I am so very excited about our upcoming concerts on March 11, the
Shrine performance in April, and of course Carmina in July. We will
resume rehearsals on Monday, January 9 and will immediately begin work
on the Faure, folksongs, and Carmina. Please encourage your colleagues
to audition for the choir. I will be auditioning singers before the
first few rehearsals. Encourage all to audition, but especially
gentlemen. We need to double our men’s sections for the upcoming
performances.

For more information visit Los Angeles Lawyers Philharmonic or email info@lalawyersphil.org.

When you think of Encyclopedia Britannica you probably think of High School research assignments and the voice of authority. I know I do. As a young child I had a Funk-and-Wagnalls set the folks dutifully purchased in installments from the grocery store. Britannica was the gold standard, a reason to go to the library, or a more affluent friend’s house. Britannica was where it was at, the undisputed leader in the encyclopedia space.

That was then. Now we have wikipedia. Where Britannica’s claim was an optimax ratio of authoritative knowledge to shelf space, wikipedia raises the stakes by letting us all participate. Just need a quick fact? You can use wikipedia passively. See something that needs tweaking, a typo or mis-quote? Change it. Better still, read the discussion page and see what has already been said, then make your change in the context of that information. And where Britannica was deemed the final word, wikipedia is just a jumping off point, with reference links galore for those who like to really dig deep on an issue.

As an example, wikipedia founder/contributor “Jimbo Wales”, recently posted the following on wikipedia:

(Please help me publicize this widely.)
A few months ago, the Italian Wikipedia community made a decision to blank all of Italian Wikipedia for a short period in order to protest a law which would infringe on their editorial independence. The Italian Parliament backed down immediately. As Wikipedians may or may not be aware, a much worse law going under the misleading title of “Stop Online Piracy Act’ is working its way through Congress on a bit of a fast track. I may be attending a meeting at the White House on Monday (pending confirmation on a couple of fronts) along with executives from many other top Internet firms, and I thought this would be a good time to take a quick reading of the community feeling on this issue. My own view is that a community strike was very powerful and successful in Italy and could be even more powerful in this case. There are obviously many questions about whether the strike should be geotargetted (US-only), etc. (One possible view is that because the law would seriously impact the functioning of Wikipedia for everyone, a global strike of at least the English Wikipedia would put the maximum pressure on the US government.) At the same time, it’s of course a very very big deal to do something like this, it is unprecedented for English Wikipedia.

SOPA is, as L.A. Progressive readers already know, a terrible bit of legislation, right up there with the Military Commissions Act of 2006 and the Orwellian H.R. 3162 of 2001, lovingly known as USAPATRIOT (and, yes Virginia, someone got paid to work up that false-flag acronym), and one can only hope readers of this site will flood all of their friends and family with Wales’ request for feedback, but the real point of this particular entry is this: Wikipedia is yours. It is a participatory effort to which you are cordially invited. It’s power to the people whether the government likes it or not…unless of course we let the various governments of the world break the interenet with officious nonsense in the name of “fighting piracy”, which brings us to the tech tip for the day:

Pirates notoriously rape, pillage, murder. They are less known for making or sharing unauthorized copies of “Lawrence of Arabia” or “The Hurt Locker”. The use of the word “pirate”, with all it’s truly horrendous connotations, is a technological ploy, using the technology called language, designed to prevent serious, substantive conversation about the pros and cons of various methods of promoting science and the useful arts, much as the “War is Peace” connotations of H.R. 3162, the so-called “patriot” act uses the technology of language to paint anyone who opposes it as a traitor. Today’s tip, then: Be on the look out for when language is being used against you, to bind you, to paint you into a corner, rather than to communicate, as with the so-called “Stop Online Piracy Act“.

Tech Tip: The Pervasive Power of the Plain

November 8, 2011 By Robert Link Leave a Comment

There is some irony in my having been assigned this column. I’m as tech savvy as the next person, I suppose, but my tastes run to the tragically un-hip. I read my email in a way that only shows me actual text, no html, no pictures, and not even black-text-on-white background but a matrixesque green on black, generally.

But it isn’t because I am anti-tech. It is because I am pro-tech and specifically pro-tech-that-serves-me rather than pro-tech-that-serves-the-one-percent. There was a time one could confidently say that the same features that made Windows the easiest interface to learn also made it the greatest host for virus writers. I work with old-school apps and open-source software largely because it just isn’t as heavily targeted.

