#tangentially related to post-cal | Explore Tumblr posts and blogs

missfinefeather · 6 years ago

Text

tenaciousDecapitator

Come to think of it, did her Land even have Consorts?

Spencer/Punisher

Are You Satisfied? by Marina and the Diamonds is a Vriska Serket song.

osm70

Let's just appreciate this fact: From her point of view, she asked John (via chat) on a date with her and then he just showed up and punched her in the face.

Wakraya

I think Crocodiles?

tenaciousDecapitator

...That'd be fitting as hell. I'll check the wiki to see if they list it.

osm70

Here's something interesting: Think of everything bad that happened so far. From the beginning to the current page of the liveblog. If you try very hard, you can technically blame everything on Gamzee.

tenaciousDecapitator

Everything can be blamed on either Gamzee, Lil Cal, Caliborn, or all 3

seer

cal exists cause of gamzee

Spencer/Punisher

I mean, Lil Cal is the root of all evil and the start of his convoluted journey was Dream Cal in Dave’s room on Derse. Which Gamzee was responsible for.

And Gamzee also raises Caliborn.

tenaciousDecapitator

How fitting that the Capricorn is left being the.....

SCRAPEGOAT

seer

gamzee is literally the only purpleblood i find disturbing

tenaciousDecapitator

In other news, the only info he Wiki has about LOMAT's consorts is that Hussie joked that they're Pooh Bears

wait wait waitwhat?

The ONLY purpleblood? You sure?

seer

curloz is great thank you

Spencer/Punisher

Gamzee is honestly the only purpleblood I dislike.

Kurloz is an evil motherfucker but I love him.

seer

chahut is hot,

Spencer/Punisher

You’re right.

tenaciousDecapitator

What about Marvus?

osm70

Let me just paste something from Reddit in here:

Gamzee is responsible for literally everything in Homestuck. He is the reason why John got the Harlequin that was used in his prototyping. That gave everything the hat. Jack killed the Black Queen because he didn't want to wear the hat. Then he destroyed the door in SGRUB. If that didn't happen: The trolls would enter the B universe. Alright, nothing too exciting here. The interesting part is that the humans would have won if Jack didn't kill the Queen. Which means they wouldn't have Scratched their session. Which means B2 would never exist. No B2 means Caliborn's soul wouldn't have entered Lil Cal. Which means Lord English doesn't exist. And it also means Doc Scratch doesn't exist. No Doc Scratch means the trolls didn't turn into a violent race. Which means the Hiveswap rebellion didn't happen. A part of the rebellion was using the "weapon" that turned out to be a portal. Not doing that means Hiveswap never happened.

seer

twins are fun, creepy but not to disturbing level

tenaciousDecapitator

gah

Don't startle me like that osm

seer

marvus is more disgusting than disturbing

Spencer/Punisher

I actually really like Marvus. He’s an alright dude.

tenaciousDecapitator

Man Friendsim really helped Purpleblood's public image huh

Spencer/Punisher

Karako is also my son.(edited)

tenaciousDecapitator

I mean they're still all murderous clowns but at least they're likable

karako is EVERYONE'S son

seer

loved evilmime before friendsim

Spencer/Punisher

Same.

Kurloz was my favorite alpha troll for a long time.

seer

karako is the best lil honk friend

osm70

Let me paste another thing from Reddit:

Most of Homestuck is just a race to see who is retroactively responsible for how much shit that was always destined to happen.

seer

and who is retroactively responsible for stuff you thought someone else was already retroactively responsible

Spencer/Punisher

This is only tangentially related to Homestuck, but who else is really worried about Hal turing-tested every time he posts something?

seer

the soy sauce thing?

Spencer/Punisher

Yes. I know that’s minor for him but s t i l l.

MissFinefeather

Hal turing-tested? Soy sauce thing?

What did I just walk into here? ^^;;;

osm70

oh,good. I am not the only one who has no idea what's going on.

Spencer/Punisher

I brought up a popular blogger who consumes things he shouldn’t on the regular.

NoBrandMinda

In a weird way, the Friendsims made me like Gamzee even less than I did already. Because before it was like, "Well, he's a purple blood. What do you expect?" But now it's like, no. Gamzee is just Like That.

