The Doc camera fund still could use your help. Look top right here, and donate while the donating's good.

The Christmas Eve edition of California's Daily Journal included a front-page story on how weblogs have offered commentary and counterpoint concerning the allegations against former Boalt Hall Dean, John Dwyer. I can't link you to the article (subscribers only, through DJC Law), but the blogs featured were Xrlq's Blog, Stefan Sharkansky's Shark Blog and Erin O'Connor's Critical Mass.

Jose Latour and his immigration law firm, Latour & Lleras, won one of the Inc. Magazine "Transformations" Web awards for the usvisanews.com site. Inc.'s article describes how the site has helped make the practice more manageable and more visible. (It doesn't discuss why Jose's Port Of Entry column isn't a blog.)

(Started to type "Federal Court Rules," but the alternative version's a marked improvement.) A colleague at the office recently sent two useful links my way. The first he dubbed "The Mother Of All Federal Courts Link Lists," and it rounds up links to the Web sites for every federal appellate and trial court in the U.S. The related map page also is nice. Then, just when I thought I'd had all the adreneline one day could contain, he sent me this search at LLRX, which yields 213 links to local rules of the U.S. federal courts. To paraphrase Jim Carrey, "Somebody stop him!"

Roger Winters, Electronic Court Records Manager for the King County Superior Court Clerk's Office (Seattle), writes the Electronic Court Records Blog. [via Rory Perry] In California, the Judicial Council's Reporting of the Record Task Force is busy examining, among other things, how best to produce a useful electronic record on appeal. Here's a related press release and the Task Force member roster.

Scientific American's Top Science Stories of the year somehow fails to make mention of waterproof Durabooks from Melcher Media (perfect for the bath). Wired News, though, takes the plunge.

I keep hearing around the edges that Justice Sandra Day O'Connor and Carly Fiorina are shortlisted as the possible first female members of Augusta National. [see, e.g., Sportspages.com and USA Today] USA Today's Augusta members list is here.

Larry Lessig discusses the "RSS/content puzzle" pertinent to Creative Commons licenses, as well as revocability.

Scoble cracks me up. So, for that matter, does Glenn Reynolds (in Tech Central Station: "... and the term 'correspondent' may go back to its original meaning of 'one who corresponds' rather than 'high-paid face with good hair.'") Speaking of which: Trifle Of Unusual Size (TOUS) Terrorizes UK...

"Just in time for the new year, we're pleased to announce the new Creative Commons Weblog and associated RSS feed." [via the Creative Commons Weblog]

Larry Staton, Jr. dedicates his blog to the public domain via Creative Commons (if memory serves, Larry used to use the Berkman Center's Counter-Copyright notice). The Berkman Center Commons highlights works by Berkman-associated folks that are licensed through Creative Commons. Berkman's OPENCODE -- House Of Licenses provides context.

Glenn Otis Brown (Executive Director, Creative Commons), to the Boston Globe: "If you're clever about how you leverage your rights, you can cash in on openness.'' More, in the article. Back on July 10 of this year, Glenn gave an informative talk at my firm about Creative Commons. I blogged it, if you are interested in taking a look. [Update:] On going back and re-reading my notes of Glenn's talk, I see I mentioned the fact that various of my colleagues at the firm volunteered to provide feedback on the licenses during the review process, and that I thought I would do that myself. As it turned out, I got busy with other matters and did not wind up participating in the comment process beyond some emailed questions which are mentioned in and linked from my notes of Glenn's presentation.

Any of the lawyers out there wondering in response to my last couple of posts whether the Creative Commons licenses have an integration clause, and what it might provide? They do; et viola:

This License constitutes the entire agreement between the parties with respect to the Work licensed here. There are no understandings, agreements or representations with respect to the Work not specified here. Licensor shall not be bound by any additional provisions that may appear in any communication from You [the licensee]. This License may not be modified without the mutual written agreement of the Licensor and You.

