What moron puts a wireless adapter on a voting machine, anyway?
One who wanted to manipulate the election in the first place. It's not an oversite, it's there intentionally.
The chaos in Florida was no fluke. Catherine Harris and Jeb Bush made damn sure of it. There formula was successfully ratified by the Supreme Court. Therefore, Prince George is trying to force this down the throats of the entire nation.
For more insights on neo-con facism see http://gregpalast.com
Our nation is slipping into facist dictatorship. Voters must stop it before it is too late.
The difference between funny and stupid can be discerned through punctation.
If you but a ";-)" at the end of the message, then it is funny.
If you fail to put your smiley in, it leads us to believe your serious by suggesting that NOT VOITING will somehow increase your influence. Any senior citizen will inform you otherwise.
I disagree with the moderation this wasn't flamebait.
Not communist.
The "New" Republican is much similar to Facists than Socialists. It's business running government. Virtually every Eisenhower (both of them) protection for consumers has been laid asunder through corruption.
Adolf Hitler won his first election through rigging the vote as well. The Neo-Cons are trying to make damn sure that they can rig elections nation wide through culling voter roles of "felons" (code for minorities and democrats) and now by directly fixing the voting machines without any possible documentation trail.
Our nation is slipping quietly into facist dictatorship. Time to take back the government from the plutocrats and theocrats.
Thats before Al Gore led a task force to axe obvious stupid waste in high-ball contracts (after he invented the internet;-)
Bush II is doing even better. The occupation is costing us a mere 4 billion dollars a month. Private firm Halliburton is providing reconstruction services for a mere $500 million plus unlimited expenses.
The "simple" hatch on Apollo 1 had no handle to allow the astronauts to exit in case of emergency. Not that it mattered. The "simple" atmospheric system was pure oxygen and turned everything on board to kindling. The spark burned 3 astronauts alive.
KISS is good. But too much KISS is unsafe and stupid.
The most promising technology for making space cost-feasible (worth going there) is the space elevator. The project would enable a space prescense without the use of super-volatile explosives and fireball descents.
Mining asteroids will NEVER bee feasible. All the ore you need is right here on planet earth. Mining the moon may be feasible, but only for things built on the moon. You would NEVER send any of it home as it's much cheaper to mine it right here at home.
My novel concept is gas-mining the neptune and producing fuel... or providing mars with a descent atmoshpere over centuries sometime far in the future. Whats the point in living there if you can't breath the air. You'd might as well colonize an active volcano.
NASA wanted both the HLV and a small newer spaceplane. Aerospace companies wanted a supershuttle. Aerospace won, and now we have nothing.
Not true. We have a REALLY expensive space station that we boost into orbit and then land periodically. It also looks like a "real" spaceship like in Star Trek, so therefore it's "cool".
Too bad they let the cheap space station (spacelab) fall out of orbit;-)
Yes, but as you know launching satellites on unmanned rockets is simpler. It also doesn't involved the risk of human life from complex spacewalks.
Hence, an orbital telescope launched from a rocket wouldn't get near the ratings as the really cool pictures of people pushing around orbital cargo with jet packs.;-)
I would support an "open source" textbook concept. And I believe many of the professors would support it as well.
The professors really don't make very much $$$ on their textbooks. The publishers chew up most of the money.
Open source textbooks would allow ANYONE to print the text and use it. This is especially relevant for cash strapped public schools who have to shell out big $$$ for mediocre textbooks.
Make no mistake, textbooks are a big business that is fought over using hardball tactics. They are deeply involved with swaying state cirriculum planners into adopting THEIR book as the "authorized" text. A few well placed dollars can force thousands of school districts to buy their overpriced crap.
The best way to beat is is for fed up individuals to openly contribute their knowledge to a text. Then individual printers can print cheap text and a fee-for-service basis. Teachers would be fairly free to pick and choose their students source material just as long as they passed their "standardized" tests.
ESPN would likely be FOR more athletic funding. After all, their money is selling advertisement for college and professional sporting events.
