Earlier this week, Tech Vibes reported that as worldwide Twitter subscribership crossed the half-billion mark, Canadian accounts were shown to account for 2% of that total, placing Canada at 8^th spot among all countries in total Twitter subscriber numbers. Canadians, of course, were also among the early adopters of Facebook and routinely top the rankings of ComScore and similar reports for such things as time spent online, so our collective Twitter presence is not actually all that surprising.

The surprise comes courtesy of some recently completed but not-yet-released research conducted by CanLII. Over a 6 week period in . . . [more]

Going by a variety of local names — British Columbia Day, Saskatchewan Day, Simcoe Day — the first Monday in August is a holiday in most of Canada. Folks in Quebec and Newfoundland & Labrador don’t get a break, alas. And in Ontario, where I am, this isn’t a statutory holiday but, rather, a “civic holiday” that is up to municipalities to declare, seemingly all of which have done just that.

This is by way of saying that posting will be light today on Slaw. See you tomorrow, when regularly scheduled programming resumes. . . . [more]

Everyone loves a good story. Numerous studies show that people are more likely to learn and retain information told in the format of a story, probably a vestige from the primary means of relaying information through most of human history.

So what about the story describing the imminent doom of the legal profession as we know it? Mitch Kowalski, who joined the Slaw team this year, just released a book this year which tells this tall tale.

Avoiding Extinction: Reimagining Legal Services for the 21st Century relates a fictitious account of an innovative and visionary law firm, Bowen, Fang . . . [more]

From 3D-printed guns to hacking DNA for assasination via targeted synthetic pathogens, Marc Goodman is capable of throwing a scare into you. Is he a little short on solutions? Well, that would be telling. See his presentation at TED, and a followup interview. Also see his website for more. . . . [more]

A few weeks I posted the 1959 vision of the Law Library of the Future, that got my gears turning and I undertook a visioning exercise the result of which I present now, The 2012 Law Library of the Future: To-Day! . . . [more]

Online users who want a certain amount of anonymity will want to stay off Quora. Their new Views feature is set to track which users have looked at your posts. Some good coverage on the subject via Gigaom.

This type of insider knowledge has always been a bit of a balancing act. On one side, this information is incredibly valuable to the websites that collect it. Heck, it’s a core element of Linkedin’s paid account service — seeing who’s viewed your profile over the last X number of days. As a user, my interests are divided. It both . . . [more]

You’re off for a week’s holiday to Halifax. You’re on a five-day business trip to Vancouver, L.A., and then Chicago. You’re headed to Rio on the spur of the moment and a last-minute cheapo ticket. And so you’ve got to pack some . . . stuff: clothes, shoes, reading matter, a discreet pharmacopeia, tablet computer with associated wires and adapters, and then that small collection of odd things such as your eye mask, your alarm clock, your hotel door stopper . . . . The mound grows. And the question presents itself: what do you pack it into?

Carry-on is . . . [more]

This is a post in a series appearing each Friday, setting out some articles, videos, podcasts and the like that contributors at Slaw are enjoying and that you might find interesting. The articles tend to be longer than blog posts and shorter than books, just right for that stolen half hour on the weekend. It’s also likely that most of them won’t be about law — just right for etc.

Please let us have your recommendations for what we and our readers might like.

. . . [more]

I am a big believer in lawn chair thinking. The expansive, blue sky imagining that can take place on summer holiday sitting by the lake, by the pool, or simply somewhere nice. For a moment a space is opened up in life and there is time to contemplate.

I also greatly appreciate the thinking that takes place under the conscious surface of the mind when we are otherwise occupied with other tasks and which announces itself with a “eureka” splash and at other times with a gentle slide into awareness “ahh”.

Margaret Wheatley, a leading writer and thinker about . . . [more]

The July 2012 issue of Connected is available online.

The bulletin covers news about the impact of new social media such as Twitter and Facebook on court proceedings, the ethical implications of judges and court staff using new media, and court policy issues relating to these technologies.

It is published by the Virginia-based National Center for State Courts and the Conference of Court Public Information Officers.

Most of the stories are about the United States, but there is occasionally material about non-US matters. One of this month’s items is about a mistrial declared in a New Brunswick murder case because . . . [more]

As we legal writers drag ourselves through the dog days of summer, we sometimes hit lulls in finding topics of interest. Lucky for me the United Kingdom continues to provide fodder for those exhorting North Americans to change the way legal services are delivered. And I count myself fortunate to have been able to connect with a number of players who are truly shaking up the legal services industry across the Atlantic.

While the spotlight on innovation is focussed primarily on the private sector, one municipal in-house legal team is starting to cause a sensation.

Geoff Wild has written a . . . [more]

A recent Ontario Court of Justice decision has declared that briefly handling your cellphone while behind the wheel should not get you a ticket under Ontario's Highway Traffic Act distracted driving provisions.