Nate’s Weblog

This was a very tedious assignment that took a lot of time.  Although it was not a 10 page paper it felt like it.  It felt like it was somewhat of busy work but at the same time I can find it useful.  On the other hand I don’t see myself anywhere in the future to use MLA style or having to cite ANYTHING.  It is kind of like cursive that I learned in the third grade that I have not used since the fifth grade.  As a Criminal Justice major I will never use anything like this, but for someone else that wants to be a librarian than they would have some use in this and would probably even love it.  I am going to be honest and say I hated it.  Although some of the information I found about copyright and some of the cases I saw were quite interesting.  In all this class was a decent elective but I would not recommend it to someone like myself that is using it just because I needed to fill a spot.  I would recommend this to someone that is truly passionate about learning how to use databases and citing sources, and blogging.  I know that I will take away a good bit of information learned but don’t know if I will ever use it again.

Privacy is a big concern with some and not so much with other.  Take me for example I don’t care who keeps track of my information and what I look at on my computer it is is going to be used to stop criminal before they commit a heinous crime like blowing up a school then let them track us.  They are doing no harm to you by keeping track of what you have visited in the past year.  You have probably been to some websites that have even tracked you and remembered where you visited.  The only way I would have a problem with this is if they started using this information to send a pop-up to my computer or to the website I am visiting about something I researched a couple of days ago, but really what harm is is doing to you if they do not even use any of the information they have gathered from your websites you have visited?  Yeah thats what I thought…nothing, so why not?  If it is that big of a deal to you don’t visit the site that keep track or even you think might keep track of you.  It is that easy.

Youtube now shows tv shows, music videos, and other clips that some and most of us would consider copyright.  Although these you cannot copy these videos from youtube they are still not considered copyright which I think is unheard of.  We make such a big deal about copyright and how all these people are breaking the laws and then they go and put all of these shows and things on youtube for the whole web to see.  I know I cannot take a video off of youtube and put it onto my computer but I am sure there are many people that can and do this.  With time warner, BMG, and other big companies signing the deal with youtube for the release of these materials should not happen.  In my mind it is ludicrous because these companies are putting these things on the websites where people view millions of videos a day and expect us not to take them off of the website and use them at our own leisure, whether it be copying them onto a dvd or putting them on your ipod to view in class or show to others. With youtube and now google just throwing these materials out there at the public of course they will be pirated and used illegally they are just asking for people to break the law at least in my opinion.

It seems like the Chinese government has a lot to hide from their people.  They block sites that could tell the people about the past and what is going on in their country that the people who live there should need to know.  There may be even some sites here in the US that is blocked from us but not something that we need to know about the past history of our country.  I cannot really see why they do this.  Maybe to keep their country safe and keep from wondering eyes seeing something that might change the way they see their country.  Although these are things that don’t need to be blocked, blocking the Olympic Games on the internet in china is stupid.  Our world today is running off the internet with each and every one that is old enough to type.  The internet should be a mandatory thing for people because it would help with learning and staying in contact with others.  I can see why they wouldn’t want to hold the Olympic Games in China but you can’t change that now it is too late and we only have a few months anyway.  There is nothing wrong with having the games there and getting along for this short amount of time, yeah they may have done some bad things but don’t let it ruin this event that only comes around every 4 years.