Instead they conduct a study that indicates that most college sports LOSE money. That tells me they have a degree of integrity.
I too have seen lots of report indicating that VERY few programs actually make money. The best money-maker is typically Men's basketball with it's low number of athletes and high attendance. For perennia power schools (Notre Dame, Michigan, Ohio State, Florida) football is a big money-maker. Everyone else loses money. A football team is like a small army to support you really have to pack them in consistently to profit.
Most other sports have virtually nil attendance: track, wrestling, baseball, softball, fencing, crew, volleyball, lacrosse, soccer, etc...
Flapping motion is a natural evolution from load bearing arms. I can think of no way to effectively power spin muscle fiber without tearing it.
Basically, I don't believe evolution could produce a propeller. Sea creatures don't have propellers either (though Cephalopods have jets;-)
The other natural form of flight is soaring which planes effectively emulate. I'm not sure that an ornithoptor concept will ever be able to beat the efficiency of fixed-wing soaring aircraft on long halls. I find it much more likely that an Ornithoptor would replace helicoptors, not fixed wing aircraft with long ranges and high speeds.
Propellers: The seeds from Maple trees are natural propellers that perform "auto-gyro" landings.
The Wheel: Rocks will often get pulverized into fairly round chunks forming spheres (2-d) wheels. Dung beetles will create ball shaped collections of crap and roll them back to their dens.
Combustion Engines: Inside the cells of most biological organisms is a chemical combustion engine capable of transforming hydrocarbons (with oxygen) into energy. The stroking piston action is very natural and can be observed in woodpeckers and other creatures.
Rocket (Jet) Propulsion: The Squid family utilizes a form of "rocket" propulsion naturally. That is, it expells matter (water) to utilizes newtons priciple of reaction. Thus it achieves locomotion through water.
The genius of humans is to observe and replicate artificially. We gave up our physical strengths for mental strength. We are not above nature, we merely exploit it and replicate it.
The Air-Force is currently operating chemical based laser anti-missle systems out of 747s. As the technology shrinks a little, I would expect that a V22 would be the perfect platform to provide a localized missle defense platform.
BTW, the Tera-Saurs (flying "dinasaurs") weren't flappers, they were soarers. In that respect they bare much more resemblence to a fixed wing aircraft rather then small flapping birds.
I too am VERY skeptical about an "ornitopter" capability working on a large scale. It might be excellent for small surveilance craft, but not for a craft holding multiple soldiers.
The article points out that their prototypes consume a disproportionate amount of fuel for the size of the vehicle. Development of an artificial eltro-chemical muscle fiber would probably be necessary, translating a rotating engine into the irregular pulsating motion of flapping wings is probably way too complex to be worth it.
Actually, the Navy had some tilt wing aircraft in the 60s but never really pursued them. It's by no means a new concept, it's just found a new customer.
The V-22 and tilt wing aircraft in general promise a heavy "rapid-deployment" capability over much longer halls. I would expect to see tilt wing turbine craft operating in the future.
All the Japanese consumer electronics I've ever used have been translated very nicely.
Apparantly, it's "hip" to include English in local Japanese advertising, products and signage. What your probably see are indirect imports with hastily (and incorrectly) translations that were never meant for native English speakers.
The Japanese have far too much pride in their product to allow mistakes out the door.
Granted, South Korea has some bitter feelings. Especially amongst the older generation. Saying that everybody hates Japan is just fucking idiotic.
This is certainly a relevant perspective. I would suspect a younger generation don't have as many wounds as the older. However, it's the older guys who run things over there.
I would suspect that any techie knows enough english to keep things humming. This would be the strongest link rather than trying to resolve the differences between Chin, Kanji, and Hangul scripts. However, in a way it would defeat the point.
A nationalistic or regionlistic effort would be inclined to embrace the native languages instead of foreign ones. At the very least some framework for introducing native language source code would be relevant.
