![\"\"](\"https:\/\/www.conversiondiary.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2010\/09\/7_quick_takes_sm1.jpg\" "\\"7_quick_takes_sm\\"")
<\/a><\/p>\n<\/a>\u2014 1 \u2014<\/strong><\/p>\n Vi Hart is continuing her lovely videos on hexaflexagons! \u00a0Catch up on installment one<\/a>, and then watch the video below (in which Feynman<\/a> enters our narrative, so everything gets very wonderful, very fast).<\/p>\nhttp:\/\/www.youtube.com\/watch?v=paQ10POrZh8<\/a>\n \u00a0<\/p>\n <\/a>\u2014 2 \u2014<\/strong><\/p>\n I\u2019m a little nervous about sequel\/prequels, but my queasy feelings about\u00a0Monsters University<\/a><\/em>, are very slightly calmed by the kickass website<\/a> that Pixar put together for the titular school. \u00a0It\u2019s incredibly detailed (down to an events calendar<\/a> and police safety alerts<\/a>) but my favorite bits are the course lists under the Academics tab<\/a>.<\/p>\n MON 345: Existential Threats (4 units) SEM 390: Semantics (4 Units) ACC 305: MAAP Conversions (4 units) <\/a>\u2014 3 \u2014<\/strong><\/p>\n Possibly some of you will find this photo project well suited to the Monsters University curriculum, but I really like these mashed up portraits of pairs of family members<\/a>.<\/p>\n <\/a>\u2014 4 \u2014<\/strong><\/p>\n Via an article in\u00a0<\/a>The Guardian<\/a><\/em>, I found another delightfully surreal art project.<\/p>\n Set on a raised plinth at the end of the dark, curving corridor space, powerfully backlit by a glaring spotlight, the perfectly rectangular chunk of rain appears transposed from a parallel place, with the precision of a carefully staged experiment.<\/p>\n As visitors step up on to the stage, these identical vertical lines of driving rain begin to be repelled, as if each body is giving off a kind of invisible magnetic field. As you step further in, the rain closes around you, enveloping each silhouetted figure in a perfect cylindrical void. It is a startlingly surreal experience.<\/p>\n The apparently simple trick is the result of a lengthy period of development, which came out of playing with large-format printing.<\/p>\n \u201cWe started three years ago, testing temporary \u2018printing\u2019 with water, spraying droplets from above, like a long-distance ink-jet printer,\u201d says Florian Ortkrass, who founded Random International with fellow Royal College of Art design graduates Stuart Wood and Hannes Koch in 2005.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n <\/a>\u2014 5 \u2014<\/strong><\/p>\n Eve Tushnet<\/a> linked to a totally me-bait story on the variations in ASL between the African American and white Deaf communities<\/a>. \u00a0I don\u2019t know much about these\u00a0linguistic\u00a0divisions, but \u00a0my favorite ASL dictionary<\/a> does a pretty good job noting regionalisms (more common with recent words, check out all the different signs for \u2018gay<\/a>\u2018).<\/p>\n In Ireland, because the Catholic schools for the Deaf were sex-segregated, two distinct forms of Gaelic Sign Language<\/a> developed, one for men and one for women. \u00a0Today, only the men\u2019s version is commonly used.<\/p>\n <\/a>\u2014 6 \u2014<\/strong><\/p>\n I\u2019ve only stuck one longform article in here, so you\u2019d have no reason not to pop over to Ars Technica\u00a0<\/em>and read \u201cHow a rogue appeals court wrecked the patent system<\/a>.\u201d It\u2019s an excellent and timely bit of reporting. \u00a0I\u2019ll pull two quotes, so you\u2019re extra-specially tempted to read the whole thing:<\/p>\n Patent scholars Adam Jaffe and Josh Lerner tell a story in their 2004 book\u00a0Innovation and Its Discontents<\/em><\/a>\u00a0that illustrates the problem Congress was\u00a0trying<\/em>\u00a0to solve with the creation of the Federal Circuit. Every Tuesday at noon, a crowd would gather at the patent office awaiting the week\u2019s list of issued patents.<\/p>\n As soon as a patent was issued, a representative for its owner would rush to the telephone and order a lawyer stationed in a patent-friendly jurisdiction such as Kansas City to file an infringement lawsuit against the company\u2019s competitors. Meanwhile, representatives for the competitors would rush to the telephone as well. They would call their own lawyers in patent-skeptical jurisdictions like San Francisco and urge\u00a0them<\/em>\u00a0to file a lawsuit seeking to invalidate the patent. Time was of the essence because the two cases would eventually be consolidated, and the court that ultimately heard the case usually depended on which filing had an earlier timestamp.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n But the solution (a new federal court for patent cases) \u201cIt is not common in the life of the law in America for a lower court and a major segment of its bar to take on the nation\u2019s highest court, effectively reversing some major precedents or at least substantially mitigating their impact,\u201d notes Steven Flanders in a\u00a0recent history<\/a>\u00a0of the patent court. \u201cYet this was done.\u201d<\/p>\n \u2026This dismissive attitude toward Supreme Court precedents apparently survives to this day among patent lawyers. In the wake of this year\u2019s\u00a0decision<\/a>\u00a0limiting patents on the practice of medicine, patent attorney Gene Quinn\u00a0wondered<\/a>, \u201cHow long will it take the Federal Circuit to overrule this inexplicable nonsense?\u201d Obviously, the Federal Circuit can\u2019t \u201coverrule\u201d a Supreme Court decision. But with enough persistence, it can, and often does, subvert the principles enunciated by the nation\u2019s highest court. And when it does so, it almost always works in the direction of making patents easier to obtain and enforce.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n <\/a>\u2014 7 \u2014<\/strong><\/p>\n Goodness that patent piece is excellent-but-depressing! \u00a0Let me reward you for learning sucky truths:<\/p>\n
\nTaught by world-renowned Fearologian, Dr. Barnabus Malworthy, this advanced philosophy course engages the timeless debate of whether fear evolved from nothingness or a higher power.<\/p>\n
\nIn-depth study of the meanings of expressions, whether phrases, exclamations, screams, or moans.<\/p>\n
\nA study in the translation between the various accounting practices detailed in the Monster-Accepted Accounting Principles (MAAP), with focus on base-2, base-8, base-10 counting systems.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n<\/p>\n<\/p>\nhad<\/del> has<\/em> some serious problems.<\/p>\n<\/p>\n