Today's New Blawg: Justice Gilbert!

Justice Arthur Gilbert of the California Court of Appeal (Second District, Division 6) writes a wonderful column for the Los Angeles Daily Journal, "to a confused but devoted readership." It is our great good fortune (particularly because none of the Daily Journal's content is freely accessible online) that Justice Gilbert now has a blog, Gilbert Submits, comprised of "selected columns from the more than 140 that have appeared in past editions of the Daily Journal." Enjoy, and let's see if we can do something about Justice Gilbert's lament, "I have gotten some hits, but no home runs."

Clueless Summer

Forbes.com has come out with its Best of the Web for Summer 2004, featuring "over 3,700 sites . . . each rated according to five criteria: Content, Design, Speed, Navigation and Customization." The Technology News section includes the second coming of The Industry Standard, all well and good. From there though, things get wacky:

BEST: The revival of a formerly-highflying brand says comforting things about the state of the economy.

WORST: The site lets you subscribe to RSS feeds, a complicated, XML-related way of reading news which doesn't serve much purpose here.

[Emphasis added.] This seems destined to join Harry M. Warner — on talkies: "Who the hell wants to hear actors talk?" — and others on pages like these dedicated to history's technological visionaries, insert air quotes here.

Spotted via The Standard's Trackback Blog — the first time I've seen someone annotate their trackbacks, which strikes me as visionary sans quotes. (Really. And not just because I've agreed to Guest Blog there soon, something I'm trying pretty hard but unsuccessfully to be blasé about.)

Ramble On, Rosie

It's good to see Sandra Rosenzweig updating her blog regularly. Sandra writes the Technicalities column for the California Lawyer (almost always my first stop in the magazine). Here's a great tip from her about number patterns recognized by Google:

Google now recognizes a whole lot of number patterns: FedEx, UPS, and USPS tracking numbers; vehicle ID numbers: U.S. patent numbers; UPC codes; area codes or whole phone numbers; and even FCC equipment IDs and FAA airplane reservation numbers. Usually, all you need to type into the usual Google search box is the number, and Google does the rest. However, for patent numbers you have to add the word patent to the beginning of the number, and for FCC equipment IDs you need to add fcc at the beginning. For flight information you need to type in the airline name or code before the flight number. Google says you need to enter the FCC airplane registration numbers that appear on each plane's tail, but I've never found that necessary.

Xeni Goes Public

Xeni Jardin recently discussed the INDUCE Act on NPR's Day to Day:

At first glance, there seems nothing threatening about the iPod. People bop along listening to the songs they've stored on it, apparently harming no one. But within the halls of the United States Senate, there is concern.

[...]

Of course, if the Act should pass you might have one less way to know something like this. (Don't forget to read the blog.)

But Is It A BitTorrent?

David Starkoff, from a fascinating post on medium neutral citations: "It's almost a Napster for the legal publishing community: publishing companies being forced to demonstrate value or develop new revenue streams in the face of the increasing use of the Internet."