While blogging for my Internet Studies class I have come to the conclusion that I would love to be a Technology Journalist. I have always considered writing as an alternative to being a History Professor because the main thing I would want to be doing as a History Professor is Researching. Teaching can be fun but I feel like my real passion has always been writing. I have always been fond of technology as well. Because of this I feel like a job as a technology writer would fit perfectly. I love to review and use new technology and I am actually about to make a blog that reviews mobile games.
I would love to work for someone like the Verge or Wired or Mashable or any company like those. It s definitely a dream of mine but I am quite far from finishing it. With any hope I will be able to get an interview and possibly an internship with them over the summer.
I just want to say I greatly enjoyed this class and I wish all of you a very fond farewell.
Sincerely, Temporary Tech Templar
Sunday, December 8, 2013
Life without Us.
While it is hard to imagine the Earth without humans. It was once a solid truth. As humanity began to grow humans began to change what nature was and what the Earth was. It is surprising to think about how much we do to keep our houses and building from crumbling or being overtaken by nature. It would not be long before nature completely covered what man has spent so long creating. For a huge eye opener I have provided this short film that was shown on the history channel.
Need a new Phone? Don't get it through the new upgrade plans!
All the main carriers, ATT, Verizon, Sprint, and T-Mobile have rolled out with upgrade plans that allow its users to upgrade their phone more frequently. While this sounds awesome, according the Verge they aren't exactly worth it. I am someone who always wants new technology. I love my devices and than I soon become frustrated with them because they get "slow" or "buggy" but in reality they just get old. It is common for humans to want something just because its the new thing, an unfortunate trait that many of us share. The cell phone companies figured this out and came out with very complicated plans to make it seem like you are inf act both getting new devices on a more regular basis and you don't have to pay as much! It seems to good to be true, and in fact it is. As the Verge describes, these plans give the illusion of being a good deal but because the charges they put on it it actually would be cheaper to just buy the phone for full price off contract and bring it to the carrier.
This of course is not possible for every person but even so. The way that they get away with this is by making it hard to understand what they are charging you for. They put overages on the phones already so that they can make a profit but than they tell you you have to pay hardware charges which is basically the same thing as the overage charges but because they put the overage charges in your phone bill they can call it hardware charges and make you pay them twice. In reality you will be paying for your phone twice with these plans and it is actually surprising that Verizon is the worst deal of them all.
In the end we all want new things but sometimes it is just better to have a little patience because what's a few more months here or there right?
This of course is not possible for every person but even so. The way that they get away with this is by making it hard to understand what they are charging you for. They put overages on the phones already so that they can make a profit but than they tell you you have to pay hardware charges which is basically the same thing as the overage charges but because they put the overage charges in your phone bill they can call it hardware charges and make you pay them twice. In reality you will be paying for your phone twice with these plans and it is actually surprising that Verizon is the worst deal of them all.
In the end we all want new things but sometimes it is just better to have a little patience because what's a few more months here or there right?
Freedom of Technology
"Technology wants to be free", it's plain an simple for the writers Wired. They recently published an article in their magazine describing the ridiculousness of the cell phone law that prohibits you from unlocking your phone. Did you know that if caught and taken to court you could face 5 years in jail and a 500,000 dollar fine? I had no idea. To me, as well as the everyone else who has a pinch of sanity left in them, this is a bit of over kill to say the least. However, it is not all gloom and doom here, apparently there is a group of people called the "bridge-builders" who see the connection between law and technology and wish to close the gap to make technology and innovation able to soar while also keeping in mind the political and safety proponent that comes with every new mass technology. The main issue being that technology is always adapting, always coming out with newer and newer models and faster and faster processes. This to most people is an excellent thing, who wouldn't want faster ways of handling things using technology, why go slow when you can move fast. Well in Washington, "you are always trying to reconcile competing interests" as the article says. This of course makes innovating quickly a bit of a challenge because the companies that have a stake in technology also want to make sure that they don't get pushed out of the way by the same innovations they are trying to create.
In the end we are still behind on our technology laws but with more and more interest groups sprouting up we can hopefully see quicker appeals and reforms to our technology laws.
The article I am referring to in this post is from the December issue of the Wired.
In the end we are still behind on our technology laws but with more and more interest groups sprouting up we can hopefully see quicker appeals and reforms to our technology laws.
The article I am referring to in this post is from the December issue of the Wired.
7 Tech Laws that Defined 2013
Mashable, a news site that features lots of tech stories, recently posted an article about 7 tech laws that were passed in 2013. While some of them are less significant than others it is good to see that tech laws are on the forefront of some representatives minds.
The first one they mentioned deals with police having to get warrants to search your email. In the article it says that many people believe this to be dated. However, I think it's fantastic. It should of been a law for quite sometime, and while it had originally covered only email 180 days old and earlier it now ranges back 6 months. Although with all the news that has come out on the NSA and Prism I doubt a search warrant will do any American much good anymore....
