Type any* characters - except pro and pro2 - before ".blogger.com" and you get Blogger's homepage. Is this, like, a completely normal thing? It's leading to some interesting entries in the referral log... Shelley is a goddess. My pesky permalinks are finally fix-ed. It's so gratifying to see those suckers work after all this time. I feel like I should cook her dinner. *"any" is unconfirmed, but it seems to work.

Chuck Hartley's "Live Live Nude Nude" Casual Friday edition deserves your attention, and I love his blog's new look. Jeneane's is also sporting a spiffy new wardrobe, but she, like me, is having trouble with blogspot permalinks. Please help if you know why even when the "/?/" fix is applied, these pesky things still insist on pointing to a week's worth of posts.

I've gotten two of these emails in the last 24 hours:

A Nice Game This is a nice game. This is my first work. Your're the first player. I hope you enjoy it.

Think it's Klez or something. Interesting bit of social engineering. I'm in Chapter 11 of Jaclyn Easton's Going Wireless, which I told Ernie is like a bridge between today and a William Gibson-esque world where commerce and communication is made technologically instant and effortless (and yes, the W.G. reference is intended to invoke the darker side). The audio book is entertaining, as it's read by the author and her passion comes through. Right now, she's talking about Wireless and a Higher Power:

"You are about to meet a nun whose convent is probably more technologically advanced than your company. What she understood - years before wireless was widely implemented - was the importance of connecting an enterprise, whether it's a multi-national conglomerate, a neighborhood business, or, in this case, a convent. Empowerment, and the inevitable success that follows, flows from workers saturated with information to them, any time they want it, anywhere they need it. While the promise of wireless in the corporation centers on cost-savings and productivity, the real value is in connecting people. We all know that when people are connected, they truly become a team, and as a team, they can dream bigger and execute more meaningfully than any individual . . . 'This is definitely cutting edge technology, and we've had it for two years. Others are just beginning to use it,' notes Sister Deborah Marie Bucher [phonetic], Dominican Sisters of Mission San Jose. The technology she is referring to is a wireless local area network, the installation of which she supervised at her convent in Fremont, CA in 1999 - years ahead of the curve. Today, you'll find the nuns there roaming the convent campus with laptops in tow, checking their email via internet connectivity from their wireless hub installed in the church's belltower."

I'm with Jaclyn, and cannot wait until we can effortlessly all pull just the information we need, when we need it, from thin air. As she points out elsewhere though, we need to be paying close attention to security, privacy and individual rights considerations as all this unfolds - or the game we'll be playing may not be so nice.

'Big Law' Blogging Christoper Smith, knowledge management guru with A Rilly Big Law Firm (which he doesn't mention on his site, so I'm not "outing" him here 'less he says it's ok), has a blog, and gets how blogging has myriad potential uses in the legal field. Coolness.

Some Blimps This thing is right outside my window. Wonder if the rest of Los Angeles is busy plugging "rolling stones yellow blimp" into Google?

Library Lights On, Doors Open - For Now Earlier this week, Kevin Livingston had a story in The Recorder [via Law.com], about a measure pending in the California legislature (AB 2648) that would have removed state funds presently footing the bill for county law library facilities (including rent, utilities and furniture). Thanks to the protests of law librarians, lawyers and judges from around the state, the bill has been amended to keep the funding in place, with a proviso that counties may review facilities expenses to ensure they are "necessary." Woe to the hapless public servant who fails to look before s/he bean-counts, however. As Michael Moore's publisher can attest, you simply do not mess with the librarians; you fall to your knees as rapidly as possible and worship them [via Jenny]!

Blog Appeal I heard last night from Howard Bashman, who heads the appellate group at Buchanan Ingersoll - and has a blog. Howard writes an appellate practitioner column, and observes that "[a]ppellate lawyers usually labor in obscurity, but the Internet no longer makes that as easy as it once was." True enough - through Howard we now can keep up with a fellow who practices before the Supreme Court and lives to tell the tale. (He also notes with alacrity that Bag and Baggage is not "totally devoted" to appellate law. Heh.)

Public Disputes In addition to my interest in the development of the law around hyperlinks, there was something else I found fascinating about the Dallas Morning News/Barking Dogs exchange, below: that you and I know about it. Litigants and would-be litigants swap correspondence like this all the time, but usually the only people paying attention are the parties, their attorneys and maybe ultimately a court. When attorneys begin to realize that, thanks to the Internet, their dispute-related correspondence may have a broader audience than they thought - even for writings that, unlike legal pleadings, are not part of the public record - this could have a dramatic, and positive, effect on the tenor and content of those missives. [Later: Ernest was kind enough to email that he picked this up on LawMeme. He's rightly skeptical: people with high-profile cases already try them in the media, and the blogosphere just broadens the potential outlets and audience. I let him know my thought was that more potential exposure=more accountability=less vitriol and more careful research and reasoning. Hopefully.]

Deep Links Defended Public Citizen has stepped in on behalf of Barking Dogs, with a response (referencing the Kelly and Ticketmaster cases) to a Dallas Morning News demand letter regarding the removal of deep links to news stories.

"[W]hat Adelman is doing seems no different that providing readers with the page number at which a story is located in your print edition. If a reader went to the local public library to find out what Belo had said about the fire, the reader would surely see more advertising if he had to start with page one and turn the pages slowly, looking at every page until reaching the page on which the fire story appears, than if he could turn directly to page 45."

