Supreme Court Makes Two Good Decisions On Patent Law
The Supreme Court is clearly recognizing that patent law has spiraled out of control and reached an unconstitutional level, where they’re being used to hinder, rather than promote, innovation. It’s great to see the court now reeling in these abuses, but there’s still plenty more to be done before we’ve cleared out the problems of the patent system. The good news is that the Supreme Court is clearly looking at the issue and clearly recognizing that the constitutional purpose of patents is to promote innovation.
Techdirt — Seems a bit of an optimistic assessment, if you ask me. Hope I’m wrong.
UK Police Blow Up Suspicious PackageSchneier on Security — This would be funny if it wasn’t true. In fact it sounds very much like a Monty Python sort of thing.
Iraq war strain leads troops to abuse civilians, survey shows
The report said the mental health of soldiers and marines deteriorated significantly as a result of extended or multiple deployments. … The survey into the mental health of the soldiers and marines was requested by US commanders in Iraq and carried out by the office of the surgeon-general in August and October, with 1,300 soldiers and 450 marines interviewed. … “Approximately 10% of soldiers and marines report mistreating non-combatants (damaged/destroyed Iraqi property when not necessary or hit/kicked a non-combatant when not necessary). … “Soldiers that have high levels of anger, experienced high levels of combat, or screened positive for a mental health problem were nearly twice as likely to mistreat non-combatants as those who had low levels of anger or combat or screened negative for a mental health problem.” … The report also found that fewer than half of all soldiers and marines would report a team member for unethical behaviour, and more than one-third believed torture should be allowed to save the life of a fellow soldier or marine. … There are about 150,000 US troops in Iraq.
Guardian Unlimited — Do the math.
TDD Is Not An Algorithm Generator!
There is a huge gap between a design, which is a particular structure of code, and an algorithm, which is a description of how to solve a problem. An algorithm can be expressed in any form you choose. It can be a mathematical notation or it can be written down in plain english, or it can live in your head, but if an algorithm is required to complete a story, you should certainly know what it is before you engage in writing your production code.
Vlad's Agile Software Development Blog — This has to be said repeatedly. I don’t understand why.
The layoffs will affect more than 100,000 workers according to Robert Cringley with PBS. The plan will likely increase the value of IBM shares as it involves the suspension of pension benefits for workers. Robert explains that the plan will also have the nasty side effect of gutting the company
Alexander Muse, Texas Startup Blog — Cringley actually report 150,000 layoffs.
25 Code Snippets for Web Designers (Part4)
Today we have part 4 of our series on handy code snippets where we round up CSS, html and Ajax techniques,
Tutorial Blog — Another bunch of useful techniques.
Diffly - Subversion Browsing and Check-in Tool
Diffly is a MacOSX subversion working copy browser.
Matt Mower — I’ve been using this for a week or so now. Very handy.
The Mechanical Music Box comes with paper strips and a hole punch for DIY music-making without a need for actual musical talent. The little devices presents endless possibilities for creating your own melodies, covering pop songs or to add a low-tech juvenile sounds to your next remix. It also comes with a pre-punched “Happy Birthday” strip if you’re just looking for something gifty.
Cool Hunting
Government closes the book on Facebook
Apparently the prospect of Web 2.0 technologies to be used as tools for connecting people to get the government’s work done more efficiently escapes the current leadership. The Government Services Minister Gerry Phillips said, “Here’s a website that’s going to be increasingly more popular for the OPS (Ontario public service). Is this an appropriate website to be spending time on? The staff determined it’s not as directly related to the workplace as we’d like it to be so we’re restricting access to it.” With this enlightened attitude towards technology, it’s a bit of a wonder the government is allowed to use computers at all.
Wikinomics
