Blawgs, aka lawyers’ blogs

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Interesting piece in the New York Times. Quote:

A survey conducted by Blogads.com, which administers online advertising on blog sites, and completed voluntarily by 30,000 blog visitors last spring, found that 5.1 percent of the people reading the blogs were lawyers or judges, putting that group fourth behind computer professionals, students and retirees. The survey also found that of the 6,232 people who said they also kept their own blogs, 6.1 percent said they were in the legal profession, putting lawyers fourth again, behind the 17.5 percent who said they were in the field of education, 15.1 percent in computer software and 6.4 percent in media, said Henry Copeland, founder of Blogads. He conceded that the survey was hardly scientific, but argued that at least it undermined the popular image of the blogosphere as dominated by antsy teenagers and programmers in their pajamas, tapping away at keyboards all night.

Copyright thugs seek to break up family

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From Good Morning Silicon Valley…

The heavy armor of the music industry’s legal department continues to clank forward, but a few people are starting to stand up in front of the tanks. One is Candy Chan, sued for alleged copyright infringement by a batch of record companies. The subject of the investigation actually was Chan’s then 13-year-old daughter, Brittany, aka “Spicybrnweyedgirl.” According to a p2pnet report, when Chan refused to settle on behalf of her daughter, the record companies regrouped and now want to go after the teenager directly — but first they want the court to push Mom aside and appoint a legal guardian in this matter.

Pump and Dump report

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Fascinating site revealing what would have happened to your money if you’d followed those share tips that come in spam email messages. I don’t have to tell you the outcome, do I?

I thought that I would realize temporary windfalls on all penny stocks, but then see big losses. Instead almost ALL of those stocks I added went up a few cents max, then dropped like flies the next day. So much for short term gains.

Official: most recordings not available

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From a fascinating report by the US Council on Library and Information resources. Here’s an excerpt from the summary:

Survey of Reissues of U.S. Recordings finds that most U.S. historical sound recordings have become virtually inaccessible—available neither commercially nor in the public domain. According to the report, the rights to 84 percent of historically significant recordings made in the United States between 1890 and 1964 are still owned by someone and are therefore protected by law. For most pre-1972 recordings, protection comes in the form of state, not federal, law until 2067. Because recordings cannot be copied and distributed without permission of their rights holders, the only legal way to obtain a CD of a pre-1972 recording is through a reissue. Yet the study found that rights holders have reissued—or allowed others to reissue—on CD only 14 percent of the pre-1965 recordings they control. Thus, most historically important sound recordings are available for hearing only through private collectors or at research libraries that collect our audio heritage and have the equipment to play obsolete, often-frail recordings.

And the significance of this? Simple: it provides evidence for the claim that the current ‘strong’ copyright regime keeps a large proportion of creative works inaccessible.

Something’s up

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Sun Microsystems has announced a link-up with Google.

What’s going to come from this?

Nobody knows — yet. But here’s a quote from the Blog maintained by Sun’s President, Jonathan Schwartz:

Or finally, as I did last week at a keynote, ask the audience which they’d rather give up – their browser, or all the rest of their desktop apps. (Unanimously, they’d all give up the latter without a blink.) All these trends show a slowing upgrade appetite calling into question the power of traditional distribution. In stark contrast to the value of volume, community and participation.

Now, I have been nothing if not tediously repetitive in stating my belief that volume begets value – best demonstrated by the rise of the free software movement (whose volume is derived from its price, its value from innovation, in all forms). The cost of reaching customers, traditionally the most expensive part of building a business, has largely been eliminated – resulting in massive, global participation. Value’s literally everywhere the network travels, on every device it touches (and it’s subsidizing some very interesting ideas.)

But value is returning to the desktop applications, and not simply through Windows Vista. But in the form of applications that are network service platforms. From the obvious, to music sharing clients and development tools, there’s a resurgence of interest in resident software that executes on your desktop, yet connects to network services. Without a browser. Like Skype. Or QNext. Or Google Earth. And Java? OpenOffice and StarOffice?

If I were a betting man, I’d bet the world was about to change. And that what just happened in Massachusetts, when a state government made what was to me a very rational statement – we will pick an open standard to protect the right of our citizens to access data and services; we will then buy from vendors that support standards – will be a shot heard ’round the world.

