RoyGBivensAction
Zensunni Scientologist
Married to a tomboy, so I have that going for me, which is nice.
User ID: 3756
RoyGBivensAction
Zensunni Scientologist
1mo ago
Please give me reasons to stick to my crusade against the cursed bean.
Sorry, nothing useful to add. My pre-sunrise walk with a cup of coffee is pretty much the highlight of the day and everything goes wrong after that.
RoyGBivensAction
Zensunni Scientologist
1mo ago
Bad news #2: I was awoken to a loud, repetitive banging outside my window the other day. It turns out that a woodpecker decided to punch a hole in the soffit of my house. The rot is extensive enough that I don't trust myself to do the work, so I'm looking at a $4k - $5k repair.
I recently got a quote for $25k of foundation work, so I know the pain of having the budget totally blown by shit going sideways.
RoyGBivensAction
Zensunni Scientologist
1mo ago
Oh I'm not a lawyer. I bailed and stayed in software before I racked up a shitload of debt.
Yes, I should've said "not lots of [actual or potential] lawyers with 178 LSATs" or something like that.
I'm one of those engineers.
No, you're an engineer who took the LSAT and did very well. Again, not the kind of engineer dragging down the pass rate.
RoyGBivensAction
Zensunni Scientologist
1mo ago
Law schools are especially failing, I get summer associates and associates regularly that cannot draft coherent 3 page motions or briefs. Multiple people have been caught by partners on major cases submitting fake (presumably AI generated) case citations. Sometimes this only get caught on appeal.
Law schools have always been mostly useless for generating competent attorneys, but have moved from mostly useless to almost entirely useless. Covid seems to have had a big effect here, and now AI is adding to it.
RoyGBivensAction
Zensunni Scientologist
1mo ago
I agree with this overall, and I don't even know where new grads are necessarily going. I know of urban DA/PD offices that have trouble hiring, and the pay/benefits are decent. Doing a few years at either to get some trial/motion/evidentiary hearing experience before moving on is apparently something new grads are not willing to do. The PD offices I'm most familiar with seem to be trading their experienced attorneys every few years but there really aren't that many new faces coming up the ranks.
RoyGBivensAction
Zensunni Scientologist
1mo ago
Co-signed 100%. At this point, law is only worth going into if someone else is paying for it and the person has worked in some kind of law office and finds they enjoy the work.
RoyGBivensAction
Zensunni Scientologist
2mo ago
I have to admit, I have no idea how society is still supporting itself right now.
Something I wonder about almost daily.
Almost everyone I know is intentionally not working, including myself (got burned out and retired 6 months ago).... well, who's doing the actual work holding everything up?
Like a chump, I still have to go to work and accomplish things.
RoyGBivensAction
Zensunni Scientologist
2mo ago
If you mean apartments going up, then I don't know. But for houses, there appear to be hordes of people fleeing places with high property prices and paying to build rather large houses in or around smaller historical cities/towns in the Southwest. From what I've seen, this is especially prevalent around various small places in Utah that are adjacent to national parks/great outdoor stuff. It seems like many places are turning into unofficial 55+ communities (especially for white people).
RoyGBivensAction
Zensunni Scientologist
2mo ago
Here's what I think about: I've seen a pro se defendant reduce a 30-year prosecutor to tears of rage with non-stop well-written motions because the prosecutor had to respond to every single one. The defendant had been through the system a number of times and had learned enough from his trips to be able to write decent motions. He ended up getting a plea on a felony case that the prosecutor had previously swore would never happen (guy had a ton of priors, so still prison, but 1/10th of his risk after trial).
The number of defendants like that is vanishingly small. He was writing those motions from in-custody, which made it all the more impressive. The skill required to do that is very rare.
Once the AI motions get good enough, every out of custody defendant can be that guy. Perhaps the in-custody ones once they figure out a way (probably via family or friends or whatever) to access an AI outside the jail. The system is not prepared for every traffic case, misdemeanor, and felony to turn into a barrage of plausible-sounding motions.
RoyGBivensAction
Zensunni Scientologist
2mo ago
AI use by attorneys will get lots of attention for job market and ethics reasons, but the courts are 100% unprepared for the day when pro se litigants start filing piles of plausible-sounding briefs in their traffic ticket/misdemeanor/family court cases.
RoyGBivensAction
Zensunni Scientologist
2mo ago
Rich defense lawyers being morally bankrupt.
So ethics is the thing keeping me from getting rich? I knew it!
