Week 12

Last week was literally the LAST week - the last week of class. We've talked about another good topic "property." We've defined property in a broad conception and the concept of the natural right to property. Property could be signaled by trademark, patent, and copyright. They are owned by one and could not be stolen by others or infringed. We have also learned some closed and open approaches for property and the policy of U of T towards copyright. What I'm confused is about the "tragicomedy" of common property... It was interesting point but also a little confusing. 

Project 2 has come out. This time there were 2 files we need to work on. Jessie and I started working on them earnestly. I felt like the material was obviously more challenging than Project 1 and was also more interesting. After re-watching some of the videos and our discussion, things have become easier. We also went to office hour to consult the professor about some of our confusion and finally it was done perfectly. 

All there is left is the final exam. It counts for 39% so i must treat it seriously and review all the concepts and Dr.Racket videos. I hope everyone could get a good mark in return for their effort. :)

Week 11

At week 11, we have learned a very interesting but serious topic, Privacy. In fact in this day and time, since the electronic technology has developed so fast and has overwhelmingly dominated people's lifestyle, personal information seemed would never be well secured. Some approaches may have directly or indirectly acquired people's privacy and might be distributed to anywhere in exchange for money or other goodwill. For example, the buyer loyalty plans, surveys, credit info, cookies... The objectives of those may not be just as simple as so-called "for your convenience" but also for other purposes that may infringe your rights. After all the above mentioned ones are optional, you can choose not to take them at all. Some  other ways, however, require your personal info since they are not allowed to be kept private, such as hospital of birth, date of birth, gender, etc. These info can help identify a person quite thoroughly. Even in our campus, our UT mail has been contracted out to Microsoft. Our personal data may be shared or may appear on some certain lists. It also claimed that this may not infringe our rights. But really? Anyway, for us, we need to realize the importance of protecting our privacy. What we could do include many like, creating reliable passwords, updating security systems, encrypting.. Always be careful!

Besides privacy, we've also learned new things from Dr. Racket. The concepts of "flatten" and "depth" seemed confusing at first. But after watching the videos a couple of times and hearing the professor's explanations, I finally figured them out and did quite well in the quiz.

In summary, this is my favorite lecture of this semester. The topic of privacy is appealing to me.