Author Archive | David Post

Eugene has already commented on the recent Fourth Circuit decision in this case (US v Whorley), but I wanted to add a comment, because there’s something that really bothers me about this case. The defendant was convicted of “knowingly receiving on a computer 20 obscene Japanese anime cartoons depicting minors engaging in sexually explicit conduct, […]

On an interview broadcast on NPR this morning, Willard Wirtz — Secretary of Labor in JFK’s administration — called cabinet meetings “part of the Kabuki dance of democracy.” That is a great line, eh? It perfectly captures something about a bunch of institutions and arrangements — carefully orchestrated, just “for show.” But it doesn’t connote […]

I’ve been listening, of late, to a wonderful recording released by Mosaic Records of the Thelonius Monk Quartet (with John Coltrane) recorded live at a performance in November 1957 at Carnegie Hall. [Great music to grade exams by!] The disc’s really terrific for lots of reasons — the performances, especially the four at the late […]

So I spent the weekend (among other pursuits) reading David Kairys’ memoir, “Philadelphia Freedom.” Full disclosure: David’s a good friend and colleague at Temple Law School (which means that if I thought the book sucked, I would just shut up about it, not wanting to offend a friend). Turns out it’s a very good read. […]

December 16, 2008 Jerry MacArthur Hultin President, Polytechnic Institute of New York Dear Pres. Hultin: I am writing to inform you that I have decided to offer myself for consideration for the Chaired Professorship in Physics and Chemistry at your distinguished institution. As you are no doubt aware, my father, Benjamin Post (1911-1994), held this […]

So Akhbar, a peasant farmer in, say, Bengladesh, walks into his little village’s local micro-credit bank, looking for a loan for (the equivalent of) 100 bucks or so to open up a little business. “Do you have collateral?” the Banker asks. “What’s collateral?” Akhbar replies. So the Banker gives him a little lesson on banks […]

. . . other than paternal pride [surely one of the more benign vices, and one for which kind readers will forgive me]. It’s a video clip of my son Sam at his piano recital at Yale last spring: some Preludes and Fugues from Bach’s Well-Tempered Clavier. It’s a very home-made job, quality-wise, but there’s […]

After having worked on it for about a dozen years of so (more like fourteen, but who’s counting?), my book, In Search of Jefferson’s Moose: Notes on the State of Cyberspace, is finally going to see the light of day some time around the middle of January. The book has a simple premise: to recreate […]

Guitarist Joe Satriani has asserted in a complaint filed on Thursday that substantial portions of his 2004 song “If I Could Fly” were copied by Coldplay in its song “Viva La Vida.” Judge for yourself: Of course, you can’t really tell, from a comparison of the songs, whether or not there’s been infringement; as in […]

As many of you know, “patent trolls” are parties that buy up issued patents for the sole purpose of using the patents offensively to collect licensing fees (or, failing that, to sue for infringement) from 3d parties. There’s been lots of writing about the phenomenon over the past several years and about what it says […]

The Center for Social Media recently released what it calls a “Code of Best Practices in Fair Use” that, in its words, “clarifies the fair use of copyrighted materials for teaching and learning, putting an end to copyright confusion for educators.” That’s a bit hyperbolic — but it is a very interesting, and very well-put-together, […]

Orin beat me to it, but I also found the story about using Google’s search data as a way to detect flu outbreaks to be pretty interesting. My response, I must say, is a little different from Orin’s – he found it “creepy,” on the grounds that we might not “want Google establishing such a […]

You had to know it was coming; here’s what I found in my inbox a few minutes ago. Thirty million dollars, and he can’t even spell “Barack Obama”! But note: this proposal”is not like scam mails that is being sent in the internet by Africans.” Why am I not convinced? Hello and good day, I […]

As (I think) the only vocal and publicly-enthusiastic Obama supporter here on the VC, I more than share my colleagues’ excitement over the events of last night. (I think it’s telling — and a very hopeful sign for an Obama presidency — that even people (like many of my co-bloggers here) who disagree so strongly […]

It’s pretty amazing to consider that there is (according to the polls, at least) some small but non-zero percentage of voters who are, after a couple of years or so of campaigning, still undecided about whom they will vote for in the presidential election. I suspect that there aren’t a huge number of undecideds among […]