For the nonlawyers, this goes along with my thought that "invisible," or primarily/solely machine readable, information about a license probably would not play much (if any) role at present in an analysis of the license's formation. However, as a licensor I certainly would insist that any such information be consistent with my intent concerning the operation of the license. Even if the terms of the license might not be "modified" by the metadata or XML/RSS, it is not difficult to imagine a court considering the additional -- "parol," as we sometimes say in the lawgosphere -- information to help interpret a term of the license it might find ambiguous. (An ambiguity could arise about what "work" the license covers, for example.) Shelley Powers and Shawn Dodd posted some interesting related thoughts today.

Having now gone through the Creative Commons licensing process for Bag and Baggage, I'll share some thoughts with you I had along the way. This is far from advice (legal or otherwise), a call to arms, a benediction or anything even remotely resembling a jelly doughnut. It's what I decided would work best here given what Creative Commons is offering. The Background: Why do this at all? Creative Commons explains this nicely. A license permits you to express your intent not to have your work protected by the full range and scope of otherwise applicable copyright law. In the U.S., protection of copyrightable works is the default. One need not post a notice. One need not register (although doing so triggers additional rights and remedies not otherwise available). The law assumes, and thus anyone interested in using your works should also assume, that copyrightable works are protected unless you expressly state otherwise. (See generally chillingeffects.org's Copyright FAQ.) The License: I picked the "Attribution-NoDerivs-NonCommercial" flavor. In a nutshell this means anyone can copy, distribute and display whatever original works I may post here at Bag and Baggage (please do!), as long as I'm credited. Also, since I don't generate dime one off these posts, I'm not wild about others doing so without my express permission. Finally, I don't see any reason to expressly allow others to alter things I might post here without checking with me first; hence, "No Derivs." (Of course, as all Creative Commons licenses specify, the fair use doctrine -- more here -- still applies.) Licensing The Weblog: Here's where we begin to get into some of the implementation questions Dave and Shelley have been asking. Three things are worth highlighting:

The "Work." I intend the license to apply to the weblog and any specific item -- text, audio, video, image -- I might post here. To make this intent more clear, I revised the notice language generated by the Creative Commons chooser application. By default, the notice provided by Creative Commons says: "This work is licensed under a Creative Commons license." To better convey my intent that the "work" in question is everything I create and post here unless I say otherwise, my notice reads: "Unless otherwise expressly stated, all original material of whatever nature created by Denise M. Howell and included in this weblog and any related pages, including the weblog's archives, is licensed under a Creative Commons license." By these revisions, I mean to advise the world that I do not purport to license things appearing here that I did not create (the base HTML template, for example), and also to preserve for myself the right to differently license, or not to license, specific items or posts on a case-by-case basis (I can't really foresee wanting to do this, but it could happen).

The Metadata. I opted not to include "step 4 - work info," which adds more information about the work in the metadata. This was because the chooser application wanted me to specify whether the "work" I was licensing was text, an image, audio or video, and the metadata would have included that specific information. As I said yesterday, the metadata is not the license, it's informational. But likewise I don't want to provide confusing or inaccurate information. As mentioned above, I don't want to make this license that specific. I want it to apply by default to whatever I might post here unless I decide in the case of some particular item that a different, or no, license should apply. (I thought about changing the RDF code to say "any" where it would otherwise specify "text" or what have you, but figured I could be violating all kinds of standards and practices I might not even know about. Heaven forfend!) I see the metadata identifiers as being much more useful in the case of a discrete work such as an image, and I am sufficiently satisfied for the time being with other technologies that enable interested parties to find things here without it.

The XML/RSS. I think it would be useful and informative to give notice of my Creative Commons license(s) in my blog's RSS feed, but I have no control over the content of that feed. It's generated by Blogger, so until Ev thinks this is worth implementing, the notice at the bottom of this page is what I've got. Thoughts, anyone?

