A wit once said that the UK and the US are two countries separated by a common tongue. That comment is equally applicable to aspects of the legal system shared by the US, the UK and Canada. 

What’s below is an example of why it isn’t safe to blithely assume the seemingly similar is similar.

Can anyone imagine untenured Canadian legal academics undertaking a study whose question is: why do motion and trial judges write judgments? Can we assume that admitting that that is what they were working on wouldn’t advance tenure prospects? If they mentioned that to the Dean, . . . [more]

Yesterday at its annual conference, Internet2 announced Internet data transfer speed records had been broken in December. From the article Researchers Break Internet Speed Records at SFGate.com by AP Internet Writer Anick Jesdanun:

A group of researchers led by the University of Tokyo has broken Internet speed records — twice in two days. Operators of the high-speed Internet2 network announced Tuesday that the researchers on Dec. 30 sent data at 7.67 gigabits per second, using standard communications protocols.

The next day, using modified protocols, the team broke the record again by sending data over the same 20,000-mile path at 9.08

Given the discussion in the Globe and Mail and in Parliament about the Canadian-Afghan arrangment for the transfer of prisoners taken by Canadian troops, I thought readers might be interested in the governing document itself. The Arrangement for the Transfer of Detainees Between the Canadian Forces and the Ministry of Defence of the Islamic Republic of Afghanistan, between the Canadian Forces and the Minister of Defence of Afghanistan can be found on the website of the Department of National Defence. Perhaps ominously it has thirteen points. . . . [more]

The Library of Congress launched its blog this morning. See: Library of Congress Blog. . . . [more]

I’ve stumbled across what seems to be the continuation of an old feature? bug? in the accuracy of the print out-put when printing the html copy from the web. I’ve seen it once. I haven’t tested it on other cases on the SCC site.

It’s the old problem of printing html documents with the print job not corresponding to what was on the screen. 

It’s the problem of indentations in the text, as it appears on the screen – markng quotations rather than using quote marks – vanishing when the job is printed, so one loses track of what was . . . [more]

It is posted! Blawg Review #105 is now available over at my blog. I wish I had time to add in some pretty visuals to help break it up, but it was already a monumental task: . . . [more]

Sandra Gelsing’s blawg, Now, Why Didn’t I Think of That, has a piece on the tussle between the Canadian Olympic Committee and CAN FUND, a charity raising funds for Olympic athletes. Apparently, the COC claimed a trade mark right to the expressions “See you in Vancouver,” “See you in Torino,” and “See you in Beijing,” all of which CAN FUND felt it owned. The COC played the “public authority” card from s. 9 (“prohibited marks”) of the Trade-marks Act which says,

9. (1) No person shall adopt in connection with a business, as a trade-mark or otherwise, any mark

Since Earth Day falls on a Sunday this year, some Slawyers might not have noticed the Google “holiday” logo:

Kind of courageous to show your company logo in the process of deterioration. . . . [more]

I am proud to be hosting the Blawg Review on my personal blog this coming Monday, April 23rd. Blawg Review has more information, including instructions on how to get your blawg posts reviewed in this upcoming issue.

I have had a few submissions already. Please keep them coming!!! Deadline is tonight at 11:59 Pacific Time. You do need to submit as per the submissions guidelines.

I was selected to host by Ed. in honour of World Book and Copyright Day. So, anything related to this subject particularly welcome.

Cheers,
Connie . . . [more]

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I attended Computers in Libraries for the first time this week. It was a much larger conference than I expected (2600+), and had a lot more celebrity librarians (yes, there are several) than I expected. I was privileged to meet a number of people whose blogs, papers and tweets I have been following for a while.

The lessons are still sinking in. I came away feeling we have done a good job keeping ahead of the curve here at Slaw in our understanding of new social networking media. The focus at this conference was very much Web 2.0/Library 2.0 (for . . . [more]

Behold, a woman of letters:

Thanks to ASCII-O-Matic, you can take a photo (dimensions 60 pixels wide and 50 pixels high; jpeg format) and have it converted into an image formed of ASCII characters. The thing will even kick out an HTML file that, when you use “view source,” shows you every cell in the table and all of the formatting — if that’s your sort of thing.

In case you think that Slawyer Connie Crosby would look better pixelated done in squares, I’ve caused ASCII-O-Matic to create a version in that form too. The thumbnail here is linked . . . [more]