Patents meltdown 

Fascinating article about patents in today's NY Times.

Going to Europe was great for creativity. With much of the UserLand mess settled, I've been having thoughts about doing more products, but then things pop up that remind me that it's not as simple as just creating a product and marketing it, there are always people with their hands out, wanting to take what you created for themselves.

It may be time to just write a book, and smell the roses. To the extent that I come up with product ideas that excite me, just describe them here so someone else can make them. But then articles like this one in the Times come along and make you wonder whether there's any hope for individuals and small companies.

Political tidbits 

Governor Schwarzenegger can't run for President, but what's stopping a Presidential candidate from assuming the epiphany he had when he realized he could succeed as a politician with a very simple formula. Listen to the people, figure out what they want, and then do it. It's taken him from dismal to resounding support in the electorate, and the confidence that only comes with understanding your job, and how your success will be measured.

Which leads me to the "war" in Iraq. The problem is that we bought into the positioning of it as a war. It isn't a war, it's a mess, a debacle, a catastrophe. A war is something where there are two sides, and one wins and the other loses. That's why the President's story about losing or winning is so frustrating. If he wants to play that game, we should pin him down and get him to explain what winning looks like. I know, Iraq becomes an ally in the war on terror, there's the war word again. Of course that isn't a war either.

And where are the Democrats? It seems they could learn from Governor Schwarzenegger, and just do what the electorate wants. If they won't we need to get rid of them too. Imho, we don't use impeachment enough in this country. Ultimately it may be the only way we get the attention of our elected representatives. As strong as our system is, we have a weakness, the mechanisms for recall aren't often used. We must get over that. We should start considering impeachment the day a president takes office until they start taking us seriously. Maybe in 20 or 30 years we can relax. But we've let this go too far. The Democrats see the Constitution as an issue of election cycles. It is so much bigger than that. I don't care which party wins the White House when our basic freedoms are in such peril. Impeach Bush and Cheney now and let's get on with it. Let's send a message to the 20 or so Presidential hopefuls that they should pay close attention to what happened and continues to happen in California. If we don't like what you're doing we're not going to wait until your term is up to get you out of the way. Ultimately, you serve at our pleasure Mr or Ms President, and don't you forget it.

Finally, I think the country may be ready for Al Gore and vice versa. I don't see an announced candidate for either party that will get my vote. They're all deeply in bed with the war industry and/or the media industry. Gore is independently wealthy, and while he's maintained his personal relationships in Washington, it seems he's burned his bridges with the industries that quietly pull the strings of politicians in Washington. We just need a little more evidence of his independence before he gets the endorsement of Scripting News.

Apache question, day 2 

I got a few interesting responses to the question I asked yesterday about file writing to a folder served by Apache on Windows 2000.

The only concrete suggestion came from Don Hopkins, who said that turning off automatic file indexing by the OS would cure the problem. I have my doubts since he implied that in his experience the problem clears after a few seconds. As I reported, in my case, the problem only clears after I restart both pieces of software. But I tried it anyway, no need to index files on the server. The only way I'll know if it worked is if the problem goes away. I'll let you know after I update 20 or 30 times.