"The best way to get a bad law repealed is to enforce it strictly."
-- Abraham Lincoln

"But they occupy the same space."
      -- Steven Wright.

Nope, it didn't work 50 years ago either.

I'm a toymaker, and I had what I thought was a novel idea for a toy windmill. I had no intentions of patenting anything, but searched the patent database to make sure I wasn't infringing on anyone else. Sure enough, there was an application dated 2007, and an actual patent from another person dated 2005. I put my project away for a year, but on hearing that the patent office doesn't really check for prior art, I decided to do it myself.

I found more patents for virtually identical mechanisms, right down to specific gear ratios, dated 1986, 1933, 1915 and 1890. It gets better. Cornell university has a working model of the thing, made in 1827. I don't see how using a chain drive vs. mesh gears vs. push rods, or using six vanes instead of four vanes makes it a different invention. All these machines do exactly the same thing, and all are patented as windmills or machines used to convert a moving fluid to energy.

The system has always been broken. It's just more visible and more abused now.

I'd offer references, but my records are in the other office. (sorry).

My toys can be seen at www.RLT.com

Hey folks, we can't afford to watch TV anymore. Seriously, think about what would have happened if Thomas Jefferson, Isaac Newton, Albert Einstein, et al, spent their evenings vegging out to a boob tube. We've got some serious problems to solve! Global Warming, The end of fossil fuels, the looming threat of water shortages, population pressures.... Who's going to solve these problems if we're all catching up on The Amazing Race to Wast the most Time? Come on! If you can't do the chemical engineering, or nano-technology, you can at least help the kids get interested. How about improving education? Getting politically active? Raising public awareness? Not sure if the problems are real? Then put a bullet in your TV and go do some real research. Give yourself an education before you put on the apathy hat.

The house is on fire, are we just gonna sit around and watch it burn?

Google TV is an evil thing. Truly.

Yeah, I didn't expect my position to be popular, and I'm not saying Neil was a bum either. But he had a higher calling, and he rejected it to wallow around in his own humility.

Sure, as a teacher he was an inspiration to one classroom. But as how many more engineers and scientists and manned missions to the moon would we have had if Neil had allowed himself to become the celebrity we all wanted him to be?

How many kids went around wearing one silver glove and "moonwalking" instead of flying model rockets and learning about the planets?

How many kids would be wearing one silver glove and moonwalking if Michael Jackson had quit the Jackson Five to teach a choreography class somewhere?

Neil was the first person ever to step foot on a non-Earth ground. That's what it's all about. Second place is always a shadow of the first, and third barely counts at all. Neil had the ball, and he put it in his locker and went home.

Bad boo-boo waddy.

Neil Armstrong. What a disappointment he was. The first man on the moon, came back and disappeared into virtual anonymity.

How much farther would the space program be now if "don't bother me" Neil had instead stepped up to become the real celebrity he could easily have been? What if he had gone on to build and support his already dedicated fan-base, inspire and fascinate the kids and the public at large, making it easier for the politicians to actually fund space exploration and research?

But no, Neil dropped the ball. He SCREWED THE POOCH on the space program and left a vacuum in the celebrity-sphere that the public needs and wants to look up to and idolize. Who filled that space instead? Michael Jackson?

Neil. It's too late. You let us down. This policy is just as much your fault as Obama's. Neigh, more so. Go back to your little cottage and wallow in your privacy. You had a job to do and you didn't do it. You're fired from being my hero.

Here's a great book by a guy who actually had the cochlear implant and wrote about the experience -

Rebuilt: My Journey Back to the Hearing World, by Michael Chorost

It's a great read and made me a little envious of people who can turn-off their hearing at will.

I have first hand experience with this. I used to employ two skilled carpenters to cut wood all day long. For the cost of one year's salary for those guys, I bought an automated CNC machine that does everything they did, and more, and has been running virtually non-stop for a solid three years.

Sounds awful when I stop there. So then what happened...

My product's quality, consistency and reliability shot up dramatically, Tolerances went from 1/4" to 0.005". My customers noticed, and then my sales shot up too. So my employee count went up to handle the new order volume. I have employees doing jobs that didn't exist when I started this business ten years ago. And now my employees get to work in an air conditioned office and don't have to worry about cutting their fingers off with a table saw either.

So, because technology killed two jobs, I'm better off, my customers are better off, and I was able to hire more employees who are also better off.

When a textile worker was complaining about his job going to China (in the news last year), an astute interviewer asked him "Do you want your kids to grow up to work in this same sweaty factory, breathing this lint filled air?" Of course, the answer was "No.", so then, why not let the job go to China, and teach your kids to embrace the innovation and change that will be so inevitable in his lifetime? That's the value of Science Fiction in my opinion. Once a kid gets his head around it, he understands intrinsically that that "different" is natural, and change is normal. He has to change his world-view to get into the story, for most of the stories he reads. That's good practice for living in any future, especially your own.

