Quotulatiousness

September 30, 2012

Innovative idea? Better get congressional approval before you go to market

Filed under: Bureaucracy, Law, Liberty, USA — Tags: , , , , — Nicholas @ 11:27

Radley Balko linked to this story on Twitter, nominating it for the most “incredibly dumb IP story of the day“. Hard not to agree, possibly even upping that nomination to “of the month” or possibly even “of the year”. Techdirt‘s Mike Masnick has the details:

One of the reasons why we live in such an innovative society is that we’ve (for the most part) enabled a permissionless innovation society — one in which innovators no longer have to go through gatekeepers in order to bring innovation to market. This is a hugely valuable thing, and it’s why we get concerned about laws that further extend permission culture. However, according to the former Register of Copyrights, Ralph Oman, under copyright law, any new technology should have to apply to Congress for approval and a review to make sure they don’t upset the apple cart of copyright, before they’re allowed to exist. I’m not joking. Mr. Oman, who was the Register of Copyright from 1985 to 1993 and was heavily involved in a variety of copyright issues, has filed an amicus brief in the Aereo case (pdf).

[. . .]

But he goes much further than that in his argument, even to the point of claiming that with the 1976 Copyright Act, Congress specifically intended new technologies to first apply to Congress for permission, before releasing new products on the market that might upset existing business models:

    Whenever possible, when the law is ambiguous or silent on the issue at bar, the courts should let those who want to market new technologies carry the burden of persuasion that a new exception to the broad rights enacted by Congress should be established. That is especially so if that technology poses grave dangers to the exclusive rights that Congress has given copyright owners. Commercial exploiters of new technologies should be required to convince Congress to sanction a new delivery system and/or exempt it from copyright liability. That is what Congress intended.

This is, to put it mildly, crazy talk. He is arguing that anything even remotely disruptive and innovative, must first go through the ridiculous process of convincing Congress that it should be allowed, rather than relying on what the law says and letting the courts sort out any issues. In other words, in cases of disruptive innovation, assume that new technologies are illegal until proven otherwise. That’s a recipe for killing innovation.

The Two Scotts’ NFL picks for the week

Filed under: Football, Humour — Tags: — Nicholas @ 11:13

I don’t take my NFL picks very seriously, but Scott Feschuk and Scott Reid are as unserious as possible:

San Francisco (minus 4) at New York Jets

Feschuk: […] Now the lockout is over, which is great for football but also a little disappointing. Week 4 brings a whole new slate of games that the replacement officials could have turned into shitshows and I for one was looking forward to seeing what they would do horribly, horribly wrong next. Botch a penalty call? Fail to place the ball on the correct line of scrimmage? Get Chinese food delivered to the red zone? Or maybe this would finally have been the week they called the two tallest players to midfield for a jump ball. […] Pick: San Francisco.

Reid: […] And I was very disappointed indeed when the Vikings put up 146 yards on the ground against my boys in gold. But all things considered, I should have seen this coming. Under the dome in Minny is a tough place to play. The Vikings have an explosive running game. Plus, all year the Niners secondary has been bend, not break. And they got bent a lot in Minnesota (right over the dishwasher as the boys down at the Legion like to say). The good news is that they’ve gotten the boneheaded game plan of the year out of the way nice and early. Here’s a tip Niners: Give Gore more than 12 touches. The Jets are ranked 28th in the league against the run. They couldn’t stop Kat Deeley. Pick: San Francisco.

[. . .]

Seattle (minus 2.5) at St. Louis

Reid: What can you say about the end of Monday night’s game in Seattle that hasn’t already been said by monkeys flinging poop (yes, that means you entire population of Twitter). I’m not suggesting that the Marx Brothers skit passed off as officiating gave the real referees added bargaining leverage but Ed Hochuli demanded that Roger Goodell lovingly massage his biceps each Saturday night as part of any new collective agreement. It’s being called the Absorbine Jr. clause. Lost in all the screeching injustice and flatulent ineptitude was a thoroughly unimpressive offensive effort by Seattle quarterback Frodo Baggins. Russell Wilson is so small he has to stand on a stool to ask Doug Flutie for advice. (For the record, Flutie’s answer to any question is: “I should be starting.”) Wilson threw only nine completions during the game – 10 if you count his pass to MD Jennings. However, there is that defence… Pick: Seattle.

