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Errant law blogger repents, promises return to snarky, somewhat-informed weblog

Dearest readers, I know, I know: it’s been a while. I moved, started a new job, got married, and am preparing for the bar exam. “Busy” is an insufficient descriptor. In case the new look hasn’t given it away, though, you can expect regular publishing to restart very soon. Thanks for still reading. …

Should I merge Geekeries with this blog?

Questions?

Now that Constant & Endless is up to a staggering 26 Tumblr followers, I’ve enabled the ability for signed-in Tumblr users to ask questions on this site. Just click the “?” in the links menu at the top of the page, or visit this link.

Another Note to RSS Subscribers

Those who subscribe to http://feeds.feedburner.com/byjoeross only have a few more days to subscribe to the new feed. Please make the change so you can keep reading my priceless insights. Do it for your friends. Do it for yourself. The New Feed!

A Note to RSS Subscribers

If you are subscribed to http://feeds.feedburner.com/byjoeross you need to subscribe to http://joeross.me/rss instead. The /byjoeross feed will go away forever in about a month. Click here to subscribe to the new feed. It would mean a lot to me if you did that. Really. I would smile. Widely.

Housekeeping, too, is Constant & Endless

I’m changing a few things as I settle into my new theme and workflow here at Constant & Endless. In no particular order, those things are: I have changed the title of the RSS feed for this site from “By Joe Ross” to “Constant & Endless.” I’m appending “↗” to all link posts to make clear …

Analysis over revision: Kara Swisher's mysterious edits to Marissa Mayer's Yahoo! memo (Updated)

Updated 12:00 p.m: Kara Swisher reached out to me on Twitter after I published this post (her tweets and my replies here, here, here, here, and here). She said she only made minor edits to things like commas and contractions, and that she thought people would assume that she didn’t rewrite the …

No Comment

I have turned off comments here at Constant & Endless. I have had only one comment since I started writing here, from Mr. Scott Carpenter. He left a good link, and I certainly don’t want to alienate him or anyone else who wants to tell me something in response to what I’ve written. But I trust …

Evening Edition beautifully presents the important news you missed

Co-creator Jim Ray of Mule Design describes Evening Edition like this: It’s a summary of the day’s news, written by an actual journalist, with links to the best reporting in the world, published once a day. Last night, in between reading the news using various Android apps, I spotted a link to …

In Brief: How Reed Hastings Almost Undid Netflix

Greg Sandoval, writing at CNET: For most of the former Netflix employees who moved to Qwikster, their old jobs had been filled. They no longer had a place at the company. I once asked “What is going on at Netflix?” I wasn’t alone, either. Reed Hastings definitely failed all of his customers in the …

Self-Promotion Alert: Read My (Very Short!) Fiction

This site is supposed to be me talking about the law and technology, but I have some shameless self promotion to do, so I’m deviating from the usual subject matter this week. <shameless_self_promotion> I recently started a new Tumblr called, creatively, Fiction by Joe Ross. I’m posting flash …

Flipboard, Condé Nast, and the Mobile Advertising Problem (Updated)

Howard Mittman, VP and publisher at Condé Nast property Wired Magazine, told Ad Age's Nat Ives: I’m interested in ways to bring advertisers in front of our community. When Flipboard becomes that, I would love to reengage and reinvigorate our product. Until then, we have to wait and see and not …

Pirates of Westeros: the untapped half-billion dollar market for Game of Thrones

Ernesto at TorrentFreak:

It’s clear that HBO (and others) prefer exclusiveness over piracy, which is a dangerous game. They might make decent money in the long run by selling subscriptions. However, this limited availability also breeds pirates, and one has to wonder how easy it is to convert …

The danger of covertly-altered ebooks

"Philip," writing at his blog Ocracoke Island Journal about the ebook edition of War and Peace he bought on his Nook (emphasis below is mine): As I was reading, I came across this sentence: “It was as if a light had been Nookd in a carved and painted lantern….” … For the sentence above I discovered …

Twitter Digest and the persistence of opt-out

Othman Laraki, Director of Growth and International at Twitter, on the official Twitter Blog: Like other Twitter email notifications, you can manage your preferences for this new digest in your Notification Settings. That is true, but Twitter has opted all users into their new weekly email digest. …

Google's live 'Hangouts On Air' rolling out to everyone everywhere, and why it matters

I originally posted this to The Verge's Web & Social forum. Read the original forum post here. Google recently announced that, over the next several weeks, they’re rolling out the ability to livestream and record Hangouts to everyone. Shameless copy/paste of features: Broadcast publicly. By …

This is my new blog.

