Temperature's A-Risin'
The Chilling Effects Clearinghouse provides lots of answers for those interested in knowing and protecting their online rights. A joint project of the EFF and clinics from the Harvard, Stanford, Boalt Hall (Berkeley) and University of San Francisco law schools, this site primarily addresses copyright issues surrounding all kinds of online activity, including linking, protest, parody and criticism, and everybody's favorite: the DMCA. There's also a good trademark section. I'm glad to see my alma mater participating in such an endeavor, and also operating its Samuelson Law, Technology and Public Policy Clinic, which helps clients in the no-man's-land between public interest and intellectual property rights.

-Also on the side of the good guys: the Stanford Law School Center For Internet and Society, which defends satirist Zack Exley against trademark dilution claims from CNN. (Figured some of you - now, I'm not naming names - might want to save the link.)

For The Blogger's Bookshelf
Yesterday the LA Times reviewed a new book, Atonement, that captures a common writer/diarist's dilemma at any age:

"Trapped between the urge to write a simple diary account of her day's experiences and the ambition to make something greater of them that would be polished, self-contained and obscure, she sat for many minutes frowning at her sheet of paper and its infantile quotation and did not write another word. Actions she thought she could describe well enough, and she had the hang of dialogue. She could do the woods in winter, and the grimness of a castle wall. But how to do feelings? All very well to write she felt sad, or describe what a sad person might do, but what of sadness itself, how was that put across so it could be felt in all its lowering immediacy? Even harder was the threat, or the confusion of feeling contradictory things. Pen in hand, she stared across the room toward her hard-faced dolls, the estranged companions of a childhood she considered closed. It was a chilly sensation, growing up."

The reviewer (Daphne Merkin) called the book "the Great British Novel," and summed up: "In the seriousness of its intentions and the dazzle of its language, it made me starry-eyed all over again on behalf of literature's humanizing possibilities." Sounds like a worthy supplement to business as usual. As for things conveyed in all their lowering immediacy, this is why Allied and Kalilily are mandatory reading. In their unique ways, these ladies make literature's humanizing possibilities a reality every day.

Trying out BlogSkins. Kind of fun. They promise eventually to be able to integrate existing links and other template customizations, which should go a long way toward getting us outside more often.

"Blawg" addition: LawMeme, a blog maintained by Yale Law School students, provides a wealth of current legal news and commentary.

Wow.
Houston, we have Mac. And they say the new car smell is good. So far (about ten minutes into my life as a Mac user) I am dazzled and amazed. The setup on these things is effortless. OSX immediately recognized and used my less-than-conventional ISDN connection, which I was pretty sure would take futzing about with. I'm off to connect more peripherals -