Zack: You should cut your hair and trim your beard before you interview for an internship.
Me: I would definitely do that.
(I am a law student with shaggy hair and a beard. I don’t look like a lawyer should look. I’m aware of this. I just don’t care right now. When will I ever get a chance to carelessly grow a beard or have longer hair again? The fact that “I don’t know” is a possible answer to that question is reason enough for me to do it now – not later – not never.)
Summer CHIPSI classes ended today, which is a good thing. I wasn’t as pleased with them as I had hoped to be. The subjects had potential, and some came through. But there is / was definitely room for improvement.
We have a day off before exams start on Wednesday and end on Friday. After that, we’re free for the rest of our stay here in China. And free to enjoy the remaining few weeks of summer back in the U.S.
Closing dinner tonight. Despite the difficulties of getting situated over here, I feel like it was just yesterday that we were trudging through the rain to the opening dinner.
Happy Fair Use Day, which was apparently today or yesterday. It’s tough keeping track while living a day ahead of what I’m used to. (Link)
This is §107 of the U.S. Copyright Act, which provides a for exception to an author’s exclusive rights that come with copyright. Fair Use is generally what allows you to reproduce limited amounts of an author’s work for “purposes such as criticism, comment, news reporting, teaching, scholarship, or research” without infringing on an his copyright.
Be careful, though. If you use the “heart” of the author’s work (E.g. – A passage from a book that is so compelling as to be the only reason to buy the book.) then you could be found to be infringing.
Prof Fields:
You can bring you’re mother to the exam if she’s not a patent attorney.
I’m reviewing for my Constitutional Law final and I’ve just gotten to Personal Liberties: Abortion under the 14th Amendment of the United States Constitution.
Specifically, I’m briefing Roe v. Wade, which for the handful of people who don’t know, is a case concerning whether a Texas law that banned abortion under almost all circumstances was constitutional. The Court held that the law impinged on the woman’s right to privacy as a fundamental right.
That’s all old news. I’m just wondering who Roe’s kid is and how he/she feels about not only almost being aborted, but also about being the outcome of such a landmark case.
Robin Hanson posits that we go to school both to learn and to get credentials for learning. Depending on the type of person you are, the value of either may vary.
The basic assumption is that credentials indicate how much you’ve learned, however I believe there is a flaw in this reasoning. Credentials (grades, test scores, etc.) may indicate how much you have learned, but more likely they indicate how well you are able to learn. And from my experience the later is as important as the former. I read somewhere that education exists to teach us to tolerate undertaking tasks that we abhor. That’s a bit pessimistic, but there is some truth in it.
Are we hired for our knowledge or for our ability to acquire knowledge? It probably varies based on the position. High skill positions will likely require you to implement the tools acquired while in school, however a firm often requires you to reformat your knowledge. In other words, if you’re better able to adapt and learn their process you will excel.
Hanson suggests to grad students that they focus on content instead of format. That is great advice that I wholeheartedly agree with, however my personal experience is mixed. Compelling content was vastly more important that the format it was presented in when I worked at a digital entertainment company. Whereas in law school there is a huge amount of emphasis on format and structure – it’s suffocating at times, yet it is in the interest of clarity and efficiency.
The balance between learning for the sake of learning and learning to excel often conflict, and that has proved to be one of the most difficult things to cope with in law school. But the pursuit is rewarding and keeping the big picture in mind helps when you lose focus of the content and get stuck in the format.
CNN reports (link):
Chinese President Hu Jintao on Monday launched a campaign to rid the country’s sprawling Internet of “unhealthy” content and make it a springboard for Communist Party doctrine…
I will be studying intellectual property in China over the summer. The idea of censoring the content so that it better conforms with a doctrine seems to run against the principles of free thought, imagination, and entrepreneurship that I regularly associate with cutting edge technology.
I’m beginning to think I have big issues with such an approach. However, I’m keeping an open mind as to the possibilities and hope to be surprised when I’m actually there.