More here. [via Declan McCullagh's Politech]

Visionary Flash: Blogging Goes Corporate [Wired News, via Dave Winer]

Professor Lessig [via BusinessWeek]:

"Q: Do we need a new definition or vision of copyright and intellectual property in order for e-business to move forward? A: We don't need a new vision. We just need to recognize what the traditional vision has been. The traditional vision protects copyright owners from unfair competition. It has never been a way to give copyright holders perfect control over how consumers use content. We need to make sure that pirates don't set up CD pressing plants or competing entities to sell identical products. We need to stop worrying about whether you or I use a song on your PC and then transfer it to your MP3 player."

Larry must prompt students to offer to polish the dean's hubcaps to finagle classroom seats. In my day, it was another Larry - Sonsini (probably still is, he had a genius for making an arid topic - securities regulations - gripping).

MSNBAOL Noticed this morning that AOL is sponsoring The Today Show's "Where In The World Is Matt Lauer."

The Blacksmith and the Artist Reflect it in their art Forge their creativity Closer to the Heart [A Farewell To Kings, 1977] Rush has a new album and is touring (will be in LA Sept. 23). If this intrigues you in the slightest, do not miss the Rush Midi Homepage. This site leaves me torn whether to crack up or stand wordlessly awestruck. Both seem appropriate.

"Texas Judge: Where Technology Is Sustained" Judges in Collin County Texas have pooled their resources to buy a domain (texasjudge.com) where they can maintain Web pages for their individual courtrooms. [via Law.com] By the links on Judge Curt Henderson's site, it looks like eleven of them have taken the plunge. No blogs, yet, but lots of useful information should you find yourself with a Collin County court appearance. My favorite thing? The navigational aid on a number of the sites: a drop-down menu where the default reads "Your Request?", and the go button, "Granted!"

Time-shifted Tidbits Chris Pirillo mentioned a couple of worthy sites on Monday's Call For Help: Spyonit: a personal agent that monitors stuff for you on the Web and will serve up results wherever you'd like: Web, pda, phone, pager, email, IM, etc. Track a package, set up a perpetual search for "earthworm horticulture" or whatever floats your boat, more. World RPS Society: "The Official Rock Paper Scissors Strategy Guide." 'Nuff said. (Talk about your micromarkets.) Sheepish Aside: I never watched so much television until Tivo entered the household, but I appear to be in good company. [via Jenny and LawMeme] It's too compelling when programs you actually like are always on.

Associates On TV Third year MoFo associate Masato Hayakawa appeared on and wrote an article for The Screen Savers yesterday, in response to a viewer's email asking what kind of trouble his son could get into for "just looking" at files on other computers. Masato went to Berkeley undergrad/Yale law, and handled himself admirably in the spotlight, though next time he might consider taking a page from uber-advocate David Boies - or rather, leaving one behind. Notes can be so distracting!

Upgrade Your YACCS If you're a long time YACCS comments user, chances are you need to upgrade. It's pretty painless and not a rush, but if you haven't done it by May 12, Hossein says you'll start getting reminders in your comment boxes. While you're at it, be sure to make a donation; the suggested kick-in is a mere $5.00 per year, and thus stands as one of the great bargains of the modern world.

Stirring The Legal Pot The Internet acts like spring cleaning for hoary legal doctrines, which must be pulled of the shelf, dusted off and looked at anew to see if they still fit this context. Several current articles illustrate the point: The Georgia Internet libel case discussed on Law.com. The case considers whether someone "involuntarily drawn into a controversy" becomes a public figure for defamation purposes, and whether online retractions are equivalent to print ones. [Case Over Internet Insults Spurs Court's Interest] The InfoWorld article about the Pavlovich decision pending before the California Supreme Court, tying in the ElcomSoft and Yahoo cases as further examples of Web activities forming the basis for jurisdiction in a court far from a party's physical residence or primary place of business. [via llrx] Anita Ramasatry's commentary on FindLaw's Writ about The Constitution And Spam: Is There A Constitutional Right To Send Unsolicited Faxes And Email? Anita notes that most state anti-spam legislation appears Constitutionally sound, especially given the costs and burdens of spam:

"The burdens of spam may be much greater than those of junk faxes, for example. Sending bulk email is incredibly cheap. With a dialup connection and a PC, a spammer can send hundreds of thousands of messages per hour at only a tiny cost per email. Yet every person who receives the spam pays, in reading time, the annoyance of a clogged mailbox, and increased ISP costs."

Blawgs, In Texas Katie points to a blog piece on the State Bar of Texas site by Chuck Lanehart. Katie is quoted about her blog and her plans for it as she embarks on her legal career. And, some highlighted bloggers from Sugar Land (Stephan Kinsella, an in-house IP specialist) and Dallas (SixDifferentWays - "I'm desperately seeking a way to merge my passion for the web, sex, travel, art, writing, shopping, makeup, film, ideas, coffee, Asian antiques, cats, music, gourmet cooking, eating, good wine, herb, e, and stout into a fierce money making machine. All suggestions appreciated." - great vintage circus graphics, too) join the blawg roll here.

DS-Swell SBC Pacific Bell does seem to have its DSL act together, at least on the installation/set-up side. The Mac and the PC have taken to their new access like ducks to water (the Mac's so well equipped it didn't even require add-on software - just plug in the ethernet and go). And it really did only take fifteen minutes to get stuff out of the box, plugged in and online. 162 down, 108 up, says dslreports. It does make all those blogs snap to in a peppier fashion.