Lawrence Lessig gave a presentation at BU Law today for our annual “Distinguished Lecture”. Luckily, my Constitutional Law professor was losing his voice and let the class out an unprecedented 15 minutes early. This allowed me to catch Professor Lessig’s entire presentation.
Professor Lessig presented an entertaining argument for more limited copyright controls, grounded in law but exemplified through “stories”. I’m not going to go into the substance of his argument here, but I will say that I enjoyed the speech and I’m looking forward to getting into more specialized legal issues (such as copyright) in the next two years. I’m getting tired of Civil Procedure and Constitutional Law, though neither is as boring as I thought it would be. Hopefully this summer I’ll have time to read Lessig’s book, “The Future of Ideas“. No time for stuff like that now…
Arts Law Association Photo Contest
Today was the judging for the BU Arts Law Association‘s “Samuel Postbrief Photo Contest”. This year’s theme: “Torts Illustrated”. Two of us ran around the school this morning posting flyers for the event. We seem to have prompted a school-wide “Flyer Policy” email. Ooops. Needless to say, a lot of people stopped by to check out the photos…
And to vote! My photo of a dog peeing on a giant tank of nitrogen (see “NYC Trip Photo Gallary“) won second place in the people’s choice category. I guess people liked it. The pictures were really great – very creative. I’m surprised I won – considering the competition. Hopefully the photos will end up online somewhere so I can link to them.
Down With the New Drum & Bass Sound
Today is a beautiful day (in terms of weather). Generally being a cold weather person, I’m dreading the hot summer months. Nevertheless, I do occasionally appreciate a “nice” day. I’d open my windows if Park Drive wasn’t so noisy.
I was listening to some of my drum & bass records today and thinking about the new style of drum & bass that seems to taking over. I haven’t been out to the clubs much lately, but I’ve been listening to Fabio and Grooverider (Friday nights on Radio 1 – 9pm EDT). I like either the mellow atmospheric sound or the darker, harder styles. I think this dancy, vocally stuff is too much of a step towards garage. Not that I don’t appreciate it. I just don’t like to see it take over the entire scene.
Site of the Week
Well it’s a new week and Law School Discussion is no longer the site of the week on megalaw.com. The new site of the week is CourtTV. It’s cool to see Law School Discussion mentioned along side big commercial sites like that.
I just had my last legal writing class of the year (and hopefully forever). “Legal Writing” is the worst class in law school, but the most practical. What makes it bad is not the subject matter, but the fact that it takes as much (if not more) time as the other classes but is only worth 1/4 as much in terms of credit. I don’t understand it – but it’s over so what do I care?
Ani DiFranco
I went to see Ani DiFranco last night. I never really got into Ani, but a friend of mine is a big fan and had an extra ticket, so I went along.
The show was really good, I’m really glad I went. She read a poem about September 11th that was just incredible.
About halfway through the show I realized that I was dying to go to the bathroom. As we were on our way out I was trying to think whether it would be better to brave the crowd or try to find a place nearby. Generally, trying to get to a bathroom as crowd of thousands is filing out of a theatre is not a good idea. And one will generally have to wait awhile once one actually finds the bathroom. We were contemplating this when we realized: “Wait, we’re at an Ani DiFranco concert. This crowd is only 30% men.” We found our way to the bathroom – no line – just a giant room full of empty urinals. Alleluia! ‘Twas pretty funny.
Arial Photography
Ahh Friday. There’s not a whole lot going on today. I got a couple responses to my ad for a summer roommate. It’s all in the presentation.
There is some really cool arial photography of various cities, freeways, parkinglots, and development at Landslides.
Sublet Available
Today was a long day. And when I finally got home – did I study? Well yes, but not as much as I should have. Instead I was too busy making a web page to find a summer subleasor. Anyone looking for a place?
Site of the Week!
Holy Guacamole! Law School Discussion is the site of the week on MegaLaw.com! It’s like.. Congress.org, US Commision on Civil Rights, ABA Pro Bono, LAW SCHOOL DISCUSSION – the great legal websites of our time…
Also – I didn’t notice it on the first, but Google made a joke page about how their technology works. It’s called Pigeon Rank.
New Law School Rankings Soon
The new US News & World Report Graduate School Rankings come out soon. I have to admit I’m interested to see where Boston University School of Law will rank. What’s really interesting though is not the rankings themselves but the rumors. A certain law school discussion site (not mine) has seen a lot of activity over the last couple days regarding the new rankings. Supposedly, a newsstand in Bethesda was the first to put out the latest issue, followed by a newsstand in Los Angeles. It amazes me how much people care about this sort of thing, yet I have to admit I got a little caught up in the excitement. It just sounds so much like a spy movie: “The new issue is available at a small newsstand at the corner of…” I want it to continue, “look for a man in a black hat, and ask him about the pigeons – he’ll give you the code to unlock the safe, in it you will find a briefcase…”
Checking just now, it appears someone has scanned the new rankings (though their site on Geocities has exceeded its data transfer quota). BU is tied with five other schools at number 25. That’s up two spots – whoo-hoo-BU.
Public Interest Project Grant
I found out today that I will be getting a grant for public interest work over the summer. This is great news. I’m going to be working at the Hale and Dorr Legal Services Center of Harvard University.
To apply for this grant, I had to solicit donations from BU Law School alumni and local businesses. It was a lot of work for a chance at a grant. Now that I have the grant, I can say that it was well worth it, but I’m sure there were a lot of people who did the same amount of work and didn’t get a grant. It doesn’t seem like the best system to me.
Apparently the lights at Fenway Park were on last night for good reason – today is opening day. There was quite a bit of chaos in the street (I mean traffic, not rioting) this afternoon. Coupled with helicopters, planes, and a fighter jet in the sky, there was commotion all around.