Stupidity Stream?

Into week out and the weather has warmed. Rather, the temperature is up. And I am doubly in need of clearing tabs because I am on the cusp of transition from this box to the new six core box. And yes, I finally got my will power in line and transferred the data HD yesterday. So I am now in a bit of a mixed state. With some things not available – like my signature files.

It seems rather appropriate under such circumstances to note an article [Link] in the Register about Apple’s second patent on the rectangle. Actually, I should amend that it is not strictly a rectangle but a “rectangle with rounded corners”.

I find this bemusing on a couple of levels. First, I can recall an article in Popular Mechanics in the late ’70’s about a guy who developed a milling machine (ala a router) to cut this shape for table tops (e.g.) And he got a patent on the machine. So if there is a patent for a machine to cut this shape, how can Apple patent the shape? Seems like an implicit conflict.

Second, I fear I find this another example of BIG Brands enslaving the citizenry. If they can own geometric shapes what is next? Proper names. Will our children have to pay a royalty every time they sign their names? Or will there be public domain names? Or will everyone have a unique name that is a perversion of some actual name like some of the lesser bogs do now? And if you can’t possess your own name, how can you enter into a contract? Will we all just be numbers like that rather depressing “science fiction” movie? And will the numbers be tattooed on our arms ala Auschwitz inmates?

In a rather more pleasant azimuth, I note [Link][Link] that sales of desk/lap boxes with Linux pre-installed are up albeit not in the Yankee republic. I fear this is one more indication of our rapid degeneration in to a third world nation. It also brings me once more to the question of whether I really want to see Linux widely diffused as a tool OS (not an appliance OS.) If it means looking and acting like Winders or Apple OS, then the answer is a resounding NYET! And I am not sure the dispersion of distributions will let this be avoided. After all, they killed off CPM didn’t they?

This brings me to an article [Link] on Linux ‘Fear – Uncertainty – Doubt’ among educationalists. I especially liked the quote

‘”In a modern textbook for a Management Information Systems class Linux is being portrayed as:

•     Rarely used (only when budget is very limited)
•     Only has one commonly used application (OpenOffice)
•     Created by “a loosely coupled group of programmers who mostly volunteer their time”

Not a single one of those statements is valid and current.’

But the argument that this is bad because of economics preventing up-to-date textbooks is rot. If anything, Linux use in colleges is concentrated among IT types. And an out of date college textbook? Rarer than dinosaur descendants with teeth. Rather more a matter of author ignorance dragging. And the kind of religionist tunnel vision that infests too many modern IT organizations, real and academic.

But having grown up in the ’60’s with the ‘counter culture’ I am happy to think of Linux as the modern version. And enjoy it as the individual you had to be to enjoy things then.

corporations, computers, patents, IT, nonsense

Patent Overload

We have apparently reached that portion of the year when the boundary between summer and fall becomes uncertain and insecure, when it is long sleeve shirt weather  one day and short sleeve the next. The weather beavers are displaying enormous variance in their projections often from hour to hour, definitely from day to day.

I noted yesterday an article [Link] about the current chief executive signing a new patent reform act. It did not seem to get much play although it did get mentioned on one of the news casts this morning that I espied at gym. When I examine what the act does it seems rather too little, perhaps too late. It is supposed to accelerate the processing of patent applications, which does not engender much confidence in the system increasing stability. And other than that it is not at all clear what benefit there is other than perpetuating government for the sake of business.

From one perspective the problem with patents is much like the problem with laws. We simply have too many. I have commented previously that we have enough laws on the books that everyone violates at least one each day with probability one. The result has been that the constabulary has become completely haphazard and the legal system subjective. We are almost at the point where bribery would actually improve the efficiency of the system.

So while we also have too many patents, the problem there is not absence of application but excessive application. Much is made of the crustless sandwich patent which happily is not applied very much, otherwise we should see hired guns invading family kitchens to make sure that [arents do not send their children off to school with paying a few for removing the crusts. Only in those places where children are required to eat cafeteria lunches would sanity be maintained?

This seems to be the way of large business organizations these days, litigating and counter litigating over conflicting patents. In a word of Edsel technology increasingly distinguished by Potemkinism, look and feel patents seem to be the rot that consumes Amerikan commerce. It would seem that what we need are not faster patent reviews, which are going to be shoddier and produce more of this sort of thing, but fewer patents. If the chamber of thieves would just reduce the duration of a patent to half, with no extensions, then this would abate considerably. And perhaps in the process Amerikan business would get back to business and away from diversion.

government, business, patents, extinction

Missing Digits

Strange day yester. Had to go eat strange foodstuffs for social reasons and my metabolism is still in an uncollapsed state. So the prospect of blogging this morning is both enticing and offputting.

First off, my attention was drawn to an article [Link] about the Wonk Shul’s Collective Intelligence Center, which contrary to first inclination is neither about hive minds nor borg. The article is one of those insipid puff pieces put out by academic publicity offices that is intended to totally camouflage any reality such as the slow disintegration of the academic environment or whether any actual work is being done. It is the highest example of academic autarky.

Near as I can tell, collective intelligence is the ‘intelligence’ of a group of humans. But it has very little to do with actual intelligence so the use of the term is highly ambiguous and probably deliberately misleading so that grant monies can be obtained. The thesis of the article is one that is politically/socially correct and dripping of social engineering dogma, that collective intelligence is directly proportional to the number of women in the group.

I am the last one to debate the merits of women in working groups, or any other organization not requiring some uniquely male solidarity, such as a football scrum or a sperm donors’  organization. But that does not mean that I have surrendered my criticality. What is conspicuously missing in this article is any form of quantization. And if ever there was something that Kelvin’s advice applied to it is group composition mechanics.

For example, one of the questions I would like answered is how does collective intelligence change as the woman fraction changes from zero to one? I have no intention of waiting. The wonks do not respond to the rest of the Yankee republic.

Meanwhile, physicists at U Pennsylvania have published some work [Link] on the formation of coffee ‘rings’ that has plenty of quantification. Sadly, there is no mention of the effect of coffee on collective intelligence, which we all know is considerable and cries out for quantification as well as study. There is a bit of surprise to this work inasmuch as the same group has done nothing with chocolate.

And lastly, an article about a Yankee republic legal ruling that computer code cannot be patented unless it has a minimum level of complication. [Link] I have to admit the article is not very clear which is at least partly the result of trying to decipher the ruling and translate it into human language.

No wonder the wonk shul is putting out such nonsense, since they can’t patent it, it isn’t worth anything but publicity.

humans, intelligence, organization, coffee, patents, property