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What A Concept: Sharing New Inventions With The World Is Good For The InventorOctober 27 2008

Michael Masnick via Techdirt shared by 5 people

If you read the angry comments we get from self-proclaimed "inventors" whenever we write about patents around here, you might get the impression from them that if you can't protect your ideas, there's simply no reason to be an inventor. It looks like Johnny Chung Lee is proving that's simply not true. Lee has made plenty of cool things, some of which have garnered plenty of attention: from his Poor Man's Steadycam to his Wii-based interactive whiteboard. But none of his inventions have garnered as much attention as his YouTube video of his headtracking virtual reality system for the Wii, which became a YouTube sensation:

The New York Times now has an article noting all of the ways that Lee has benefited from being so public in revealing all of his inventions. Rather than struggling to get known, he's well known all over the place. Plenty of companies came calling trying to hire him, leading to a job he wanted at Microsoft. And, even when he's giving his ideas away for free, he's making

Traveling by zip-lineOctober 27 2008

A Googler via The Official Google Blog shared by 25 people

It's no secret that we have fun finding innovative solutions to big problems. Recently, some fellow software engineers and I applied this to a couple of extracurricular activities.

In mid-August, Google moved into a new building in Mountain View, just west of our main campus in Mountain View, CA. Unfortunately, dinner was only available on main campus, just beyond Permanente Creek. Here's a map to help you visualize.

A few people joked about building a zip-line as a shortcut to cross the creek. One Friday afternoon our friend Doug said, "Hey, I just bought a cable to make a zip-line. Want to help?" By Saturday, we had one up and running.


In true Google fashion, we followed the "launch early and iterate" philosophy. The zip-line started with a single pulley traveling a

Ashley Todd pulled hoax hijinks in Ron Paul campaign, tooOctober 27 2008

Xeni Jardin via Boing Boing shared by 7 people

When you're too whacked-out for the Ron Paul campaign, you really do have a problem. Snip from an article about previous victim-hallucination hijinks by Ashley "A Giant Black Man Carved A B Into My Face for Barack" Todd:

In March, Ms. Todd was asked to leave a grass-roots group of Ron Paul supporters in Brazos County, Texas, group leader Dustan Costine said. He said Ms. Todd posed as a supporter of former Arkansas governor and presidential candidate Mike Huckabee and called the local Republican committee seeking information about its campaign strategies.

"She would call the opposing campaign and pretend she was on their campaign to get information," Mr. Costine said last night. "We had to remove her because of the tactics she displayed. After that we had nothing to do with her."

About a month earlier, he said, Ms. Todd sent an e-mail to the Ron Paul group saying her tires were slashed and that campaign paraphernalia had been stolen from her car because she supported Mr. Paul. "She's the type of person who wants to be recognized," Mr. Costine said.

McCain Volunteer Admits to Hoax (Pittsburgh Post-Gazette)

Ted Stevens Found Guilty on All CountsOctober 27 2008

Nate Silver via FiveThirtyEight.com: Electoral Projections Done Right shared by 6 people

Item:

(WASHINGTON) — Alaska Sen. Ted Stevens has been convicted of lying about free home renovations and other gifts he received from a wealthy oil contractor.

The Senate's longest-serving Republican, Stevens was found guilty on all seven counts of making false statements on Senate financial documents.

The verdict throws the upcoming election into disarray. Stevens is fighting off a challenge from Democrat Mark Begich and must now either drop out or continue campaigning as a convicted felon.

The election being thrown into "disarray" is a polite way to put it. Obviously, we'll want to get Ivan Moore or Rasmussen out into the field ASAP. But it's hard to imagine Stevens having more than a snowball's chance in hell of hanging onto his seat. In some ways, the 12 jurors in Washington may have been the first voters of the 2008 election.

Is Your Username Taken? Usernamecheck Will Tell You.October 26 2008

Robin Wauters via TechCrunch shared by 18 people

Most people tend to register the same username when signing up for services, for obvious reasons. Your username is your personal identity and most people don’t need more than one. It’s also easier to remember. But one thing that is becoming increasingly difficult to remember, with so many new Web services sprouting up ever day, is which services you have signed up for exactly.

A recently launched application called Usernamecheck gives you a great overview at which Web 2.0 services your ‘default’ username has already been registered.

In just a couple of minutes, you’ll know just how hung up you have been on trying out every new service on the block, and which one you’ve once signed up for but have long forgotten about. Or, alternately, where your username has already been taken by somebody else.

Usernamecheck currently pings 68 services for the username you want to look up, and lets you know instantly if it is still available or not. According to the counter at the bottom of the homepage, over 110,000 user names have already been checked with the service.

Now if you’ll excuse me, I have some holes to fill.