Wakraya

turing-tested is just Lil Hal

seer

see him sometimes on m dash but not really check, but whenever i see Hal im concerned

Wakraya

Like, they may make you think they're a tumblr user

tenaciousDecapitator

Wow, it's almost as if having 1-2 people represent an entire blood caste was a really goddamn horrible thing

Wakraya

But they're actually just the autoresponder manifested in our reality

Spencer/Punisher

Yeah basically.

MissFinefeather

Okay :O

Spencer/Punisher

Once I sent him a hat because he sends people his address and I had money on a Hot Topic gift card I wasn’t using and he called me and told me about kin drama for ten minutes.

NoBrandMinda

btw, I missed the Page conversation, but I want to share this story because it's funny

osm70

I googled the name and I found a Tumblr blog. I legit have no idea what I'm looking at.

Spencer/Punisher

You’re at the right place.

NoBrandMinda

At some point, I made a big long post explaining why I never really cared for Tavros (which I can't share here because it talks about some stuff that happens later). But the crux of it is that Tavros reminds me of Jr. High School and is generally the exact opposite of the type of person I'd want to be.

So then a little later somebody sent me an ask suggesting that maybe my Classpect was a late-stage Page instead of a Seer, and this was my exact reaction:

In this order:

tenaciousDecapitator

Clearly that person hadn't been reading your liveblog for long

NoBrandMinda

1. Don't fucking insult me by calling me a Page.

2. What am I saying? There shouldn't be anything wrong with being a Page.

3. Reaction 1 is single most Vriska thought I have ever had about anything.

4. And then I just had to laugh at myself for a while.

MissFinefeather

Spencer/Punisher

Honestly that first one would low key probably be my reaction to getting pegged a Page.

tenaciousDecapitator

Nobody wants to be called a Page. Uneasy lies the crotch that wears the short-shorts.

Spencer/Punisher

Like I don’t have anything against Pages, per se, and I can respect it when reflecting. But like as a gut reaction?

tenaciousDecapitator

It's like being called a Bard

Nothing but negative connotations

Spencer/Punisher

I mean I did think I was a Page for like five minutes but then I realized my personality was a bit forceful for it and I didn’t really identify with any but a couple of commonly associated traits.

MissFinefeather

Well, if I found out I was a page, I'd probably be like "yeah, yeah, that's about right..."

tenaciousDecapitator

Which, in and of itself, adds to the possibility.However, as i said, you carry a lot of Heir traits too.

MissFinefeather

Honestly forget what pegged me into the Heir territory

NoBrandMinda

I know exactly what had me pegged as a Seer:

Wakraya

I can't quite remember! Was it like, the easy malleability through knowledge and positivity?

NoBrandMinda

tenaciousDecapitator

Heirs, by definition, invite change through their aspect and are surrounded by it.

MissFinefeather

xDDDDOhhhh.. okay, that does sound like me a little bit...

tenaciousDecapitator

Ergo, coupled with the Light aspect, you could invite good fortune and insight, or be surrounded by it.

Wakraya

Also, Minda, you ever considered the Mage Class?

tenaciousDecapitator

It could also be said that Heirs manipulate and change their aspect according to their whims.Mages, however, are defined by suffering through their class, such as Sollux being surrounded by a doom he could not avoid.

However, it does carry knowledge of their aspect as well.

Spencer/Punisher

The way I ended up identifying with Prince is I ended up taking Wakraya’s class quiz after only really considering Page, Rogue, and Thief and then I was like. Shit. This is me.

Wakraya

That's actually a reductive sort of way, TD"Suffering through their class" is kind of hard to be said to be the Mage's thing

When Sollux is a Mage of DoomKnowing Doom kind of is suffering its inevitabilityMages are the Active Counterparts to Seers.

Spencer/Punisher

And even then, what about Meulin?

tenaciousDecapitator

The Mage class is actually the active counterpart to Seer, apparently. They benefit from their Aspect and guide others with it.

Wakraya

Meulin is a good example

She's a good matchmaker, but she uses her insight into romantic affairs to complete her shipping chart and pair people she thinks would be cute together

Rather than trying to make meaningful relationships happen

tenaciousDecapitator

Ah, it says here that a definite difference between Seer and Mage is that Seers gain knowledge of their Aspect, while Mages receive it.

Wakraya

I mean, 'definite' is kind of hard to sayClasses aren't exactly explained much, other than what we see

So it's all mostly speculation and drawing from the story

Brb dinner though!

tenaciousDecapitator

Of course, this is all speculation.

