Turtles all the way down

Most law school students seem to panic over the idea of the the Socratic Method, where the professor puts an individual student on the spot, asking them to analyze a situation or ask a question.

Nine weeks into my first semester, the stress levels over getting called on are coming down.

Mine were never that high to begin with, mainly because I have no pride. I don’t mind making a fool out of myself. In five years, no one will care and in the mean time I might learn something.

Getting called on in class was THE BIG THING students were worried about at the beginning of the semesters. Now we’re more concerned with our legal writing assignments, and stress over finals is starting to rear its ugly head.

Verdict: Socratic Method…no big deal.

I guess this is old news now, but I can’t resist. Sam Adams beer was trying to stop a guy named Sam Adams who’s running for Portland’s mayoral office from using a couple of domain names. With all of the trademark protection suits flying, I’d like to see the Moron In A Hurry Test applied more frequently. By the way, Sam Adams beer backed down once they found that candidate Sam Adams was a real person.

Back in 2003, when the Beatles’ Apple Corp. sued Apple computer over trademark violations, we noted that the whole purpose of trademark was to avoid confusion — and we doubted that anyone out there was confusing the Beatles’ corporate name with that of Apple Computers. It would appear that Apple Computers’ lawyers are using the same defense now that the case has actually gone to trial. However, they phrased it in a much more elegant way, stating that “even a moron in a hurry could not be mistaken” about the difference between the two companies.

Today’s high tech job market in Chicago is frustrating and contradictory. The big companies have been laying people off, downsizing, outsourcing, off-shoring, and many people I know who are still at these companies want to leave. They are worried about losing their jobs. The startup market is pretty weak right now as well, with fewer entrepreneurs basing companies here.

However, if you do have an open position, it is very hard to find qualified talent. Post a job description and you’ll get 100 resumes, but only five of them worth following up on, and if you’re lucky, one worth interviewing. And when you find a good candidate, they will expect more compensation than you’d think they’re worth. Openings sit unfilled for months as managers try to find qualified candidates.

There seems to be a disconnect between those with talent and those looking for talent. The now-traditional way of getting your resume out there, via job sites like monster.com, is weak. It is too hard for the qualified applicant to stand out, and it is also too hard for the hiring manager to separate wheat from chaff.

Recruiters aren’t much better, as they tend to pigeonhole talent, and de-emphasize location. If you’re a great software development manager with experience in cellular user interfaces and you live in Chicago, you’ll get plenty of recruiting calls for similar positions on either coast, but will probably get passed over for a local job focused on software development in another area.

For various reasons many good job openings never get publicized. The job seeker needs to know the right people or be in the right place at the right time. The saying, “It’s not what you know but who you know,” is still very true today, but outside of the circle of people that you know may be the ideal match for the position you’re trying to fill. How do you find that person?

Jobs exist and the talent exists. We need a better way of putting them together. Perhaps this could be accomplished by having recruiting done by an individual with the appropriate technical and managerial experience. Perhaps job sites could do a better job pre-screening both openings and applicants. Perhaps the resume is a poor means for evaluating the scope of one’s talent and experience and a better alternative is needed.

Perhaps all of the above. There may be a lucrative opportunity for someone to crack this nut.

The past week has been rough. I blew off the family this weekend to make progress on my legal writing memo assignment due next Monday. I now have about 90% of a first draft, but didn’t read anything for Torts. Luckily I did my Criminal Law reading ahead of time. I’ll have to try to get the undone reading and memo edits accomplished in between work this week, and then blast through to the final version of the memo this weekend. I also have a Halloween party this weekend, and I really need to spend some time with the kids.

Last weekend I did manage to get to the gym twice, but I feel like all I did was bounce between my computer and the weight room. I might get in a couple of short runs this week, but I won’t count on it. There’s a pile of work at the office. No big rush on most of it, but I don’t want to blow it off.

Oh yeah, got to make some progress on my outlines. I think I know how I want them to look, I just need the time to put them together.

I’m missing just hanging with the family and enjoying quiet time. I know it will come soon enough, but that’s not much consolation on a Monday.

I’ve been explaining the semantics of swear words to my kid. He already knows some of the “bad” words, but not what they mean, or why sometimes they’re ok to say. Discussions have been along the lines of:

You can’t say “crap,” but you can play craps in Las Vegas.

You can say, “Wow, the Hoover Dam is big!” But you can’t say “Damn, the Hoover Dam is big!”

You can say, “Dante’s Inferno is a book about Hell.” But you can’t say “Reading Dante’s Inferno was hell.”

You can say, “The farmer used an ass to plow his field.” But you can’t say, “The farmer fell on his ass while plowing the field.”

