We've gone through half of the semester already. In this quarter, we have learned a lot of concepts in writing. Personally, learning how to write rhetorical Analysis and also using APA format was pretty new and I gained a lot from learning them because it is something that we will definitely use in our future classes. I also like how in most of our assignments, we are allowed to choose our own topic depending on our interest. In that way, we can be more motivated to write our papers. Using a lot of time on boring topics that we are not interested in are pretty hard to keep concentrated...
Along with a lot of new things that we learned, there were a lot of reviews for things we did in composition 1 and in high school. Inference paper was one of them and also the readings that we have done, (chapter 1, chapter 3, harbrace, etc) were mostly reviews. Like others have written in their blogs, it felt like we were not really challenged in this class, however, it have been a good review class that made us look at a lot of important concepts in writing again. Knowing things that we reviewed, (logos, ethos, pathos, conclusion, premise, etc) is essential in all classes that we will take in the future.
Also since we will not be taking writing class after this semester, I think it is important to fix our writings and know what good writing is before we end this class. I want to make use of this class so that I will not be regretting in the future!!
2013年5月30日木曜日
2013年5月19日日曜日
Internet Piracy in Different Culture
(Propaganda poster to stop illegal downloading and making aware how they are being seen all the time)
Internet have spread throughout the world and people use them daily. Internet brought us great convenience to our lives, allowing us to download various files such as musics and movies. However, as downloading flourished, illegal downloads has come up as a recent issue. Lately in the past few years, a lot of countries started to pass specific laws for internet piracy. Depending on the countries, their action towards piracy and public's reaction towards it are different.
Some countries that pushes the anti-piracy law strongly are Canada and Australia. In Canada, the law was renewed recently so that content producers can go after people who are sharing illegal contents (like what it is said in the poster above!). Furthermore, Canadian Intellectual Property Rights Enforcement has noticed the people how they have the technology to monitor piracy to make the public aware of the situation. Through this movement, they have found more than one million Canadians that share copyrighted contents over the internet. As an example, one person payed two million dollars for downloading only two illegal movies. Similarly in Australia, after Australian Copyright Council passed the copyright law in 1968, there was one person who payed 150 million dollars for providing P2P software illegally.
You can watch the news showing the situation in Canada here.
There are also countries that recently passed laws such as New Zealand, Japan, and South Korea. Anti-piracy law was passed in April 2011 in New Zealand. However, it did not really affect the sales. In fact after passing the law the revenue fell 2.1% in 2012. In Japan, when the law was passed in June 2012, the total revenue grew by 4 % but digital revenue fell 24.5% so again, the law did not make a difference in sales. Just like Japan, in South Korea, law passed in 2009 and the revenue grew 4.4 % and digital revenue dropped by 25%.
Unlike New Zealand, Japan, and South Korea, in France, as soon as the law was passed in 2009, digital sale grew by 32.4%. This shows how public were aware about the issue. Surprisingly, U.S does not have a specific law that regulates piracy. However, the private institutions that manages the issue make the public aware of the situation. That organization is called, Center of Copyright Information. Similar to what Canadian Intellectual Property Rights Enforcement are doing, they use the system called The Copyright Alert System, or the Six Strikes, to find people that are downloading illegal files from the internet and notify them to stop. This has been a big news recently making the public alert.
Reaction towards piracy is different between culture. I believe it also depends on how much the government or organizations have pushed the issue to make the public aware. Myself, living Japan, I do not really hear much about internet piracy. Furthermore, other than these countries, a lot of developing countries such as Vietnam, Sri Lanka, and a lot more still does not have the law for internet piracy and have increasing number of crimes. Making the public more aware of piracy is important not only for the economy but also for ourselves. Both to show respect to the industry and also to protect ourselves from being convicted, lets resist downloading illegal files.
Source :
2013年5月13日月曜日
Studio Ghibli
I believe, a lot of people have one movie that they love since their childhood days. One of my favorite films, and probably for many Japanese people's, are from Studio Ghibli. Studio Ghibli is a Japanese animation film studio headed by Hayao Miyazaki and Isao Takahata. The studio have successfully produced various films since 1985 and they are best known for the film, My Neighbor Totoro and Spirited Away. Studio Ghibli is a well known studio not only in Japan but also around the world. Along with the world known, Disney, it have captured a lot of children's hearts as they created various amusing films.
These are trailers for some Studio Ghibli films:
Among the various films from Studio Ghibli, one of my all time favorites are, My Neighbor Totoro, and, Kiki's Delivery Service. These two films are those that I have been watching for countless times since I was a baby. I probably liked these two films since it does not really have violent scenes or wicked monsters like some other Studio Ghibli films. Furthermore, both taught me a lot of aspects needed as I grow up. My Neighbor Totoro taught me family bonds and culture of a traditional Japanese village and, Kiki's Delivery Service depicted a struggle of a teenage girl and her development to get her independence.
Along with how Studio Ghibli teaches children human values, it also teaches us traditional Japanese culture. Films from Studio Ghibli often takes place in olden time Japan, especially around the period after the WWII. Character lives in a old house, like the ones in Totoro or the Grave of the Fire flies, and depicts people's usual lives like getting water from a well. It teaches the younger generation how the lives were in the past and gives us an image on how well our lives are right now. Furthermore, the setting often expresses the struggle people were experiencing after Japan surrendered at the end of World War. Knowing this struggle and the ideas people had at that time is important since those ideas are still left as a base of our thoughts, like the relationship with other countries.
In overall, Studio Ghibli is not only a company that shows amusing anime but a film maker that entertains us and teaches us moral values and culture at the same time. Myself being Japanese and growing up in Japan, I have devoted a lot of my childhood time watching their film and they are and will be one of my favorite film makers. Although Hayao Miyazaki is getting older, I hope Studio Ghibli will stay the same and keep on creating amazing anime, so that my generation who watched a lot of their film will be able to show it to our children too!
2013年5月8日水曜日
Life In A Day
Life In A Day released in 2011 is a documentary film showing a day of a life of people from around the world. All the scenes shown in the film was filmed on 24th of July, 2010 filmed by the people who are in the movie. It depicts the footage of people's real day. The film was directed by Kevin Macdonald and produced by Ridley Scott.
Here is the trailer
This film is not something that we really get into it and lose time. There is no action, no mystery, or anything special. However, it is a film that makes us think. Makes us think about life and what we love and value. There are also a lot of scenes that we would never experience or see in our own lives. The scene people slaughter a cow is probably one of them. The slaughtering scene is something that was really hard to see but was left in my mind even after I finished watching this film. It made me realize how much things are being sacrificed for us to live.
This film is also full of different emotions. It shows happiness, love, anger, sadness, loneliness, and so on. Towards the end there are parts that contrasts those emotions as they show disasters that are happening at the same time when people are having fun. Also the scene asking people what they fear the most showed the dark side of reality as a lot of people answered, death and loneliness.
In overall, this film was very interesting for me. This film depicts, human reality, cultural difference, human value, and made me realize many other things that people usually don't really think about seriously in their daily lives. It was also something that made me reflect on my own life and it changed my thoughts about it. I am glad that I saw it recently, because now, being a college student is the time of my life when I think a lot about my future life.
Since this film is available free on YouTube, in 17 different languages, I recommend people, especially college students, to see this film on their spare time.
here is the link to the film: http://www.youtube.com/movie/life-in-a-day?feature=mv_sr
登録:
コメント (Atom)