Link roundup

1. The LA Times says you shouldn't buy a car this year. You can click through and find out exactly why, but the article's existence is awfully interesting - - the car companies must have stopped buying ads, right?

2. The Nike + GPS running app is currently free at iTunes. Via.

3. I want to get a wifi router for my parents and need something simple and dependable. (It'll be mostly used for a Kindle, Dell laptop, iPhone and Droid.) Any suggestions? (I have a Cisco ValetPlus, which I've been less than thrilled with.)

Link roundup

1. Scratch-built Wheatley (Portal) toy.

2. Pretty disturbing - - beehive that took over a chimney.

3. Sho Murase posted her illustrations from the Star Wars Visions book (which was overall actually a bit of a letdown).

Link roundup

1. 7 Tools to Help You Conquer Your Allergies, including a recommendation of the SinuSense Water Pulsator Sinus Rinse, available at Amazon.

2. And speaking of Amazon, Richard Dawkins's science book for kids, illustrated by Dave McKean, is available for preorder (34% off). Via.

3. And speaking of gadget lists, "This Super Sherpa Climbed Everest 21 Times. Here's His Eco Gadget Bag."

Link roundup

1. "Is the Downfall of Dominique Strauss-Kahn Also the Downfall of the Euro?"

2. Gawker:

In 2009, the Cerdas, a Las Vegas family whose two daughters suffered from immune deficiency disorders, appeared on the reality show Extreme Makeover: Home Edition. Their old, moldy house was torn down, and new one, designed to protect the young girls, was built in its place. But as it turns out, the Cerda girls may not have been sick at all.

Six doctors in Oregon testified that neither Molly, age 10, or Maggie, 8, suffer from an immune deficiency disease. Rather, their mother Terri may suffer from Munchhausen by proxy syndrome, a psychological disorder that leads caregivers to invent or exaggerate health problems in others for attention or sympathy.

3. In a pinch, you can use tinfoil to more easily move heavy furniture.

Link roundup

1. Comment and win a Kindle.

2. How to "Move From Blogger to WordPress Without Losing Google Rank."

3. "Houston Press apologizes for 'hottest sex offenders' list."

Link roundup

1. How to sue telemarketers. (Apparently, they have to give you a written copy of their do not call policy if you ask.)

2. Reddit agrees - - the move women love is the Vulcan neck kiss.

3. "DARPA seeks help for interstellar starship."

*Buy NASA patches at eBay.

Link roundup

1. Funny Portal 2 animated gif. And speaking of, it would be cool if Valve made a POTaTOS kit that attached to a typical Mr. Potato Head.

2. How to set up a green screen photo studio for $100. Via.

3. Gallery of beer league hockey jerseys.

*Buy vintage cameras at eBay.

Link roundup

1. TomTom sold user data to the police, who then used it to expertly place speed traps. Via.

2. RPS takes a long look at The Old Republic:

And this level of story exceeds anything I’ve seen in an MMO. There’s currently nothing else that comes close, with perhaps only The Secret World as a rival for such a narrative-focused approach. Simply the fact that my character pretended to be someone else – Blade, she went by – for such a protracted period, was novel to the point of gripping me. And within that, as I lied and tricked the various residents of this Hutta enclave, I was able to betray at my leisure. I could come out of that situation – a good day’s worth of play – having decided whose side I was really on.

The other thing to note here is that I was playing alone. And there was little impetus to team up with anyone. The story, in fact, encouraged me to be soloing this. This happens to be exactly how I want to play MMOs, so I was delighted. But those who are all about guilds and the like will have to get through some significant sections before they’ll get their way. That’s not to say that you can’t team up, because you absolutely can. Certain areas will be blocked off to someone who’s not the same class as you, and some quests are specific to you, but it’s more the lack of narrative sense that put me off wanting a buddy.

In fact, at the point where you really do need someone else to help you battle through, the game gives you an NPC companion.

3. Lifehacker's guide to setting up an online store.

*Buy Darth Revan toys at eBay.

Link roundup

1. St. John's new prize basketball recruit is named God's Gift Achiuwa.

2. A detailed, lengthy analysis of the wisdom of building a Death Star and actually using it to destroy a planet. For example:

So, the Emperor and Tarkin focus on making one really huge, high-impact investment: The Death Star. They throw in Alderaan as part of that investment. This doomsday weapon will supposedly free up their resources to spend less on administration, personnel and infrastructure, and continue to function without a Senate. It seems like a big investment until you realize how much they save by not actually having a functioning government.

