Daily Stuff 9/2/2012

Languages--Chinese

I watched episode 46 of Travel in Chinese. This episode was about what to do in the aftermath of a sprained ankle or a similar accident.

Articles:

I read two articles in the Union-Tribune about the legal battle between Samsung and Apple. Most of the patents that Apple says were infringed on were design patents, rather than anything related to the actual software used. This affects mostly older models of Android phones, which means it won't completely destroy Samsung or anything. It may, however, make some Android phones more expensive, if they have to pay royalties to Apple for their phone designs. One thing that had made Android phones more popular with consumers is the fact that they're usually cheaper than Apple products, because Google doesn't charge the manufacturers to use the software. It's believed that Apple filed the lawsuit in the first place because Android phones were selling better than iPhones. I don't doubt that this is true, and I do think the lawsuit was pointless. Apple products are pretty distinctive, design-wise, but the patents seemed to focus on really small details that it seems almost every smartphone has. So I have to question if Apple actually came up with the designs or just happened to get a patent for it before anyone else did.

Philosophy:

I read about reflective morality in Dewey's moral philosophy (Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy). He believed that humans start out acting entirely on impulse, but once it becomes too challenging to do just this, valuing starts to come into the picture. People start to assign values to everything based on observations and experiences.

Internships:

I looked up jobs in a company called Getaround. It's a peer-to-peer car rental company and they have jobs for marketing managers from various colleges, and also software engineering.