I grew up on a steady diet of science fiction. I'm 50 years old now, and I've changed careers in every one of my adult decades. It has always been a good thing for me too. Follow-up studies consistently show that 95% of workers who are laid off get better jobs at higher pay within two years of being laid off.

By the way, here's how the economy really works -- It's not "supply and demand" as the old school used to teach, it's really all about production and consumption, which is subtly different, but in a very important way. A healthy economy is driven by production. Production is driven by consumption. Consumption is driven by innovation (think iPhone, Blu-Ray, etc.), and innovation is driven by education and imagination. If you want a healthy economy, invest in education and support the arts. Give a kid a Kindle stuffed with a thousand books (there are literally thousands of free and nearly-free books for the kindle on Amazon, including the HG Wells collection for $0.99, etc...)

Actually, English has exactly 7 vowel letters. I learned this in first grade, why didn't everyone else?
A, E, I, O, U, sometimes Y, and sometimes W.

For example, Crwth, and Cwm. Look them up!

The same effect, via trebuchet.

Somewhere deep in the California desert, at a super secret test site.....

  http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6sMIO15gCQI

C'mon, don't stop when you're already halfway there...

it is not = it's not = it isn't = it'sn't = i'n't (from the lazy tongue axiom)

therefore, "and it is not" = a'i'n't
simplifying, a'i'n't = "aint"

And so, "She aint pretty" is incorrect (She and is not pretty!).
The correct usage is "Aint she pretty" (And is she not pretty?).

QED.

Aw geez. Looks like I've struck a nerve.

Professionalism? You're right, I admit it, I'm a hack. And my lack of credentials is exactly my point. In television, visibility equals credibility, regardless of actual expertise. I can say that because, at one time, I had a career in television and film production. Trust me, I know how the medium works. I have friends who work on "respectable" shows like Nova and the BBC documentaries, you know, David Attenborough's old gang. Same story there. Truly.

"Arrogant little man"? C'mon, is that really necessary? Do you really want to defend television as an educational medium? Where did you go to school?

Here's some more inside information about the medium:
The secret to successful drama and comedy is simple conflict (easy to understand), and characters that people would like to have as friends.

The secret to successful documentaries *and game shows* is to make the audience *feel* as smart, or smarter than the people they're watching. It's all a big psych job.

I dunno about you, but I got a whole lot more out of the book than I ever did from the movie. I stand by my original statement. If you really want to learn something, read the book. If you want to be entertained, watch TV.

And for those people too lazy to read a book, I've found that by the next day, they've forgotten everything in the TV show anyway. It's really amusing and disgusting at the same time. One of my shows will come on, and the next day someone will stop me - "Hey! I saw your show!" then they proceed to retell the whole thing back to me, and they never, ever get it right. Usually, not even close.

Insult me all you wish. I'm made of tougher stuff than you know. And I won't respond again.

(P.S., the Gore Vidal quote was a joke, silly. And the girls I date would know that. And yes, I do mean girls, with an s, little man.)

And what makes you think I earn any part of my living from documentaries? Obviously, you've never worked for a documentary. There's no money in them. I do them because, as Gore Vidal said: "Never pass up an opportunity for sex or to be on TV."

Seriously, go read the book - The Elegant Universe, then watch the video again. You'll see the difference.

Good luck!

Yo,

If you watch science/discover/history channels, I hate to break it to you, but there ain't no educational purpose to any of those shows. I know, because I've been cast as an "expert" on no less than eight of them. It's all about entertainment baby.

Want to really learn something, shut off the TV and read a book. Geez, for the price of cable TV these days, you can buy a new book every 3 days or so.

But if you want to be entertained with the illusion that you're learning something factual, when it's often just as made-up and sensationalized as any other made-for-tv drama, then carry on.

No matter what your profession, it seems that working with the hands improves anyone's problem solving skills. Boeing and NASA are now requiring R&D personnel to have experience working with the hands, no matter how strong their academic record is.

Watch this video - http://www.ted.com/index.php/talks/stuart_brown_says_play_is_more_than_fun_it_s_vital.html
(20 minutes)

The research linking the hand to brain development is found in the book - The Hand: How Its Use Shapes the Brain, Language, and Human Culture. By Frank R. Wilson.

Here's another article about handiwork and education (left sidebar - Why should a kid build a catapult) http://www.catapultkits.com/

In my work I regularly get feedback from teachers who say that nothing has inspired their kids to *want* to study math and physics more than the catapult project they did.

Considering the daunting issues we face as a culture, with Global Warming and the problems with fossil fuels, we need more and better problem solvers in the world than ever before.

If it was up to me, shop class would be mandatory in every high-school, and it's curriculum would be coordinated with the physics and math courses too.