A patent in the field of time, horology, clocks, and watches has issued as U.S. Patent 7,221,624 for “Time display system, method and device”.
Over-Laws | Even Higher than the Supreme Law of the Land
(Original publication date: April 27, 2007)
Every law student knows—or had better know in time for the bar exam—that the Constitution is the supreme law of the land, meaning, that no law can conflict with the Constitution and still be deemed valid. That is the case here in the United States, and virtually every other country has some document or body of law that is treated as supreme in that country. In short, laws of lower priority (local laws, for instance) must yield to the supreme law of the sovereign nation. Meanwhile, foreign laws have even lower status, namely, no effect at all; the law in France does not apply to me, unless, of course, I go to France or become a French citizen.
The discussion of supremacy could end there and, typically, it does. But, in fact, there are laws that trump even the supreme law of the land, and there are laws that apply in every country, transcending all national boundaries, regardless of sovereignty.
Chief among these “over-laws” are the laws of nature. We could pass a constitutional amendment saying that “Gravity shall not apply in Massachusetts” or “All citizens over the age of 18 shall be invisible.” But these “supreme” laws would in fact be void; they would have no effect. When Nature and the Constitution square off, Nature wins.
Fair enough, one might say. There is no need to belabor the obvious. End of discussion.
But the discussion actually does not end there either. When applied in advance (prediction) or after the fact (reflection) in the imagination of a person, the laws of nature have a different name: logic. Yet the supremacy of the laws of nature remains.
For instance, imagine an individual who is accused of murdering someone else. But the murder in question occurred three years before the accused was born. The laws of nature, in such a case, would prevent the accused from being the actual murderer.
In a court of law, considering the crime after the fact, we would apply the laws of nature by saying that to convict someone of a crime that, under the laws of nature, he or she could not have committed “would not make sense”; in other words, it would be “illogical.” Specifically, it is illogical for an effect to precede its cause.
While one flows from the other, there are some major differences between logic and the laws of nature. Perhaps most importantly, the laws of nature cannot be ignored in the present. Gravity works, whether we acknowledge it or not. Our opinion is irrelevant to the functioning of the laws of nature.
But when considering the past or the future, it is far too easy to forget the laws of nature or to misapply them, i.e., to be irrational, to draw illogical inferences. We can easily imagine scenarios that are, while imaginable, impossible. We can imagine, for instance, that a person traveled back in time so as to commit the murder that happened three years before he or she was born. We can imagine a perpetual motion machine. But imagining such things does not make them real.
Misapplying the laws of nature in reflection or prediction is a human error. When we make such errors, grave injustices can be committed. Innocent people are burned at the stake; perpetrators go free; plaintiffs find no relief. Nonetheless, the laws of nature remain supreme and govern in every nation, as does their lieutenant in the minds of men and women, logic. It is we who forget this fundamental supremacy at our peril.
Corporations | Have Your Cake—and Let Someone Else Pay for It
(Original publication date: April 2007 (ePoet))
Most modern business transactions involve at least one corporation, limited liability company or similar entity. When originally invented, the corporation was permitted only in very special circumstances, because its inherent and enormous dangers were regarded with awe and trepidation. Now, the corporation is omnipresent in our society, but its dangers—still fully present—have been forgotten.
Both the intent and the effect of a corporation is, above all else, to allow participants in an activity to enjoy the fruits of the activity without having to bear the full costs associated with it, specifically, liabilities incurred in the process of conducting the activity. But the costs don’t just disappear. Somebody does bear those costs: everyone else. The people around the corporation—contractors, tort victims, etc.—bear the burdens that would otherwise fall on those who are protected by the corporate shield.
It’s hard to name other instances in our society in which we allow people to have their cake and eat it too, or, phrased more accurately, to have their cake while someone else pays for it. But this is exactly the purpose and result of transacting business through a corporation. It’s equally hard to articulate why we would want a system in which one person gains what others purchase.
Nonetheless, the corporation actually institutionalizes the very externality and free-rider problems that economists teach us to avoid, the same “moral hazards” that legal scholars urge us to minimize.
From both an economic perspective and a moral perspective, the rise of the corporation will go down as one of the most destructive legal developments in recent centuries. Our descendants will reflect upon the many laudable legal advances of the late second and early third millennia, such as the abolition of slavery and universal suffrage, and they will wonder how, amidst such progress, the corporation pandemic was allowed to run unchecked for more than a century while the earth and its inhabitants were abused, contaminated, depleted and destroyed with the impunity afforded by a profoundly bad idea.
Apologists for the corporation will point out that the modern corporation has some desirable qualities, such as shared ownership and unlimited longevity. But these virtues are completely severable from and can be accomplished without limiting liability and are therefore no justification for such limitation.
