Shameless Words from Shameless Geeks

A recent study by the University of Wolverhampton has traced the oldest known joke back to 1900AD. It seems that the ancients liked off-color jokes as much as the rest of us.

The article mentions who originally commissioned the study, but I have my own thoughts on the matter. I think it was Jay Leno looking for new material.

Hmmm… This Ars Technica article about recent shifts at the USPTO seems to be pointing out a bright spot in the patent landscape. It points out that the USPTO has recently taken a more hostile direction when dealing with software patents.

Software patents have always been a sticky subject. Despite the fact that there are probably a few scattered incidents where patents were awarded to deserving software, the vast majority have done nothing more than enrich patent trolls. IMHO, it’s probably for the best if they are abolished.

How about this for an idea for a patent:
A System for Acquiring Patents for Prior Art.
That way, maybe I could go back and get a little revenge on the patent trolls

I’ve added a new category for RC helicopters. Besides home brewing, this is one of the most frequent areas for me to waste time and money. Now if only I could justify a category for homemade Buffalo Wings…

I have added a new category for home brewing and all things related to it. This is all part of my renovation of the site. Eventually, I intend to change things to reflect the changes in my tastes and hobbies over the past couple of years.

I heard about the world’s first Commodore 64 LAN party the other day. I guess it was a cool thing to dredge up the old equipment and do it just for the sake of saying it can be done. However, forgive me if I don’t attend… I have config files that take up more memory that the whole C64 has.

One thing to note: Retro is supposed to be a huge trend today, but I found very little about the event online. Most posts just referred to the /. entry, or it’s constituent parts. I guess the whole retro thing is more hype than market.