Archive for the ‘School’ Category

Chim chiminey chim chiminey chim chim Chimel!

Tuesday, October 11th, 2011

Here’s the case brief for Chimel v. California. I ruthlessly edited it down to only three pages this time.

Chimel is interesting because it helped to define the limits of a search “incident to arrest”. Mr. Chimel was arrested, at his home, and charged with burglary of a coin shop. After he was arrested, the police searched his entire house (even having his wife move stuff around) without a warrant, and claimed they didn’t need one since their search was incident to a valid arrest.

The Court said, “Nope. Doesn’t work like that. ‘Search incident to arrest’ only covers the person and the area under the person’s immediate control. You want to search someplace other than that? Get a warrant.”

We’re wrapping this class up. Next Monday is the final; there should be one more case brief, too.

Case brief: Katz v. United States.

Tuesday, October 4th, 2011

Not that Katz. This one was Charles Katz, and he was a gambler who got caught “transmitting wagering information by telephone across state lines in violation of 18 U.S.C. 1084”. The Man had attached a recording device to the outside of the phone booth he was using, and his recorded conversations were used as evidence against him.

Katz said, “Foul!” and the Supreme Court agreed. This is actually an interesting and somewhat surprising case; it serves as a very nice example of the Supreme Court changing its mind in a very public way. The government argued that what they had done was A-OK, because the Court had ruled (in Olmstead v. United States, which I understand comes up in the Ken Burns thing) this this kind of activity didn’t violate the Fourth Amendment. The Supreme Court came back and said, “Yeah. You know something? We’ve changed our mind. Olmstead is no longer controlling. Too bad. So sad. You lose.”

There doesn’t seem to be a lot of information about Charles Katz, either before or after his conviction. One of his lawyers on the appeal says he never even met the man.

Anyway, here’s my case brief, for your reading and mocking pleasure.

Case brief: Terry v. Ohio.

Tuesday, September 27th, 2011

Posted for your mocking pleasure.

Here’s what 1276 Euclid Avenue in Cleveland looks like today, according to Google Street View:


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Mapp v. Ohio.

Monday, September 12th, 2011

I’ve mentioned previously that one of the courses I’m taking at St. Ed’s this semester is “Constitutional Criminal Procedure”, in which we’ve (so far) spent a lot of time talking about the Fourth Amendment (not the FORTH amendment, but check this out, kids), probable cause, and such like.

One of the things we have to do for this class is write “case briefs”, which are basically one to two page summaries of a major court decision, detailing what the factual elements were, what the main argument was, how the court voted, summarize the majority opinion and concurring opinions, summarize the dissenting opinion and concurring dissents, and (finally!) give our own opinion about the decision.

Anyway, with things being kind of slow, and me not wanting to let a good opportunity for y’all to mock my writing go to waste, I give you my first case brief for Mapp v. Ohio. What makes this case significant is that the Supreme Court held, for the first time, that the exclusionary rule applied to the states as well as to the federal government. The application of the exclusionary rule at the Federal level was established in the case of Weeks v. United States as far back as 1914, but for some odd reason the court didn’t apply this at the state level. As a matter of fact, in Wolf v. Colorado, a 1949 case, the Supreme Court expressly declined to apply the exclusionary rule to the states: Mapp v. Ohio amounted to a complete reversal of that decision.

Beyond the legal aspect, there’s two other things about this case that I find interesting:

  1. This took place in Cleveland, where I still have family. The Cleveland Memory Project has a lot of background material on Miss Mapp and Mapp v. Ohio.
  2. One of my fellow students mentioned this in class when I asked, “Is it just me, or did the Cleveland PD really have it out for this woman?” The confidential informant who tipped the cops off? That was…Don King. Yeah, that Don King. According to my classmate, Miss Mapp had previously been…”employed” in Mr. King’s…”business” of…”providing services to gentlemen”, if you know what I mean and I think you do. Miss Mapp decided her talents were more valuable elsewhere, Mr. King did not like this, and hilarity ensued. I’m having some trouble confirming specific details of Miss Mapp’s employment with Mr. King. But it does seem that Miss Mapp was certainly well known to the Cleveland PD, judging by some of the clippings at Cleveland Memory.

Anyway, there you go. Feel free to mock and criticize in the comments to this post.

Academic update: Spring, 2011.

Sunday, May 8th, 2011

For some reason, the university’s Blackboard system has decided I’m not registered for any classes this semester, so I haven’t been able to check the final grades on my last two assignments.