This is an attractive option even today, as politicians look to pay for tax cuts and handouts to core constituencies by laying off or cutting salaries and benefits for bureaucrats and government workers, as well as by skimping on infrastructure.

The problem, of course, is that it doesn’t work. The underpaid, undermotivated, poorly managed stormtroopers can’t even track down the Empire’s most wanted fugitive androids in an extremely sparsely populated area where they have undisputed control. If Tatooine still had meaningful senatorial representation and local government, Luke never would have gotten off the planet. Whole systems just break away and form not just a resistance, but a giant frickin’ fleet of spaceships that destroy not one, but two death stars. The failure of leadership is so total and complete that Tarkin is killed in his own fortress and the Emperor is murdered in his own office by his own right-hand man.

3. Guide to utilizing Chrome, including various useful extensions.

Link roundup

1. One particular person was caught posing as various people in Reddit's Ask Me Anything feature (including a blind guy, a deaf girl, a pickpocket, and a mean high school cheerleader).

2. Move over grade inflation, here's course name inflation:

the content of these courses is not as high-achieving as their names — the course-title equivalent of grade inflation. Algebra II is sometimes just Algebra I. And College Preparatory Biology can be just Biology.

3. "4 Great Ways to Convert Partial RSS Feed To Full RSS Feed."

Link roundup

1. Hilarious photo of kids learning about the wonders of the human reproduction.

2. A Baltimore Sun photographer accepted a buyout, started a blog, and then more or less destroyed the industry for professional photographers:

By teaching a horde of novices the skills necessary to shoot photographs of a quality that was until very recently only within the grasp of an elite few, Hobby has played a significant role in the transformation of the profession. In the last few years, the market rate for many types of professional photographs has dropped by as much as 99 percent.

3. "A special mask that produces sights and smells fooled study participants into thinking they were eating a cookie they weren't."

*Buy vintage cameras at eBay.

Link roundup

1. "Turn a Webcam into a Security Camera with Email Notifications."

2. Pro Football Talk says that Tiki Barber's agent is claiming that he knew almost immediately that Tiki's broadcasting career was going to fail, and tried to convince him to promptly rejoin the NFL.

3. Interesting comic book legend this week - - "DC forced Siegel and Shuster to 'prettify' Lois Lane in the early 1940s." Part of the memo instructed the artist, "She looks pregnant. Murray [presumably Murray Boltinoff, longtime DC staffer - BC] suggests that you arrange for her to have an abortion or the baby and get it over with so that her figure can return to something a little more like the tasty dish she is supposed to be."

Link roundup

1. Sounds like Reddit's screenwriting forum is a great place to learn and get critiqued.

2. Frank Frazetta was apparently a cover model for books in The Man From S.T.U.D. series, which you can find at eBay. (Specific titles include, "Rape is a No-No," and "The Solid Gold Screw.") Via.

3. An interesting dilemma -- what's more important: Does Obama honor his pre-election pledge and acknowledge the Armenian genocide? Or does he renege so that he can avoid infuriating Turkey and rely on Turkey's help in preventing current killings?

Link roundup

1. Lifehacker recommends Super Google Reader for converting partial RSS feeds into full feeds.

2. Long interview with toy designers/customizers The Beast Brothers. They used to customize their M.A.S.K and TMNT toys as kids.

3. "Meatcraft: A Real World Minecraft Art Gallery." Via.

How to make YouTube videos fill up the browser (also, my last Portal-centric post) (I think)

1. I've been trying to figure out how to do this for an embarrassingly long time - - to make a Youtube video fill up your browser window (but NOT go fullscreen), modify the URL to include the modified url "watch_popup". So, instead of this typical url:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=43CL70JT4bY&p=74F4EBC14E0CABEA

Type in this:

http://www.youtube.com/watch_popup?v=43CL70JT4bY&p=74F4EBC14E0CABEA

Read no further if you're suffering Portal fatigue and/or want to avoid Portal spoilers.

2. I used this newfound tool to make a few widescreen wallpaper-sized screengrabs of GLaDOS, Wheatley, and the turrets:







3. Speaking of Portal, go here to download a simple companion cube paper toy.

4. And if you think the puzzles are just too tough, you can watch a full playthrough of the single and multiplayer campaigns in HD here.

