The Writing on the Wall (Sep 22 to Sep 23)

These are some posts I found interesting over the last few days.

( Sep 22 through Sep 23 )

• The Complement Cooperative -

  Well, that was a lot of money chasing nothing.

  It's not as if we're lacking in problems needing solutions–climate change, energy scarcity, almost every meaningful commodity priced at historical highs. A vast pool of money, and a growing list of problems–why wasn't the connection ever made? Why didn't at least some of this wealth go to solving even a few of these problems?

  It’s not from a lack of scientific and technological progress. Humanity is at an absolute peak in scientific productivity—with the United States still the undisputed leader in the expansion of human knowledge and ability.

  Why are we failing to make this connection?
  —

  Let’s say you and I start a company, with the goal of replacing petroleum-based jet fuel. We engineer a bug that spits out something pretty damn close to kerosene. Excellent!

  Since we’re a company, we immediately patent the invention.

  Now what? While we’ve just figured out a key step, our invention by itself cannot replace jet fuel. We need to invent (or more likely buy) the technology to refine our proto-fuel to something we could put into jet, buy up the bioreactor technology to grow our bugs, buy the land and build a factory, build up a distribution network, convince some airlines to buy our fuel and so on.

  That’s a lot of pieces; we only own one right now. If we raised the money and assembled all of these to the point where we could actually sell an useful product, we’d be first. We don’t want to be first. If we show it can be done, what would stop someone in China, or India or somewhere else in the world from simply stealing all of this technology and competing with us? (Our present global economy isn’t exactly brimming with respect for intellectual property.) Without the cost of buying up all the patents—the costs of developing the technology—they’d easily outcompete us. By being first, we end up broke.

  We’re better of selling our patent. We could sell this patent to someone who wants to turn it into a product—but they’d run into the same problem we would on that path. No. The most likely buyer of our patent would be someone who desires our technology to never be turned into a product—someone who already makes jet fuel from petroleum.

  Patents, in our post intellectual property world, are more valuable as a defensive weapon–a means of preventing new competition from entering the few markets where patents still mean something.

  To a large extent, this is why all the wonderful scientific knowledge and technical ability pouring out of R&D labs fails to translate to something useful for humanity.

  (More after the jump or at dearscience.org, including my exciting solution to this problem….)

  

• “I Want This Motherfucking Whale Off This Motherfucking Boat!” -

  Ain't It Cool News points to this article in Variety. The director of Night Watch and Wanted is filming a re-imagination of Moby Dick.

  The writers revere Melville’s original text, but their graphic novel-style version will change the structure. Gone is the first-person narration by the young seaman Ishmael…This change will allow them to depict the whale’s decimation of other ships prior to its encounter with Ahab’s Pequod, and Ahab will be depicted more as a charismatic leader than a brooding obsessive…"Our vision isn’t your grandfather’s ‘Moby Dick,’ " Cooper said. "This is an opportunity to…tell what at its core is an action-adventure revenge story."

  At first blush, I think this has to be a joke, but then I remember the Demi Moore version of The Scarlet Letter, with its happy ending, and I bet this will actually happen.

  

• The World, Justified -
• Apple ‘Solves’ Problem With App Store Rejections -
• CS4: Sweating the Details -
• Debates May Not Be Decisive After All -
• al-Qaeda’s October Surprise? -
• The Twelve Lies Of Sarah Palin -
• Alaska’s Paralyzed Government -
• ‘All of a Sudden’ -