Myself, I'm Euro-American, but I know that I would be somewhat resentful if I had to learn Russian, Chinese or Arab in order to write software modules. I suspect that this feeling would be present in these governments (though using kanji would probably be unacceptable to Koreans).
Otherwise, why not just use linux and do some research on better keyboards. But hey the keyboards would be different for each language anyway.
At the deepest level, I would suspect they wan't something with source code in an asianic script instead of C++. This would make it a LOT more accessible to their populations. It would also be a source of national/regional pride since they wouldn't have to use a foreign language in order to build software.
First, the engineer/scientist comparison is incomplete. There is a third category, the inventor. He can often be one of the two, often he is all three.
The engineer leverages science to build useful creations. The scientist researchers the way the universe works, he often cares nothing for invention, only knowledge.
The inventor really doesn't CARE about science OR engineering. He just wants something that works and is happy when it does. If it fails, he will invent something better. He'll use science and engineering if it furthers his goals.
The beueracrat is of course the forth factor that tries to get engineers, scientists and inventors to serve some other goal. Sometimes the public well-being, sometimes his own. Most often he serves his bosses well being in pursuit of his own which may or may not correspond to the well being of an organization (like the public interest).
Part of serving your bosses best interest is not making him look bad. When you ground your project, your project looks bad irregardless of whether it's the right thing to do. It causes the schedule to slip, and somewhere up the line the big boss is staking his reputation on it. Thats how you get to be the big boss, making promises and coming through.
The truth is that failure is a part of success. Risk is a fundamental part of achievement and risk will ALWAYS produce failures at some point.
I am disspointed at the nature of Columbia's failure. However, in such a game as space travel, risk is an incredible factor. Despite an incredible effort to systematically mitigate risk, you will have failures.
Whether it's from the managements perspective or the engineers, failure will inevitably occur. The prime risk for the managers is that NOTHING would get done if they did EVERYTHING the engineers wanted to. The perfect system isn't created, it evolves. And evolution NEEDS failure to point out mistakes.
In this case, the managers were wrong. Their stonewalling and mindless dedication to schedule produced the death of a crew and the loss of a multi-billion dollar vehicle. In some other case, it could be an engineer who used the wrong unit system or an engineer that pendantically freeted over an issue that ultimately wasn't that important.
The lesson is to seek balance. And of course, even when you have balance you will have failures. Unfortunatly, for NASA, their failures are always VERY unforgiving.
The fact of the matter is that Copyright and Patent law is completely outdated and can no longer effectively cover the sphere of creativity in the marketplace. 100 years ago, the scope of what was a written work and what was an invention was pretty easy to comprehend. It was also very clear who was the patent holder, the originator of the work.
Today, the issue is a real mess.
Software- Software is a written work that becomes a machine when compiled and executed. It is a work that spans the two and should clearly have it's own category. Software patents for REAL innovation is appropriate. However, applications of derivates of well known concepts are simply not deserving of 17years of exclusive use.
I once had a colleague who had effectively patented the bit. Basically he had determined a scheme by which a record would either be a "summary" or a "detail" if a bit was switched. They actually successfully sued AT&T and succeeded in getting royalties.
While the use of such a technique does show a level of adaptivity and creativity, it doesn't rise to the level of "NEW IDEA". Certainly not one warranting 17 years of exclusive rights. The fact is that fundamental computer science is MEANT to apply to a limitless number of scenarios.
As far as copyrights go, it's pretty foolish to copyright something that you don't publish. Software code is virtually NEVER published. It's really a bad fit for copyright as no-one has a clue as to whether they did or did not infringe.
Clearly a new classification of intellectual property is needed in this category.
Bio-Tech- A tremendous new force is emerging to literally turn biological information into machines. The pharmeceutical industry has existed for nearly a century treating drugs as "inventions".
The thing about modern pharmeceuticals is that their is way more at stake than the invention itself. Pharmecuetical production involves
1) Identification of a substance (or class of substance) that produces specific effect in anatomy.
2) Processes to synthesize that agent in a manner that is cost productive.
