Week 10: For this week I finished up my book reviews and attended a presentation by Harvard Professor Theda Skocpol. The presentation was interesting and covered solving environmental issues in global warming and with greenhouse gases. Their were some interesting facts about the reaction of the government and oil companies in regards to the idea of a carbon-cap. Many companies or persons had a stake in this claim such as oil companies and politicians from coal and oil states. Opponents of carbon capping would call Harvard's research a conspiracy created by the educational institution. I don't want to talk to much about this since I have to save some information for the 2-page paper I need to write. However I have finished both my book reviews for Tim Wu's The Master Switch and Jaron Lanier's You Are Not A Gadget. Both interesting books written by intelligent authors, though I do like The Master Switch better. Lanier's book was interesting but, a bit confusing at times. Still I recommend both books for any one looking to read something interesting.
Theda Skocpol
During the book discussion many of the topics covered in Wu's book were talked about. I though it was interesting to here everyone's interpretation. What I really got from the book was a chronological view of how many of the communication industries today went through a similar cycle of innovation and monopolization. I was really glad to have participated in the book discussion because I was able to share with many of my classmates information they may have overlooked or forgotten. Each week I feel I have improved and am more knowledgeable in the areas of copyright and intellectual property. This weekend appears to be full of assignments as spring break is around the corner.
Week 9: Some topics covered this week were briefs on cyber bullying, voting machines, militarization of the internet, and we also had a guest speaker (patent attorney) who talked about the International Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers or ICANN. ICANN does all sorts of task on the internet like dealing with identifiers on the internet, issuing domain names, blocking certain regions, and so on. The process seemed complicated and one can only imagine how tedious the work ICANN does. Oh, I guess I forgot to mention the guest speaker (forgot his name) is a volunteer for ICANN. Lastly I will mention voting machines and raise a question I thought of. Who would most likely commit mass voter fraud by hacking into a machine? Voters, officials, hackers? My guess is officials with interest but that's a guess made with no evidence to back it up.
Lucky me was able to find one of the books for level 2 online for free. Also found one of the books for the next level. Here are the links http://r-u-ins.org/resource/pdfs/YouAreNotAGadget-A_Manifesto.pdf and http://tropicaline.files.wordpress.com/2011/04/netdelusion.pdf. I have not read these books but, am looking forward. I always considered myself to be a book reader but, this semester has been my all time record on the amount of books I have completed. In total, I have read six book this semester and have about six more to go in all my classes total. Never have I read so much but, never have I felt so informed. Slowly I feel my intellect going up. Not quite at the level of some of my classmates on technology law though I do feel able to hold a discussion or argument on the topic with anybody.Here's a YouTube clip of Master Switch author Tim Wu speaking about communication monopolies. Enjoy!
