Fully Completely
Sometimes I mean to update this blog and real life just keeps getting in the way, like having to take a quick and totally unplanned trip to PEI this past weekend. In the meantime, much has happened and my Google Reader queue has gotten away from me fully completely (it's a Tragically Hip song, look it up). So here's some highlights from the past few days in no particular order.
As you probably know, the Giants defeated the Patriots 17-14 in Superbowl XLII Sunday night. While I'm a bit sore at the Giants for knocking my Packers out in the conference championships, I am thrilled that somebody managed to knock the Patriots of their high horse. I think one headline over at NFL.com best summed it up: Eighteen and D'oh! I can't wait to see the NFL Films treatment of the fourth quarter, that was 15 minutes for the ages. Going into the playoffs many of the pundits acted like the playoffs where merely a formality and that the Patriots were already the champions. Which really sucks in terms of entertainment value for the fans. At this point I'm glad I can file those predictions under things Eli Manning can laugh about when he sits down with big brother Peyton and tells war stories over a few beers.
If you work in a cube farm like me, you know that the printer has replaced the water cooler as the gathering point of choice. The throughput of the average office means you might be waiting for a while for your document to make it to the top of the list on the print server. Crave shows us the most massive printer I've ever seen, and possibly the largest printer in history. The top of the line from Canon is 28 feet long and costs a cool $280 000 US.
Ars Technica reports that an anonymous sponsor is trying to get the US Patent Office to throw out patent 5,235,431, a notoriously overbroad patent filed in 1991 that relates to digital image compression for use on web pages. Bought by a patent troll called TechSearch in 1999, the patent has since been used to prise exorbitant licensing fees from everyone from the Encyclopedia Brittanica to the Green Bay Packers. Perhaps this will be the case that finally stops such clear abuses of the legal system and copyright law? Probably not, but I can dream. The headline refers to this as "hunting trolls", in which case I suggest that people involved in such pursuits be called Patent Warlocks.
Rather than complaining about the effect some features (and lack thereof) in the recently arrived Macbook Air, Appleinsider has published a lengthy piece which examines the design trade-offs which allowed Apple to come out with what it claims is the thinnest notebook in the world. Which, as an engineer I know all about design trade-offs and like to look at product design in this way. Things start making a lot of sense when you use that perspective.
Travelers in and through the US can now get some answers from the Transportation Security Agency the next time they are held up at the airport for violating one or more of the agencies bizarre and ever changing rules. Personally I think someone over at the TSA is spiking the kool-aid or has a copy of Steve Jobs' reality distortion field generator. But you can now get the official justification via the TSA's blog and decide for yourself just how full of shit they really are.
In an only slightly related story, Crave has published its list of bomb proof gadgets. Feel free to write your own segway.
As you probably know, the Giants defeated the Patriots 17-14 in Superbowl XLII Sunday night. While I'm a bit sore at the Giants for knocking my Packers out in the conference championships, I am thrilled that somebody managed to knock the Patriots of their high horse. I think one headline over at NFL.com best summed it up: Eighteen and D'oh! I can't wait to see the NFL Films treatment of the fourth quarter, that was 15 minutes for the ages. Going into the playoffs many of the pundits acted like the playoffs where merely a formality and that the Patriots were already the champions. Which really sucks in terms of entertainment value for the fans. At this point I'm glad I can file those predictions under things Eli Manning can laugh about when he sits down with big brother Peyton and tells war stories over a few beers.
If you work in a cube farm like me, you know that the printer has replaced the water cooler as the gathering point of choice. The throughput of the average office means you might be waiting for a while for your document to make it to the top of the list on the print server. Crave shows us the most massive printer I've ever seen, and possibly the largest printer in history. The top of the line from Canon is 28 feet long and costs a cool $280 000 US.
Ars Technica reports that an anonymous sponsor is trying to get the US Patent Office to throw out patent 5,235,431, a notoriously overbroad patent filed in 1991 that relates to digital image compression for use on web pages. Bought by a patent troll called TechSearch in 1999, the patent has since been used to prise exorbitant licensing fees from everyone from the Encyclopedia Brittanica to the Green Bay Packers. Perhaps this will be the case that finally stops such clear abuses of the legal system and copyright law? Probably not, but I can dream. The headline refers to this as "hunting trolls", in which case I suggest that people involved in such pursuits be called Patent Warlocks.
Rather than complaining about the effect some features (and lack thereof) in the recently arrived Macbook Air, Appleinsider has published a lengthy piece which examines the design trade-offs which allowed Apple to come out with what it claims is the thinnest notebook in the world. Which, as an engineer I know all about design trade-offs and like to look at product design in this way. Things start making a lot of sense when you use that perspective.
Travelers in and through the US can now get some answers from the Transportation Security Agency the next time they are held up at the airport for violating one or more of the agencies bizarre and ever changing rules. Personally I think someone over at the TSA is spiking the kool-aid or has a copy of Steve Jobs' reality distortion field generator. But you can now get the official justification via the TSA's blog and decide for yourself just how full of shit they really are.
In an only slightly related story, Crave has published its list of bomb proof gadgets. Feel free to write your own segway.
Labels: Apple, fear and loathing, Macbook Air, patent, reality distortion field, Superbowl, TSA
posted by Colin at
7:57 p.m.
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