jeff 👨‍💻

Software Architect turned Engineering Manager

  • 28 Posts
  • 33 Comments
Joined 1 year ago
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Cake day: June 11th, 2023

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  • It’s a patent case. It has nothing to do with the creative design of the games.

    But yes. Every pokemon is copyrighted. Every pal is copyrighted. (In the US) All creative work is automatically copyrighted to the creator.

    You can’t copyright “a standing lizard with a small flame on its tail” but you can copyright Charmander. If you copy enough elements that a lay person can’t distinguish the original and the copy then it opens it up for a copyright claim.

    None of that is relevant in this case.

    A patent is to protect a specific invention from being copied. In this case, there is an innovative game mechanic that Nintendo patented has that Palworld copied. The speculation is with throwing an item that captures a character that fights other characters in a 3d space.

    The patent is dumb. Personally I don’t think it is innovative or special enough to be patented. Patenting software or game mechanic are dumb anyway.


  • I use a planck as my daily driver. I wouldn’t recommend it unless you have some good reasons to switch.

    It took about 2 weeks of use and practice before I could type at a reasonable rate with it. And then it took about 2 weeks before I could type on a normal keyboard again.

    I had a few reasons why I got one

    • I travel enough that having a small form factor was important
    • I have small hands, and was developing some wrist pain from stretching and moving my hand on larger keyboards. It did help a lot, but I think switching to a 60% would have been just as helpful.
    • I didn’t type that fast anyway and have pretty bad form, I was hoping switching layouts would be a natural way to retrain my typing and type faster. I did improve for a bit, but I stopped practicing and am a pretty terrible typer again

    I do think it’s pretty cool. It’s a conversation starter when people walk by my desk. The planck is a 40%, so most people haven’t seen a keyboard that small.




  • Someone didn’t read the article. She addresses exactly this.

    I can already hear the trolls making jokes about women being concerned about breaking a nail. If it’s so inconvenient, why not just have short nails? Well, I’m not out here wearing long nails for fun. Being a reviewer often means acting as a part-time hand model for whatever gadget I’m testing. The Internet Nail Police has repeatedly shown up in my comments over the years if my polish is chipped or, god forbid, there’s a smudge of dirt under my natural nail.