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.

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 Matt Ridley wrote a book titled The Rational Optimist that was published in 2010.

Ridley is an English journalist with an education in science. In his book he is concerned with the origins of the prosperity that exists in the world, arguing that the road to prosperity began with exchanges that resulted in a benefit to both parties, including barter, a method of exchange that can be done without money. In many exchanges both parties may feel that the other is overpaying. Over time increases in exchanges resulted in specialization followed by innovation. Ridley states that the ever-increasing exchange of . . . [more]

Parliamentary websites are too often overlooked as sources for legal research. And that’s a shame because the best ones tend to offer access to an amazingly broad range of material.

The new website of the Australian Parliament, launched last week, is a case in point. There is a ton of stuff there. Most interesting, from my researcher point of view, are the research publications written by the Parliamentary Library, the bill digests (summaries) and the committee pages.

The Library of Congress blog, In Custodia Legis, has a description and evaluation of many of the site’s new features. . . . [more]

Lots of money and legions of online followers can generate a lot of successful business models. Ask our friends at Google, who have delved into everything from search, to email hosting, browser software, OS developer, and mobile hardware building. Google has applied their infrastructure to a lot of different businesses, and frequently finds success.

Having a person on the other end of the phone to solve problems? Unfortunately, that is not part of the Google toolbox. And when it works, few of us are likely to complain. We respect the idea of thoughtfully engineering activities to the point where human . . . [more]

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Site news for those who read Slaw only via RSS or email

1. Comment Watch:

In the last week there were 34 comments. You might be particularly interested in these:

• The erudite comment by John Davis on “The Friday Fillip: Time… and Time Again”
• the comments elaborating on Adam Dodek’s post, “Reform-Minded BC Ready to Tackle Sacred Cows of Justice System”
• Nate Russell’s comment with the link to an XLS file of all the tweets involved in the recent Twitter moot introduced in Dave Bilinsky’s post, “First Ever Twitter Moot: #Twtmoot”.

You can subscribe to the comments on Slaw either . . . [more]

It hasn’t taken long for a court to apply the new tort of invasion of seclusion first recognized by the Ontario Court of Appeal in Jones v. Tsige January. While not providing a great deal of added nuance, the Small Claims Court’s decision in Connolly v. Telus Communications Co., [2012] O.J. No. 464, does provide some new insights. While providing little new insight into the substance of this new tort, the case is somewhat remarkable for its very subject matter.

First, it involves a lawsuit by an aggrieved Telus customer sued his mobile service provider over its perceived mishandling . . . [more]

On February 17, 2012, the highest court in Canada disagreed with Quebec parents and dismissed their case. Writing for the majority, Justice Marie Deschamps said the parents failed to show that the Ethics and Religious Culture (ERC) curriculum interfered with their ability to transmit their faith to their children stating:

Artists are cutting, burning, and hanging books to create “shaped prose”, landscapes, and faces. University of Iowa professor, Garrett Stewart, sees these book sculptures as symbols of “renewable intellectual energy.” The resulting art is pretty incredible, albeit bittersweet,and sometimes strangely beautiful (such as the Edinburgh paper sculptures). This “book tree” from a gallery in the Netherlands is a good example:

Give Law Books to Art

Law libraries in the Netherlands have also gotten into the act. Here is a sculpture created out of law books that have been written in, torn, or defaced in some way. Now, they . . . [more]

On average, the typical lawyer does not use cutting edge technology, and even if we do have the latest smartphone or tablet, we generally don’t push the envelope for its use. It is worthwhile though (at least for those of us who might be described as tech geeks) to think about how we might better use the tech we have now, and what might lie ahead. For example:

Microsoft announced in November a modified version of the Kinect that is designed to work with PC’s, rather than the XBox. So Minority Report like gesture control can now be used, for . . . [more]

Here are the three most-consulted English-language cases on CanLII for the week of February 14 – 21.

♨ 1. R. v. Smickle 2012 ONSC 602

[1] At just before 2:00 am on March 9, 2009, Leroy Smickle was engaged in a very foolish act. He was alone in the apartment of his cousin, Rojohn Brown, having elected (because he had to be at work in the morning) to stay in while his cousin went out to a club. Mr. Smickle was reclining on the sofa, wearing boxer shorts, a white tank top, and sunglasses. Thus clad, he was in the

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A senior commercial litigator who had just completed five days of civil mediation training in BC commented: “That didn’t look at all like what I have experienced in mediation!”

With a little probing, he expanded on the disconnect that he experienced as follows:

Attribute Training Model Commercial Mediation Model Mediator selection Process expertise Subject matter expertise Pre-mediation preparation Detailed separate meetings between mediator and each party and counsel, if any, to discuss underlying interests, goals Little or no interaction with the mediator prior to mediation. Possibly some exchange of mediation briefs (similar to court submissions) Mediation Emphasis on joint meetings . . . [more]