I am Andy Kaplan-Myrth, an Ontario lawyer with a background in computer and internet technologies.
I am available to provide legal services through the internet for your business or personal needs. While I am based in Ottawa, I operate a virtual law office and can provide legal services over the internet.
You can contact me by email at andy@kaplan-myrth.ca to arrange a consultation.
CBC Ideas on Intellectual Property
| Oct 14, 2008
From CBC Ideas:
full article | Main.CBCIdeasOnIntellectualProperty#disqus_thread
A Frightening Podcast About the Economy
| Sep 30, 2008
I previously wrote about NPR programs about the financial crisis including the This American Life episode called The Giant Pool of Money explaining the subprime mortgage crisis. In light of more recent events in the financial world — namely the near-complete breakdown of the stock market and banking system — Alex Blumberg and Adam Davidson are teaming up again to produce a follow-up to the Giant Pool of Money, this one titled Another Frightening Show About the Economy. I have every reason to think it will be as brilliant as the first episode — a short version appeared on the Planet Money podcast last week and was truly unbelievable. Update: Another Frightening Show About the Economy is being broadcast on NPR stations and will be available online soon — but is already available here through TAL’s secret backdoor mp3 access (ssshhh…)!
full article | Main.AFrighteningPodcastAboutTheEconomy#disqus_thread
Trend Toward Eliminating Grading At Law School
| Sep 29, 2008
It looks like there is an emerging trend of law schools eliminating grades in preference for pass-fail systems. It started with Yale and Stanford, but Harvard has now announced the same policy. Of course, it is easier for the elite schools to do this than for lower ranked schools, since any passing student at Harvard Law School is likely to be at least pretty good ;-) but it will be interesting to see if second or third rung schools can move in the same direction, or if they are even interested in doing so. They certainly have different incentives, so they may not see pass-fail systems as advancing their interests. Interesting discussion is already developing on Brian Leiter’s blog and on Ann Bartow’s blog.
full article | Main.TrendTowardEliminatingGradingAtLawSchool#disqus_thread
Planet Money Podcast from NPR
| Sep 16, 2008
Back in May, NPR’s Adam Davidson and Alex Blumberg from This American Life teamed up and produced an amazingly clear explanation of the subprime mortgage crisis called The Giant Pool of Money. The episode gives you a unique opportunity to hear some of the actual people all along the chain who bought and sold these worthless mortgages and inflated their value, eventually leading to the mortgage crisis. That episode turned out to be one of the most popular episodes of This American Life, and has led to a new NPR podcast in the same spirit called Planet Money. And we’re going to need it — anybody who, like me, doesn’t really understand why the market is doing what it’s doing will benefit from this podcast.
full article | Main.PlanetMoneyPodcastFromNPR#disqus_thread
Day Cares Struggle with Allergies
| Sep 16, 2008
I used to sit on the Policy Committee of the Glebe Parents Day Care, and at one point we struggled with how to handle anaphylactic and non-life-threatening allergies within the day care. It is important for the day care to do whatever it can to ensure the safety of the children, which justifies a complete ban on peanuts and tree nuts in the day care. But this gets complicated when a family claims their child has a life threatening allergy to, say, eggs — something that is very difficult or impossible to eliminate completely. In our day care, some of the staff would have been willing to turn away children with allergies that we could not accommodate, and it was lucky that parents on the committee resisted and made the point that by excluding these children from day cares they would be marginalized, and their parents would be put in a very difficult situation. I raised the prospect that it would in fact be a human rights violation to have a policy of turning away children with life-threatening allergies.
full article | Main.DayCaresStruggleWithAllergies#disqus_thread
Jokes About Lost Are Lost on Students
| Sep 15, 2008
I’m teaching the course Introduction to Law at the University of Ottawa. Last class, the first real class of the term, I lectured on legal theory and philosophical foundations of law. I thought I’d make it interesting with some outside references. When I talked about John Locke, I included pictures of the character John Locke from the TV show Lost. This is a big show, a popular show. But no, I get dead silence from the class.
full article | Main.JokesAboutLostAreLostOnStudents#disqus_thread
Lawyers to Follow on Twitter
| Sep 12, 2008
It’s always so great to be noticed, and I am honoured to be included on this (expanding!) list of lawyers to follow on Twitter. Thanks JDTwitt!
