GOODBYE!

i just wanted to say Merry Christmas to all, this is my last blog, hopefully not forever but definitely for my English class! I really learned quite a lot in this class , so thanks to Erik Marshall in helping me form a better educated opinion of the world, and thinking OUTSIDE the box!

patent, tradmark, and copyrights

So last week we talked about patent and no one was really sure what it was or covered so i decided to look it up myself. I think in class we were confusing a patent with a trademark when using the Coke example. I found this to clarify for those of you intesrested in what they are :

What Is a Patent?
A patent for an invention is the grant of a property right to the inventor, issued by the Patent and Trademark Office. The term of a new patent is 20 years from the date on which the application for the patent was filed in the United States or, in special cases, from the date an earlier related application was filed, subject to the payment of maintenance fees. US patent grants are effective only within the US, US territories, and US possessions.
The right conferred by the patent grant is, in the language of the statute and of the grant itself, “the right to exclude others from making, using, offering for sale, or selling” the invention in the United States or “importing” the invention into the United States. What is granted is not the right to make, use, offer for sale, sell or import, but the right to exclude others from making, using, offering for sale, selling or importing the invention.

What Is a Trademark or Servicemark?
A trademark is a word, name, symbol or device which is used in trade with goods to indicate the source of the goods and to distinguish them from the goods of others. A servicemark is the same as a trademark except that it identifies and distinguishes the source of a service rather than a product. The terms "trademark" and "mark" are commonly used to refer to both trademarks and servicemarks.
Trademark rights may be used to prevent others from using a confusingly similar mark, but not to prevent others from making the same goods or from selling the same goods or services under a clearly different mark. Trademarks which are used in interstate or foreign commerce may be registered with the Patent and Trademark Office. The registration procedure for trademarks and general information concerning trademarks is described in a separate pamphlet entitled "Basic Facts about Trademarks".

What Is a Copyright?
Copyright is a form of protection provided to the authors of “original works of authorship” including literary, dramatic, musical, artistic, and certain other intellectual works, both published and unpublished. The 1976 Copyright Act generally gives the owner of copyright the exclusive right to reproduce the copyrighted work, to prepare derivative works, to distribute copies or phonorecords of the copyrighted work, to perform the copyrighted work publicly, or to display the copyrighted work publicly.
The copyright protects the form of expression rather than the subject matter of the writing. For example, a description of a machine could be copyrighted, but this would only prevent others from copying the description; it would not prevent others from writing a description of their own or from making and using the machine. Copyrights are registered by the Copyright Office of the Library of Congress

digital native

Digital Natives are transforming before our eyes everyday. Its a way of adapting to society. For the small population against, such as my mom who has never used email before, its becoming harder and harder to keep informed, and up to date on things. Eventually I think these people will have to give in. My mom is 56 and she probably has a good 20 years plus . By the next ten years technological advances will be much greater than they are now, looking back ten years ago we have come a long way, and it will continue to go farther. I think it will be interesting to see a study in the future on weather or not the new technologies are proving to help educate children more or are creating more of a distraction.

media bias is bias-ha

so no matter what we do we cant escape it.. yea i mean the word bias and everything it stands for. Today I was talking to my cousin about media bias. I asked his point of view on whether or not TV stations were biased. Now let me give you a little background info on my cousin: He is a weather man currently in Nebraska for NBC affiliate . He previously worked for FOX news in South Bend, IN. He is a VERY right winger who voted for McCain. I asked bc i thought he might have some insider info on what goes on over there at FOX. His reply was that out of all FOX seemed to be the most balanced and MSNBC was the most left sided of all. He says he has actually read a research report done on election coverage for each station and that McCain received about 20 more negative stories than Obama did on MSNBC and CNN. While FOX's ratio was 39/38. Makes me wonder is my cousin biased too bc he worked for FOX, or possibly the fact he is a McCain supporter.. so i waqnt to know who makes the final judgment call? and is there anywhere on earth where bias doesn't exist?

media bias

so weve discussed this week who was bias and in what way, my question is... are there any third party media sources, people who refuse to confirm to one side or the other? Im not talking about trying to balance.. i mean are there news sites, or papers that are strictly dedicated to third party people? or is this an obsurd Question that makes no sence lol...

media control

In lieu of our discussion in class today about weather or not the media controls the way things go, or a higher power controls the media which might possibly control what the public thinks. I have to say this is quite the topic, to me it seems one would have to do some major digging around to find the answers, and even then might not be able to prove anything. It almost seems conspiracy theory- like, to want to find out weather company moguls and highly rich political people rule what the media portrays to the public or is that the media itself creates the image everyone sees. My gut feeling says it probably involves both. obviously the more popular the media franchise the more succesful it will be and maybe these moguls can offer them the air-time, page space or whatever it takes to get them to that level, but in return they must do things for those people at their disgression? And what about the government, is it possible they have a huge hand in it
In media everything we see from the title to the font is controlling the way we look at it, and making us stereotype to no end....
Any comments are welcome on this!!

liberal media

To me liberal media barely exist, I am not a huge follower of politics or even the news for that matter.. i just plain dont watch tv... i do try to stay current online as much as possible. But even reading that I yeild caution, every article i think is biased in some way. Its some writers opinion of whats going on in the world, or how their network percieved it, wheather they be a "liberal" network, which im not sure exsists, or a conservative one. I do consider my self more on the left side, and its hard not tell where an articles intentions are going, most conservative people are always pushing the same tactics they have been for years wheile people on the left are about new ideas new concepts , or representing a change that maybe makes people uncomfortable. More like make love not war type stuff, if that makes any sence! Even so no matter whos telling the story thry are telling their side, even if they dont mean to they are programed to think a certain way.