MissFinefeather

Heh, wow, lively group today!

#hs day 138 #Missfinefeather Liveblogs #Missfinefeather reads Homestuck #liveblog #homestuck liveblog #Homestuck #Homestuck Act 6 #Act 6 #blacklist Missfinefeather

7 notes · View notes

healthnotion · 6 years ago

Text

4 Lessons From a 4-Week Social Media Fast

The cost of a thing is the amount of what I will call life which is required to be exchanged for it, immediately or in the long run. —Thoreau

February 4, 2019

Dinner was mostly cleared from the table, but there were still a few random dishes out, and stray crumbs on the floor from the kids. Cleanup was 90% done, and I was tackling that last 10% in a slow, unhurried manner. As I was at the sink, I heard a giggle or two from the kids, who were playing in the living room. Then those giggles grew into full-on belly laughs, and my wife’s laughter joined the chorus.

I smiled, instinctively, at the noise.

As a parent, noise of any kind is often the last thing you want. Silence — the complete lack of commotion — is a kind of beautiful non-music to our ears.

And yet, to hear my family laughing together on the floor . . . that was truly an enchanting sound.

So I turned around to get a look at the action. My 3-year-old son had piled some pillows on the floor, and he and my 11-month-old daughter were taking turns gleefully throwing themselves onto this fluffy mountain. As soon as my wife laid down on those pillows, she became part of the landscape upon which the kids wrestled and rolled. The sublime, joyous, unforced laughter continued.

And so I just stood there in the kitchen, for a few full minutes at least, taking it all in, the Lumineers providing a movie-like soundtrack for the scene. I know that doesn’t seem long, but in the moment it felt like a rapturous eternity. I simply soaked it in and tried as hard as I could to absorb every detail; I immediately knew this was a moment I’d never want to forget. This is the stuff that life, and parenting, is made of.

After my wife caught me looking, I told her that if I had a heart-o-meter, it would have nuclear exploded.

____________________

This particular evening took place a few days after my social media fast ended.

Before giving up social media for the month of January, I’d spend maybe an hour on it a day, mostly in 5 minute snatches of time scattered through my waking hours — quick work breaks, waiting in lines, while watching TV at night, etc. I wasn’t “addicted” to social media; I mostly used it as a boredom killer and to entertain myself at night when the kids were in bed. (Late night comedy clips are one of my weaknesses.) I would also spend probably another hour or so dinking around on news apps, sports apps, games, etc.

After dinner, while the kids usually play for a little bit before bed, was a common time for me to pick up the phone and fool around a bit. I could peruse social media, check sports scores, see what sort of new idiocy Washington, DC was ginning up. I wasn’t necessarily neglecting my family; if the kids called my name or needed their dad’s attention for a minute, I’d easily put the device away and join the rumpus. But then I’d go back to the phone and putter around some more. I wasn’t fully absorbed in either activity; it was more of a scattered presence that didn’t feel fully in the moment to be sure, but also didn’t feel particularly nefarious. It wasn’t like I was holed away in a corner of the house or zombied out on the couch, oblivious to what was happening.

And yet I have to wonder how many perfect moments — like the one described above — I missed out on being fully present for. It was quite a sobering thought, to say the very least.

After deciding to spend 31 days off of social media (and other time-wasting apps, too), and realizing the immense benefits of curtailing my tech use, I’m fully in the camp of what Cal Newport calls the “Attention Resistance.”

During those 31 days I kept a weekly journal about how the fast was going, and a lesson I took from that particular week.

While my own insights aren’t prescriptive in nature and won’t apply to everyone in the same ways, I do think they are rather instructive as to what can happen when you radically change your social media and smartphone use.

Week 1: Realizing Social Media’s Habitual Nature

During the late evening hours of New Year’s Eve 2018, after the kids were in bed, I took some time to make a few final scrolls through Facebook, Instagram, and Twitter. I didn’t mention or post that I was taking January off; I wanted to disappear in silence.

And that’s what I did. I deleted the Facebook app. I deleted the Instagram app. I logged out from all accounts on my phone’s browser (which was where most of the Twitter damage was done).

I went to bed at 10pm, truly looking forward to starting 2019 on a social media-less foot.

