Wall Street

Man looks in the abyss, there's nothing staring back at him. At that moment, man finds his character. And that is what keeps him out of the abyss.

Free as in Maahhh, or My Chat with Darl McBride. A summary of the SCO president's talk at Harvard.

Enthymeme:

"The informal method of reasoning typical of rhetorical discourse. The enthymeme is sometimes defined as a 'truncated syllogism' since either the major or minor premise found in that more formal method of reasoning is left implied. The enthymeme typically occurs as a conclusion coupled with a reason. When several enthymemes are linked together, this becomes sorites. "

Open Source Law:

"Open source software offers several potential benefits:

* A large community works to solve a common problem
* The work is completely transparent, so you can understand the basis for all the code
* Because the community constantly works on the code, problems are found and corrected quickly
* You can extend the basic functionality and contribute your extensions back to the community.

It seems to me that these benefits could apply equally to the law itself, or at least to aspects of it, particularly transaction documents. Why should every lawyer and firm have its own "boilerplate" language. I'm not minimizing the need for customized documents. But where a lawyer is not trying to achieve anything beyond creating a standard right, obligation, or protection, why not use a standardized approach?"

From Strategic Legal Technology, February 2004