Obama's IP thinktank just as childish as McCains

I think Obama (in addition to this review of his platform) might be unfit as well, if you are worried about having a president who understands enough about technology to oversee an overhauling of the Patent Office. The AeA held a Q&A session on Monday last week for the sci and tech community, featuring Obama's science advisers. They spent lots of time talking about innovation and competitiveness; the poor preparedness of our kids when it comes to math and science education; the fact that we don't invest in basic research, etc. It all sounded good, if at times also a bit hollow and full of empty promises. They never really answered questions directly and repeated the same old rhetoric that we've heard for the last couple of years. Obama's staff said that he promises a strategic plan within 90 days - maybe within 6 months, its was too soon for them to make any promises - that will ensure a strong knowledge based economy. They also didn't miss a chance to get in some digs at the poor science record of the Bush administration. For all of their pablum about the importance of remaining competitive in the world and beefing up our commitment to science and technology, I stopped listening when someone asked, "Is the protection of intellectual property on the radar? Is it important?" And Karen Kornbluh - one of the panelists http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Karen_Kornbluh - said, "I don't know. Can I check and get back to you on that?" This is not promising for reform of the PTO, when both presidential candidates treat technology and innovation so cavalierly.

To see 20/20

I forgot to take care of my eyes. Searching online for good deals soon become a futile exercise in learning how far I can drive in order to find a good prescription and frames. Then I found ZenniOptical.com They sell aesthetically pleasing prescription glasses online, starting from $8.

There is a huge selection of frames, with single vision , sunlight-sensitive, or photochromic , tinted sunglasses , bifocal lens and progressive lens. The secret to Zenni’s low prices is that they manufacture exclusively themselves and sell direct to the customer, with no middlemen and virtually no advertising budget. This is a unique business idea, and affords the eye-glass customers great deals. I see that they can have you seeing 20-20 for under $20. All is needed is a prescription by an optometrist or ophthalmologist. This is Zenni on Fox

Phobia-inspired patent language

I recently came across the following patent claim: (United States Patent 6,344,906, Universal document scanner controller) 14. A scanner controller according to claim 1, further comprising an image compression unit connected to the internal bus, the image compression unit being capable of performing image compression implementing at least one of public algorithms, licensed algorithms, derived algorithms and specially developed algorithms. besides derived and specially developed already falling into the scope of public and licensed, the language of the claim serves to preserve the fragile subconscious of both the feebly writing paralegal and the inventor's liaison working with the paralegal. This is another one of those shoot-yourself in the foot overlimiting writing.