Cloning

I'm not advocating cloning.  But I think it's scary that the government is beginning to challenge scientific freedom.  It may start with animal cloning or the prohibition of harvesting stem cells from wherever.  But it could quickly spiral out of control.  

In his state of the Union address for 2008, President George W. Bush talked about reprogramming stem cells and called for a ban on cloning.  The interesting thing about this idea of a ban on cloning is that for most people it probably starts from fears illustrated in many SciFi novels.  Which is also amusing since 1984 was a great SciFi novel and here we are today with most of our communications monitored and people don't seem to be nearly as upset as they should be!  

But seriously, what is it about cloning that has people so freaked out?  If you're a materialist, then you don't believe in an independent soul that would be the uniqueness.  Therefore a clone would merely be the same genetic material with differences in environment would produce a different person.  Take for example identical twins!  Are they the same person?  Are they clones?  If you are a dualist - then you believe that at the start of life, God (or some being) introduces a soul that is linked to our flesh and blood bodies.  Even clones would have separate (different) souls.  Just as identical twins do.  

Most people don't have objections to modifying the genes to prevent autism or any other birth defect.  Did no one see Gattaca but me?  

Standards

I wonder if people understand that not all web pages work in Internet Explorer.  Sure, it came "free" with your Windows PC.  Why would anyone need anything else?  A browser is a browser, or so Microsoft would like you to think.  Take a moment and download Firefox, I think that you'll be pleasantly surprised at both the speed and accuracy that it works.  What does that mean?  It's faster, looks better, and doesn't occasionally spy on you.  

The truth is that most web developers design a site and then test it with numerous browsers.  Internet Explorer 7 (IE7) was a pain in the butt to debug your web pages for.  Pages that were fine in Safari, Firefox, and Opera looked mangled in IE7.  The major reason for this is that Microsoft doesn't support all of the standards of HTML.  If that's all greek to you, think of it as speaking a foreign language but refusing to acknowledge certain words or phrases!  

I've got your prior art right here

In case we needed further evidence that the US patent system is broken.  Filed in 2003 and then revised repeatedly until awarded January 22, 2008.   A patent covering mobile entertainment and communication device.  So lets overlook the fact that talking on a phone is entertainment and communication - lets say it's just communication.  Now lets turn to the Palm Treo, originally introduced in 2002.  The thing came with games and limited music playback abilities.  I'd say that's prior art.  Next is the Nokia Communicator introduced in 1996, then updated substantially in 2000 (still before 2003).  Somehow this company was awarded essentially a patent on any cell phone that can play music or movies.  So today they're suing just about every cell phone company and maker out there.  Including - Apple for the iPhone.  

Patents are supposed to be excluded based on prior art concepts.  So if I invent a waffle iron shaped like a computer monitor, that's not a patent because those things already exist.  Similarly, you would think that if Apple takes an iPod and puts a phone into it - that would be prior art.  Right?  I think what ultimately angers me about these lawsuits (other than driving stock prices down) is that they seem unethical.  There are genuinely important patents out there.  But then there are companies that do nothing but file for patents with intention of making all of their income off of them.  Before you say - "what about a think tank" I should remind you that this is not a think tank.  Filing a patent for a hybrid car after you rode in your friends prius isn't the same as inventing and implementing an electric car before anyone else did.  That's where the patent system has gone wrong - there are no longer requirements on an implementation to file for them.  Essentially I could go patent the idea of making a car run off my own urine and then if it ever came about - I could sue anyone who actually made it possible later on.  Hopefully the writers from Back to the Future were creative enough to patent the idea of time travel, or at least a car that ran on garbage (time travel optional).

If you think this doesn't happen often - google the SCO vs. Linux fiasco.  

Dissertation-izing

It's really hard to revise a paper that's more than 30 pages.