Spring Sabbatical

Automotive Acne (Productions) Is Currently On Hiatus.

Thanks for Visiting.

Sincerely,

"Allan Smithee"

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Gawker: British Pathé releases 85,000 films on YouTube

Newsreel archive British Pathé has uploaded its entire collection of 85,000 historic films, in high resolution, to its YouTube channel. This unprecedented release of vintage news reports and cinemagazines is part of a drive to make the archive more accessible to viewers all over the world.

British Pathé was once a dominant feature of the British cinema experience, renowned for first-class reporting and an informative yet uniquely entertaining style. It is now considered to be the finest newsreel archive in existence. Spanning the years from 1896 to 1976, the collection includes footage – not only from Britain, but from around the globe – of major events, famous faces, fashion trends, travel, sport and culture. The archive is particularly strong in its coverage of the First and Second World Wars.


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Contractor News Network

"I'm not rich because somebody is poor. But some people are poor because the system does not reward particular skills. Some of them have very limited skills in terms of what it brings them in a market system." -- Warren Buffett


(*) Background Info: American Companies Fight Against $10.10 Minimum Wage


Note: Click Title Link Also for Complete CNN Article & Video About Why Calls To Raise The Minimum Wage Stump Warren Buffett

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(*) Amazon and the Squeezing of the Middle Class

(*) Amazon Reportedly Laying Groundwork for Own Delivery Service


Anti-Amazon Testimonials:

(*) Blue Collar Labor (Hourly Wage)

(*) White Collar Labor (Management/Salaried)

(*) Amazon Insiders Tell the Good, the Bad, and the Ugly


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(*) Four Ways The U.S. Government Enables The Rich To Steal

(*) Four Biggest Right-Wing Lies About Income Inequality
 

FYI

Did Not Know That
(*) NY Times: Pres. Obama Lets N.S.A. Exploit Some Internet Flaws, Officials Say

(*) Salon: Barack Obama Pulls A George W. Bush - Lies, Misinformation & Chemical Weapons in Syria

(*)  NY Times: Covert Inquiry by F.B.I. Rattles 9/11 Tribunals


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Does Not Surprise:

(*) NY Times: Phone Company Bid to Keep Data From N.S.A. Is Rejected


Update:

(*) Verizon Challenged the NSA’s Phone Data Collection Program and Lost


More:

(*) Yearly Number of Obama Drone Deaths To Remain Classified

“The Senate has quietly stripped a provision from an intelligence bill that would have required President Obama to make public each year the number of people killed or injured in targeted killing operations in Pakistan and other countries where the United States uses lethal force.”

 

The Salt: Open Source Seeds

A group of scientists and food activists launched a campaign April 15th to change the rules that govern seeds. They released 29 new varieties of crops under a new "open source pledge" that's intended to safeguard the ability of farmers, gardeners and plant breeders to share those seeds freely. It's inspired by the example of open source software, which is freely available for anyone to use but cannot legally be converted into anyone's proprietary product.

At an event on the campus of the University of Wisconsin, Madison, backers of the new Open Source Seed Initiative will pass out 29 new varieties of 14 different crops, including carrots, kale, broccoli and quinoa. Anyone receiving the seeds must pledge not to restrict their use by means of patents, licenses or any other kind of intellectual property. In fact, any future plant that's derived from these open source seeds also has to remain freely available as well.

Irwin Goldman, a vegetable breeder at the University of Wisconsin, Madison, helped organize the campaign. It's an attempt to restore the practice of open sharing that was the rule among plant breeders when he entered the profession more than 20 years ago.

"If other breeders asked for our materials, we would send them a packet of seed, and they would do the same for us," he says. "That was a wonderful way to work, and that way of working is no longer with us."

These days, seeds are intellectual property. Some are patented as inventions. You need permission from the patent holder to use them, and you're not supposed to harvest seeds for replanting the next year.

Even university breeders operate under these rules. When Goldwin creates a new variety of onions, carrots or table beets, a technology-transfer arm of the university licenses it to seed companies. This brings in money that helps pay for Goldman's work, but he still doesn't like the consequences of restricting access to plant genes — what he calls germplasm. "If we don't share germplasm and freely exchange it, then we will limit our ability to improve the crop," he says.

Sociologist Jack Kloppenburg, also at the University of Wisconsin, has been campaigning against seed patents for 30 years. His reasons go beyond Goldman's.

He says turning seeds into private property has contributed to the rise of big seed companies that in turn promote ever-bigger, more specialized farms. "The problem is concentration, and the narrow set of uses to which the technology and the breeding are being put," he says.

Kloppenburg says one important goal for this initiative is simply to get people thinking and talking about how seeds are controlled. "It's to open people's minds," he says. "It's kind of a biological meme, you might say: Free seed! Seed that can be used by anyone!"

The practical impact of the Open Source Seed Initiative on farmers and gardeners, however, may be limited. Even though anyone can use such seed, most people probably won't be able to find it.
The companies that dominate the seed business probably will keep selling their own proprietary varieties or hybrids. There's more money to be made with those seeds.

Most commercial vegetable seeds are hybrids, which come with a kind of built-in security lock; if you replant seed from a hybrid, you won't get exactly the same kind of plant. (For this reason, some seed companies don't bother getting patents on their hybrids.)

John Shoenecker, director of intellectual property for the seed company HM Clause and the incoming president of the American Seed Trade Association, says his company may avoid using open source seed to breed new commercial varieties "because then we'd ... have limited potential to recoup the investment." That's because the offspring of open source seeds would have to be shared as well, and any other seed company could immediately sell the same variety.

The initiative is probably more significant for plant breeders, especially at universities. Goldman says he expects many plant breeders at universities to join the open source effort.

Meanwhile, two small seed companies that specialize in selling to organic farmers — High Mowing Organic Seeds in Hardwick, Vt., and Wild Garden Seed in Philomath, Ore., are adding some open source seeds to their catalogs this year. -- Dan Charles


Note: Click Title Link To Listen To Complete NPR Article (3 min 59 Seconds)