For those who weren’t paying attention…

A nice article about Souter’s commencement speech.

Getting Psyched

Harvard is getting carried away with the tenting for graduation.  My window faces a small parking lot and yard that is not near anything graduation-related, and yet this is the view from my window:

How many extra tuition dollars did I pay for these??

More Bad Buzz

So, I’ve finally done a little bit of research into Google Buzz, which launched earlier this week.  I haven’t paid much attention to it because (1) I don’t use my Gmail account all that much to start with, and have relatively few contacts there anyway, and (2) I don’t really use other Google services for things I want kept particularly secret.  But I could see that it was probably going to have all kinds of privacy problems.

So, I did some reading up today on the various inevitable privacy issues.  Further research has indicated that, according to Google, “Your Google Reader shared items, Picasa Web public albums, and Google Chat status messages automatically appear as posts in Buzz.”  “Well,” I thought to myself, “I don’t really use any of those three, so I guess I personally don’t have anything to worry about.”  I don’t use Google Reader, the only stuff that goes into my Picasa Web albums are the photos that also go in my blog because Blogger automatically stores them there – and they don’t go up as public there anyway, and Google Chat has always been way overrated.

But then I thought to myself, wait!  I actually was using Picasa majorly, all week (starting last Saturday) to discuss wedding dress options with lots of people.  I used their public albums to upload hundreds of photos of me in various dresses and didn’t mention it to Nick, because he’s the last one to go poking around online when he’s bored, and, like I said, I hardly ever use Picasa.  (The albums are locked down now that I’ve finally chosen a dress.)

But it turns out that Nick is actually one of my few automatic followers on Buzz, and had I waited just a handful of days to upload all those wedding dress photos to Picasa, he would have gotten emails about all of them.  Which would have sucked; both he and Zeb have specifically requested that my dress be a surprise to Nick.

Some people complain that concerns about web privacy are overwrought (and sometimes they’re not wrong).  They think that if you need privacy online that means that you’re doing something bad.  But I don’t think that going over my wedding dress options was something bad, and I still would have been bummed if Nick had seen all the photos.

Latest Cause

So, if Nick ever gets his interview at the U.S. Embassy in London for his K-1 Visa, he’s going to need to provide a notarized letter of intent from me that basically says that we’re still planning to get married and our status hasn’t changed.

Normally I get things notarized at the Town Hall in Westborough, which is actually really great – I always get things done successfully there without much hassle.  However, the Cambridge Town Hall is far away and only open inconvenient hours, so I did some research, saw that UPS notarizes things, and went to Store 1520 at 1770 Mass Ave.

I also did some more research, and saw that pursuant to Mass. Gen. Laws ch. 262, § 41, notaries, as public servants, definitely cannot charge more than $1.25 for signing that my signature is authentic on a single sheet of paper that is about me marrying Nick.

So, that’s where the trouble starts.  At the UPS today, all they did was check that my driver’s license identified me correctly when I signed the form.  They also recorded my name in a little book (the “official journal” that notaries have to keep under Executive Order 455 § 11).  That was it.  I’m pretty sure the guy didn’t even look at the letter he notarized, other than to check that the name matched my driver’s license.

But they charged me $5!  I paid, but looked at the receipt later.  There was a charge for $1.25 for “Notary,” and a charge for $3.75 for “Notary Service Fee.”  What is a “Notary Service Fee,” and why do I have to pay it?  (For that matter, why did I pay $1.25 for “Notary” – I didn’t buy a notary, did I?)

So, I’ve sent them a stroppy email pointing out that they’re systematically violating Massachusetts State Law, and saying that I want them to either (1) give me a detailed explanation of what I got for my “Notary Service Fee” or (2) give me my $3.75 back.  (Okay I really want 2.  But curiosity would lead me to accept 1 as an alternative.)  I’m not expecting a response but I might get one – you never know.

