Patents: Slashdot gets a lot of stick for cluelessness. Now and again, though, you find well-presented arguments you won't read elsewhere. Try these:
An excellent summary of James Burke's book, The Day the Universe Changed; I haven't read it, but it sounds good. Reportedly, there's a section covering a period in British history when patent law was extended to cover 100 years; 'Like copyright today a person could not extend on a process developed on the day of their birth - they and their children (and even many of their grandchildren) would be dead long before the patent expired.'
Meanwhile, Germany refused to respect these terms, and their industry flourished -- 'a backwards agrarian society became an industrial powerhouse that far exceeded the capabilities of the British industry they 'stole' from, within a working lifetime.'
Details of how Lowell, Massachusetts became an industrial-era milling powerhouse through the US 'stealing' British patents: 'an English immigrant, Samuel Slater ... had worked his way up from apprentice to overseer in an English factory using the Arkwright system. Drawn by American bounties for the introduction of textile technology, he passed as a farmer and sailed for America with details of the Arkwright water frame committed to memory.'
Games: GameChronicles on the GTA:VC - Scarface connection. A nice summary of all (or at least, most) of the Scarface homages in the game.