As winter sets in, all grey and grim, it’s natural, I think, to find your thoughts wandering to warmer climes, or, if you’re nostalgic, warmer times. Well say no more. Today’s fillip does the work for you, taking you to a place (very) long ago and (very) far away.

The place: the Ténéré desert in what is now Niger. The time: oh, about 9,000 years ago.

And the way there (and thence) is photographs. Photographer Mike Hettwer went with an archeological expedition to Gobero, where once the Sahara was wet and hippos roamed the mud. They uncovered evidence not . . . [more]

If you’re ever in danger of thinking that you’re a gadget freak who’s gone a phone too far, console and correct yourself by looking closely at Stephen Fry. This renaissance eccentric, one of my faves, is so deeply into the tech of it all that you’ll wonder how he finds any time at all for his acting, writing and film-making. His latest blog post, Gee, One Bold Storm coming up…, is a long, long lovely ramble about the stuff he’s taken with him to New York (it’s his desk you see above), where he is for the next few . . . [more]

There are such things — that is, lawyers who don’t use BlackBerrys but, rather, Apple’s iPhone. As proof of this I offer iPhone J.D., a blog by such a lawyer, located in New Orleans. For most of you, this site will be a curiosity, but for some (?) it will help you find those apps that make your practising life easier and more efficient.

Since I started using Macs some years ago now, I’ve watched Apple grow and begin to challenge PCs in various environments — I’d hazard that at least 1/3 of laptops in a law school classroom . . . [more]

Dan’s 10 essential technology skills and practices contains some good tips (although I must admit I’m not good with keyboard shortcuts – I think more graphically and tend to use the mouse).

I have a couple more to add.

When creating Word documents don’t use the “enter” key to create spaces between paragraphs. The right way is to use the paragraph settings to set the “before and after” spacing. Otherwise, you can’t make efficient use of things like paragraph numbering or bullets. And by using the “before and after” setting, you can often easily adjust the length of a document . . . [more]

♬ Singing power to the people
Power to the people
Power to the people
Power to the people, right on.. ♬

Written and recorded by John Lennon.

The Toronto Star reported today on how Premier Dalton McGuinty backed down on a proposed regulation that would have prohibited teen drivers 16-19 years old with a G2 licence from having more than one other teen passenger in their vehicle in Ontario.

“Transportation Minister Jim Bradley said the 150,000 people who had joined a Facebook protest against the teen driving restrictions clearly had an impact on the government’s thinking, as did people . . . [more]

Forty years ago today, yes December 9, 1968, the first prototype mouse was unveiled in a presentation by Stanford Research Institute engineer Douglas Engelbart. Made of wood with only one button. The mouse is likely older than many of Slaw’s readers.

Here is a BBC clip telling the story, and a Wired tribute.

Another time entirely. This was life before long-distance direct telephone dialling, before the photocopier, and while Colin Tapper at Magdalen was talking about computers and the law, it was all considered data-processing or cybernetics.

Law School was much as it would have been fifty years earlier. . . . [more]

The current newsletter from my office:

Vol. 12, No. 7, December 5, 2008
ISSN 1489-954X

contents:

1.Studies, Legislation and Conventions:

Canadian Government Commitment to Copyright Reform
World Blind Union Proposes WIPO Treaty
WIPO Deadlocked on Traditional Knowledge Treaty

 2.Legal Cases:

Harvard Professor Challenges Copyright Law
Judge Approves Google Book Agreement

3.Of Interest:

MySpace Allows Copyright-Protected Videos, With Advertisements

4.Seminars and Publications:

E-Tutorial Copyright Courses
Certificate in Copyright Management
The Copyright & New Media Law Newsletter . . . [more]

Just released over on the Clawbies website, I’ve posted about the 2008 Canadian Law Blog Awards which are once again set to be announced on New Year’s Eve. But more important, I’d like to highlight something about this year’s edition… our two new methods for blog nomination!

Rather than voting like the ABA, I wanted Canadian legal bloggers & blog readers to have a hand in the process. So we’ve added both a nomination by email process, and much more interesting, added a nomination by blog post option… with a twist! Please, go check out nomination method #2 . . . [more]

The United Nations Committee on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights created a mechanism in 2006 to review the state of human rights in member countries. Canada’s turn comes up in 2009. The first step in the process is a self-evaluation by the target country. Canada submitted its report in September, and has made the submission publicly available here.

I’ve had only a brief look so far, but the report looks very interesting. The first bit provides insight into what programs/legislation/processes are in place to create a society which meets the goals of the UN. The second part provides a . . . [more]

What colour is that noise?

No, this isn’t about synesthesia, that cross-over effect in the senses where letters in the alphabet can have colours and sounds can smell — if you’re like Nabokov or Duke Ellington or Ludwig Wittgenstein. (Okay, okay: no one is like Ludwig Wittgenstein.)

It’s about noise, pure and not-so-simple, noise without tune or harmony but noise blended in just a certain way.

Let’s start with white noise. Most people have heard of white noise and may even have used it to block out other and distracting sounds. Turns out, though, that white noise . . . [more]

This from our Slaw friend Jim Milles… It seems that a new study from comScore is showing Canada as the number one nation in the world in Social Networking adoption.

Here’s a screen capture of the chart:

. . . [more]

Librarians often debate the prices of law books, wondering why pricing soars beyond normal trade publishing prices. The suspicion is that editorial and marketing costs are not higher than trade costs. Of course one factor is the small size of print runs. Canadian publishers faced with demand for an out of print book (like Bill Estey’s Legal Opinions in Commercial Transactions) will often print just a couple of hundred copies.

Now we’ve actual evidence of a major legal publisher going for print on demand. The costs are, of course, high in relation to page count.

OUP have recently re-issued, . . . [more]