Feschuk: I’ve seen a lot of impressive things in my time – I’ve stood two feet from Angelina Jolie, four feet from Gwyneth Paltrow and right damn next to a Baconator – but I’m not sure I’ve seen anything as impressive as Golden Tate keeping a straight face while telling reporters that, yeah, absolutely, I totally caught that ball in the end zone. Pick: Seattle.

Tracking (smaller) space junk in orbit

Filed under: Space, Technology, USA — Tags: , , , — Nicholas @ 11:04

Strategy Page on the latest developments in tracking even smaller pieces of space junk in orbit around the Earth:

The U.S. Air Force is spending nearly $4 billion to build a S-Band radar on Kwajalein Island in the Pacific. This will make it easier and cheaper to find and track small (down to 10mm/.4 inch) objects in orbit around the planet. Such small objects are a growing threat and Space Fence will make it possible to track some 300,000 10mm and larger objects in orbit.

Getting hit by an object 100mm (4 inch wide), if it’s coming from the opposite direction in orbit, results in an explosion equivalent to 20 kg (66 pounds) of TNT. That’s all because of the high speed (7 kilometers a second, versus one kilometers a second for high-powered rifles) of objects in orbit. Even a 10mm object hits with the impact of 50-60 g (2 ounces) of explosives. In the last 16 years eight space satellites have been destroyed by collisions with one of the 300,000 lethal (10mm or larger) bits of space junk that are in orbit. As more satellites are launched more bits of space junk are left in orbit. Based on that, and past experience, it’s predicted that ten more satellites will be destroyed by space junk in the next five years. Manned space missions are at risk as well. Three years ago a U.S. Space Shuttle mission to fix the Hubble space telescope faced a one in 229 chance of getting hit with space junk (that would have likely damaged the shuttle and required a backup shuttle be sent up to rescue the crew). Smaller, more numerous, bits of space junk are more of a danger to astronauts (in space suits) working outside. The shuttle crew working outside to repair the Hubble satellite had a much lower chance of being killed by space junk because a man in a space suit is much smaller and the space suits are designed to help the person inside survive a strike by a microscopic piece of space junk.

If you’re not getting enough convictions on drug charges, tamper with the evidence at the lab

Filed under: Law, Liberty, USA — Tags: , , , , , — Nicholas @ 10:56

The war on drugs is already insane enough, with civil liberties being curtailed in pursuit of drug dealers and even drug users. The number of US citizens in prison for drug charges helps make the US one of the most-imprisoned societies in the world. But even with all that, things can still get worse, as this story from the Huffington Post shows:

“Annie Dookhan’s alleged actions corrupted the integrity of the entire criminal justice system,” state Attorney General Martha Coakley said during a news conference after Dookhan’s arrest. “There are many victims as a result of this.”

Dookhan faces more than 20 years in prison on charges of obstruction of justice and falsely pretending to hold a degree from a college or university. She testified under oath that she holds a master’s degree in chemistry from the University of Massachusetts, but school officials say they have no record of her receiving an advanced degree or taking graduate courses there.

State police say Dookhan tested more than 60,000 drug samples involving 34,000 defendants during her nine years at the Hinton State Laboratory Institute in Boston. Defense lawyers and prosecutors are scrambling to figure out how to deal with the fallout.

[. . .]

Verner said Dookhan later acknowledged to state police that she sometimes would take 15 to 25 samples and instead of testing them all, she would test only five of them, then list them all as positive. She said that sometimes, if a sample tested negative, she would take known cocaine from another sample and add it to the negative sample to make it test positive for cocaine, Verner said.

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