Patent Monday

Have you ever thought of punching a hole in a bookmark and tying a piece of decorative yarn to it–then thought, hey, why not add a bead? If so, you are infringing on US Patent D410679, “Bookmark with Beaded Tassel”.

My wife has a kitten bookmark with a bead tied to it. I happened to notice the back was stamped “Patent D410679”, and couldn’t imagine what was actually patented. So I looked it up, and sure enough, someone patented a bookmark.

Specifically, it’s a bookmark with a bead. So I suppose of I tie a little figurine, instead, then I don’t owe royalties.

I love the image of the inventory hunched over a desk, tearing out his hair with tools, yarn, paper, and beads scattered about. He’s wracking his brain trying to come up with an idea before an impending deadline. His wife comes up, gives him a gentle massage, picks up a hole punch and casually suggests, “have you tried this, dear?”

The inventory cautiously punches a hole at the top of a rectangular piece of cardboard, stares at it in disbelief, then shouts, “Eureka!”

Maybe there’s more to the world of bookmarks than I thought. Perhaps the “marker device” industry is just as treacherous as the software industry, with the giants constantly suing each other and buying up all the little guys.

Somebody had to be the first to think of everything we use. As Calvin (of Calvin and Hobbes) pointed out, somebody had to be the first to look at a cow, see the udder, and think, hey, wouldn’t it be something to yank on these things and drink what comes out?

And then there are the things we take for granted, like the little “ON” label on a light switch. Three-way light switches don’t have them, though, because their state depends on the other switch. If only there was some other way to tell if a light switch was turned on–like, maybe, some kind of indication lamp that illuminates when the circuit is closed.

Here are some other ideas that have been claimed (and I can only assume vigorously defended in the courts)

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I’m disappointed to find out that patent #1 wasn’t a time machine.

Vacation

I’m taking a quick “vacation” – and by that I mean, it’s the start of final exam season and I’m managing six classes. In the meantime, let’s start a new feature.

 

Small Updates

Here’s what you may have missed if Nanowrimo, final exams, or both have turned you into a hermit.

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1. My wife, Elizabeth, was featured on Kisa Whipkey’s blog, Nightwolf’s Corner. If you’ve read the acknowledgements page of A Foundation in Wisdom, you may recognize Kisa as the editor. She’s also the senior editor at REUTS publications. Go check out Elizabeth’s article, “How to Judge a Book by Its Cover”!

2. Go check out Kisa’s new serial book, Unmoving. Serial books has been a relatively frequent topic on this blog, and Unmoving sounds like a good read. If you’re a member of DeviantART, Wattpad, Figment, or Authonomy, just add it to your watch-list, or for a one-time $2.99 charge, you can subscribe for a VIP, advance first-look.

3. I’m currently playing with Stencyl; like GameMaker and Construct2, it’s a Flash/App authoring tool. Although intended for 2D games, I’m investigating its potential as an alternate to Bowker’s “Your book as an app” service and Socrative in the classroom. More on that later.

4. I got a digital painting featured on the MyPaint homepage. MyPaint is a great FOSS digital painting tool. I prefer it over GIMP for the painting process – although GIMP still has its place in the final preparations.

5. Nanowrimo has almost come to an end, and there seems to have been a substantial drop in the number of participants. I’ll be interested to see how this year’s stats compare to the previous years.

A Foundation in Wisdom is Now on the Market!

Cover page for A Foundation in Wisdom

A Foundation in Wisdom is now on the market! It is the first of four novels in the An Orthogonal Universe series.

John Bartlebee is a traveling historian. On his way to a seminar, he picks up a hitchhiker who tells outlandish tales about quests for wisdom.

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History repeats itself. This is what I taught, and always believed. Then I met Sheridan, a man hitchhiking down the highway without a care in the world – a lonely figure who told me history, and the world, was ending. His evidence was the story of a mathematician who tried to prove the world didn’t exist.

It was a silly proposition. Nobody can prove the world doesn’t exist. But as I became more convinced Sheridan was right, that the proof lay at the edge of reality, I could only wonder, where would we go?

Check out the { Novel Website }, where you can find out more about the novel, or { find a copy }.