and replace the floor.

On the morning that the clean-up was to begin, three trucks were hired to move the gunpowder away from the cartridge company's warehouse. The trucks were loaded, and were about 200 feet away from the building. The powder warehouse was still full. At this point, an employee of the powder company entered the cartridge warehouse, poured a liquid on the nitroglycerin stains, and scrubbed at the stain. Which promptly began to smoke, and couldn't be put out. The heat from this soon reached the other warehouse, causing everything in that building to explode. This explosion set off the gunpowder in the trucks, which also exploded. I'm not sure how large the explosions were, except that a house about 700 feet away was described as "badly shattered".

The cases arising from this, unfortunately, aren't all that interesting. Suffice to say the court found for the parties suing the powder company. Actually, in the early 20th century, courts were pretty pro-business and would allow companies to get away with a lot, but large explosions caused by stupidity was apparently where the line was drawn.


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*If anyone really wants to look the cases up, they are: Oulighan v. Butler, 189 Mass. 287 (1905) and Flynn v. Butler, 189 Mass. 377 (1905)

First The Null Device, which today has a post about scientists an experiment to see how useful a chocolate teapot would be (answer: kind of melty, but works better than you would think).

Second, I recently finished Mary Roach's latest book, Bonk: the Curious Coupling of Science and Sex. It's her third book, the other two being Stiff: The Curious Lives of Human Cadavers and Spook: Science Tackles the Afterlife. If you haven't read them, I recommend all three. Mary Roach is an excellent writer and the books are funny and easy to read. And full of truly strange information that would be hard to find anywhere else. For instance, there is only one animal besides humans that is known to fondle breasts. And that animal is pigs. Also, Edison designed, but never built, a machine to talk to the dead. And electrocuted Topsy the elephant in order to prove that DC current was better than AC (I think we all know how that battle turned out). He also wrote in his diaries that memory is made up of little men who remember things for us, and work in shifts, so remembering is a matter of getting in touch with the right shift. (I have to wonder, do these little men have their own little men, or do they remember things some other way?). Anyway, how can you not read books that contain this kind of information?

Finally, I've been working my way through the Y: The Last Man series. I'm up to 6 out of 10 books, and so far it's a great series. I bought the first book in the series on a whim, and wound up buying the first three books in three days. After that I had to slow a bit, to a book every week or two, because I can't really afford to buy a book every day. When I finally finish it, it'll be the first comic book series I've read. (I've read Watchman, of course, but the paperback version is just one book. And I read the first Sandman, but didn't like it enough to buy any others, despite the fact it's Neil Gaiman. And a few others.)

Oh, I also read Ender's Game for the first time recently. Because the next Futurama movie is called Bender's Game, and I heard rumors there might be references to the book, and I didn't want to miss them. It's a good book.

So, haven't posted in a while. For several good reasons. First, I had exams. Which were. . .well, they're over now, and that's the important part. Then I moved to a new apartment, which was harder than it should have been, because the moving company I made an appointment with in June lost the appointment, so I had to find a new mover the day I was moving. But things eventually worked out. And now, I just got the Internet working in my new apartment, which means no more bad connections to other people's wifi. It also means that this apartment is now officially better than my last apartment, as it is in a quieter building, has A/C, has no one upstairs jumping around making the ceiling bulge alarmingly, and no mice (as far as I can tell). And it's cheaper.

So, not much to say, really. I've still got another week of vacation left before I start my co-op, and there's not much happening till then.

Since my apartment was roughly 1,000 degrees yesterday, I went to see The Dark Knight, on the assumption that the matinee would be a little less crowded. In fact, the matinee I planned to see was sold out. So I bought a ticket for the next one, hung around the theater watching people play DDR for a while, stood in line for nachos, stood in line to have my ticket checked, stood in line for over 30 minutes to get into the theater, while the ice in my soda melted and my nachos went cold. Got into the theater and waited while the ushers tried to get everyone seated, refusing to start the movie until they could do so.

It was completely worth all of that to see this movie.

In fact, it was completely worth all of that just to see Heath Ledger as the Joker, never mind all the awesomeness surrounding him. The Joker was amazing. Insane, evil, repellent, fascinating, disturbing, chaotic, brilliant, funny, really alarmingly unbalanced, all at the same time. Just a really amazing performance, in a truly amazing, awesome, epic movie.

I really liked the movie, is what I'm trying to get across. If you haven't seen it yet, go. Now.