Others will argue that limitation of liability encourages people to pursue activities they would otherwise not pursue. To which argument the rebuttal is simply, “Exactly!”
The Immorality of Bad Logic
(Original publication date: April 13, 2007)
If you ask a friend to describe the essence of morality or ethical behavior, he or she will probably list a number of personality traits: unselfishness, courage, commitment to ideals and values, patience, willingness to forgive, and similar qualities. Certainly, in many religious faiths and philosophical systems, personality traits are the focus: the Christian Beatitudes, for instance, praise meekness, purity of spirit, and peacefulness, while the Noble Eightfold Path of Buddhism emphasizes honesty and detachment.
Against such a backdrop, I am willing to bet that almost no one, when asked, “What is morality?”, would reply, “Good logic skills.”
Logical ability simply does not get factored into discussions of morality, neither in religious nor philosophical nor politically correct circles, at least those to which I am privy. Personality, not processing power, is what we believe to be the heart of morality.
But I think that the omission of reasoning skills from the landscape of morality is a mistake. In fact, it is not difficult to demonstrate that bad logic and bad acts — morally bad acts — often go hand in hand.
Looking into the history of a particular instance of slavery or genocide, we often find an entire network of scientists, philosophers, writers and speakers who laid the foundation. They did so through clever, manipulative but logically untenable theories and “discoveries.” The crimes against humanity committed by Nazi Germany, for instance, were in large part made possible by widespread dissemination of specious arguments about German racial superiority.
A person armed with strong logic skills sees through such garbage. But someone without sufficient reasoning skills is easy prey for pseudoscientists and demagogues.
The relationship between bad logic and immorality, however, is by no means limited to grandscale, social and cultural events and institutions. Personal acts of immorality are also committed by those whose primary “moral” flaw is that of having poor logic skills. Child abuse, spouse abuse, elder abuse and animal abuse are oftentimes predicated upon a genuine but irrational belief in the mind of the perpetrator that the abuse is “good for” the victim. In such a case, the failure may not be so much one of personality as it is one of intellectual ability, in particular, reasoning skills.
The relationship between bad logic and immorality becomes much more visible in the field of law. In particular, when lawyers, judges and lawmakers make logical errors, the results are quite dramatic: people lose their rights, their freedom, and sometimes even their lives simply because someone else can’t reason well.
If one’s irrationality hurts no one else, it’s not a big deal. But when one person suffers actual harm as a direct result of someone else’s poor reasoning skills, the latter’s rational failure is, to me, immoral, perhaps as immoral as any failure arising out of a personality trait.
Wealth 2.0: ePoet Publishes an Economic—Make that “Plutonomic”—Theory of Wealth for the Information Age
Summary: California-based publisher ePoet announced today the publication of Plutonomics: A Unified Theory of Wealth. The new book may represent the first modern theory to capture all manner of wealth phenomena in a single conceptual structure, making it useful as both a theoretical framework and a practical, self-help tool.
(Original article date: November 23, 2006 (ePoet))
California-based publisher ePoet(R) announced today the publication of Plutonomics: A Unified Theory of Wealth, a new non-fiction book by S. E. Harrison. As the title suggests, Plutonomics may be the first modern theory to capture all manner of wealth phenomena—from money and property to citizenship and reputation—in a single conceptual structure.
“We are very excited about bringing the Plutonomics project to fruition,” commented marketing director Rebecca Nelson. “Both defenders and detractors should find it an enjoyable literary journey.”
Embracing an unusual format by California layout artist Mike Ng, Plutonomics consists of 77 chapters, with each chapter appearing on a single right-side page. The left-side pages provide illustrations, definitions and “quotes for comparison”—ranging from Shakespeare to Marx, Pavlov to Aristotle—that offer an intellectual context for the right-side text. This format, in catering to the sound-bite generation, has garnered favorable comments from reviewers:
“Innovatively designed… [for] the busy reader,” noted Ari L. Noonan of The Front Page. “Definitely worth your investment,” he continued.
In keeping with its modern tone, Plutonomics also provides an index, glossary and bibliography via the World Wide Web rather than including them in print. The electronic supplementary materials appear on a Plutonomics blog site hosted by Word Press, where users can also explore the origins of the term “plutonomics” and follow hyperlinks to works of economics, finance, psychology and philosophy cited in the book.
“I guess Plutonomics is really a ‘hybrid’ book: it’s part e-book and part regular print book,” Nelson continued. “We thought this approach remained consonant with the message while also giving readers the best of both a ‘sit-down’ book and a blog.”