However, overall grades, transcripts, and other administrative trivia are kept on a different system, and my professor has updated that system with the final grade in my “Applications in Business Programming” class (aka “Everything You Ever Wanted To Know About Building Stuff in Visual Basic 2010, But Were Afraid to Ask”).

And? Well, we’ve got a theme going, let’s stick with it.

(Once again, from the great “Charlie Sheen Quotes As New Yorker Cartoons” site.)

Yeah. that was an A. 4.0 is still alive, baby.

I’ve had some preliminary conversations with my academic advisor. When the time comes (probably March 2012) assuming that I manage to hold things together this fall, I should be able to roll right into grad school without taking the GRE or GMAT. The university offers a night and weekend grad program that ends up with a Master of Science in Computer Information Systems. All I’ll need to roll straight in is a better than 3.2 GPA, and two references from professors at the University. (I already have two professors who have told me, “Any time you need a letter of reference or recommendation for anything, come see me; I will be more than happy to do that for you.”)

We’re getting down to the wire. (But not “The Wire”. Though Stringer Bell’s “there’s games beyond the f—ing game” may have some relevance here.) Two more semesters, four more classes. Next fall is “20th Century, Triumph and Tragedies”. I need three more credit hours of history, and this class is being taught by the same professor who taught “Modern Revolutions”. (That professor is also one of the two professors I’ve mentioned above.) Also on the schedule, as my “elective” (as in, “I need three credit hours of an elective”) is a course called “Constitutional Criminal Procedure”. Quoting from the catalog:

An examination of the United States Supreme Court’s interpretations of the constitutional requirements relating to probable cause, arrest, search and seizure, stop and frisk, the exclusionary rule, the plain view doctrine, electronic surveillance, post custodial interrogation, and confessions.

That should be fun. (Have I mentioned that I’m flirting with the idea of taking the LSAT? I’m not giving a lot of serious thought to going to law school at the moment, but I’m curious to see how I’d do.)

Academic update, Spring 2011, part 1.

Tuesday, March 22nd, 2011

I haven’t heard directly from the professor yet, but I just checked the university website, and the grade for my “Introduction to Literary Studies” class is posted.

How did I do?

(Stolen from “Charlie Sheen Quotes as New Yorker Cartoons” which I commend to your attention.)

Anyway, yes, it appears once again I somehow managed to fall into an A, though I look forward to reading the professor’s comments on my final exam.

In other news, I’ve completed the homework assignment my “Applications in Business Programming” professor gave us before Spring Break. Since the assignment was “get a copy of the textbook”, that wasn’t exactly the nuclear rocket brain surgery.

Heretic!

Wednesday, March 9th, 2011

My “Applications in Business Programming” class had our first meeting last night.

This is the textbook we’re using for the class.

Note that it is:

  1. Readily available from sources other than the university bookstore.
  2. Recently published.
  3. Reasonably priced. ($34 is about average for a programming book these days.)

Given that I paid $180 for the textbook for my previous class with this professor, I think this is worthy of praise. Well done, sir!

Random notes: March 8, 2011.

Tuesday, March 8th, 2011

Slow. Slow. Slow. And WordPress ate the first draft of this post. Argh. “Introduction to Literary Studies” is finished, but “Applications in Business Programming” fires up tonight.

So where were we?

Ken Hoffman in the HouChron on more rodeo food. The chocolate covered pickle makes us gag.

The NYT reports that Julie Taymor and the “Spider-Man” producers are “negotiating”. “Negotiating” in this case apparently means either “work with a newly expanded creative team” or “pack your <stuff> and get out”.

Speaking of art, damn it, art!, Lawrence has brought us happy news for those of you who own iPhones and are fans of Guy Debord, Karen Eliot, Monty Cantsin, and the Karen-headed Smile Monty (see also): there’s an app for that.

By way of Tam, we have learned that the Department of Homeland Security, which is apparently not satisfied with not actually catching terrorists, is going around confiscating Nissan Skylines. The Skyline is a car we were previously unfamiliar with, perhaps because it was never officially imported into the United States. One of Tam’s commenters provided this link to an excellent article about the rise and fall of a Skyline importer in California, which we commend to your attention.

Speaking of commenters, “Bob” (thanks, “Bob”) posted in this thread and provided a link with some new information about our good friend, the spamming scumbag Sven Alstrom. That link, in turn, led us to this one, which also has some good stuff about Sven. We were particularly amused by these two comments from LJWorld staff members:

…we restored Mr. Alstrom’s access to our website, despite having banned him more than a half dozen times previously.

and:

Should Sven Alstrom not be elected to the Lawrence City Commission, his current account will be banned.

