29 March 2009

A Public Service Announcement About Tornadoes

I was talking to a friend who was near a tornado, and when I advised him to get underneath an overpass, he told me that the radio had told him not to.  He was right, although the misperception is pretty widespread.  This website from NOAA has a lot of information on why an overpass is not the place to be in a tornado.

24 March 2009

On User Notifications in Browsers

One of the designers of Firefox did an interesting post on just how well-designed software should interact with the user.  It's interesting to see how things that I really don't give much thought to in Firefox or Internet Explorer have quite a bit of thought put into them.  It helps explain why Clippy was not the success that Microsoft wanted him (it?) to be.  The discussion of their prototype for a new tab page is neat.  It's pretty neat to see how far Internet browsers have come in the last few years.

16 March 2009

Harmonious Blacksmith

Yesterday I went to the National Gallery of Art's free concert series to see a performance by Harmonious Blacksmith, who played renaissance and baroque music. They were quite good. Afterwards, I discovered that they had free mp3s on their website.

15 March 2009

Black Bean Soup

I made black bean soup following this recipe from the Times, and it came out quite well (even though I omitted the salt).  Cilantro was the only ingredient I was not familiar with, and it was found alongside the parsley and lettuce in the vegetable section.  It was $.99 for a bunch, so relatively inexpensive.  Just be careful not to let the beans scorch, you have to stir it somewhat often.

12 March 2009

Funny Trial Techniques Article in the ABA Magazine

There's a funny article in this month's ABA magazine about trial techniques, and how an attorney has won cases by using some unorthodox methods.  There is not much legalese in it, so it should be funny even for a non-lawyer.  Be forwarned, the article does contain profanity.  Here is a link.

10 March 2009

Quieting Title to a Copy of the Declaration of Independence

There was an interesting post on Boston 1775 (a blog I read) about a Virginia Supreme Court case that involved a copy of the Declaration of Independence that was stored in the attic of a house in Maine.  It looks like Maine's attorney, by not preserving issues for appeal, lost out on arguing a number of things before the Virginia Supreme Court.

05 March 2009

Zealous Representation: What Does It Mean?

There was an interesting article in the Times today about a Manhattan assistant district attorney who intentionally lost a case where he did not believe in the conviction.  According to the Times article, the responsible court agency (which I presume is the First Department Disciplinary Committee) chose not to purse a case against Mr. Bibb.  The case raised the question of what zealous representation means when one is a district attorney.   

03 March 2009

Country Music Song About the Economy

A country music singer, John Rich, who, according to Wikipedia, used to play in the country music band Lonestar, has come up with a song about the current economic situation. While I don't think it's ever going to gain the same historical traction as some of Woody Guthrie's songs, I do think the song is pretty good. His website has a streaming version of it.

Another country music song that discusses economics is Cafe Down on the Corner by Sawyer Brown. That's much older.