No serious discussion.

 

those ideas are intersting.

 

 

 

 

Rofl!

That is exactly how I feel everytime I read another article about the apple samsung cases.

"We patented the round edges!"

You ******* kidding me?

 

When Patents Attack! | This American Life

Very intriguing.

 

Sidetracking a bit to focus on anti-competative business practices / restraint of trade:





For context, remember that this cartoon is new as of Oct 2012.

 

Like many xkcd comics, the alt/title text is the best part.

 

 

 

I find myself wondering if things have always been this fucked up or if there used to actually be a sort of collective sanity that has been mauled over the past few decades or so.

The old people seem to agree that things were saner back in the day. Then again, the old folks are ******* crazy.

All I know is that I have a pretty powerful wish to be 21 years old smoking crappy cigarettes and drag racing on leaded gas while chasing tail that had a slim chance of rotting my junk off. Instead I am 30, don't smoke, almost never race, and the only tail that's not a walking advertisement for VD clinics is definitely not interested in me.

I suck. The world sucks. The whole ******* universe sucks. And a time is coming when we will all wish we had it this good.

I need to drink more.

 

Things have definitely changed over the past hundred years. Are they better? Are they worse? I think those labels are far too absolute.


In the early 20th century, city and county governments were not infrequently run by the various mafias. The Federal government was in a period of massive expansion, Congress routinely trampled individual liberties, and you could easily be blackballed for life just by being accused of having some connection with the Communist party. Quelling dissenting voices was easy, as ballot-stuffing, voter intimidation, etc., was commonplace. Neither the governments NOR the corporations were easily held accountable for any actions.


In the early 21st century, city and county governments are not infrequently run by large local business interests and SIGs. The Federal government continues to grow in both reach and strength, and the repression of individual liberty is now performed at the executive level rather than by the legislature. You can be easily blackballed for life just by being accused of racism, sexism, homophobia, pedophilia, etc. Quelling dissenting voices is easy- just organize a "minority" political party to draw their focus away from productive matters. Holding the governments and corporations accountable for their actions has inadvertently resulted in such a massive and costly bureaucracy that some question whether we might have been better off just letting them dump the toxic waste into the canal.



On the plus side, it's been a while since we had a World War.

On the minus side, I honestly can't remember the last time that the US wasn't engaged in some kind of limited regional conflict somewhere in the world. I think there was a brief period of time between July 1978 and April 1980 during which we were not actually trying to kill anyone at all.

 

 

 

Also, not IP, but still funny:

 

This is one of my favorites:

 

The author is in top form here:















In case you were wondering, this is actually a real thing. Here is the 55 page sandwich-making patent which Mickey D filed: Espacenet - Original document