I have finally been offered my first co-op job, in the Administration office of the Superior Court. Which means I can stop applying and interviewing. Despite the fact I won't be working for any judges, the job technically counts as a clerkship, which means it is both unpaid, and considered such a valuable educational experience that you can't get any extra funding to live on while you're working, as you can with other unpaid co-ops. On the other hand, a clerkship will make getting other legal jobs easier, so next time around I should be able to go for something more interesting, more policy focused, and possibly even paying (that last one is unlikely, though. Most policy-based jobs, which are the ones I want, are either government or public interest). And, importantly, this job is not in a library, unlike my current and past jobs. I think I've been spending too much time working in libraries. Last week I was studying in the library and someone walked by complaining that all the books are KF books, and what's the point of a sorting system that gives all the books the same starting letter. And I was actually annoyed, and nearly explained that the Library of Congress arranges books by subject, and KF happens to be US law, so most of the books are going to be KF, because this is a law library. Then I realized she wouldn't care, and it was a stupid thing to be annoyed by. So Some some time away from library jobs will be good.

Also, saw WALL-E last week, partly because the entire Internet apparently loved the movie, and partly because movies are air conditioned, and it was very hot. And it turns out the Internet was right, and the movie was great. The animation was incredible. The main characters, WALL-E and Eve, can only say a few words, so movement had to convey a lot with them, and the first hour or so, with maybe a dozen words spoken, is completely fascinating. The second part of the movie is more cartoony, but still good, and there's a very nice HAL type character. Because what's sci-fi without an evil AI? And thanks to Netflix, I also saw Brazil for the first time recently. Also a good movie, but somewhat less heartwarming. Unless your heart is warmed by bureaucracies so bloated and evil they'll not only torture people, but charge them for the time it took. And next week, Batman. Life is good right now. It's too bad exams have to start soon, and ruin everything.

I just found (via Johnathan Coulton) a new site called Wordle, where any block of text can be turned into a word cloud. It's a lot of fun to play with. Below is the word cloud for H.P Lovecraft's story Herbert West: Reanimator, which I did mainly because I could find it online, and so didn't have to type it in myself. (Click if you want it big enough to read anything besides "West").

Very busy right now, since the first round of applications for co-op are due Monday. I've finally got my resume and references in order, and now I just have to get everything printed out tomorrow and turned in. And then wait, hopefully for a judge to offer me the chance to do their research for three months.

And since I've been busy, I forgot to post even something small celebrating the fact that Obama is the nominee. So. . . consider it celebrated.

Also, the Supreme Court has ruled that Guantanamo detainees can't be tried in tribunals, among other things. I'm glad that the court made the right decision despite Bush's appointees, but it might not be all that surprising, given that the legislation that gave Bush the power to carry out his tribunals was pretty much a rebuke of the court by a Republican controlled Congress after the Court ruled the whole Guantanamo situation unconstitutional the first time around, in Hamdan v. Rumsfeld (and it turns out Con Law was a useful class after all). After the current decision, Bush would need a constitutional amendment to carry out tribunals. And Sen. Lindsey Graham has already proposed one. Not that it'll ever get anywhere.

And finally, Season Three of The Venture Brothers has begun, and indeed is already up to its third episode, on Adult Swim. And it is awesome. I finally know why Billy Quizboy has a metal hand and an eyepatch, why Brock is Dr. Venture's bodyguard, and what Dr. Girlfriend's secret was. Also in only three episodes there have already been at least two supervillian tirades from Phantom Limb, the master of the supervillian tirade. So I'm happy.

Well, I took my last exam today, meaning (assuming I passed everything), that my first year of law school is officially over. Now I get two weeks of vacation before summer classes start. But the important thing is the end of first year. Nearly every lawyer I've talked to or heard about says that the first year of law school was not only the worst part of school, but in many cases the worst year of their lives. Which means that, with any luck, I just got the worst part of my entire life out of the way. I'm sure once I'm no longer exhausted I'll be able to appreciate that fact.

Wow, I haven't posted in a while. I finally got all my various law school projects done (more or less), and now exams are the week after next, so I've been franticly putting together outlines, even though two of the three exams are closed-book, no notes, no outline. I still have to get everything organized.

In my free time, I've been trying to catch up on interesting things I missed the first time around. For instance, I didn't know who Joss Whedon was until the movie Serenity came out. Which means I've never seen Buffy the Vampire Slayer or Angel. I'm up to the beginning of Season 3 of Buffy right now, mainly having it on in the background or during breaks while I study. At the same time, I got a Netflix subscription for my birthday, and have also begun to finally see every episode of Star Trek: Deep Space Nine in order. Well, okay, I started at Season 3, which is right after they've met the Dominion. I know most of the major arcs in the series, but have never gotten a chance to really watch the show and keep up with how all the plots unfold. I'm also getting movies from Netflix, of course.

