Tag: Frolic and Detour

  • Article of the Day: “Are We Alone In The Universe?”

    If you’ve been reading Letters Blogatory for a while, you know that I am an enthusiast for astronomy and cosmology. I have often surprised people by saying that I hope we do not discover extraterrestrial life, especially simple extraterrestrial life. I get the same reaction I get when I tell people that it is illegal……

  • Forget Politics, Let’s Talk About ʻOumuamua!

    Forget Politics, Let’s Talk About ʻOumuamua!

    Let’s put all of the political kvetching aside for one day and think about something really cool. By way of background, before I got interested in the law I thought I might grow up to be an astronomer. In high school I was a very good physics and calculus student—good enough that when I got……

  • Old Ironsides

    Old Ironsides

    Whether or not you’re interested in the Age of Sail, I hope you’ll like these photos of “Old Ironsides,” USS Constitution, which I took from my office last week. The ship, the oldest commissioned warship still afloat, is berthed at the Charlestown Navy Yard, which is just out of view from my window. She is……

  • Case of the Day: Holmes v. Grant County Sheriff’s Department

    The case of the day is Holmes v. Grant County Sheriff’s Department (D.N.M. 2018). The plaintiff was Denise-Bradford:Holmes. When you see someone write his or her name this way, with the odd punctuation, watch out—odds are the person is part of the so-called “sovereign citizen” movement, a group of  confused people with outlandish legal ideas……

  • Authenticating Digital Evidence

    While reading the paper on Sunday I noticed an interesting ad. A company called Surety, LLC had published two base64-encoded  values. What is this? Is it the modern version of a coded “personals” ad from an Alan Furst novel, where it’s some spy’s job to read the ads every day and then to spring into……