5. Finally, here's a wiki devoted to Portal 2 easter eggs.

Link roundup

1. M. S. Corley needs ideas for something to draw, and will send the art to whoever comes up with the best idea.

2. Joke contest at Reddit. (Strong language, offensive, etc.) There was also a thread about kid friendly jokes last month.

3. Comment and win an art print.

Stanley FuBar Utility Bar Not Fubar According to U.S. Federal Circuit

This time it is not about Crocs, but the plaintiff is fubar. The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit issued an opinion yesterday March 9, 2010, in Richardson v. Stanley Works, Inc., upholding a lower court's decision that Stanley's FuBar tools do not infringe a design patent for a combination hammer-crowbar-stud climbing tool. The design patent is U.S. D507,167 for a Stepclaw tool.
Stanley has 5 version of its FuBar tool. The basic FuBar product is illustrated above. (Stanley also obtained U.S. D562,101 for the design, but it is not related to the case.)

Although considering the design as a whole in accordance with Egyptian Goddess, the district court distinguished and separated out those elements of the design that were primarily functional during claim construction of the patent. After discounting the functional elements of the design, the district court analyzed the accused products in view of the ornamental aspects of the claimed design. The district court cited differences in the ornamental designs, and concluded that an ordinary observer would not be deceived into thinking that any of the Stanley FuBar tools were the same as the claimed design.

The Federal Circuit upheld the claim construction, quoting that "[w]here a design contains both functional and non-functional elements, the scope of the claim must be construed in order to identify the non-functional aspects of the design as shown in the patent." See OddzOn Prods., Inc. v. Just Toys, Inc., 122 F.3d 1396, 1456 (Fed. Cir. 1998)(en banc). The Federal Circuit explained that when a design contains both functional and ornamental aspects, the scope of the design patent is limited to the ornamental aspects alone and "does not extend to any functional elements of the claimed article." The Federal Circuit pointed out "several elements that are driven purely by utility" and that "elements such as the handle, the hammer-head, the jaw, and the crowbar are dictated by their functional purpose."

The Federal Circuit also upheld the infringement analysis applied by the district court. Just as applied at the district court, the Federal Circuit considered whether an ordinary observer would be deceived into thinking that any of the Stanley FuBar tool designs were the same as the patented design. The Federal Circuit concluded that, "ignoring the functional elements of the tools, the two designs are indeed different" and that "the overall effect" of the accused products is "significantly different" than the patented design.

While the underlying law set forth by the decision appears sound and infringement may properly have not been found, the decision may cause problems for future cases. The decision uses several different words to describe how functional elements are treated (e.g., "discounting," "separating," "limited," and "ignoring"). Each of these treatments of functional elements may lead to different infringement analyses. Further, when considering the functional elements, the Federal Circuit identifies elements "driven purely by utility" and that are "dictated by their functional purpose," and concludes that these elements are "purely functional elements." And it seems the Federal Circuit treats "element" in the physical sense of a piece of the product, rather than a design feature. As a result no aspect of these functional elements appear to be considered in the infringement analysis, which seems an overly-narrow construction of designs with both functional and non-functional features. While this may not be the intended result, the decision may be interpreted to preclude consideration of non-functional ornamental aspects applied to a functional (useful) physical element, but with a design that is not solely or primarily dictated by function. For example, while a handle may be purely function, the design or ornamentation of a handle seems appropriate to consider. Both the claimed design and the Stanley FuBar tools have handles (driven purely by utility) and that perform the same function, but the handles have different designs. The district court's statement of "discounting" functional elements may be a more appropriate characterization than "ignoring" functional elements. The prior case law of OddzOn does not state that functional elements are ignored, but instead that "the scope of the claim must be construed in order to identify the non-functional aspects of the design as shown in the patent." Thus, rather than identifying and entirely ignore functional elements, a more accurate claim construction may instead seek to identify the non-functional aspects of the design, which may include non-functional aspects of the design applied to a functional element. Under such an analysis, a functional element will only be ignored if the design of the functional element is dictated by function, in which case the design would be functional and appropriate to ignore.

Even discounting (or ignoring) possible different interpretations and applications of the decision, additional cases to construe design case law, such as the Egyptian Goddess decision, are welcome guidance for counseling clients, preparing applications, and litigating design patents. Each provides additional examples for interpretation and application of the prior decisions.