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caseyscottmckay

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-From Mississippi. Currently live in Washington, D.C.

-Anthropology, Law, Computer Science

email: csm@csmckay.us

website: csmckay.us

projects: uplaw.us, alfie.uplaw.us

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I assume nothing is ever deleted on the internet. Even comments you type out, but never submit are most likely saved by all websites (and if you use Windows/Mac, I'm assuming every single keystroke is sent back to the home base and saved). All of that is valuable data for future models.

My Thinkpad experience has been a nightmare. I bought a new ThinkPad one year ago and it has been an absolutely terrible experience. It freezes up every 2-3 days requiring a hard restart. I've sent it in to Lenovo for repairs twice and the freeze-ups continue. Every time I send it in I have to reformat my entire computer then reinstall everything only for the issues to persist. I'm about to purchase another new computer because I need a reliable working computer and my Thinkpad failed. Lenovo sold me a lemon. I hate this ThinkPad so much and it was a complete waste of money.

I don't have a source for this, but I think I remember reading a long time ago that Swartz also downloaded and released a significant amount of WestLaw legal documents.

A few years ago I was looking for state law databases and came across a blog post by a professor (at Stanford I believe) discussing S3 buckets with state law databases. I couldn't figure out how to access it, so I emailed the professor and he gave me a link to a site called Public Resource Law or Free Public law or something ( domain was public.law.resource or resource.law or something like that). Anyway it had huge zip files (< 100 GB) for all federal law and all law for all 50 states (opinions, statutes, rules, regulations, jury instructions etc). I played around with the data and found WestLaw editors notes in several of the documents, making me think this was part of Swartz's WestLaw data dump. The data dump was taken down roughly a year after I found it.

I think this data dump is also what courtlistener.com is built on, because courtlistener.com popped up soon after the data dump disappeared from that site.

What is a solution? Facebook is a private company, so they can do business as they please within the confines of applicable laws and regulations. Those laws and regulations say they can censor as they please on their platform. Should we enact laws forcing private platforms to give everyone a voice?

Ulbricht was not a drug kingpin himself, but rather he created a marketplace for drug kingpins, right?

Also it may be beneficial to judge a person's technical capabilities separate from that person's ethics--both good and shitty people have cool tech ideas.

Aren't they all? If you type text into an input field, it's best to assume it's saved, even if you backspace and write something else--it's all saved.

Comparing what people type and what they choose to publish is probably valuable.

Paul's Online Math Notes were an invaluable resource in relearning math as a lawyer trying to start a career as a software developer. Relearning math seemed a lost cause until I discovered Paul's notes. Thanks so much!

Vary your sentence length. Don't follow strict length rules for each sentence, as good writing employs a mix of short, medium, and long sentences. Incorporating variety avoids monotonous writing, creates emphasis where needed, and helps the reader understand the relationship between different points.

Write in different environments/context (e.g., write drunk, edit sober).

Refer to the "The Elements of Style" when in doubt concerning style.