But it isn’t just protection from third-party malefactors. Corporate software, like other consumer goods, runs largely on the principle of planned obsolescence. The latest new-shiny makes outmoded and outdated the formerly-new-shiny with which one is currently saddled. It takes a real effort of will and appeal to wisdom not to get on the never ending consumer conveyor belt of having the latest greatest gadget.

One facet of the American dream, of course, is a new car every two years. Only a fool would imagine the capital invested in transportation, the tens of thousands of dollars spent on new wheels, could really have reached their useful end a mere 24 months later. That dream was of and for an America of corporate greed and profits.

Now pretend that where I wrote “car” I wrote, “operating system” or “smart phone” or whatever happens to be the hot new-shiny when you read this. While the 1% has most of us on that never ending circle, there are many fine folks making sure you and I have access to the tools we need to get things done, for no more price than downloading it and taking the time to learn a little.

Considering the purported correlations of ease of learning new interfaces and neurological function (and I’m thinking specifically of remarks in Jared Diamond’s “Guns, Germs, and Steel“) one could argue it’s worth your while just for the health benefits.

With the above in mind, then, today’s tech-tip: Learn about charityware, like the venerable text-editor, “Vim, and even if you aren’t likely to take the time to learn how to use the product, consider it an act of faith in the future to make a donation.

Robert Link

Comments welcome at either venue.

The internet is a network of networks. If that sentence makes your eyes glaze over just a bit, if you get a little dizzy just thinking about what the difference is between a giant network and network of networks, you are not alone, but it is an important difference, and without understanding that difference one cannot really appreciate the net neutrality debate.

CRAIGSLIST TERMS OF USE

1. ACCEPTANCE OF TERMS

craigslist provides a collection of online resources, including classified ads, forums, and various email services, (referred to hereafter as “the Service”) subject to the following Terms of Use (“TOU”). By using the Service in any way, you are agreeing to comply with the TOU. In addition, when using particular craigslist services, you agree to abide by any applicable posted guidelines for all craigslist services, which may change from time to time. Should you object to any term or condition of the TOU, any guidelines, or any subsequent modifications thereto or become dissatisfied with craigslist in any way, your only recourse is to immediately discontinue use of craigslist. craigslist has the right, but is not obligated, to strictly enforce the TOU through self-help, community moderation, active investigation, litigation and prosecution.

If you haven’t read through them, the ILTSO Standards are a solid resource for the legal profession. Attorneys, from solos to BigLaw, are look for guidance when using technology in law practice. There is a strong focus in the Standards on the use of cloud computing and mobile devices for law practice. The Standards also include an ethics section. Obviously, the document will need to be updated regularly which is another purpose of this nonprofit.

Google Adwords Rep: Alright well I will actually have to check with my higher up to get this approved because we recently stopped running Adwords for Facebook.

The comments at Tech Blog suggest this might be as simple as retaliation for Facebook having similarly banned ads for the new Google+ service. Others suggest this is more than Gimbles refusing to run ads for Macys and instead calls into question Google’s commitment to principles of so-called “net neutrality.

In making the move – which took effect this past May 1st — EMI is reasserting its exclusive rights to license performing rights for its 200,000-song strong EMI April Music catalog to digital accounts. ASCAP will continue to license EMI’s performance rights with respect to traditional media services, including television and radio stations, according to the announcement.

EMI touts the move as streamlining. But while such a move may streamline rights negotiations with a given publisher, it would seem to generally balkanize the overall licensing process. It seems not unfair to speculate that EMI’s concern is less with streamlining and more with capturing revenues directly rather than through a middle-man.

Apparently Dutch police have used data collected and sold by the company that makes TomTom GPS devices. The information is reported to have been used by Dutch police in setting up speed traps. At issue in the context of this blog is the question: Was there anything in the TOS to make a user think such collection and sale to governmental agencies was prevented? Comments on a post by boingboing’s Mark Frauenfelder focus on TomTom CEO’s claim that such use was unforseen.

Link to report at Forbes

The Architecture of Access to Scientific Knowledge from lessig on Vimeo.

Access is a global movement premised on the belief that political participation and the realization of human rights in the 21st century is increasingly dependent on access to the internet and other forms of technology. Founded in the wake of the 2009 Iranian post-election crackdown, Access teams with digital activists and civil society groups internationally to build their technical capacity and to help them advocate globally for their digital rights. Access provides thought leadership and practical policy recommendations in the broader field of internet freedom, and based on that expertise mobilizes its global movement of citizens to campaign for an open internet accessible to all.

A good addition to the rss feed.

Courts currently accept PDF/A documents. However, a target date for requiring that all new documents be filed in PDF/A has not been set.

Rick Borstein offers some insights into the transition here