Sven makes friends everywhere he goes, doesn’t he?

Here. Have some crap.

Tuesday, March 1st, 2011

Sorry. I’ve been a little tied up, and there hasn’t been much to write about. Frank Buckles pretty much got covered everywhere in the known universe, and I don’t have terribly much to say about Jane Russell (well, not here anyway).

Part of what’s been tying me up is the “Introduction to Literary Studies” class I’ve been taking. This weekend was crunch time, with revisions to one essay and a second essay due. So for filler purposes, and to let you all laugh at me, I’ve decided to throw up essay two and essay three.

I wanted to post essay two in particular because Andrew “Shut. Down. Everything.” Wimsatt and I were talking about it one recent Sunday afternoon on our way to Momji; I was describing the subject of this essay to Andrew, and he was laughing hysterically as I talked about rotting buffalo and the cry of the whippoorwill. I don’t think the story is all that amusing, but reasonable people can differ…

The Chief Seattle Problem.

Here’s essay three. I doubt that Andrew will find it quite as funny as the other one, but you never know.

Orwell’s 1984 and the “Elephant” In the Room.

Both of these have been graded, so do your worst in the comments. And remember, St. Edward’s uses TurnItIn; plagiarists will be caught.

All the old paintings on the tombs, they do the sand dance, don’t you know…

Friday, January 28th, 2011

Who says school is useless?

One of the things I picked up last semester in my Modern Revolutions class (this specifically comes from James DeFronzo’s Revolutions and Revolutionary Movements) is that there are five critical factors required for a revolution to be successful.

  1. Frustration among the masses, resulting in unrest and uprisings in the cities or in rural areas. It sure seems to me like we’ve got that in Egypt.
  2. The presence of “elite” political movements in opposition to the ruling powers. By “elite” DeFronzo means that these movements have access to wealth, power, specialized skill sets, or higher levels of education than the average population. This is something I’m not so clear on; are there “elite” political movements in Egypt? If the coverage I’m seeing in places like the CSM is any guide (hattip: Battleswarm), the Egyptian government has been rigging elections; I can see that leading to pent up political opposition which finally has a chance to vent, but I’m not sure that meets DeFronzo’s criteria.
  3. Motivations that serve to unify major classes and that cut across class distinctions. Again, looking at the coverage in the CSM and other places, we’ve got that:

    Political analyst Mustapha Kamel Al Sayyid says the fact that the protests took place across the nation, and were not led by a particular political movement or opposition party, set them apart from demonstrations in the last decade.
    “This time it is really a national movement. It’s quite remarkable that the slogans raised by the demonstrators were not typical of any political party. They were general slogans about democracy, ending the state of emergency, and lowering prices…. The government will not respond favorably so I think the continuation of the protests is almost certain.”

  4. Some sort of severe political situation that paralyzes the administrative authority of the state. Such a crisis allows the revolutionary movement to flourish, free of government repression. At this point, I’m not sure we have that; is the army going to continue to avoid confrontation? Or is cutting off the Internet and cellphones a prelude to Mubarak mobilizing forces and machine-gunning people in the streets? If he gives that order, will the army obey?
  5. The rest of the world has to, if not actively support the revolution, at least not interfere with it. DeFronzo calls this “a permissive or tolerant world context”. At this point, I don’t see the U.S., or the rest of the world, actively trying to interfere in an Egyptian revolution.

I’d welcome thoughts and responses in the comments below.

Edited to add: I think this post from Megan McArdle (obligatory: my favorite CNE) has some bearing here, too. Especially this part:

This insistence on staying in power comes against the backdrop of widespread unemployment, corruption, high levels of poverty, high levels of illiteracy, and failure to provide the basic services–from decent transportation, to clean streets, to workable traffic, to basic education.

Edited to add 2: One thing that I should have mentioned, but forgot to, is that I’m not 100% sure DeFronzo’s criteria are sufficient for a successful revolution. In particular, I think DeFronzo and other revolutionary theorists underplay the role of a charismatic leader in the success of a revolution: Mao, Ho Chi Minh, Khomeini…

Edited to add 3: The Scalz doesn’t have much to say, but many of his commenters in this thread do.

Academic update: Fall, 2010.

Tuesday, December 14th, 2010

Final grades are in.

Who's awesome?

Yes, straight A’s, thank you very much.

A couple of folks have requested this, so here you go: my final paper on the 1979 Iranian Revolution, in PDF format. Note that this is the submitted version; I would feel as if I am betraying a confidence if I uploaded the version with the professor’s annotations on it.

