Envisage

Taking control of my education

http://oyc.yale.edu/courses 
https://www.coursera.org/ 
http://clep.collegeboard.org/study-resources 
http://ocw.mit.edu/index.htm

Logical thinking; is it for men only?

One of the challenges I face working in a male dominate environment is that I’m constantly reminded of my gender. It is not surprising that our society has a tendency of treating women as third rate citizens, yet at the same time we proclaim that we live in an environment where women are equal to men on all playing fields. If you were to ask any of the male counterparts I work with I guarantee  that they truly believe in women’s rights and that women are invaluable to the structural arrangement of our society. The issue is when you ask them what women’s roles in society actually are.  I am constantly reminded that when they look at me they don’t see an intellectual equivalent,      not because I have not had intelligent conversations with them,  rather is  because they view my biological make-up as less capable of rational thinking.

Today i was talking with one of my  male coworkers, we’ll call him Bob,  and informed him how through working here I have became more invested in women’s rights. He asked me why working here made me feel this way and I began to explain to him one of the reasons. I told him about a time where some of the men working at this location were discussing how irresponsible it is of the army to let women fight on the front line. The argument  being that women are far too frail and that their emotions prevent them from thinking clearly and logically thereby putting the rest of the squad in danger. During the retelling of this story I expressed to Bob the fallacy of making a bold statement like that. To my surprise bob started saying that he has never met a rational thinking woman and that scientifically women are proven to be inferior in rational thinking then men. He then placed the burden on me to prove that is not the case. I was so flabbergasted and upset by the whole conversation that I just walked away. 

That was a pretty poor move on my part considering that I’m arguing for rationality and I pull out a move that is so obviously motivated by the emotions I was feeling at the time.
 The thing is though, im okay with it. Bob is supposed to be my friend as well as my coworker. How can he so easily take something that I hold at such high standards and throw it out the door, all while still expecting me to hold to my position without an emotional investment. I’m not ashamed of having an emotional response  because that one response does not define my ability to resolve a situation with logic and it was certainly not  as a symptom of some genetic “fluke ” that is my sex.   Now I am not arguing that there are no biological differences between men and women, if I were you could stop reading at this point because everything I would later say would be invalid. What I am arguing that 

Didn’t mean to post…still writing! I’m at work so I won’t be able to finish this as soon as Id like too

My email to Senator Ron Wyden:

To the honorable Senator Ron Wyden

My name is Mackenzie Wangenstein. I am a young worker who is planning on pursuing a degree in communications, with a minor in social media next semester. I am writing you to thank you for your support in the fight agaisnt PIPA and SOPA. Because of your support, along with many other of our elected representatives, we may  still have a fighting chance. It is important that this bill does not pass to preserve the intellectual creative outreach the internet offers to young professionals and entrepreneurs, to freelance journalists and bloggers; who’s ideas and creative processes may be unique, yet lack the monetary resources needed to get those ideas out there otherwise .

If sopa passes it will put up a barrier for those Individuals or entity’s to pursue the creative growth of their website, product or any other form of intellectual property, if all their time and resources are going to monitoring copywrite infringement by visitors.

Protecting copyright is important for all of us, everyone should have the rights to their intellectual property. However; it should be up to the individual or entity to actively pursue unlawful use of their property and pursue action agaisnt the person(s) who committed those fraudelent activities, not the owner of the website the crime was committed on. would you convict the owner of an apartment complex if one of their residents were found guilty of theft? Why should it be different in the cyber community.

As well as changing who is the responsible party for the punishment for copyright infringment, we should also change the definition and lessen the severity of the punishment.

Once again I’d like to thank you for your support, and reaffirming my faith that we have elected an official who represents our political views.

Sincerely, Mackenzie Wangenstein.

A little note on why it is important to write your representative about SOPA.

Copyright infringement is defined as the unauthorized or prohibited use of works under copyright, In which the owner is entitled to the exclusive rights to reproduce or perform the copyrighted works and to make derivative works.

The part that I want to focus on the most on is the part about derivative works. What exactly is defined as a derivative work though? A Derivative work as far as copyright is concerned is a work that is recasted , transformed, or  based upon one or more pre-existing works.

