metalpeter - 07/12/11 17:21
Well then that would be better then plastic unless you recycled but about the same as paper.... Some dishes though are made to eat the one example I can think is taco salad where the bowl is the taco or what ever but not sure why a good bowl that can be eaten if they went in this route couldn't be used?

tinypliny - 07/11/11 19:29
that is a crazy story about the noise making bag... quite unbelievable.

tinypliny - 07/11/11 19:28
(e:metalpeter), you don't eat the cup made of leaves ever. You just throw them away. They degrade naturally. Also, if they are dried tough leaves, they are a lot more durable than you'd think. Take a look: :::link::: :::link::: :::link::: :::link::: :::link::: :::link::: :::link:::

metalpeter - 07/11/11 17:45
I think all they could really do is have a 3 bin system
1. Food
2. Paper
3. Plastic

But don't know how practical that would be with it being a festival and having to haul the stuff out and people throwing stuff out and wanting more food.........

Sorry Tiny but I don't think that cup idea would go over to well...That would be one more thing every place would have to make they would have to make it in each size and then you would have to make enough but not to many so that they don't go to waste or you don't run out during the event..... Also If say like I did you just ate boneless wings would you really feel like eating the cup?

But see this reminds me of something I learned that we can all learn from on an episode of Bill Maher...... Sun Chips came out with a bag that was made of stuff that would break down after you ate the chips... Now this story made the news as being a great thing and it was... Not sure if the bag was eatable or not... But you know why they stopped making them.... The Bag was to loud! Yes the bag that crumpled made to much noise.... Well that is Americans for ya!

tinypliny - 08/15/11 14:16
If you can't beat 'em, join 'em?

You are right though. The very nature of reform is lengthy and maybe the sue-war won't wait till then. What would be interesting is to see how many overlapping "re-worded" patents the morons at the patent office have granted motorola mobility. So the sue-war will go something like, "Oh, you have a patent for laying cables? We have a patent for securing them with hooks and to poles."

The whole thing is disgustingly like liliputians fighting over which side of the egg to crack. I am convinced that it's the patent office and laws that need reform. It's far too difficult to stop big corporations from turf-warring over profitable business strategies.

jim - 08/15/11 13:39
I'd really hoped that they'd push for patent reform instead... but they decided to play the game. Probably didn't have any choice, actual patent reform via legislation or courts would take a decade.

jim - 08/15/11 13:38
Google just bought Motorola Mobility and its 25,000 patents (granted or pending). It should be squared away for mutually assured destruction like the its other big corporate peers.

tinypliny - 08/04/11 02:57
Another example: "Laying cables". Nortel had a patent for this. Laying cables.

This kind of patenting DEFIES common sense. Either they bribed venal patent officers or the patent officers were sloshes, high on something or just plainly brain dead.

tinypliny - 08/04/11 02:54
Consider this: " OPTICAL FIBRE CABLE HAVING SLOTTED CORE "

WHAT?! Who in their right minds would even assign a patent to such a thing?! That's like giving a patent to the design of a "circular wheel". I squarely blame the IDIOTS at the patent office. What a bunch of incompetent, moronic characters.

tinypliny - 08/04/11 02:50
This is the Nortel portfolio that M$hit and Crapple are acquiring: :::link:::

tinypliny - 07/17/11 13:21
Interesting little (well, not so little now) discussion over this greedy M$-mess: :::link::: Notice how the academics are defending Android and the trolls are trolling for M$. Hilarious.

tinypliny - 07/10/11 08:47
From Groklaw: :::link:::

If that doesn't scare us all, I don't know what will. Google doesn't charge you an arm and a leg for giving you innovative products. Most of their products are FREE. I am sure no one needs to be reminded of how much apple's products cost. If you are not receiving proper customer support at that expense, then something is seriously wrong. You can compare google and apple's customer support all you want but the fact remains that the comparison is not on a level playing field.

leetee - 07/09/11 22:51
I think (e:jim) is spot on in his analysis of Google and Apple in terms of the end user. As is his suggestion of checking out groklaw.

metalpeter - 07/09/11 20:34
Two Things to Think about
1. Now this first one may be wrong since my kid memories are shottie at best but we looked up numbers and I think it went from trillion to A Google and it was a 1 with a million zeros after it and a Googleplex was a 1 with a google zero's after it.... Now numbers are made up and agreed on well what if whom ever said wait these numbers aren't big enough lets come up with some bigger names would have protected that idea they could sue Google.... Who names something after a number .... It is like naming a football team 12 now a porno that might make sense HA

2. Blu-Ray is a perfect example of why all this patent stuff is a bad idea....

Sony came out with a Disc that could hold more data but you needed a new player for it.... When they first came out players only played blu ray discs and not only that but they where the only company that made the players.... At first you think Mega Profit but I don't know about that.... What would sony movies do would they only make the movies in blu ray so people who want to see those movies have to buy this new $$$ disc and Player? What about other movie companies why come out with some special format just for sony? What about people who love sony and then it doesn't work out and the format dies.... Well sony got smart and let at least one other company I forget whom make them or maybe they called up sony not sure.... In any event it worked out great... You can buy DVD, Blu Ray, and even 3D players now.... you can get all the formats well 3D is still limited since you need a 3D TV and the glasses and all that... but now most high end movies or some at least that are blu-Ray come with a regular copy.... Genius!


