Turtles all the way down

While I tend to support this sort of “power to the people” movement, I question whether low power FM is a cause worth the time.

The future of radio is in the unlimited bandwidth of the Internet. The limited number of channels supported by FM bandwidth will never give all listeners what they want. I think we’re all better off pushing for royalty-free for Internet broadcasting and the establishment of a great variety of Internet radio stations.

Terrestrial radio is dead. It’s time to let it lie and move on.

I stopped in at the local Starbucks the other day on the way to class. This was right after the well-publicized three-hour shutdown and retraining.

My newly-retrained barista set up the machine to make me a pair of shots for my double espresso. Then she got distracted by a co-worker and didn’t return to the machine until after the shots had completed. She looked at them, then her watch, sighed, poured the shots down the drain and set up the machine for two more shots.

I asked her why.

“They expired.”

“Expired?”, I asked.

“Yeah. Its the new rule. If we don’t make the drink within 10 seconds of the espresso finishing, the shots expire and we need to start over. You know, they have to be fresh.”

She handed me a fresh espresso.

“So now I’ve got a little less than 10 seconds to slam this espresso?”, I queried.

“Um yeah…I think so.”

I smiled and left, crossing the street as my espresso expired.

I’ve often joked that people who don’t accept evolution should also not bother with modern medicine. This chart explains what would happen if that were the case. Hmm…

The rich don’t have to be right as much.

When the poor, middle class, or even the remedially rich invest, they need to invest a larger proportion of their wealth. Whether that investment is in real estate, stocks, a new job, an education, and so on, the “rest of us” are making a major life decision.

I like to view investments in terms of risk. As the potential payback of investments increases, so does the riskiness until it gets to the point of being almost binary. Those sorts of investments (like stock in startup companies for example), are very likely to either make it big or be worth nothing, and are about 10 times more likely to be worth nothing than to make it big.

If you have deep pockets you can spread your risk around. You don’t need to be right all the time. You can play the odds that one of 10 or 20 of your investments will have a 50x payoff.

If you’re a “rest of us” investor, you either risk a great deal of your life’s savings on an investment that is many times more likely than not to fail, or you invest in a low-risk package that makes 6%-10% interest and it unlikely to ever break you out of your income stratum.

The rich don’t have to be right as much, nor do they have to work as hard, nor do they have to be as smart.

One sick kid, another sick kid, daylight savings time kicks in taking away an hour of sleep, and the appellate brief is due.

Not to mention that my driver’s license expires in a week and I really need to set up a meeting with my accountant.

Write lousy opinions.

Make them convoluted, include circular logic, and quote Greek philosophers. But reach a reasonable and fair conclusion. You’ll get famous because law professors will subject generations of students to analysis of your cases. There will be so much to analyze.

For example, you should write, “does the platypus concern itself with forward renoberation when it lays its egg?” rather than, “the contractor tried to rip off the homeowner and therefore the SOB breached the contract.” Law professors love complexity and eschew simple, clearly written decisions.

Law students nationwide and maybe even some in the UK, Canada and Australia, will have your “platypus renoberation” doctrine inflicted upon them, as it will support hours of in-class lecture and discussion. However, if you take the simple, clear approach, in class discussion of your cases will go like this:

“Um, ok, any questions about this two-page opinion from Judge Whoever-He-Is? No? alright, next we have another Cardozo case…”

It’s due Monday.

I have 20-plus page draft that is looking halfway decent. I figure it’s about 8-12 hours from completion.

Second semester law students typically are assigned an appellate brief. It is a written argument to a Court of Appeals or Supreme Court. Our assignment is heinously complex, dealing with what appears to be a recent change to a 40 year old law.

In preparation, I’ve read about 70 cases and law review articles, investigated several false leads and red herrings, and am on my 15th draft. I spent most of last weekend writing and researching, and blew off the family. I had expected to have a complete version of the brief done by Sunday evening, but was a bit upset when at 11pm Sunday, I wasn’t done yet. So I spent most of Monday working on it and finished the draft. I felt a little better when my fellow students showed up for Monday nights class bleary-eyed and in similar emotional and literary shape.

It is a damn hard assignment.

The writing has to be clear. The arguments have to be legally and logically solid. The brief needs to flow naturally from one topic to the next. Not only do the facts need to be recited properly, but they need to be spun in your client’s behavior. The research must be thorough and the citations have to be in the proper form.

At this point, I’m beginning to like my draft. This is both good and bad. It means that I’m getting close to the end, but also that I may be losing some objectivity.

On the bright side, this is my last major writing assignment as a 1L.

verse (verb): To contend with other person or computer controlled entity in a video game or similar contest. Typical usage: “I’m going to verse Mario in this minigame.” “I’ll verse you first then I’ll verse Mom.”

Other forms: versed, versing.

Etymology: The Borella household, circa 2004.