Tiffinbox: Rucksacks In Nottinghill: "You gotta love this. If you are brown, in or around London, don't carry a rucksack/backpack or wear a large coat. And definitely don't run with any of the aforementioned items in hand onto a bus or attempt to get onto a train. You are asking to be harassed.
I am apalled by this. The thing that gets me the most is about 'looking a bit foreign.' Hello! London is quite likely the most cosmopolitan city in the world [thanks to their colonial past, but that's another post]. Are they going to stop just everyone who isn't WHITE and interrogate them? I called this a long time ago when this whole Iraq mess was brewing; the civil liberties of brown and non-white people was going to take a major hit. And it's happening. Slowly but surely our travel will be restricted, our intentions questioned and lives rebuked."
Sunday, July 31, 2005
Madeup women
Should liberation of women mean, women not being obsessed with their makeup kits?
I see women who always have makeup on their face and men hardly do. In general women are more concious of their appearance than men. Is this because they are not confident of their other abilities/strengths.
I see women who always have makeup on their face and men hardly do. In general women are more concious of their appearance than men. Is this because they are not confident of their other abilities/strengths.
Saturday, July 30, 2005
Why Bill Gates Wants 3,000 New Patents - New York Times
Why Bill Gates Wants 3,000 New Patents - New York Times: "All software published in the United States is protected by strong copyright and trademark protection. Microsoft Excel, for example, cannot be copied, nor can its association with Microsoft be removed. But a patent goes well beyond this. It protects even the underlying concepts from being used by others - for 20 years.
As recently as the 1970's, software developers relied solely upon copyrights and trademarks to protect their work. This turned out rather well for Microsoft. Had Dan Bricklin, the creator of VisiCalc, the spreadsheet that gave people a reason to buy a personal computer, obtained a patent covering the program in 1979, Microsoft would not have been able to bring out Excel until 1999. Nor would Word or PowerPoint have appeared if the companies that had brought out predecessors obtained patent protection for their programs.
Mr. Bricklin, who has started several software companies and defensively acquired a few software patents along the way, says he, too, would cheer the abolition of software patents, which he sees as the bane of small software companies. 'The number of patents you can run into with a small product is immense,' he said. As for Microsoft's aggressive accumulation in recent years, he asked, 'Isn't Microsoft the poster child of success without software patents?'
So why didn't Mr. Bricklin file for a patent for VisiCalc in 1979? Patents for software alone were not an option then. He consulted a patent attorney who said that the application would have to present the software within a machine and that the odds were long that the ploy would succeed. The courts regarded software as merely a collection of mathematical algorithms, tiny revelations of nature's secrets - not as an invention, and thus not patentable.
The legal environment changed not because of new legislation, but by accident. One important ruling here and another there, and without anyo"
As recently as the 1970's, software developers relied solely upon copyrights and trademarks to protect their work. This turned out rather well for Microsoft. Had Dan Bricklin, the creator of VisiCalc, the spreadsheet that gave people a reason to buy a personal computer, obtained a patent covering the program in 1979, Microsoft would not have been able to bring out Excel until 1999. Nor would Word or PowerPoint have appeared if the companies that had brought out predecessors obtained patent protection for their programs.
Mr. Bricklin, who has started several software companies and defensively acquired a few software patents along the way, says he, too, would cheer the abolition of software patents, which he sees as the bane of small software companies. 'The number of patents you can run into with a small product is immense,' he said. As for Microsoft's aggressive accumulation in recent years, he asked, 'Isn't Microsoft the poster child of success without software patents?'
So why didn't Mr. Bricklin file for a patent for VisiCalc in 1979? Patents for software alone were not an option then. He consulted a patent attorney who said that the application would have to present the software within a machine and that the odds were long that the ploy would succeed. The courts regarded software as merely a collection of mathematical algorithms, tiny revelations of nature's secrets - not as an invention, and thus not patentable.
The legal environment changed not because of new legislation, but by accident. One important ruling here and another there, and without anyo"
NOVA | scienceNOW | How Fuel Cells Work | PBS
NOVA | scienceNOW | How Fuel Cells Work | PBS: "Think of them as big batteries, but ones that only operate when fuel—in this case, pure hydrogen—is supplied to them. When it is, an electrochemical reaction takes place between the hydrogen and oxygen that directly converts chemical energy into electrical energy. Various types of fuel cells exist, but the one automakers are primarily focusing on for fuel cell cars is one that relies on a proton-exchange membrane, or PEM. In the generic PEM fuel cell pictured at left, the membrane lies sandwiched between a positively charged electrode (the cathode) and a negatively charged electrode (the anode). In the simple reaction that occurs here rests the hope of engineers, policymakers, and ordinary citizens that someday we'll drive entirely pollution-free cars. (For more on the likelihood and timing of this, see Point-Counterpoint or ask our expert.)
Here's what happens in the fuel cell: When hydrogen gas pumped from the fuel tanks arrives at the anode, which is made of platinum, the platinum catalyzes a reaction that ionizes the gas. Ionization breaks the hydrogen atom down into its positive ions (hydrogen protons) and negative ions (electrons). Both types of ions are naturally drawn to the cathode situated on the other side of the membrane, but only the protons can pass through the membrane (hence the name 'proton-exchange'). The electrons are forced to go around the PEM, and along the way they are shunted through a circuit, generating the electricity that runs the car's systems.
Using the two different routes, the hydrogen protons and the electrons quickly reach the cathode. While hydrogen is fed to the anode, oxygen is fed to the cathode, where a catalyst creates oxygen ions. The arriving hydrogen protons and electrons bond with these oxygen ions, creating the two 'waste products' of the reaction—water vapor and heat. Some of the water vapor gets recycled for use in humidification, and the rest drips out of the t"
Here's what happens in the fuel cell: When hydrogen gas pumped from the fuel tanks arrives at the anode, which is made of platinum, the platinum catalyzes a reaction that ionizes the gas. Ionization breaks the hydrogen atom down into its positive ions (hydrogen protons) and negative ions (electrons). Both types of ions are naturally drawn to the cathode situated on the other side of the membrane, but only the protons can pass through the membrane (hence the name 'proton-exchange'). The electrons are forced to go around the PEM, and along the way they are shunted through a circuit, generating the electricity that runs the car's systems.
Using the two different routes, the hydrogen protons and the electrons quickly reach the cathode. While hydrogen is fed to the anode, oxygen is fed to the cathode, where a catalyst creates oxygen ions. The arriving hydrogen protons and electrons bond with these oxygen ions, creating the two 'waste products' of the reaction—water vapor and heat. Some of the water vapor gets recycled for use in humidification, and the rest drips out of the t"
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