From the Small Wonder entry on wikipedia:

Information Consistency Problem

In the section entitled “Premise” it states:

V.I.C.I.’s features include superhuman strength and speed, an AC outlet under her right arm, a parallel port under her left arm, and an access panel in her back.

Further down the page in the section entitled “Characters” it states:

Vicki has an access panel in her back, an electric socket in her right armpit, and an RS-232 serial port under her left armpit.

A parallel and a serial port are 2 different kids of ports that differ in look and operation. I am not certain which one is correct, or if both of them are (which I doubt), but I would recommend this be researched and corrected. If both are correct, I would recommend mentioning both ports in both sections.

I love wikipedia.

• Cogitamus: We Never Learn [cogitamusblog.com]

A little over 140 years ago the residents of the American south rose up and began brutally slaughtering thousands of their fellow citizens to defend a despicable system of slavery.  They chose to kill and destroy instead of recognizing that the tide of history had finally turned against them.  Yet the memory of these traitors and murderers is honored, the reasons for their crimes santized.

• The Case for Working With Your Hands [nytimes.com]

I was always sleepy while at work, and I think this exhaustion was because I felt trapped in a contradiction: the fast pace demanded complete focus on the task, yet that pace also made any real concentration impossible. I had to actively suppress my own ability to think, because the more you think, the more the inadequacies in your understanding of an author’s argument come into focus. This can only slow you down. To not […]

Most “knowledge” work is horrible.
• Empathy and the Supreme Court: God Agrees with Barack Hussein Obama version [delong.typepad.com]
Empathy appears to be a biblical qualification for judges.
• Eight questions for Jonathan Rauch | Democracy in America [economist.com]

I suspect a lot of bloggers may be introverts, because blogging is great if you like to sit in front of the internet all day. If not for my aversion to specialising in one subject, I probably would have been an academic historian, because I think it would have suited me to work in libraries back before there was an internet.

I’m not sure I buy his characterization of the Democratic party as pandering to its base. I could probably identify 5 hard-right Republicans in Congress for every hard-left Democrat.
• Mencken Speaks [metafilter.com]
• Legal Theory Lexicon: Virtue Ethics [lsolum.typepad.com]

This week, the Lexicon provides an introduction to virtue ethics.

• Decline of the Blue-Collar Man [andrewsullivan.theatlantic.com]

(by Richard Florida) The economic crisis is hitting hardest at working class jobs, and rates of male unemployment have skyrocketed. A commonly asked question is how do we retrain them for emerging job opportunities in other sectors. The Globe and Mail`s Margaret Wente suggests the problem runs a whole lot deeper than we think. The new economy (over the long term) is creating tons of service jobs in retail, customer support, and personal care. The trouble is that […]

• Money! Power! Ambition Gone Awry! A frank history of the big-time American lawyer [legalaffairs.org]
Depressing.
• News Flash: Taliban Waterboards Captured U.S. Soldiers–Claims “Not Torture” [balkin.blogspot.com]

According to reports out of Kabul, the Taliban announced that they have waterboarded three U.S. soldiers taken prisoner. The Taliban commander asserted that waterboarding is not torture and does not violate the Geneva Convention or U.S. law. He assured everyone that a medical officer monitored all waterboarding sessions to insure that no permanent damage was done to the soldiers. In addition, he said they were careful to follow the directions on waterboarding […]

• Obama’s Notre Dame Speech [lefarkins.blogspot.com]
Links to thoughtful liberal responses to Obama’s Notre Dame address.
• faux serious introspection [ordinary-gentlemen.com]
Thoughtful conservative responses to Obama’s Notre Dame address.

So, it’s been slightly less than three years since this blog has been updated. You may be wondering what I’ve been doing in the meantime. More likely you haven’t been wondering. Possibly you’ve been following along on facebook. I’ve been in law school. I’m a newly-minted J.D., which is a very strange feeling. The last time I “graduated”, I slipped into the registrar’s office and was handed a nondescript box containing my diploma. This time, there was a brass quintet and a tympani, and I wore a hat that made me look like Christopher Columbus. Pictures possibly forthcoming.

It’s not clear to me why that sort of thing should have precluded maintaining this website. Happily, the whole thing didn’t break while I was away. I’m looking forward to returning to you, my loyal audience of lighthouse keepers. Some things I’m thinking about doing this summer, blog-wise:

• blogging my way through a couple of books: Metamagical Themas, by Douglas R. Hofstadter (a book I’ve been meaning to read for about 15 years) and Brandeis and the Progressive Constitution, by Edward A. Purcell (Look, law-related content! That’s new!).
• returning to my great-great-granddad’s civil war memoir, which I was slowly converting into an e-book and annotating.
• climbing back to the top of the heap in chicago flag blogging.
• random other stuff, probably. I don’t see much more R. Kelly blogging in my future, sorry to say.

• Argentina
• Serbia & Montenegro
• Holland
• Ivory Coast

This proved to be the toughest group in soccer play this year. It also looks like a very tough group for national anthems. mp3 links coming soon.