I also bought a subscription to GameTap, partly so I could catch up on old games, but mainly so I could play Sam and Max games. TellTale games has been releasing short Sam and Max games as Episodes, with 5 or 6 episodes covering the larger plot of a Season. The last Season 2 game was just released. Like I said, the episodes are short. If you're fast and don't get stuck on any of the puzzles, you could probably get through one in a couple of hours. I'm was averaging about one every 2 days, but I'll probably slow down with exams so close. The stories are amazing and hilarious, though. Season one covered various hypnotic plots, and included Max getting elected President (which stuck though the whole season, and into season 2), the destruction of the Internet, and a parody of Scientology. And you get to blow up Antarctica and Krypton* for no reason. I just started Season 2, which seems to be about demons. I've also tried to play Silent Hill 2, which is also on GameTap. The problem is that I like horror games in theory, but in practice, I'm a very jumpy, easily spooked person, who usually plays a horror game for 15 minutes at a time, before the weird noises get to be too much and I go do something else. So Silent Hill will take a while.

And finally, I have begun to read a few comic books, which surprised me. But I spend a lot of time on TV Tropes, and comic books are mentioned there often enough that I got interested in a few series. So I got the first Sandman and League of Extraordinary Gentlemen, and enjoyed them. And so I move further into Geekdom. First reading Fantasy and Sci-Fi, then video games, now comic books. Who knows what will happen next.

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*I just wanted to point out that the Firefox spell check recognizes "Krypton" as a word, and yet marks "okay" as wrong. Further playing around shows that "Superman" and "Batman" are acceptable words, but "Spiderman" is not because, of course, it should be spelled "Spider-Man". Just thought that was interesting.

Well, the final version of our semester-long project to make sure the new disciplinary system at a high school in Boston is in compliance with all Special Education and Limited English Proficiency laws, as well as studying whether the new system, which uses the principles of restorative justice, could function as a truancy prevention program, is almost over. It's due next Thursday, and I am tired. So tired that I'm not going to go back and fix that first sentence. I have an oral presentation to prepare, a conclusion to write, a summary to finish as soon as the conclusion is written and can be summarized, a manual to work on, and the rest of law school to deal with. So sentences can just remain far too long. And anyway, none of that matters, for today is the first day I have heard of the Band Gogol Bordello. I'm still tired, but I'm in a much, much better mood. So here's the video for "Start Wearing Purple", so everyone with similar taste in music can also be in a better mood:



Oh, and on a totally different topic, follow This Link. You may need a pencil.

There is a blog. This blog is dedicated entirely to Mustaches of the Nineteenth Century. There. Tell me that was not something you really, really wanted to know about. Tell me your life does not feel more wonderful with that knowledge in your head. But know, that if you say those things, you will be lying.

If your facial hair needs are not entirely satiated by the above blog, may I recommend the World Beard Championship? After looking at that page, I can only hope that the second guy not only styles his beard that way every day, but also wears a striped suit and carries a striped cane everyday. I hope this, because that would be one of the greatest things ever.

(links found in these comments. I know this gets said a lot, but I really love the Internet)

1. It is perfectly possible for the weather to be sunny one minute, so snowy and windy you can't see anything the next minute, and then 15 minutes later when you get off the train you took home because of the snow wind, sunny again.

2. If you have snow followed by rain, you can get a special kind of puddle that looks like a simple pile of slush until you step in it are are suddenly nearly ankle-deep in icy water.

3. My tennis shoes are not water proof.

On the other hand, I've nearly beaten Psychonauts, which may be the best video game I have ever played. Ever. At least once you get past the 7 hours or so of training levels, and the plot kicks in. Before I explain why I liked the game, I'd like to mention that the game has been described as being "rather like Tim Burton knocked up David Lynch in Charlie's Chocolate Factory and they did meth right up until the birth". I'm not sure it's really that strange, but after spending at least 30 hours in the game, I may not be all that objective.

Anyway, the plot, briefly, is that the main character Razputin ("Raz" for short), has run away from the circus to attend a summer camp for psychic children. But it turns out someone is stealing the children's brains to power psychic tanks, and Raz has to stop them and get back all the brains. You mainly do this by entering the minds of different people (well, mostly people), many of whom are insane. Okay, maybe a little strange, but the writing is amazing, the story incredibly well-thought out and the character's backstory's are really well done. Which is good, because you spend a lot of time on them, being in people's minds. Or, in one case, in a mutated lungfish's mind, where you get to be sort of Godzilla in a town of lungfish. Which is fun, except for the tanks shooting at you.

Really in a lot of places it's entertaining enough that the game feels more like a movie, only you have to fight a giant lungfish if you want to see the next scene. And also, like I said, it lasts about 30 hours (the game says I've been playing for 22 hours, but that doesn't count all the dying and starting over I did.)

Also, if you have or download GameTap, I'm pretty sure you can play it for free right now.