When are they going to extend the app to other *Canada cities and I can't wait for the offroad app so I can have my bike do the Grouse Grind for me.

Hmm. It’s an interesting story – it doesn’t seem that it’s 100% the typical patent troll mold, though it’s obviously still a shitty tale of bullshit patent litigation tactics. It looks like Pappas had his original idea and filed for a patent in 2000, basically trying to create a way to monetize the ad hoc markets that pop up whenever people are in line or reserving places for entertainment (probably based on his own restaurant experience). He filed a single, very broad, multiregion patent on this, and launched a company and online platform around it in 2008 (OptionIt) to provide an online service for trading ticket reservations / places in line. Braxton had a similar but more clearly defined idea in 2011, and filed his own patent.

Like I said – I don’t like this idea, I wish it hadn’t been granted patent protection, and I’m happy if it never reaches the market. However, for all that, I think Pappas original idea was a bit more inventive. Back in 2000 we didn’t have an app economy, and we hadn’t gotten used to these kinds of ad hoc, internet-facilitated temporary market places. When Braxton came up with it, it was pretty dull.

Either way, once Pappas started his business, I guess he instructed his law firm to handle litigation as aggressively as possible, which is fairly standard practice, and which is the unfortunate behavior described in the video. After losing the original suit and then losing the Rule 11 motion, they argued like aggressive assholes in mediation, and got Braxton to back down. I think their threat was fairly hollow – he says that they threatened him with their ‘patent portfolio,’ but this is the only patent family I can find for OptionIt / Smart Option.

I’m not sure I would call this a textbook case of patent trolling – usually patent trolls file or acquire patents for the sole purpose of extorting legitimate businesses, but here it looks like Pappas was actually trying to make a go of this (shitty) app idea, but used intimidation to try to protect that idea. It’s one shitty business trying to intimidate another upstart shitty business, and the courts ruling against the first party. On the whole we all lose – OptionIt wins the mediation through shitty intimidation, and Braxton’s shitty patent gets added to Spangenberg’s portfolio of shitty troll assets to keep the cycle going.

1 - His app sounds horrible and I would fucking hate if its use became widespread.
2 - Software and service patents are awful and shitty and shouldn't be a thing. His patent seems pretty shitty.
3 - The troll is obviously worse.

"Nice app you've got there. It would be a shame if something happened to it." Seriously, I'm certainly not a lawyer, but isn't there some kind of racketeering charge that can be brought against these guys?

This makes a lot of sense to me. If google knew that people were going around striking the fear of god into app developers, they might have a vested interest in fighting this shit.

Sure, giant companies like SuperCell wouldn't give two shits. They have the billions necessary to fight any lawsuit, but idk, maybe it would help.... maybe

Seriously, why doesn't Google help?

I would have directed the video to all app developers on Google, telling them that they are next to be sued, and to stop using the Google Play store as a result, since they all, apparently, are violating the patent. And that's a reason and vested interest in Google to assist.

I completely approve of this.

Oh and by the way this releases May 26th (+14 hours my local time!)

http://store.steampowered.com/app/463720/

Ok I'll try to divide up my wall text a bit better this time

I totally acknowledge that people in the past, and even in present day, some people have to live a certain way in order to survive, but for the vast majority of people that doesn't apply.


Taste:
Like most of the senses in the human body, the sense of taste is in a constant state re-calibration. It's highly subjective and easily influenced over mere seconds but also long periods of time. They say it takes 3 weeks to acclimatize from things you crave, from salt to heroin. That's why most healthy eating books tell you go to cold tofurkey (see what I did there ) for 3 weeks. It's all about the brain chemistry. After 3 straight weeks you aren't craving it. (The habit might still be there but, the chemically driven cravings are gone).
Try it yourself by eating an apple before and after some soft drink. First the apple will taste sweet, and after it will taste sour. Or try decreasing salt over a 3 week period, it'll taste bland at first, but if you go back after 3 weeks it'll be way too salty.



Food science:
One of the major things stopping me from not being vegan, was the health concerns, so I read a number of books about plant-based eating.
There is a new book "How Not To Die" by Dr. Michael Greger. If you want scientific proof of a plant based diet this the one stop shop. 500 pages explaining tens of thousands of studies, some going for decades and involving hundreds of thousands of people. I was blown away at the simple fact that so many studies get done. Most of them are interventional studies also, meaning they are able to show cause and effect (unlike observational or corrolational studies, as he explains in the book). 150 pages of this book alone are lists of references to studies. It's pure unbiased science. (It's not a vegan book either in case you are worried about him being biased).

At the risk of spoiling the book - whole foods like apples and broccoli doesn't give you cancer, in fact they go a long way to preventing it, some bean based foods are as effective as chemotherapy, and without the side effects. I thought it sounded it ridiculous, but the science is valid.
Of course you can visit his website he explains all new research almost daily at nutritionfacts.org in 1 or 2 minute videos.
He also has a checklist phone app called Dr.Greger's Daily Dozen.

There are other authors too, most of these ones have recipes too, such as Dr. John McDougall, Dr. Neal Barnard, Dr. Cadwell Esselstyn, Dr. Dean Ornish, Dr Joel Furhman.
Health-wise it's the best thing you can do for yourself. And if like me you thought eating healthy meant salads, you'd be as wrong as I was I haven't had a salad for years. My blood results and vitamin levels are exactly what the books said they would be.

