Invention-Con 2025: Empowering American ingenuity and innovation; United States Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO), September 9-10, 2025

 United States Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO) ; Invention-Con 2025: Empowering American ingenuity and innovation

"Do you want to grow your intellectual property (IP) knowledge and gain access to IP and business experts, accomplished innovators, and inspiring entrepreneurs? Join us for the USPTO's free flagship conference for inventors, makers, and entrepreneurs. Don’t miss Invention-Con 2025, coming to you virtually September 9-10 from 1:00 – 3:30 p.m. ET daily. Tailored for the independent inventor and entrepreneur community, our marquee event brings inspiration and IP experts directly to you.

• Learn from accomplished innovators, inventors, entrepreneurs, and business owners how to use IP to achieve success.

• Discover resources available to assist at every stage of your journey.

• Connect with IP and business experts who can help you develop a strategy for your innovation, from idea to market."

News Corp CEO Robert Thomson slams AI firms for stealing copyrighted material like Trump’s ‘Art of the Deal’; New York Post, August 6, 2025

 Ariel Zilber, New York Post ; News Corp CEO Robert Thomson slams AI firms for stealing copyrighted material like Trump’s ‘Art of the Deal’

"The media executive said the voracious appetite of the AI firms to train their bots on proprietary content without paying for it risks eroding America’s edge over rival nations.

“Much is made of the competition with China, but America’s advantage is ingenuity and creativity, not bits and bytes, not watts but wit,” he said.

“To undermine that comparative advantage by stripping away IP rights is to vandalize our virtuosity.”"

Antarctica ‘too wild for humans to rule’, says Shackleton medal winner; The Guardian, June 7, 2025

Donna Ferguson , The Guardian; Antarctica ‘too wild for humans to rule’, says Shackleton medal winner

"Cormac Cullinan has a dream. A dream, he says, that will “change how humanity sees, understands and relates to Antarctica”. The vast frozen continent – home to emperor and Adélie penguins, leopard and Ross seals, and feeding grounds for orcas, beaked whales and albatrosses – should be recognised as an autonomous legal entity “at least equivalent to a country”, says the environmental lawyer.

And this week that dream became one step closer to reality as judges awarded Cullinan the Shackleton medal for the protection of the polar regions.

The prestigious prize, worth £10,000, shines a light on people who have shown “courage, determination, ingenuity and leadership” in their work to protect the polar regions, indicating Cullinan’s radical plan to adopt and implement an Antarctica Declaration is gaining momentum."

So 2 Goats Were Stuck On A Beam Under A Bridge ...; NPR, Goats and Soda, April 6, 2018

Marc Silver, NPR, Goats and Soda; So 2 Goats Were Stuck On A Beam Under A Bridge ...

[Kip Currier: Amidst many "heavy" and thorny ethics-related stories/topics lately, here's a feel-good story about compassion, ingenuity, and persistence, from right here in Western Pennsylvania.
--May make your palms sweat a bit, picturing these unshrinking Pennsylvania Department of Transportation Samaritans and two plucky goats...]

""The initial plan was to try and separate the goats so we could could grab the goat facing the wrong way and turn it around," McCarthy says. But the white goat wasn't cooperating.

"I said, 'I'm going for it,' " he recalls. "I grabbed the goat as tight as I could." And he lifted it into the bucket.

The white goat was deposited on the bridge and handed over to its owner's son. McCarthy then tapped the beam with a pole to encourage the brown goat to make its way back.

Asked about the possible cost of the rescue, Tilson says, "We didn't even calculate it. We were just trying to be a good neighbor and get the goats back safely."

McCarthy is a happy man. "In this day and age, when things can go terribly wrong," he says, "it was great to see things go right."

His success is a testimony to a value that is sometimes lost in our quick-attention-span age: persistence.

"There was no way," he says, "I was letting go of that goat."

Meanwhile, no word on how the goats are faring, but I'm sure they would agree with a classic proverb from Rabbi Nachman of Bratslav: "The whole world is a very narrow bridge; the important thing is not to be afraid.""