Matt Croydon writes: "I know that the Creative Commons licenses have all kinds of other implications, I just can't think of them right now." Here's one that seems pertinent as Creative Commons launches and people begin applying its licenses to their work: what suffices to establish a Creative Commons license that both parties (creator and user) can be reasonably comfortable will govern their activities?* Dave Winer gives the example of his picture of Shawn Fanning, and also now has deployed an RSS Module intended to convey information about applicable CC licensing in the XML version of a Web page. This begs the question: is it enough to have information about the license in the HTML, RSS/XML or metadata? (I.e., otherwise "invisible" when one is reading a Web page or other otherwise directly accessing a digital work?) Nope, I don't think so, and I don't think CC thinks so either. On the site, users are told that Web pages should incorporate specific HTML and RDF to "tag" the work as subject to a particular license. That code is designed to link the user back to the relevant CC Commons Deed and the actual license (the legalese) that the Commons Deed represents (click on the line "Legal Code (the full license)" in any Commons Deed to access). Apropos of Dave's Shawn Fanning photo example, users also are told that once a license has been chosen, "You should then include a Creative Commons 'Some Rights Reserved' button on your site, near your work. Help and tips on doing this are covered here. This button will link back to the Commons Deed, so that the world can be notified of the license terms. If you find that your license is being violated, you may have grounds to sue under copyright infringement." (Emphasis added.) This is all pretty apparently intended to strengthen the enforceability of the CC licenses. As stated in CC's FAQ, "We and our lawyers have worked hard to craft the licenses to be enforceable in as many jurisdictions as possible. That said, we can not account for every last nuance in the world's various copyright laws, at least not given our current resources." License information that is visibly and textually displayed on the site helps eliminate confusion and disagreement more effectively than something that lives exclusively in HTML or metadata. This point is bolstered by CC's explanation about why it offers a metadata component at all:

If you run a search engine, you might use license metadata to highlight public domain and generously-licensed works. If you write a public file sharing server, you might offer to search the user's hard drive for works that allow distribution. If you write a magazine, you might use a CC-enabled search engine to find pictures of candy bars that you can legally include. ... Of course, this metadata only provides a first approximation of the license, for information use. Users are encouraged to read the full license to make sure it meets their expectations. [Why We Have Creative Commons Metadata]

In other words, the metadata is informational. It helps with the location and dissemination of licensed works. It's several layers removed from the actual license. At some point, courts may be inclined to enforce a license that exists purely in machine readable form, or that is largely or completely invisible to a casual observer. We're probably a long way off from that day however, and it seems to me Creative Commons takes this into account by implementing a plan designed to include obvious visual and text cues in proximity to licensed works. *Here's another that Matt's page highlights: notwithstanding the intent of Creative Commons (at least for the time being) not to have its licenses apply to software (see Larry Lessig and the CC FAQ), this is happening anyway. I don't see a "no software" disclaimer in the licenses themselves -- a "work" is defined as "copyrightable work of authorship" -- and thus don't see why these could not form an enforceable software license (??). It would have to be free software, as the CC licenses aren't designed to help collect fees or royalties from use. [Update]: Woah. Seems folks much closer to this issue than I on the technical side also are intrigued.

Donna has two fantastic posts today rounding up DMCA exemption comments due to the U.S. Copyright Office by Wednesday's date (previously discussed here and here). She also points to Larry Lessig's interview about copyright issues with CNN and Business 2.0 columnist Eric Hellweg, as part of the promotion for SXSW Interactive. Says Larry: "We've got to develop a rich and serious alternative mode of addressing these issues that's sometimes outside of the control of existing media. Blogging is one of the most important opportunities we have for finding alternative channels to discuss these things. That's what I'd encourage most."

Ernie: "Early next year my firm will have a blog..."

"The object of art is to give the whole ad hominem; hence each step of nature hath its ideal, and hence the possibility of a climax up to the perfect form of a harmonized chaos." --Coleridge, On Poesy or Art Harmonized chaos it is over at Corante, as Ad Hominem joins its ranks of regular columns. Does this mean one legitimately can point to both RageBoy and Chris Locke without cognitive dissonance interjecting a neural blue screen of death? Regardless, Chris/RB gets a big "write on."

Anakin Skywalker switches to the Dark Side. [via The Screen Savers]

Geoffrey Nunberg:

[T]he media give a lot more attention to greed at some times than others, and particularly when the economy is tanking and everybody's looking for something to blame. When you chart the frequencies of greed and greedy in the press, they turn out to be an almost perfect trailing indicator for the stock market -- the worse the Dow is doing, the more the media start talking about greediness.

Full essay (A Good Old-Gentlemanly Vice) here, and on Fresh Air.

