Tuesday, January 29, 2013

Diamonds on the soles of her shoes.... P. Simon


Copyright © FrançoiseHerrmann
Dear Students, Since you are all no doubt in the midst of your first patent translation all about soles.... I thought of this beautiful song from Paul Simon's album Graceland to cheer you on!


Friday, January 25, 2013

Copyright © Françoise Herrmann
Anyone read the February 2013 issue of Wired Magazine? Google, Inc. CEO, Larry Page was interviewed for this issue.  Embedded in this interview there are 7 small sidebar articles presenting 7 projects dubbed: "7 massive ideas that could change the world", and perhaps, one may suspect as powered by Google Inc's "moonshot" mentality.
For our own purposes, perhaps that a paraphrase, depending on your bent, could run: "7 eminently (or opportunistically) patentable ideas". In any event, consider idea Number 4 (my favorite): Turn deserts into power plants, that is transforming places such as the Sahara into near-infinite sources of clean energy!  Here are the numbers: "In six daylight hours, the Earth's deserts soak up more energy than humanity uses in a year".... Now, imagine hooking up southern California deserts to PGE with solar and wind Desertec.... Would it be a new idea, demonstrating inventive steps?
There are 6 more of these really cool, and seriously existing ideas... (under consideration by Consortiums of concentrated grey and political mattter). What is your favorite?
Curry, A (Feb. 2013) Big Idea 4 turn deserts into power plants. In Wired, Feb. 2013, p. 073.
Levy, S. (Feb. 2013) Interview with Google CEO, Larry Page. In Wired, Feb. 2013, pp. 066-074

Thursday, January 24, 2013

Can we find a mutually convenient synchronous meeting time?

Copyright © Françoise Herrmann
 When it is 7:54 am in Hawaii, it is 1:22 pm in Caracas, 5:52 pm in London, 9:52 pm in Dubai and 1:52 am the next day in Indonesia.... With such differences across time zones, can we find a mutually convenient time for synchronous classroom meetings? This is going to be the first test of our collaborative potential! What are your suggestions, and how complicated is our situation?