scholarly sources blog

Blog-

Nearly everyone in the country is familiar with internet piracy; this can come in the form of downloading music, movies, software without paying. This illegal activity has spread throughout internet and many people take part in this illegal activity. In the first article that I read through looked at the effect of software piracy on music sales. This article starts off by talking about intellectual property rights of digital goods, and then explains the authors experiment. “The results suggest that, for the group of users of peer-to-peer systems, piracy reduces the probability of buying music by 35% to 65% (Zentner 1).” According to his research calculations Zentner suggests that music piracy has caused a drop in music sales of 7.8% to 14.5%. After this quick intro He goes into the formal process of how he did his research, his results, and all the different statistics that show how piracy has affected nearly every group of people in America. He talks about how the use of Napster affected the amount of files shared, and after the ban of Napster in certain areas for example universities, and surrounding areas, sales grew 6.6%. This article provides me with a lot of hard evidence about the effects of music piracy and will help support one side of the argument.
My next article talks about how the recent technology boom has been linked to the increase in illegal music piracy. “A study in 2000 reported 14% of internet users had downloaded music for free (Bhattacharjee 107).” They also report a $3.1 billion of sales losses in the music industry in 2005. This article also goes through the different demographics that are connected to the piracy of music and software. This article also includes some very key diagrams showing the process people go through when looking for music. They also connect the quality of their internet to the amount of piracy that goes on. This shows that even when someone pays more money for their internet they download more illegally. They also connect the amount of people who pay for better internet who pay subscription fee’s per month to listen to as much music as they want.

Works Cited
Bhattacharjee, Sudip, Ram D. Gopal, and G. Lawrence Sanders. "Digital Music and Online Sharing: Software Piracy 2.0." Communications of the ACM 46.7 (2003): 107-111. p107-bhattacharjee.pdf. Web. 12 Apr. 2010.
Zentner, Alejandro. "Musicindustryoct12.pdf." Economics.uchicago.edu. University of Chicago, n.d. Web. 12 Apr. 2010. .

What is racism and privilege, and how is race constructed, in America today? How does this definition apply to yourself and your life? How might this tie into the work you’ve been doing for paper 3?”

When asking a group of people for their own meaning of racism one can receive various responses. The same can be said of privilege, this is so because of people’s differences. In the way that someone is raised and their background will affect how they treat and react to others. After reading an interview with Tim Wise (by the color of their skin: Tim Wise in the Myth of a Postracial America) one can apply their definition to their way of life. When defining racism a judgment against a race biased on a pre conceived idea. This is dangerous because people will treat differences the only way they have learned how, giving some privilege over others. Racism and privilege go hand and hand, for example: “We also know that job applicants with “white-sounding” names are 50 percent more likely to get called back than those with “black-sounding” names, even if both have the same qualifications.” (Page 6) Tim Wise’s words show that just because a person has a name that sounds different they will not be considered in a serious role. That is a fault of most people, coming up with a result before trying to solve the question. Over time the definition of racism and privilege has changed and can be seen in American culture and life today.
Racism is a word that evokes powerful feelings. This is true especially in America, where racism has a long and rather dismal history. According to Tim Wise, racism and privilege are directly related. In American society today, this correlation is apparent even amongst the nation’s most prestigious leaders. As Wise states, “Privilege also takes the form of less pressure to perform” (page 5). He further explains this statement by asking if Obama, our nation’s first black president, happened to make the same grammar mistakes in his speeches as previous president Bush did, would he be considered less qualified for the job? This is a question many Americans should ask themselves. Wise also proclaims that “we can make peace with the past by recognizing that good people can still do great evil…once we come to realize that, we become a lot less smug about our own goodness and more aware of the evil we participate in every day” (page 9). I find this applies to my own life, as even I find myself guilty of falling for racial stereotypes.

Tim wise often talks about “white privilege”, which are different institutions and programs that give additional resources to whites that may not be accessible to other races. Wise also states, “Privilege also takes the form of less pressure to perform (Page 5).” This privilege may be present in more diverse communities, for example larger cities. But in the smaller less diverse towns there may be more of a chance for equal opportunity. White privilege is a form of inequality that is hard to regulate. It takes the whole communities cooperation to change for fully equal opportunities. Just like it will take our whole communities to change what kind of food we get to eat, if we want all organic or non-GMO, it’ll take the whole community to unite and change.

Over all it will require complete cooperation from all races in order to eliminate racism, and "white privilage". Racism may have different effects on different people, but still needs to get bad.

Works Cited
Cook, David. "By the Color of Their Skin: Tim Wise on the Myth of a Postracial America." The Sun July &
Aug. 2009: 4-12. Print.

sources blog

When in search for sources for my English papers, or pretty much all other papers that require research or additional information, I start off with a broad Google of the topic I am writing about. When sifting through all the BS websites I try to find websites that not only provide me with the information I need but come from someone who knows what they are talking about, say maybe a PhD or something. If I cannot find one that is trustworthy in that massive pile of sources, I go to that website that we learned about in the library, Academic Search Complete (EBSCO). From there you get another list of different articles which you can fiddle around with different filters like subject and type of source, and stuff. Once I find a source that fits the criteria needed for my paper I then have to figure a way to tie it into my paper to agree with my thesis. Strengthening my thesis is the most important part so you cannot choose information out of the articles that does not support your thesis. One way to make sure that you are getting the right information is making sure that you have read through the whole article and know understand what it means. I usually have to read through a couple times because I am a bad reader so it takes more for me to understand what the author is trying to say. Once I figure out what I want to put into my paper from the article I just have to find some words to put on the outsides of the idea to make a smooth transition from my writing into the articles writing, and also of course I need to cite where I got the source from. That is the way I choose and cite my sources.

