Gobble, Gobble

So says the baby. I say "thanks!" to Matt Round for our first ever, and most wonderful, digital baby gift (the new artwork at top), and to all of you for your great comments, emails, and gifts. We actually seem to have survived our first night home with Tyler, and better yet, so does he! All downhill from here. Uh, right?

IT'S A BOY

Tyler Declan Howell. Born Thanksgiving afternoon, 1:22 p.m. 6 pounds, 4 ounces. 18 inches long. 19 hours, 22 minutes of labor. (Yes, that means I was in labor, without realizing it, when I last posted.)

More later, Papa Howell sez Tyler's hungry. (So what else is new???) This rocks, folks. Best three days I've ever had.

First Harvest

A colleague in the UK writes with a link to The Pilgrim Hall Museum, pointing out that we here across the pond appear to have adopted the English custom of celebrating the first harvest with feasting, games, and prayer.

A National Day of Mourning has been observed since 1970 as well, but I'd be hard pressed to find something to mourn at present. The baby is due in 10 days. (!!) B&B (the elder sibling; also a Sagittarius) hits its Terrible Twos on Friday. (Howard Bashman just beat me to posting about this, and found the links for the transcript and (Real) audio of my recent Life & Times segment. Amazing!) Having just cranked out an ardous batch of stuffing herself, my 94 year old grandmother has enjoined me from any form of cooking tomorrow, so Gelson's will be coming to dinner, along with some dear family and friends. The baby's room has a roof, and, finally, a closet. Furnishings are still sparse (ok, nonexistent), but since Doctors Searls, Weinberger, and Sears have me sold on co-sleeping anyway, I'm not panicked. Yet.

To top off these good tidings, the mail keeps sprinkling delightful Amazon boxes our way—from all of you! I'm having great fun playing with my husband's head:

So, you know this person?

That one? No, never met her/him/[insert best guess here].

And they're sending us baby gifts?

You got it.

[Quizzical stare.]

[Shrug. Sheepish grin.]

Anyway, it's fantastic, thanks for helping make this one of the best Thanksgivings I can remember.

––"[T]he truth is I'm thrilled that there are a handful of confirmable people, who have spoken back to me in interesting ways, who I didn't know before I began this thing. What a gift!"

Today's New Blawg

David Maizenberg has good news. He and two compatriots have just launched The Blogbook – the Bluebook for Legal Blogging:

The Blogbook is an open-source, work-in-progress, for all and sundry (well, lawyer blog tech culture geeks anyway) to enjoy and mess with. So go post to it.

This project brought to you by the good folks at Airdrop, plus extra special editorial help from an actual legal publishing professional who shall remain pseudo-anonymous.

The approach David and friends are taking gives the Bluebook model an adhocratic kick by making the discussion (and any resulting guidelines) a collaborative, interactive, community effort. The FAQ, Citations, and Style sections have more information, and there's a provocative hypo awaiting comments in Ethics.

A DRM Free Post

Karen Coyle spoke about DRM last week as part of the Library of Congress Luminary Lectures series. Entitled The Technology of Copyright: Digital Rights Management, the presentation covered the following:

Without technological controls, digital documents are easily copied. Publishers of texts, music and video are looking to digital rights management (DRM) technology to allow them to distribute and sell their goods in digital format with a limited risk of piracy. DRM technologies in development today range from simple password control to elaborate models of trusted systems. They all exercise some control over the use of materials they protect. What will it mean to writers, publishers, readers and libraries to work with documents that are protected by technology? How does DRM interact with copyright law? Can we live with it? Can we survive without it?

The video of Coyle's 1 hour, 27 minute talk is available here (requires the RealOne Player, and dagnabbit, that might just tank this post's claim to DRM free status...). [Via UMUC's Digital Copyrights List]

Magnatune is a digital music download service on the shareware model: if you like what you hear, and/or want to download something more than a 128kb MP3, you buy it. See the Plan for the details, including the Creative Commons licensing. Magnatune says 50% of the purchase price goes to the artist, and that it's "not evil." [Via the Screen Savers]