Wednesday, April 30, 2003
Omnivore
For starters there were seafood-stuffed mushrooms. And fried calamari. And bruschetta with fresh tomatoes, deep-fried mozzarella squares, bread and butter. Did I mention the seafood-stuffed mushrooms? Went well with the nice pinot grigio. I don't drink much -- but if I am drinking, I would rather be drinking wine. And if I am drinking wine, and not actually, say, in Bordeaux, then I probably want to be drinking pinot grigio.
Then there was a mixed green salad with champagne vinaigrette.
And then there was a beautiful filetto al porto. I have been craving steak for over a month now... Deep burgundy sauce over black peppercorn-crusted perfectly cooked tender melting filet. Potatoes and sauteed vegetables, just enough for a taste. And chianti.
The tartuffo, I have to say, was not the best ending, though it was pretty good -- should have opted for just coffee instead. But at least there was chocolate -- very dark, very good.
I wouldn't say it's the best meal I've had -- certainly does not match Sushi Sushi at home, or Anacreon in Paris last summer, or one truly excellent restaurant in Montreal. But given the preponderance of pizza I've been consuming lately, I thought it was worth waxing a little poetic...
For starters there were seafood-stuffed mushrooms. And fried calamari. And bruschetta with fresh tomatoes, deep-fried mozzarella squares, bread and butter. Did I mention the seafood-stuffed mushrooms? Went well with the nice pinot grigio. I don't drink much -- but if I am drinking, I would rather be drinking wine. And if I am drinking wine, and not actually, say, in Bordeaux, then I probably want to be drinking pinot grigio.
Then there was a mixed green salad with champagne vinaigrette.
And then there was a beautiful filetto al porto. I have been craving steak for over a month now... Deep burgundy sauce over black peppercorn-crusted perfectly cooked tender melting filet. Potatoes and sauteed vegetables, just enough for a taste. And chianti.
The tartuffo, I have to say, was not the best ending, though it was pretty good -- should have opted for just coffee instead. But at least there was chocolate -- very dark, very good.
I wouldn't say it's the best meal I've had -- certainly does not match Sushi Sushi at home, or Anacreon in Paris last summer, or one truly excellent restaurant in Montreal. But given the preponderance of pizza I've been consuming lately, I thought it was worth waxing a little poetic...
Tuesday, April 29, 2003
Stressssssed!
As evidenced by the fact that I have a very large block of dark chocolate in my room, and have been cutting off big chunks of it with a knife.
Not a good sign.
Really not.
Unrelatedly, though, I'd just like to state: Beethoven 7 rocks. It really, really does.
(Postscript: why is it that stressed and distressed have remarkably similar meanings? And why is there no actual word for de-stressed? Hmm... Apparently, stress comes partly from destresse, hardship, and partly from estrece, a narrowness or oppression, both Old French. Hence the relation to distress (which shares the destresse origin) -- and to straits, especially dire ones. Hardship, narrowness, oppression? Sounds like this damsel's distress...)
As evidenced by the fact that I have a very large block of dark chocolate in my room, and have been cutting off big chunks of it with a knife.
Not a good sign.
Really not.
Unrelatedly, though, I'd just like to state: Beethoven 7 rocks. It really, really does.
(Postscript: why is it that stressed and distressed have remarkably similar meanings? And why is there no actual word for de-stressed? Hmm... Apparently, stress comes partly from destresse, hardship, and partly from estrece, a narrowness or oppression, both Old French. Hence the relation to distress (which shares the destresse origin) -- and to straits, especially dire ones. Hardship, narrowness, oppression? Sounds like this damsel's distress...)
Saturday, April 26, 2003
Thinking Aloud...
Paper inspiration seems to come in very, very short spurts. Think I finally figured out how to put together two ideas that have been floating in my head. I'm writing about the 2001 Convention on Cybercrime for my international law class, interesting because while I've found a fair number of articles criticizing it on policy grounds (lack of privacy protections, prosecuting benevolent hackers who are just trying to test systems for security holes, etc.), there isn't much out there from the international law side. The treaty is open to members of the Council of Europe, plus the U.S. and a few other observers, but the U.S. has yet to ratify it.