The next one has to do with cellphone location. This one was passed in California and it makes it so that cops are required to once again get a search warrant before they can access cell phone location data. This one also seems good on paper to me, because it protects our rights as it should. However as I said for the previous one, with the NSA it may not even matter anymore.
I am going to skip over number 3 and go straight for number 4 as number 4 is a little more relevant to what I am talking about. Unlocking cell phones has been a big deal for quite some time. It has always been illegal to unlock cell phones but over the past couple of years they made unlocking cell phones and exception to the rule and merely left the out of the law that said it was illegal. However this year they decided to not do that again and it is now completely illegal to do it. Sometimes you got to take a step back before you can move forward, so hopefully we will get it together and make it legal to unlock your phone again in 2014. One can dream right?
Number 5, is an interesting one because it involves FB likes and your first amendment right to Freedom of Speech. This means that liking something on Facebook is now protected by the First Amendment, because why not I guess?
Number 6 will be great for all of you business oriented people. You may now keep your phone on through out your flight as long as it is in airplane mode. I actually got to experience this new phenomenon when I went to Florida for Thanksgiving. I still ended up turning my phone off...I guess some habits die hard.
If you want to read about them and what Mashable has to say the link is below. Hopefully we will see things like being able to copy DVD's to your hard drive for personal use in 2014 and other such laws passed. Keep on trucking America, technology is here to help so let it!
Biggest Tech Laws of 2013
The first one they mentioned deals with police having to get warrants to search your email. In the article it says that many people believe this to be dated. However, I think it's fantastic. It should of been a law for quite sometime, and while it had originally covered only email 180 days old and earlier it now ranges back 6 months. Although with all the news that has come out on the NSA and Prism I doubt a search warrant will do any American much good anymore....
The next one has to do with cellphone location. This one was passed in California and it makes it so that cops are required to once again get a search warrant before they can access cell phone location data. This one also seems good on paper to me, because it protects our rights as it should. However as I said for the previous one, with the NSA it may not even matter anymore.
I am going to skip over number 3 and go straight for number 4 as number 4 is a little more relevant to what I am talking about. Unlocking cell phones has been a big deal for quite some time. It has always been illegal to unlock cell phones but over the past couple of years they made unlocking cell phones and exception to the rule and merely left the out of the law that said it was illegal. However this year they decided to not do that again and it is now completely illegal to do it. Sometimes you got to take a step back before you can move forward, so hopefully we will get it together and make it legal to unlock your phone again in 2014. One can dream right?
Number 5, is an interesting one because it involves FB likes and your first amendment right to Freedom of Speech. This means that liking something on Facebook is now protected by the First Amendment, because why not I guess?
Number 6 will be great for all of you business oriented people. You may now keep your phone on through out your flight as long as it is in airplane mode. I actually got to experience this new phenomenon when I went to Florida for Thanksgiving. I still ended up turning my phone off...I guess some habits die hard.
If you want to read about them and what Mashable has to say the link is below. Hopefully we will see things like being able to copy DVD's to your hard drive for personal use in 2014 and other such laws passed. Keep on trucking America, technology is here to help so let it!
Biggest Tech Laws of 2013
A Humbling picture.
As I was waiting for my flight to go to Florida over the break, I picked up Wired Magazine. I have always thought Wired was an excellent news source for technology news as well as technology culture. This one article really stuck with me though. As humanity expands we really push for newer and better technology. We want newer game systems that can render graphics that make the real world look a little less grand, we ask for newer phones that can predict what we want to say before we say it. But while these technologies are useful it doesn't necessarily benefit humanity as a whole. When I saw this graphic, provided by Wired, I was in shock by the fact that Diarrhea, Malaria, Preterm Births, and Lower Respiratory Infections were some of the leading causes of deaths in the world. All of these things are preventable diseases that can be treated and cured and others just require medical attention. And as Wired put it, "40% of that toll results from disorders that could be avoided with basic medications, clean water, and neonatal care." It is quite eye opening to me that while what we take for granted is something someone in another country or area my take as a kingly gift or life saving gift.
In the end we really need to come together as a whole. Things are getting the media's eye that really shouldn't such as celebrity baby names and Walmart horror stories. If people cared more about treating illnesses or coming up with solutions to clean water crisis in other countries we most likely would have solved them by now and made them self sustaining. As a hopeful up and coming technology journalist. I hope I can shed some light on companies and technology products that deserve to be known to the world because they actually help the world and its people.
