Visions of Aestia

ongoing � More Patent Funnies

This is NOT funny. Google has just this month received a patent on “highlighting matches to search terms in retrieved documents".

How could this even happen? One of the criteria for a patent is supposed to be that an idea is non-obvious. There are plenty of RDF tools that could be considered to be covered by this.

There is no longer any justification, in my mind, for a 20-year patent (what business plan goes out more than 5 years, anyway?). And I’m seriously thinking of joining the camp that says all patents are worthless.

The point of a patent is that if you invent something, you, rather than some copycat, get to make money off of it. The problem is that in today’s world, you don’t - either you spend all your time and money in monitoring and litigation, or you use it as a weapon against competitors.

This patent should never have been granted. I personally had prior art in 1991, nine years before the patent was even filed. And I was still in high school at the time!

Pushing String � Happy birthday to you

…when a song composed in 1893 is still under copyright in 2030. That’s 137 years, by my reckoning. Whatever happened to “limited duration"?

What’s really sad is that the current interpretation of the law prohibits derivative works, so even the oldest living composer can’t build upon it to create a new work.

Animal Planet is going to be airing a segment on dragons. On the one hand, as an avid role-player, I certainly applaud any documentary that approaches one of my favorite creatures.

http://animal.discovery.com/convergence/dragons/dragons.html

On the other hand, I can’t help but worry about the general state of science programming on television. This feels very much like all those pseudo-documentaries about mummies and UFOs that get constant air time. No real substantial debate, mostly speculation, and constant repetition of key themes with little or no rigourous review of challenge.

In other words, pseudo-science instead of real science. Sure, “Scientific American Presents” and “Nova” present real science, but you’ll notice they get little traction against the huge volumes of rubbish being pumped out. Not a good trend at all.

Center for Social Media: Events

Jon Else, series producer and cinematographer for Henry Hampton’s Eyes on the Prize, noted, “Eyes on the Prize is no longer available for purchase. It is virtually the only audio-visual purveyor of the history of the civil rights movement in America. What happened was the series was done cheaply and had a terrible fundraising problem. There was barely enough to purchase a minimum five year rights on the archive heavy footage. Each episode in the series is 50% archival. And most of the archive shots are derived from commercial sources. The five year licenses expired and the company that made the film also expired. And now we have a situation where we have this series for which there are no rights licenses. Eyes on the Prize cannot be broadcast on any TV venue anywhere, nor can it be sold. Whatever threadbare copies are available in universities around the country are the only ones that will ever exist. It will cost $500,000 to re-up all the rights for this film. This is a piece of landmark TV history that has vanished.”

I remember this from my younger days. Here is something I desperately want my child to see, to understand, and it is not available to show her and may never be. This is precisely why I have such a problem with the permissions culture springing up the way it has. I mean, think about it. Nothing from my childhood - or even my parent’s childhood; in some cases my grandparent’s childhood - is available for drawing upon creatively; it all must be cleared by lawyers and rights holders. No wonder television is a cultural wasteland.

Guardian Unlimited | Special reports | You asked for my evidence, Mr Ambassador. Here it is

Here’s a open letter to the US Ambassador from Noami Klein, citing evidence that the United States is systematically eliminating those who dare to report on the number of civilian casualties in Iraq.

These are the first actions of a military dictatorship - silence the opposition. No wonder so much hatred is directed towards America. Next comes accusations of collaboration and conspiracy against domestic protesters (who are already herded in to barbed-wire “free-speech” zones).

The European Union’s foreign policy chief, Javier Solana, said, “We will not accept elections that are fraudulent.”

That’s the Ukraine they’re talking about, not the USA.

I wish I had a direct quote from Colin Powell, but here’s the essence (from the New York Times):

Western election observers, and Western leaders, have been unequivocally critical of Sunday’s election here, saying the extensive documentation of organized fraud and the abuse of state powers to the prime minister’s advantage have tainted its official result and called into question its validity.

I’d say we have pretty extensive documentation of organized fraud and the abuse of state powers in the US election, yet for some reason Western leaders are just accepting the official results.

The US Congress is planning to pass a bill that makes skipping commercials illegal.

This is what you get when to law is written by commercial entities rather than individuals. I can’t imagine any parent wanting this bill to pass; isn’t it hard enough to handle advertising aimed at children?

Details can be found in a Wired article.