3) Development of an appropriate delivery agent.
4) Clinical trials to determine the efficacy of the product so that it can be marketed.
Each of these steps require uniquely different skills and techniques. In a way, each represents a uniquely different type of intellectual property.
Furthermore, when we look at the real "new age" biotech, there core product is often "knowledge". For example, knowledge of the human genome and how individual genes effect human anatomy. Our law is now recognizing the patent of individual "genes". Those are FACTS.
Patents aren't supposed to recognize scientific facts and truths, only inventions. However, patents are now issued to biotech firms for the knowledge of functions for individual genes or clusters of genes.
Clearly this fundamental research is a form of intellectual property. But it clearly IS NOT an invention since the knowledge does not produce a workable product, device or machine. It certainly is not a copyright, only god could copyright the human genome;-)
Again new forms of intellectual property law is warranted to account for expensive research. Such a research is VERY valuable to humanity and an economic incentive may clearly be warranted (though perhaps not 17 years worth of protection).
Beyond that, perhaps research that produces new uses for older "inventions" should be relevant. For example, pharmeceutical companies simply will NOT invest research into known substances going of patent. There is no economic motivation. Perhaps a "IP" that would allow royalties for NEW uses of existing substances would be appropriate.
Another aspect of biotech firms is "process". The concept of "process" is embodied quite boldy in patents now. Though their relevance and applicability is often questioned. Indeed, I would claim that the a GUI software appli
I felt that the telepath war should have been the natural spin-off series to B5.
I actually think it may have been a mistake to do full blown series as sequels to B5. Instead, single year series may have been the way to go. If that series was good enough, maybe that would have a sequel.
Slashdot Mirror
What moron puts a wireless adapter on a voting machine, anyway?
One who wanted to manipulate the election in the first place. It's not an oversite, it's there intentionally.
The chaos in Florida was no fluke. Catherine Harris and Jeb Bush made damn sure of it. There formula was successfully ratified by the Supreme Court. Therefore, Prince George is trying to force this down the throats of the entire nation.
For more insights on neo-con facism see http://gregpalast.com
Our nation is slipping into facist dictatorship. Voters must stop it before it is too late.
The difference between funny and stupid can be discerned through punctation.
If you but a ";-)" at the end of the message, then it is funny.
If you fail to put your smiley in, it leads us to believe your serious by suggesting that NOT VOITING will somehow increase your influence. Any senior citizen will inform you otherwise.
I disagree with the moderation this wasn't flamebait.
Not communist.
The "New" Republican is much similar to Facists than Socialists. It's business running government. Virtually every Eisenhower (both of them) protection for consumers has been laid asunder through corruption.
Adolf Hitler won his first election through rigging the vote as well. The Neo-Cons are trying to make damn sure that they can rig elections nation wide through culling voter roles of "felons" (code for minorities and democrats) and now by directly fixing the voting machines without any possible documentation trail.
Our nation is slipping quietly into facist dictatorship. Time to take back the government from the plutocrats and theocrats.
No, you probably need backdoor passwords that only the Neo-Con Diebold executives know.
Thats before Al Gore led a task force to axe obvious stupid waste in high-ball contracts (after he invented the internet ;-)
Bush II is doing even better. The occupation is costing us a mere 4 billion dollars a month. Private firm Halliburton is providing reconstruction services for a mere $500 million plus unlimited expenses.
The "simple" hatch on Apollo 1 had no handle to allow the astronauts to exit in case of emergency. Not that it mattered. The "simple" atmospheric system was pure oxygen and turned everything on board to kindling. The spark burned 3 astronauts alive.
KISS is good. But too much KISS is unsafe and stupid.
Well, the counts right. He's got two oscars in that nutsack, which is a lot more than you've got in yours.
The most promising technology for making space cost-feasible (worth going there) is the space elevator. The project would enable a space prescense without the use of super-volatile explosives and fireball descents.
... or providing mars with a descent atmoshpere over centuries sometime far in the future. Whats the point in living there if you can't breath the air. You'd might as well colonize an active volcano.
