Hey World! The class prior to the writing of this post contained an appearance from none other than Chris Nolan. It was during said class that Mr. Nolan explained to us the many intricacies and nuances of internet search engines ranging from the ever popular Google to the more arcane: Infomine. It was actually a very useful sessions seeing as the ability to locate and judge the quality of information is very pertinent to one's ability to do well in college. The most bizarre piece of information bestowed upon us by Mr. Nolan must be the way in which Google lists sources in priority this being, by listing the most pertinent as those most linked too as opposed to other search engines. This was and remains a brilliant idea by the people who created Google. That was certianly the most interesting new fact that I learned. I was surprised by the fact that Google was such an ubiquitous search engine when compared to other more obscure ones. I knew of course of how popular but even I was surprised by just how much more popular it was than the competition.
Well, until my next ordained thoughts, live long and tip your waiters.
Wednesday, February 25, 2009
Wednesday, February 4, 2009
Copyright: Pros and Cons
Firstly, I would like to thank Mrs. Greaves for coming and talking to us about copyright. I thought she did a great job of teaching us about copyright while also doing it in an entertaining way. Second, on a more serious note I would like to discuss copyright. I personally think that copyright is a very reasonable and valid concept.
The issue that I’m going to discuss is concerning the amount of time after publication (or author death) before a work becomes part of the public domain. I personally think that the Sonny Bono act of 1998, which extended the time before a work entered the public domain by twenty years, was a great act. I think authors and companies should be able to keep the rights to their creation for a long, long time. If one did not get a "reward" (royalties) off of their creation, than why would they have bothered to create in the first place? Without copyright protection, there would be little to no incentive for authors, artists, scientists, and/ or companies to create new things. This would dramatically reduce the growth and success of our nation.
The other side of this issue is that extending the length of the patents, greatly reduces the amount of information available to the Public Domain. By the time a work enters the public domain, it will be close to 70-95 years out of date depending on if it was due to a deceased author or publication. These long years of copyright protection make the public domain essentially useless.
This is a hot topic that many people have their own ideas and opinions on. I think that long periods of copyright protection are necessary to promote growth however, I’m sure that many disagree with me on that which is fine by me.
The issue that I’m going to discuss is concerning the amount of time after publication (or author death) before a work becomes part of the public domain. I personally think that the Sonny Bono act of 1998, which extended the time before a work entered the public domain by twenty years, was a great act. I think authors and companies should be able to keep the rights to their creation for a long, long time. If one did not get a "reward" (royalties) off of their creation, than why would they have bothered to create in the first place? Without copyright protection, there would be little to no incentive for authors, artists, scientists, and/ or companies to create new things. This would dramatically reduce the growth and success of our nation.
The other side of this issue is that extending the length of the patents, greatly reduces the amount of information available to the Public Domain. By the time a work enters the public domain, it will be close to 70-95 years out of date depending on if it was due to a deceased author or publication. These long years of copyright protection make the public domain essentially useless.
This is a hot topic that many people have their own ideas and opinions on. I think that long periods of copyright protection are necessary to promote growth however, I’m sure that many disagree with me on that which is fine by me.
Monday, February 2, 2009
Good Afternoon. Well todays thoughts are upon the widely accepted social networking tool called Facebook. I am a member of Facebook although I am rarely on compared to most of my peers. I find that it is a very useful tool for keeping up with friends and for scheduling events but, that is the extent that I use it. In am not obsessed with it in the least and usually check it bout once a week for updates. I know that my views on it are not shared by most of my friends but that is fine by me.
I agree with the article in saying that Facebook has become a huge deal and also that College campus's should embrace it, not push it away. It is really too big of a thing for people to overlook now and it actually does enable a great manner of communication either socially or academically, between faculty and students if University's so choose to use it. I know that my piano class and chemistry lab are both groups on Facebook and we can communicate via that when we need to. It is very useful.
I think that Facebook will just continue to becom larger and larger as more freshmen enter college each year. It is not going anywhere.
URL for article: http://www.csmonitor.com/2006/1213/p13s01-legn.html
I agree with the article in saying that Facebook has become a huge deal and also that College campus's should embrace it, not push it away. It is really too big of a thing for people to overlook now and it actually does enable a great manner of communication either socially or academically, between faculty and students if University's so choose to use it. I know that my piano class and chemistry lab are both groups on Facebook and we can communicate via that when we need to. It is very useful.
I think that Facebook will just continue to becom larger and larger as more freshmen enter college each year. It is not going anywhere.
URL for article: http://www.csmonitor.com/2006/1213/p13s01-legn.html
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