Check out Dave Sifry's new Technorati link sidebar: "I like going to my favorite news sources ... and when I find an interesting link, I paste it into the sidebar so that I can see what interesting conversations are going on about the article. ... It adds a metalayer to blogging."

Punk Rock Baby (home of punk tunes and others not generally nursery indigenous -- in lullaby form) emails news of its holiday festivities: "May the best little terror win."

Well, the title was for effect and unconfirmed, but there's no denying Santa's diet is on the protein rich side. [via Chuck]

Reenhead: "I do have a recurring dream, however, of going to graduation in a hot air balloon and throwing hornbooks down on the unsuspecting crowd. If I could bean just one Career Services employee with a copy of Prosser on Torts, the rich irony would sustain me through any subsequent jail term I might receive." Ah, like the corners of my mind...

As above, so below; no willful violation of the DMCA, says the ElcomSoft jury. [via Donna]

You no doubt have heard about the power woes we are experiencing in California due to the storm. Here in Newport? Our Christmas lights have shorted.

Prentiss Riddle has done me at least two favors: expanded what I know about Rice University beyond merely why it plays Texas, and pointed me toward Reenhead, a highly entertaining blog by a D.C. law student and friends. Also, there's an excellent "Learning The Craft" resource in the links from Liable: JD2B, a comprehensive "non-commercial coummunity for law school applicants, students and recent grads...established by an '02 grad of NYU School of Law."

Crazy day. (Any day you learn this beat this at the box office is crazy I suppose, not to mention that the full force of the storm finally has descended on Southern California and traffic stops here if someone so much as accidentally expectorates.) As is inevitable whenever I update the blawg roll, yet more updates immediately are in order. New Category. I'm pleased to usher in a new category here at B&B for legal bloggers who are not actually (or apparently) *in* the legal field, or who quite apparently *are* in the legal field but choose not to disclose precisely how. I'm calling it "Blawgers At Large," and its ranks now include J-Files, The Comedian, Sarah Lai Stirland [via the Blawg Ring], WierdOfTheNews [via the Blawg Ring] and The Fourteenth Circuit [via Howard Bashman]. As always, your input is most welcome. Steve Abreu, a 2L at Ohio State University, writes ZipSix. Lewis & Clark Law School student William writes Phact Pattern. [via Jack Bogdanski] "Feddie" is a federal judicial clerk with Southern Appeal. [via Howard Bashman] PAB is, well, a 3LinDC. [via Howard Bashman] I do so crave utter definitude! -- much as Don Quixote wished to kick some serious windmill hiney. Keep 'em coming, folks.

