my contributions to wikipedia

Form and content as applied to televisions, and actual TV shows, is an idea which is always changing, much like how form and content itself is always changing. Since television is a relatively new invention compared to many other things which we use today in our everyday lives, the form of a television is still in an infant stage. The TV’s of the past were big, heavy things that were extremely expensive for their time and it was rare for there to be a TV in an ordinary household. If you had a TV in the 1950’s, you were in the minority. Now, if you do not have multiple TV’s in your house, you are in the minority. TV’s are getting bigger as far as the screen is concerned, but they are very thin and many can be hung on a wall like a poster, so all of the dead weight of TV’s of yesteryear is no longer an issue. The form of a TV has rapidly developed over the last 60 years or so and does not seem to be slowing down. The content of TV has developed just as much, if not more, than the form and actual hardware of a television. In the past, the content of TV was minimal. Most televisions only received 6 or 7 channels and most of them dealt with world news and other serious topics. Now, the content is much more elementary with channels that show almost anything which will draw an audience. People nowadays watch TV to be entertained, as opposed to the past where people watched television to be informed. People do still watch TV to be informed, but the percentages are rapidly moving away from information and toward entertainment and recreation. Things like Comcast Digital Cable which offer upwards of 1000 channels allow for almost anything to be aired and make it difficult for a person to not be able to find something desirable.

Pale Fire

The first thing which I feel obligated to tell you before I begin my response is that I am not the biggest poetry reader in the world. I never really understood the point of saying something in a way that was so hard to understand instead of just coming right out and saying exactly what you think. Poetry is a little too roundabout for my taste.
However, one thing which I usually am into are novels, and part of this question included what we think the purpose of a novel is. I believe that the main purpose of a novel is simply to tell a story. There can be many different kind of novels, fiction or non-fiction, and stories such as comedy or science fiction or a love story, but in the end, novels basically just tell stories.
In my opinion, Pale Fire is not unreadable, but its damn close. I tend to get very discouraged with readings if I do not fully understand them right away, so it took a lot of effort to get through this one. I do not see myself trying to read all of it, Spook Country was hard enough. While I was reading I wasnt really focusing on how postmodern it was because I was mostly trying to just understand the meaning of it, a task which I do not feel I was successful at.
I feel like the foreword was a little too long. Forewords are always too long and this one seemed particularly dragged out to me. Like I said before, I do not think that this was unreadable, but I also wouldnt call it a work of genius, at least not yet. maybe my opinions will change once we are in class and I learn more about it from discussion, but right now I would have to say the this is none of the above.

group 1 response

Overall, I feel that group 1 did a pretty good job with their presentation. Copyright laws can be confusing for anyone, so to try to explain them in a short period of time to a group of people who knows very little about them as well is no easy task. As far as postmodernity goes, their connection to it was a little weak in my opinion because just because there are new ways of sharing things and new ways of stealing things, such as music, does not mean that it is postmodern.
I am in agreement that these new ways of stealing make it easier for people to get away with it, and that this is the reason why we se so much more of it nowadays. Things in the field of stealing music and copyright laws are evolving just like anything else in life is evolving.
I think that the way the presentation was given could have been a little better and more organized. I think that the use of both video and powerpoint is good, but to switch back and forth so many times was not ideal in my opinion. I also think that they focused a little too much on music and not as much on copyright laws as applied to everything.
1)Do you feel that copyright laws should be weaker, stronger, or are they good as they are now?
2)The penalties for copyright infringment are pretty harsh, do you think they should be weakened, strengthened, or left alone?