6.5/10. Much like Cronenberg (and Mortensen’s) previous outing A History of Violence this started well but really fell away in the conclusion (particularly here the twist in the tail was a real mistake in my opinion).
From Robert E. Lane’s essay, The Joyless Market Economy p. 484:
Durkheim asks: “Even from a purely utilitarian point of view, what is the use of increasing abundance, if it does not succeed in calming the desires of the greatest number, but, on the contrary, only serves to increase their impatience. [emphasis added] It [...]
4.5/10. Dull. One imagines this worked far better as a book.
8/10. Voices of the Old Sea by Norman Lewis [Carrol and Graf 2006, first published 1984] Sharply observed, and well-written — like all of Norman Lewis’ wonderful writing.
The Fishermen’s Prose PoetryFrom pp. 7-8:
Ayer los chubascos me agarraron pero hoy … [a murmur of 'Sigue, sigue']
Yesterday the storms clawed at me, [...]
I’ve just noticed this interesting paper posted on Bessen’s Research on Innovation website at the end of September. Entitled, The Political Economy of Patent Policy Reform in the United States, its authored by F.M. Scherer, one the elder statesman of innovation and IP research. As the abstract puts it:
explores a paradox: the [...]
4.5/10. Dull and disappointing largely as a result of the basic story. Curtis’ impulsive decision to get married is just so obviously foolish (even more so the decision to have a child) and his endless soul-searching about it later just elicits a strong feeling of a) get over it b) I told you so. His [...]
8/10. Well-written, very interesting, often provocative (verging at points on the polemical) and with lots of fascinating detail this is definitely worth the read.
Complexity, Productivity and VulnerabilityFrom the conclusion of “The Biosphere: Eat and Be Eaten” p.227 (all emphasis added both here and in all other extracts):
The general transformation of farming after [...]
7/10. A powerful, intense film. The focus on the counterfeiting operation (and the thriller-like aspect of this storyline) by moving the camps largely ‘off-stage’ acts to intensify the impact and appreciation of their horrors. Rather than simple choices and obvious moralizing we are confronted with ambiguity and complexity, above all in the form of the [...]
I record briefly my experience resolving this issue in case it helps others. As background I note that I use svk to allow local commit and replay for some of the subversion repos I use and over the last week I’d started encountering problems when trying to svk sync on one of these receiving the [...]
A bit of playing around with the excellent bibtex2html and my bibtex economics bibliography is now up online in html format:
http://www.rufuspollock.org/economics/biblio/
It has a fairly good coverage of published material in the areas of IP and innovation, though by no means complete, particularly on the working papers front as I don’t tend [...]
About
Dr. Rufus Pollock is co-Founder and Director of the Open Knowledge Foundation, a Shuttleworth Foundation Fellow, and an Associate of the Centre for Intellectual Property and Information Law at the University of Cambridge.
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