Author Archives: Gerald Barnett

Taking it to the Street

Jane Jacobs wrote one of the definitive critiques of central planning in her The Death and Life of Great American Cities. Fifty years on, the work still hits home. In DLGAC, Jacobs starts with the life of the street, arguing … Continue reading

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Hmpf, vol. 2

I came by a report by The Science Coalition called “Sparking Economic Growth: Federal Funding + University Research = Innovation, Companies and Jobs“. Title says it all. The Science Coalition says it is “a non-profit, nonpartisan organization of 50 fo … Continue reading

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Early Stage Technology

What does “early stage” mean in “early stage technology”? Does it arise from DoD “Technology Readiness Levels“? Perhaps. With TRL treatment, we are deep into the Linear Model. The starting point is basic research, which has to be translated into … Continue reading

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With Facts Like This, Who Needs Reason?

Looking at this report by The Science Coalition. The “facts” about “the innovation process” are more than a little strange. I get the point of the report–more government funding for university research. Will need a Hmpf addendum to work through … Continue reading

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Masks of Pluralism

Joan Roelofs’s Foundations and Public Policy: The Masks of Pluralism provides a critique of superficial consensus building. The basics are to capture passionate outliers, make them dependent for funding, and eventually lead them to conform to a consensus rallied around … Continue reading

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Having Feck

“Feckless folk are aye fain o’ ane anither.” We see in this Scots proverb a classic condition of the bozonet. It’s a human condition, and I don’t begrudge the feckless their friends. But it does mean that majority rule in … Continue reading

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What Happens Here is Excluded Here

I was in Mexico recently as part of a 5 week training program for new technology transfer professionals. Our piece of the training was negotiation and licensing. The participants had brought with them real world examples from their own institutions–opportunities … Continue reading

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Research- [ of | on | with ]

There’s one more important area of research invention use, and that is as a research tool. In the practice, we can differentiate three kinds of tool activity, in addition to throwing bones into the air and heading for monoliths orbiting … Continue reading

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Contexts

Have been looking at a new collection of essays edited by Leroy Searle, “The Natural History of Reading”. Searle makes a general claim: “we do not start, in reading, at the ‘beginning,’ but at a particular point in a history … Continue reading

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The Iron Man

This is good stuff. Makes my point. There is room for some iron in the discussion, just not with the waiters, and it doesn’t have to come out until after hours.

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