Paris and beyond in France

If I ever plan a trip to France, I can turn to Jake and Maureen Dear's blog, Paris and beyond in France, which has lots of recommendations for books, accommodations, and more. Ooh-la-la!

(Jake Dear is the coauthor of an interesting law review article on the influence of state supreme courts. See my post in Trial Ad (and more) Notes.)

English Medieval Legal Documents Wiki

Wow! Hazel Lord at USC has created English Medieval Legal Documents Wiki, "a collaborative database on the published sources of English medieval legal documents, and to provide links to the growing number of online sources currently being developed."

School officials unite in banning Wikipedia

School officials unite in banning Wikipedia, Seattle Times, Nov. 21, 2007.

Video: RSS in Plain English | Common Craft - In Plain English

I love this video: Video: RSS in Plain English | Common Craft - In Plain English.

Encyclopedia of Life

beSpacific: Newly Launched Encyclopedia of Life Will Be Online Reference Source for 1.8 million Species: "Press release: 'Many of the world’s leading scientific institutions today announced the launch of the Encyclopedia of Life, an unprecedented global effort to document all 1.8 million named species of animals, plants, and other forms of life on Earth. For the first time in the history of the planet, scientists, students, and citizens will have multi-media access to all known living species, even those that have just been discovered...Over the next 10 years, the Encyclopedia of Life will create Internet pages for all 1.8 million species currently named. It will expedite the classification of the millions of species yet to be discovered and catalogued as well. The pages, housed at http://www.eol.org, will provide written information and, when available, photographs, video, sound, location maps, and other multimedia information on each species. Built on the scientific integrity of thousands of experts around the globe, the Encyclopedia will be a moderated wiki-style environment, freely available to all users everywhere.'"

Wow!

Myspace is the Press's Space

The editor-at-large of the Seattle Times comments about the press use of social networking sites.

Make no mistake, reporters should and will utilize these sites for news-gathering purposes. People who post profiles, pictures and blogs in public places on the Internet are volunteering information about themselves, much of which never would before have been available to strangers, even those in the press.

Mike Fancher, Social-networking site post ethical concerns, Aug. 20, 2006.

NY Times Investigates Pedophiles on the Web

The New York Times has two long articles about the community of pedophiles on the Web. Editors' Note - New York Times, Aug. 20, 2006; Kurt Eichenwald, Dark Corners: With Child Sex Sites on the Run, Nearly Nude Photos Hit the Web, NYT, Aug. 20, 2006; Kurt Eichenwald, Dark Corners: On the Web, Pedophiles Extend Their Reach, NYT, Aug. 21, 2006. Interesting, and creepy.

AOL Search Histories Made Public

AOL published on the Web millions of search queries. The users' anonymity was protected by numbers -- sort of. The article looks at one woman whose identity was determined based on her searches and discusses the privacy issues. Michael Barbaro and Tom Zeller Jr., A Face Is Exposed for AOL Searcher No. 4417749, New York Times, Aug. 9, 2006.

Court says FBI should use Google

The FBI didn't want to release documents under FOIA because it wasn't sure whether named parties were alive. The DC Circuit said: geez, try Google. Robert Ambrogi, Court: Government's Got to Google, Law.com, Legal Blog Watch, Aug. 22, 2006.

Wiktionary

Hey, there's now a wiki dictionary: Wiktionary.

Political and Historical Quotations

Quotations, memorable quotes at Eigen's Political and Historical Quotations.

My sample searches went slowly and I'm not throwing out my old standbys, but this could be handy.

Law & Literature: A List of Works

Law & Literature: A List of Works -- handy list of classics (Greek tragedy, Dickens, Kafka) and modern classics (Toni Morrison).

The Law and Humanities Blog, sponsored by the Law & Humanities Institute, has a team of 5 contributors. Recent topics include Harry Potter, Billy Budd, the question whether property enhances freedom, and notices of recent biographies.

Turn Web page into a PDF Document

WisBlawg - From the UW Law Library: Turn Web page into a PDF Document This is a cool service. The demo is neat -- but the FAQ says that the number of free renderings is limited, so one can't count on being able to use it forever without subscribing....

Later, a colleague pointed out that Adobe Acrobat does this (not the free reader, but the licensed version). And there are free sites:

http://www.go2pdf.com/product.html

http://www.pdfpdf.com/pdf4free.html

Commencement speeches

'Tis the season for advice, humor, platitudes, and reminiscences from speakers' platforms around the country. Want to find some?

What appears to be a great selection is humanity.org. It includes Steve Jobs, Toni Morrison, Martha Nussbaum, Madelaine Albright, Gloria Steinem, and more. As "oldie but goodies," there's George C. Marshall announcing the Marshall Plan (1947) and a JFK speech in
1963.

Another selection is in Yahoo's directory. It includes Richard Feynman (1974), Will Ferrell (2003), George W. Bush (West Point, 2002)

C-SPAN has video clips of about 30 speeches delivered in 2005.

Flylittlebird is an interesting website that presents "an experiment in building collective wisdom from hundreds of undergraduate commencement speeches." Results include a table listing issues by
urgency score. (The top issues are lack of democratic participation, terrorism, open questions regarding the war in Iraq, and lack of leadership in U.S.)

Flylittlebird.org also has a searchable archive of speeches.

Image: Jimmy Carter gives keynote address at commencement ceremonies at Georgia Institute of Technology in Atlanta, GA., 02/20/1979. Carter White House Photographs Collection. arcweb.archives.gov.

American National Biography Online

I just came across a citation to American National Biography Online and took a look. It is really cool. It offers short biographies -- by leading scholars -- of over 18,000 Americans. It is the online companion to a set published by Oxford.

The citation I saw was in an article by Barbara Babcock about the origins of the public defender. See Trial Ad Notes post.