Blog Assignment #4

In the article J.K. Rowling comes off as a money grubbing fiend. She wants to be the only one to make a profit off of her ideas or at least the one who decides who makes the profit. On one hand this is understandable we all want to make the most of our own ideas before we allow others to. But on the other hand the ideas in J.K. Rowling's books are not entirely her own. There have been numerous books published that detail all the locations from which she got her ideas. She may have created a new world from these ideas but she did not create the ideas themselves. With this knowledge Ms. Rowling comes off as quite a hypocrite . She claims that the intellectual property of one is not something that can be used without their permission. This begs the question, would Ms. Rowling have even been able to create her works without using the intellectual works of others? The selfrighteous attitude displayed by Ms. Rowling is quite distasteful. The rights she is sueing for would be to the detriment of all people. What is most peculiar is that if these rights had been granted several years ago Ms. Rowling would have nothing to sue for. It is all very vexing.

Blog Assignment 3

Professor Michael Bess's view of Wikipedia was interesting. As complete and all encompassing resource for a paper he found it unreliable. But as a teaching resource he found it very valuable. He discovered that instead of Wikipedia giving merely a quick answer to complex questions it allowed ordinary citizens the opportunity to get down in the trenches and theorize and philosophize. I think it is very interesting how Professor Bess took something that was seen as a teacher's worst enemy and showed how if used properly it can be their greatest ally. I, myself, find that Wikipedia is not always a very reliable resource but more often than not when I examine the archives I find different points of view that help me see things from a perspective I would never have seen on my own.