I have needed to update the blawg roll here for some time, and since Ernie did so much heavy lifting this week, now seemed like a particularly opportune juncture. ;-) A couple of observations before the linkfest begins. (1) Consider: in the span of oh, a little more than a year, the ranks of law bloggers have grown from a handful to numbers that begin to suggest something like a loosely joined, international confederation of considerable depth and expertise in all things legal. There are specialists at every level, in every field, from bankruptcy to corporate securities to employment to election law to health care, not to mention all manner of IP gurus and litigators of both the trial and appellate stripe. Unlike many other, more formally joined groups of legal professionals, its ties to academia are strong, it listens to those with particular insights about research, client service, business methods and technology, and everything its members contribute has both recruiting and marketing ramifications. (2) Why is this happening? Well, no quick and easy answers here, but at the recommendation of Satan himself Johnny Appleseed Christopher Locke -- if he suggests you read something, I suggest you not delay -- I started Shoshana Zuboff's and James Maxmin's new book, The Support Economy: Why Corporations Are Failing Individuals And The Next Episode Of Captalism. It's roughly 400 pages of penetrating economic theory, observation, analysis and prognostication. (Of the ten reader reviews currently posted at Amazon, nine people gave this five stars, the highest rating. One gave it one star, the lowest. I have the feeling this book is destined to trigger such polarized reactions, but also that criticism is more likely to target its theories about the future than its assessments of the past and present.) I wish I could say this were the sort of item that usually prompts me to 1-Click, but sadly I'm more apt to go for a beach chair than something written by a Harvard Business School one. In this instance I couldn't be more pleased to have bucked my own tendencies. If you work in the legal field, are a blogger, or both -- or heck, if you stumbled on this page in search of a nice professional yoga bag -- this book is bound to make you examine your own motivations, and how our collective motivations might dramatically impact the broader economic equation. Obtuse enough for you? Good! On with the updates: Genie Tyburski's The Virtual Chase Alert. Genie should have been included here earlier but fell prey to my wondering whether her intelligent, useful updates were a "blog"; I get them in newsletter form. Screw it, it's an honor to include her. Similar considerations led to my delay in linking to Sean Carter's columns and home page, and likewise are hereby abandoned. Camera Lucida is by a lawyer, photographer and somewhat mysterious friend of Ernie's, and helps point up a distinction between what I do here and what others may do elsewhere. I like to check in on those in the legal field who blog. I don't care if they're not blogging about legal things; often, it's preferable. Judging by this writer's posts to date, I'm betting she, like me, may be inclined to comment on whatever moves her. The consciousness behind J-Files is yet more mysterious; he says he's not a lawyer but is "in the world of law." I'm sorry, but I just don't have the heading for that! In recognition of some considerable cheek and a domain that fairly jumps off a referral log I'm happy to throw a link your way, and will be equally happy to make it a permanent one -- should the future bring me a clue as to what you do. Ex Parte, the Harvard Law School Federalist Society's blog, and Captain Indignant ("...one excitable law student among many, decrying the injustices of stolen elections and mandatory minimum sentencing laws. But observe the fresh-faced young man with the German car carefully the next time he visits your municipal office: if he delivers a well-polished diatribe on the collapse of the correct English third-person singular and then glances about furtively, you should check his trunk for a telltale pair of red calf-high boots") come my way via Howard, who also has inspired D.C. appellate attorney Gary O'Connor ("not related to Sandra D.") to blog about statutory construction and "disseminate trivia about the pre-1789 English common law." (And you thought the Know-It-All Edition was a toughie.) From The Blawg Ring: a German attorney who answers to Simon if I'm not mistaken; a recent admit-T to the MidWestern University College of Law; a "Catholic home schooling mom/lawyer/journalist," Amy Kropp; a young government appellate and environmental lawyer, Stephanie Tai, whose views are not attributable to the United States (judging by Stephanie's "Selected Publications" I want her on my Trivial Pursuit team too, along with Gary O'Connor, and of course Captain Indignant for discrete consultations on the finer points of grammar); a self-described random, female first year attorney; and Yale law student Steven Wu. From Ernie's Law Blogs Outline: Bob Ambrogi, a lawyer, writer and filterer of law oriented Web resources; and David Goldman and his kfsource law librarian's weblog. David is the Head Librarian in the Boston office of a New York-based law firm. Do be sure to drop me a line if you are, or apprehend, a blogger-at-law. The Blawg Patrol never sleeps.

Beppe Severgnini, in discussing his book Ciao, America: An Italian Discovers the U.S. and cultural differences between the two countries: "In America, you use the refrigerator door to communicate. It's like the Internet. The refrigerator door is the grandmother of email." [via C-SPAN's Booknotes]

The fascinating Intel v. Hamidi case received this attention recently from the L.A. Times. [via CIS] Is there some point at which unsolicited email can pose a sufficient burden to privately owned resources to constitute a trespass? If so, is the sender's act nevertheless constitutionally protected? It's an analysis fraught with other implications, as the principles involved arguably can be applied, for example, to things like search engines. (Tangentially related: No Links Please, We're European, via Spartaneity.) As the Times article mentions, when the California Supreme Court decides this case it will be the first high court of a U.S. state to rule on the "trespass to chattels" theory as applied to Internet related actions.

I just added the donation button for the Doc Camera Fund to my sidebar so it won't fall off the page with the initial call for help. Please donate a few bucks and tell lots of friends. We're a long way from replacing the wayward device, but I'm sure every little bit will help.

