26 Jun 2005
No PodBuddy for iPod lovers

Subtitle: "How to kill a idea, legally."

It appears that DLO (Digital Lifestyle Outfitters) are using their patent #6,591,085 to keep a PodBuddy, designed by DVForge, a product, competing with DLO's TransPod, off the market. Another example where patents are interfering with innovation and in the end - the end users are suffering the consequences, because far more superior product can't see the light due to dirty tricks of the patent owners.

(link) [Slashdot]

00:00 /Copywrongs | 0 comments | permanent link

F1: Teams 'may boycott races'

The saga continues...

Teams could boycott next weekend's French Grand Prix if get severe penalties for their role in the Indy fiasco, says Minardi's Paul Stoddart.

(link) [BBC News | News Front Page | World Edition]

00:00 /Home | 0 comments | permanent link

Midsummer, 2005

Ravenswood celebrated Midsummer last night, and I renewed an old acquaintance with the beverage pictured at the left. And now that I've found a local source, this could develop into quite a friendship. Wonderful stuff, indeed!

One of the really very cool things about Heathenry is that it's the only religion that I know of where a beer sampling table is usually set up at gatherings. There's a old joke that a United Methodist must bring a covered dish to get into heaven - we Heathens have to bring a bottle ... or two!

And it was a fine gathering yestereve, to be sure. But I had an even better time than usual, thanks not only to K, but to an email I received about my youngest daughter (Hilary) - from her in-laws!

Hilary moved back to Minnesota last year, an economic migration as much as anything else, but she grew up there, and so it was like going home to some extent for her. She lived with the in-laws for a bit, but is now starting to get it together on her own. She wears the Hammer, and celebrates (when she's able) with Runehof. Here's a bit of the missive that her mother-in-law sent to her dad:

Dave, I just wanted to let you know how proud Ken and I of your daughter. She is working so hard, carrying two jobs. When she is not working she is with the kids. She has never taken for granted the help Ken and I are able to give. If she needs/wants some free time she asks if we are available. We only have the kids overnight Fri - Sun now, when Hilary is working at her night job.

'Tis a father's wish come true - the values I worked so hard to communicate have indeed taken root. This was beyond doubt one of the best missives I've ever received! So my head was already swollen with pride long before the hard cider got to it ...

A Glad Midsummer to All!

00:00 /Asatru | 2 comments | permanent link

Bowled Over No Longer

A big "Thanks!" to Chas Clifton (linked below) for pointing out this wonderful essay. It is indeed a fading memory, and sadly so.

My own first use of tobacco was a pipe, back in the early seventies. It was a contemplative exercise - and yes, I would sometimes smoke other herbs (and inhale) in my pipes. But when I joined the Air Force the time and ceremony required to properly indulge in a pipe (no matter what filled it) disappeared, and my addiction to nicotine truly got going on cigarettes. To quote the essay:

Pipe smoking is going the way of the shaving brush, the straight razor, the fedora, the Freemasons, the liberal Republican.

and that's a real shame...

It smelled like cherry or chocolate or chestnuts roasting on an open fire. Or leaves burning in the back yard in those long-ago autumns when you were still allowed to burn leaves in the back yard. In those days, pipe smoke was a man's signature scent. It was the incense in the Church of Dad, a burnt offering to the god of domesticated masculinity, a symbol of benevolent paternalism.

(link) [Washington Post]

via Letter from Hardscrabble Creek

00:00 /Home | 0 comments | permanent link

Beef scare tests US on cow-feed policies

Maybe the USDA doesn't understand the food chain. Or the fact that prion disease is caused by malformed proteins, not a virus, bacteria or fungus. But the loopholes in current regulations to stop BSE before it starts are glaring:

"The use of rendered cattle remains is allowed in feed for hogs and poultry, and in turn, hog and poultry remains can be put back into cattle feed," Ms. Hauter says. "All of these loopholes provide pathways for cattle to eat potentially infective tissue from other cattle and create the potential for the disease to spread."

Doh! Ya think? By the gods, I wish our bureaucrats in charge of agricultural policy had the brains of a non-mad cow!

The federal government insists that American beef is safe, but doubts linger among importing nations.

(link) [Christian Science Monitor | Top Stories]

00:00 /Agriculture | 0 comments | permanent link