Sex and PowerPoXXX

This blurb was commented by Dave Snowden, Euan Semple and Chris Collison, among others.

But the reverse would be much more interesting: how many executives think about business during sex?

how to die when you're corrupt

in Japan:
Agriculture Minister Toshikatsu Matsuoka committed suicide suicide after a series of scandals.CNN story.

in China:
Zheng Xiaoyu, former head of SFDA (the agency responsible for drug approvals) from 1998 to 2005, has been sentenced to death for accepting over $800,000 in bribes (CNN story).

well ... just different.

Or, as we say in German: Wer will, der darf. Wer nicht will, der muss.

(did I already say that I consider capital punishment unethical? but who listens to me?)

variants of the knowledge-based society

in Dubai: (via Chris Collison)
http://www.mbrfoundation.ae/
The ruler of Dubai, Sheikh Mohammed bin Rashid al-Maktoum, says he is giving $10bn (£5bn) to set up an educational foundation in the Middle East.
The money is meant to improve the standard of education and research in the region, and aims to stimulate job creation, Sheikh Mohammed said.

in Europe: Lisbon 2010:
"...to become the most competitive and dynamic knowledge-based economy in the world, capable of sustainable economic growth with more and better jobs and greater social cohesion." (strategic goal for 2010 set for Europe at the Lisbon European Council - March 2000)

well, things are just .... different.

55 53 60 37 F2 12 75 01 83 F9 27 9C 64 01 23 99

Great: I own the intellectual property to a number:
55 53 60 37 F2 12 75 01 83 F9 27 9C 64 01 23 99
got it from here http://www.freedom-to-tinker.com/?p=1155

Don't you ever use it to decryp this:

We own integers,
Says AACS LA.
You can own one too

The haiku is copyright 2007 by Edward W. Felten

Blogs that make me think

No, Dave Snowden did not tag me. I would not have liked that. He invited people, and I was hooked.
So Q.E.D. - one of these blogs that make me think - and act(?) is http://www.cognitive-edge.com , but I'm not sure if passing the meme back is appropriate.
Thus, five others:
- We make money not art ; Regine's worldview is very different from mine: art, not business ; esthetics, not pragmatism. It's a life I'd like to live if I had a second one.
- Bruno Giussani's http://www.lunchoverip.com/ : People, places, technologies and ideas from a very Swiss European Worldwide perspective.
- Dana Blankenhorn helps me to understand the world of the critical, moderately conservative US , the approach to politics, business, the idea of always-on and how the individual relates to society - a society which is quite different from the one that I experience.
- Athanasium Kircher Society is just weird and fun and extreme and inspiring - yesteryear's future. Before steampunk (memedropping just for the fun of doing it).
- Peter Rost's Question Authority - Ego the size of a planet, ex-Pharmacia, ex-Pfizer executive whistleblower, with challenging ideas about (my) industry. He just stopped blogging because he want to focus on his movie - about his book - no, latest news, he's on again: claims to be addicted. That's what he says now. Let's see tomorrow.

Patent and IP rights or wrongs

Intellectual property and patents rights may indeed encourage creativity and innovation : rather than keeping your wisdom secret (hermeneutic alchemy like Coca-Cola), you publish what you know, and a bigger force (the state, the legal system...) grants you exclusivity in return for a certain period - not too long, not too short. And then it belongs to the commons.
It gets tricky in the details. See Novartis' case for Glivec in India. (disclaimer: I work for Novartis)
However, it's reported that the head of the World Intellectual Property Organisation WIPO , the responsible UN agency behaves in an irresponsible way by lying about his age . Looks like this was the way to get a job which he would otherwise not have qualified for.
More blows to the credibility of the IP and patents system - as exemplified by their leaders - and we might want to go back to the old days of the alchemists, the guilds and the Mafia.

Oops - I should not have said that ... ?

Vista speech recognition hack

it's not importaqnt if this is true or not - I just happen to like a cool idea when I see it: hacking a computer (runnig Microsoft's Hasta La Vista) by sending an mp3 file containing spoken commands ('command delete all') that would control the computer through voice recognition.

The truth

is here: http://scq.ubc.ca/?p=677
truth by googlebombing? The truth is what google shows to those who are feeling lucky.