Month: March 2003

Mass Care. How many people could you get to know well enough to give really good advice on what books they should read and what movies they should see? [Mark Bernstein]

Black fur for reproductive fitness. [ via Laura V. ] New Scientist reports research indicating that black cats have more resistance to disease than other cats. And if you're a small wild cat in an aboreal environment, then a black coat is great camoflage when you're hunting. However, the research indicates that the mutation for… Continue reading Black fur for reproductive fitness

An Information Explosion Contained All on One Page. An information explosion contained all on one page and you don't have to do the work! [DennisKennedy.blog]

A Short Interview with Dennis on Lawyer Blogs. I was interviewed for an article about lawyer blogs and here's what I had to say. [DennisKennedy.blog]

The Dupont Legal Model. The most most significant trend in law practice – here's a great starting point. [DennisKennedy.blog]

Vocabulary, taxonomy, thesaurus, ontology and meta-model. Woody Pidcock of the Boeing company gives an excellent overview of the differences between a vocabulary, a taxonomy, a thesaurus, an ontology, and a meta-model on metamodel.com. He summarizes the differences as such: Bottom line: Taxonomies and Thesauri may relate terms in a controlled vocabulary via parent-child and associative… Continue reading Vocabulary, taxonomy, thesaurus, ontology and meta-model

Get thee to a library. Oh for pete's sake somebody please tell these people that they're crazy. Have you ever tried to explain authority control to an experienced programmer? The very idea that a human should actually be forced to use a variety of sources — print included, not to mention time-honed rules and reasoning… Continue reading Get thee to a library

MySQL Full-Text Search Rocks My World. People ask me about MySQL's full-text search from time to time, but I've never actually used it. I understand how it works, so I can generally provide ball-park ideas about performance and suitability for a particular purpose. But until today, I had no first hand experience. That all changed… Continue reading MySQL Full-Text Search Rocks My World

Article on Use of IM in Law Firms. Good look at pros and cons. One factoid: prediction that IM use will overtake e-mail by 2005. [Via My Shingle]. [net.law.blog]

Legal Services Through Automated Systems. Linklaters announced a new automated document assembly system, the Term Sheet Generator that “promises to reduce the time taken by bankers on syndicated lending desks to produce term sheets—from around two hours to about 30 minutes—while feeding them relevant legal advice for structuring deals.” [excited utterances]. Yeah, delivering legal services by automated… Continue reading Legal Services Through Automated Systems