Internet Law

As a virtual being, I need to know the law for what goes on in my virtual world. Internet Cases is a blog that "highlight[s] some of the more interesting court cases dealing with issues relating to the Internet and new technologies." It was created by Evan Brown, an attorney practicing in the areas of intellectual property and computer-related law.



Ernster, the Virtual Library Cat

World Population Clock

If you are curious to see a quick snapshot of the planet Earth’s ever-increasing human population, then take a look at census.gov’s World Population Clock for periodic updates. You’ll also find a bit more detailed information about world human population and trends here.

Ernster, the Virtual Library Cat

Eyestrain--An Occupational Hazard For Law Students

Do you find yourself suffering from casebook-induced eyestrain, or other visual maladies? All About Vision is a useful one-stop Web site for informative and reliable articles that discuss nearly anything you'd care to know about the human eye, its care, and its various malfunctions.



Ernster, the Virtual Library Cat

Top Ten Opt-Outs For Consumers

Most law students are too busy to deal with unsolicited commercial calls, offers and emails. Last week, the World Privacy Forum, a nonprofit, non-partisan research group focused on consumer education, published its "Top Ten Opt Outs" list. Here are the facts and simple instructions you need to go beyond the national do-not-call registry and take advantage of other opt-out mechanisms available to consumers. Among the most useful "top ten" are ways to avoid receiving pre-screened credit and insurance offers, stop unwanted commercial emails, and prevent the sharing of personal preference information by vendors and Internet sites. Check them out and share the list with some friends.



Ernster, the Virtual Library Cat

Chief Justice John Roberts

Chief Justice John Roberts released from hospital after an overnight stay. Chief Justice Roberts suffered a seizure Monday while on vacation. He suffered minor scraps from the fall. NPR and CNN news stories provide details.



Ernster, the Virtual Library Cat

Dressing Down for Court

As you may have heard, the Lord Chief Justice of England and Wales recently announced changes to simplify the traditional court attire worn by judges and lawyers there. Effective January 2008, judges and advocates appearing in civil and family courts will no longer wear the wigs and wing-collars for which they are known throughout the world. At criminal trials the traditional dress, including wigs, will continue to be worn. The official announcement is posted on the Judiciary of England and Wales website, where other interesting facts about English judges and photos of judicial court dress are available. For a brief and amusing look at how English court dress came to be--and why it remained that way for centuries--I recommend "Wigs, Coifs, and Other Idiosyncrasies of English Judicial Attire," by Cardozo School of Law professor Charles Yablon (Cardozo Life, Spring 1999).



Ernster, the Virtual Library Cat

Universal Currency Converter

Are you planning a vacation abroad to celebrate your having leapt the hurdle of the Bar Examination, or simply to give yourself a break before returning to school? If so, then you may want to know how far your dollar will go when you exchange it for the local currency. To that end, the Universal Currency Converter offers a quick and easy way to obtain the latest exchange rates for the U.S. dollar versus foreign currencies.



Ernster, the Virtual Library Cat

Online Etymology Dictionary

Attorneys are noted for deploying language with precision. Knowing a word's origins may help in this endeavor, by alerting the writer to the subtler shades and tints of meaning that a word's origins may reveal. Although any good print dictionary will contain etymological (word origin) information, here is a link to a worthwhile Online Etymology Dictionary.



Ernster, the Virtual Library Cat

Tracking Actual Innocence

One of the best new sites for law students, attorneys and anyone else following the hot topic area of wrongful convictions in criminal law is the Actual Innocence Awareness Database, recently launched by the Tarlton Law Library at the University of Texas School of Law. Keeping up with this subject in a streamlined, savvy way is what the site is all about. Organized by subtopics including forensics/DNA, eyewitness identification, false confessions, jailhouse informants, prosecutorial misconduct, and ineffective counsel, the database is also fully searchable. It is updated daily or as new resources become available, listing citations and links to United States news media (including newspaper articles and television news magazine segments) and to new law journal articles, legislation, and web sites. Links for law review articles are to the first full page of text in PDF. Best of all, the site is RSS-enabled for automatic updates. If this is an area of interest for you, this is a site to know.

Ernster, the Virtual Library Cat

Internet Beginner's Guides

I realize that anybody reading this must know something about the Internet or they probably wouldn't have made it to this posting. But if you use your computer mostly to IM and use applications such as Word and think the only thing you need to know about the Internet is Google, this page may be for you. It is filled with links to various guides and tutorials, from simple to more advanced, that will help you get much more out of the Internet. There is so much out there, take advantage of it.



Ernster, the Virtual Library Cat