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Don’t tell the ACLU!

I love how the plaque is labeled “The Commandments.” The summary at the bottom is also cool.

H/T To my co-clerk, A.L. whose iPhone camera is significantly better than my blackberry camera.

I am listening to David McCullough’s fantastic book, The Johnstown Flood, which tells the tragic story of the 1889 flood which destroyed my new hometown of Johnstown. The flood killed over 2,000 people. Check out these pictures. They are horrific.

The geography of Johnstown invites floods. The city is basically a bowl in the Allegheny Mountains, with water flowing from higher altitudes. When the rains break the levees , flooding is inevitable

It should come as no surprise that the 1889 flood was not the only flood. The city flooded again in 1894, 1907, and 1924, 1936, and 1977

A question I asked myself before moving here, is why do people still live here? So why aren’t these people voting with their feet, and getting the heck out of town?

Ilya Somin has produced some fantastic scholarship on voting with your feet. Notions of voting with your feet should not only apply to unfavorable governmental impositions on the populace, but should also apply to unfavorable environmental conditions. Namely, living in a city that gets destroyed by flooding every few decades.

More after the jump.

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On November 11, 2009, I launched FantasySCOTUS, with this announcement on my old WordPress blog:

JoshBlogs is proud to present FantasySCOTUS.net, the Premier Supreme Court Fantasy League.

I remember the fateful Wednesday well, because I launched the site shortly before I began the drive from Johnstown, Pennsylvania for the 2009 Federalist Society Lawyers Convention. By the time I arrived in Washington, D.C., the site had gone completely viral. Within 48 hours, more than one thousand people had registered. This was, from my perspective, an early indication that my path forward would be different.

Soon, the Wall Street Journal Law Blog interviewed me in what, I think, was my first popular media appearance. Though my answers have become more polished, my tone is, well, about the same:

Blackman, currently clerking in the Western District of Pennsylvania, says he thought of the idea in September, shortly after the Citizens United arguments. Says Blackman: “I thought, ‘what if Vegas handicapped this case? What would the odds be?’ I took the thought and ran with it.”

Blackman says his the fees will largely go to cover his costs, and that the point is not to make money. “That’s not at all why I’m doing it,” he says. “I think it’s just cool and gives some variety to my life.”

And what’s the prize? It’s not going to be cash. “I don’t think lawyers would be incentivized by cash. It’s going to be something else, like a golden gavel, maybe one of those Supreme Court bobbleheads.”

Indeed, the prize for the first few years was a “golden gavel,” though not made of gold.

Eight years later–thanks to the LexPredict Team–FantasySCOTUS is thriving. To another eight years of success

Since December 2015, my workstation at home has had six monitors. That was not enough. So I recently upgraded to a seventh screen. In this video, I describe what function each screen serves.

Here as my workstation before the addition of the seventh monitor.

Here is my setup from April 2014. I had four 24″ HD LED flat-panels, mounted on two Dual-Monitor Desk Mounts. I rotated the one on the right, as it makes reading cases and document easier. And no, the palm trees are not native to Houston, but they make for a nice backdrop.

From December 2012, during a brief period I kept two MacBook Pros rocking, and I added (yet another) monitor.

In case you are wondering, each screen has a dedicated function. My MacBook Pro screen is always trained on my gmail. The screen furthest to the left holds my Tweetdeck and Instant Messaging. The next screen to the right holds whatever document, or documents I am reading. The main screen in the middle contains whatever I am typing. The screen furthest to the right contains my Google Reader. My old Macbook Pro is used for ancillary stuff or testing things, and sometimes I will play a video or something on my Nexus 7 Tablet.

From August 2012, when I moved to Houston, still with three monitors:

Here is my three-monitor display, which I had from June 2010, back in Johnstown, PA until 2012. Note that I still had paper. I’ve gone completely paperless, and it is amazing. Also, since then I’ve gotten rid of my Blackberry, and Google Reader is no longer with us.

On my laptop screen, I keep my e-mail window open. On the far left monitor, I have Pandora open (playing some catchy Lady GaGa song), Tweetdeck (featuring 2 twitter accounts and facebook), and Adium Chat. In the middle monitor I have Microsoft Word open (working on an Op-Ed for McDonald v. Chicago). On the monitor on the right, I have Google Chrome open (tuned to Google Reader). And, my blackberry keeps me posted with text messages and BBM (blackberry messenger for those uninitiated).

Since April 2014, my workstation at home has used five monitors. While working on Unprecedented, I have actually found myself one screen short. Often I have to have open at the same time three chapters, plus several reference materials. So, in the next evolution of my workstation, I added a sixth monitor via USB Display Link. I was able to put it on a rolling file cabinet, so it fits low enough to below the monitor furthest to the left, but high enough to be at eye level.

Here is my setup from April 2014. I had four 24″ HD LED flat-panels, mounted on two Dual-Monitor Desk Mounts. I rotated the one on the right, as it makes reading cases and document easier. And no, the palm trees are not native to Houston, but they make for a nice backdrop.

From December 2012, during a brief period I kept two MacBook Pros rocking, and I added (yet another) monitor.

In case you are wondering, each screen has a dedicated function. My MacBook Pro screen is always trained on my gmail. The screen furthest to the left holds my Tweetdeck and Instant Messaging. The next screen to the right holds whatever document, or documents I am reading. The main screen in the middle contains whatever I am typing. The screen furthest to the right contains my Google Reader. My old Macbook Pro is used for ancillary stuff or testing things, and sometimes I will play a video or something on my Nexus 7 Tablet.

From August 2012, when I moved to Houston, still with three monitors:

 

Here is my three-monitor display, which I had from June 2010, back in Johnstown, PA until 2012. Note that I still had paper. I’ve gone completely paperless, and it is amazing. Also, since then I’ve gotten rid of my Blackberry, and Google Reader is no longer with us.

On my laptop screen, I keep my e-mail window open. On the far left monitor, I have Pandora open (playing some catchy Lady GaGa song), Tweetdeck (featuring 2 twitter accounts and facebook), and Adium Chat. In the middle monitor I have Microsoft Word open (working on an Op-Ed for McDonald v. Chicago). On the monitor on the right, I have Google Chrome open (tuned to Google Reader). And, my blackberry keeps me posted with text messages and BBM (blackberry messenger for those uninitiated).