Since The House Is On Fire Let Us Warm Ourselves

If you haven't gotten yourself fired from a big law firm lately, what are you waiting for? In the last month or so, I've:

• Stumbled on the next great diet craze, the Getting Fired Diet™. Unbeatable formula for ridding oneself of the 10 or so pounds everyone's always trying to shed. Dr. Atkins, look out. (oh. yeah.)


• Been pleasantly surprised at all the great leads for new legal business that have been forthcoming (and am mostly just wondering what to do with them).


• Learned that after the initial gut-check, it's emotionally more comfortable to get fired than to quit. Unlike several years ago when I left a small firm at my own instigation, here there's no lingering sensation of remorse about abandoning something (and many someones).


• Learned too that it's harder to talk about getting fired in person than it is to do so on a blog, mostly because it's awkward for the other party to the conversation. Most people treat it like news of a death in the family — downcast eyes, some well-intended mumbling, and (as soon as seems decently possible), a subject change. I've enjoyed those who've offered a grin, high five, or some other form of less lugubrious response.


• Appreciated the time to finally make the "new" home office (which we built in order to make room for Tyler, but which I've never had time to pay attention to since he came along) livable and workable.


• Likewise appreciated the chance to do things like get the TiVos talking to each other and talking to the computer, reconnect the backup/firewire drive, think about putting Google reader on my phone (at this rate the only things I'll use my phone's browser for are Gmail and GReader), and the rest of the kinds of stuff you've been meaning to do if only you had a little extra time.


• Gotten down on my knees in thanks for and worship of Gmail.


• Been mostly thrilled to be free of the too frequently mind-numbing office email noise (but a little surprised to miss it a little, too).


• But above all: been grateful that in a little over a month's time, "Where Mommy go?!?" has been ousted by "Where we gonna go today, Mommy?"

photo by WadeB under Creative Commons

New Kids On The Pod

Ernie Svenson's podcast (feed)

America's Business (feed)

Touring Test

Little bit of this, little bit of that:

Anders Bylund, MPAA push-polling the public to change copyright views:

The questions concern ownership and copyright, and are slanted in a way that would make any courtroom drama lawyer shout "objection, your honor! Bullying the witness!" As an example, "how would you feel if you painted a picture and found out someone was selling copies of it on EBay [sic] and making money off it? Violated, quiet, angry, appreciated, glad, indifferent, concerned, releived, annoyed, other." Open source programmers might have opinions on that matter that would give the MPAA dry heaves.

Kevin O'Keefe, Law Review articles citing legal blogs:

5 years from now most law reviews will be in a format similar to blogs. We'll then be discussing how to cite the the old law reviews in current digital law reviews when the old ones cannot be linked.

Victorious $1.1 million wrongful termination plaintiff and former liver patient Warren Snider, quoted in Jury Awards Lawyer $1.1 Million in Wrongful Termination Suit (via The Legal Reader):

I think they worried that his illness was going to create a long-term problem for him to meet his obligations as an attorney. Rather than wait to see the outcome of the treatment, they said, 'Look, we just want to get rid of this guy' and they found a reason to do so.

Ernie Svenson, Copyright patrol & moribund business models:

Business models threatened by social change and technological innovation will continue to cling to life support through litigation. That's basic human nature. Old ideas have their own life-force, just like people. And doctors aren't the only ones who help preserve life through heroic, but costly and perhaps uncalled for, measures. Sadly, there are no living wills for moribund business models.

Doc Searls, Unchain your art:

Want to succeed in the blogosphere, or the Web in general? Easy. Do search engine optimization. Here's how:

1. Write quotable stuff about a lot of different subjects.

2. Do it consistently, for months if not years.

3. Link a lot, as a way of giving credit and of sending readers to other sources of whatever it is you write about.

That's it.

Michael Geist, 30 Days of DRM, Day One (via Boing Boing):

Canada can ill-afford to follow the U.S. lead by leaving doubt as to whether anti-circumvention provisions apply outside the realm of copyright.

David Weinberger, on Susan Crawford's deconstruction of the 'Consumer Internet Bill of Rights':

Yo, Ted, you know what I'm exactly not doing with the Internet right now? Consuming it. I'm creating a little tiny bit more of it.

Move Over Snakes On A Plane, Here're Birds On A Blog

My dad called me all a-twitter tonight, when he caught this report on the CBS Evening News about PigeonBlog, which mashes up feathers and FLOPS in the name of air quality monitoring. Turns out there will be a big PigeonBlog pigeon release right here in River City next month, at what looks to be a delightfully geeky event I'd not yet heard of: UbiComp 2006. One thing's certain: Bruce Sterling's keynote won't be for the birds:

Ubicomp: Reifying the Fantastic

Suppose a world really occurs where ubiquitous computing is as common as electricity and radio are today. What would that look and feel like and how would we describe it? Bruce Sterling has been working on a science fiction novel with exactly this topic, and has some thoughts to share on all things physical, fabbable, ambient, findable, and pervasive.

Yesterlinks

And a few from today. (As Jeneane says, "just don't fall asleep.")

• Reuters and The Beeb are watching YouTube's efforts "to have every music video ever created up on YouTube" — and still keep the lights on.


• Sounds like we've got a bad Connexion. (Via Techmeme)


• CNet covers Professor Lessig at LinuxWorld. "Railed?" Better to make time for "50 minutes of pure excitement and education," and judge for yourself.


• In today's net neutrality ping pong semifinals: Carole Handler and Randolph J. May.


• It's good to see Colette being Colette. (Hi Yvonne!)


• I'm late to link to the latest Google Fight (Seven Dwarfs v. Nine Justices), but I was waiting for Article III Groupie's take.


• Quinn Norton goes deep on the Pirate Bay at Wired News. Bonus link: Quinn's Flickr set, Personalities of the Swedish Copyfight.


• It's not as though Matt Neco and StreamCast legal don't already have their hands full.