So, naturally, the 10-month-old baby woke up screaming at about 11:30pm, and wouldn’t go back to sleep until about 1:30am. I didn’t intend to ring in the new year on a conscious level, and yet there I was, rocking a baby to sleep when the clock struck midnight. I’ll admit that my first instinct was to check Facebook. Or Instagram. Anything. I didn’t even want to, really. Just my rebellious human nature coming through there. But I held fast and just closed my eyes.

And so that first temptation passed without incident.

____________________

In the days that followed during week 1, I wanted to check in on my accounts to see how friends and family had rung in the new year. Instead, I texted a few close friends and had nice “conversations” that way. Much better than scrolling through a feed and not interacting at all — which is generally what happens.

The most interesting thing about this first week was what not having those apps on my phone did to those habitual boredom-busting tactics. Normally, I’d unlock my phone, and almost instinctively tap on the blue “f” or the purplish camera icon, just to see if any notifications came in, or if anyone in my network had some major life event.

Now, I’d unlock my phone and just sort of stare at it, not really sure what to do. Eventually, I’d click around on various apps — weather, games, Amazon (shopping, not reading) — and quickly get bored and shut ‘er down.

On social media, you don’t have to make any decisions about what to do. The infinite scroll keeps you engaged for . . . well, ever. When you open a weather app, you check the weather for about 10 seconds, and that’s it. When you shop online, you have to intentionally look for something; endlessly clicking on related products gets old pretty quickly. Without those infinite scrolls beckoning for your attention, you realize that your phone isn’t such an alluring device. It’s just a little brick that’s supposed to make your life easier; it’s not supposed to enslave your attention.

(Games of course offer plenty of time-wasting opportunity, but something about being 30 has made me sort of cringe at myself when I play games on my phone, so it doesn’t happen too much, and I in fact just recently deleted the last of those games. I’m a grown man for crying out loud!)

The Lesson: This first insight is in truly learning that social media is much more of a mindless habit — and a very strongly ingrained one — than a pleasurable or fulfilling activity. We do it out of compulsion rather than intention.

Week 2: Missing the Benefits of Social Media

Week 2 started as a breeze, really. To be honest, I had been turned off by social media for a while, and it felt pretty easy to step away from it. To my mind, this meant I was actually quite ready for a break and just needed an excuse to do it. Perhaps that’s all you need too — an excuse to cut it out of your life.

The reality of the world we live in means that I wasn’t actually missing much. My wife would text or email me memes, which was almost more of a fun and personal way to encounter them. Hangouts with friends would inevitably bring up newsy topics that I hadn’t really been privy to. And sometimes, things just fully slipped over my head and turned out to be entirely unimportant. (I had no awareness of that Gillette ad and the mushroom of reaction it caused until, like all flash-in-the-pan sparks of outrage, it had almost completely disappeared from the pop culture spotlight, leaving nothing of real significance behind.) It was nice to run into these things tangentially in the course of conversation rather than having spent hours online.

But then, I ran into a few instances where being on social media — particularly Facebook — would actually have been beneficial.

One morning I was texting with a good friend about biscuits and gravy. Weird, I know, so a little bit of context: I was having some at home, and back in our college days this friend and I would have boatloads of the stuff together. Little did I know that his daughter was actually in the ICU at that very moment. Had I been on social media, I would have known, and I wouldn’t have texted about biscuits and gravy. I only knew about the sick daughter because my wife said something, and I ended up feeling like a bit of a cad (though it is possible he welcomed the silly distraction). I then of course texted him that we were thinking about their family and would do anything we could to help; I also called after realizing that texting wasn’t quite the right medium for conveying those thoughts.

In a similar narrative, I had a different friend from college with a young son who’d been dealing with cancer for much of 2018. Ten years out of college, we weren’t close enough to be on texting or calling terms, but I was certainly interested in what was going on with his family. Without being on social media, I was missing those updates on how he and his kid were doing. (The little guy is now doing very well and pretty much has a clean bill of health!)

Facebook, for the enormous unethical cesspool that it is, actually provides some benefit to my life; it’s not fully just mindless entertainment. I can keep up with people who are important to me without having to send a dozen “Hey what’s going on?” texts. If you cull your friends list to just those you truly care about (rather than those you barely know or people you only follow because you sort of like to hate their posts), you’ll end up with a newsfeed that provides some value.

