Head of TriMet wants to raise the driving age

George Passadore's column advocating raising the driving age in Oregon
to 18 is interesting.

He makes an excellent point that driving distracts high school
students from schoolwork, and that teen drivers are the most dangerous
on the road.

However, suggesting that Trimet is a good alternative for all of
Oregon is a bit much. (Although not too surprising from the head of
the agency.) While Trimet does provide excellent service to the
Portland metropolitan area, there's a whole lot of Oregon beyond that.

In most of Oregon, our towns and cities are designed around the car.
Our current system of tiered driving does a good job of allowing teens
to get places. I'd support raising the driving age to 18 in Portland,
but it's not a good fit for the rest of the state.

Patent Office Head Admits Problems

Well, it is a good thing that the head of the US Patent Office acknowledges that the patent system is broken.

Tons of junk patents are overwhelming the patent system, and then people with crappy patents are flooding the court system by suing people who actually invent stuff.

For me, the best commentary on this comes from this guy, who argues that Mr. Dudas is way late on figuring this out, and that the changes Mr. Dudas proposes will make the system worse, not better.

The same blogger has a great series of essays on the history of "intellectual property", exploring the origins of copyright and patents in America, and arguing that we have WAY too much intellectual property now.

I was surprised to learn that in patents, as in copyright, we have a system which actually stifles creativity rather than inspiring it. The system add protection of inventions after lots of inventions are ALREADY designed. Retroactive copyright or patents give no incentive to invent new stuff: they just give more money to large corporations.

Actual creativity should be rewarded. But copyright and patents should expire after20 years. And patents shouldn't be given for how you swing on a tire, or how you wait in line.

Plastics poison?

The mounting evidence that some plastics are poisonous is causing Nalgene to stop making polycarbonate bottles.

I'm frustrated that we need the Canadian government to make sure our water bottles don't poison us. I want the EPA and the FDA and the CPSC to do their jobs, and detect toys with lead and poisons in the water, and plastic bottles that are bad for you.

Dammit.

Here's the Oregonian's AP story.

Troops

The Oregonian had a story yesterday about great sci-fi fan films.

Included in their best-of list was one I've been enjoying since the internet could handle it.

I really enjoy the mash-up of COPS and Star Wars that is TROOPS:

YouTube Science!

I'm on YouTube again. Doing science!!!

Travels with Coney

I recently took a road trip for work. We had time on our hands. So we took lots of pictures. Of a traffic cone we had in the trunk.

Drop of Gold

I just read a great children's book called Drop of Gold.

It's a story about how birds got so diverse, and so beautiful. It's a book that I think all the bird lovers in my family would really enjoy.