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Daily Archives: January 3, 2021

Google Docs versus Microsoft Word: Attorneys blame ‘technical incompatibilities’ for late filing

ZDNet – “…The American legal system runs on deadlines. As one practicing attorney wrote in an official publication for the American Bar Association, “[M]issing any filing deadline is a lawyer’s worst nightmare.” That’s especially true if you’re representing the plaintiffs in an “Emergency Complaint For Expedited Declaratory And Emergency Injunctive Relief” involving the United States Presidential election before a Federal District Court. For those keeping score at home, that’s two Emergencies and one Expedited in a single motion. All of which makes this weekend’s filing from the plaintiffs’ legal team in Gohmert v. Pence particularly eye-catching:

Plaintiffs’ Unopposed Motion to File Responsive Brief Late – Come now the Plaintiffs, U.S. Rep. Louie Gohmert (TX-1), Tyler Bowyer, Nancy Cottle, Jake Hoffman, Anthony Kern, James R. Lamon, Sam Moorhead, Robert Montgomery, Loraine Pellegrino, Greg Safsten, Kelli Ward, and Michael Ward, by and through their undersigned counsel, and request that this Court allow Plaintiffs to file their responsive brief one hour late. In support thereof, Plaintiffs state: Plaintiffs have employed a team of lawyers to prepare their responsive brief. During the course of preparation, Plaintiffs’ counsel have encountered numerous technical incompatibilities in the software versions between Google Docs and Microsoft Word resulting in editing difficulties and text problems. WHEREFORE, Plaintiffs request an extension of one hour of the deadline for filing their responsive brief. [emphasis added]

I read that and had to rub my eyes and reread it about five more times to make sure I was really seeing a Federal court filing in which the attorneys for a sitting member of the United States Congress, suing the Vice President of the United States, told a Federal District Court that they needed a one-hour extension because they were having trouble getting Google Docs and Microsoft Word to play nicely together…”

7 Steps to Tidying Your Digital Life

Wirecutter / The New York Times – “We live our digital lives across a variety of apps, devices, and accounts. On each of those, a breadcrumb connects back to you. The more breadcrumbs you have out in the world, the easier it is to trace your activity, whether for advertising or identity theft. Installing a… Continue Reading

What is “Section 230,” and why do many lawmakers want to repeal it?

CBS News: “Section 230 of the Communications Decency Act helped create the modern internet. Now the regulation is at the center of a high-stakes political battle that could reshape how we use social media, mobile apps and the open web. President Donald Trump and some Republicans in Congress have pushed to repeal the law, while… Continue Reading

Differential Privacy

Harvard University Privacy Tools Project – “…Differential privacy is a rigorous mathematical definition of privacy. In the simplest setting, consider an algorithm that analyzes a dataset and computes statistics about it (such as the data’s mean, variance, median, mode, etc.). Such an algorithm is said to be differentially private if by looking at the output,… Continue Reading

How a torrent of COVID science changed research publishing — in seven charts

Nature: “The COVID-19 pandemic disrupted science in 2020 — and transformed research publishing, show data collated and analysed by Nature. Around 4% of the world’s research output was devoted to the coronavirus in 2020, according to one database. But 2020 also saw a sharp increase in articles on all subjects being submitted to scientific journals… Continue Reading

Biological diversity evokes happiness

Science Daily – “A high biodiversity in our vicinity is as important for life satisfaction as our income, scientists found. All across Europe, the individual enjoyment of life correlates with the number of surrounding bird species. An additional 10% of bird species therefore increases the Europeans’ life satisfaction as much as a comparable increase in… Continue Reading

As Understanding of Russian Hacking Grows, So Does Alarm

The New York Times – Those behind the widespread intrusion into government and corporate networks exploited seams in U.S. defenses and gave away nothing to American monitoring of their systems.  “On Election Day, General Paul M. Nakasone, the nation’s top cyberwarrior, reported that the battle against Russian interference in the presidential campaign had posted major successes… Continue Reading