Mining asteroids will NEVER bee feasible. All the ore you need is right here on planet earth. Mining the moon may be feasible, but only for things built on the moon. You would NEVER send any of it home as it's much cheaper to mine it right here at home.
My novel concept is gas-mining the neptune and producing fuel
If space transport is such a "hot" prospect, than it doesn't NEED government investment. The market will handle it just fine.
There is nothing more annoying than lazai-faire capitalists begging for public funding.
Isn't that where the SOHO satellite is for observing the Sun. Does that mean we get to blow up SOHO before setting up shop ;-)
NASA wanted both the HLV and a small newer spaceplane. Aerospace companies wanted a supershuttle. Aerospace won, and now we have nothing.
;-)
Not true. We have a REALLY expensive space station that we boost into orbit and then land periodically. It also looks like a "real" spaceship like in Star Trek, so therefore it's "cool".
Too bad they let the cheap space station (spacelab) fall out of orbit
Yes, but as you know launching satellites on unmanned rockets is simpler. It also doesn't involved the risk of human life from complex spacewalks.
;-)
Hence, an orbital telescope launched from a rocket wouldn't get near the ratings as the really cool pictures of people pushing around orbital cargo with jet packs.
I would support an "open source" textbook concept. And I believe many of the professors would support it as well.
The professors really don't make very much $$$ on their textbooks. The publishers chew up most of the money.
Open source textbooks would allow ANYONE to print the text and use it. This is especially relevant for cash strapped public schools who have to shell out big $$$ for mediocre textbooks.
Make no mistake, textbooks are a big business that is fought over using hardball tactics. They are deeply involved with swaying state cirriculum planners into adopting THEIR book as the "authorized" text. A few well placed dollars can force thousands of school districts to buy their overpriced crap.
The best way to beat is is for fed up individuals to openly contribute their knowledge to a text. Then individual printers can print cheap text and a fee-for-service basis. Teachers would be fairly free to pick and choose their students source material just as long as they passed their "standardized" tests.
That will put the text
ESPN would likely be FOR more athletic funding. After all, their money is selling advertisement for college and professional sporting events.
Instead they conduct a study that indicates that most college sports LOSE money. That tells me they have a degree of integrity.
I too have seen lots of report indicating that VERY few programs actually make money. The best money-maker is typically Men's basketball with it's low number of athletes and high attendance. For perennia power schools (Notre Dame, Michigan, Ohio State, Florida) football is a big money-maker. Everyone else loses money. A football team is like a small army to support you really have to pack them in consistently to profit.
Most other sports have virtually nil attendance: track, wrestling, baseball, softball, fencing, crew, volleyball, lacrosse, soccer, etc...
Flapping motion is a natural evolution from load bearing arms. I can think of no way to effectively power spin muscle fiber without tearing it.
;-)
Basically, I don't believe evolution could produce a propeller. Sea creatures don't have propellers either (though Cephalopods have jets
The other natural form of flight is soaring which planes effectively emulate. I'm not sure that an ornithoptor concept will ever be able to beat the efficiency of fixed-wing soaring aircraft on long halls. I find it much more likely that an Ornithoptor would replace helicoptors, not fixed wing aircraft with long ranges and high speeds.
You can static line out of Cessna. Why not an Osprey ;-)
Propellers:
The seeds from Maple trees are natural propellers that perform "auto-gyro" landings.
The Wheel:
Rocks will often get pulverized into fairly round chunks forming spheres (2-d) wheels. Dung beetles will create ball shaped collections of crap and roll them back to their dens.
Combustion Engines:
Inside the cells of most biological organisms is a chemical combustion engine capable of transforming hydrocarbons (with oxygen) into energy. The stroking piston action is very natural and can be observed in woodpeckers and other creatures.
Rocket (Jet) Propulsion:
The Squid family utilizes a form of "rocket" propulsion naturally. That is, it expells matter (water) to utilizes newtons priciple of reaction. Thus it achieves locomotion through water.
