Lookey Loo

If I were still at a law firm, trying to build readership for things like newsletters (or things like blogs! to the extent they've penetrated there), I'd be excited about Dave's recent news river activities for all the reasons Amyloo is.

An Idle Man In A French Maid Outfit Is Good To Find

Do. Not. Miss:

• Kevin Heller, to »


• BoingBoing, to »


• Jennifer Saylor, 'Don't Marry Career Men'.

"Game on" indeed!

Will Chickens Never Cease?

(Today's links are in honor of Stavros the Wonder Chicken and his 7-month-old overnight sensation)

• Neologism of the week, spamigation: "the [RIAA's] automated process of sending out mass lawsuits for those it accuses of copyright infringement."


• Or, you could always use AllPeers (via Dave Winer)


• Slyck, DCIA writes to Congress: "In the DCIA's ongoing struggle to persuade the Congress of the United States that file-sharing has legitimate and practical uses beyond unauthorized content distribution, CEO Marty Lafferty has penned a letter..."


• I just love the name: online news aggreator Newgie.com (pronounced "noogie?")


• Mark Giangrande, Barney Threats Wind Up in Court: "Barney the Dinosaur is on the rampage..." Yet another reason to donate to the EFF (here's it's Barney page), and good for Akin Gump for taking this on.


• Frank Pasquale, Efficiency as a Vice: "[W]hat is the fundamental purpose of writing? To contribute to a store of common knowledge, or to assure compensation for use? The latter choice may well lead to a more efficient marketplace in text. But it threatens to undermine a larger value of access—a value as essential to the learning enterprise as spontaneous love and care is to the family."


• Michael Geist, CRTC Asked To Order Hate Sites Blocked: "[T]he two sites are vile, but is the CRTC the right place for this to happen? If the CRTC does issue such an order, will it face a regular stream of similar requests? Can the sites be blocked without also blocking dozens or hundreds of additional sites hosted at the same IP address?" Rob Hyndman, CRTC Asked to Block Hate Site: "I have always been profoundly troubled by any opportunity on the state's part to insert itself between citizen and idea. And I have no faith in the ability of the CRTC, or any other state entity short of an appellate court, to make sensible judgments about the proper scope of state intervention in these matters."


• Financial Times, Lulu aims to wag the 'long tail': "About 50 people are making a "decent wage" from publishing through Lulu, according to the company; and Lulu itself is seeing moderate but fast-growing sales as it takes a slice from each book." (Via C.E. Petit)


• DigitalBulletin, CNBC launches podcast service: "Business broadcaster CNBC has unveiled a podcasting service, featuring several of its popular programmes and segments..." Um, where?


• Joe Gratz, Audio Public Domain Grows: "The New York Times has a very nice story today on LibriVox, a project working to create volunteer-read, public domain MP3 audio books. The project uses texts from Project Gutenberg, and the recordings' complexity ranges from a solo recording of nonsense verse 'The Purple Cow' to a full-cast recording of Hamlet.

Low Flying Pigs Spotted Over Chicago

Seems like I've been waiting for this forever, and now that it's actually here I can scarcely believe it: an appellate court (specifically, the 7th Circuit Court of Appeals) doing a legitimate podcast of its oral arguments. Hallelujah, amen, and thanks Dave for the heads up. It's rare to witness an actual watershed event. This is one.

[Update:] And its opinions: opinion feed; podcast feed. Now just give me the dockets and I'll die a happy woman. (Well, not quite. I still want all the opinions in HTML.)

Today's New Blawg: Lawgarithms

Today's new blawg is Lawgarithms at ZDNet by — well hey, would you look at that, it seems I'm the author. It's where I plan to "Issue-Spot the Live Web," which is made all the simpler because the issues are plentiful and sometimes even well-mannered enough to come to you. [Update:] Lawgarithms.com now works.