full article | Main.LawyersToFollowOnTwitter#disqus_thread
The Future of the Internet is Distributed
| Aug 29, 2008
This story is under development
full article | Main.TheFutureOfTheInternetIsDistributed#disqus_thread
Photoshopping Video
| Aug 24, 2008
BoingBoing already picked up on this incredible video that basically shows a technique for enhancing video that is similar to what is already familiar in “photoshopped” still images1
full article | Main.PhotoshoppingVideo#disqus_thread
Hockey Night in Canada Theme Competition
| Aug 23, 2008
When CBC lost the theme music for Hockey Night in Canada to CTV, they did a smart thing in launching a competition for a new theme. It involves their audience, refocuses the attention from the old theme to the search for a new theme, and feeds into Canadians’ (alleged) sense of ownership of HNIC and its music. But as Fake Ouimet points out, it uses a decidedly old style of contract in its efforts to do so. Read his analysis of the fine print in the competition rules and decide for yourself.
full article | Main.HockeyNightInCanadaThemeCompetition#disqus_thread
ABC Radio Launches Creative Social Space
| Aug 21, 2008
The Australian Broadcasting Corporation has launched Pool, a new social media site.
full article | Main.ABCRadioLaunchesCreativeSocialSpace#disqus_thread
Photosynth As a Service
| Aug 21, 2008
Microsoft just launched Photosynth as a service. Read my earlier coverage of Photosynth here. The new service allows users to upload their own images and create their own “synths”. I can’t wait to see what people do with it! Tomorrow and this weekend I’m going out with my camera and finding something to model. Or maybe I’ll synth my kids :-)
full article | Main.PhotosynthAsAService#disqus_thread
Podcasting Legal Guide for Canada on Scribd
| Aug 20, 2008
In June 2007, I worked with a law student to adapt the Podcasting Legal Guide for a Canadian audience. Kathleen Simmons and I wrote the PodcastingLegalGuideForCanada and unveiled it at Podcasters Across Borders that year. I have just posted the Guide to Scribd.com, the incredible document sharing platform, and you can read it there. If you like it, please Digg it.
full article | Main.PodcastingLegalGuideForCanadaOnScribd#disqus_thread
Blog Updates
| Aug 20, 2008
I finally got around to updating this blog so I thought I’d take a moment to describe the changes. First of all, this site is really a “bliki” — a blog on a wiki — built on PmWiki software. This gives me a lot of flexibility to configure additional functionality and even develop it where it’s missing. Of course, wikis aren’t made for blogging, so I’ve had to do a lot of futzing to get this to work right. The last bits fell into place yesterday when I added support for the social bookmarking and sharing button from AddThis (at the top of every post) and comments from Disqus, appearing at the bottom of each page.
full article | Main.BlogUpdates#disqus_thread
Techlaw Magazine 2008
| Aug 18, 2008
Back in January, I was involved in publishing TECHLAW, the magazine of the University of Ottawa Law & Technology Program, the program that I manage. The magazine was an upgrade of sorts from the newsletter we used to publish and send out by email.
full article | Main.TechlawMagazine2008#disqus_thread
Court Rules That Video Can Live in the Cloud Part 2
| Aug 07, 2008
Earlier today, I posted this article about the recent decision in the Cablevision appeal. After twittering the post, I got a comment from Anyanwu Law (@techlaw) noting the following:
full article | Main.CourtRulesThatVideoCanLiveInTheCloudPart2#disqus_thread
Court Rules That Video Can Live in the Cloud
| Aug 07, 2008
As Michael Geist wrote earlier this week, a US appeals court has found that network-based Personal Video Recorder (PVR) systems do not infringe copyright. It is interesting that this decision was made in the context of the DMCA, which sometimes seems to see infringement everywhere it looks.
full article | Main.CourtRulesThatVideoCanLiveInTheCloud#disqus_thread
Citizens Banks Microblogging Evangelist
| Jul 16, 2008
Here’s a terrific example of a large company using microblogging for self-promotion — in this case, a bank.
full article | Main.CitizensBanksMicrobloggingEvangelist#disqus_thread
Free and Open Microblogging
| Jul 11, 2008
There has been a flurry of activity over the past couple of months in the Twitterverse and I haven’t blogged any of it because, like so many others tweeps, I’m been too busy Twittering.
