Packing for OpenSQL Camp 2008… dropping Phoebe off at daycare in the morning, and straight on to the airport. No worries, her mum will pick her up in the afternoon ;-)

Decided on a lightweight approach, handluggage only. Got a little suitcase that satisfies the requirements and actually used it earlier this week for a Melbourne trip…. then realised that I actually have a Tom Bihn professional laptop backpack from about a decade ago, and it’s actually also within the size specifications. Just need to make sure it stays light enough, but the backpack should be lighter than the suitcase.

If you’re coming to OpenSQL Camp too, see you there!

Brisbane Australia – LAX – Washington DC – Charlottesville VA. The flights will be a joy and a pleasure, I’m sure. 26 hours travel time in total (with airport waits included). If I appear incoherent on arrival, please add chocolate + water and I should be ok ;-)

Thank goodness.
Thank you, American voters!

Very very interesting, if this article indeed a true account of what happened and the new situation. Quote:

The US Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit (CAFC) in Washington DC has decided that in the future, instead of automatically granting a patent for a business practice, there will be a specific testing procedure to determine how patentable is that process.

The decision is a nearly complete reversal of the court’s controversial State Street Bank judgement of 1998, which started the stampede for patenting business practices.

Perhaps in that brave new world, startup-wannabees will focus on actually getting something to market? That’d be great!

Update: Australian-based Brendan Scott of Open Source Law has written about this also: Bilski Decision Swacks Business Method Patents (US), with some additional links.

Ideas welcome!

General idea… base: Delta symbol (with thicker line on right hand side – a delta it’s not a regular triangle), plus one or more of the following:

• something depicting deltas: incremental small changes;
• something depicting a river delta: where streams come together before flowing into ocean;
• something depicting community: people working together, participating, communicating.

If you can draw even a little bit, rough scribbles are most welcome! We have a good artist who can turn that into magic. And, you don’t have to go with the above… come up with something else suitable!

See also https://bugs.launchpad.net/ourdelta/+bug/284161 where we’re tracking this; you will find other suggestions from people, including ideas that have been dismissed for visual or other reasons.

Look, this could be hilarous, or dreadful. I haven’t got the book, so I don’t know which – but couldn’t resist writing about it since someone pointed it out to me ;-)

The Manga Guide to Databases [ILLUSTRATED] (Paperback) by Mana Takahashi