Though not the worst of its kind, this “signed post” is a visual equivalent of certain portions of the Income Tax Act. On a Friday morning at 8 a.m. with a couple of kids in the car and only two spots to choose from…

Yet signs like thse are the only way to go if you have to have microscopically small jurisdictions. Most of that spot legislating happens in neighbourhoods and on roads. The Ontario government, like the rest, I assume, puts the drivers’ handbook on line, with its pages on road signs. Like an Interpretation Act, the page on . . . [more]

“Rabbit Stole the Pumpkin“, “ Les Flammes d’Enfer“, “Sulphur Breakdown” … just three of dozens of songs on Cajun Music, tunes from the 20’s, 30’s and more recent times, all free to download in mp3 format.

Get back in touch with those Canadiens errants, kick out the jams, and laissez les bons temps rouler. . . . [more]

Words, words, words. Where would we be without them. #+)&%~! — that’s where. And we’d all be out of jobs.

But since we do ‘ave ’em, I’ve got a pair of places to point you to today that ought to offer hours of lexical — the other ‘lex’ that is — edification and amusement.

First up is WordNet. The official word from the site is that:

WordNet® is an online lexical reference system whose design is inspired by current psycholinguistic theories of human lexical memory. English nouns, verbs, adjectives and adverbs are organized into synonym sets, each representing one

I’ve recently finished working on part of a website that makes use of icons to symbolize certain concepts — pretty stock stuff on the web. Except that it isn’t easy to find appropriate symbols, at least those that can work as icons, for abstract notions or large social institutions (which may be the same thing, now that I come to think about it).

How do we symbolize law in a tiny picture? Court? A lawyer? For the last, the best I could do was draw a mini-person and hope that it was clear the person was a lawyer because of . . . [more]

In today’s Fillip temperament is key — a whole lot of keys, as it happens, because it’s about a site that does wonders with the already marvelous Well-Tempered Clavier by J.S. Bach. The site, also called the Well-Tempered Clavier, invites you to chose (from either a scrolling list of key signatures or a keyboard) one of the 24 keys you’d like to explore with Bach. When you click on the chosen key in the list, a small window pops up and the first few bars of the selected prelude and fugue start playing. In the upper right corner of . . . [more]

The Friday Fillip arrives a little early today, but it’s a holiday weekend and there may not be much posting to cap. (This weekend is Easter, Passover, Baisakhi, and only one week off Mawlid al-Nabi, Mohammed’s birthday, and three weeks off the birthday of the Buddha.)

So all of this calendaring, lunar and solar, got me thinking of time.

Charlotte van der Waals has designed a marvelously simple 12-sided clock. The concept is brilliant: no numerals on the face; turn one facet uppermost depending on what city/locale you want to know the time in; the top is noon and midnight, . . . [more]

This week’s fillip is a hoot — literally. The buzz is all about Sounddogs.com, where you’ll find a wonderful selection of sound effects ranging from 3 second pops to long clips of a crowd in a food mall, all of which can be sampled and then purchased if you wish. (Think of the possibilities — podcasting about Quicklaw with thunder and lighting in the background…). When you go to Sounddogs.com, you’re presented with subsets of the “earthquake” category; when the earth’s moved enough for you, use the menu to explore the vast reaches of “sound effects.” Perhaps one . . . [more]

As befits a Friday Fillip, this one has the merest connection to the law, let alone to legal research — though somewhat more to IT. The connection is the voice. Law is/was an oral discipline in part and this is all about the marvel of the human voice.

It’s a Honda ad, in which a choir impersonates a car, so to speak. No trivial “zoom-zoom” here. Here we have the full experience. You go to http://www.honda.co.uk The intro – Discover the New Honda – starts you off, but then you find yourself in a garage. When you get there, click . . . [more]

Courtesy of chaos kitty’s WebZen site, have a gander at the Google Image Quiz, which will doubtless amuse many Slaw readers.

. . . [more]

What with maps of Mars and maps of parades, there’s hardly any need for a Friday Fillip.

But I’m going for something a bit more down-to-earth than Mars and more colourful even than Irish green: the early crocus, a.k.a. Crocus imperati Ten. Spring will soon be here (folks in the far, far, far West will please put their hands down) and when that particular member of the Iridaceae family graces lawns and flower beds, we know we can start to unclench. We also know that other members of the Liliales order will follow in quick succession, until even the chillier . . . [more]