Monday
Aug052002

Why Vacations Suck, Continued

I see that Dr. Weinberger captured the downside of vacations in his July 30 post. You also have to unpack (which I am officially putting off by posting this "hey"), and make sure the Leaning Tower of Inbox misses your less hardy appendages when office re-entry prompts gravity to do its thing.

Concerning gravity, it's hard to say which weighed more: the dive gear I slogged along, or the books and magazines. Both were well used. Here are some worthy reads from within the depths of my luggage:

God's Debris. Ernie recommended this awhile back. Like brain surgery in book form. Or perhaps quaaludes. I can't decide if I'm more surprised this is the same Scott Adams who writes Dilbert, or that he pulls this off in roughly 130 pages. (Ooh, Ernie's been busy while I've been gone, can't wait to catch up.) If you like this book, you might also like The Holy Man (no, you have not mistakenly stumbled on the Amazon site) -- a little less explosive, but also good fodder for contemplating life, the universe and everything.

Geek Love. This strange novel about a carnival couple and the offspring of their home-brewed genetic engineering gets increasingly compelling as it goes on. Eerie juxtaposition to your standard vacation beach scene.

Why Software Is So Bad, by Charles C. Mann in Technology Review. Unfortunately, the full article is not available free at the site, but the crux is that products liability for software is screaming down the tracks into the station with no brakes (think Silver Streak).

Did not even check email while I was gone. Those ComputoDerm patches really seem to work!

Monday
Jul292002

Bags: packed.
Outfit

Itinerary: grueling. Fun

Company: ecclectic.
puffer


Waves see you next week Torch

Saturday
Jul272002

Gather No Spoofs

Chris pointed me toward a good Rolling Stone opinion piece by David Kushner about the peer-to-peer network seige. Chris has more at his place about the cluelessness of things like the Berman/Coble bill (PDF, via Politech), and the article itself offers examples of why these sorts of measures are a huge waste of time.

Saturday
Jul272002

with, bear

Hmm, am having the fun of Blogger refusing to update my template. Sorry if your sidebar link just vanished. Hopefully it will let me bring things up to speed later.
--Better now.

Saturday
Jul272002

Commendations, Pack Your Bags

The Blawg Patrol has had such a smashingly successsful week that the Bureau's jet is fueling to take the field unit to the Azores. Who knows what they may dig up there, but they've earned it so off they go. Here are some of ways they've been strutting their stuff this week, but first don't forget we've already had an interim report featuring three fine blawgers. The home office also has been behind on its paperwork and meaning to highlight Jennifer Granick (The Shout: Opinions on Everything), of Stanford Law School and Donna's blogroll. Now that's done, back to the unit.

Agent Altreuter reports in that Strike Team Charon is the brainchild of Mark, a Connecticut lawyer in private practice. (If Mark has no objection to use of his last name, I'll add that later and remove him from the "deep cover" division.) Mark's a gamer and compadre of Dorothea's (Hi Dorothea, you Paynt-splattered goddess, you), and I'm enamored not just of his writing but also his comment-comments: "Report in!" ... "1 casualty" ... "[x] victims in the mayhem"

Ernie, Rick: ready? Agent Cooper has tracked down The LitiGator, a Radio, um, URL maintained by "Michigan lawyers specializing in civil litigation." More from their inaugural 7/6/02 post:

We are a Michigan litigation law firm.  Our postings will naturally follow our work and our other interests, which include legal applications of technology, politics, social and moral issues, and other discrete areas.

We do not call this a "blog", because we don't happen to like the term.  If we have to name it, it will be called a weblog or web-based log.

Hopefully no one will object to "blawg..." ;-] (I'd encourage them to stop worrying and learn to love the "blog," especially in light of what William Safire [via Scripting News] and Geoffrey Nunberg have to say on the subject. By the way, Rick, there's no question: you're Hot.)

The stewardess (we'll never keep good staff if I keep throwing that sort of language around!) flight attendant has been instructed to provide Agent Cooper with all the snacks he desires, as an added bonus for his double blawg-spot this week. I'll let him introduce you to Sam Heldman in his own words:

Sam Heldman works in the Washington, D.C. office of an Alabama law firm; his weblog focuses on the Alabama court of appeals, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Eleventh Circuit (which includes Alabama), and the National Labor Relations Board.
(The culprit must have realized Agent Cooper was hot on his trail because he also sent in an email confession. Always appreciated.) Sam mentions being "a little queasy in the effort to balance candor and style, on the one hand, with not-alienating-people on the other." I liked his post on the subject, and enthusiastically recommend Rebecca Blood's The Weblog Handbook if these sorts of things are on your mind. These reviews help explain why.

Finally, the home office urges the field unit (who're now too schnockered somewhere over the Atlantic to pay any attention, but oh well), and any as yet unapprehended blawgers, to consider their blawging roots and hang awhile with witty and prolific blawger Burt Hanson (BurtLaw's Law And Everything Else), who's been at it since 2000. Bring a biscuit for Mathilda.
--Later: There's little chance you'd neglect him either, but just wanted to note Dodd Harris has been around the blawg a few times himself (ok stop; those groans were audible), firing things up as he did in November '00.