Featuring a foil-embossed cover of gold on purple by Los Angeles designer Christopher Tjalsma, “Plutonomics” cuts a figure as striking as its content. And for easy readability, New York-based illustrator Jonathan Klemstine has turned sophisticated content into simple, easy-to-follow diagrams. Meanwhile, back cover comments from businesspeople nationwide convey some of the excitement surrounding the new release.
Plutonomics: A Unified Theory of Wealth is available through Amazon.com (ISBN: 0-9776420-0-3) as well as through plutonomics.com.
ePoet(R), the Bard of Business(TM), is a California limited liability company providing writing services to the business and technology developer communities.
Jatalla Goes to MIT
Summary: Less than two weeks after its groundbreaking search engine prototype was made publicly viewable, Jatalla has been invited to showcase in the Technology Review Emerging Technologies Conference 2006 at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT).
(Original article date: September 15, 2006 (PRWeb))
Less than two weeks after its groundbreaking prototype was made publicly viewable, the Jatalla search engine has been invited to showcase in the Technology Review Emerging Technologies Conference 2006 at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT). Jatalla was created by Los Angeles-based research and development firm Inventerprise LLC.
“We are honored and thrilled to be included in this event,” Inventerprise founder Shelley Harrison remarked. “It’s really a testament to the promise of user-generated, user-controlled content.”
Unlike conventional search engines, which rely upon automated webcrawlers and computer analysis, Jatalla provides search results derived from rankings performed by actual, living human beings. Through Jatalla, any World Wide Web user can cast a “lexivote”, which consists of two parts: (i) a word or phrase and (ii) at least one URL. Thereafter, when a search query is submitted, all lexivotes matching the search query are counted, and associated URLs are ranked according to the number of lexivotes they receive.
Vincent Caprio of Technology Review commented that he was also “honored” to have an innovation such as Jatalla represented at the conference, which is being held on September 27 – 28 at the MIT campus.
Search engine commentators have picked up on a number of unique features of Jatalla. One such feature is what the company calls “planned inefficiency.”
“Automation is increasingly the problem, not the solution, for technology users,” explains Harrison. “I don’t know anybody who enjoys being caught in an automated phone tree system talking to a voice-activated computer.”
“By the same token, the quality of search results generated by computers will remain far below that of search results generated by humans, at least as long as the latter are smarter than the former,” he continued. “That’s why every decision on Jatalla – such as whether or not to cast a lexivote on the plural form of a word – is made by an individual human user, inefficient as that may sound at first.”
The essential Lexivote system was created in 1999 in an ambitious but ultimately failing attempt to produce a 100% human-programmed “artificial conscience” called the “Ethicode.” Patent filings in 2003 and 2004 disclose not only the current Jatalla.com search engine but also numerous functions not yet deployed.
People who would like to try the new paradigm in search technology can visit http://www.jatalla.com and begin casting their own lexivotes.
Inventor Patents New Way to Tell Time: Colorful Display Ideal for Cell Phones, Wearable Audio Players, and Mobile Electronic Devices
Summary: A newly patented time-telling system—called “TWELV” —eliminates the use of numerals, clock hands and traditional clockfaces. Instead, each individual hour of the day is represented solely by one of twelve unique colors. The display is simultaneously more attractive and smaller in footprint than conventional time formats.
(Original press release: LOS ANGELES, CA SEPTEMBER 14, 2006)
Inventerprise(R) LLC announced today the granting of a United States patent on a new way to tell time. The newly patented system breaks from centuries-old tradition, dispensing altogether with the use of any hour hand or hour digit. Instead, each individual hour of the day is represented solely by one of twelve unique colors.
As a result, the new time format—called “TWELV” —requires much less display monitor space than conventional formats. This smaller footprint makes TWELV ideal for use on mobile phones, portable consumer electronics, head-mounted displays, wrist-watches, and other wearable computing and communications devices.
“The prototype is stunningly simple and elegant,” a company representative commented. “Colors are not only more pleasing visually, but they can also be correctly recognized from much greater distances than can individual numerals or clock hands.”
In some TWELV embodiments, the minute hand or digit is also eliminated. Instead, a moon serves as the minute indicator, waxing from a slender crescent at the beginning of an hour to a full orb at the end. This embodiment also allows virtually any other monochromatic image —such as a company logo, a silhouette, or a musical note—to serve as the minute indicator.
Inventerprise arranged for designer Christopher Tjalsma to create the first prototype of the moon-based embodiment of TWELV. This prototype is now available for viewing via the web site: http://www.twelv.com.
“The sun and moon are probably the earliest time indicators used by the human race,” the representative continued. “Christopher’s design somehow taps into humanity at that very deep level. It feels a thousand generations old.”
The patent announcement comes on the heels of the company’s headline-making roll-out of Jatalla.com (http://www.jatalla.com), a prototype search engine that uses no Web crawlers and no document analysis software, instead relying solely upon relevancy rankings performed by living human beings.
