Method of swinging on a swing - Patent 6368227

If ever there was such, here is incontrovertable proof that the Patent system is bent beyond all credibility: Patent #6368227

I claim:

1. A method of swinging on a swing, the method comprising the steps of: a) suspending a seat for supporting a user between only two chains that are hung from a tree branch; b) positioning a user on the seat so that the user is facing a direction perpendicular to the tree branch; c) having the user pull alternately on one chain to induce movement of the user and the swing toward one side, and then on the other chain to induce movement of the user and the swing toward the other side; and d) repeating step c) to create side-to-side swinging motion, relative to the user, that is parallel to the tree branch.

2. The method of claim 1, wherein the method is practiced independently by the user to create the side-to-side motion from an initial dead stop.

3. The method of claim 1, wherein the method further comprises the step of: e) inducing a component of forward and back motion into the swinging motion, resulting in a swinging path that is generally shaped as an oval.

4. The method of claim 3, wherein the magnitude of the component of forward and back motion is less than the component of side-to-side motion.

Licenses are available from the inventor upon request.

via freepatentsonline.com, on a sidebar tip from Rob Brezny

I don't know about you, but my friends and I were doing prior art on this long before not only the birth of now 17 year old 'inventor', but very likely before the birth of either of his parents or his patent lawyer. If the examiners could accept this as intellectual property, what won't they accept?

Spectacular ancient maple

Spectacular ancient maple, originally uploaded by TeledyN.

The schoolyard fenceruns right through it out behind Hillcrest Elementary;
the boys say it may be a Totoro tree.

Famous Last Words

Famous Last Words
Originally uploaded by TeledyN

The only quote of mine left of those that adorned the Toronto transit, and perhaps the last of them to prove false ;)

Yale Scientists Explain Why The Universe CANNOT be 'Intelligent Design'

Ok, I've baited you with that headline, but bear with me a sec. The story goes like this:

???It is a commonplace metaphor that the genome is the operating system of a living organism. We wanted to see if the analogy actually holds up,??? said Mark Gerstein, the Albert L. Williams Professor of Biomedical Informatics; professor of molecular biophysics and biochemistry, and computer science.

Both E coli and the Linux networks are arranged in hierarchies, but with some notable differences in how they achieve operational efficiencies. The molecular networks in the bacteria are arranged in a pyramid... the Linux operating system is organized more like an inverted pyramid because software engineers tend to save money and time.

???But it also means the operating system is more vulnerable to breakdowns because even simple updates to a generic routine can be very disruptive,??? Gerstein said. To compensate, these generic components have to be continually fine-tuned by designers.

???We can do this because we are designing these changes intelligently.???

However. he noted, to an organism like E coli, random mutations would be fatal. That???s why E. coli cannot afford generic components, adding that over billions of years of evolution, such an organization has proven robust, protecting the organism from random damaging mutations.

via Yale Scientists Explain Why Computers Crash But We Don???t

And there you have it: The Universe cannot be the product of Intelligent Design because, by our own definition of the term, if it was 'intelligent' design, all vital functions of the Universe would crash all the time, and thus would never have got off the ground evolutionarily, and therefore could not exist, and since it does exist, it therefore cannot be the product of Engineering.

Q.E.D.

Put another way, I'm reminded of the Tao Te Ching: "Do you think you can take over the universe and improve it?"