For those of you who may be considering ripping this off and submitting it as your own work: hey, guess what? St. Ed’s subscribes to the Turnitin system! My paper’s in the database! You’re going to get kicked out of school!

Edited to add: Just so everyone is clear, I welcome comments on the paper, even if they are of the “that’s what passes for ‘A’ quality work at a major university today?” ilk.

Edited to add 2: And we have our first critic, Dr. Rael S. Gabriel, who uses the phrase “a long-running, slow-motion train wreck”. Thanks, Dr. Gabriel; your prize is in the mail.

Edited to add 3: Dr. Gabriel has clarified his remarks to state that he was referring to The Situation, and not my paper specifically.

Edited to add 4: Dr. Gabriel has further clarified his remarks to state that he was referring to the situation in Iran prior to the 1979 revolution, and not the “Jersey Shore” idiot.

Do Androids dream of electric apps?

Thursday, September 9th, 2010

As noted previously, I finally resolved the phone issue. (And AT&T can still die in a fire.)

The number one question I’ve been getting (replacing “Where did you get that shirt?” at the top of the charts) is: “How do you like your new phone?”

Answer: I like it just fine, but…below are some preliminary thoughts on Android (at least, as implemented on the EVO 4G; I do realize that some of these may be issues with the built-in apps, rather than the Android OS itself):

  • It is disappointing to me that the alarm built into the EVO’s clock app can’t be set to play arbitrary sound files as alarms. (I fall into Ihnatko’s 2% who haven’t seen the movie yet, but I love the story behind “Non, Je Ne Regrette Rien“.)
  • Ditto that I can’t set an arbitrary sound file for text message notifications.
  • It is also disappointing to me that there’s no basic Notepad type app provided with the EVO. I’m sure there’s probably 300+ on the Android marketplace, but I needed to make a shopping list this morning and didn’t have time to sort through all of them. Any tips?
  • Integration between the built-in music player and the built-in navigation app is also a disappointment; the navigation app will pause the player to make route announcements, but you have to manually start the player up again, rather than it automatically resuming play.
  • On the plus side, the sound is great; I can listen to podcasts in the car without having to hook into my (currently non-functional) stereo system.
  • The on-screen keyboard is vastly better than using the keypad (even with T9) was on the T616, and somewhat better than the on-screen keyboard on the N800. However, I still have a lot of trouble hitting the correct key with my large-ish fingers.
  • One of the drawbacks of purchasing an Android phone is synchronization with the MacBook. If I had purchased an iPhone, everything would be simple (or at least, simpler). But, no, I had to be different and resist peer pressure… At some point, I suspect I will end up ordering this. (Right now – and I do realize this is a phone controlled setting – the MacBook sees the phone as a USB disk drive with photos on it, and automatically opens iPhoto. I can browse the Android file system and copy files to or from it without problems.)
  • Speaking of iPhoto, I’ve done almost nothing with the built-in camera yet.  I need to work on that.
  • The EVO’s calendar app has a noticeable lag; it takes a couple of seconds to switch to the current date when I bring it up.
  • If there’s a way to sync the EVO’s calendar app with Google Calender, I haven’t found it, and there doesn’t seem to be a separate Google Calender app (like there is for Maps, Voice, Earth, etc.). Do I need to grab some other calender app off the Android Market? (Edited to add 9/10: Okay, I think I’ve figured this one out. You can sync the EVO app with Google Calender, it just isn’t quite as straightforward as I was looking for.)
  • The EVO also seems to lag behind in changing screen orientation when I rotate the phone.
  • I managed to get the Android SDK and the ADT plugin installed without problems on the MacBook, but the ADT plugin won’t install into Eclipse on Project e. It looks like there are some dependencies that Eclipse can’t resolve, but I can’t figure out what those are. I may have to blow away and reinstall Eclipse (which isn’t a major issue; I don’t have a bunch invested in Eclipse on Project e).
  • I either need to dig out my old Java textbook, or see if I can find an updated edition cheap online.
  • Speaking of textbooks, and having nothing to do with Android in particular, I just paid $180+ for a damn textbook. This makes me mildly cranky.
  • My old T616 in the case fit neatly into the magazine phone pocket of my 5.11 tactical pants. The EVO? Doesn’t fit. Dear 5.11 folks: maybe we could think about redesigning that pocket to fit smartphones? (I wear 5.11 tactical pants (or, as some people call them, “Kaiser blade Internet pants“), not because I’m a mall ninja, but because they are the most comfortable and toughest pants I’ve found. Plus they make it really easy to carry all my stuff.)
  • Battery life is…well, middling. I haven’t really tried optimizing power consumption, though, except for turning off WiFi and Bluetooth. (Hurrah for the EVO’s control panel that allows easy access to those settings.)
  • There’s a few applications I’m looking for and would welcome advice on finding in the Android market. The first one is a good WiFi scanning utility; ideally, it would have the ability to log access points with GPS coordinates, note if the points are A, B, G, or N, note if they’re open or closed (and if they’re WEP, WPA, WPA2, etc.), and write all this data to a XML or KML file. It looks like there are several apps in the market that meet these criteria, but I’m not sure which ones are good.
    The second app I’m looking for is a good vehicle management application. At a minimum, I’d like to be able to enter an odometer reading and number of gallons, and get a miles-per-gallon figure for that tank, as well as an average MPG for all tanks to date. It’d be spiffy if I could also enter a price per gallon, as well as other expenses (insurance, repairs, maintenance) and get a cost-per-mile figure as well.
  • I love the GPS Status app.
  • I’ve played a little with the Amazon Kindle app; so far, I’m more impressed with it than I am with the refurbished Kindle I purchased earlier this year.
  • The EVO’s screen is impressive. Much better than the N800’s. I haven’t done a side-by-side with an iPhone 4 yet, but I’m willing to bet it gives the iPhone a run for its money.
  • The EVO’s video player can decode H.264 video! (I haven’t done anything with the camcorder app, so I don’t know what format it encodes video in.)
  • Waiting for a sale on those 32GB microSD cards…
  • Edited to add: There’s also no general file browser app on the EVO.

