The US House just passed a law to revise US patent law. The Senate has already passed it's own patent law, so after the House-Senate conference resolves the differences, it will go to Obama for signature.
Speaking as someone who worked in new product development for forty years, the US patent system is research and development hostile. Develop something, get it into production and bingo, get sued. There is always some patent troll holding a vaguely worded patent with claims as broad as all outdoors demanding money. Things like "Use of computer to transmit data", or "Register customer's sale after one mouse click."
These are mickey mouse patents that should never have been granted, but they were granted, and now some lawyers use them to take money away from developers.
What we need is to tighten up the granting of patents, and make it easier to revoke the mickey-mouse patents that are out there.
What are we going to get? More welfare for lawyers. They want to change the US system from "first to invent" to "first to file a patent". This is good for lawyers, 'cause it requires every inventor to file an expensive patent as early as possible. Right now you don't have to file until the idea shapes up to the point that it has some economic possibilities. Under "first-to-file" you better file as soon as possible, lest the idea leak out and some troll files first. Result, lots and lots of patent applications. Plus, large companies with legal staff have it easier filing a patent than a small startup does.
Friday, June 24, 2011
Right to Work is dead?
Or at least in terrible jeopardy. As you may or may not remember, House Speaker Bill O'Brian scheduled an over-ride-Lynch-veto vote last week. Then it slipped. Then the speaker announced that the vote would be postponed until September.
Today's Wall St Journal carried the story but added that right-to-work in NH was dead. The Journal quoted some legislators as saying "I have a lot of Republican cops and firemen in my district. I don't dare cross them on right-to-work cause they might go and vote democratic on me."
Too bad. Right to work would bring new industry to New Hampshire. Companies won't invest in a state that lacks a right to work law. That's why the right to work states have shown better growth, both economic and population, than closed union shop states.
Today's Wall St Journal carried the story but added that right-to-work in NH was dead. The Journal quoted some legislators as saying "I have a lot of Republican cops and firemen in my district. I don't dare cross them on right-to-work cause they might go and vote democratic on me."
Too bad. Right to work would bring new industry to New Hampshire. Companies won't invest in a state that lacks a right to work law. That's why the right to work states have shown better growth, both economic and population, than closed union shop states.
Thursday, June 23, 2011
Home sprinklers defeated
The nation's fire men have been pushing for installation of sprinkler systems in all new residential construction. They pushed hard enough to get a sprinkler requirement into the national fire code a few years ago.
This requirement would jack up the price of a new home by $5000 and bring you tasteful chrome sprinkler heads in the living room ceiling. Political pressure from home builders and ordinary citizens got the NH legislature to pass a bill forbidding cities and towns from requiring sprinklers in new residential construction. Our governor, Lynch, vetoed the bill a few days ago.
Fortunately, the legislature was able to over ride the governor's veto yesterday and New Hampshire homes can remain free of mandatory and expensive sprinkler systems.
Now if we can only find the votes to override Lynch's veto of right-to-work.
This requirement would jack up the price of a new home by $5000 and bring you tasteful chrome sprinkler heads in the living room ceiling. Political pressure from home builders and ordinary citizens got the NH legislature to pass a bill forbidding cities and towns from requiring sprinklers in new residential construction. Our governor, Lynch, vetoed the bill a few days ago.
Fortunately, the legislature was able to over ride the governor's veto yesterday and New Hampshire homes can remain free of mandatory and expensive sprinkler systems.
Now if we can only find the votes to override Lynch's veto of right-to-work.
Wednesday, June 22, 2011
Does spending kill jobs?
No, according to a Wall St Journal op-ed by Alan S. Blinder, a Princeton professor of economics. We have to take this with a grain of salt, Mr. Blinder's arguments are difficult to follow and are strewn with oddities.
For instance, "But even building bridges to nowhere would create jobs, not destroy them, as the congressman from nowhere knows." Mr. Blinder fails to understand that jobs must create wealth, not consume it. Farming, mining, manufacturing, logging create wealth. Bridges to nowhere consume wealth. Might as well just pile the money in a heap and burn it for all the good they do. Government make-work jobs are just welfare dressed up pretty.
Or, referring to the Obama Porkulus bill, "How in the world could all that spending, accompanied by tax cuts, fail to raise employment?" Good question Mr. Blinder, where did all that money go, leaving us with 9.1% unemployment? It is obvious to a Princeton economist that so much spending absolutely must raise employment. Perhaps Mr. Blinder is so wedded to Keynesian economic theory that he cannot bother to look at real data, like the unemployment rate
Then he makes a favorable reference to Paul Krugman. That is a bad sign. In my estimation, Krugman is an idiot, despite his Nobel prize in economics and his perch on the New York Times op-ed page.
Blinder sums things up by saying that we need spending and tax cuts to create jobs but cuts and tax hikes to balance the budget. He never mentions that economic growth ( which we don't have) will balance the budget. He then offers a tricky tax credit (aka tax loophole) to encourage hiring.
Mr. Blinder has just earned a spot on my personal idiots list.
For instance, "But even building bridges to nowhere would create jobs, not destroy them, as the congressman from nowhere knows." Mr. Blinder fails to understand that jobs must create wealth, not consume it. Farming, mining, manufacturing, logging create wealth. Bridges to nowhere consume wealth. Might as well just pile the money in a heap and burn it for all the good they do. Government make-work jobs are just welfare dressed up pretty.
