via Scripting News - Patent turns playtime into pay time - Tech News - CNET.com

A 7-year-old Minnesota boy has patented a method for swinging side to side, meaning he could conceivably take playmates to court if they try his new trick without permission.

U.S. Patent #6,368,227, issued April 9, describes a method for swinging "in which a user positioned on a standard swing suspended by two chains from a substantially horizontal tree branch induces side-to-side motion by pulling alternately on one chain and then the other."

WTF! The dad and the sone who patented this obviously need to get out more if they think that kids haven't been doing this since time immemorial. I certainly used to swing like this 40 years ago ;-)

The USPTO is clearly off its trolley.

Due to extremely poor sales in the UK (and elsewher in Europe plius Japan) xbox.com || uk announced that the XBOX price has been dropped by 100 quid. But when you read the spin that Microsoft puts on this news you'd believe that this was a charitable act!:

A big Thank You to all Xbox gamers!

If games are the food of life then if you bought your Xbox before 26th April 2002 prepare for a feast! As you may have read Xbox is coming down in price in the UK to a recommended street price of £199. As a big "THANK YOU" to everyone who bought an Xbox before 26th April we are offering, until 1st July 2002, the chance for you to get 2 games and an Xbox Controller for FREE!

Of course this means that MS must be making a loss of about US$200 for every Xbox sold in the UK ;-)

I challenge you to read Ananova - Patient having op... and not burst out loud laughing at this true story!

Bookmark: Marc Liyanage - Software - Mac OS X Packages - PHP

I first became aware of the word "respect" used in the context of Ali G a couple of years ago. I recall a student team for the Crusoe CAD project using animated gifs of Ali G as a backdrop for their website. [I'll need to search this out just to confirm my hazy memory]

Numerous student teams have over the years acknowledged my contribution to their learning with what many of my colleagues would call 'bare-faced cheekiness'. IMHO, I believe that most of this 'cheek' is in fact respect in the Ali G sense. Team Wazzock is a prime example.

OTOH, I may be deluding myself but I find it hard to believe that they would be as 'in my face' as that.

Like previous years', many teams have dreamt up funny (in both senses of the word) names for their teams. I'll share some of these with you when the team projects have been submitted.

My students get my respect for their effort, good grace, and humour in the face of adversity ;-)

Ruminations : Study Guide for Radio.

Tomorrow I'm travelling by train to Linlithgow. The last time I did this I was suffering from sleep deprivation and missed the stop. Hopefully I'll stay awake this time. Just to make sure I'm heading off for an early night ;-)