John Nannes is deceptively nerdy. Or, rather, he's not obviously a nerd at all -- at least not the kind that can't go more than five sentences without talking about his World of Warcraft avatar. He did, however, write two student Notes, graduate Order of the Coif from Michigan Law in 1973, and clerk for Justice Rehnquist on the Supreme Court. So there's clearly a big brain at work here. And while his prominent mustache may camouflage his avowed nerdiness, there's no masking his affection for the University of Michigan and the Law School.

Dear Editor,

In your September 17, 2009 edition, Matthew Talley raised some concerns about changes to the Law School's tutoring program. I know that there are many other students who also share his concerns. I'm writing to provide our reasons for modifying the tutoring program.

Not too long ago, on the eve of classes, a sadistic 3L emailed LawOpen to recommend a viewing of The Paper Chase to 1Ls that had not yet had the pleasure. For those of you who have not yet availed yourselves, The Paper Chase chronicles a 1L's journey through Harvard Law School as he becomes absolutely obsessed with doing well in a class where a tyrannical law professor belittles students who flounder when he questions them. Later that same day the LawOpen poster, who had actually acted without ill will, recommended 1Ls hold off on watching the film when he realized what it might do to them.

The Pearson correlation coefficient is a symmetric measure of association between x and y, denoted by the variable r, and is defined for data sets {(x1, y1), ..., (xn, yn). The variable r measures linear relatedness between x and y. As the observations in a data set occur more closely to the regression line, the correlation coefficient r approaches 1.0. To calculate r, all you need to do is subtract the mean value of x from xi and divide by the standard deviation of x. Then multiply this number by the difference of the mean value of y and yi divided by the standard deviation of y. Find the sum for all values of (xn, yn), and multiply this by 1/(1 + n) to find r. In other words, it is (nearly) the average of the standardized value of x multiplied by the standardized value of y.

One of the reasons I love writing "Save Yourself" is because it gives me a reason to explore Ann Arbor and find events I might not have heard about without doing the research. Unfortunately, I've been pretty sick these past few weeks, and I haven't been able to spend time around town.

Instead, I've been holed up in my apartment (or, as I now like to call it, the den of death), sleeping a lot and watching far too much television.

George Bernard Shaw once quipped that England and the United States are two countries separated by a common language. Something similar might be said of the University of Michigan's law school and its English department.

Welcome, and Welcome Back!

After Ben's fabulous foundation of the RG's beer column, I can only hope to build on his legacy as the new beer guy. Which is to say, "Hi, I'm the new beer guy." I enjoy beer, I love that the Ancient Mesopotamians, in their wisdom, gathered everything they needed for bread before deciding to make beer instead. I love that the Egyptian paradigm of knowledge was to write information down onto a papyrus and then wash the words into a cup of beer before ingesting the beer. I tried that once - it made reselling my law textbooks difficult.

My grandmother had her brain; my mother had a batter-stained, beaten-to-death Betty Crocker cookbook; and I have . . . a browser. This week, the Culinary Club evaluates the effect of modern technology on that time-honored family heirloom--the recipe. Below you'll find a brief examination of four major ways the internet functions as a modern form of recipe exchange: honored traditions, professional compilations, individual perspectives, and collective development.

Ok, this is a little odd, but I've been having really, you know, involved sex dreams about one of my profs. I mean, I really don't particularly like this guy, or even enjoy his class, but these dreams are insane. How do I stop them? I mean, what the hell?

-Desperate Insomniac on Sub-3