Now I get that if one company invents something they put the money in and so they don't want someone else taking what they did with out having to pay for the work that was put in.....

But the problem with that is lets say company A comes up with something..... Well then only there company has it (think a phone) is some social network going to support it for only one company.... But the worse part is that what will happen is (again think phone or computer here) Is every company will come up with there own stuff and everyone's stuff will work differently and if you go from one thing to another you will have no idea what you can do or how to do it.... And at some point even the tech savy people will stop buying.....

In other words they need to just work it out....

tinypliny - 07/09/11 19:21
I don't know what we were thinking when we thought up the idea of patents in science.

I was talking with (e:Paul) yesterday about how, FINALLY, the downright evil patent on the sequence of a mutated fragment of all of our DNAs (the BrCa mutated gene) was finally thrown out of court in NYC and after more than a decade of loathsome money-making by a company called Myriad. :::link::: :::link::: I think the case is still pending before a federal court. In my mind there is no contest and it shocks me that some judge somewhere thinks that such ridiculous patents are legitimate.

tinypliny - 07/09/11 19:06
It's interesting that you point out the shortcomings of Google in the field of customer service and make a case about why another corporation shouldn't be weighed any differently because well.. it has a slightly better record doing good and helping the opensource movement along. Both are perspectives that balance my acrid post above. thanks. :)

To throw a couple more thoughts into the mix, Google never started out as a personal relationship company like say, Apple or Microsoft. It's user and customer base was largely companies (big and small) and even bigger corporations. So now, when it finds itself progressively more involved directly or indirectly in more personal relationships with individuals via it's free/funded/paid-for services, it's non-updated corporate-geared customer service feels... a little cold.

I think Google's solution to this shortcoming has been to recruit vendors to address this problem. If you bought a chromebook then your customer service would mainly be based on the brand of hardware and not on the software - Chrome OS. To an apple customer, this feels odd because apple is the hardware and the software vendor. They designed it that way right from the beginning. To a windows user, this feels like familiar territory. At the mercy of hardware vendors but in a prison of software that is not only appallingly bad but also completely vulnerable to the most destructive viruses, more often than not.

The difference, however, is there is constant development on the software end both by Google and by the community because the software vendor explicitly supports opensource policies and encourages development by funding community involvement (eg. google funded opensource coding and google summer of code projects). To a large extent this is a better deal because the customer (hopefully) can select a reliable hardware vendor among a choice of many and can then get software support through multiple avenues (not limited to one company).

The drawback of this diffused support model is exactly that - it's diffused and doesn't feel substantial enough if you have been an apple customer in the past. However, solutions are more forthcoming and in general, more accessible than a comparable apple or microsoft system where things could be a bit of a black box. The focus is not on being apple's, just-close-your-eyes-and-we will-manage-everything (even-if-we-don't-we-are-the-best) or even the completely opposite M$'s this-is-your-problem-we-aren't-responsible. It's somewhere in between with a good dose of why-don't-you-think-a-bit-more-and-get-involved thrown in. So it ends up being not very satisfactory but not stifling and overtly presumptuous either.

That is probably the biggest shortcoming of Google now. The second point about how Google doesn't deserve any more sympathy than the rest of them is true. They are all corporations and by definition, are set up to make money, some in kinder and less abrasive ways than others.

If I think about why I am so riled up, it's not just because I feel Google is a relatively good samaritan here (may not be true) but because I feel that how we deal with our technology is being limited, injured and fractured by these ridiculous money-oriented wars that focus resources on litigation instead of making the user experience better for a majority of us who are ready to get more involved with our software (read: linux developers and other folks who support the opensource movement). It's hard to put up a fair fight when two of the richest corporations on the planet are actively trying to crush you out. It's hard to enjoy freedom when the Damocles sword of legal threats hang constantly over your head.

jim - 07/09/11 18:04
correction: landmine patents (not landline)

jim - 07/09/11 17:27
On a personal note, I've worked at small companies that have had giants in their fields, with patents back to the mid-90's on really generic stuff, like "Managing a Classroom (via the internet)" or "Schedule a Test (via the internet)", completely crappy 'business-process' type of stuff with just 'on the internet' tacked to the end, that have used those patents to wipe out competitors.

My own company, non-profit CRM stuff, I'm sure there are tons of landline patents out there for me to stumble across. The biggest company in that field has a history of suing companies that get big for patent infringement, and then making lowball offers to buy out and close the company. Really shady stuff.

That's the true abusive type of patent lawsuit, threatening to take out a whole company via a 7 year legal fight for a huge amount of penalty. The legal case fees alone are the killers.

