Thursday, March 14, 2024

What is Pi Day, and what are the useful uses of Pi?

ChatGPT 4.0 (3/14/2024)

Pi Day is celebrated on March 14th (3/14 in the month/day format) because the date represents the first three digits of π (pi), which is approximately 3.14. Pi is a mathematical constant that represents the ratio of a circle's circumference to its diameter. This ratio is constant for all circles of any size, making pi a fundamental aspect of many mathematical, engineering, and scientific calculations. Here are some of the useful uses of pi:

1. **Circumference and Area Calculations**: Pi is used to calculate the circumference (C = 2πr) and the area (A = πr^2) of a circle, where r is the radius of the circle. These formulas are foundational in geometry and are widely used in various fields such as construction, manufacturing, and design.

Saturday, December 16, 2023

Mickey Mouse Enters to Public Domain

The first trademarks by Walt Disney run out of copyright protection starting in 2024. This would have happened 20 years earlier had it not been for the "Mickey Mouse Protection Act of 1998" (as discussed here). For corporations, copyright lasts for 95 years from first release. (For individual creators/authors, copyright lasts for 70 years after the last author dies.)

Associated Press has a discussion about this: Mickey Mouse will soon belong to you and me — with some caveats. This article by Andrew Dalton (Dec 14, 2023) hits two notes that are not intuitive to the average person with only a modest understanding of copyrights. 

Friday, November 24, 2023

The Mickey Mouse Protection Act

When you hear The Mickey Mouse Protection act, you are probably thinking about how to keep the mouse’s tail out from under the heavy boots of the Florida State Governor. But the Law that is informally called the Mickey Mouse Protection Act of 1995 extended copyright protection for an additional 20 years, giving Disney until November 2024 before the first copyrights on Mickey Mouse begin to roll off copyright protection.  This means that by Christmas of 2024 you can start to borrow and modify aspects of Steamboat Willie’s 1928 movie including the world-famous Mickey Mouse figure. HOWEVER, step softly around the mouse because Disney does have dozens of trademarks, so what comes into public domain on the one four-fingered hand, might still have intellectual property protection on the other. 

Tuesday, April 25, 2023

Samsung Takes over from IBM in the US Patents issued in 2022

Samsung Electronics received the most US patents in 2022 for the first time since 1993. IBM, which had held the top spot for 29 consecutive years, came in second place.

Rank Company Patents
1 Samsung Electronics 6,248
2 IBM 4,398
3 Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing 3,024
4 Huawei Technologies 2,836
5 Canon 2,694
6 LG Electronics 2,641
7 Qualcomm 2,625
8 Intel 2,418
9 Apple 2,285
10 Toyota 2,214

 In terms of the total "assigned" patents, IBM has also lost #1 position to Samsung.

See prior posts about the Patent King, IBM: https://www.intellzine.com/2021/03/the-patent-king-ibm-for-28-years.html

Wednesday, February 15, 2023

Oil & Gas Spills in North America Since 2010

This was posted over in SustainZine originally, but it does pertain to Innovation. The costs of the old systems of fossil fuels are far greater than the price we all pay at the pump. Plus they are crazy subsidized (one estimate is 1% of GDP directly and about 6% indirectly).

But here's the article. *** SustainZine ***

A question I sometimes ask of people who think that fossil fuels are here forever more and that electrification of everything will never happen... 

Has there ever been an oil spill in Yellowstone National Park? If so, how many?

Thursday, January 19, 2023

Innovative Countries -- Global Innovation Index

 

This is a great summary of innovation by country from Visual Capitalist. See the Global Innovation Index (GII) map here:https://www.visualcapitalist.com/most-innovative-countries-2022/

We, at Strategic Business Planning Company, www.SBP.com, are always interesting in all aspects of innovation. Sometimes we hear from a layperson or an executive that the most innovative country in the work is ...  

Israel and Ireland were mentioned in recent years.  One executive said that "all innovation comes from Israel". All right, admittedly, Israel is a great source of innovation and invention, but it is a very small country (population, GDP). In absolute terms, Israel is not even close, but in relative terms (adjusted for size of country), Israel is a very respectable #16 in the world (GII score of 50.2).

Saturday, November 26, 2022

Giving Season is Here!

It is giving season, with Giving Tuesday coming up after the long Thanksgiving weekend. Now is the best time of the year to reach out to your Donors and make sure that they are thinking of you as they give thanks for the year and give donations into the end of the tax year.  GivingTuesday.org  #GivingTuesday

First, it is a busy week starting on Thanksgiving.

Friday, December 31, 2021

Misery Index (and Pain Index)

The Misery Index hasn’t been talked about much since the 1970s when unemployment was really high and inflation was double digit. The argument is that high unemployment is painful, and high inflation is painful, so when you add the two together you get a good measure of the misery throughout the economy. Both presidents Ford and Carter had average Misery indexes of 16, but Carter when out of office in 1980 leaving a Misery Index of almost 20 to Ronald Reagan.

Pain Index

Wikipedia does a great job of organizing information and trends related to Misery Index by country over time. The article presents 2013 as an example year, just a couple years out of the worldwide Great Recession of 2007-2008. Several countries had Misery Indexes of 60 or more (Venezuela, 79.4 and Iran, 61.6).  The US had a Misery Index of 11 in 2013, predominantly because of persistently higher unemployment, inflation was below 2%.) High inflation, or even hyperinflation, is usually associated with an unstable economy.  In 2019, Venezuela had a Miser Index that was basically unmeasurable because of inflation that was 1000% or far higher.

Wednesday, September 8, 2021

OZ, by any other Name, could be a Profitable Opportunity!

Qualified Opportunity Zone Map for USA
Opportunity Zones present a hidden opportunity for Real Estate (RE) investment that should be widely utilized across the US. Why not? (View Interactive HUD Map here.)

There’s a spectacular investment tool that was associated with tax cuts of 2017 by the Trump administration. Along with the massive tax cuts, there was a non-partisan tax break to funnel private investments into underdeveloped communities around the nation.

Saturday, April 3, 2021

Is Trade Secret a Good Strategy? A Trade Secret Assessment

The most widely identified Trade Secret is, of course, Coke Cola. (The original formula included caffeine and cocaine – thus the name – but that is a different discussion!) In 1903, cocaine was removed, leaving caffeine as the sole stimulant ingredient, and all medicinal claims were dropped. But the Coke-a-Cola trade secret lives on. Sections below: