Key Note

The Seventh Circuit's Judge Richard Posner will deliver a keynote address on April 3 at the ABA TECHSHOW in Chicago. Should be fascinating. Who's game to blog it?

Judge Posner's talk will focus on the application of intellectual property law, including copyright, patent, trademark, and trade secret law, together with antitrust law, to computer software and Internet services. Among the issues he will discuss are file-sharing, database protection, intellectual property rights in industry standards, the Federal Circuit's monopoly of patent appeals, and the capacity of generalist judges to deal with technical issues.

Full schedule here.

Dialinguistics

Rory Perry:

Lawyers who can write code, or poetry, or design pages, or tell good stories, are all fastening quickly to the growing rubric of customized, smart and lively knowledge exchange. ... I have little doubt that more lawyers and legal professionals will continue the trend toward participation. And being a loquacious bunch, it's likely that our talking will have a beneficial side product: a deeper and more freely available body of knowledge about the law and its effects on our lives. That, I insist, is a good thing.

Talking among ourselves and opening channels beyond the profession—all good, for all involved.

Virtual "Time Out"

Building on previous thoughts, observations and publications, in World of Ends Doc Searls and David Weinberger point out how those pesky clues about the Net not only can hide in plain sight, but are prone to escape just when you might think you've got them cornered. Excellent resource, equally appropriate for the halls of the marketing department and the halls of government. I also really dig Eric Norlin's points about dynamism and what happens to businesses when they touch the Net. See Doc for more feed/pushback.

Con Queso

The mystery of the really big Chee-to, revealed: divine intervention.

Marvel—won't you?—at the link cosmos the blessed cheesefood has loosed upon the land.

(Not quite "no other," my friends!)

Crash Course

I'm getting a good deal of mail from ABA Journal readers who would like to learn more about starting a weblog and what on earth they might do with it. If you are such a person, here are some worthwhile resources:

• All About Blogs...: "A collection of articles on blogging, bloggers and all things blog-o-rific. Notice that the number of articles increases over time AND that blogging seems to inspire a number of manifestos."
  


• Breaking News in Microcontent from John Hiler.
  


• Corante on Blogging: in media res by Hylton Jolliffe.
  


• Derek Powazek's classic: What the Hell is a Weblog? And Why Won't They Leave Me Alone? The comments are wonderful too.
  


• The Art of Blogging, Part 1 and Part 2, from elearnspace.
  
• My favorite books on blogging to date are We Blog, The Weblog Handbook and Essential Blogging.
  


• Jerry Lawson's Blawging 101.
  


• How should a lawyer prepare for starting a blog?
  


• Dave Sifry's Technorati.
  


• Myelin's Blogging Ecosystem.
  
• Here's a blogging tool you might not have seen and/or might not come across in the above materials: b2. And keep an eye on Jonas, who's toying with the idea of adding a blog interface and host to Blawgistan.

[Update] Please add your additional suggestions to the comments!