Sound marks?

Found the notice whilst job-hunting this morning. This is apparently new in Canadian intellectual property law:

http://www.cipo.ic.gc.ca/eic/site/cipointernet-internetopic.nsf/eng/wr03439.html

(Not sure that the mood icon should be smiling at any point in this instance...)

For altariel: Framing the Map for the Venettan Convention

I finally read Brinkmanship this past week, and it was good reading. Seemed like the ambiguities I've been somewhat conditioned to expect by Hollow Men and The Never-Ending Sacrifice was throttled back somewhat, although I'm hard-pressed to give specific points in the story right now.

One of the things that you can expect to intrigue me with as a rule, however, is fictional geography material. Or, in this instance, fictional astropolitical cartography.

Seeing as the Venettans share borders somewhat with the UFP, the Cardassian Union, the Ferengi Alliance and the Tzenkethi Coalition (and by implication, the Typhon Pact)...well, that had me grabbing my copy of Star Trek: Star Charts, digging up Jed Whitten's Starmap site, and opening up Celestia, that planetarium software that Christopher L. Bennett has often spoken highly of on trekbbs.com and in his novels' end-notes.

( map graphic after the cut! )

How Astronauts Vote!

Well, this is interesting.

http://abcnews.go.com/blogs/politics/2012/11/how-astronauts-vote-from-space/

Wondering how Elections Canada would manage it for ours. Have we yet had an astronaut "upstairs" during a Canadian election?

Post-Election

To my American friends: here's hoping the next four years are better still. May you all enjoy - not suffer - the consequences of this decision, however you voted.