Posts from — October 2008

Therefore, although invited to do so by several amici, we decline to adopt a broad exclusion over software or any other such category of subject matter beyond the exclusion of claims drawn to fundamental principles set forth by the Supreme Court. See, e.g., Br. of Amicus Curiae End Software Patents; Br. of Amicus Curiae Red Hat, Inc. at 4-7. We also note that the process claim at issue in this appeal is not, in any event, a software claim. Thus, the facts here would be largely unhelpful in illuminating the distinction between those software claims that are patent-eligible and those that are not not.

[From Groklaw - The Bilski Decision Is In: Buh-Bye [Most] Business Methods Patents – As text & updated 3Xs]

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the courts finally said…. ‘no, you have to apply the supreme court guidelines and law’ and when that happens, common sense prevails and any patent that can soley be performed in the mind of a person was voided.

feels pretty normal

1,600 papier mache pandas set up by members of WWF (World Wildlife Fund) in Paris to highlight that there are only 1,600 pandas left on earth

[From Pictures of the day: 20 October 2008 - Telegraph]

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the many stands in for the many becoming fewer.

Designing for learning in Virtual Worlds

Designing for learning in Virtual Worlds | Virtual Worlds Research Project

Seminar at Roskilde University

Department of Communication, Business and Information Technologies
Monday, October 13, 2008, 9:30 a.m. – 4 p.m.
Room 43-2.29
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This is my first event in Denmark this year, but not my last:)
Jeremy

Flickr: Panda

—- best flickr interface ever!

Gadget Review » Asus S101 Ultra Slim and Trim Laptop

—– this looks pretty nifty to me.

Towards Humane Technologies: Biotechnology, New Media and Ethics (Paperback)

[From Amazon.com: Towards Humane Technologies: Biotechnology, New Media and Ethics: Naomi Sunderland, Phil Graham, Peter Isaacs: Books]

What are the ethical and political implications when the very foundations of life -things of awe and spiritual significance – are translated into products accessible to few people? This book critically analyses this historic recontextualisation. Through mediation – when meaning moves ‘from one text to another, from one discourse to another’ – biotechnology is transformed into analysable data and into public discourses. The unique book links biotechnology with media and citizenship. As with any ‘commodity’, biological products have been commodified. Because enormous speculative investment rests on this, risk will be understated and benefit will be overstated. Benefits will be unfairly distributed. Already, the bioprospecting of Southern megadiverse nations, legally sanctioned by U.S. property rights conventions, has led to wealth and health benefits in the North. Crucial to this development are biotechnological discourses that shift meanings from a “language of life” into technocratic discourses, infused with neo-liberal economic assumptions that promise progress and benefits for all. Crucial in this is the mass media’s representation of biotechnology for an audience with poor scientific literacy. Yet, even apparently benign biotechnology spawned by the Human Genome Project such as prenatal screening has eugenic possibilities, and genetic codes for illness are eagerly sought by insurance companies seeking to exclude certain people. These issues raise important questions about a citizenship that is founded on moral responsibility for the wellbeing of society now and into the future. After all, biotechnology is very much concerned with the essence of life itself. This book provides a space for alternative and dissident voices beyond the hype that surrounds biotechnology.

Armored truck robber uses Craigslist to make getaway

[From Armored truck robber uses Craigslist to make getaway | Top Stories | KING5.com | News for Seattle, Washington ]

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bank robbers…. they are class heroes aren’t they?

The Universe of Discourse : The Lake Wobegon Distribution is a tight little explanation using baseball that also maps well into the way i think of most of the blather about power laws and related seeming web 2.0 statistic, which is that if you really analyze what is going, you find out that really it isn’t quite what you think. My critique of the power law people is to generally say, if you arrive at a power law, you are likely asking the wrong questions and that if you asked the same question in a different population, you’d likely find the same thing which would in the end, show your power law as insignificant. This article makes a different argument about how most people think normal curves are normal, but it shows pretty clearly that most places we’d expect a normal curve we find abnormal variation especially outside of the center bell.