Journal entries in the "Random" category
Free speech on the internet
In my 14 effective days of internship so far in a large law firm, i.e. at the 2/3rds of the internship, I have mainly worked on one single, important case involving freedom of speech on the internet. Though there were times during my research when I felt despair for lack of tangible results (basically, few people seem to tackle the subject in a manner of interest to us in the case), the subject was truly interesting, and the occasional golden find encouraged me to keep going.
This research, mainly focussed on internet liability (legal responsibility, for non-lawyers), was a true eye-opener, because I had never thought of the internet from that angle: how free is speech on the internet?
Are we all “Big Brother”?
As some of you may know, I am on the verge of becoming the owner of the student website of my (former) Law Faculty. This week-end (after a start of internship with Allen & Overy where I have worked an average of 9h30 a day), I started work on porting the current database to a local installation, to try to get it all to work on my own design and all that.
However, encoding problems (we’re going from Western Roman to UTF-8, for those who understand the jargon) have made it such that all accented characters (é, è, û, …), very common in French, are messed up in the exported database. As such, I’ve had to replace these everywhere.
One thing I noticed when doing these replacements was the full control I had over content: I could easily check all the private messages sent in the forum. The temptation was oh-so-great, naturally…
A Master of Laws
It is done. Five years of suffering, toiling, sweat and tears are over. All right, maybe it wasn’t that bad. After all, I had lots of fun.
Nevertheless, the news item remains the same: I have successfully completed my Master’s degree in Law. As of Friday 26 June 2009, I have become a “Master of Laws”, and with “Distinction” too (for the Brits, it’s a “2:1″; for others, it translates into a “B”).
There, you may bow down before me and call me “Master”.
Now… one year left. I have met the requirements for my offer at King’s College London to become “unconditional”, so there’s a 99% chance I’ll be in London next year, for a course on Information Technology Law.
Yet more law, I know. I must be suicidal. That’s life!
Saving one’s future reputation
Having realised that most reputations are destroyed on the basis of embarrassing information published after a person gains a reputation, I believe that publishing such information before gaining a reputation may be a way of avoiding later damage of one’s reputation. Indeed, the act of making the information public means that people can have access to it, and the “new” character of the information is negated. Moreover, by making such information public, a person shows that he/she can be honest about his/her past, something that isn’t always easy after gaining a reputation.
As such, I have compiled a list of six events “potentially most damaging to my reputation”. Brace yourselves for an insight in Peter’s past.
Disclaimer: not suitable for serious people. Those people should instead check Peter’s CV.
Read the rest of this entry »
Easter Island in June
The other day, we took a plane to Chili, before hopping into a plane for a direct flight from Santiago to the Easter Island. All in all, it was a long journey, somewhat tedious, but the anticipation and excitement set aside concerns relating to comfort and so on.
However, as we approached the island, we realised that we couldn’t get a nice view of the small place from above. As such, as soon as we landed, we convinced a helicopter pilot to bring us out and back in again.
As the helicopter circled a few kilometres off the island, hovering above a glittering sea, we picked up our cameras and took our first series of shots of the island, and were lucky to see some lava pour down from the still active volcano.
European elections: lack of interest by the media
The European Parliament plays a major role in enacting 70-80% of the legislation of Member States of the European Union, and its role is about to get even bigger when the Lisbon Treaty finally gets adopted.
Between the 4th and 7th of June, European citizens were invited to elect new MEPs (Members of the European Parliament), but indicators show a disappointing turnout: only 43.09% of electors went to the poll stations.
The media have called it a lack of interest of citizens, but aren’t they themselves, along with politicians, at fault?
Read the rest of this entry »
Master Thesis: Use of Comparative Law in European Law
I’m very proud to present you all with my newest creation, one on which my whole year depends: my Master Thesis, or “Mémoire”.
For our Master in Laws degree in Belgium, we are required to write a 60-page paper. For me, the subject was the use of comparative law in European law. In other words, it’s all about whether the European institutions draw inspiration from the laws of Member States when creating their own law.
Clocking in at 63 pages (81 pages with the cover, table of contents and bibliography), my Mémoire analyses in a first stage whether in general, the European institutions make use of comparative law. In the second part, I analyse a number of different, recent acts, to determine whether the use of comparative law has had any influence on the act’s content.
Now, I won’t recommend reading this if the general idea isn’t remotely interesting to you.
If on the other hand the idea piques your interest, rest assured that I have tried to make the content fully accessible to people with no knowledge of law (well, at least the first part – the second uses a bunch of legal concepts).
So, if interested, you can view/download/print the PDF document: Use of Comparative Law in European Law.
Note the “Peter A. Craddock”, to avoid confusion with the other Peter Craddocks of the world.
Action film music: should rap & metal be banned?
Yesterday, I braced myself to face a great intellectual challenge: I was going to watch “xXx: State of the Union”. I had read reviews, and was sure I wasn’t going to enjoy it as much as other action movies. Nevertheless, I watched it (even recorded it, as my brother wished me to do so, just in case it turned out to be good).
Well, let me spoil it, if you haven’t seen it yet: don’t watch it. Ice Cube acts really bad, and the dialogue is worse than most other action movies I’ve seen. At least, Steven Seagal would have made the lame dialogue sound philosophical.
What annoyed me the most, however, was the music: rap music pretty much all the time.
The statement was staring at me in the face: “rap music should never be used as a soundtrack”. Still, I had to be sure of my reasoning.
French spelling buried by the Académie Française
Spelling is the most visual part of a language, because it is used to create visual representations of words. When at school, children learn to spell correctly, according to the language of a country or region. In Britain, children are taught British English (theoretically, anyway). In the United States, kids learn US English. In Belgium, they are taught either Dutch or Belgian French. And so on, and so forth.
However, this transmission of spelling knowledge from generation to generation does not prevent a language from evolving. As such, new words are added, and with time, certain spellings change as well. The difference between American and British English is a very good example, where history led to the creation of two different standardised (standardized in US English) spellings.
It is only when codified that spelling becomes nigh immutable. After that happens, change is met with virulent reactions.
Read the rest of this entry »
Obama, a universal metaphor?
There’s a nice expression in French: “à toutes les sauces”, which means that something has been or can be used for all purposes. Another expression is “à tort et à travers”, similar in its general idea, but with a stronger accent on the inappropriate character of certain uses.
Today, it seems that the example of the new President of the United States is being employed “à toutes les sauces”, sometimes even “à tort et à travers”: I have heard people mention him in religious, political, economic, legal and social contexts. Could it be that his person and message have become a universal metaphor?