Unfortunately, there’s no place on the MA website, or on the MA Secretary of State website, to report misbehaving notaries (some states do give you a place to report right online).  If I get more wound up maybe I’ll write them a letter.

So now this is my latest campaign (not that I expect much to come of it).  If I end up getting fired from all my jobs, my new plan is to initiate a class action suit against UPS for their totally illegal “Notary Service Fees” (which I think they use in other states, too – not just MA).  Stay tuned for that…

Wexis enters the 21st Century

So, I spotted an article today about how Lexis and Westlaw are finally getting their acts together and offering better search capabilities since so many free competitors are rivaling their services.  The best thing would be if they started charging some sort of flat fee for all-you-can-search the way it works in law school, but that’s probably unlikely.

The article talks about how, I believe, they’re going to improve their “natural language” search capabilities.  Which is good – but I actually hope that they keep their old, complicated Boolean search functionality too.  It gives highly precise results and makes sure you don’t miss anything if every single document within certain parameters comes up.  Sometimes I wish I was better at giving Google more precise search parameters, too.

In unrelated news, I’m probably doing Heart of Steel this Saturday.  But first of all, it’s expensive, and second of all, they keep spamming my Facebook every day…which is annoying.  But I’m probably doing it anyways.

Final piece of news:  I heard a rumor that OUMC and CUMC might finally start offering half-blues to climbers.  Which would be exciting but also extremely frustrating because I competed [and won] for both teams.  I want my two half-blues…then I’ll add them up and make a whole one!

Wedding and Other Updates

So, good news:  After a slow search, Nick and I now have a wedding date and venue!  It’s going to be on Friday, August 13, 2010 (unsurprisingly, you get extra discounts for booking on Friday the 13th) at Harrington Farm.  Invitations are now under works and should hopefully be out in the next month or so.  I’m sure everyone who reads this blog is getting one so if you don’t get one in the next few months check in and make sure that it hasn’t gotten lost!  We’re also working on a website with wedding info, but that is obviously very much under construction.  Check back soon!

In other news, I’m starting work tomorrow at the law school library, doing copyright research and other related tasks.  In preparation, I did six loads of laundry today.  So my room is the main drying area right now.  It was one of my less successful laundry days; I lost two socks (one of mine and one of Nick’s) and broke a pair of flip flops.  Oh well.

Fall Classes

So, everyone has asked me for details on what classes I’m taking this fall and how they’re going.  Without further ado, here’s the schedule:

Copyright and Trademark Litigation

This class meets once a week on Thursday mornings for two hours.  It’s taught by Dale Cendali, who’s best known for being J.K. Rowling’s lawyer and has been involved in a lot of interesting IP cases, including not only Harry Potter ones, but also the Shepard Fairey lawsuit and some of the Barbie-Bratz disputes.  She’s clearly very big into strong IP rights, which is interesting.  The class has only met a couple times so far, but it has been good.

Sex Equality

This class has a complicated schedule.  During September and October, we meet for three hours on Monday and Tuesday mornings, and another hour and 45 minutes on Wednesday mornings, for almost eight class hours a week.  However, after October, we don’t have any more class meetings.  So I’m particularly busy right now because of this, and will have a lot more free time in November.

The professor for this class is Catherine MacKinnon, which also makes this class really interesting and good – I really like her.  So that’s a good class, too.

Communications and Internet Law and Policy

This class meets for an hour and a half on Monday and Tuesday afternoons, and is taught by Yochai Benkler.  So far, we’ve been focusing more on the history of early- and mid-20th century communications issues with respect to radio and television, but we’re getting into more modern things soon.  This will be interesting with respect to the latest net neutrality developments.

Legal Profession

This class meets for an hour and a half on Monday and Tuesday evenings, and is taught by Annette Gordon-Reed.  It’s a required class for graduating, and hasn’t been all that interesting so far, but I think will start to pick up a little bit.  But I’m still more excited about my other three classes than this one.

So, those are my classes – they’re generally pretty interesting with a good mix of teachers.