Corey’s Blather Blog

Maybe we'll get one of these for her if / when the 4Runner has gone to seed.

http://www.physorg.com/news137216197.html

We can just rent a gasoline-powered SUV for long road trips that we can't do in my car.

Since I have a brother with almost identical hearing loss, certainly whatever got me and him is in our genes.

I wonder if we should be tested for this?

http://www.physorg.com/news136739596.html

Should we get Niall tested?

You can still babysit.

http://www.penny-arcade.com/comic/2008/8/4/ongoing-saga/

http://features.csmonitor.com/innovation/2008/06/18/mit-team-plays-with-fire-to-create-cheap-energy/

MIT students make it from off-the-shelf parts. Temperatures are right in the range I was targeting (boiling water).

Couple this with a high-efficiency but cheap Sterling Engine (also made from off-the-shelf parts) and you have power for the home.

Notice in this article how they demur on the electricity part. They're still thinking that to make electricity you need very high temperatures and high-pressure steam. The Sterling concept just hasn't sunk in yet (medium temperatures and no steam and no high pressures). They're talking like this device would make heat for non-mechanical processes (hot water especially). I wouldn't make that mistake. The magic bullet is cheap abundant electricity in every backyard.

All the pieces are in place, and I have no time to do anything about it. *sigh*

You build a private space craft and get to outer space... and the US government chases after you and insists that you get a license if you take pictures of the earth.

http://rescommunis.wordpress.com/2008/07/24/noaa-open-letter-to-google-lunar-x-prize-participants/

Yes... you need a LICENSE (takes 120 days) to take pictures of the earth from space.

You could not make up this lunacy if you tried. "Land of the free" my ass...

http://sciencenow.sciencemag.org/cgi/content/full/2008/724/1

This study shows no difference between boys and girls in math proficiency. The only suggestion is that perhaps going "off road" with your problems leads to a bit more success in more advanced math (which I know from direct experience).

My interpretation is that if you have a daughter, from birth, giving her the same "balsy" ability to thrive in a competitive environment and go "off road" with problems will eliminate the gap. It seems obvious to me that we train boys from birth to be precocious and tend to straightlace girls slightly more into being conservative in problem-solving. This probably explains almost all the gender gap that exists in late high-school, college and major science fields that are math-heavy.

However... the sad thing is the note towards the end of the article. Apparently teachers are continuing to teach-to-the-test, and since the tests have no hard questions, no hard math is being taught.

Who is going to do the science in this country in 20 years if no one can do math past arithmetic?

I've said before that the idea of patenting software is... ahem... patently absurd to me. It's copyrighted material, so you can't just copy/paste source code. It's created quicky, used briefly, and it's garbage. Its lifetime is too short to bother with patent applications or litigation, in my opinion.

Apparently the patent office has recently made a decision to almost wipe out all software patents if they are purely software running on generic computers. The most obvious impact of this is invalidating Google's patent on PageRank technology (which is what makes their search engine work). This might not sit well with many patent believers, but I say this is fantastic news.

There is a note in the document that I find important, and happen to agree with:

"The apparent death of Google's pioneering PageRank patent under the PTO's new rule for patentable subject matter may be a cause for celebration among those who are philosophically opposed to property rights in innovation and are eager to confine the patent system's ambit." - my emphasis

I think there are too many patents on unpatentable things today, frankly. The idea that companies can be sued for e-mailing receipts or for storing wish lists in a database is absurd. It's like trying to patent "driving a nail with a hammer". It's rediculous. These are not "inventions", these are combinations of tools from a toolbox to solve a problem. These are solutions easily created from scratch as needed by any competent programmer. The idea that when I'm presented with a technical requirement that I have to search for obscure patents on each little innovation I make before I can write the code to do it is flatly counter to the purported reason for patents to exist at all.

A patent is a form of goverment welfare in the economic definition of the word. The government has, by fiat (and constitutionally), created an exclusive right to sell some product if it is patented. They have created a property and a means to defend that property that does not really exist otherwise. But the purpose of this is to encourage innovation by guaranteeing enough time for an innovation to show a return on investment. But... if I can't write new software to enable my company to be competitive in the marketplace for fear of stepping on some unknown patent on some obscure idea, I will stop coding. The general welfare supposedly improved by patents will in fact suffer instead. Innovation in software is already slipping. Why would I bother pounding out a new website and starting the next Google if I can't be sure what is or isn't patented and I can't afford to find out?

This is why I'm opposed to software patents and patents on "processes" entirely. It's so low level or so broad as to stifle the very innovation it is supposed to be supporting. (I should note that a patent on a physical machine, or a drug, something that can be purchased and easily reverse engineered by a copy-cat, that I support. The original meaning of patent is still valid, in my view. Software is different. I consider it more like music. You don't patent a song or a chord and prevent everyone from using that chord in any future song without paying a license.)

I haven't had a problem making a living being the one guy in the room that can "invent" something new on demand to solve a problem. I've contributed hugely to the welfare of Canada, the US, and the world by boosting the efficiency of the companies I've worked for. Patents would get me nothing more. But patents could also cause me to be unable to do any useful work. That is not their purpose. And this is why I support the elimination of software patents altogether. Bravo!

I tried Associated Content. I got $5 via PayPal. But the articles seemed too short and too keyword-driven. I didn't like the arbitrariness of how much money I got for the article. It seemed to me that the $5 I got was an enticement to write more, but I expected to get more like $1 or $2 per article. In my view, that isn't worth the hour or so it takes me to write, proofread, reference, and submit 700 words.

By the time I was done the article and made it search-friendly, I hated it. I didn't even send out notices to many people that I'd been "published" because to get the article to work for Associated Content I had to write articles in a way I didn't like.

But this "knol" product from Google seems to be a different beast. It looks to me like you can write articles more your own way. If you get hits, and ad views, and maybe ad clicks, you get some of the revenue. That seems more fair. Rather than someone giving you a couple bucks based on their gut feel of how much the article may one-day be worth, you get money based on actual traffic.

I also feel that you can write a more in-depth article and then link to even greater depth on sub-issues and get more information across in a more usable format. If you suck, you'll get no traffic. Seems very fair to me. It seems like I could write my own way and see what happens, without putting anything but my own ego at risk.

So I think I will try this. You know... in my spare time.

http://www.physorg.com/news136035644.html

Tests on household scented laundry soap and air fresheners indicates that "[n]early 100 volatile organic compounds were emitted from these six products, and none were listed on any product label".

I've long, LONG felt that unnecessary chemicals in the house or in soaps that end up resting on my skin are toxic. Apparently it doesn't help to check the label to see if there are any toxins. The toxins aren't on the label!!

Nice, huh?