Trolling for patents with major corporations

I’m not a fan of the patent system–it’s broken at best–so I always enjoy seeing the ridiculous things that companies patent! American companies are seeking bailout money while laying off US workers. In this tough economic time, perhaps companies should forego filing a patent on how to outsource.

Thinking of buying a car? Neither is anyone else!

There are A LOT of unsold cars worldwide. From the pictures you can understand how every car company, except Subaru, is hurting financially!

Unsold cars, sitting

We are in for a radical shift in the way people buy cars, and the existing excess supply will be worthless. Car companies should drop the unions, sell the backlog off at any price, and embrace the future.

There are a couple great TED talks on the subject:

1. Larry Burns, VP of R&D at GM, talks about the future of cars: sleek, customizable, and powered by hydrogen. Great ideas; let’s see if GM can follow through.
2. Amory Lovins, chairman of the Rocky Mountain Institute, proposes a great plan to reduce our dependency on oil, and in doing so, says that vehicles should be smaller, lighter, and stronger.

I survived PerCom 2009!

This week I attended the IEEE International Conference on Pervasive Computing and Communications in Galveston, TX. I was there to present my paper Opening Pervasive Computing to the Masses Using the SEAP Middleware. If you’re interested, here are the slides I presented at the PerWare workshop Monday morning: seap-sethholloway-perware2009.

The conference itself was a good experience: I received a lot of interesting questions and good feedback. The feedback focuses my future work and will help me become a better presenter. Hubert Pham, a student under Steve Ward at CSAIL, gave a stellar presentation on goal oriented programming. I also met one of Hubert’s co-authors, Justin Mazzola Paluska. Not only are they great researchers, they’re cool guys.

Beyond meeting a couple promising peers, I got to meet Dr. Gregory Abowd–the highlight of the trip. Dr. Abowd is one of my favorite researchers. He gave a very inspirational keynote to open the conference. He is a prince of a man, and I hope to interact with him more in the future.

I was also glad to see Galveston in fair shape. After Hurricane Ike the island was in very bad shape. Although the bulk of the beach is yet to be repaired this spring break the island can host a fair number of tourists. Luckily, there were signs of life outside the plethora of PerCommers.

The Top 100 (Modern) Books

The BBC compiled a list of the 100 most loved books, as voted by Brits. There is a definite slant to modern books; more precisely, books that have been turned into movies. I also found it interested that England’s richest female, JK Rowling, is disproportionately listed (four of the seven Harry Potter series in the top 25). Notably absent from the list is iconic libertarian author Ayn Rand whose book, Atlas Shrugged, is seeing increased sales recently. Rand fled communist Russia and developed a philosophy that almost perfectly counters the opinions on those she feared; Karl Marx wrote plenty that opposes Rand. Marx and Rand are arguably two of the most influential philosophers of the 20th century (not that the 20th century will be known for philosophy), yet neither is represented.

The Time list (compiled by critics) also ignores Rand. The Modern Library has two lists, one from critics and one from users. Their critic list does not have Rand, yet their user list contains four Rand books in the top 10! Continuing to look I found that (perhaps) objectivism is more popular amongst men as Rand appears on the 100 Must-Read Books in the Essential Man’s Library.

I’m really shocked because the dreaded classics appear all over the lists! In several discussions of literature I’ve only met one person who enjoyed the classics; my peers all hated the books we slogged through in high school. That’s not to say the classics are not important, but I do not relate with the baroque period like I do modern times. My favorite writer, Neal Stephenson, does not appear on these lists, although Snow Crash has topped lists of readers’ choice. What’s wrong with these lists? Put on your tin foil hats because I think there’s a conspiracy!

Each list highlights the problems of sampling human subjects, for example: selection bias, poor controls, and privacy concerns among others. In the end, books are entertainment and entertainment is completely subjective. Do what you like and let me do the same.

What do you think of the lists? Is there one that aligns with your tastes? Do you like the classics? What authors or books are missing?