Today I offer simply a video that is one of the quickest 4 minutes and 48 seconds you’ll likely experience. Statistician Hans Rosing, whom we’ve talked about before on Slaw, takes 200 countries on a dynamic and audacious gallop across 200 years, to show us how the world’s health and wealth have changed. He is, as usual, engaging, enthusiastic, and informative. And I really like his accent.

Watch it below, or on YouTube in somewhat less constrained dimensions.

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Some people like bees, some people don’t. I’m in the former camp. Don’t know why. I just find them, their industry, colour, smarts, appealing. (Wasps and hornets are another matter: see Wikipedia to learn how to differentiate them from bees.) And of the bees, I’m partial to the big fuzzy bumblebees.

What got me musing about bees in mid-winter was an article in the Guardian recently that talked about an alarming 96% drop in the numbers of four bumblebee species in the U.S. Like their honey bee cousins, Bombus — the genus name means “booming” in Latin — is a . . . [more]

I recently read that the publisher of Mark Twain’s books Adventures of Huckleberry Finn and Tom Sawyer will release a new combined edition of the books that will replace the word “nigger” with the word “slave” in an effort not to offend readers. The new versions without the “N” word are scheduled to be published in February 2010.

In updating my law-related movies page last night for movies from 2010 for my legal research and writing website, I was only able to come up with the following 4 movies but wonder if I am missing any (and arguably True Grit is on the periphery of being a law-related movie but it was so good that it was hard to resist including it). Thoughts?

The Conspirator (2010). Directed by Robert Redford and starring James McAvoy, Robin Wright, Kevin Kline, Evan Rachel Wood and Tom Wilkinson. James McAvoy plays the young lawyer assigned to defend Mary Surratt (played by

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(Having allowed Simon F. the honour of the first 2011 post, not the least in recognition of all that he and the rest of the Slaw administration do to keep this place going. I trust that I am not presumptuous in thanking all of you, again.)

This isn’t quite a new year’s resolution but it will do.

Let’s hope that common sense (whatever it means) prevails this year.

Let’s hope that public (political, judicial, and other) and private reference to decisions supported by, or required by, common sense aren’t calls to the seeming authority of common sense because the conclusion . . . [more]

It’s a Sunday and the new year by a day, now, and the days have already been getting longer for nearly two weeks. Which not only pleases me but had me musing about time — clock time, that is. I wandered over to the National Research Council site only to find it was offline (the end of time?), except for its Java Clock, that told me my computer’s clock was wrong by -0.023 seconds. So over to the US Naval Observatory for some data as to the times for rising and setting of the sun. (Rise at 7.51 and . . . [more]

There is a wonderful spin-off magazine from the Economist called More Intelligent Life.

Like most other magazines, it does a year-end review of the best books of 2010.

But someone at the magazine didn’t quite check the clipart that accompanies that page:

Who actually thought that the Pacific Reporter was worth a plug? And thought that caselaw might be enhanced by snow?

Happy New Year – and a Guid Hogmanay. . . . [more]

Listen up.

This fillip’s about soundscapes. We’re all pretty familiar with those recordings of thunderstorms or surf or canoeing up a river, the ones that help us relax and, often, sleep. Strangely to some, there are city sounds that people enjoy as well, sounds for those who use their ears that are as characteristic of their burg as shots of the skyline. So think about the city sounds you like as you peruse the unorchestrated urban sonatas that follow here.

First is London, where the Favourite Sounds project seems to have had its greatest success. You’re probably best off . . . [more]

My mother used to say something to the effect that “gentlefolk do not read each others’ mail.” Of course, she didn’t reckon with spies or spouses in distress. It comes as no surprise to me, a one-time family law prof, that, as the Huffington Post reported yesterday, a Michigan man at odds with his wife got hold of her password and read her emails in order to confirm her affair. Very much a “dog bites man” story, you’d think.

Not so, apparently — thanks to prosecutor Jessica Cooper, who has charged the husband with “felony computer misuse,” which has a . . . [more]

You may have seen the recent Wall Street Journal article on the privacy implications of certain iPhone, iPod Touch and Android apps that disclose information to advertising networks without the explicit knowledge of the user. It didn’t take long, but now a class action lawsuit filed in California against Apple for allowing this to happen. See: Apple sued over privacy in iPhone, iPad apps | Apple – CNET News.

I think that this lawsuit is directed at the wrong party (Apple Computer Inc.) and, if it is at all successful, will be harmful to the internet.

This is similar . . . [more]

Another story of students’ use of cellphones to cheat has hit the news. The authorities in this case, the state of Mississippi, turned to technology for a solution, but not in the way you might think. They engaged a company that analyzes test results to find commonalities in mistakes that, according to the inventor, mark the students as cheaters. Apparently, cheating has declined considerably since the introduction of this tech-check (though how the state could know that through independent methods is unclear).

The old academic in me loathes cheating, so I would, at first blush, simply jam all cell . . . [more]

Okay a seasonal quiz question – in which work of art do a law library and a complex question of estate litigation feature prominently?

Okay – a big hint. It’s opera. . . . [more]