Search Engines

I enjoyed Chris Nolan's lecture about search engines. I have really only considered Google as the official search engine, using it for everything. Now I have other options that are more specific like Google Scholar and Dogpile, both of which I did not know existed. I feel like Google Scholar will definitely help to narrow my search when looking for more scholarly journals and articles. I never really knew how results were ranked in priority. Now knowing that common, entertainment type results come up first, Google Scholar will definitely limit my time spent looking for appropriate sites and resources. The one thing I learned about Google that surprised me was how you could limit or specify your search just by putting a minus sign in front of a word that you did not want to be included. I thought that was pretty cool and useful.

Copyright issues

Before this lecture I have always understood copyright as just a side note of the music and entertainment industry, but never understood the full magnitude of it. I learned that copyright laws are considered to be one of the most fundamental and important laws in America, dating back to 1790 before the Bill of Rights was written. As a college student I have also become more aware of copyright issues, particularly those that pertain to the music industry. I know a lot of people that have some sort of illegally downloaded music file on their computer, whether directly from the site or indirectly from other people who have shared their music libraries. This issue I have deals with the government’s policy on illegal downloading and sharing of music. Currently, the crime becomes a federal issue when the person has made 10 copies and a value of over $2500. This seems reasonable as copyright infringement is a major crime, but how does the federal government know they are taking in the right person. If a person shares a computer with a family member or did not know songs were illegally downloaded then they should not be convicted of the crime. Copyright laws should be in place, but a more thorough investigation should be done to pick out who actually is the offender.

The Facebook Network

Facebook is pretty important to me socially more then academically, although I use it for both. It's really a great way to keep in touch with old friends from High school and others that are all over the country and the world. If I can't get a hold of somebody by phone for a question about homework I have asked them over Facebook before. Last semester I didn't have a phone for about a month, so Facebook was pretty much my only way of communicating with people I didn't see every day. Pretty much every college student I know has a Facebook and even parents are being to get one now.