Vaguely RL updates
Aug. 30th, 2013 10:59 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
issenllo1) I'm getting an RT Surface. Well, it was part of Microsoft's writedown so it's really cheap? On the other hand I do not understand why MS wants to writedown the thing; I've mostly heard good things about it from other people (aka early adopters who got it at the full price). Whatever, I'll know when it's finally delivered. I've been wanting a tablet that isn't an iPad, and I have an Android phone. Should be interesting to see how it compares.
2) Not been reading a lot of fic or been fandomly because school started and also to my surprise, I've been social: a couple of old classmates, old colleagues, a girl I met at my internship... Let's hope it all settles down soon; I can see a lot of unfinished reading waiting for me.
3) Also because I've been having an urge to write original fic, which feels sort of like an urge to throw up when you've eaten something disagreeable. Either to suppress or to give in and write, eventually.
4) Blind Go or not?
5) I will just go ahead and express the xenophobic view that I do not care for a couple of international students in my intellectual property law class, because up to now every comment that they have made in class is "I think" and "from my viewpoint" and "in my country" without the actual use of logic.
Query in IP class: Do you think a website like "Nokiasucks" is infringing on the trademark?
Student: Yes, I think so because it's very rude and they shouldn't say that without constructive reasons.
Query: But I understand that when you say something sucks, it usually means you don't like it. What if I had a T-shirt that said "I hate Facebook"?
Student: From my viewpoint that should be okay because it's just an opinion.
!!!
And then of course, they mansplain trademark law to the rest of the class. ETA: I should explain that the reason their identity as international students comes under focus (by me) is that their views seem to be formed entirely by their discomfort with trade mark law as practiced outside their country. (Is that what trade mark law in their country is like, that it's infringing because it's rude? It could be defamatory, yes, but that's a different matter.)
2) Not been reading a lot of fic or been fandomly because school started and also to my surprise, I've been social: a couple of old classmates, old colleagues, a girl I met at my internship... Let's hope it all settles down soon; I can see a lot of unfinished reading waiting for me.
3) Also because I've been having an urge to write original fic, which feels sort of like an urge to throw up when you've eaten something disagreeable. Either to suppress or to give in and write, eventually.
4) Blind Go or not?
5) I will just go ahead and express the xenophobic view that I do not care for a couple of international students in my intellectual property law class, because up to now every comment that they have made in class is "I think" and "from my viewpoint" and "in my country" without the actual use of logic.
Query in IP class: Do you think a website like "Nokiasucks" is infringing on the trademark?
Student: Yes, I think so because it's very rude and they shouldn't say that without constructive reasons.
Query: But I understand that when you say something sucks, it usually means you don't like it. What if I had a T-shirt that said "I hate Facebook"?
Student: From my viewpoint that should be okay because it's just an opinion.
!!!
And then of course, they mansplain trademark law to the rest of the class. ETA: I should explain that the reason their identity as international students comes under focus (by me) is that their views seem to be formed entirely by their discomfort with trade mark law as practiced outside their country. (Is that what trade mark law in their country is like, that it's infringing because it's rude? It could be defamatory, yes, but that's a different matter.)
no subject
Date: 2013-09-04 04:28 am (UTC)I had to google LLB since I'm in the US and we don't actually award those any more. XD That makes sense, though.
And equal parts personal experience and understanding of international conflicts of law principles. For the personal experience part, I took several IP classes while getting my JD, and in my one seminar, it was always the civil law LLMs who had inane things to say. One of them admitted to me point blank that the reason he did it was to keep his participation grade up, even though he didn't really do the readings. (I believe he claimed to skim.) So, y'know - lazy foreign students are lazy.
The easier reason for that guess, though, is a difference in how you argue law in common law countries as opposed to civil law countries. As you probably know, in common law countries, if a prior decision from a higher court has analyzed the issue and reached a conclusion, any one person's opinion of whether that decision was right or wrong is irrelevant - whatever the high court said is what the law is, and you'd best get busy figuring out how to make whatever was said work for you because the odds of getting it overturned are astronomical. In civil law countries, on the other hand, there is no such thing as binding precedent. Each case is decided individually upon the letter of the law, and parties in identical situations may get drastically different results. The opinions of prior judges are given no more weight than the opinions of current scholars, so what one person thinks actually can make a difference. The opinion of one single person - the judge of the case - is literally the only thing that matters, and they have to be exceedingly wrong to get reversed on appeal. So people who first learned anything about law in civil law countries are substantially more likely to find any one individual's opinion relevant / important to the issue.
no subject
Date: 2013-09-05 02:07 am (UTC)Yes, I definitely suspect the lazy foreign students bit. Can't blame them: they're in a new place, who'd study? :p