August 24th, 2006
Launching...Lawgarithms
Denise Howell here, taking the wysiwyg editor out for a spin and inaugurating my new blog here at ZDNet. This, I’ve got to tell you, is a pretty sweet gig. They’re letting me muse about interesting, important, and frequently cutting edge technology-related legal issues — in quite extraordinary company, no less — and as I understand it, I’m actually to get paid for the privilege. Dan’s really going to have to rethink the ZDNet business model; if he’d played his cards right he almost certainly could have gotten me to pay him. But let’s keep that under our hats, shall we? I’ve got a two-year-old whose seemingly innocuous dump truck habit is due to escalate to PSP any day now.
If we’re not already acquainted, I’m a lawyer, wife, daughter, mom, and enough of a technology enthusiast (or camp follower, depending on your snarkiness quotient today) that discovering a new episode of the Gillmor Gang on my iPod is enough to plaster a mysterious smile on my face for the rest of the morning. I’ve been lawyering almost 16 years, and blogging almost 6 5. [Updated August 25, 2006 @ 7:50 pm: Explains why I opted for law as opposed to something like engineering. Not only can I not do math, it seems I can't even, particularly at 12:44 a.m., count.] What this mostly means is I’ll be minding my own business, playing around with some cool new device, service, feature, or hack, and BAM! They hit me — the various ways someone is likely to wind up in court over the thing. It’s not necessarily a pleasant lot, "issue-spotting the Live Web," as we taglined Lawgarithms, but in my case it’s a bona fide compulsion. Perhaps the upshot is simply a twist on the old adage: "Those who can’t do, teach. >> Those who can’t teach, blog." But I prefer to think of myself as a bit of all three — doer, teacher/perpetual student, and blogger. My hope for Lawgarithms is it will be a way to indulge all those pursuits.
And to remember things. Because I just plain forget them if I don’t write them down.
Something else you should know is I’m not exactly one to stay tightly on topic. My bookshelf is a hodgepodge of Steve Jurvetson’s, Third Place Books, Osgoode Hall, and oh yeah Mark, I actually read those (well, not the Web Standards one, but it looks interesting). As with most things in life, whether you like or dislike a scattershot approach is a matter of perspective: one person’s flibberty-gibberish is another’s healthy rejection of compartmentalization.
So thanks for checking in, I hope to see more of you. Subscribe to the feed if you’re so inclined, it’s full text and almost fully potty trained. There’s Lawgarithms mobile too, for your phone, PDA, or whatever combination thereof you’re into this week.
‘Til next time: keep your lenses low but uncovered.
(Photo by Richard Winchell under Creative Commons.)
Denise Howell is an appellate, intellectual property and technology lawyer who enjoys broad industry recognition for her expertise on the intersection of emerging technologies and law. See her full profile and disclosure of her industry affiliations.
Subscribe to Lawgarithms via Email alerts or RSS.
| 08/25/06
