Friday
Oct172003

Top Level Digital IDs

Fritz Schranck elaborates visually on a recent legal development, offering an unusually robust example of Digital Identity. [Via Howard Bashman]

Thursday
Oct162003

Great Day, G'Night

Some quick hits to wrap up the day:

Dave Fishel notes that Digital ID World sounds like the co-anchor-tenant of a suburban shopping mall.

Ernie and Buzz are off to PopTech! Safe travels, have fun, looking forward to your thoughts from Camden.

For my part, I'm overwhelmed by the brilliance, wit, fun, intensity, and diversity of perspective offered by the group here at Digital ID World. (Not to mention the gorgeous Colorado weather. TextAmerica emailed that last night's sunset picture got posted to its Look Outside! blog, and tonight's wasn't too shabby either.) Just try spending a few days in the company of Bryan Field-Elliot, Phil Windley, Elliot Noss, Marc Canter, Andre Durand, Esther Dyson, Jon Udell, Cory Doctorow (who somehow found time to blog about tampon angels shortly after our panel wrapped up), Nat Torkington, Jeremy Allaire, Simon Phipps—and old friends AKMA, Doc, Eric, and Chris—and coming away uninspired. Then there are the people I can't as readily link because they haven't (yet) started a weblog, or I'm clueless if they have. Particular personal highlights include:

Peter Biddle's Baby Naming Rules



  • Before settling on a name, be sure you're comfortable shouting the whole thing at full volume in front of the neighbors and other crowds. (I take it this involves live testing.)

  • First name, last name, different syllables. (E.g. Co'-ry Doc'-to-row; yes, Peter's parents broke the rule.)

  • If it can be shortened, just go with the shortened version.


Given Peter's proven prognostical powers, I'm not inclined to deviate from these principles...

Straight From The Cow's Mouth


Tucows is, among other things, an enormous domain name registrar. And what does its CEO Elliot Noss emphasize and preach, preach, preach to his resellers (including Scott Galvin, who went above and beyond as my personal DNS doctor)? The importance of the user experience, straightforward language and interfaces. Long story short, all my formerly parked and elsewhere registered B&B domains now work: bagandbaggage.com, bagandbaggage.org, bagandbaggage.us. With or without www. No need to update links, the Blog*Spot URI continues to work just fine. (I'm guessing Jerry Lawson will approve as better late than never?) Look for intelligently user-focused services from Tucows, they GET that this stuff is not as straightforward as it ought to be.

(Psst: if you blogged the DRM panel today, let me know; a coveted link from the B&B About page is just yours for the taking.)

Thursday
Oct162003

Today's New Blawg

Wilde news! Ernie Miller of LawMeme and Yale's Information Society Project is editor -in- chief of a brand new blawg. [Via Donna Wentworth]

Thursday
Oct162003

Client Eye For The Law Guy

(Ok, I'll stop recycling permutations of that title soon, but for now I'm still enamored of it as a metaphor for setting someone "straight.")

Elliot Noss, CEO of Tucows, doesn't want his babies to grow up to be lawyers: "Lawyers are trained to find problems where none existed before ie to create systems that support more lawyers." Elliot grants this effect may not be intentional, but an example of "the invisible hand at its best." When we chatted last night, I told Elliot I thought what he was describing was a function of the kind of society we have established, where people don't always go for the automatic weapons when they've had enough of each another. Lawyers aren't completely irrelevant to the creative process either. But as Elliot also points out, we're pretty good at rationalizing our existence. The real point of my mentioning it here is to share Elliot's valuable client-side perspective and critique with my fellow parasites.

In somewhat similar vein, Jack Cliente adds his two cents to David Giacalone's farewell post: "Don't send e-flowers to honor ethicalEsq?, but actively work for the consumer of legal services both out in the real world, and through the power of weblogs ... "

Wednesday
Oct152003

Law Is Free

The Metropolitan News-Enterprise: "All appellate opinions published in California since it became a state in 1850 are now available online without charge at the state courts' website, the state Supreme Court announced yesterday."