This Made My Day/Improved My Day Thread!

[Chooly]

put in my 2 weeks at best buy

hot damn

If you've ever had to call the Bestbuy IT helpdesk there is a chance I've spoken to you haha

[A. Crow]

I got offered a job at my friendly neighborhood particle accelerator lab!  The deepest secrets of matter shall be unraveled by people in close proximity to me!

Awesome!

[matter11]

also feel like i could rep a lot more if it weren't for my weak grip.

I assume you already have grip trainers? Dumbbell shrugs get my forearms really nicely though

[k0ala]

I had to build a workbench now that I had the room. My ideas about circuits are spilling into conversations with people who couldn't care less about transistors or vacuum tubes.

[zaneyard]

[quote author=zaneyard link=topic=3603.msg276515#msg276515 date=1393024554]

also feel like i could rep a lot more if it weren't for my weak grip.

I assume you already have grip trainers? Dumbbell shrugs get my forearms really nicely though
[/quote]
we have those little bars with rope attached to them that you can put a plate on the end and twist them to roll them up but I haven't worked them into my routine yet. I've been doing dumbbell shrugs lately too and they just wreck my grip.

Whole reason I started doing shrugs though is because when I flex, my right trap is huge but for some reason my left trap doesn't get bigger at all. I'm not sure if it's because I just don't have the muscle there or whether I have some weird genetics or something. (Which I just looked up and apparently I'm not the only one. It hasn't affected any of my lifts far as I can tell though)

[Surf314]

My wife got the job on the eastern shore of Maryland. We are looking to move there in 3 weeks. We will soon be close(ish) to DC, Baltimore, and Philadelphia!

[CaffeinePowered]

My wife got the job on the eastern shore of Maryland. We are looking to move there in 3 weeks. We will soon be close(ish) to DC, Baltimore, and Philadelphia!

ACEN Convoy

[rumbot]

My wife got the job on the eastern shore of Maryland.

Congrats to both of you!

[Evil Cheese]

We're gonna have to have a mini-ACEN for us mid-Atlantic BRBUers.

[StolenToast]

We're gonna have to have a mini-ACEN for us mid-Atlantic BRBUers.

Yeah!

[CaffeinePowered]

We're gonna have to have a mini-ACEN for us mid-Atlantic BRBUers.

Its called Otakon, and not enough of you came last year 

[at0m]

I had family shit, won't happen again

Sent from my Nexus 5 using Tapatalk

[Neptune]

[quote author=Evil Cheese link=topic=3603.msg276551#msg276551 date=1393201619]
We're gonna have to have a mini-ACEN for us mid-Atlantic BRBUers.

Its called Otakon, and not enough of you came last year 
[/quote]

One of these years, my wife will successfully drag me along.  Probably not this year, though.

[Surf314]

I got my photos back from the film lab and they did an amazing job and I was happy with my work too - http://www.flickr.com/photos/23854357@N0...616150913/

I posted the double exposure to 500px and someone told me it was original! Never had that compliment before and in the world of photography that seems like high praise.

[kaese]

lol 500px
I really don't understand the comments I get on that site
> "cult pic"
> "great natural movement"

http://500px.com/photo/55535472

do you think it's a cute pic? lmao

[Surf314]

lol 500px
I really don't understand the comments I get on that site
> "cult pic"
> "great natural movement"

http://500px.com/photo/55535472

do you think it's a cute pic? lmao

500px is very good to photographers compared to other sites. However, it's a terrible site for getting views because it's mostly photographers looking at photographers. The thing I recently discovered is that favoriting or commenting on other people's photos usually gets them to check out yours and get some feedback. So in short, it encourages people to send out a bunch of comments to random people.

[Surf314]

Reading a transcript of oral arguments of the case I helped write an amicus brief on. On page 30 they raise a point I made that I'm not sure anyone else did  ;D

http://www.supremecourt.gov/oral_argumen...4_khmp.pdf

[rumbot]

Reading a transcript of oral arguments of the case I helped write an amicus brief on. On page 30 they raise a point I made that I'm not sure anyone else did  ;D
[/url]

Can you re-state the point for us, more casual observers. I see some back-and-forth about who bears the burden of fees for frivolous, or not well substantiated cases, but don't clearly see the point you are bragging on.

Come on, brag to us. ... ;D

[Surf314]

[quote author=Surf314 link=topic=3603.msg276673#msg276673 date=1393546571]
Reading a transcript of oral arguments of the case I helped write an amicus brief on. On page 30 they raise a point I made that I'm not sure anyone else did  ;D
[/url]

Can you re-state the point for us, more casual observers. I see some back-and-forth about who bears the burden of fees for frivolous, or not well substantiated cases, but don't clearly see the point you are bragging on.

Come on, brag to us. ... ;D
[/quote]

The tl;dr back story is that the patent act has a provision that makes the loser pay in extraordinary cases. The Federal Circuit, which is the only court that can hear patent case appeals, took a test from another case and said this is what extraordinary case means. The problem is that the case they took it from was from a completely different area of law that had these intense First Amendment concerns.

So to brag - I actually studied the line of cases the test comes from as part of a paper I wrote. We got to talk to one of the petitioner's attorneys before they finished their brief and before we wrote ours in order to not be redundant on issues. When we were talking I was like man this is so weird that they took this test because its supposed to be strict because of First Amendment issues. The Supreme Court was pretty conflicted about it and the dissent made some great points about how it could be bad. So why did the Federal Circuit think it was something that belonged in patent law where there aren't these huge constitutional issues? The guy wasn't really familiar with the line of cases because its not in his field (its in ours). This point made it into their brief, I'm not sure if it was due to me but I don't mind taking credit. We also went into it in much more detail in ours. So right out of the gate the Justices bring up the First Amendment issue and I'm like smiling reading this. Then the guy tried to defend by saying there were constitutional issues like access to justice and Scalia is like nope sorry. So that was pretty awesome.

Then Justice Breyer and Justice Scalia started making these awesome arguments about patent trolls and I'm like about to do a victory lap around my house.

Basically, we want the Supreme Court to give district court judges the power and support to award fees when someone beats a patent troll. Right now the test is so strict and patent law is so confusing that most judges are really uncomfortable awarding fees because they feel like it has to meet this crazy test. It doesn't help that the Federal Circuit is very pro-patent and they probably feel like they will just get overturned. This is totally doable because the statute just says extraordinary, and in a different body of law the exact same language means something completely different that is totally workable to punish bad actors and reward people willing to stand up to them. Congress also might rewrite the provision to more clearly be available against patent trolls.

[rumbot]

Then Justice Breyer and Justice Scalia started making these awesome arguments about patent trolls and I'm like about to do a victory lap around my house.