The long-lasting battle against piracy

Our topic this week is about the intellectual property. First let me show you a little piece of video:

This video mainly talk about how we transform others' work into our digital story. According to this Thomas Jefferson, we have to build our work on the basis of others' work. This is how our culture grows. However, we still have to give credits to the original producer of the material, so they could be inspired and provide more good stuff for us.

I have no idea about intellectual property tort in the US. In China, it is quite a problem. To be honest, it is still a serious social problem. It is so hard to control because most people are actually benefiting from it. Even though, piracy is making our life easier, it is not a warrant for harming those people who created the resource.

Imaging you are a designer and your work is to create resource material for website designs. You worked late into the midnight to bring your idea into life. It is like your child because it is you who witness the whole creating process, from a piece of blanket paper into a fascinating image. It is art, it is your star. You love it so much, as you are so frustrated when you see it appears on a website you have never known. How does it get there, you have no idea. The only feeling left for you is that one part of you is getting peeled from your body. Your mind is robbed and all that night of work seems vain. How would you bestir yourself, get over this and design again? Impossible.

This is why we need to admire the hard work of others. One might say, the fact that I would choose his work is showing respects. This is not enough. Do remember, the people who bring you the good resource are making a living on it. Piracy has no difference than murdering. You will find your own hand on the handle of the knife if you download and use illegal resource. Even if there are hundreds of thousands of hands on it, it cannot deny the fact that you are one of them.

Expect of the bad things happening on the Internet, there still some good signs. There are new websites like www.nipic.com and www.pixiv.net which makes sharing of pictures more professional and only under notification. Live-streaming video websites also pay more attention to copyrights. I believe there is one sentence that we cannot be more familiar with: Sorry, this video can only be streamed within Mainland China, which makes me extremely homesick:(

After all, I am quite proud of what we have done for the long-lasting battle against piracy.

A Story of Golf and Sheep

Here is one of the pictures I would use in my digital story. I think this could make quite a story.

It is a postcard. In the picture, we can see some sheep grazing on the turf surface. Actually, it is a golf course at the Mt. Kineo House on the shore of Moosehead Lake in Maine. This picture is taken in 1900.It has a line on the bottom of the picture says Mt. Kineo House Lawn Mowers on Golf Links.

Before the invention of mechanic mowers, sheep are responsible for the mowing job on golf courses. In fact, sheep worked on the fairway department, while greens belongs to another department, which is occupied by rabbits.

The cutting surface by our animal colleague cannot be compared to the work achieved by machines, but there are still some high lights. First of all, it is 100% environmental friendly. sheep do not consume fossil fuel, neither do they emit greenhouse gas. Secondly, it is 100% labor-free. To operate mechanic mowers, we need at least one man for each machine. As to sheep, only a shepherd is needed. What is more, sheep will automatically remove the clippings for you and turn them into organic fertilizer. If you do not want to use sheep drop on your golf course, you can sell it at a nice price to farmers nearby.

There are so many advantages of sheep mowers, why do not we use them today? Surprisingly enough, we do. In the Silicon Valley, where most of the world's high intelligence and cutting-edge technique lays, you can see sheep there working as they used to be.

(For more information about Sheep of Silicon Valley, go to http://blogs.cisco.com/news/the_sheep_of_silicon_valley/)

Though we cannot use sheep mowers on golf courses any more, it is still a good idea to have them take care of our huge suburban grass land, where is too remote to be maintained well but still important enough so we cannot just let go. Sheep would be a significant option. They work hard and they love what they do. No need to worry about them being slack of work. What a good idea!

New media and science--new way to learn, new way to gain

I am quite confused with this week's topic. Let me show you a short video first.

This is an advertisement released by Samsung on Oct 06, 2013. The new Samsung Galaxy Gear creatively introduced the fantasy in generations of scientific fiction-- a watch with computer in it. It is not a tool of showing time any more.Samsung has indeed put apple in threaten with this remarkable concept, a watch as powerful as a smartphone, a smartphone as handy as watch.

My point today, however, is not advertising this product. What I will focus on today is actually the advertisement itself.

In the video, there is no direct introduction of the Galaxy Gear, but several properties from classical si-fi movies. Which leads the audience to the theme gradually. The Galaxy Gear is on the scene for a very short time, but its characteristic is more than clear to the audience. This is because of the utilization of analogy. With several pictures of si-fi movie properties, the audience can easily combine the similarity pieces together into a whole piece. With no words, the characters of Galaxy Gear are shown: watch-like, high-tech, image and sound displaying information-carrier. There is an old saying in China, stones from other hills may serve to polish the jade, which means sometimes it is better to bring in other's material to make your own point standing out.

This is the same as the critical review. In critical review, we bring others' arguments together and analysis each of them, including the advantages and shortcomings. When we can see one problem from different aspects, we can avoid bios and have a more objective evaluation about the situation, which makes out point generate itself from a high level. We do not to explain much, the point will make itself clear.

I think this is all I want to say about the critical review. It is hard to put the youtube video and the topic together. I have tried my best...

Now, I want to make another point. Technology is booming especially in the mobile phone industry. Mobile phone industry is threatening not only the portable device industry, but also the whole internet commercial system. Walkman, CD-player, electronic dictionary, electronic note are like history to us,because with smart phones we can achieve all these by a single device. Why would we need all the rest then. With the widely spreading of smart phones, more and more attention have been paid to it. With different applications, we can do even more things on our phones than our computers. Where people go, ads follow. Where ads go, money follows. Future is hard to tell, but there is one thing for certain: mobile phones will be playing a more and more important role in everybody's life. Grab this revolution, then we can take over the leading place of each industry. Just like Samsung took over Nokia's place. Go mobile and offer point-to-point customized service.

Add Some Dramatics into Life

Our topic this week is how to make one's digital story more dramatic.In my opinion, it is almost impossible to make a dull daily life into an attractive story.If someone's life is nothing but eating, sleeping and working, how can we put any dramatic elements into it without making up stuff from no where? In one word, a good story only comes from a man with stories.

Do you still remember the time when we were all kids. At that time, life was full of adventures and surprises. Anyone except Mom were strangers. Anywhere except home could be dangerous. We were afraid of, at the same time curious about everything, spreading our little antennas to sense this world. At that time we did not even have any idea what "world" stands for. At that time, we thought the whole world must be raining, because it was raining so hard outside my window.

Now, everything has changed. We are trying to meet and cooperate with strangers. We are not afraid of new environments any more. Now we know that the world is so big while we are so insignificant. We used to be the center of our little world, but now we are only passers-by of this age. There is no more excitements, because we are so occupied to work so we can maintain a position in this society, as we think. 

I am not saying the socialization is bad. We need it for our civilization construction. However, we have gone too far. With the maturity of socialization, people are more and more like parts of this big machinery world. Once you fit into a position, you are not longing for anything new. You would be tired of changing, you were afraid of being replaced if you showed your resentment. You feel like living in a sh*thole, but you would not jump out because all the rest of the world are nothing but sh*tholes.

It is time to leave everything behind your head and look for dramatics in life. At least, one day per week. Let's say a "different Saturday", which means we do something we have never done before on every Saturday. Try board-skating, try sand-painting, try hanging out with the homeless for one day, try running out of town until you have no strength left and have to take a ride home. There are so many things we have not tried yet and life is so short. Do not live it pathetically. Get out of your box and live it dramatically!

That is what I would do to make my story dramatic.

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