Law & Literacy

Our society's dooming innovation.  Through Roger's Diffusion of Innovations, we can see that cigarettes fit his model perfectly.  In the mid-1800s, cigarettes were created.  After the pioneers set this product into society, the most early adopters were Civil War soldiers.  They were used as something they could relax with after the war.  The tipping point would be somewhere between 1955 and 1960.  This was an incredibly fascinating era of our country indeed.  Everyone and their mother had a cigarette in their hand.  This was obviously before anyone knew the long-term effects of smoking (similar to the Juul epidemic now), and they became something that people would do anytime and anywhere.  The late adopters would be the younger generation that had some knowledge of their cancerous effects.  Quickly the product were saturated and brought down to a moderate level, with anti-smoking ad campaigns and people not being allowed to smoke them in...

Apple's iPod was a revolutionary invention.  It mastered the market of MP3 players.  There was really no such thing as a good portable and universal portable music player.  There was a certain hard drive that Steve Jobs realized was missing.  As soon as him and his team found it, they got right to work.  Believe it or not, the iPod received terrible reviews upon its release.  People thought that it was vastly overpriced.  However, as soon as Apple made iTunes compatible with Microsoft, sales skyrocketed.  A lot of Microsoft users reportedly switched to Apple when they introduced the feature of running Windows on Mac computers.  Customers would buy a Mac computer to run Windows, but most of them would admit to ceasing doing this after a week or so. Apple did create a breakthrough device, there is no doubting that.  However, Apple did start something else that started with the iPod.  The started a cult of sorts; a stigma th...

We live in a world rapidly being consumed by technology.  Whether you think this is good or bad, the people of the world are changing along with it.  There are new apps and widgets that are released on a day to day basis that complete simple tasks that we feel we do not need to do manually anymore.  Take Google Translate as an example.  Translating languages at your fingertips is an asset that would be thought of as fictional and far out only a number of years ago. I was doing a bit of research on the original iPod last week, and I realized how the devices release was a significant turning point in our culture.  Apple is one of the main reasons why our society is the way it is today.  Phone cameras are another culprit in todays society.  The act of taking photos and videos of every significant moment in your life destroys those moments for you.  We are so focused on the simulacrum our iPhones are creating that in the end we never even really exp...

Nancy Pelosi released a statement marking the start of an investigation to impeach Donald Trump.  This most likely does not come as a shock to most people in this country.  When it comes to leftists and rightists, this is a marking of history.  Generally, antiwar individuals are very progressive and liberal.  Of course there are some rightists who are antiwar as well.  Antiwar supporters are in disagreement with Trump on his decision to deploy more U.S. troops to help Saudi Arabia.  These people generally have the viewpoint of not getting involved in any foreign squabbles, even stating that it is morally the wrong thing to do. As far as Trump impeachment goes, I can comfortably say they would be all for it.  At the opposite end of the spectrum, we have conservative republicans.  They are also in favor of impeachment, but focus on different reasons.  For example, they vocalize about how Trump offered a quid pro quo to the Ukrainian president...

Has Google gotten too big? This is the question of many attorneys around the country.  48 states in fact.  The question behind the investigation is whether Google has achieved a monopoly in their industry, the internet itself.  Smaller advertisers have stated that the market has come down to whatever Google says, goes.  There is a serious grey area of whether this could even be considered a monopoly, however.  This kind of investigation will take time, as Google's parent company has a market value upwards of $820 million.  They control so many aspects of the internet that if you surf it you are bound to run into one of their services. I personally believe this investigation has ground to be true, but also to be false.  Google did receive a hefty fine for unfairly inserting exclusivity clauses into contracts, but their intentions do not seem negative to society in the end.  CBS News' Irina Ivanova brought to light how utilities that were a mere f...

Judiciary systems are the end-all to any properly formed government.  The judiciary system is what essentially controls all rules.  The U.S. Supreme Court in particular is the most powerful and influential judicial body on earth.  These nine justices are tasked with interpreting the age-old Constitution.  Keep in mind, the Constitution is 200 years old an counting.  So being the group of people interpreting this document are always in deep thought, as the Constitution must be easily misunderstood.  With this job comes a lot of responsibility.  There are thousands of petitions submitted every year, and weeding out the irrelevant to the important is also a demanding task.  All justices of the U.S. undergo a confirmation ceremony to become a justice.  Becoming a Supreme Court justice in one's lifetime is similar in odds to being struck by lightning. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cWRoXYRsaeo&feature=youtu.be https://www.youtube.com/watc...

Recently, Doritos and MasterCard have removed their watermark from their advertisements.  Now, this may seem counterintuitive to communication, but a lot of big companies such as Apple, Starbucks, Nike, and Adidas do not have watermarks.  Doritos began a campaign where they removed their watermark and replaced it with "Logo goes here".  Their reasoning behind this is that Generation Z does not appreciate 'overt' advertising.  MasterCard claims it was for "modern simplicity".  There are many different reasons behind this brand move, but every case is different, much like how every brand is different. The idea of removing words from a logo that blatantly tells a consumer exactly what it is almost adds a dash of pride.  Just enough to tell people, "Yeah, you already know who we are."  If it works and people can still decipher the brand, than the act solidifies their success and popularity.  However, this does not always work.  Gap took a s...