The real trick with social media is actually weighing those benefits vs. the costs. Before my fast, the amount of time spent on Facebook was not in line with what I was getting out of it. My time on Twitter and Instagram were in the same boat. I was spending too much life — in Thoreau’s words — on the minuscule benefit I was getting. So after the fast, as I’ll dig into a little later, I ditched Twitter completely and reduced my time on Instagram and Facebook to better match the benefit they were providing.

The Lesson: Social media does have actual benefits; it takes a break, though, to realize what they are. Once you’ve had a break, and found some of those real benefits, you can go back to it in a far healthier, and assuredly less time-consuming way. After my fast, I quickly came to realize I could legitimately keep up with the more significant updates my friends’ and family post on social media in just 10-15 minutes per week.

Week 3: Dealing With Boredom

The novelty of the fast was quickly wearing off by week 3. I was finding myself more often in the throes of boredom. At first, the fast was kind of exciting — almost a self-righteous feeling of knowing I wasn’t wasting my life on scrolling. But by week 3 that feeling was waning. I noticed it mostly while waiting — waiting in line anywhere, waiting for my young son to finish going to the bathroom, waiting 5 minutes for my pour over to finish up at the coffee shop, waiting at Walmart for a tire to be patched (I forgot to bring reading material), waiting for the gas tank to fill up . . .

These small bits of time began to feel excruciatingly long — embarrassingly so, actually. What did it say about me, I wondered, that I get achingly bored after just a couple minutes with nothing to do?

I quickly realized that life offers plenty of waiting, and social media is seemingly the perfect antidote — which is why those companies are some of the world’s most valuable. There’s always something new and it doesn’t take any of what I call “ramping up” to get into. (With reading, for example, it can take a few minutes to get into the flow of it, but many times the wait you’re in the midst of only lasts that long.) Social media can be accessed and de-accessed in mere seconds, and the result is no boredom ever again. In theory, at least. Of course you still get bored with your feeds, you just don’t realize it, because you keep on mindlessly scrolling.

The problem is that boredom can actually be good for you. It fosters thinking. Real thinking. With your brain! What a novel idea. I know that sounds silly, but it really is a bit unique in our world. Instead of diverting to social media with every minute that doesn’t have an allocated activity, I’ve learned to try to actively be thinking about something — planning my day/week, thinking through a decision that needs to be made, “writing” in my head and working out ideas, or even just plain zoning out. While I’m still bored when waiting around in line, and it’s still sometimes a little painful, I’ve come to embrace it as best I can. And my mind truly feels more focused — less scattered and more on top of things — because of it.

The Lesson: Embrace the boredom. Use it to think about something. Or not. It may be painful, but your brain will thank you. If nothing else, keeping your phone put away while waiting for stuff will break the hold that your phone has over your every spare moment (and those spare moments are dang valuable — if used intentionally).

Week 4: A New Philosophy of Social Media & General Phone Use

As my experiment was coming to a close, I started to think seriously about how to let social media back into my life. Cal Newport accurately writes in Digital Minimalism that as consumers we just sort of slid into using these services and apps. They seemed to offer some benefit and some entertainment, so there wasn’t a need to be all that thoughtful and intentional about their use. But now, a decade or so after their introduction, we’ve seen how much time and attention those devices and services can take from us. It’s time to step back and think critically about the role they should play in our lives — to develop a real philosophy around our use of technology.

Newport argues for putting pretty stringent “rules” in place for yourself when it comes to social media and device usage. Make them as specific and in-depth as is necessary — setting time limits on things and limiting your access (with other apps, like Freedom, if needed). The small caveat is that if you’re naturally pretty disciplined about this stuff, you may not need to be as specific. This is the case with me; after making a living on the internet for the last 6 years, I’ve had ample practice in self-discipline in that particular realm. So my own rules didn’t need to be so hard and fast, but yours very well may.

What I came up with:

1. I would reinstall Instagram on my phone, but only use it to post pics 1-2 times per week (of books I’m reading, some of my baking creations, and weekend hikes). For me, it provides hiking/cooking inspiration and some beneficial personal branding without the vitriol found on Twitter and Facebook. I really wish Instagram was easier to post to from a laptop/desktop, but oh well. I’d spend no more than a few minutes every 2-3 days scrolling.

2. I would not reinstall Facebook on my phone. I’d use it only on my computer, for no more than a few minutes every other day. When I see something I want to “like” or comment on, I’ll shoot a text or an email instead. I want social media to be a supplement for my social interactions, not a replacement. I’ll occasionally post pics of the kids, because that’s what my family and close friends most like to see. (I do also really enjoy using the “On This Day” feature, which provides a nice dose of nostalgia from pics you posted on that day in years past.)

