Random links
- Copying in Patent Law
- The need to protect independent invention - it's pretty common for multiple inventors to come up with something similar at roughly the same time (e.g. lightbulb, calculus, telephone, jet engine) - "We find that a surprisingly small percentage of patent cases involve even allegations of copying, much less proof of copying. Copying in patent law seems to be the exception, not the rule." (HT: MR)
- Where the Church Belongs: Worldview Hits the Streets
- Picked this up from a site usually highly cynical about Christians. On a related note, just a couple of days back I came across an article in the local paper talking of (a Christian) group involving in downtown revitalization, turning a building heavily involved in the drug trade into affordable housing.
- Soldiers don fake belly, breasts to better understand pregnant troops' exercise concerns
- Somehow I suspect that pregnant women don't make particularly effective soldiers. Perhaps the women in the US army might be more likely to get pregnant though than the average woman out there - looks like about 12.3% of deployed women in the Navy were redeployed due to pregnancy in 2002.
- Class, Caste, and Genes
- How a meritocracy can produce something close to a caste system in just a few generations, given that people tend to marry those similar to them.
- U.S. Agency Is Ordered to Change Wind Rules
- It looks like the Bonneville Power Authority is being forced to implement negative pricing in which consumers may at times be paid to consume power. The problem: the hidden payments for wind turbines, which see a subsidy per unit of energy produced in addition to the normal prices paid to producers for electricity (which means that they can generate a profit by paying you to take the electricity they produce).