[thelist] [OT] More daft patents !

[kev.skindrill]

Sorry about the OT post, but I came across this advert in a national
newspaper & thought it might be of interest to those of you who are as
exasperated about the recent trend of Internet patents as I have been.
Enjoy!

ActionAid campaigns against food patenting.

Basmati is one of the best kinds of rice you can buy, savoured for its
slender grain and distinctive taste. But basmati, an Asian crop, is under
threat. A Texas-based company, RiceTec Inc., now owns a patent on Basmati
rice in the US - their 'Basmati' is derived from crops that have taken
farmers in India and Pakistan generations of hard work to develop. It's
disturbing to think an Asian crop has now been patented by a US company.

Large international bio-tech companies are set to monopolise the world
market in food crops. Patents on food crops owned by the developed world are
a major concern. Export markets are threatened, the farmers' right to save
and sell their seeds is being compromised and there is a real risk that the
patenting of food crops will threaten livelihoods, making poor people
poorer. The dice are already loaded against poor families. Now their efforts
to secure adequate food are being threatened. The international community
must act before it's too late: we want to halt the patenting of staple foods
crops and genetic resources for food and farming. We're taking the fight to
Tony Blair and the UK government and are urging them to reverse their
support for food patenting.

Don't swallow any more. Support us today by writing to us at ActionAid,
Freepost BS4868, Chard, Somerset TA20 1BR, calling us on 01460 23 80 80 or
visiting http://www.actionaid.org

<tip>
Can't claim authorship of this because it comes from a guy who is providing
me with ASP help from another list. I was getting an error from some code on
a page & was not sure where it was coming from. This guy suggested that I
put the following code at the beginning of the page...

response.write("OK to here!")
response.end

Now, when the script is run the page should print "OK to here!" before the
error message. If it does, then move the code down a line, run the script
and keep moving it down until you no longer get "OK to here!" . Simple but
effective. Most error messages will tell you where the bad code is, but the
message I was getting was...

Response object error 'ASP 0185 : 8002000e'

Missing Default Property

?

A default property was not found for the object

See, no line number.
</tip>

K
kev.skindrill at bigfoot.com
www.skindrill.freeserve.co.uk