Wal-Mart CIO Interview - Jim McGee points to this article where Wal-Mart's CIO talks about how they manage IT systems. He has three key philosophies behind his IT strategy:
The first philosophy is to run a centralized information system for our operations all over the world, and we run that from Arkansas.
The second is to have common systems and common platforms.
The third is to be merchants first and technologists second.
The guy also talks about the future of information systems, and its connection with the customer. And I found these observations fascinating:
"I think that wireless will continue to be exploited, and at some point our customers will walk into one of our stores or a Sam's Club and use their own device on our network to accomplish whatever they want. We're in the process of building an infrastructure that will enable that."
Cool! I'm ready to shop.
3:43:58 PM
Proof that many lawyers can't write - in a recent legal publication a distinguished author (I say "distinguished" because his picture appears next to the article) writes about the ABA's proposal to adopt a rule to make it easier for a lawyer from, say, Mississippi to work on a matter in a court in Louisiana. The legal jargon for this is "multi-disciplinary practice." Anyway, the guy writes as follows:
The proposed rule would facilitate a licensed attorney's obtaining admission in a jurisdiction where the attorney is not licensed where the attorney has been engaged in active legal practice for a significant period and is in good standing in all jurisdictions where admitted.
Okay. Problem No. 1. Anyone spot the run-on sentence? Next problem? Ambiguous use of the word "where" (many lawyers love to use this word because it makes them sound important). It never occurs to him that, since we are discussing the topic of geography (i.e. where lawyers can practice) that perhaps the word "where" should be replaced by "if." Hey, and "if" is a shorter word! So for all of you people thinking about going to law school, remember: if you like to read long-winded, over-inflated prose, you're in for the time of your life. Oh, and one more point about the writer. I'm glad he clarified one thing-- namely, that the rule would not make it easier for "unlicensed" attorneys to practice law in other states. Never assume that the reader has common sense, that's what I always say.
3:25:40 PM
More Witticisms about the Law from Prof. Rosenberg - here you go courtesy of Stuart Buck's site. My favorite? "You know me, I love Roman law. I don’t think we should go back to it. But I still like the idea of lions." Yep, the lions were barbaric, but they were also efficient. Our current system has been mostly sanitized of its barbarism, but....
2:59:38 PM
State Judiciary Membership in AIC - the second part of a two part study (the first being of federal judges) examined the participation of state court judges in the American Inns of Court. According to the study 25% of trial judges , 34% of appellate judges, and 43% of supreme court justices are (or have at one time have been) involved with the AIC.
1:04:38 PM
New DCMA Free Speech Challenge - The ACLU filed suit this morning in a Massachusetts federal court seeking a declaratory judgment to allow Ben Edelman to legally "hack" the controversial N2H2 filtering program, share (publish) the results of his research, and distribute the tool he uses to do it. [Story Link] Thanks to Donna Wentworth for the tip. Donna has an interview with Mr. Edelman, which you can access here.
10:32:52 AM
Today's Legal Headlines - here again, in outline format (with previous days' headlines collapsed). Today's headlines will updated throughout the day. I have also placed a link over on the left. I will run this notice for about a week, and then I'll assume that people will know how to find the headlines, which will link mostly to news stories. But the "headlines" will also include interesting legal-type posts from the around the blogoshere.
10:07:23 AM
Corruption in Government is a ho-hum story - except when the mayor decides to fire city workers en masse, and tells the police chief to hunt around for more scoundrels and to assume that no one is "untouchable." New Orleans' Ray Nagin is cleaning house, boys. And that's a story worth following. For you out-of-towners, here's the latest.
10:07:05 AM
Storytelling through Software - the success of a story often depends on holding the reader's interest through the plot question, which creates tension through uncertainty. Software is a form of storytelling where a common plot question is "will the software continue to work." The best software creates just the right amount of uncertainty. Windows 2000 has been a very interesting story. Mostly it works great. Yesterday, for no apparent reason, in the middle of a routine print job my computer just turned off. Blink. No blue screen, nothing. Man, that was cool!
10:03:15 AM
Duly Convicted Representative of the People - and he has no remorse, or respect for the legal system that he served. Idiot!
8:40:57 AM
Thoughts on Internet Filtering from Bernie Goldbach - he references Jonathan Zittrain -- Can the Internet survive filtering? And then he notes that:
"[t]he digital chain connecting one's laptop to a Web site thousands of miles away can be traversed by a single click--so long as no link within the chain refuses to carry the signal. Like Zittrain, I'm noticing how organisations are trying to block links. We have to remember how the Internet was built on principles of "end-to-end neutrality," an engineering rule of thumb calling for smarts at edges of the network rather than in the middle. There is good value (and grat reasons) to let the periphery of the Internet do its thing. It's also important to know where filtering is happening within the network cloud, and who is doing it." via [Underway in Ireland]
In my view the real battle in filtering (and perhaps the only legitimate use of filtering, depending on the type of filtering) will occur with organizations screening what their employees can see. It will be hard for anti-filtering proponents to succeed in convincing tribunals that this sort of activity should be protected. Anyway, that's my "off the cuff" thought about that (even though I don't believe it is worth any organization's while to filter; non-productive employees can always be detected with less high-tech means).
8:32:04 AM
Equal Treatment Under Law - "The law, in its majestic equality, forbids the rich as well as the poor to sleep under bridges, to beg in the streets, and to steal bread." Anatole France
