Irregular Update #9

life is a rich tapestry edition

March 09, 2023

Hello friends in the computer,

I saw a lot of cool stuff on the Internet this week, so it’s gonna be a lot of links and not much from me. Although some of the links are of stuff from me. Life is a rich tapestry. Roll with it.

First, Me

Bob Ambrogi is hosting a three-part retrospective on the 10 year anniversary of ReInvent Law and guest editor Dan Lear was kind enough to ask me to participate. Thank you again to the ReInvent Law Team for creating a community and making legal tech conferences openly accessible and cool. Here’s the post.

Most people - wisely - summarize their CVs and accomplishments in author or speaker bios but for some reason I can’t seem to do that. I’m always like “yeah, I’m just a chick that lives in Indiana. I’ve done some stuff. Listen to me or don’t. <shrug>” So if you think my bio there is dumb let it be known that I agree with you.

Also the nice folks at Lawrina chose to highlight me on their International Women’s Day post.

Seriously, though, if you don’t have diverse C-Suites and pay equitably, all your talk of DEI is bunk. Check out this bot while Twitter lasts.

Core Memory Weavers and NASA

A repeated story in tech history is that work that is done by women is devalued and not considered important. Then men start to do and suddenly it becomes The Key To Everything. As a result, a lot of the work of early women pioneers is forgotten and/or not regularly taught. I just learned about the women who did the wire placement on the early semiconductors used by NASA. “Teaching History” is not just a recitation of facts and dates, it’s long been a curation decision of what facts and dates get covered and from what perspective.

Speaking of Teaching and Legal Tech…

I do not have it in me to write law journal articles anymore. But if I did, this is exactly the type of one I’d like to write. It’s a snapshot analysis of the current law school offerings in legal technology and whether or not it’s sufficient to meet ethical obligations. Check it out.

…and of Tech History

I can’t remember where I saw this, but it warmed my anthropologist heart.

In my mind, the most advanced AI enabled drafting assistant is just a continuation of the process that started when some hominid a few millennia ago realized that banging two rocks together resulted in a sharp edge that was pretty useful. I wonder how long it took him to convince everyone else in his group to try it?

Get Better at OSINT

I think I first got interested in open source intelligence (aka OSINT) for a really dumb reason and that’s because I saw the words “open source” and starting reading and was hooked before I realized it didn’t have anything to do with my usual interests. Then I saw it used more and more, mostly by Twitter detectives, and it’s simultaneously amazing and terrifying what’s publicly available. Understanding THAT is a good idea for legal professionals and legal focused students for many reasons and learning how to find OSINT info is a great skill to acquire. Here’s a tutorial series I found this week that I want to take to sharpen my skills.

Somewhat related, there are so many great training resources out there for all sorts of knowledge/skills/abilities needed by people working in the legal world, that I think any first iteration of my legal tech MOOC is going to be just linking to already created resources.

Thanks, I’m terrified

I was having a low motivation day and then Instagram decided to show me this.

As someone who believes she’s already running on borrowed time due to several health issues, this a big fear. Thanks, Instagram for really messing me up.

Silly Typewriter Fun

I am old as dirt but when I took typing in high school (probably the most valuable thing I learned in it), it was on a computer with….WordPerfect. In those days I mostly typed on word processors of some type from but I remember the fun of poking around on my mom’s typewriter. This simulator is just a fun way to waste a few moments and, if you’re like me, be presented with horrible realization of how many typos you make.

Bootlegs

Chicago politics are…interesting. The city machine is as corrupt as you’ve heard, maybe even worse, although probably not radically different from anywhere else. It’s in the middle of a mayoral election and with the caveat that I have tuned out and don’t really know a lot about the candidates (I live in Indiana, remember, but get Chicago media), I saw this site where artists make t-shirts for a candidate and then proceeds go to him. I live the idea and trying to think of a way to steal it. Which legal tech vendor will let customers design their SWAG?

DO IT AND BE A LEGEND.

I Still Miss Twitter

I do miss Twitter, although Mastodon is really meeting a lot of the same outlet that Twitter did but without tacitly supporting or being forced to interact with a lot of terrible people. Unfortunately, I can’t quit Twitter entirely because I need to read it to keep up with professional news (….and, uh, European Royalty) and promote myself since it remains a good channel for the movers and shakers of legal tech. There’s lots of people that feel like they can’t quit it for more important reasons than that. (Although if you are in that group I do implore you to join Mastodon, though, if for no other reason you have a back up for when and if [but mostly when] Twitter goes poof. ) And to be honest, I’m looking for an alternative to Substack since this place is also kind of gross. Listen…I’m not perfect, I’m never going to act in a 100% ethical and non-hypocritical way when using consumer tech, but that’s not going to keep me from trying to make positive changes when I can and encourage others to do the same.

ANYWAY. In the old days, these would make me say “I’m never quitting the bird site” but…clearly I can. Mostly. But these are still funny/interesting to me and wanted to share. I’m going to be as hardcore as I can and share screenshots instead of links so there’s limited engagement.