Geek Chic

This is a leftover from awhile ago — a blog of photos taken at ‘just the right time.’  There are a bunch there.

Photo from 'Pictures Taken at Just the Right Time'

Enjoy.

via FFFFound

I read an article last week about sleep myths — mainly how our conceptions of our need for sleep are slightly off-base.

The most interesting part of the article (I found) talks about the myth that humans need eight continuous hours of sleep a night.  This is not necessarily the case.  In fact, the author notes that until the Industrial Revolution, Western Europeans actually divided the night into two periods of “First Sleep” and “Second Sleep.”  The article notes that:

They’d go to bed soon after dark, sleep for four hours then wake for an hour or two during which they’d write, pray, smoke, reflect on dreams they’d had, have sex or even visit neighbors. In fact, there’s some evidence to suggest that this sleep pattern may be the one most in tune with our inherent circadian rhythms.

Wild huh?

Read the full article on Newsweek

Wow.  This guy’s photos are amazing.  And according to the artist, none of his photos are photoshopped — all are done using wires, mirrors, scaffolding and brute force.

'Love at the high place 1' by Lei Wei

You can see more of his photos on liweiart.com

And read more about him on VSL and Hemmy.net

via VSL

In honor of Michael Caine’s 75th birthday (belated, I guess — his birthday was in March).

This guy is such a chameleon.

Michael Caine via Best Week Ever

Check out Best Week Ever’s top 13 Michael Caine Pics

It’s a gloomy sunday in New York — the sky’s been threatening to open up all day.

But this pic really perked me up:

Sam Spenser's 'Bloom'

I really wish I understood patent law better, I must say.  But I just read this article and it seems unbelievable to me.  If I gleaned this correctly, a shifting of the Patent Office’s position on what technically qualifies for patents basically invalidates software patents.

Now that I look around, it seems like this has actually been up for debate for quite some time.  Even Wikipedia seems pretty opinionated about the matter.  And I guess there is definitely some debate as to whether software should be protected by patents or by copyright.

Still.  Seems pretty aggressive on the part of the patent office to go after Google.

And this after the nonsense yesterday where one guy (he’s got a company called Anascape, but it’s basically one guy working out of Carson City, Nevada — the sketchiest place on earth) is suing Nintendo over patent infringement on his highly specific patents such as

• Patent 6,208,271 “Remote Controller with Analog Button”
• Patent 6,344,791 “Variable Sensor with Tactile Feedback”

… which seem like they could be applied to pretty much anything!  I mean, a mouse is a remote controller with an analog button! And the guy already won $21 million from Nintendo in ‘damages’.

Long ago I should’ve patented ‘Flat Surface with Texture’ and sued the entire world.

All of that said, I’m all for open source culture.  I think it’s a step in the right direction.  But when it’s the patent office and the courts that are making the decisions, I find they are generally completely ignorant about most things technical.

I’m all for making Google fight harder for their bread.  But only if the Patent Office actually knows what they’re doing.

This is old news by now, but I just thought of it today:

Amazingly precise.

But I must say: some people have way too much time on their hands…