I believe society would be better off if we had a rule whereby nothing would be awarded "Product of the Year" for whatever kind of product they are unless they actually have already been released. This should apply for everything from cars to videogames.
Also, I was a bit surprised to hear about a patent lawsuit filed by Microsoft against Motorola for things related to Android.. but it's hard for me to have too much sympathy for google given that they patented (the relatively obvious combination) MapReduce. Maybe it's stupid to have symapthy for companies to begin with.
People of Pittsburgh, I would appreciate if one of you might give me a ride to/from IKEA (I need to possibly get a new bed cover) this week. Also, if any of you have any of the following things I have loaned out (I wish I remembered to whom), I would appreciate getting them back sometime:
- Jan Svankmajer's Faust
- Yevgeny Zamyatin's We
- Mike Nelson's Death Rat!
- Ibn Khaldun's Muqadimmah (I have given numerous copies of this out to people no longer in Pittsburgh, but I know I loaned at least one copy to someone local)
- Cronenberg's Naked Lunch
- Lars von Trier's Dancer in the Dark
- Max Barry's Jennifer Government
I'm a bit excited about Portal 2 coming out in a few months. It's a little thing, but it's terribly cute to see the animated character demoing game features swing their hands up as they're about to exit a room.
Geert Wilders is on trial. If this case were held in the US, or viewed by typical Americans, the conclusion would be pretty simple. The issues are much more complex by the broad sensibilities of much of the rest of the world.