My current thinking is this:
The very fact that we have a treaty on cybercrime implies that we are thinking about these activities as a new category, distinct in kind from traditional crimes. This might seem to suggest that the international community is changing the way it wants to deal with cyberspace as a whole, indicating a shift from cyberspace-as-medium to cyberspace-as-place.
But is the treaty really all that groundbreaking? Does it really accomplish anything we wouldn't have expected?
Realism, the theory of power politics, doesn't quite explain the existence of this treaty, which doesn't particularly advance national power and didn't particularly seem to rely on U.S. hegemony. It seems like institutions (like the CoE) have a bigger role here. Hence, institutionalism/neo-liberalism -- the treaty as a product of the international system, which states are using to advance their various interests, which may or may not be influenced by domestic interest groups [idea #1]. There's something missing here too, though -- this doesn't allow for any feedback effects on those interests. Might the very existence of the treaty make states more likely to see a fight against cybercrime as something they want (constructivism)? That would be consistent with the idea that the way the international community sees cyberspace is changing...
Unfortunately it doesn't seem to work that way. The treaty doesn't really accomplish very much that a reinterpretation of some older laws and treaties could not have done [idea #2]. There are plenty of international treaties dealing with criminal law, and most of the "cybercrimes" identified by this treaty actually parallel traditional crimes fairly closely. Furthermore, despite the flurry of criticism over the treaty's lack of privacy protections, the extent to which privacy will actually suffer depends much more on the underlying laws of the particular state in question than on the terms of the treaty.
In essence what we have is a bunch of nations signing on to a treaty that doesn't make them do anything they wouldn't have done anyway. The treaty is not a shift in states' attitudes -- it's a product of the very same ones they've held all along. In other words, it's just Not That Interesting...
Paper inspiration seems to come in very, very short spurts. Think I finally figured out how to put together two ideas that have been floating in my head. I'm writing about the 2001 Convention on Cybercrime for my international law class, interesting because while I've found a fair number of articles criticizing it on policy grounds (lack of privacy protections, prosecuting benevolent hackers who are just trying to test systems for security holes, etc.), there isn't much out there from the international law side. The treaty is open to members of the Council of Europe, plus the U.S. and a few other observers, but the U.S. has yet to ratify it.
My current thinking is this:
The very fact that we have a treaty on cybercrime implies that we are thinking about these activities as a new category, distinct in kind from traditional crimes. This might seem to suggest that the international community is changing the way it wants to deal with cyberspace as a whole, indicating a shift from cyberspace-as-medium to cyberspace-as-place.
But is the treaty really all that groundbreaking? Does it really accomplish anything we wouldn't have expected?
Realism, the theory of power politics, doesn't quite explain the existence of this treaty, which doesn't particularly advance national power and didn't particularly seem to rely on U.S. hegemony. It seems like institutions (like the CoE) have a bigger role here. Hence, institutionalism/neo-liberalism -- the treaty as a product of the international system, which states are using to advance their various interests, which may or may not be influenced by domestic interest groups [idea #1]. There's something missing here too, though -- this doesn't allow for any feedback effects on those interests. Might the very existence of the treaty make states more likely to see a fight against cybercrime as something they want (constructivism)? That would be consistent with the idea that the way the international community sees cyberspace is changing...
Unfortunately it doesn't seem to work that way. The treaty doesn't really accomplish very much that a reinterpretation of some older laws and treaties could not have done [idea #2]. There are plenty of international treaties dealing with criminal law, and most of the "cybercrimes" identified by this treaty actually parallel traditional crimes fairly closely. Furthermore, despite the flurry of criticism over the treaty's lack of privacy protections, the extent to which privacy will actually suffer depends much more on the underlying laws of the particular state in question than on the terms of the treaty.
In essence what we have is a bunch of nations signing on to a treaty that doesn't make them do anything they wouldn't have done anyway. The treaty is not a shift in states' attitudes -- it's a product of the very same ones they've held all along. In other words, it's just Not That Interesting...