Or, referring to the Obama Porkulus bill, "How in the world could all that spending, accompanied by tax cuts, fail to raise employment?" Good question Mr. Blinder, where did all that money go, leaving us with 9.1% unemployment? It is obvious to a Princeton economist that so much spending absolutely must raise employment. Perhaps Mr. Blinder is so wedded to Keynesian economic theory that he cannot bother to look at real data, like the unemployment rate
Then he makes a favorable reference to Paul Krugman. That is a bad sign. In my estimation, Krugman is an idiot, despite his Nobel prize in economics and his perch on the New York Times op-ed page.
Blinder sums things up by saying that we need spending and tax cuts to create jobs but cuts and tax hikes to balance the budget. He never mentions that economic growth ( which we don't have) will balance the budget. He then offers a tricky tax credit (aka tax loophole) to encourage hiring.
Mr. Blinder has just earned a spot on my personal idiots list.
Monday, June 20, 2011
Sunspots
Lotta talk on the internet about a solar something-or-other concerning sunspots, or rather the lack of them. Some in climate "science" are claiming that a sunspot drought will save us from Global Warming.
Doubtful. Sunspots have been observed for some 400 years. They wax and wane on an 11 year cycle, and they do effect high frequency (2-30 MHz) radio communication. During sunspot maximum radio amateurs can work stations all over the world. During sunspot minimum they may have trouble working a friend in the next town.
Needless to say, amateurs pay a good deal of attention to sunspots. Right now we are at sunspot minumum, and it's the lowest minimum on record. Like zero spots visible, and we are late coming out of it. We should have a lot more sunspots right now than we do. Based on this sunspot drought some people are predicting an abnormal sunspot cycle. This has happened before, and no reason to believe it won't happen again.
There is little reason to believe that sunspots have anything to do with Global Warming. No weatherman will say that sunspots effect the weather, and climate is just long term weather forecasting. The climate "scientists" will say almost anything, you gotta watch them carefully.
We have about 30 years of satellite data on "the solar constant", i.e. the amount of sunlight falling on the earth. The satellites show about 1350 watts per square meter. If you look hard at the plots of satellite data, you can see the 11 year sunspot cycle, it's about plus/minus 1 watt/sq meter, that's a variation of like 0.1%. Weathermen and most reasonable people feel that is way too small to make any difference in weather.
But expect to see a good deal of talk about it on slow news days.
Doubtful. Sunspots have been observed for some 400 years. They wax and wane on an 11 year cycle, and they do effect high frequency (2-30 MHz) radio communication. During sunspot maximum radio amateurs can work stations all over the world. During sunspot minimum they may have trouble working a friend in the next town.
Needless to say, amateurs pay a good deal of attention to sunspots. Right now we are at sunspot minumum, and it's the lowest minimum on record. Like zero spots visible, and we are late coming out of it. We should have a lot more sunspots right now than we do. Based on this sunspot drought some people are predicting an abnormal sunspot cycle. This has happened before, and no reason to believe it won't happen again.
There is little reason to believe that sunspots have anything to do with Global Warming. No weatherman will say that sunspots effect the weather, and climate is just long term weather forecasting. The climate "scientists" will say almost anything, you gotta watch them carefully.
We have about 30 years of satellite data on "the solar constant", i.e. the amount of sunlight falling on the earth. The satellites show about 1350 watts per square meter. If you look hard at the plots of satellite data, you can see the 11 year sunspot cycle, it's about plus/minus 1 watt/sq meter, that's a variation of like 0.1%. Weathermen and most reasonable people feel that is way too small to make any difference in weather.
But expect to see a good deal of talk about it on slow news days.
Sunday, June 19, 2011
Mouse Guns.
New issue of American Rifleman has a review of the Diamondback DB380 pistol. It's an automatic chambered for 380 ACP, polymer frame, six shots. Looks like a mini Glock, a pocket pistol.
Somewhere in the writeup they mention the DB380 had seven failures-to-feed while they were testing it. Wow! Four failures occurred with hollow point ammunition and 3 with round nose full metal jacket ammunition. This negates a common excuse for failure-to-feed in automatic pistols, hollow point ammunition. Looks like the DB380 has about as much trouble with full metal jacket as it does with hollow points.
The authors of the review suggest (but don't guarantee) that this might go away after shooting the gun in for a while longer.
Sounds like a good reason to get a .38 snub nosed revolver.
Somewhere in the writeup they mention the DB380 had seven failures-to-feed while they were testing it. Wow! Four failures occurred with hollow point ammunition and 3 with round nose full metal jacket ammunition. This negates a common excuse for failure-to-feed in automatic pistols, hollow point ammunition. Looks like the DB380 has about as much trouble with full metal jacket as it does with hollow points.
The authors of the review suggest (but don't guarantee) that this might go away after shooting the gun in for a while longer.
Sounds like a good reason to get a .38 snub nosed revolver.
Obama and the War Powers Act Part 2
Meet the Press went over the matter just this morning. Funny thing, the Republicans on the panel were more supportive of the Libya war than the Democrats. The Republicans both said something like "We wish Obama would talk up the need for Libya to both voters and Congress men. It's something that needs doing, but Obama ain't doing it right." Which has to count as more supportive than the Democrats on the same panel nattering about War Powers.
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