Quebec Torrent Site Shut Down
| Jul 11, 2008
Updating my April post QuebecoisTorrentSiteUnderThreat, Michael Geist notes that Quebec Torrent has been ordered to shut down the parts of its site that allowed copyright infringement through the unauthorized sharing of copyrighted works.
full article | Main.QuebecTorrentSiteShutDown#disqus_thread
Government Representatives on Twitter
| Jul 11, 2008
On Twitter today, I came across @johnculberson, Texas Congressman. He was tweeting yesterday from Congress while the FISA vote was going on, responding to citizen’s questions and updating his views. It’s well known that Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton both used Twitter during their campaigns, but this is different. This is ongoing contact between a representative and his constituents, and I think it highlights a very powerful democratic use of Twitter and similar social messaging systems.
full article | Main.GovernmentRepresentativesOnTwitter#disqus_thread
George Carlin Not Responsible for Recycled New Age Pablum
| Jun 24, 2008
Comedian George Carlin died this past weekend. This morning, I got an email with an essay attributed to George Carlin — actually, expressing surprise that a comedian would “so very eloquent…and so very appropriate.” You can read the substance of the email on this page (spoiler alert: he didn’t really write it!)
full article | Main.GeorgeCarlinNotResponsibleForRecycledNewAgePablum#disqus_thread
Embroidery and Open Source Software
| May 22, 2008
Just last night, Nili was looking for quilting patters and suggested that there should be a supply of patterns under Creative Commons licences. Today, Boing Boing has this post on “Open Source Embroidery and the ‘gendered gift economy’”, covering an interview by Whitney Trettien with Ele Carpenter who runs the “Open Source Embroidery Project”. Comparing open source software and embroidery, she writes:
full article | Main.EmbroideryAndOpenSourceSoftware#disqus_thread
Quebecois Torrent Site Under Threat
| Apr 27, 2008
This Quebecois torrent site is apparently under threat by the entertainment industry but intends to defend themselves. Based on the donation scale on their site, it looks good for their defence — as of today, the site has 123% of their target donations! From TorrentFreak says:
full article | Main.QuebecoisTorrentSiteUnderThreat#disqus_thread
This American Life on Cryonics
| Apr 22, 2008
I listen to a terrific weekly NPR radio program called This American Life. This week their episode is called “Mistakes Were Made” and it’s about apologies, or rather those not-totally-honest apologies that politicians and others sometimes make.
full article | Main.ThisAmericanLifeOnCryonics#disqus_thread
Using Logos on Facebook
| Apr 18, 2008
There has been a lot of concern in the social media world about Facebook’s terms of use and what they mean for user generated content. While it is true that Facebook takes quite a few rights from content that its users post to the site, there are limits. I had an interesting question today from social media consultant Robin Browne of Conscious Images.
full article | Main.UsingLogosOnFacebook#disqus_thread
Using Liquid Nitrogen to Access Encrypted Data
| Feb 21, 2008
image CC-BY by user nikonvscanon
Just saw this on www.Freedom-to-Tinker.com: a method for defeating disk encryption, even using Trusted Computing platforms, by physically cooling the DRAM chip where data is held temporarily, and then reading the private key from that chip. It’s right out of a spy film!
full article | Main.UsingLiquidNitrogenToAccessEncryptedData#disqus_thread
GPS for Dogs
| Nov 28, 2007
This is what my dog needs! I was just talking with friends about how useful this would be for our dog, Fleury, who runs away with disturbing frequency: a Garmin DC 20 Dog Tracking GPS!
full article | Main.GPSForDogs#disqus_thread
Google Image Labeler
| Nov 26, 2007
Google is crowdsourcing their image management with this new application, the Google Image Labeler. In the past, when you do a Google Image search, Google would decide what the images were “about” by indexing what the pages that they appeared on were about. Now, they can use the tags people put in. But they won’t use just any tags anybody puts in. When you load up the Image Labeler, you’re paired up with another person in real time, and both of you suggest tags for a set of images. When your suggestions match, that’s a good indication that the matching term is a good tag, and Google adds that to the index for that image.
full article | Main.GoogleImageLabeler#disqus_thread
All photographs, videos and audio files on this website are Copyright 2000-2007 in Canada by the Andy Kaplan-Myrth. All other content on this website, including the text and the design and layout, unless otherwise noted, is licensed under a Creative Commons Licence.