Jury Service, a "gonzo post-human novella" by Cory Doctorow and Charlie Stross, is in mid-serialization at SciFi.com. Here are Parts I and II, for your reading pleasure. [via Boing Boing]

My former legal research and writing professor Bob Berring has been named interim Dean of Boalt Hall, according to email I received this afternoon from Louise Epstein, Boalt's Assitant Dean and head of alumni relations and development. Bob Berring's a wonderful, highly intelligent guy I've mentioned here before. Here's the press release on his appointment, and more from Boalt's site.

So, one great thing about a Mac or Powerbook with a built in Superdrive and out-of-the-box iMovie and iDVD is they let you take that sloppy video footage you've amassed by pestering people with a camera in their faces (or elsewhere) at opportune moments (or otherwise) throughout the year and turn it into a pretty nice holiday gift. And, you can throw related photos on the selfsame DVD in slideshow format, synched to music; very slick. My dilemma, however, is that movie files exported for iDVD can get huge, fast. I coastered two DVD-Rs before coming to terms with the fact the 10.7 gigabyte file iMovie made for me simply wasn't going to fit on the 4.7 gig DVD-Rs that work with the Superdrive (the inarguable math wasn't lost on me, I just thought maybe the iDVD burning process would sufficiently compress the file without more work on my part). This is a 56 minute video that (1) I am not going to re-cut (too much work), and (2) believe it or not, the recipients actually will want to watch, as it stars their adorable children, among other bit players such as myself. I'm posting this in hope you Mac and QuickTime mavens (Kevin?) will confirm I've arrived at the best solution for this, or offer other suggestions. I need to compress this puppy, but it can still be a big file; up to 3 or 4 gigabytes I would think. I upgraded to QuickTime Pro (for the second time; grrr). I imported the 10.7 gig file, then, after trying and rejecting some of the smaller options, exported it to one of the two "2x CD-ROM" formats. This seems to yield pretty good quality in about a 550 MB file. (I initially thought MPEG-4 would be the way to go, but it comes out way too small and pixelated). I can go bigger than this and still get it on the DVD, but (1) the format has to be iDVD compatible, and (2) I don't see any better pre-formatted QuickTime options than what I've already done. I suspect I could venture into the custom settings and bump up the quality even further, while still slimming down my 10.7 gig fatty, but here, for me anyway, "there be dragons." Thanks in advance for any input.

Cool, the donations for Doc are starting to come in. Keep it up!

Forget the calendar: spring is roaring in early this year.

Doc, on finding unexpected, free high-speed Internet access in his Supernova digs: "I love this motel." Doc got zapped in a less pleasant way when his Sony PC-110 camcorder didn't come home from a party last week. Having seen Doc in action with this thing, I can well appreciate how much he hates to lose it. Doc's camera rounds out his coverage of the many conferences and events he travels to and shares on his blog and elsewhere. He mentions a bunch of photos at that last link, and here are some additional ones he took at Digital ID World. I set up the following PayPal donation link in hope of restoring Doc's camcorder. If you'd like to help, please donate and/or share the link. I'll forward the proceeds to Doc at the end of the month as a holiday "thanks." (I looked around a bit to see if anyone had yet done this and came up empty; if I'm wrong, please let me know and I'll be sure to coordinate the efforts.)

Just when you've gotten smug in your demographic-trouncing disparateness...someone comes along and shows you you're just another walking wallet. I sent the link to this Fast Company article -- Sophisticated Sell: Why are so many women interested in shopping at Anthroplogie? -- this afternoon to my three best friends, bemoaning that the jig is up, we've been pinned to the wall, boxed, wrapped and tied up with a bow. Seems like it's just in time for the holidays, but this outfit's been surreptitiously at it since 1992, apparently:

The Anthropologie woman is not so much conflicted as she is resistant to categorization. Her identity is a tangle of connections to activities, places, interests, values, and aspirations. She's not married with two kids: She's a yoga-practicing filmmaker with an organic garden, a collection of antique musical instruments, and an abiding interest in Chinese culture ( plus a husband and two kids ).

Ugh, there's more. If this is a shade too close to home, go on over there for a good laugh or cry -- your call. No, I don't have two kids. Yes, I do shop there, it's been like six years now.

