Michael Jay Lissnerhttps://michaeljaylissner.com/2010-11-04T23:30:21-07:00Changes and Plans at CourtListener.com2010-11-04T23:30:21-07:00Mike Lissnertag:michaeljaylissner.com,2010-11-04:posts/2010/11/04/changes-and-plans-at-courtlistener/<p>A few weeks ago, we made a fairly major change at CourtListener.com to include
<span class="caps">ID</span> numbers in all of our case URLs. This change meant that links that were
previously like this:</p>
<div class="highlight"><pre><span class="nl">http:</span><span class="c1">//courtlistener.com/scotus/Wong-v.-Smith/</span>
</pre></div>
<p>Are now like this:</p>
<div class="highlight"><pre><span class="nl">http:</span><span class="c1">//courtlistener.com/scotus/V5o/wong-v-smith/</span>
</pre></div>
<p>Most of the old links should continue to work, but using the new links should
be much faster and more reliable. The major difference between the two is the
<span class="caps">ID</span> number, which is encoded as a set of numbers (in this case <em>V5o</em>). This
<span class="caps">ID</span> corresponds directly with the <span class="caps">ID</span> number in our database, aiding us greatly
in serving up cases quickly and accurately.</p>
<p>Around the same time as this change, we added social networking links to all
of our case pages to make them easier to share with friends and colleagues.
These links use our new tiny domain, <em>http://crt.li/</em>, and should thus be
ideal for websites like Twitter or Reddit.</p>
<p>In the next few months we will be getting a major new server, and will be
migrating our data to it. This will allow us to serve more data,
and—drum roll please—will allow us to begin serving audio content
on the site. That’s right, in the next few months, we will begin getting oral
arguments from the circuit courts, and will be serving it directly to you on
the case pages. </p>
<p>We also have plans to revisit our search interface in order to add date
filtering and query building so look for that soon.</p>
<p>As always, we welcome your feedback and support, so don’t hesitate to get in
touch with us if you have any questions or suggestions.</p>Lecturing at UCÂ Berkeley2010-07-30T13:10:56-07:00Mike Lissnertag:michaeljaylissner.com,2010-07-30:posts/2010/07/30/lecturing-at-uc-berkeley/<p>This summer I’ve been busy with a number of things. One of them has been
teaching <a href="http://courses.ischool.berkeley.edu/i153-waim/su10/">Web Architecture and Information Management</a> at <span class="caps">UC</span> Berkeley
with two other guys from the School of Information. It’s been a <span class="caps">TON</span> of work
for not a whole lot of pay, but it’s been really interesting.</p>
<p>Since the three of us split up the work, I only have to do about four
lectures, but the class is two and a half hours long three times a week,
which is a lot of talking time. I imagine it’s not easy for the students to
be in the class that frequently either.</p>
<p>I’m giving lectures on the following topics:</p>
<ul>
<li><span class="caps">HTML</span></li>
<li>Search</li>
<li>Browsers</li>
<li>Privacy</li>
</ul>
<p>If you’re interested, I’ve posted my slides for these in the <a href="https://michaeljaylissner.com/projects-and-papers">projects and
papers</a> section of the site. It’s definitely true that the best way to
learn it to teach.</p>
<p>I’ve also been learning a little about how to get the class to participate
and be involved, but that’s probably the most challenging part. A lot of
the students know a lot about the material, and are pretty bored,
while others are seeing everything for the first time. It makes it pretty
tricky, but it’s working out as the class gets to know each other. We
started doing student presentations this week, and that has helped
everybody get a little more skin in the game.</p>