Watches and clocks based on the TWELV(TM) system, including the Tjalsma Intuitime(TM) design and the hybrid TIKR(TM) design—which provides minute but no hour digits—are expected to be made available commercially in two to four years. All TWELV displays also include an override feature, allowing users to display time in standard 4-digit format if needed.
View the latest paradigm in horology at http://www.twelv.com.
David vs. Goliath: Week One
Summary: A prototype demonstrating new search engine paradigm survives its first week and demonstrates viability of user-determined relevancy rankings.
(Original article date: September 5, 2006 (PRWeb))
Upstart search engine Jatalla.com, after rolling out a prototype of its unusual approach to relevancy ranking, survived its initial week without major mishaps. Jatalla is the first Web search engine to offer relevancy rankings performed strictly by living human beings rather than computers.
Response from the user community—particularly experienced wiki users—has exceeded the hopes of the search engine creators. In some cases, dozens of lexivotes have been cast by a single account holder, establishing a pace which, if continued, could establish a lexivote-based system as a viable competitor in the search engine market within twelve to twenty-four months.
“We could hardly be any more pleased with the prototype’s reception,” a company representative reported. “Some search queries, such as a query on the word ‘news’, have already established about a page worth of high-quality results, and given a user base of only about 200 users, that’s magnificent.”
“If a sample size this small can do as well as this group has done, the lexivote model works even better than we had hoped,” the representative continued.
Through Jatalla.com, any World Wide Web user can cast a “lexivote”, which consists of two parts: (i) a word or phrase and (ii) at least one URL. Thereafter, when a search query is submitted, all lexivotes matching the search query are counted, and the URLs in those matching lexivotes are then ranked according to the number of lexivotes they’ve received.
Early critics of Jatalla have almost universally focused on the risk of spam, one doomsayer going so far as to predict a “Spamfest.” However, the combination of (i) a search-specific spam report button and (ii) a basic test to make sure that a human is submitting each lexivote has rendered spam a non-issue up to this point.
“We have only had one report of potential spam so far,” the representative continued. “Even that one spam report was debatable and did not result in deletion of the lexivote in question.”
“It’s amazing how people, when given the power and responsibility of making a system work, will rise to the challenge,” the representative summarized.
People who would like to begin lexivoting for their favorite sites can visit http://www.jatalla.com.
Human vs. Machine, Person vs. Processor: 100 Percent Brain-Powered Search Engine Offers New Paradigm
Summary: Prototype for the Web’s first search engine providing 100% user-generated search relevance rankings becomes available to public available; users themselves—not computers—to determine which results are most relevant to a search query.
(Original article: August 29, 2006 (PRWeb))
Jatalla, the first Web search engine to deliver 100% user-generated relevance rankings, has been made available today in prototype form at http://www.jatalla.com. Unlike conventional search engines, which rely upon automated webcrawlers and computer analysis, Jatalla provides search results derived from rankings performed by actual, living human beings.
Through Jatalla, any World Wide Web user can cast a “lexivote”, which consists of two parts: (i) a word or phrase and (ii) at least one URL. Thereafter, when a search query is submitted, all lexivotes matching the search query are counted, and associated URLs are ranked according to the number of lexivotes they receive.
“All the text and image evaluation algorithms are executed in people’s heads,” commented a company representative. “And in that way, the lexivote methodology fulfills some of the Web’s longest-standing but previously untapped potential. Jatalla is— and is only—as good as people make it.”
Drawing upon the collective intelligence of an entire planet’s human minds, Jatalla.com has —at least in theory—exponentially more processing power than any other search engine. But the creators of the site are the first to admit that their biggest challenge is to grab those first few users.
“We hope that Jatalla will one day serve as an easy way to interview the whole world through a single search query,” the company representative continued. “But right now, we’ve got to focus on early adopters, especially those who believe that humans are still smarter than computers.”
Toward that end, the Jatalla prototype is quite simple, providing only core functions, like search and lexivote submission. However, the Jatalla support blog, hosted by WordPress, indicates that more complex features will arrive when formal launch takes place. Nonetheless, visitors find the simplicity of the site refreshing, particularly the absence of advertisements and other clutter.
Announcement of the lexivote ranking methodology in June, 2006, created an international buzz within the industry. But the new prototype represents the first time that anyone has gotten to test drive a lexivote-based search engine.
People who would like to try the new paradigm in search technology can visit http://www.jatalla.com and begin casting their own lexivotes.
U.S. Patent 7,079,452 for “Time display system, method and device” issues
A patent in the field of time, horology, clocks, and watches has issued as U.S. Patent 7,079,452 for “Time display system, method and device”.
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