These smart phone patent lawsuits seek a royalty rate per phone, are relatively business-friendly and survivable. Still abhorrent in my eyes, but until I see it actually being enough to take down a competitor altogether versus obtaining a royalty rate, I won't care too much. It's just like background noise for American businesses. Sucks but you suck it up and move on.

Lobbying congress would be more effective than boycotting Apple and MS, to be honest.

Groklaw has a lot of background on various patent cases: :::link:::

jim - 07/09/11 17:17
There're a lot of patent lawsuits between all these big companies. The big boys fight dirty. It's not just MS and Apple, both of those companies are being sued by other companies for patent infringement also. Does that mean they're downtrodden and we should support them, too, because someone is trying to stop them from innovating?

I'm completely against software patents, but if we didn't do business with companies who hold and use software patents, we'd be back in the stone age.

Google basically knows that it can't defend itself or its vendors against all these patent suits (there are a thousands of patents over everything from the small stuff to the big stuff), that's why it's refusing to help or support its vendors who get sued. All Android vendors know that they're explicitly on their own to manage IP issues. Google does not back them up on anything, or claim that Android does not violate existing patents.

I like Google, but I buy my tech from Apple because I'm clearly Apple's customer. Using Google services, sure you're the user, but you're also Google's product. Google sells you to its advertisers. (I don't mean that in an overly dramatic way, it's just what you can tell from their balance sheet.)

So given the opportunity to have a direct relationship with a company meeting my needs, versus one with a company who has a slightly better software patent record but who has no direct incentive to do right by me, I'll choose the former. Google has awful customer service, for example.

Google is "open" to the exact extent that a particular field doesn't interfere with its cash flows. It's a corporation like any other, with good points and bad points. It does not deserve an excess of sympathy, in my eyes.

And again, to be clear, I think software patents should be illegal, they do nothing to encourage innovation.

tinypliny - 07/09/11 12:13
I say, patent that idea right now! ;-)

paul - 07/09/11 11:52
I am not saying it was internet access on a mobile. I just wouldn't be surprised if it was that generic.

On three other hand if that patent was from the 80a the idea would be pretty radical. Just wait till someone patents accessing the internet from your mind and we are all stuck with that brand of implants.

heidi - 07/09/11 11:44
Courts are supposed to be transparent but M$ might have gotten an order to keep the proceedings and/or filings closed to avoid exposing "trade secrets". There's of course a database of patents but no single db of patent lawsuits as they happen - decisions get recorded in LexisNexis and Westlaw (and maybe on a public website depending on the jurisdiction) after the decision is made and the harm to the field is done. Lawyers who make patent decisions at the USPTO have passed a special patent bar exam and are generally subject matter experts. M$ has a history of anti-competitive behavior (remember the monopoly lawsuits over IE?). I don't know anything about intellectual property law.

tinypliny - 07/09/11 11:15
Is there a public website of patents and lawsuits that people can check out. Courts and processes are meant to be transparent, are they not? (e:heidi), do you know of any resources we can use to find out and spill the beans here on (e:strip) and make it eminently google-able?

tinypliny - 07/09/11 11:12
And yes, specifics would be awesome. This paragraph from that OS News article:

" First, go after the small fish who don't have the funds to fight Microsoft in court (Wistron, Velocity Micro, Itronix) or those already embroiled in a large patent lawsuit with Microsoft's partner in this endeavour, Apple (HTC). The key here is not to actually divulge to the public which patents these guys are supposedly infringing, because that way, the public and other companies can't help in invalidating them."

is most intriguing. If the people knew they can build a case for themselves and launch public interest litigations.

tinypliny - 07/09/11 11:09
"Using mobile phones to access the internet". Seriously?! WHO in their right minds would even GRANT a patent like that. I think JDs who deal with field-specific patenting should be REQUIRED to have knowledge and certification about the field they are giving patents for.

paul - 07/09/11 11:00
Nice article. What I want to see is an enumerated list of what exactly Google is infringing on. I can't seem to find those details anywhere. Each article I found only states how much they are paying and to who but nothing about what exactly they are copying.

I bet its really generic stuff like using a mobile phone to access the internet.

Very generic software patents are so lame.

metalpeter - 07/08/11 19:54
liking the wok that looks pretty cool....If I only cooked

tinypliny - 07/10/11 22:02
I am getting the wok. Hope it's not an accumulation mistake.... Is it? Do I really need it?!

tinypliny - 07/08/11 17:55
Ah! the ring. No this is a flat-bottomed wok especially designed to fit wimpy non-gas-run ceramic-top pathetic stoves like mine. The ring stabilizes a round-bottomed traditional wok which is used over the open flame (which embraces all its sides as things are cooked).

The more modern woks used at home don't have the luxury (or rather the fire hazard scenario) of an open flame so they are used with a ring. I think ring or no ring, non-flat bottomed vessels on a flat heating surface are quite inefficient. Always better to go with flatter bottoms when it comes to cookware.

metalpeter - 07/08/11 17:29
question on the wok do you use the metal piece that sits on top of the stove that it sits in (not sure what that does really heat wise)?