Birthday

Happy birthday, jeriendhal, and thanks for all the fic and the webcomic recs!

A Couple's Home Is Their Castle

The Supreme Court just handed down an interesting ruling on Fourth Amendment rights. The case involved a police search of a couple's house on the invitation of the wife, although the husband was present and refused permission. The majority - the court liberals and moderates - ruled that the search was illegitimate, that refusal by one of the couple trumped permission from the other. The court conservatives (except Alito, who was not on the court when the case was argued) dissented. Chief Justice Roberts' opinion raised the possibility of problems in cases of domestic abuse.

John Cole and Orin Kerr have more.

Curveball

Today in History of Math I talked about Leonhard Euler. (I didn't finish. He was a busy fellow...) After I described the Law of Quadratic Reciprocity (which he discovered, but did not prove) and explained that number theorists consider it one of the most beautiful theorems in mathematics, one student asked, "What is it good for?"

That, of course, touched off Canned Rant No. 4B, on beauty versus utility. After a few sentences I was in full swing: "Is the Mona Lisa useful? Is Chartres Cathedral useful?" From the back of the room: "Some people think so." I stumbled, paused, and said, "Touché... And me a Catholic, too. I should have caught that."

I let the rant go. No way I was going to recover my head of steam after that.