Flicker Fusion

Nearsightedness has increased 66% in 40 years

Nearsightedness has increased 66% in 40 years

It turns out that myopia isn’t all that well understood – researchers blame both genetic and environmental factors. Certainly, the dramatic increase in people sitting in front of screens for long periods of time can’t help.

This also strikes me as one of those fairly obvious cases of humans actively working against our own evolution. Nearsightedness isn’t being bred out because it’s relatively easy to fix – a pair of glasses or contacts. Even worse, the fix just might be working against evolution in that, at least to some, a pair of glasses is a desirable trait (how else to explain their hipster cachet?). Contacts and even lasik only complicate things further since they fix the symptom but not any root genetic causes without providing any kind of flag to potential mates that your children are going to need an opthamologist.

John McCain wants to reinstate Glass-Steagall

Partnering with one of my own senators, Maria Cantwell, to introduce legislation that would bring tighter regulation to banks. I’ve said before that I think Glass-Steagall, the Depression-era reform law aimed at keeping investment and consumer banks separate, is a good idea. I’m happy to see this despite the long odds and opposition from President Obama and his economic team of Wall Street alums.

Still waiting to hear why reinstating Glass-Steagall is a bad idea. Any thoughts?

Intellectual property is the lifeblood of the U.S. economy. The primary reason for this has been the success of the U.S. patent system in allowing the innovative company in a field to develop and market its new inventions without having competitors unfairly profit from the innovator’s hard work. We developed these technologies over 15 years ago and demonstrated them widely, years before the marketplace had heard of interactive applications embedded in Web pages tapping into powerful remote resources. Profiting from someone else’s innovation without payment is fundamentally unfair. All we want is what’s fair.

Intellectual property is the lifeblood of the U.S. economy. The primary reason for this has been the success of the U.S. patent system in allowing the innovative company in a field to develop and market its new inventions without having competitors unfairly profit from the innovator’s hard work. We developed these technologies over 15 years ago and demonstrated them widely, years before the marketplace had heard of interactive applications embedded in Web pages tapping into powerful remote resources. Profiting from someone else’s innovation without payment is fundamentally unfair. All we want is what’s fair.

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Dr. Michael D. Doyle, chairman of Eolas, who’s suing pretty much everyone for … I can’t quite tell exactly. You’ll remember Eolas as the company that successfully sued Microsoft for half a billion dollars for their “patent” on embedded media.

If you want to see me get irrationally pissed about something, mention some bullshit like this in casual conversation. Assholes like Michael D. Doyle deserve an repeated cockpunch for eternity.