Meethinks George Carlin has been through this territory before.

Three things I really liked about this film: a non-cheesy approach to horror, no big-name actors, and a sequel with no characters in common with the first movie. Taking place several months after the mysterious “rage” disease of the first movie apparently vanished, a new cast attempts to unravel what had happened. It is not perfect, but it avoids most Hollywoodisms and results in an engaging (in an edgy, gritty sort of way) couple of hours. A-.

6am several weeks ago. I’m sipping a fresh cup of coffee while walking past my front window, and notice an SUV half in my driveway. The driver was delivering newspapers, and backing up and moving forward incrementally.

I live at the very end of a dead-end / cul de sac, so the curb of the street near my driveway is curved. This not only makes it hard for people to park properly on the street, but it also can be fatal for mailboxes. My old one had been knocked silly by someone backing into it a couple of years ago. My wife convinced me that buying a solid, cast iron, expensive new box and pole would address the problem. I wasn’t so thrilled about the expensive part but I went along with it anyway.

The SUV is right in front of the mailbox. I think to myself, “Please don’t back up…” CRUNCH!!.

The SUV knocks the mailbox off the pole. I grab some clothes and run outside shouting at the driver, who is either oblivious to what happened or trying to get away in a hurry. She claims ignorance and I ask her what she plans on doing about my mailbox, which seems to be in good shape, aside from the piece of metal connecting the box to the pole being broken.

We exchange phone numbers and she agrees to pay for the damages, which turn out to be about $90.

I didn’t expect her to pay, partially due to my overall cynicism about these things. If she wasn’t the regular paper delivery person, maybe she would have had no motivation to do so. But a week later, my mailbox is fixed and I find a $90 check in my front door.

Two nice things to conclude from the experience. People can be honest and responsible, and cast iron mailboxes are pretty darn solid.

All the hype over Radiohead’s recent album pricing, along with announcements that Nine Inch Nails and even Madonna may be moving away from major labels has me thinking. Maybe it is possible to harmonize the fact that millions of people like myself want music cheap and on MP3 only. But millions of others still want physical media for some reason - fidelity, collecting, habit, etc.

Maybe Radiohead is really on to something by offering MP3s for virtually nothing then later selling a very expensive deluxe CD package. They have addressed both ends of the spectrum of what people will spend on music. Face it, no matter how good the music is, some people won’t pay even a cent for it, while others will happily fork out $20 or more for an album. The latter are supporting the artist, at least if the artist isn’t on a major label.

But what about people landing squarely in the middle of the market?

I’m seeing two more pricing models at play here: “cheap MP3″ and “pricey MP3.” The former is like eMusic - you can download a whole album for $1-$3. The latter is like iTunes, Amazon and a lot of independent artists going straight to their audiences - you can download an album for $7-$10. I tend for fall into the “cheap MP3″ category because there is so much great stuff on eMusic that I just don’t have a lot of time to focus on anything else.

Mashing this altogether, I see artists doing two forms of price differentiation. The first is based on budget vs. deluxe formats. The artist will release on MP3 a lower-fidelity and less expensive version of their album to capture the broadest possible audience. Then they will release a physical media version (heck, maybe even an LP) that will be targeted towards collectors who are willing to cough up extra for it. The second is a variation on the street performer model, where the artist chooses differential pricing of their release. In other words, the artist is a saying, “If you like what I do and want to hear more, pay me a couple of extra bucks.” You can download the MP3’s for $1-$3 but then tip the artist in the hope that he or she will continue to make music you like. Think of it as commissioning for the masses.

I find this tipping approach rather appealing. It allows me to pay what I think the music is worth rather than a fixed price. Twenty years ago, all CDs cost about $12-$15. If you liked a purchase, that was a bargain. If it sucked, your only recourse was to sell it at a loss. Maybe more widely in the future, you can go back to the artist 6-12 months after first downloading the album and tip them based on how much you’ve enjoyed it.

I’m convinced that music will continue to be free or almost free, and that musicians and labels will finally admit that this is the case. These are exciting times.

Came across a these articles and sites today. Researchers thing that swearing at work is a good thing. We knew that. Some guy has been posting guitar solos overdubbed with bad playing on Youtube. And zipskinny lets you find out the demographics of any US zip code.

A nice effort that manages to partially address the issue of terrorism without resorting to one-sided patriotism. However a handful of Hollywoodisms manage to hold back an otherwise strong plot: The Obligatory Firefight(tm), Main Character Protection(tm) and the Sympathetic Death(tm). Overall it comes off as too contrived to be believable and too heavy-handed and smarmy for the latter to be ignored. Good acting by most of the cast helps, but can’t bump this one from the “good” to “near classic” category. B+.