Posts for September, 2009
Against Monopoly
As I noted here, I and others have been arguing the merits of IP law with patent attorney Gene Quinn on his blog at Reality Check: Anti-Patent Patent Musings Simply Bizarre and Responding to Critics: My View on Patents and amp; Innovation. He’s laid down a challenge to debate about IP:
I challenge anyone [...]
Dr Shock MD PhD
Those video game players with more autonomy, competence and relatedness, thus who feel free to be themselves, and usually feel capable and have closeness and intimacy with others, often play video games because they like to. Those low on these traits often become obsessive game players, they have to play a video [...]
Agricultural Biodiversity Weblog
Where did that come from, I asked myself, as we looked around the home garden of an agrotourist lodge near Cotacachi in Ecuador. No, not the wonderful neotropical fruits, or the fiery Brugmannsia, or the tree they called guava that looked to me like a carob; certainly a legume of some sort. Not [...]
CompSci.ca/blog
Software jobs posted to U Waterloo
I’m often asked about available jobs for Computer Science students. More so in light of the recent economic downturn. An interesting point to reflect against is a benchmark from 2007 when “950 Computer Science related jobs” were advertised to the University of Waterloo students. This Fall’s 782 seems lower than [...]
Dr Shock MD PhD
The incredible web savvy Laika has another grand round published this week. Did I tell you that you can also follow her on twitter?
Welcome to the latest edition of Grand Rounds, the weekly compilation of the best of the medical blogosphere! I presume you would rather take a tour through the Netherlands, [...]
Against Monopoly
Against Intellectual Property has been been translated into Portugese (Contra a Propriedade Intelectual) by Rafael Hotz, of the Instituto Ludwig von Mises Brasil. It was previously translated into Spanish, Polish, and Georgian.
Go to Publisher to continue reading
Mystery Rays from Outer Space
Metagenomics is a rapidly-expanding field that repeatedly tells us how little we know.
Metagenomics is basically the process of surveying genomes in the environment. By going to genome analysis as directly as possible, this reduces the issues of isolation and culture. If you can isolate or grow bacteria or viruses, you probably [...]
Agricultural Biodiversity Weblog
There’s a wonderful message just in from Dr Sandip Banerjee to the DAD-Net discussion list on domestic animal diversity. After sounding the alarm for the Rumpless Fowl and various local goat breeds of Bengal, which he says require urgent conservation efforts, he has this to say about what’s happening with the cattle:
…I was [...]
Agricultural Biodiversity Weblog
Jeremy took IIED researchers to task a few days ago over their antipathy to GURTs, as articulated in a recent press release. One of the researchers quoted in that release, Krystyna Swiderska, is now the subject of an interview. GURTs don’t come up, but Dr Swiderska is clearly not completely against GMOs in [...]
Against Monopoly
“It would be remarkable, and certainly unjustified, to find that the plaintiff could copyright the concept of Jesus as forgiver.”
District Judge John G. Koeltl, explaining in part why one can’t copyright the idea of putting Judas on trial.
Judge Koeltl even had the wisdom to award attorneys’ fees to the defendant in this case, stating [...]
Against Monopoly
In his post Reality Check: Anti-Patent Patent Musings Simply Bizarre, patent attorney Gene Quinn is baffled that any patent attorney would openly oppose the patent system–or be hired by anyone. He writes, in part:
But what has me really wondering is how and why a patent attorney who is openly hostile to the patent system [...]
Agricultural Biodiversity Weblog
“…WFP’s partnership with the Millennium Villages Project would deploy the full range of the Programme’s tools and help utilize the Millennium Villages as a platform for best practices.” Good. But let’s just hope the villagers’ own best tool — agrobiodiversity — doesn’t get left behind.
More on the Cotacachi agroecotourism project in Ecuador.
Heritage tourism [...]
Agricultural Biodiversity Weblog
“…WFP’s partnership with the Millennium Villages Project would deploy the full range of the Programme’s tools and help utilize the Millennium Villages as a platform for best practices.” Good. But let’s just hope the villagers’ own best tool — agrobiodiversity — doesn’t get left behind.
More on the Cotacachi agroecotourism project in Ecuador.
Heritage tourism [...]
Dr Shock MD PhD
As always the answer to this question is not simple. From recent research it’s concluded that brain training games on paper are more effective and efficient than on computer consoles (Nintendo DS, in this research). Meaning that the task completion time was shorter on paper and the error rate was lower on [...]
Agricultural Biodiversity Weblog
Sometimes it is hard to tell whether what seems like good news is indeed either good or news. So it is with a recent press release from Compatible Technology International, a non-profit based in St. Paul, Minnesota, USA. CTI is sharing a grant of US$673,000 from the McKnight Foundation with ICRISAT (The International [...]