This is a post I ran recently at my Posterous blog, announcing my move over here. I thought I’d put it here for reference while I finish drafting a proper post about how my personal take on blogging has evolved over the years. Dear people who read this website, Here is a list of things I want to …

Remember: 39% of North Carolinians are not fearful and ignorant

The North Carolina amendment alters the constitution to say that “marriage between one man and one woman is the only domestic legal union that shall be valid or recognized” in the state. —CNN I don’t often take a preachy tone, and this story has little to do with how the law and technology …

The Pinterest (Er, Tumblr) Problem, Fair Use, and a Suggestion for Change

I wrote the article below for Temple Law’s student newspaper, Prima Facie. While my views on the topic of copyright liability in the modern Internet’s “sharing economy” continue to evolve, I haven’t made any edits to the version that ran in Prima’s April issue. This is a long post, but I would …

No Pressure

Analyst Brian Marshall, to SFGate’s Jun Yang: As the markets get more saturated, the pressure will be much stronger to add more screen sizes. "Today, the answer is no," he said. "Down the road, the answer is yes," he said. No way. The only source of pressure on Apple to do anything is the …

Hulu will eventually require a cable subscription

Our source noted that Hulu has no interest in being a first mover here and that a requirement for authentication is likely still a few years out. Hulu, however, does want to be a good partner and may have to give in to its partners’ pressure soon or later. via techcrunch.com This is a damn shame. …

Already paying for extra Docs/Gmail space? You’re payment plan isgrandfathered into Google Drive.

Google storage plans have changed, but you can stay on your current plan as long as you: Keep your account active Keep payment information in Google Wallet accurate and up-to-date Don’t cancel or upgrade your current plan via support.google.com This is good news. I can keep paying $5 per year …

Marco Arment: Be Skeptical of Twitter's Innovator's Patent Agreement

Twitter’s “Innovator’s Patent Agreement” – Marco.org » I recently wrote about Twitter’s promise to use patents only for defensive purposes—the “Innovator’s Patent Agreement” (“IPA,” not to be confused with this). The link above leads to a post by Marco Arment, warning us to read the agreement …

"Demand Your Data"

"Tim Berners-Lee: demand your data from Google and Facebook" by Ian Katz at guardian.co.uk Whatever social site, wherever you put your data, you should make sure that you can get it back and get it back in a standard form. And in fact if I were you I would do that regularly, just like you back up …

Twitter won't use employee patents offensively

"Introducing the Innovator’s Patent Agreement" by Adam Messinger, VP of Engineering at the Official Twitter Blog It is a commitment from Twitter to our employees that patents can only be used for defensive purposes. We will not use the patents from employees’ inventions in offensive litigation …

Secondary market for class notes: copyrighted free speech or lazy cheater's dream?

"Do Students Have Copyright to Their Own Notes?" This is a decent article by Tina Barseghian of KQED’s Mindshift blog, but unfortunately it isn’t cynical enough for me. It talks about school policies banning the sharing or selling of class notes. It sets up the dichotomy of a professor’s right to be …

Arrington and Siegler out at PandoDaily, don't bother trying to comment about it

As of Monday, April 9 the shareholders of PandoMedia voted to remove Michael Arrington as a director. Given the change in relationship we feel it’s inappropriate for CrunchFund’s partners Michael Arrington and MG Siegler to continue contributing to PandoDaily. via pandodaily.com Why? Arrington has …