Death to the Patent Trolls?

The advent of “patent troll” companies has seriously perverted the already-perverted world of intellectual property law.  These companies acquire portfolios of patents (or the rights to those patents) with the intent to prosecute companies alleged to be infringing them.  The key word there is “alleged”.  Patent trolls are frequently accused (almost certainly accurately) of bringing actions that they are sure to lose – because they know that the accused companies will often (most of the time, in fact) pay a settlement just to make the lawsuit go away.

Many have noted that the patent trolls are enabled by a feature of American law: that the winner of a lawsuit like this still pays their own legal expenses.  Under English law, the loser pays for both sides legal expenses.  This “loser pays” system greatly discourages frivolous lawsuits, as the side with a good defense is willing to pay for that defense, knowing that if they win the other side is going to pay the entire expense.

Now that same “loser pays” system is being proposed for the U.S. – but only for suits brought by patent trolls.  Defining a patent troll is trickier than it might appear.  Here's an article about the proposed bill, and here's the EFF's statement of support for it...

Visualizing Formerly Invisible Motion (and More)...

Through a technique dubbed “Eulerian magnification”, computer scientists are getting better at producing stunning, informative visualizations.  The video tells the story, and there are more details in the accompanying story.  This search will show you many more videos produced via Eulerian magnification.  What an awesome new tool!

World's Nerdiest Marriage Proposal?

I was skeptical until I read it.  This is one physicist's written marriage proposal to another physicist.  Partial clip below; click on the link to read the whole thing.  Awesome!

Changes...

For nearly 20 years now, “Siggy” (more formally, “Eight Sigmas”) has been a big part of our life.  We purchased this stock '96 Toyota LandCruiser in 1995 using some of the money we made from our stock options after Stac's IPO.  We had to order it (and wait several months to get it!) because we wanted the four-wheeling features that were then available (most especially the differential locks) from Toyota. 

Siggy was our ride on many adventures throughout the Western U.S.  It took us in safety and comfort on freeways and on extremely rugged back-country roads.  Perhaps the most challenging thing we ever did with Siggy was a wonderful vacation in the San Juan Mountains of Colorado (where we're going again this summer).  With Debbie, my dad, and two dogs (Mo'i and Lea) we roamed all over those mountains – never meeting a trail we couldn't take, and never feeling the least at risk.

But poor Siggy is now too old and decrepit to safely take us into the back-country any more.  With nearly 300,000 miles on it (with never a major repair!), the engine is now on its last legs.  Replacing the engine would be quite expensive, and the rest of the vehicle is worn as well.  Really the entire drive train should be replaced, and that just didn't seem practical.  So last week we researched all our options and chose a new ride: a 2013 Toyota FJ Cruiser, bright orange and white.  This time we're not going to keep it a stock vehicle – we bought a very basic model (just the off-roading package) and we're going to add aftermarket gear to make it a really capable and safe off-road vehicle.

I drove Siggy to the dealer (in El Cajon) to meet its fate as a trade-in.  It was a sad drive; Siggy is just chock full of wonderful memories for us.  I shed a few tears, and at one point almost turned around to take it back home.  But what would we do with an old, beat-up LandCruiser?  In the end, I decided I'd hope that somebody on a tight budget would buy Siggy and fix it all up in a labor of love.  I hope that's what happens, anyway...

Asperatus Clouds...

...over New Zealand.  Via APOD, of course.

Economics 101, with Humor...

A good primer on the absurdities of the sequestration hysteria:

Challenging Authorities...

Very interesting montage of individual Americans challenging checkpoint authorities...

Coronal Rain on the Sun...

The Solar Dynamics Observatory captured the photos used to make this movie last summer.  When you play the video below, you're seeing things about 360 times faster than they actually occurred – ten hours of actual events seen in about four minutes.  Via APOD, of course...

Do-It-Yourself Weapons of the Syrian Rebels...

This web site has a lot of photos like the one at right, showing the surprisingly sophisticated improvised weapons being put together by the Syrian rebels.  Armored vehicles, artillery shells, rockets, remote-controlled machine guns, “technicals”, and more – somehow not what came to mind when I saw the title.  I'll have to revise my preconceived notions of the capabilities of your average Syrian young man...

Cool Stop-Motion Short Film...

Very cool little film.  Watching this reminded me of the old Nick Park flicks (esp. Wallace and Grommit).  On this one, I wonder how they managed to keep all those positions so accurately...

Hmmm... Looks Like We're Not Running Out of Oil...

Every year a new round of hydrocarbon doomsayers predicts the imminent exhaustion of the planet's supply of crude oil – and the U.S. supply even earlier.  Every year reality proves them wrong.  Someday, of course, the doomsayers will be right – but it looks like someday is a good many years away...

Awesome Castings of Ant Nests...

Retired entomologist Walter Tschinkel from Florida makes these ant casts from aluminum.  See video below for details on how he does it.  Awesome!

RightPosters...

John L. runs a site called RightPosters, featuring lots of posters designed to appeal (so far as I can tell:) to anyone who is not a liberal or progressive.  The example at right combines one of my favorite Churchill quotes with a great photo of him.  John wrote me to ask if I'd consider linking to him, and after looking over his offerings I'm more than happy to do so.  I haven't purchased anything from his site, so if any of my readers happen to have experience with it, please let me know...

Diaphananthe pellucida...

This African orchid via BPOD, of course...

M51...

M51, the “Whirlpool Galaxy”, as seen by the Hubble Telescope.  Full resolution version here.  Via APOD, of course...

20 Reasons for Democrats to be Embarrassed...

This list of epic fails by the Democratic Party and its members is good fodder for anyone who isn't a liberal or progressive.  An example:

The American Protective League and The Palmer Raids (1919-1921): Under the leadership of Woodrow Wilson, criticizing the government became a crime and a fascist organization, the American Protective League was formed to spy on and even arrest fellow Americans for being insufficiently loyal to the government. More than 100,000 Americans were arrested, with less than 1% of them ever being found guilty of any kind of crime. 

On the other hand, coming up with an equivalently damning list of epic fails for the Republicans shouldn't be very difficult, either.  Neither party has the epic fail monopoly.

Can anyone imagine a list of “epic successes” for either party?  I think it would be quite difficult to get 20 serious candidates for such a list...

Earthquake!

Well, yesterday, a little teensy one, and quite a long way away.  What makes this one interesting is that the seismometer in our house captured it (see below).

USGS says that the earthquake occurred on 2/23 at 04:40:14 UTC.  Our seismometer shows the first burst of primary wave at 04:40:33 – 19 seconds later.  The location of the earthquake (USGS) is 109 kilometers from our house, yielding an average primary wave speed of 5.75 km/s, well within norms for primary waves.  By collecting lots of data like this, for many earthquakes and from many locations, USGS is building up a huge dataset that will let them learn a great deal about the composition of the earth's crust in the areas where they have good coverage (Southern California is one of them)...

Results: Oh-Oh...

Reader Simi L. sent me a link to a brand-new episode of Roadrunner vs. Wile E. Coyote, with modern computer graphics.  That led me to several others, and a few good laughs this morning:

Political Correctness in Our Military...

Reader and friend Doug S. (who is a U.S. Air Force veteran) passed this link along.  This is the sort of thing that started the German military along the path to its current “toothless tiger” status.  It's also what happens when an entrenched bureaucracy tackles a problem: common sense and pragmatism are thrown out the window; mindless rules and perverse incentives rule.

I hear the drums of doom.  They don't sound so very far away...

Retronaut...

Retronaut is a fascinating site full of old things, like the British WWII recruiting poster at right...