The genius of humans is to observe and replicate artificially. We gave up our physical strengths for mental strength. We are not above nature, we merely exploit it and replicate it.
The Air-Force is currently operating chemical based laser anti-missle systems out of 747s. As the technology shrinks a little, I would expect that a V22 would be the perfect platform to provide a localized missle defense platform.
BTW, the Tera-Saurs (flying "dinasaurs") weren't flappers, they were soarers. In that respect they bare much more resemblence to a fixed wing aircraft rather then small flapping birds.
I too am VERY skeptical about an "ornitopter" capability working on a large scale. It might be excellent for small surveilance craft, but not for a craft holding multiple soldiers.
The article points out that their prototypes consume a disproportionate amount of fuel for the size of the vehicle. Development of an artificial eltro-chemical muscle fiber would probably be necessary, translating a rotating engine into the irregular pulsating motion of flapping wings is probably way too complex to be worth it.
Actually, the Navy had some tilt wing aircraft in the 60s but never really pursued them. It's by no means a new concept, it's just found a new customer.
The V-22 and tilt wing aircraft in general promise a heavy "rapid-deployment" capability over much longer halls. I would expect to see tilt wing turbine craft operating in the future.
All the Japanese consumer electronics I've ever used have been translated very nicely.
Apparantly, it's "hip" to include English in local Japanese advertising, products and signage. What your probably see are indirect imports with hastily (and incorrectly) translations that were never meant for native English speakers.
The Japanese have far too much pride in their product to allow mistakes out the door.
Granted, South Korea has some bitter feelings. Especially amongst the older generation. Saying that everybody hates Japan is just fucking idiotic.
This is certainly a relevant perspective. I would suspect a younger generation don't have as many wounds as the older. However, it's the older guys who run things over there.
I would suspect that any techie knows enough english to keep things humming. This would be the strongest link rather than trying to resolve the differences between Chin, Kanji, and Hangul scripts. However, in a way it would defeat the point.
A nationalistic or regionlistic effort would be inclined to embrace the native languages instead of foreign ones. At the very least some framework for introducing native language source code would be relevant.
Myself, I'm Euro-American, but I know that I would be somewhat resentful if I had to learn Russian, Chinese or Arab in order to write software modules. I suspect that this feeling would be present in these governments (though using kanji would probably be unacceptable to Koreans).
Otherwise, why not just use linux and do some research on better keyboards. But hey the keyboards would be different for each language anyway.
How about ...
... Asian-ux.
Chi-nux
It's simpler, or
At the deepest level, I would suspect they wan't something with source code in an asianic script instead of C++. This would make it a LOT more accessible to their populations. It would also be a source of national/regional pride since they wouldn't have to use a foreign language in order to build software.
I think that the author was really off the mark.
First, the engineer/scientist comparison is incomplete. There is a third category, the inventor. He can often be one of the two, often he is all three.
The engineer leverages science to build useful creations. The scientist researchers the way the universe works, he often cares nothing for invention, only knowledge.
The inventor really doesn't CARE about science OR engineering. He just wants something that works and is happy when it does. If it fails, he will invent something better. He'll use science and engineering if it furthers his goals.
The beueracrat is of course the forth factor that tries to get engineers, scientists and inventors to serve some other goal. Sometimes the public well-being, sometimes his own. Most often he serves his bosses well being in pursuit of his own which may or may not correspond to the well being of an organization (like the public interest).
Part of serving your bosses best interest is not making him look bad. When you ground your project, your project looks bad irregardless of whether it's the right thing to do. It causes the schedule to slip, and somewhere up the line the big boss is staking his reputation on it. Thats how you get to be the big boss, making promises and coming through.
The truth is that failure is a part of success. Risk is a fundamental part of achievement and risk will ALWAYS produce failures at some point.
I am disspointed at the nature of Columbia's failure. However, in such a game as space travel, risk is an incredible factor. Despite an incredible effort to systematically mitigate risk, you will have failures.
