Patent Trolls costing an astronomical $500 Billion

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Another reason the patent system is so difficult.

Last month, Google stepped up to defend Android coders against notorious patent troll Lodsys. Apple fought the company a few months earlier on behalf of iOS developers. Patent reform is a hot topic right now, especially after President Obama just signed legislation that means the U.S. is shifting to a “first to file” (over “first to invent”) system. This won’t help much with the patent troll situation, which Boston University researchers James Bessen and Mike Meurer say have cost publicly-traded defendants $500 billion since 1990…

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Is printing a gun the same as buying a gun?

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A gun is a gun is it not?

There’s an interesting back-and-forth going on at Thingiverse, a site founded by Makerbot to share 3D projects. Two designers have made two parts for the AR-15 rifle platform. The first part is a standard rifle magazine complete with spring but the second part is AR-15 lower receiver.

Why are these parts important? Well, the magazine is just on the edge of Thinigverse’s implied (but not concrete) “no weapons” philosophy but the lower receiver is something else entirely. It is the only part of the AR-15 that you need a license to buy. Here’s what the creator, KingLudd, has to say about it…

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Two men reenact Weekend at Bernie’s with buddy’s corpse

weekend at bernies

In the 1989 movie, Weekend at Bernie’s, In the 1989 film, Andrew McCarthy and Jonathan Silverman play two men who find their boss dead and decide to hang out with his body.

What would you do after discovering that your friend is dead, would you (A) call 911; (B) contact a family member; or (C) head off on a Weekend at Bernie’s-style tour of bars and strip clubs, with the fun and frivolity all charged to the deceased?

 

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China creates “Infinite Hero Bacon” by cloning Invincible Earthquake Pig

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‘Infinite Hero Bacon’ on the hoof.

Where does one secure the very best bacon? The supermarket? Shut up, rookie! You secure it from the heroic pig that survived for more than a month buried beneath the rubble of China’s horrific Sichuan earthquake.

His name is Zhu Jianqiang, or “Strong-Willed Pig,” but he might as well be known as “Infinite Hero Bacon” since it’s now obvious that his Chinese handlers plan on keeping his DNA alive forever…

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Scientists take first step towards creating ‘Inorganic Life’

inorganic lifeSomething totally new.

Scientists at the University of Glasgow say they have taken their first tentative steps towards creating ‘life’ from inorganic chemicals potentially defining the new area of ‘inorganic biology’.

Professor Lee Cronin, Gardiner Chair of Chemistry in the College of Science and Engineering, and his team have demonstrated a new way of making inorganic-chemical-cells or iCHELLs…

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Netflix’s price hike to cost the company one million customers

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How have you changed your Netflix account?

Apparently people weren’t messing around when they were complaining about Netflix’s recent price hikes: Netflix says the company expects to lose one million customers because of the pricing change. One million!

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Escaped pet birds are teaching wild birds to speak English

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Polly is gonna talk about the cracker.

Across parts of Australia, reports have been pouring in of strange voices chattering high in the treetops — mysterious, non-sensical conversations in English. But while this phenomenon is certainly quite odd, its explanation isn’t paranormal. It turns out that escaped pet birds, namely parrots and cockatoos, have begun teaching their wild bird counterparts a bit of the language they picked up from their time in captivity — and, according to witnesses, that includes more than a few explicatives…

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For the cheapest airline tickets, start shopping on Tuesday afternoon

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To get the best deal on a domestic airline ticket, there’s a lot of timing to take into consideration. Travel site FareCompare has meticulously gathered all the data to suggest when exactly to start looking for your ticket and when to purchase.
FareCompare says that airfare sales typically are filed late Monday evening, so you should start looking and shopping for domestic tickets between Tuesday morning and 3pm EST…

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