Word of the Day

house_pundit made a comment last night that, this morning, made me think about a detail of terminology.

We have a name for people who register vast numbers of domain names on spec against the hope of someday being able to sell some of them for extortionate sums of money to people who actually need them for their business.  We call them domain squatters, right?

And they suck.  Right?

So how is this different from an [ostensible] medical research company that patents huge swathes of the genomes of any organism they can get their hands on the genetic sequence of, on spec against the possibility that they (or someone else) might someday discover a medical application for one or more genes in the pile?

I hereby declare that from now on, I shall refer to these wankers as gene-squatters.  They're not protecting innovations.  They're not protecting investments.  They're simply locking up as much genomespace as they can to prevent anyone else from being able to utilize it without paying them exorbitant amounts of money ... and thereby, in all probability, discouraging anyone who knows that genespace is patented from studying it for medical value.

There's your new word for the day, folks:  Gene-squatter.  Spread it around.  Because gene-squatters suck.

Semi-random thought

Garfield is to comics as MacDonalds is to food.

Discuss.