Whether it's from the managements perspective or the engineers, failure will inevitably occur. The prime risk for the managers is that NOTHING would get done if they did EVERYTHING the engineers wanted to. The perfect system isn't created, it evolves. And evolution NEEDS failure to point out mistakes.
In this case, the managers were wrong. Their stonewalling and mindless dedication to schedule produced the death of a crew and the loss of a multi-billion dollar vehicle. In some other case, it could be an engineer who used the wrong unit system or an engineer that pendantically freeted over an issue that ultimately wasn't that important.
The lesson is to seek balance. And of course, even when you have balance you will have failures. Unfortunatly, for NASA, their failures are always VERY unforgiving.
The fact of the matter is that Copyright and Patent law is completely outdated and can no longer effectively cover the sphere of creativity in the marketplace. 100 years ago, the scope of what was a written work and what was an invention was pretty easy to comprehend. It was also very clear who was the patent holder, the originator of the work.
;-)
Today, the issue is a real mess.
Software-
Software is a written work that becomes a machine when compiled and executed. It is a work that spans the two and should clearly have it's own category. Software patents for REAL innovation is appropriate. However, applications of derivates of well known concepts are simply not deserving of 17years of exclusive use.
I once had a colleague who had effectively patented the bit. Basically he had determined a scheme by which a record would either be a "summary" or a "detail" if a bit was switched. They actually successfully sued AT&T and succeeded in getting royalties.
While the use of such a technique does show a level of adaptivity and creativity, it doesn't rise to the level of "NEW IDEA". Certainly not one warranting 17 years of exclusive rights. The fact is that fundamental computer science is MEANT to apply to a limitless number of scenarios.
As far as copyrights go, it's pretty foolish to copyright something that you don't publish. Software code is virtually NEVER published. It's really a bad fit for copyright as no-one has a clue as to whether they did or did not infringe.
Clearly a new classification of intellectual property is needed in this category.
Bio-Tech-
A tremendous new force is emerging to literally turn biological information into machines. The pharmeceutical industry has existed for nearly a century treating drugs as "inventions".
The thing about modern pharmeceuticals is that their is way more at stake than the invention itself. Pharmecuetical production involves
1) Identification of a substance (or class of substance) that produces specific effect in anatomy.
2) Processes to synthesize that agent in a manner that is cost productive.
3) Development of an appropriate delivery agent.
4) Clinical trials to determine the efficacy of the product so that it can be marketed.
Each of these steps require uniquely different skills and techniques. In a way, each represents a uniquely different type of intellectual property.
Furthermore, when we look at the real "new age" biotech, there core product is often "knowledge". For example, knowledge of the human genome and how individual genes effect human anatomy. Our law is now recognizing the patent of individual "genes". Those are FACTS.
Patents aren't supposed to recognize scientific facts and truths, only inventions. However, patents are now issued to biotech firms for the knowledge of functions for individual genes or clusters of genes.
Clearly this fundamental research is a form of intellectual property. But it clearly IS NOT an invention since the knowledge does not produce a workable product, device or machine. It certainly is not a copyright, only god could copyright the human genome
Again new forms of intellectual property law is warranted to account for expensive research. Such a research is VERY valuable to humanity and an economic incentive may clearly be warranted (though perhaps not 17 years worth of protection).
Beyond that, perhaps research that produces new uses for older "inventions" should be relevant. For example, pharmeceutical companies simply will NOT invest research into known substances going of patent. There is no economic motivation. Perhaps a "IP" that would allow royalties for NEW uses of existing substances would be appropriate.
Another aspect of biotech firms is "process". The concept of "process" is embodied quite boldy in patents now. Though their relevance and applicability is often questioned. Indeed, I would claim that the a GUI software appli
I felt that the telepath war should have been the natural spin-off series to B5.
I actually think it may have been a mistake to do full blown series as sequels to B5. Instead, single year series may have been the way to go. If that series was good enough, maybe that would have a sequel.