Science Fiction gets to GM (WSJ)

GM has a project to invent an automatic self driving car. Rick Wagoner, GM CEO, will give a key note speech at the Consumer ELECTRONICS show (Las Vegas). Wagoner is convinced that being the first with game changing innovations is the solution to one of GM's fundamental problems, its battered image.
Sell your GM stock ASAP.
Letting a micro processor drive in Rt 128 rush hour traffic would scare the hell out of me. I don't care how cool it is, or how much testing it passed, no micro processor is going to be as reassuring as my two hands on the wheel, and my foot on the gas. Plus decent engine power, strong brakes and good handling. Like my Deville gives me.
GM's problem isn't battered image. It's problem is crummy product. The only thing GM makes that anyone wants to buy is Corvette. The rest of their cars & trucks are so plain and boring they make the blandness of Toyota and Honda look exciting. GM's problem is a management of bean counters (Wagoner is an ex bean counter) rather than real car guys, engineers and salesmen. Only a bean counter would think you could sell an automatic drives-itself car.
Sell your GM stock. The company is doomed as long as this bunch of suits are running it.

McCain rally this morning

It was at 8:00 AM down at the Littleton VFW hall. It's warmed up here, and the snow is melting off the parking lots. Bunch of people were there, to hear, not McCain himself, but a bunch of old Hanoi Hilton comrades, and a US Congressman from Rhode Island. McCain himself was doing the more populous southern NH, and sending bunches of supporters out to the vote shy northwoods. It was a pep rally sort of affair, everyone was wearing stick on McCain badges, and the speakers quickly figured out that they didn't have to preach to the choir. After a couple of hours of schmoozing with neighbors, drinking Dunkin Donuts coffee, and listening to get-out-the-vote type speeches, the affair wound down and we all drove home. The McCain guys re boarded their bus and set off for their next stop. According to one of 'em, they planned to drive 385 miles today. Better them than me.
Tomorrow will tell, but McCain may do very well indeed.

Got my first push poll tonight

It was a robo call with enough voice recognition to under stand yes and no. When I told it I was for a candidate, the robo caller then said "Are you aware than Candidate So and So failed to vote for the Bush tax cuts". I played along, just for fun, and the push poller managed to deliver negative information on a couple of more candidates, it seemed to be an equal opportunity bad mouther. At the end the robo caller announced that it was not affiliated with any candidate and mumbled it's organization's name too rapidly for me to catch.
No sooner than I started this blogging about the robo caller than the phone ran again. Another robocaller who announced he was Tom Ridge and then proceeded to tell me about the goodnesses of Senator McCain's immigration policy.
At this rate all the telephone exchanges are gonna melt down from heavy calling.

Took down the Christmas tree, Christmas is over

It was time, tree has been up three weeks. Still looked green, but the needles were getting dry and crackly. Plus youngest son is going back to college in a few days. Doing it now, with his assistance is nicer than doing it later all by my self. Taking the tree down and packing all the stuff away for next season is never as much fun as putting the tree up before Christmas.
Note to the Christmas tree decoration industry. Cellophane windows in the boxtops suck. The weaken the always flimsy box, making it harder to pack the fragile stuff away. And, maker of bubble lights, is it necessary to use 16 gauge lamp cord to light 5 watt bubble lights? Surely something thinner would be cheaper? And lessen the cord drag that keeps turning the bubble lights on their heads. And those flimsy molded on plastic hooks break too easily leaving bubble lights hanging head down and not bubbling. Surely metal clips are not that expensive.

Obama in NH

Did some chatting about the primary at coffee hour, which follows church services. Iowa has moved Obama from "interesting new guy" to "possible Democratic nominee". He is likable, a good orator, and now he looks like he could win. If he takes NH, and he could, he looks like he could go all the way. The voters moods are shifting rapidly up here and I don't think any poll is current enough to be trustworthy. The feel up here is that Obama could follow up Iowa with a solid win in NH. I'm watching TV pundits saying the same thing.
On the Republican side, John McCain is looking stronger and stronger. Should the charismatic Obama be the democratic nominee, the charismatic McCain would be the Republicans best bet. I don't think Huckabee is going to do much, unless he taps into a large previously in active bunch of voters. Which is what he did in Iowa. I don't think this will work for him in NH, but after Iowa, I am reluctant to write Huck off. I personally hope McCain beats Huckabee solidly, I think that's highly likely, but Huckabee surprised us all in Iowa.
If Obama and McCain become the nominees, and that's looking likely, then Iowa and NH voters will have made the nominee selection for the rest of the country. I say that's the way it oughta be, any right thinking NH blogger can see that plainly. Primary voters in the Super Tuesday states may not agree, and any state voting after Super Tuesday is wasting it's time.
The presidential season is just too damn long. We are selecting the nominees nearly a year before the election. I think we ought to push all the primaries back a good three months. Pick the nominee no earlier than April, so the primary votes represent voter opinion closer to election time. Nominees that look good in January may not serve the party well in November.

Patents are exhausting (WSJ)

Patent law used to hold that patent rights expired upon first sale of the patented product. The patent holder could put restrictions on the patent licensee, for example licensee was only good in a limited area. But, after the licensee sold the product, the buyer could do anything he pleased. In the case of area restriction (e.g licensee is only good for sales within 10 miles of Boston), a buyer of the patented product could resell it anywhere he pleased. In short, patent owners rights to control the product end when the product is sold. I can buy a patented product and then do anything I please with it. The patent holder cannot tell me that the product may only by used on alternate Tuesdays, or under water, or anything. I have bought the product and that makes it mine. Patent holders rights have been "exhausted" to use lawyer jargon.
Seems like Korean chip maker Lucky Goldstar licensed Intel to use some LG technology but with some restrictions. Intel sold product containing the LG licensed technology to customers, and said customers failed to comply with LG's restrictions. LG sued Intel's customers.
LG lost in district court. Judge held that LG's rights had been exhausted upon first sale by Intel. LG lawyers appealed and won. Case is now on the way to the Supreme Court. LG vs Quanta.
Let us hope LG looses. Other wise patent holders could say things like "You may not watch Fox News on your TV because we hold patents on your TV's electronics and that gives us legal control of your TV." Let us hope the nine dumb-as-rocks-lawyers on the Supreme Court can get this one right.

Primary is coming

Wham bam thank you ma'am. Smoke from the Iowa caucus is still rolling around the New Hampshire woods. It's too close to the primary for any useful polling, so we won't know nothing until election night (Next Tuesday) I'd say Barack Obama's chances just got a whole lot better. Many NH democrats were for Hillary, not because they particularly liked her, but because they thought she was the party's best candidate against the Republicans. Some, perhaps many, of those Democrats can now vote for Obama, with a clear conscience. Obama is a stirring orator, young and good looking, is preaching a message of "lets get together and stop the backbiting" which is hard to argue against. Now it looks like he could win the general election. Why stick with Hillary?
Republicans up here are less than entranced with Huckabee. To many the Huck sounds like a hick, totally ignorant of foreign policy, too ready to raise taxes, and too preachy. I do not believe Huck's Iowa victory will carry much weight into New Hampshire. Up here McCain, Romney, and Thompson are all strong and any of the three could take the Republican primary. Guiliani hasn't campaigned much, where as McCain has, and his war record is appealing in a state full of veterans.