remembering what he was taught, he pretended he was rock, curling up with his head down. He received a certificate Monday from his school commending him for bravery and following the safety lessons.

But no more. Members of the organization are offended that the school superintendent would prevent them from using a pitbull in these classes, out of concern for the children’s safety. According to the Association’s president,

we feel that we need to take a stand. We should not be condemning a dog just because of its breed.

This is misguided in more ways I can count. Putting aside the fact that this particular dog isn’t “condemned”, I say, of course we should make smart decisions about animals we expose other peoples’ children to. The superintendent is thinking about the children’s safety first and foremost. And so should the Humane Association.

Pit bulls banned from Oregon school district

But I felt that I hadn’t captured its true spirit: the organization, the attention to detail.

So I went back on the 17th to document what I had missed:

1. The Indiana Ice hockey team and United States Hockey League sponsor a nearly-impossible-to-win $50,000 “hit the puck into the hole” contest.

2. Instead of putting prize money aside, they purchased insurance in case someone actually manages to win the prize.

3. A 73-year-old hockey fan is brought down to the ice and put into position alongside the mascot, who goes first. The fan vows to donate any winnings to charity. He then successfully hits the puck into the incredibly small hole on the opposite side of the rink. Click to watch:

4. The team’s insurance company denied the team’s claim because they did not position the fan in a certain location — contracted for between the team and its insurer. Specifically: they’d only cover contestants standing behind the red line.

5. The hockey team’s owners and the USHL throw their hands up: “Sorry! The insurance company won’t pay. There’s nothing more we can do.  No prize for you.”

6. The team doesn’t seem too upset about this: They refuse to name their insurance company, and also refuse to pay the promised prize money in full. Instead, “they plan to make a donation of an undisclosed amount.”

This story does appear to support the claim that wealthy corporations can break the rules that we as individuals cannot.

I decided to look at the design of the game itself for clues. Spoiler: they weren’t hard to find.

A Little Context: In-App Purchase Done Right

Here’s the excellent game, geoDefense Swarm. It a great game as is, but players can also buy more levels within the game itself:

First, the menu for choosing a level to play:

Tap “Hard Levels”, scroll all the way to end, and you’ll see Get More Levels:

Tap that and finally, we’re in the geoStore with a “Level Pack” product description, and its price, $0.99:

Smurfs’ Village In-App Purchase Experience

So is Smurfs’ Village pretty similar? Did these kids go clearly out of control? I decided to take one for the team and install the app. I can now say that the answers to these questions are no and no.

Here’s a typical screen in Smurfs’ Village. I’m “purchasing” a house with play money. The link into the real-dollars shop is the SHOP graphic on the bottom right:

Tap it, and you’ll see a nearly identical “shop” — for purchasing (no air-quotes this time) Smurfberries:

At this point, one may wonder why any children’s game should have something for sale for $4.99, let alone $99.99. And why would a child even want Smurfberries? What’s the motivator? It doesn’t take long to find out. And this is where the hard sell begins.

Leaving the shop, we tap our garden to see when the blueberries will be ready:

The large brown panel on the right are instructions for using Smurfberries to force the blueberries to appear instantly. The cynical among us will realize this is a gigantic ad, taking up 1/3 of the display. Is this an isolated case? Unfortunately, no. Over and over, the game stops the flow and tries to sell Smurfberries:

The pattern becomes obvious: every step along the way, Smurfberries “help” our Smurfs work faster and better. (Scary…) Smurfberry “use” is woven into the fabric of the game in a variety of places:

Summary

This isn’t a game; it’s a money-extraction tool aimed at children ages 4 and up.

The one little problem

Everything goes along happily until git decides you need some help. And so, in a fit of well intentioned verbosity, git coughs up three terminology-packed paragraphs of text that we’ve all seen:

You asked me to pull without telling me which branch you want to merge with, and 'branch.newlayout.merge' in your configuration file does not tell me either. Please specify which branch you want to merge on the command line and try again (e.g. 'git pull <repository> <refspec>'). See git-pull(1) for details.

If you often merge with the same branch, you may want to configure the following variables in your configuration file:

branch.newlayout.remote = <nickname>
branch.newlayout.merge = <remote-ref>
remote.<nickname>.url = <url>
remote.<nickname>.fetch = <refspec>

I collected the following git-specific terms from this one message:

branch, fetch, git-pull, merge, newlayout, nickname, pull, refspec, repository, remote, remote-ref, url

What’s the difference between a <refspec> and a <remote-ref>? Between a <repository> and a <nickname>? Between a pull and a merge? (I asked for a pull, but git’s giving me merge info.)

My guess: several of these terms are used interchangeably, and git’s docs should be made more consistent. Note how the terms in the text paragraphs do not match the terms in the config file template.

Problem #2: The second paragraph says to add the info to the config file. But the info isn’t in config file format; it’s closer to command line git config format.

One of the "Americans {seeking} respite from the Nation's economic troubles," 1939

The New York Times has an interesting article which inadvertently highlights cultural prejudice.

“Roberts Seeks More Judicial Con­firmations” tells the story of the Chief Justice’s appeal to the other branches of government to solve “the persistent problem of judicial vacancies.” No problem with that.

Roberts’ Year-End Report begins, however, with a wistful vignette of depression-era America. I’m always incredulous when I see a writer reminisce about an era when the U.S. was a de facto police state which denied basic human rights to many Americans. I therefore present:

The Chief Justice’s Year-End Report, par. 1, corrected

Proposed Q&A site for lawyers, law librarians, law students, and others searching for primary sources, other than at the “big two”.

Stack Exchange

About me: I have a track record of making innovative, public service apps for attorneys and law students. I’ve also got years of Linux and Java development experience, and will be able to hit the ground running.

Here are some links to show that I’m serious about following through:

Screenshots of iPhone legal app

My biggest web app

Press I’ve received

My personal home page

(Originally posted on under my id dogweather on reddit)

In older Supreme Court dissenting opinions, it’s common to read “I respectfully dissent”, or “with respect, I dissent.” But what about today’s justices? Some seem to relish writing dissents which are indistinguishable from Internet flames. Here’s a quick little bit of research:

How often do the current and retired Supreme Court justices use the above phrases in their dissents?

Methods

LexisNexis on 11/11/2010. Two searches for each justice, e.g.:
DISSENTBY(thomas)
DISSENTBY(thomas) and DISSENT(respect! w/s dissent)

This analysis is fairly superficial; something I did while procrastinating on my actual work. It should, though, provide a little food for thought.

The first comment reads, “Helpful blog, bookmarked the website with hopes to read more!”  An odd but friendly comment without a link to any website; seems benign.  But now that two have appeared, the pattern is clear:  They are (1) friendly posts that (2) praise the blog (3) using odd English phrasing, (4) without saying anything specific about the content and (5) are sent from the same sub-network.  Google shows 25,000 similar posts on other sites.

I’m not sure what the spammer is after, but my guess is: First become an “approved commenter” on the target sites, then return later to post actual spam.