The Financial Post shared that Ford is planning to enable many of its new vehicles with web browsing capability. Oh, and a bunch of Touch like tools as well. There is a nod to safety:

The automaker also is incorporating the Twitter social network’s Open Beak application into Sync and is adding Pandora and Stitcher Internet radio and MapQuest.com’s online mapping information. Ford developed its own Web browser, which can be operated only while the car is parked, Mr. Kuzak said.

(emphasis mine)

The US Transportation Secretary is quoted in the article:

Transportation Secretary Ray LaHood testified Oct.

News that author & professional services consultant David Maister is retiring likely doesn’t shock many of us here at Slaw. It seems, however, that this is a moment for reflection.

David’s writing has influenced so many in this industry, including the group of bloggers here at Slaw. The fact that we’ve referenced his name 26 times over our short life certainly says something. I also know few managing partners that haven’t invested their time to read David’s body of work.

For myself, I distinctly remember reading David’s Managing the Professional Service Firm soon after I started working for law firms . . . [more]

The interesting blog, Computational Legal Studies, has a recent post on Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab’s posts to the Islamic forum, Gawaher. (Abdulmutallab is the person who tried to blow up a plane on Christmas day.) All of his 310 posts have been downloaded by NEFA, which has made them available online in a zip file. (I have no idea what NEFA stands for and I’ve been unable to find out. There’s a… creepy element to this “anti-terrorism” site, though, I have to say.)

Some very basic analysis of the content of the posts has been done at . . . [more]

Title etiology: I took a week off Slaw posting while on vacation, “This Fortnight’s Biotech Highlights” sounds lame, and I saw Avatar*, so I thought “go big, or go home.” Voilà. Plus, it was a week of retrospection at The Cross-Border Biotech Blog. So, if your New Year’s resolution is “learn more about biotech,” here’s the place to start:

Several trends were key to business planning in biotech in 2009, but four stood out as the highlights because of reader interest and news volume: follow-on biologics; comparative effectiveness and personalized medicine; shifting IP constituencies and electronic . . . [more]

I know it’s a long way till Friday, but this gag deserves a Monday mini-fillip:

Google is honouring the birthdate of Isaac Newton today. They’ve got a special doodle for the purpose. Give yourself a treat and go to the Google home page, and once there, roll the cursor over the doodle.

  . . . [more]

Back in November I wrote about the Holiday Law Firm Challenge for the Toronto Daily Bread Food Bank running from November 23 to December 11, 2009. The final tally is in!

According to Kristin Thomas, Development Officer at the Daily Bread:

…the law firm challenge raised $255,131.10 in food and funds for Daily Bread Food Bank. A big thank you goes out to Blakes for organizing the challenge.

The winner overall was Bennett Jones LLP, and the winner per capita was Paliare Roland Rosenberg Rothstein LLP.

Congratulations and thanks to all the firms who participated and firm members . . . [more]

I’m listening to Spark on CBC. Nora Young just wrapped an interview with Seth Godin. The main topic of discussion was Godin’s new e-book What Matters Now , and his forthcoming book-book Linchpin: Are you Indispensable?

What Matters Now is an interesting call to action (or at least call to thought). In the interview, Godin explains his motive in giving information away through his blog and other free e-publishing projects. If you haven’t heard the interview, it’s well worth a listen.

At the end of the talk, Nora Young asked Godin for a “homework” assignment for listeners. I was . . . [more]

I am currently looking at a variety of e-book readers and may indulge in one in the near future. Perhaps similar to choosing countertops for our kitchen, no e-reader is perfect and offers all the features one may want. If you have selected one you love, please let me know. At the current time, I am using the Barnes & Nobles e-book software on my iphone and it’s pretty good, but the iphone screen is small for reading for a lengthy amount of time.
On a related point, I am interested in publishing an e-book. I would like to hear . . . [more]

Adding to the legion of penultimate year-or-the-decade “best of” lists, let’s do one for “favourite meda lines about lawyers”. The line doesn’t have to come from this decade, but you have to update the line (if neeed) to make it (more) apt to the decade. If you do change the line(s), provide the original for comparison.

I’ll start. From the original “Adam’s Rib” (1949) which just happens to also be about lawyers.

Lawyers should never have unprotected sex with other lawyers. This is called inbreeding, from which comes idiot children and more lawyers. Lawyers should marry piano players or song-writers

For those who don’t know of it, Arts & Letters Daily is an aggregator par excelllence for links to information and links of all kinds. Another is the Voice of the Shuttle. VoS describes itself as a “website for humanities research”.

At present, the first reference in the AL&D “Articles of Note” column is to a new article about the Peter Principle and studies that have been done since the book The Peter Principle: Why things always go wrong came out in 1969.

The A&LD summary, taken from the paragraph in the article under the heading “Pervasively inept” is:  . . . [more]

In an article published on Dec. 27/09, the culture critic for the Washington Post selected the structural (in my opinion) blight that that extends from the north side of the Royal Ontario Museum as his choice for the decade’s worst new building, or addition to an existing building, or remodelling of an existing building. There was just one nominee. . . . [more]

I trust that an appropriate Santa brought each and every one of you something suitable for the holiday season. Here’s a link to some music to help you celebrate the season: Tull’s Christmas Song. Just cover the kids’ ears until the introduction is over, lest you have to explain what he was talking about.

On the other hand, the family values crowd should note that Anderson was careful to refer to “casual” sex.

On a more adult note, a colleague alerted me to this mid 1960s treasure. It’s about 30 minutes long and well worth watching. Just don’t try . . . [more]