Classic ASU Library
After searching for a table on the second floor I began my journey up the secret stair to the third floor where I am endlessly teased by the people who are taking up tables that are meant for four people. And as the search continues I see people I have never seen in the library since the beginning of the semester. I call them the hopeless ones. For they come only to try to scrape a passing grade and think the library will somehow give them the strength to do so. But they underestimate the distracting power the library can have a foolishly pick a table on the talking floor where the run into friends and talk for hours on end while their hopes for a good grade quickly fade into dreams of grandeur. This semester is no different. I fear every table will be full this time, and hope of a secluded window seat to finish the remainder of my work grow dimmer by the hour. The time is near, the parking deck is at almost full capacity, I hope to find a table but a hope is all it can be.
Monday, December 2, 2013
Essay 2 Question 1: The Love connection between Congress and Copyright Holders
Copyright has become a major focal point of my generation. You see it every time you watch a DVD. The big "illegally watching a movie is the same as stealing campaign". Or the patent wars between some of our major tech companies such as Samsung and Apple. Where Apple was just recently awarded over 100 million dollars because of Samsung's apparent infringement on Apple's one of thousands of patents they "own". The biggest problem with the copyright's is that the laws are to broad encompassing things that no longer can be used commercially and should be shared with the public so to further the public's knowledge and progress.
This is the main argument of both Lessig (a political activist for removing the Sonny Bono CTEA bill) and Eldred (a retired programmer who's mission was to create an online database of works in the Public Domain for the benefit of humanity). Eldred started his project off on the right foot, it was mainly for his daughters who he wanted to enjoy works by Hawthorne and it soon grew to become much larger and encompass many authors. And when Poems by Frost were about to opened to the public domain he was excited to scan those onto his site as well for the enjoyment of the people however, later that year the congress once again extended the copyright's length of coverage. This meant it would be illegal for him to add it to his site. Eldred told the world he planned to do it anyways which would technically make him a felon. This was when Lessig became interested and their connection formed. For both men they believed that it was wrong for Congress to extend the length of the Copyright as it was unconstitutional and gave Congress to much power but the main reason was that it limited progress and limited human knowledge!
So with this connection formed between the two they took the matter to court where they lost every battle. They then petitioned for it to go to the Supreme court. The main premise of taking it to the Supreme Court according to Lessig was that they felt the CTEA was unconstitutional. And the state reasons were 1. Extending existing terms violated the Constitutions "limited Times" requirement. 2. Extending terms also violated the First Amendment.(Lessig Ch. 13) Lessig as well as Eldred believed that "Copyrights have not expired, and will not expire, so long as Congress is free to be bought to extend them again."(Lessig Ch. 13) This of course is terrible news because it shows how thoughts of money come before thoughts of the greater good of humanity which can explain many of our world issues today such as Global warming, famine, poverty, among others. Many of these could be fixed or at least on the path to being fixed but because people care more about money than getting things done and improving the world as a whole.
This main fact is what upsets me most about some of our current copyright laws we have in place. The ones I am thinking of specifically deal with mobile devices and unlocking them. This was seen as a felony for a while and could cost you up to 250,000 in fines. The only reason it is not is because they decided to temporarily exclude cell phones from the list of technology that is effected by copyright. To me this is the most ridiculous part of the law. The only thing you are doing when unlocking your phone is basically letting you actually control your device and use it to the functions you want it to do, not what the cell phone company prescribes as the functions you need. It in no way hurts anyone and the cell phone companies, who were at first against allowing phones to be unlocked, no longer care because they realized that is what their customers wanted and found there was no harm in people unlocking their devices. When there is a general consensus among the people as well as the major companies I feel that Congress as a political body should meet to change the law. It is a government for the people by the people and what Congress is making it is a government for money or a government for the people as long as it means Congressmen and woman are still on companies payroll.
This is a black stain on our government that won't be removed easily. The next biggest problem with copyright law is with movies and music. It is becoming absurd. Why can I as a consumer buy a DVD and then not be able to copy it to my hard drive to watch on the go on my laptop. It's ridiculous. If I am using it for personal use who cares whether I copy it to my computer. I already bought the DVD. The same with music. It is a problem and it truly does stifle growth as a whole. I mean I remember sitting in my band class and my teacher telling us we could not get the music for Carmina Burana because the music was to expensive to buy out right and buy an individual copy for each student or even every other student. So we had to perform another piece we had learned the year before because the music was to expensive to buy. This meant in reality that the copyright law was actually restricting the bands ability to learn. We could not learn new music because it was to expensive to pay for and because we could not simply buy a copy and then make a few copies to distribute we were in fact becoming students who could not learn. And that means our musical knowledge was not expanding and in turn we were becoming stagnant in our progress as musicians. This to me is one of the biggest faults of our society. When a law restricts the ability to learn we basically our signing humanities death certificate because restricting learning means we are in theory setting a limit to how much knowledge we can obtain as a society.
