Minding The Planet is Nova Spivack’s weblog on emerging technologies and trends. It focuses ways in which the Web is becoming more present, personalized and precise.
Nova Spivack is a technology futurist, entrepreneur, and angel investor, and a leading voice on search, collective intelligence and the Semantic Web. More...
by Nova Spivack
July 28, 2004
http://www.mindingtheplanet.net
Permission granted to distribute or reproduce freely.
Should there be a Separation of Corporation and State?
Today our American democracy faces a new threat to its integrity, a threat even greater than terrorism in the long-term. This threat is the corporation. In this essay I propose that it may be time to introduce [...]
A report has come out that the levels of asbestos in lower Manhattan were (are?) at least twice what is considered safe for humans by the FDA, and possibly worse. Levels were so high after 911 that they overloaded the tests. However, this data was purposely concealed from the public following 911.
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I just saw an interesting film, The Corporation, that suggests that many corporations (which legally have the same status as “persons” in the USA) could be clinically diagnosed as psychopaths. While I felt the film was a bit heavy-handed, there were many points that were quite thought-provoking. For example, one point the film made was [...]
Here is an article that accurately depicts the carnage in Madrid. In the USA we only get highly sanitized news and war coverage is usually very minimal — but this article tells it like it really is. Perhaps if the public was shown what was war was really like there would be less of [...]
Good news, and good riddance to Eolas. The USPTO has nullified the Eolas plugin patent. They have 60 days to appeal though. Hopefully they will give up or at least lose on appeal. This patent has created a world of problems for third-party software developers with plugins for IE — and has given Microsoft extra [...]
A good friend, Ann Lynnworth, has started a terrific new project — to police and restore accuracy in the media. Ann writes:
Watching the election news from mid-Jan to mid-Feb made me sick as I saw how misinformation was copied and pasted around the globe at lightning speed. This site is the result of wondering what [...]
A leaked secret report by top Pentagon analysts claims that within 20 years Britain could become “Siberian” and Major European cities will be sunk beneath rising seas. In addition the report warns of nuclear conflict, mega-droughts, famine and widespread rioting around the world as massive climate changes reshape the planet.
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I read today with disgust further testimonials of shocking atrocities from defectors from the Gulags in North Korea. If you aren’t aware of the situation, you should be. Perhaps more than any other nation today, North Korea is engaged in systematic, large-scale human rights abuses — in particular, as the above cited news report alleges [...]
Today I realized that the solution to the failing patent law system in the US and abroad is not to eliminate patents, or prevent patents in certain areas. Nor is it to have more or better patent examiners, or stricter guidelines for prior art analysis and appeals. No, the solution is to keep the current [...]