Thursday, January 16, 2003

father/son weekend Paulette went to Minnesota last weekend, to go dogsledding with her college friend Mary. So, jackson and I got to spend four days and three nights alone together. It was simply a blast! Friday night I got home early from Macr to pick him up. Saturday, we went over to Ando's house to hang with Ando, Tony, and Opie, playing MTG and watching some football. Sunday, we spent around the house, but also got out a bit for lunch. I also bathed him sunday night. Monday morning I got him off to Michelle's and I got back to work. I didn't get much done over the weekend, and my schoolwork suffered a bit for it, but I really enjoyed spending time with him, and we bonded very strongly. Monday night, after I got home, Paulette and Jackson were working thru dinner. When jackson saw me he got a HUGE smile on his face, and then when I walked around the corner to put my stuff down, he cried out for me! Made my heart melt! Of course, all this week, I've been cracking the books especially hard and rushing to and from Macr, so I've hardly seen him, and he's already back to his routine with mom... I'm so envious of their time together. Someday soon I hope I can have a whole weekday to spend with him. 4:27:17 PM

jackson stands with more teeth i'm a bit late in reporting this, but jackson can now stand up by holding onto solid furniture, or mom and dad. He's also got it his two upper teech popping thru his gums. 4:20:23 PM

Lessig: The silent five It is the middle of the night. Sleep is awol, scared off by this question that won't stop pestering me: Is there a principle here? Is there a way to read these opinions as consistent with a principle? [Lessig Blog] The reactions to the Supreme Court ruling RE Eldrig v Ashcroft have been wild. Larry appears to be taking this very hard. He can't let this one ruling define himself... the battle may be lost, but the war has only just begun! Charge On! 11:05:11 AM

Ernie: Bold Predictions - Year og the News Aggregator Bold Predictions - I subscribe a great E-mail discussion group called Technolawyer, and a few weeks ago I responded to the request for top 5 predictions for Legal Technology for 2003. Prediction number two was as follows: NEWS AGGREGATORS WILL BE DISCOVERED Much was made of Weblogs this past year. Weblogs are fascinating, but they are only the tip of the iceberg. Bloggers get their information from other bloggers and from mainstream news sources, and the only way to efficiently comb through the breaking news is to use an aggregator like Radio Userland's built-in News Aggregator, or Amphetadesk. I predict more news aggregator products will emerge, and the present offerings will improve, as more people discover the world of RSS/XML feeds. The main holdback on the emergence of news aggregators is that you have to use them to understand their power, and you have to be willing to use the Internet to get news. The latter is not a big barrier, but the former is. Still, it is inevitable that people (and lawyers are people) will learn about and use news aggregators. The editor of the Technolawyer disagreed with my observation, which is admitedly the view of someone who is steeped in the use of an Aggregator and therefore is perhaps overly optimistic that its benefits will be discovered by others. The editor referenced the now defunct Pointcast as an example of the failure of "push" technology. But he did admit that he thinks that news aggregators, unlike Pointcast, won't go away. He just doesn't see the impact of aggregators like I do. Of course, he's in the business of running an E-mail discussion group and collects revenue from ads that he includes in the emails. Why would he want to change his business model? And why would he want to peer into the benefits of XML and RSS? Bottom line: we are both right and both wrong. For now. Let's see what happens down the road. [Ernie the Attorney] I agree with you Ernie. When I describe weblogs, most people think of their first epxeriences on the web... crude websites about people's cats and obscure hobbies. Weblogs today are alot like websites in the mid 1990s. But think of where weblogs will be by the end of the year, when you consider that by 1996, Amazon was growing at an incredible rate and e-commerce on the WWW was here to stay. 10:53:48 AM