If You Can't Beat Them, Sue Them

Yesterday Nokia filed yet another patent complaint against Apple, proving (yet again) that patent infringement suits are the last refuge of the incompetent tech companies.  Thank you, Nokia, for your homage to Isaac Asimov.

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Glub Glub Glub

When a ship sinks the people who remain on board are the ones who are afraid of the water.  Ironically the fate they face is drowning.

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A Sense Of Direction

Headwind is a wind that blows against you regardless of the direction in which you're heading. It is an atmospheric phenomenon which forms when you try to run outdoors.

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The Closer We Get The Further Apart I Become

Up until a few dozen years ago traveling globally involved a lengthy and often dangerous journey. Communication schemes were not too advanced either. Consequently people's lives (family, friends, work) tended to be localized to a confined geographical area.

This is far from being the case today. You hop onto an airplane and after a couple of movies and a few peanuts you find yourself on another continent; you lift the phone and speak to your family, wherever you are; you email jokes to your friends who receive them instantly. People can relocate easily, visit each other relatively often, and stay in touch on a daily basis. My close family is roughly 8,500 miles away. My girlfriend is closer, "only" ~3,000 miles away.

Technology may work towards consolidating humanity, but has the side effect of fragmenting our individual lives.

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Efficiency

We can safely shrink the beta phase of any software release down to a single day. All the problems get discovered during the last day anyway.

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The Upper Class

Is it just me or are member fields of objects just glorified global variables?

It is said that George Bernard Shaw once offered an attractive woman 1,000,000 pounds for sleeping with him. "My goodness, Well, I'd certainly think about it", said that lady. "Would you sleep with me for a pound?" he then asked, to which the lady responded by "Certainly not! What kind of woman do you think I am?!". "Madam, we've already established that", said Shaw, "Now we are haggling about the price."

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Copernicus, Where Art Thou?

Being a national parks fan I tuned to PBS this evening to watch the first episode of Ken Burns' The National Parks: America's Best Idea. The preamble featured beautiful images from various national parks accompanied by a narrator explaining that the parks contain the "highest peak in the continent", the "oldest living thing", "the tallest tree", "the highest free waterfall in the continent", etc.

Interestingly enough the marshlands around the bay area have not been designated as a national park. Nor did that meadow in Massachusetts where I was eaten alive by mosquitoes, that thorny field nearby, or that boring hill by which we drove in Montana.

Indeed, even the national parks are not about preserving the environment. They are about preserving some environments --- those which awe mankind.

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