I see that Doc already has blogged the 2003 "Demotivators" collection, but if it and its domain (despair.com) don't deserve to be linked to death I don't know what does. If you've never seen this line before, it's a cousin of the Successories products you always see in the Sky Mall catalog -- with the important distinction that these you might actually hang on the wall. Doc likes Flattery, which is understandable, and as a Linux fan he'd probably love Limitations, too. Individuality and Get To Work are battling it out for my favorite. The apparel line is great, too, right down to: "(front of shirt is not smaller than back of shirt) ... " Interesting how this came my way. A colleague at the firm is reading my blog, seems like fairly regularly (now that blows me away), and he thought this followed on well from Fast Company's observation that 2002 is the year of the cockroach. (Thanks PJK, this made my day!)

Well dagnabbit, Phil Windley resigned as CIO of the State of Utah this week. He offers more thoughts on realities of public service and why he'd had enough. You have to hope this doesn't slow down the other Utah.gov bloggers linked from Phil's site -- Dave Fletcher, Bob Woolley, Dave McNamee, Joe Leary, Dave Willis, Al Sherwood, Q. Wade Billings and Craig Neilson -- though it's tough to see how it wouldn't.

I have twice before essayed to offer proof that weblogs and other tiny online sources insidiously yet inexorably are taking over the world. Ok, so maybe this only is proof they're taking over my brain, but that's a start, isn't it? Especially if I'm still blogging through The Cold That Ate Southern California, Work and The Holidays -- which are subject to no judicial extension of which I am aware. Regardless, here are my current Top Ten Signs Of A Microcontent Obsession: 1. Your RSS is not valid. Once this bothered you. Now you revel in it. [0xBADFEED via Dave] 2. Your blog is sick of globetrotting for you; now it sends you globetrotting for it. 3. You are familiar with the Meg and Jason story. 4. You are familiar with Doc's daughter's profession. 5. You sleep better at night if you check here first. 6. You have given presentations to your co-workers about the uses and benefits of weblogs. 7. You never much *cared* about traffic, but there are similarities between the way you covet your Technorati page and the way a pirate covets dubloons. 8. You are cramming for exams -- and still blogging. 9. You are grinding on a brief -- and still blogging. 10. Weblogs are integral to your holiday shopping strategy.

Fast Company: 2002 is the year of the cockroach.

Well, there's this, from Gateway:

Gateway believes: You should have the right to make copies for your own use of any CD you've purchased legally - so you can listen to it in different locations and have a backup if something happens to your original copy. You should have the right to enjoy legally acquired music in any format you want - like converting CD tracks to MP3 files to take with you on a portable or car MP3 player. You have the right to download music from the Internet that you've paid for or that's been made available for download by the artist or record label.

And then there's this, from today's L.A. Times (reg. req.):

[A] new line of PCs launching today from Gateway Inc. will be stocked with digital copies of hit songs. ... The preloaded music would be wrapped in electronic locks to deter piracy, trigger royalty payments and set limits on playback. In Gateway's case, those locks prevent people from moving songs to portable devices or copying them onto CDs unless they pay an additional fee of about $1 a song.

More on Gateway's deal to ship PCs preloaded with up to 2,000 songs from Pressplay (for an additional $150), from c | net News.com and PC World. The Gateway/Pressplay model also takes a page from the legal world's fee-based online services (and, I gather, the drug trade): get 'em started for free, get 'em hooked, get 'em paying.

The question of whether the 9th Circuit will grant rehearing in the Kelly v. Arriba Soft linking decision (PDF via FindLaw, registration required; more here) remains an open one. Briefing on the issue is ongoing; you may access a copy of the current docket here.

Science Friday's annual broadcast of the Ig Nobel Prize Ceremony, from the Annals of Improbable Research, is up (Real Audio). "We'll hear about a computer-based dog-to-human language translation device and what belly button lint actually is." And more; these consistently are a hoot.

