Viral and Wiral

I've gotten two of these emails in the last 24 hours:

A Nice Game
This is a nice game.
This is my first work.
Your're the first player.
I hope you enjoy it.

Think it's Klez or something. Interesting bit of social engineering.

I'm in Chapter 11 of Jaclyn Easton's Going Wireless, which I told Ernie is like a bridge between today and a William Gibson-esque world where commerce and communication is made technologically instant and effortless (and yes, the W.G. reference is intended to invoke the darker side). The audio book is entertaining, as it's read by the author and her passion comes through. Right now, she's talking about Wireless and a Higher Power:

"You are about to meet a nun whose convent is probably more technologically advanced than your company. What she understood - years before wireless was widely implemented - was the importance of connecting an enterprise, whether it's a multi-national conglomerate, a neighborhood business, or, in this case, a convent. Empowerment, and the inevitable success that follows, flows from workers saturated with information to them, any time they want it, anywhere they need it. While the promise of wireless in the corporation centers on cost-savings and productivity, the real value is in connecting people. We all know that when people are connected, they truly become a team, and as a team, they can dream bigger and execute more meaningfully than any individual . . . 'This is definitely cutting edge technology, and we've had it for two years. Others are just beginning to use it,' notes Sister Deborah Marie Bucher [phonetic], Dominican Sisters of Mission San Jose. The technology she is referring to is a wireless local area network, the installation of which she supervised at her convent in Fremont, CA in 1999 - years ahead of the curve. Today, you'll find the nuns there roaming the convent campus with laptops in tow, checking their email via internet connectivity from their wireless hub installed in the church's belltower."

I'm with Jaclyn, and cannot wait until we can effortlessly all pull just the information we need, when we need it, from thin air. As she points out elsewhere though, we need to be paying close attention to security, privacy and individual rights considerations as all this unfolds - or the game we'll be playing may not be so nice.

'Big Law' Blogging
Christoper Smith, knowledge management guru with A Rilly Big Law Firm (which he doesn't mention on his site, so I'm not "outing" him here 'less he says it's ok), has a blog, and gets how blogging has myriad potential uses in the legal field. Coolness.

Some Blimps
This thing is right outside my window. Wonder if the rest of Los Angeles is busy plugging "rolling stones yellow blimp" into Google?

Library Lights On, Doors Open - For Now
Earlier this week, Kevin Livingston had a story in The Recorder [via Law.com], about a measure pending in the California legislature (AB 2648) that would have removed state funds presently footing the bill for county law library facilities (including rent, utilities and furniture). Thanks to the protests of law librarians, lawyers and judges from around the state, the bill has been amended to keep the funding in place, with a proviso that counties may review facilities expenses to ensure they are "necessary." Woe to the hapless public servant who fails to look before s/he bean-counts, however. As Michael Moore's publisher can attest, you simply do not mess with the librarians; you fall to your knees as rapidly as possible and worship them [via Jenny]!

Blog Appeal
I heard last night from Howard Bashman, who heads the appellate group at Buchanan Ingersoll - and has a blog. Howard writes an appellate practitioner column, and observes that "[a]ppellate lawyers usually labor in obscurity, but the Internet no longer makes that as easy as it once was." True enough - through Howard we now can keep up with a fellow who practices before the Supreme Court and lives to tell the tale. (He also notes with alacrity that Bag and Baggage is not "totally devoted" to appellate law. Heh.)