So what happens if a fan posts a cover song of their favorite band on YouTube? Techinically this would not be considered copyright infringement because the transformed property has not been reproduced for profit. But what happens if that fan places it on a YouTube channel that has paid advertising—That fan has just unitentionally committed copyright infringement and could be required to pay anywhere from $200 to $150,000, the dollar amount for damages caused, legal and attorney fees, as well as face jail time.

Popular YouTube videos have a tendency to get circulated through.the internet. So let us use the pretense of our youtube video and say that a link has been circulated to a blogger’s comment section via a subscriber. If SOPA is enacted we will now have two counts of copyright infringment. One on the acccount of the fan, and one on the account of the blogger, who may or may not be aware of the link on their website. Now the entertainment company who owns the copyrght has the right to file suit agaisnt the blogger and essentially shut down his/her’s website, revoking their birth rights to freedom of speech.

Many of our elected representatives who support the bills argue that those are extreme scenerios and that the bill was not conceived to convict those types of charges. That rather, the bill was created to go after major violaters such as torrent and file sharing sites and their users who frequently download illegal content.

If the recent indictment of megaupload taught us anything though, it is that the U.S. Government does not need a bill to fight online piracy. So why then, is our senate so eager to pass a bill that sacrifices its citizens rights, if they already have other means of protecting the pockets of multibillion dollar companys.

While we are holding strong in this fight, the members of our congress have four days left until they officially vote on this issue. Please Send a reminder to your state representatives the reasons why you elected them in the  first place, and that Hollywood may have the means to keep their pockets full but we have the power to keep them in an position of authority. If your representative is already opposing the bill, send them your thanks and remind them while its important to you.

I already have, the Ball is in your court now.

I can’t sleep. Thoughts of my mother keep racing through my head.

I guess deep down inside I knew this would happen sooner or later down the road. I never imagined it would happen this soon though. We put mom on comfort care roughly 7 hours ago. the doctors expect her to pass within the next two days.

I never imagined that moms passing would have such an impact on me. We didn’t exactly have the best relationship. In fact, I completely severed all ties with her over the last few years.

I always thought that If I cut her out of my life she would come to the decision of quitting on her own. But just like
Alcohol destroyed all of our chances of having a functioning relationship, it is robbing her of her life as well.
I always dreamed of what mom would be like sober, but now that dream is gone. Even though mom hasnt drank in the last month or so, I still didn’t have the opportunity to truly know her. You see, The liver is a pretty outstanding mechanism, it purifies all the toxins in youre system. so when you’re liver stops working, those toxins stay in your system and poisons your body. In my moms case her liver fluids leaked into her stomach and traveled up towards her brain, causing swelling, which in turn causes confusion and disorientation. So when I saw my mom sober a few weeks back, the swelling in her brain prevented her from truly being herself. She still was mostly coherent so I just thought mom was just too weak from her previous hospital visit to fully converse. I now know other wise.

It makes me really sad to think of all the pain and suffering her disease caused her. especially since her mother died of Alcohol abuse around the same age. I’m trying to focus on all the good my mother has done though.

I now know that my mother wasn’t a bad person, she had a disease that caused some pain over the years, but I know my mom loved my sister and I, and did the best she could to raise us girls. She was a fun loving, carefree person, who loved the outdoors and had a special place in her heart for animals. Mom used to find injured animals and nurse them back to health

Today is my 22nd birthday and today will be an extra stressful day. Yesterday I had to make the decision of whether or not we should take her off her life support and today I have to deal with that decision and make arrangements for her burial.

I know we are doing the right thing by taking off her life support and placing her on comfort care. This way she won’t be in pain and she can live her last few days with dignity.

Not all bad has come out of this though. I have been provided with the opportunity to build a relationship with all of moms siblings. Mom’s sisters are from California and I haven’t seen them for roughly ten years. But through trials and tribulations I have built a solid family foundation that I know will last even with moms passing. All of her family has been so supportive of all of tosh and i’s decisions and have made themselves available to us in our time of need. I really don’t know what id do without them, and for that I’m thankful.

I love you mom. I’m sorry for not being there for you as much as I should have but I know you’ll be in peace soon. Love your daugher,
Mackenzie.