What will they produce? Here’s John Paczkowski’s guess:

If Sun and Google do uncrate an office productivity solution — say a Sun Ray ultra-thin client optimized to run “Google Office” — that shot will definitely be heard up in Redmond, along with a lot of expletives and an anguished scream or two. Because if anyone can shift personal computing out of Microsoft’s domain and into the open, it’s Google.

Interesting times. Watch this space.

On this day…

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… in 1957, the Soviet Union launched Sputnik, the first artificial satellite, and in doing so set in motion a chain of events which eventually led to the Internet (because it spurred the US government into setting up ARPA). See here and here for the gory details. Sputnik weighed 184 pounds. It was 23 inches in diameter and was made from steel.

I was 11 at the time, living in Kerry, and I remember the day vividly. I spent the evening glued to the radio listening to recordings of the satellite’s strange, disembodied beeps from the Jodrell Bank radio observatory and from amateur radio operators. (Later, we learned that the Russian designers originally wanted the device to broadcast a message in morse code, but weight limitations precluded all but the most elementary oscillator.) The signal continued until the transmitter batteries ran out on October 26.

I also remember feeling frustrated by cloud cover which prevented us from scanning the night sky.

Babies and restaurants

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A re-run of a lovely Dave Barry column…

If you’re a new parent, there will come a time when either you or your spouse will say these words:

”Let’s take the baby to a restaurant!”

Now, to a normal, sane person, this statement is absurd. It’s like saying: ”Let’s take a moose to the opera!”

But neither you nor your spouse will see anything inappropriate about the idea of taking your baby to a restaurant. This is because, as new parents, you are experiencing a magical period of wonder, joy and possibility that has made you really stupid.

You are not alone: All new parents undergo a sharp drop in intelligence. It’s nature’s way of enabling them to form an emotional bond with a tiny human who relates with other humans exclusively by spitting up on them. Even very smart parents are affected, as we see from these two quotations:

Albert Einstein Shortly Before The Birth Of His Son: ”To know that what is impenetrable to us really exists, manifesting itself as the highest wisdom and the most radiant beauty, which our dull faculties can comprehend only in their most primitive forms — this knowledge, this feeling, is at the center of true religiousness.”

Albert Einstein Shortly After The Birth Of His Son: ”Daddy’s gonna EAT THESE WIDDLE TOES!”

Lots more where that came from. Go to it.

That Louisiana purchase

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A satirical posting circulating on the Net…

BATON ROUGE, LA. – The White House announced today that President Bush has successfully sold the state of Louisiana back to the French at more than double its original selling price of $11,250,000.

“This is a bold step forward for America,” said Bush. “And America will be stronger and better as a result. I stand here today in unity with French President Jack Chirac, who was so kind to accept my offer of Louisiana in exchange for 25 million dollars cash.”

The state, ravaged by Hurricane Katrina, will cost hundreds of billions of dollars to rebuild.

“Jack understands full well that this one’s a ‘fixer upper,'” said Bush. “He and the French people are quite prepared to pump out all that water, and make Louisiana a decent place to live again. And they’ve got a lot of work to do. But Jack’s assured me, if it’s not right, they’re going to fix it.”

The move has been met with incredulity from the beleaguered residents of Louisiana.

However, President Bush’s decision has been widely lauded by Republicans.

“This is an unexpected but brilliant move by the President,” said Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist. “Instead of spending billions and billions, and billions of dollars rebuilding the state of Louisiana, we’ve just made 25 million dollars in pure profit.”

“This is indeed a smart move,” commented Fox News analyst Brit Hume. “Not only have we stopped the flooding in our own budget, we’ve made money on the deal.”

The money gained from ‘The Louisiana Refund’ is expected to be immediately pumped into the rebuilding of Iraq.

Footnote: The original Louisiana Purchase (in 1803) involved far more territory than the state of Louisiana. Indeed, according to Wikipedia,

the lands purchased contained parts or all of present-day Arkansas, Missouri, Iowa, Minnesota west of the Mississippi River, North Dakota, South Dakota, Nebraska, New Mexico, northern Texas, Oklahoma, Kansas, the portions of Montana, Wyoming, and Colorado east of the Rocky Mountains, the portions of southern Manitoba, southern Saskatchewan and southern Alberta that drain into the Missouri River, and Louisiana on both sides of the Mississippi River including the city of New Orleans.

In fact, the land included in the Purchase comprises over one-quarter of the territory of the modern continental United States. And all for $3 per square mile!