RoyGBivensAction
Zensunni Scientologist
2mo ago
but the last Republican I could really get down with was Mccain, purely off of his aesthetics
The guy who chanted "Bomb Iran" to the tune of "Barbara Ann"?
Buttigieg is a bloodless technocrat, and looks like it.
And allegedly purchased a child via surrogacy. Probably not the kind of aesthetics I'd support, but I suppose that's the problem with trying to judge someone by aesthetics. I don't care for Trump's, but I'd be hard pressed to name a politician from either party who has aesthetics that make me think I should support them.
RoyGBivensAction
Zensunni Scientologist
2mo ago
58% German, 47% autistic. More German than some actual Germans here scored.
RoyGBivensAction
Zensunni Scientologist
2mo ago
At the rate this timeline is moving, we'll know in 24-72 hours.
RoyGBivensAction
Zensunni Scientologist
2mo ago
I do sometimes wonder if some women don't have instincts that laser focus towards guys who will abuse them.
Some women absolutely do (and the men have laser focus on women likely to put up with such abuse). Dalrymple has made a career writing about them. Talk to any cop, prosecutor, or defense attorney, and they can also confirm this.
RoyGBivensAction
Zensunni Scientologist
2mo ago
The lizards --> birds lineage is made very apparent by chickens and roadrunners.
RoyGBivensAction
Zensunni Scientologist
2mo ago
weird ejaculations
Fun word choice given what's going on with Noem's husband.
RoyGBivensAction
Zensunni Scientologist
2mo ago
There's a whole trope older than dirt of the strong willed servant who dominates his weak master, by his sheer frame.
PG Wodehouse wrote of this.
RoyGBivensAction
Zensunni Scientologist
2mo ago
one specific medicine causes it as a side effect
Quite the side effect. What medicine?
RoyGBivensAction
Zensunni Scientologist
2mo ago
I initially thought the first paragraph was a joke about you meeting Obama in his law school days.
RoyGBivensAction
Zensunni Scientologist
2mo ago
What is the typical White, Male, College-educated Democrat voter like?
Probably working for the government (or an NGO), or maybe a non-tech role as an employee in a Big Corp. Of the white male lawyers I know, the vast majority are probably Dem voters for federal elections, even the prosecutors. The non-Dems would likely be the ones who have their own firms and get murdered by taxes (probably lots of minority male attorneys with their own firms who voted for Trump). These are not "elite" lawyers. They went to state schools, have unremarkable non-prestigious jobs, etc.
Source: I'm a white male lawyer in my 40s. I know one loud and proud Trump-supporting white male lawyer. The rest are prone to making anti-Trump commenters for the slightest reason, even just small talk about the weather.
RoyGBivensAction
Zensunni Scientologist
2mo ago
postmodernism ... is... ultra-layered "commentary" on a bunch of intersecting meta-themes. Something like socio-political philosophy but explained through dense plots and idiosyncratic characters.
I would say this is exactly what GR and IJ do. GR is commentary on technology and the systems of control growing ever-larger. Think Seeing Like a State mixed with some of Uncle Ted's critiques, but in novel form. It's also really, really funny. I've read it three times and it keeps making more sense. There is a narrative present and the plotlines converge, even if not explicitly.
IJ is commentary on addiction, technology, and alienation. Large parts of it are tedious and terminally unfunny. There is a cohesive narrative, although it's jumbled up. As someone who has dealt with many, many addicts, the parts about addiction and rehab are especially poignant.
I would agree that plenty of other post-modernist novels fit your critiques and are sorely lacking as novels. I got very little from Gaddis' The Recognitions for example, even with a reader's guide, and wouldn't recommend it (J R, though, is a good one).
RoyGBivensAction
Zensunni Scientologist
2mo ago
Go to big state U and pick the hardest major,
I did this. Would not recommend if one wishes to enjoy their undergrad years.
RoyGBivensAction
Zensunni Scientologist
2mo ago
the degree to which these folks prostrated themselves at the beginning of the Obama administration was almost laughable
Not almost laughable, it was laughable. He got the Nobel Peace Prize for not being Bush.
I drive 99% of the time and my wife has never offered commentary on my driving. On other people's driving, on the scenery, on a nearby bird, yes.
My parents have driving as a team sport. My mom will say "you've got green" if the light has been green for a moment and my stepdad hasn't hit the gas yet (probably because he was looking a bird), but it's a neutral tone and not a "you're doing it wrong" tone. Same for the "car coming" comments when they come to a stop sign and she looks to the right while he looks to the left. The latter is especially helpful at something like a T intersection when the sightlines are blocked and someone could come zooming along with very little advance warning.
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