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Fight Club started out o.k, but degenerated quickly. The camera pans of Ed's apt are roughly similar to (and probably inspried by) the clothing descriptions in American Psycho, soon to be a very disturbing major motion picture in a theatre near you.

Being John Malkovich was a bit on the long side, but had some great moments (Malkovich as the puppet, M in his own head)

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One of the major issues which has everyone up in arms is the ability for companies in today's environment to patent genes as soon as they isolate them. If they get there before the Genome Project, they can patent the genes and use them to extract royalties, in the event that researchers (who they don't pay for) discover a use for the gene. See this article for just one example. Before you think they did hard work to get large profits off of this gene, listen to the spin-doctoring:

"It was one of many genes that we found very early in our discovery program. Experiments confirmed that the CCR5 receptor played a key role in the biology of the immune system and as an AIDS virus receptor."

There is some IP which is worth protecting: that which is demonstrably detrimental to being released into the public. This IP would include certain information being held by those protecting our country, and other information which would hurt individuals or their rights. As much as some here don't like it, there is information which should be held tightly, including IP held by some commonly bashed organizations, since the information is being used for your benefit. Information that is tightly held only because it benefits some multi-billion dollar corporation, and could benefit everyone if had royalty-free, on the other hand, shouldn't be patentable in the first place.

I think there should be a moritorium on patents issued for gene isolation. Even if a private firm isolates a gene, they are doing research which will eventually be duplicated by the Genome Project, and that information should be released into the public domain, license-free. If they want to aid the cause, that's fine, go get a government grant. If they want to develop subsidiary products based on a particular gene, that's OK too. Conventional products and procedures which are limited by, among other things, ingredients and physical restrictions, such as complicated and novel processing requirements, are completely covered by today's patent process. IP, on the other hand, should be free for everyone.

For more information about IP in the gene patent area, check out these links:
Property Rights and Ownership
Genome Research and Traditional Intellectual Property Protection

Dave Blau

The Coppermine River does exist. Why don't you take a tour of it. jbw

Christopher Reeve Paralysis Foundation

Kudos to iCraveTV.com for this most excellent site.

There isn't anything stopping Microsoft from simply closing shop in Redmond and moving to Canada. I can tell you without any doubts that our (Canada's) government would roll out the red carpet for them.

Microsoft employs roughly 32,000 people. Generally well educated people, at that. The boost to the economy of a region would be astounding. Assuming 30,000 people at a low $CDN 30,000 per head, that's almost 1 billion in salary each year, half of which goes into the government's pocket. (That's another story...) Corporate taxes would be huge. Microsoft paid several billion to the US Federal government in Fiscal '98. The Canadian government would be all for it.

With regards to the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA), the US Government would be powerless to stop the importation of Microsoft products into the US. As IANAL, I'm not sure about the implications of Chapter 15 upon a corporation that changes countries during an ongoing monopoly investigation.

Anyway, here's a link to a CANOE article from a month back that inspired this comment.

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Ben Sugars has IPC::Sharable. See http://people.canoe.ca/bsugars/ip c_shareable.html for details.

For those of you wondering about Mrs. Cowpland, you may want to take a look at canoe's slide show. Click back a couple to see the famous $1 million dollar outfit. Also, take in this piece about her personal designer- the one who suggested the whole gold breastplate/15K diamond thing. Wow...
~luge

For those of you wondering about Mrs. Cowpland, you may want to take a look at canoe's slide show. Click back a couple to see the famous $1 million dollar outfit. Also, take in this piece about her personal designer- the one who suggested the whole gold breastplate/15K diamond thing. Wow...
~luge

Interesting Story Here!

BEGIN EXCERPT
By SYLVI CAPELACI -- Toronto Sun
Fibre optics seem to run in the family -- from the flashy software of Corel CEO Michael Cowp-land to the sexy hardware of his trophy wife, Marlen.
But this seductive socialite's shop talk includes silver lame, four-ply silks and, most recently, supple Italian leather.
Her Xena warrior catsuit strutted out at Coral's annual gala Wednesday was a radical departure from her sex-kitten style.
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END EXCERPT

Jerks like this make Steve Jobs and Bill Gates look like really cool guys.

1- Do not look at the song names on the Phantom Menace soundtrack. There are major spoilers
2- There will be a Souvenir Guide on sale in Canadian movie theaters ONLY.

Check out CBC Newsworld, Canoe and other sites for info. Heck, it's even on BBC World Service.