Robert Khuu Presents

If any/none of you were wondering …

So, a few things have changed:

1. I’ve graduated from law school, and
2. I’ve moved back to CA.

The first one I am particularly proud of. After three long years of toiling, I’ve managed to get my juris doctorate. Granted, I have yet to do anything with it, but, nonetheless, I am proud of my accomplishment. Now, I just have to get over the “you’re not studying!” guilt-meter that law school installed in my brain.

The trip was actually kind of fun. I decided to drive the entire 2500+ mile trip back to CA. My brother and I took the I-80 to the I-70 to the I-15 to get back. We drove through Indiana, Illinois, Iowa, Nebraska, Colorado, Utah, Arizona and Nevada. The trip back was actually pretty efficient. We woke up, drove, stopped, slept. Rinse and repeat for three and half days. I’d actually like to do it again (not anytime soon) so that I could do some exploring. All-in-all, a pretty good trip.

The trip back marked the end of a particular phase of my life. I can’t be a responsibility-free student anymore. I just have to figure out what to do for the rest of it. The only thing I’ve figured out is: 1) find a job, 2) work said job, 3) ??????, 4) profit.

The Pirate Bay takes a hit. A fleshwound, really.

In an expected twist, the guys in charge of the infamous Pirate Bay bittorrent tracker have been found guilty of copyright infringement by Swedish courts. This is sort of a significant blow against … copyright pirates(?). I can’t see how this can be spun in a “negative” light. I have no illusions about what was happening on their site. It danced on that fine line between legal and illegal. What I find annoying is the reaction by the Pirate Bay guys. They reacted with an almost teenage level of delusional defiance. Here’s the worst quote:

We see this as a film … [t]his is the first set-back for the heroes. … [i]n the end we know that the good guys will win, as in all movies. Source: Wired.

I don’t know what to say. This isn’t a movie? In real life, good guys don’t always win? I wonder how long his defiance will last in prison. I don’t know anything about Swedish prisons, but I figure prisons are, more or less, the same everywhere: regardless of how many “luxuries” the prisoners get, prison is no cake walk. Prison time is still hard time.

As sort of an analysis of the background chatter, everyone that supports TPB seems to say/think that what they’re doing is “OK” and that content industry needs to change. I tend to agree w/the fact that the content industry does need to change; however, people on the sidelines need to remember that they live in, for the most part, democracies. They need to vote in legislators that will change the copyright laws. In the mean time, no one should make any illusions about what they are doing: under current existing law, they are doing illegal acts. If you think information wants to be free, you have to set up the legal structures to allow for it. Courts, for the most part, interpret law and not your postings on Internet message boards.

In Iowa, the Constitution Trumps Religion

As many of you have probably already heard, the Iowa Supreme Court ruled that gay marriage is protected under the Iowa Constitution. Significantly, the opinion references both the Federal Constitution and SCOTUS case law. More »

Pinko Commie Litmus Test

While I tend to think that I’m a left leaning moderate, apparently, the Center for American Progress’ political quiz says otherwise. According to the test, I am:

I suppose my main criticism of the test is that it doesn’t account for my willingness to compromise w/the opposition in favor of practical solutions. Maybe that takes me out of the extreme left? The questions and answers are pretty simplistic. For example, there’s a question that asks how much we agree w/the basic statement that “unions are good” (or was it bad?). My views on labor unions are far more complex than that simple dichotomy (e.g., the more skilled the labor, less of a need for a union). The test only really checks for pure ideology and not so much political realities. FiveThirtyEight has a pretty good analysis that basically says:

If conservatives and liberals had fundamental disagreementson [over] most major political questions, you’d expect to see a statistically significant inverse correlation in their responses. But you don’t see that. Conversely, if they agreed on most of these fundamental questions, with the differences being only around the periphery, you’d expect to see a statistically significant positive correlation in their responses. But you don’t really see that either. Source: FiveThirtyEight.

So that whole bit about the “culture wars” and the “disconnect” that liberals (or conservatives) have from the “true” America? Garbage.

Boardgame: Settlers of Catan

After some trying and doing, I finally got the chance to play Settlers of Catan. I know, I know. It’s an old game and everybody and their brother has been playing it for years. I just haven’t been around a circle of friends that had/played the game until recently. Hit the jump for my thoughts. More »