Lightning flash density – 12 hourly averages over the year (NASA OTD/LIS) This shows that lightning is much more frequent in summer than in winter, and from noon to midnight compared to midnight to noon.
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At a recent USPTO Hour, America’ Branding Agency dives into how name, image, likeness (NIL) connects with branding and trademarks – on the field, off the field, and everywhere between.
Innovation – Standardization – Commoditization run along a continuum. Today we unpack some of the ideas that hasten (and prohibit) leading practice discovery; how quickly goods and services become a “human right”; why all of this is relevant to education communities and why some believe that commoditization is a myth.
From the Wikipedia
In business literature, commoditization is defined as the process by which goods that have economic value and are distinguishable in terms of attributes (uniqueness or brand) end up becoming simple commodities in the eyes of the market or consumers. It is the movement of a market from differentiated to undifferentiated price competition and from monopolistic competition to perfect competition. Hence, the key effect of commoditization is that the pricing power of the manufacturer or brand owner is weakened: when products become more similar from a buyer’s point of view, they will tend to buy the cheapest.
After months of hard work, the top five teams met at USPTO headquarters today for the final round of the 2025 National Patent Application Drafting Competition. 🏆 And the winners are … ⬇️
From creating a race car safety device that protects drivers from injury to revolutionizing chemotherapy, Spartans have contributed to more than 3,300 inventions. #SpartansWillpic.twitter.com/dchCs0BFBx
For 58 years, 7-Eleven has been protecting its iconic semi-frozen soft drink, the Slurpee. But it doesn’t stop there. The store has more than 200 registered trademarks to protect its goods and services, including “Oh thank Heaven for 7-Eleven” in 1978 and “Brainfreeze” in 1993. pic.twitter.com/b9bkkcijGg
At 90 years old, Menahem Pressler becomes more than a pianist while playing Chopin, turning each note into a lifetime of mastery and elegance from a true living legend. 🎶 😍pic.twitter.com/vVVjfByYgS
Mass Challenge: The Socioeconomic Impact of Migration to a Scandinavian Welfare State by Tino Sanandaji** (Palgrave Macmillan, 2020): In this book chapter, Sanandaji discusses Sweden’s “unique” experiment with large-scale third-world immigration, which has shifted its image from a model society to one facing exaggerated but real challenges like social issues and exclusion. As a Swedish author, he provides a data-driven critique without explicit policy calls in the intro, but the broader work argues for controls on low-skilled migration to mitigate economic and integration failures.
“Swedes and Immigration: A Mismatch?” by Tino Sanandaji (Fondapol, 2019): This paper analyzes Sweden’s shift from low immigration to high inflows from non-Western/third-world countries (e.g., Syria, Iraq, Somalia, Afghanistan), noting that net migration peaked at 0.8% of the population in 2014–2015. Sanandaji, a Swedish economist of Kurdish-Iranian origin, argues that poor labor market integration (with foreign-born employment at 59.6% vs. 82.9% for natives) and fiscal costs (1.5–2% of GDP annually) make unrestricted immigration unsustainable for Sweden’s welfare state. He explicitly advocates for very restrictive policies, including tighter border controls, stricter asylum rules, and reduced family-based immigration to limit low-skilled inflows from developing countries.
“Sweden: Rape Capital of the West” by Ingrid Carlqvist and Lars Hedegaard. Gatestone Institute, 2015): Carlqvist, a Swedish journalist, co-authors this piece linking Sweden’s 1,472% rise in reported rapes (from 421 in 1975 to 6,620 in 2014) to mass immigration from Muslim-majority/third-world countries (e.g., Iraq, Syria, Somalia). It cites studies showing foreign-born men overrepresented in rape convictions (up to 19.5 times more likely) and attributes this to cultural differences. The article calls for policy changes to restrict such immigration to protect Swedish society and women, criticizing authorities for downplaying the issue
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New update alert! The 2022 update to the Trademark Assignment Dataset is now available online. Find 1.29 million trademark assignments, involving 2.28 million unique trademark properties issued by the USPTO between March 1952 and January 2023: https://t.co/njrDAbSpwBpic.twitter.com/GkAXrHoQ9T
