dmorin's Journal: Donald Knuth Dreams

Last night I had a dream that I was in an argument over the coming collapse of computer science. More specifically my argument seems to have been against patents. I was trying to argue that over the last 50 years there was enough open/free computer science out there that Don Knuth was able to write four massive volumes and still not be complete, but these days every little "innovation" that seems like common sense is being stamped with a ridiculous patent. This, in turn, causes small companies to have to work in fear that they might have inadvertantly arrived at the same (obvious) conclusions as somebody else who decided to patent it first, thus risking the company's livelihood once the lawyers get involved.

The really odd part was that I was arguing this over brunch...with Frank from Trading Spaces. What's really, really odd is that he didn't seem to care, and just kept making lesbian jokes. We were filling our plates at the buffet, and I'm pretty sure that Vern, one of the other designers, was already seated at the table.

I couldn't make this stuff up.