Wednesday, November 15, 2017

Moot Court Again!

Tonight I served again as a judge on a Moot Court for the UW Law School - see http://www.uwmchb.com/. This is a nice part of being part of the community - I meet some up-and-coming young people at the beginning of their careers and help a little with their success.
The Moot Courts need enough persons to fill seats and although I am not a trial lawyer, I can fulfill the role for purposes of the competition.
For purposes of oral evaluations, the training at Toastmasters has been very helpful. I can offer positive and useful feedback on what may be persuasive to a jury. I leave the heavy trial-lawyer commentary to the trial lawyers but it has been interesting to see that their views in general accord with mine; they just have a deeper foundation to their explanations.
I use the traditional "sandwich" technique - a slice of positive, a suggestion for improvement, then another slice of positive. You can really see how this increases acceptance and comprehension.
I have come to realize that this is something that I want to do better at - not just to show up and do my best at the moment, but actually study the subject so I can produce a better result. I have about a year until the next round so I'll put this on my list of projects.

Tuesday, November 14, 2017

Floppy Memories

I spent my free time this week uploading data from my old floppy disks. Putting it into the cloud (thanks Carbonite!) means I'll always have access, and can move these disks along to their final destination. In the process I came across a whole lot of photos which I am gradually sharing. Before I went to Russia, I bought a camera that recorded to floppy disks, on the theory that disks were cheap so I'd never run out. I never did run out but the technology moved on.
An early selfie!