A general term is useful only if it subsumes related concepts in such a way that semantic value is added. If our comprehension is not increased by our chosen generalised term, then we shouldn’t use it. A common claim such as ‘they stole my intellectual property’ is singularly uninformative, since the general term ‘intellectual property’ obscures more than it illuminates. If copyright infringement is alleged, we try to identify the copyrightable concrete expression, the nature of the infringement and so on. If patent infringement is alleged, we check another set of conditions (does the ‘new’ invention replicate the design of the older one?), and so on for trademarks (does the offending symbol substantially and misleadingly resemble the protected trademark?) and trade secrets (did the enterprise attempt to keep supposedly protected information secret?) The use of the general term ‘intellectual property’ tells us precisely nothing.
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Global labor flow network reveals the hierarchical organization and dynamics of geo-ind... - 0 views
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Groups of firms often achieve a competitive advantage through the formation of geo-industrial clusters. Although many exemplary clusters are the subjects of case studies, systematic approaches to identify and analyze the hierarchical structure of geo-industrial clusters at the global scale are scarce. In this work, we use LinkedIn's employment history data from more than 500 million users over 25 years to construct a labor flow network of over 4 million firms across the world, from which we reveal hierarchical structure by applying network community detection. We show that the resulting geo-industrial clusters exhibit a stronger association between the influx of educated workers and financial performance, compared to traditional aggregation units. Furthermore, our analysis of the skills of educated workers reveals richer insights into the relationship between the labor flow of educated workers and productivity growth. We argue that geo-industrial clusters defined by labor flow provide useful insights into the growth of the economy.
Line of defense: Scientists report surprising evolutionary shift in snakes - 0 views
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"This is the first documented case of a vertebrate predator switching from a vertebrate prey to an invertebrate prey for the selective advantage of getting the same chemical class of defensive toxin,"
When People And Societies Change | Ian Welsh - 0 views
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"The other way people change is just by being young. Neoliberalism, shit that it is, worked for a lot of people. A lot of people got reasonably wealthy off it because it raised asset prices massively, both in the stock market and in housing, and if you were in place or able to take advantage of those things, you got a lot of money doing basically nothing."
Setting the bar for variational quantum algorithms using high-performance classical sim... - 0 views
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The IBM Quantum team envisions a future where quantum computers interact frictionlessly with high performance computing resources, taking over for the specific problems where quantum can offer a computational advantage. Pushing the envelope of classical computing is crucial to this goal, especially as we develop new quantum algorithms and try to understand which problems are worth tackling with a quantum computer.
Physicists offer a new 'spin' on memory - 0 views
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Unlike conventional micro-transistors, magnetic tunnel junctions don't use the electrical charge of electrons to store information, but take advantage of a quantum-mechanical property that electrons have, which is referred to as "spin." Known as spintronics, computing technology based on magnetic tunnel junctions is still very much in the experimental phase, and applications are extremely limited. For example, the technology is used in aircraft and slot machines to protect stored data from sudden power outages. This is possible because magnetic tunnel junctions process and store information by switching the orientation of nano-scale magnets instead of moving electrons around as regular transistors do.
The idea of intellectual property is nonsensical and pernicious - Samir Chopra | Aeon E... - 0 views
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Property is a legally constructed, historically contingent, social fact. It is founded on economic and social imperatives to distribute and manage material resources – and, thus, wealth and power. As the preface to a legal textbook puts it, legal systems of property ‘confer benefits and impose burdens’ on owners and nonowners respectively. Law defines property. It circumscribes the conditions under which legal subjects may acquire, and properly use and dispose of their property and that of others. It makes concrete the ‘natural right’ of holding property. Different sets of rules create systems with varying allocations of power for owners and others. Some grants of property rights lock in, preserve and reinforce existing relations of race, class or gender, stratifying society and creating new, entrenched, propertied classes. Law makes property part of our socially constructed reality, reconfigurable if social needs change.
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‘Property’ is a legal term with overwhelming emotive, expressive and rhetorical impact. It is regarded as the foundation of a culture and as the foundation of an economic system. It pervades our moral sense, our normative order. It has ideological weight and propaganda value. To use the term ‘intellectual property’ is to partake of property’s expressive impact in an economic and political order constructed by property’s legal rights. It is to suggest that if property is at play, then it can be stolen, and therefore must be protected with the same zeal that the homeowner guards her home against invaders and thieves.
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Are we living in a post-truth era? Yes, but that's because we're a post-truth species. - 0 views
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A cursory look at history reveals that propaganda and disinformation are nothing new. In fact, humans have always lived in the age of post-truth. Homo sapiens is a post-truth species, who conquered this planet thanks above all to the unique human ability to create and spread fictions. We are the only mammals that can cooperate with numerous strangers because only we can invent fictional stories, spread them around, and convince millions of others to believe in them. As long as everybody believes in the same fictions, we all obey the same laws and can thereby cooperate effectively.
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The truth is, truth has never been high on the agenda of Homo sapiens. If you stick to unalloyed reality, few people will follow you. False stories have an intrinsic advantage over the truth when it comes to uniting people. If you want to gauge group loyalty, requiring people to believe an absurdity is a far better test than asking them to believe the truth. If the chief says the sun rises in the west and sets in the east, only true loyalists will clap their hands. Similarly, if all your neighbors believe the same outrageous tale, you can count on them to stand together in times of crisis. If they are willing to believe only accredited facts, what does that prove?
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Yet the difference between holy books and money is far smaller than it might seem. When most people see a dollar bill, they forget that it is just a human convention. As they see the green piece of paper with the picture of the dead white man, they see it as something valuable in and of itself. They hardly ever remind themselves, “Actually, this is a worthless piece of paper, but because other people view it as valuable, I can make use of it.” If you observed a human brain in an fMRI scanner, you would see that as someone is presented with a suitcase full of hundred-dollar bills, the parts of the brain that start buzzing with excitement are not the skeptical parts but the greedy parts. Conversely, in the vast majority of cases people begin to sanctify the Bible or the Vedas only after long and repeated exposure to others who view it as sacred. We learn to respect holy books in exactly the same way we learn to respect paper currency.
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In 'Elastic,' a Physicist Argues That the Mind Needs Time to Play - 0 views
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How to summon our power to think elastically? First of all, play — and its cousin, daydreaming — can provide forums for the subconscious to form novel associations. (Think of Einstein’s delightful thought experiments — how he conceived the theory of relativity by imagining himself riding a beam of light.) Unfortunately, compulsively busy people regard activities like doodling and staring into space as a waste of time. And in this age of the ubiquitous pocket helper-brain, Mlodinow laments that the “dearth of idle time” fences off exciting new paths that the mind might otherwise wander. In this regard, Mlodinow asserts, people with ADHD may have a distinct advantage over others.
Could a Basic Income Plan End Poverty in Washington, D.C.? - 0 views
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The 86-page report, from the District’s Office of the Budget Director, applies evidence-based methodology and economic forecasting to compare two approaches to alleviating poverty: a negative local income tax (similar to the federal earned-income tax credit for poor families) versus a straightforward cash grant, known as guaranteed or universal basic income (UBI for short).
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“There are certainly a lot of advantages to a UBI program,” one of the researchers, Susanna Groves, a senior budget analyst for the city, said on a recent episode of “The Basic Income Podcast.” “It doesn’t have a social stigma attached to it. It provides a benefit for everyone and could really help. But what we found is that a negative income tax was a more feasible approach for the District to provide a minimum income benefit.”
The Electoral College May Not Actually Help Smaller States - 0 views
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