Try it for 3 weeks, but make sure you do it the right way as explained in the books, and you'll be shouting from roof tops about what a change it's made to your life. The other thing is, you get to eat more, and the more you eat it's healthier. What a weird concept in a world where we are constantly being told to calorie count (it doesn't work btw).

Environmental:
I've read a lot about ethics, reason and evidence based thinking, as well as nutrition and health (as a result of my own skepticism). So I could and I enjoy talking about these all day long. On the environmental side of things, I'm not as aware, but there some documentaries such as Earthlings and Cowspiracy which paint a pretty clear picture.
Anyone can do the maths even at a rough level - there are 56 billion animals bred and slaughtered each year. Feeding 56 billion animals (many of which are bigger than people) takes a lot more food than a mere 7 billion. Therefore it must take more crops and land to feed them, not to mention the land the animals occupy themselves, as well as the land they destroy by dump their waste products (feces are toxic in those concentrations, where as plant waste, is just compost)
The other thing is that many of these crops are grown in countries where people are starving, using up the fertile land to feed our livestock instead of the people. How f'd up is that?
It's reasons like that why countries like the Netherlands are asking their people to not eat meat more than 3 meals a week.

Productivity and economics:
Countries like Finland have government assistance to switch farmers from dairy to berry. Because they got sick of being sick:
http://nutritionfacts.org/video/dietary-guidelines-from-dairies-to-berries/

The world won't go vegan overnight, and realistically it will never be 100% vegan (people still smoke after all). There will be more than enough time to transition. And surely you aren't suggesting that we should eat meat and dairy to keep someone employed? I don't want anyone to lose their job, but to do something pointlessly cruel just to keep a person working seems wrong.

Animal industries are also heavily subsidized in many countries, so if they were to stop being subsidized that's money freed up for other projects, such as the ones in Finland.

The last bit:
If you eat a plant based diet, just like the cow you'll never have constipation, thanks to all of the fibre
When it comes to enzymes, humans are lactose intolerant because after the age of 2 the enzyme lactase stops being made by the body (unless you keep drinking it). Humans also don't have another enzyme called uricase (true omnivores, and carnivores do), which is the enzyme used to break down the protein called uric acid. As you might know gout is caused by too much uric acid, forming crystals in your joints.
However humans have a multitude of enzymes for digesting carbohydrate rich foods (plants). And no carbs don't make fat despite what the fitness industry would have you believe (as the books above explain).
Appealing to history as well, when they found fossilized human feces, it contained so much fibre it was obvious that humans ate primarily a plant based diet. (Animal foods don't contain fibre).

The reasons why you wouldn't want a whale to eat krill for you is:
1. Food is a packaged deal - there is nothing harmful in something like a potato. But feed a lot of potatoes to a pig, and eat the pig, you're getting some of the nutrients of a potato, but also heaps of stuff you're body doesn't need from the pig, like cholesterol, saturated fat, sulfur and methionine containing amino acids etc And no fibre. (low fibre means constipation and higher rates of colon cancer).
2. Your body's health is also dependent on the bacteria living inside you. (fun fact, most the weight of your poop is bacteria!) The bacteria inside you needs certain types of food to live. If you eat meat, you're starving your micro-organisms, and the less good bacteria you have, the less they produce certain chemicals and nutrients , and you get a knock on effect. The fewer the good bacteria also makes room for bad bacteria which make chemicals you don't want.
Coincidentally, if you eat 3 potatoes for breakfast, lunch, and dinner, you have all the protein you need - it worked for Matt Damon on Mars right?

Probably possible on android, but I'm pretty sure that iOS apps can't use the phone functionality like that.

It's a good idea though and I think Apple/Google should integrate it into the os.

Couldn't (shouldn't?) somebody make an android / iOS app that has permissions to force turning on GPS tracking, dials 911 and lets the user talk as normal, and uses text to speech to repeat the lat/long coordinates from the GPS at a low volume every 15-30 seconds or something?

That wouldn't require a technological standard -- from the 911 dispatch perspective, it is all just analog / audio information. It would require people to download/install a 3rd party app, which isn't great since most people don't exactly plan ahead for emergencies like that. But, if it worked well enough and was unobtrusive enough, Google/Apple would probably be well served to adopt it as a standard feature of Android/iOS.

I would have thought there was a fairly simple answer as to why 911 doesn't get location data from smartphones... privacy.

The reason uber, dominos, etc have access to your location is because they have an app on your smartphone that has been explicitly granted access to your location by you. 911 is just a simple phone call and so it can't read the location data.

To do so reliably across cell phones would require development of some kind of emergency location standard that all manufacturers could implement. Technically, it's not that difficult, but getting everyone to agree on a standard?

Not that easy

Not bad, but I wish it was an augmented reality thing, allowing taggers and graffiti artists to digitally tag in real places that could be seen only by those using the app. THAT would be awesome, and might keep some people from painting places they shouldn't.

Thought this would be another half-baked, "Hey you can sort of do this in VR and it's good because ??? because it's VR man!"

This looks like a really well thought-out interface and a real, functioning app. Don't know who will buy it, but kudos to them for the effort.

Having only ~300k people and being almost universally ethnically homogeneous kind of makes it easy to actually make decisions. I mean hell, they have an anti-incest app to check if the person you're dating is related to you.

The full version was recently released on steam, it's pretty fun but doesn't add many gameplay innovations over the demo thing they released for the comp
http://store.steampowered.com/app/322500/