Thursday, April 24, 2003
In order to win a coveted spot on The Yale L.J. (yes, the Bluebook capitalizes "The"), one must attain, apparently, either a combined score of 77% on the Bluebook exam and writing component or a score of 87% on the exam alone. For the uninitiated:
The Bluebook exam consists of 5 pages, on which there will be 300 errors, including such goodies as italicized commas that should be romanized, and the ever-popular en-dash masquerading as a hyphen.
We have 4 hours to complete the exam.
87% x 300 errors = 261 errors.
4 hours x 60 minutes = 240 minutes.
That's 1 error every 55 seconds.
Just for comparison's sake, note that a Krispy Kreme store is capable of producing between 3,000 and 12,000 doughnuts per hour. At a minimum, that's 50 doughnuts per minute -- or 46 in 55 seconds. So in the time it will take me on Saturday to discover the elusive ampersand that should have been a spelled-out "and", I and 45 friends could instead each be getting a nice, fresh Krispy Kreme doughnut hot off the line, icing still melty...
The Bluebook exam consists of 5 pages, on which there will be 300 errors, including such goodies as italicized commas that should be romanized, and the ever-popular en-dash masquerading as a hyphen.
We have 4 hours to complete the exam.
87% x 300 errors = 261 errors.
4 hours x 60 minutes = 240 minutes.
That's 1 error every 55 seconds.
Just for comparison's sake, note that a Krispy Kreme store is capable of producing between 3,000 and 12,000 doughnuts per hour. At a minimum, that's 50 doughnuts per minute -- or 46 in 55 seconds. So in the time it will take me on Saturday to discover the elusive ampersand that should have been a spelled-out "and", I and 45 friends could instead each be getting a nice, fresh Krispy Kreme doughnut hot off the line, icing still melty...
Tuesday, April 15, 2003
Sunday, April 13, 2003
Paper-writing has officially commenced. I have... a paragraph.
Yay!
Yay!
Saturday, April 12, 2003
I just got a rejection letter for a summer job for which I did not apply.
Now that takes talent.
Now that takes talent.
Wednesday, April 02, 2003
In the Beginning...
If a hunter, attempting illegally to shoot a deer out of season, accidentally shoots what turns out to be a stuffed deer, the hunter is not guilty of an attempted crime. If an assassin, attempting illegally to shoot a sleeping victim, accidentally shoots what turns out to be a pillow because the victim was in the kitchen getting a snack, the assassin is guilty of attempted murder.
Why the difference?
First-order logic (with help from a friend) tells us that in both cases, there does not exist any d satisfying both d is deer and d is shot. In the first case, there exists d such that d is shot, but there does not exist d such that d is actually a real deer. In the second case, there exists d such that d is deer (i.e. victim), but there does not exist d such that d is shot.
All of which leads me to think that first-order logic is not very helpful in clarifying criminal law. Maybe this explains why this particular legal rule was ultimately abandoned. Or maybe the judge was wondering what the stuffed deer was doing in the forest in the first place. In any case, it seemed like a fitting start...
If a hunter, attempting illegally to shoot a deer out of season, accidentally shoots what turns out to be a stuffed deer, the hunter is not guilty of an attempted crime. If an assassin, attempting illegally to shoot a sleeping victim, accidentally shoots what turns out to be a pillow because the victim was in the kitchen getting a snack, the assassin is guilty of attempted murder.
Why the difference?
First-order logic (with help from a friend) tells us that in both cases, there does not exist any d satisfying both d is deer and d is shot. In the first case, there exists d such that d is shot, but there does not exist d such that d is actually a real deer. In the second case, there exists d such that d is deer (i.e. victim), but there does not exist d such that d is shot.
All of which leads me to think that first-order logic is not very helpful in clarifying criminal law. Maybe this explains why this particular legal rule was ultimately abandoned. Or maybe the judge was wondering what the stuffed deer was doing in the forest in the first place. In any case, it seemed like a fitting start...