In the end it all comes back to what Lessig said which is Companies and estate are just trying to "rent-seek" (in terms of economics) (Lessig, Ch. 13) which basically means they are just trying to get the extra money from the companies by saying that they will extend the copyrights of these works if they are paid x% of the profits they would earn from them extending the date. It is sickening and very well could be one of the downfalls of America as a super power and it is absolutely a downfall to what America is supposed to stand for which is freedom as well as innovation and change in what is typical to what is right. We have fallen far from what our original founding fathers had set out for us and I think it would do us good to look back to our origins so that we can set our United States back to the way they should be, United towards forward progress.
This is the main argument of both Lessig (a political activist for removing the Sonny Bono CTEA bill) and Eldred (a retired programmer who's mission was to create an online database of works in the Public Domain for the benefit of humanity). Eldred started his project off on the right foot, it was mainly for his daughters who he wanted to enjoy works by Hawthorne and it soon grew to become much larger and encompass many authors. And when Poems by Frost were about to opened to the public domain he was excited to scan those onto his site as well for the enjoyment of the people however, later that year the congress once again extended the copyright's length of coverage. This meant it would be illegal for him to add it to his site. Eldred told the world he planned to do it anyways which would technically make him a felon. This was when Lessig became interested and their connection formed. For both men they believed that it was wrong for Congress to extend the length of the Copyright as it was unconstitutional and gave Congress to much power but the main reason was that it limited progress and limited human knowledge!
So with this connection formed between the two they took the matter to court where they lost every battle. They then petitioned for it to go to the Supreme court. The main premise of taking it to the Supreme Court according to Lessig was that they felt the CTEA was unconstitutional. And the state reasons were 1. Extending existing terms violated the Constitutions "limited Times" requirement. 2. Extending terms also violated the First Amendment.(Lessig Ch. 13) Lessig as well as Eldred believed that "Copyrights have not expired, and will not expire, so long as Congress is free to be bought to extend them again."(Lessig Ch. 13) This of course is terrible news because it shows how thoughts of money come before thoughts of the greater good of humanity which can explain many of our world issues today such as Global warming, famine, poverty, among others. Many of these could be fixed or at least on the path to being fixed but because people care more about money than getting things done and improving the world as a whole.
This main fact is what upsets me most about some of our current copyright laws we have in place. The ones I am thinking of specifically deal with mobile devices and unlocking them. This was seen as a felony for a while and could cost you up to 250,000 in fines. The only reason it is not is because they decided to temporarily exclude cell phones from the list of technology that is effected by copyright. To me this is the most ridiculous part of the law. The only thing you are doing when unlocking your phone is basically letting you actually control your device and use it to the functions you want it to do, not what the cell phone company prescribes as the functions you need. It in no way hurts anyone and the cell phone companies, who were at first against allowing phones to be unlocked, no longer care because they realized that is what their customers wanted and found there was no harm in people unlocking their devices. When there is a general consensus among the people as well as the major companies I feel that Congress as a political body should meet to change the law. It is a government for the people by the people and what Congress is making it is a government for money or a government for the people as long as it means Congressmen and woman are still on companies payroll.
This is a black stain on our government that won't be removed easily. The next biggest problem with copyright law is with movies and music. It is becoming absurd. Why can I as a consumer buy a DVD and then not be able to copy it to my hard drive to watch on the go on my laptop. It's ridiculous. If I am using it for personal use who cares whether I copy it to my computer. I already bought the DVD. The same with music. It is a problem and it truly does stifle growth as a whole. I mean I remember sitting in my band class and my teacher telling us we could not get the music for Carmina Burana because the music was to expensive to buy out right and buy an individual copy for each student or even every other student. So we had to perform another piece we had learned the year before because the music was to expensive to buy. This meant in reality that the copyright law was actually restricting the bands ability to learn. We could not learn new music because it was to expensive to pay for and because we could not simply buy a copy and then make a few copies to distribute we were in fact becoming students who could not learn. And that means our musical knowledge was not expanding and in turn we were becoming stagnant in our progress as musicians. This to me is one of the biggest faults of our society. When a law restricts the ability to learn we basically our signing humanities death certificate because restricting learning means we are in theory setting a limit to how much knowledge we can obtain as a society.
In the end it all comes back to what Lessig said which is Companies and estate are just trying to "rent-seek" (in terms of economics) (Lessig, Ch. 13) which basically means they are just trying to get the extra money from the companies by saying that they will extend the copyrights of these works if they are paid x% of the profits they would earn from them extending the date. It is sickening and very well could be one of the downfalls of America as a super power and it is absolutely a downfall to what America is supposed to stand for which is freedom as well as innovation and change in what is typical to what is right. We have fallen far from what our original founding fathers had set out for us and I think it would do us good to look back to our origins so that we can set our United States back to the way they should be, United towards forward progress.
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