Fuck your mother, all I want is a bag of coke!
—Some guy that just walked up to us.
Holy shit, this song is excellent!
There has grown up in the minds of certain groups in this country the notion that because a man or corporation has made a profit out of the public for a number of years, the government and the courts are charged with the duty of guaranteeing such profit in the future, even in the face of changing circumstances and contrary public interest.
—Robert Heinlein
(Source: Robert Heinleinhttp)
Oblivious Supreme Court poised to legalize medical patents ★
This should make the nation’s doctors extremely nervous. For two decades, the software industry has struggled with the harmful effects of patents on software. In contrast, doctors have traditionally been free to practice medicine without worrying about whether their treatment decisions run afoul of someone’s patent. Now the Supreme Court seems poised to expand patent law into the medical profession, where it’s unlikely to work any better than it has in software.
…
The patent does not cover the drugs themselves—those patents expired years ago—nor does it cover any specific machine or procedure for measuring the metabolite level. Rather, it covers the idea that particular levels of the chemical “indicate a need” to raise or lower the drug dosage.
So, apparently, it’s ok to patent an observation of how the human body works, and prevent other doctors from merely being aware of this observation as a part of their informed decision-making. Basically, if you treat you patients in a way that suggests you’re aware of this observation (which is you basic moral duty as a doctor), you’re violating the patent.
I love Tom!
(Source: carrottoes, via jeffpak)
There is a cult of ignorance in the United States, and there has always been. The strain of anti-intellectualism has been a constant thread winding its way through our political and cultural life, nurtured by the false notion that democracy means that ‘my ignorance is just as good as your knowledge’.
Congress is considering two well-intentioned but deeply flawed bills, the PROTECT-IP Act and the Stop Online Piracy Act (SOPA). As written, they would betray more than a decade of US policy and advocacy of Internet freedom by establishing a censorship system using the same domain blacklisting technologies pioneered by China and Iran.
Not what we believe in.
Call your representatives. Flood them with email. Seriously, stop the Stop Online Piracy Act (SOPA).
(via roboteti)
Joining a Facebook group about creative productivity is like buying a chair about jogging.
—Merlin Mann
(Source: twitter.com)
S.968 [The Protect IP Act] will be completely ineffective at preventing copyright infringement or any other kind of undesired activity. Every measure it takes is trivial to circumvent, and will not deter the people doing the vast majority of illegal content distribution. It does, however, provide a set of tools that are not only easy to leverage for private or nefarious purposes, but also align the US with the human rights abuses of oppressive regimes.
The bill is transparently the work of an entertainment industry which, failing to raise itself to the standards of demand, wants to drag the law down to its level with more avenues for litigation and greater weapons at its disposal. That we are even entertaining the idea of government-ordered blacklists of certain websites is repugnant and un-American.
—Kill Switch - An article by Devin Coldewey that perfectly expresses the outrage that is the “Protect IP” Act. This thing is such an absolute fucking travesty it’s not even funny.