(**cough -- sniff ** warning: site may be contagious...) Some geeky gift guides and ideas, for your holiday browsing pleasure: Extreme Tech. (Check out the 3 Gigabyte compact flash cards.) PC Magazine. (I like their idea of a Netflix gift certificate or subscription.) Tech TV. (Both Extreme Tech and The Screen Savers like these Zip Zap cars.) For The Latest on The Latest, I'm digging both Mobile Burn and Gizmodo. Ultimate mobile-meister gift pairing: the Sony Ericsson P800 Phone/PDA (out in January) and the Jabra BT200 Freespeak Bluetooth headset. The headset is sub-$100, comfortable, clear, holds a charge well, and you just can't beat being freed from the phone. For the truly obsessed, there's Think Geek from OSDN, the folks who bring us Slashdot. (I'm a sucker for the t-shirts, even if I do lack the geek cred to carry them off in public.) Finally, giving diamonds stiff competition for Girl's Best Friend: The Ars Technica GOD BOX. Build this with loving care for your special someone -- while you're at it, be sure to trick out the case -- and a Happy New Year is practically guaranteed. (That is, unless she's a Mac gal. Then go Powerbook with all the trimmings.)

I'm rapidly becoming sick as a dog, in addition to being continually busy at work. A quick follow-up for anyone interested in the Stones post from yesterday: Another IORR member in attendance posted a second review of Saturday night's show on their site. Since these folks seem to be covering the whole tour (no; I don't know where to submit the job application for this), and appear particularly impressed with Saturday's show, I'm concluding the MGM Grand Garden Arena and The Rolling Stones go together like Sunday mornings and Bakersfield. Not to despair if you didn't make it last weekend -- IORR says the Stones will be ending the U.S. tour at this venue on February 8, 2003. I'd say that one's gonna sizzle.

Once again, IORR (It's Only Rock n' Roll, The Rolling Stones Fan Club of Europe) provides a great blow-by-blow of last night's show, along with the full set list. Here's my own take on the highlights.

Best moment: first moment. Kieth Richards striding out from a darkened center stage, blasting the opening chords of Street Fighting Man as he came on.

Best use of the back- and over-stage video monitors: hard to say, because the monitors consistently are a great addition to the show. They're performance art, a live-action music video with cameras capturing angles you least expect, projecting in turns to an enormous full screen or split perspectives. I liked the Ronnie Wood cam, a small, cylindrical affair strapped to the neck of Ronnie's axe during If You Can't Rock Me. As Ronnie ranged the stage, the camera flashed a fret's eye view of his riffs and the rest of the band. During Wild Horses, an L.A. freeway traffic scene -- fourteen lanes across -- topped the stage, with white headlights streaming down and right, red taillights snaking up and left, and the right front quadrant dominated by a "billboard" of Mick intoning this classic. Finally, during Honkey Tonk Women, an exclusively g-string-and-thigh-boot clad avatar of male fantasy had some interesting interactions with the familiar Stones Tongue. Let's just say she gets hers in the end.

Best move: to the "B-stage," for Mannish Boy, Only Rock n' Roll and Brown Sugar. Think Elvis Presly '68 comeback special. Square platform, audience level, minimum of amps and gadgets. Playing to all sides, pick-flicking gleefully into the crowd, twenty feet away from our seats just behind and right of the soundboard. **Bliss**

Best showman: a surprise pick here, Ronnie Wood. He non-stop flirted with the crowd. His enthusiasm was palpable. You expect this -- and more -- from Mick so to see Ronnie having so much fun was a kick.

Best snapshot: Ronnie and Kieth proving they can still puff and play.

Best Jagger wardrobe change: this requires some context. I don't know if these are at all the shows, but I doubt it (?) because they're not sold at the concession stands with the official tour merchandise. Someone in the MGM Grand was selling lighted "Tongue" pins that flashed, blue and red. In the darkened arena, this was a great effect as you saw them blinking all over the crowd. It took forever for the band to transition from the B-stage for the encore. Just as the crowd noise was cresting, twin rows of flickering blue/red lights emerged from the darkness of the main stage, coming forward. Mick had rounded up twenty or so of these things and pinned them down the button lines of his shirt.

Best people watching (husband's contribution): the five women in front of us were indistinguishable from Kate Hudson in "Almost Famous." And extremely friendly with one another.

Most "Wha'?" moment (husband's contribution): Would they really leave a verse out of Sympathy For The Devil? "I shouted out, who killed the Kennedys..."

Most effective post-show consumption of Red Bull: cut with soda, on ice. Mixing this stuff with vodka makes very little sense, and drinking it straight is not an option.