Borlaug and Kellogg's article blog

Norman Borlaug Article
To start off this article was obviously not written for the average Joe, it is more pointed towards the more educated sector of our country. Maybe not just for highly educated scientists but for people who have somewhat of an understanding of the biogenetic system. There are a lot of big words that I didn’t know and had to look up in this article. One thing that was surprising to me is how big of an increase of trans-genetic crops planted from 1996 to 1999, it went from 1.7 million to 39.9 million in 3 years. That is a huge increase. Norman Borlaug does a good job at presenting the nay sayer argument in his article. He talks about how he is disappointed with all the extremists who want to ban gmo’s, Borlaug asks how we will feed the expected 8.4 billion within the next 25 years. These extremists have caused some good however, they helped the passing of clean air and pollution laws. I agree with what Borlaug states about our increasing population, and if we ban gmo’s then we would have world famine everywhere. One thing I learned in biology is about the carrying capacity of animals in habitats. Eventually there will not be enough food to feed everyone and we will cap out and stay there. This is what probably will eventually happen when gmo’s can’t produce enough food for our exponentially growing population.

Kellogg’s article
I read the article about Kellogg burning its logo onto individual corn flakes. The article tells you about Kellogg’s plans to make this change to their corn flakes. Apparently some people are accusing Kellogg’s of making cereal for other companies just because they look so much alike. As a result of many other companies trying to make their cereal similar to Kellogg’s brands this laser impression will help prove the authenticity. The article also gives some stats about Kellogg’s cereal. 128 billion bowls of corn flakes are eaten around the world per year, also the biggest corn flake factory is making cereal 24 hours per day 365 days per year.
I think that the use of laser’s to burn individual logos on each corn flake is an inefficient use of resources. If Kellogg’s has enough time and money to do that then why don’t they spend more money towards charities to make the world a better place or research for current world problems, because their brand name isn’t doing anything to help our current global situation. I really wouldn’t take the time to read the logos while I’m busy eating the cereal.

Blog chap 15,18,19,20

Chapter 15 in the Omnivore’s Dilemma is the beginning of Pollan’s hunter/gatherer food chain. This section consists of him making a meal completely off food he got from the wild. Pollan talks about how nowadays our hunting/gathering food chain is based less on survival and more on fun. Most people who go out and hunt don’t rely on getting that meat on their plate later that night.
Chapter 18 and 19 describe how Pollan actually goes about gathering his food. 18 is based on the hunting and 19 on gathering fungi. Pollan’s writing is really different in chapter 18, he was talking about hunting and then in the next paragraph he talked about how he is embarrassed about writing that. Pollan ends up shooting a wild pig with his friend Angelo. Angelo is a very helpful resource for Pollan because he teaches Pollan a lot about hunting and gathering. Pollan spends chapter 19 describing his adventures while hunting for mushrooms.
Chapter 20 is titled “The Perfect Meal”, which could be argued. This is only Pollan’s opinion because many people could argue that there are more perfect meals out there which include more nutritional value and vitimins. I think that it is impressive that Pollan was able to pull all this together with the veggies, fungi, and the wild pig. It would be a big achievement for someone to live completely off this food chain because it took Pollan months of preparation just for 1 meal. And to be able to do this 3 times a day every day would be impressive in my opinion.

The OD 16/17

Chapter 16 in the Omnivore’s Dilemma is an expansion of Pollan’s idea of our problem with choosing what to eat. As omnivore’s we have such a wide variety of foods we choose today mostly from expert opinions or advertisements. He goes into detail about how our bodies are designed to be omnivorous, and a sort of overview of how our bodies work. I agree with Pollan that cooking is one of our biggest tools we have, but now the big food industry is slowly taking away our skills for cooking, by giving us pre cooked food that we just need to heat up. I think that cooking is a very important skill that you need to have to be healthy, so you aren’t constricted to the industrialized foods, so you can do some home cookin.
In chapter 17 titled “The Ethics of Eating Animals”, Pollan expresses his thoughts about humane ways for raising and slaughtering animals. He also talks about some animal rights organizations like PETA. I find it interesting how most of the domesticated animals today wouldn’t be able to survive in the wild (310). Most of this chapter is devoted to describing many cases of animal suffering like castration. For example how the animals recover so fast and reverting to their normal ways of life. I couldn’t imagine that happening to me and I would be changed forever.

blog about omnivores 8,10,11 they say 6 and 7 and writers resource.

I read the Omnivore’s Dilemma chapters 8, 10 and 11. Chapter 8 is the beginning of the big organic section of this book. It starts off introducing how Pollan observes and lends a hand to the organic Polyface Farm in Virginia. He goes on to explain how the farm works by rotating pastures with different animals which makes them have a healthier environment. This farm puts out “25000 lbs of beef, 50,000 lbs of pork, 12,000 broilers, 800 turkeys, 500 rabbits, and 30,000 dozen eggs.” Chapter 10 goes deeper into the rotation of the Polyface farm livestock’s grazing. Although we survive off all the meat, eggs, milk and what not that is produced from animals, without grass we wouldn’t have any of those which makes grass the keystone species. They explain how there needs to be a balance in the time the cows graze it and the time they allow the pasture to regrow back to its original length. Chapter 11 talks about the techniques used to raise animals, some producers practice “stacking” which is to produce more than one animal at a time in a given space. This method can reduce the amount of disease among the community thus creating less of a need for antibiotics.

They Say I Say help you learn how to strengthen your argument without being too closed minded. One way to open your mind is to explain the other side of the argument and use those to convince the readers with your credibility.

I plan on using MLA citation formatting in my writing this semester, because i am already fairly familiar with it, and want to perfect it.