Again, I generally like the phone; most of these are just minor quibbles that I can probably solve one way or another.

Academic update: Spring 2010, part 2.

Wednesday, May 26th, 2010

The final grade is in for my “Implementing Information Systems in Organizations” (aka implementing and managing SQL Server 2005 databases).

I’m sorry, did you say something?

What was that?

You’re going to have to speak up.

Yes, that was an “A”. Yes, the streak is alive.

What’s next? Something called “Systems Analysis”, and a course called (no kidding), “Modern Revolutions” (which fills three out of the six hours of “Global Perspectives” I need to take before graduation).

This course is a comparative analysis of the problem causes, stages, and accomplishments of some of the most significant revolutions in modern times– such as the French Revolution of 1789, the Russian revolutions of 1917 and 1991, the Chinese Revolution, the Cuban Revolution, the Eastern European and the South African revolutions of the later half of the 20th century.

Oddly enough, both of these are online courses, so I don’t have to go to either campus this semester. So much for that parking permit.

How far out am I? I sat down with my academic advisor earlier in the semester to figure that out. It looks like I need six hours of “Global Perspectives”, three hours of a literature or humanities course, three hours of an elective (I’m thinking about something related to law or the forensic sciences; if St. Ed’s offered a computer forensics course for credit, I’d be on that like Lindsay Lohan on a bottle of vodak), plus I believe one more in-major computer class after this one, and then the final Capstone course. At this point, I’m thinking four more semesters: Fall 2010, Spring and Fall of 2011, and then Spring 2012 for Capstone and graduation.

Academic update: Spring 2010.

Thursday, March 4th, 2010

Grades are in for my advanced networking and computer security class.

Out of a possible 899.9 points, I got…899.9 points, and a final grade of 100.

This is a good thing, given my interests. Anything less would have been dishonorable.

Random notes: January 18, 2010.

Monday, January 18th, 2010

The New Jersey Nets are on a pace to win a grand total of six games this season. The NBA record for futility is the 1972-1973 Philadelphia 76ers, who went 9-73. Could the Nets beat the record? The NYT speculates.

I note this only because it will fill Lawrence’s heart with delight: Frank Gehry has withdrawn from the project to design a Museum of Tolerance in Jerusalem.

Saturday’s Statesman has a longish article recapping the Triton Financial story, highlighting the firm’s ties to the Mormon church.

Church members and others describe the concentration of Triton executives and investors from the Mormon church as a possible example of “affinity fraud,” in which people looking for money often go first to those they know, either personally or through social organizations.

A $1,000 iPhone app that’s not I Am Rich.

Non story of the day: U.S. Military Weapons Inscribed With Secret ‘Jesus’ Bible Codes.

I don’t think I’ve mentioned this, so; I’m back in school one night a week (and not even meeting every night on the schedule). So blogging is either going to be light or heavy as I avoid schoolwork.