3. I would abandon Twitter altogether. It was clear during my fast that I received no actual benefit from it, other than stress- and eye-roll-inducing news items. I also came to realize that things that seemed important on Twitter — from “news” to overwrought outrage at various things — weren’t actually important at all in the real world.

4. I would buy a cheap smartwatch to give me notifications of texts and work emails. I’d always been mostly in the hater camp when it comes to smartwatches, so this came as a surprise even to me, but as I thought about it more, it made more and more sense. Part of my checking my phone so much was to see texts and important work emails that came through. My wife works in health care, and we like to text throughout the day when we can, and she often only has a few spare minutes at a time. So it’s important to me to see things from her right when they come in. Same goes for the occasional work email that requires immediate attention. That doesn’t happen too often, but when it does, I want to be on my toes. So, I ended up checking my phone a lot just to see if there were new texts or emails, which more often than not led to other time-wasting activities. In getting a cheap smartwatch that gives my wrist a little vibration on incoming texts and work emails, I can know within a second or two if something needs attention and if I need to reach for my phone or not. Pretty dang handy, actually.

The Lesson: Take the time to really think about your philosophy — and even specific rules — about your social media and smartphone usage.

Concluding Thoughts

My month off of social media was far more insightful than I thought it would be. After being away for 4 weeks, it oddly felt like it would be more work to jump fully back into the fray and keep up with what was going on. It sounded exhausting, actually. I’m now far more intent on using my phone for thoughtful, purposeful actions rather than letting it control how I use my time.

A month after coming up with the rules above, I can emphatically say it’s all worked without a hitch. I actually now just naturally get bored after more than a couple minutes on Facebook and Instagram every few days — a result that many of the social media fasters profiled in Digital Minimalism experienced as well. I know that sounds sort of holier-than-thou, but it’s the honest-to-goodness truth. And the smartwatch has been surprisingly useful; I’m not reaching for my phone nearly as much, so my overall usage of it has gone down drastically (to less than half of what it was before, according to Apple’s Screen Time app). It’s made a significant, appreciable difference in my life.

Everyone uses (and perhaps struggles with) social media and phone usage in different ways. While I think everyone should take a social media fast — of at least 30 days — what you find out about yourself and your digital consumption will vary from my own results. My lessons were very much individual to me; whether or not they relate to you will depend on your own social media habits, and the particular parts of it you’d like to see change.

The whole point is that I wouldn’t have learned any of this stuff without that fast. So the only prescriptive part of this article is to implore you to take your own 30-day break from social media and other time-wasting apps. As Newport argues, it’s only in temporarily wiping the slate clean, that you can figure out what really matters and what’s really important when it comes to your devices and apps. Then you can truly know what you want to re-introduce into your life, and be able to use what you do bring back in an intentional, fully conscious, life-enhancing-rather-than-life-squandering way.

Related Resources and Further Reading

Decluttering Your Digital Life

The Complete Guide to Breaking Your Smartphone Habit

5 Concrete Ways to Develop a Healthier Relationship With Your Phone

How and Why to Take a Tech Sabbath

What Makes Your Phone So Addictive & How to Take Back Your Life

The post 4 Lessons From a 4-Week Social Media Fast appeared first on The Art of Manliness.

4 Lessons From a 4-Week Social Media Fast published first on https://mensproblem.tumblr.com

0 notes

marymosley · 5 years ago

Text

Equivalents at the Supreme Court

In a couple of 2019 decisions, the Federal Circuit appeared to expand-out the “merely tangential” exception to prosecution history estoppel. Those cases have now both been petitioned to the Supreme Court for review.

Hospira, Inc. v. Eli Lilly and Company, SCT Docket No. 19-1058. [Petition]

Whether a patentee may recapture subject matter via the doctrine of equivalents under the “tangential relation” exception by arguing that it surrendered more than it needed to during prosecution to avoid a prior art rejection, even if a claim could reasonably have been drafted that would literally have encompassed the alleged equivalent.

CJ CheilJedang Corp. v. International Trade Commission, SCT Docket No. 19-1062. [Petition]

Whether, to avoid prosecution history estoppel under Festo, “the rationale underlying the amendment” must be the rationale the patentee provided to the public at the time of the amendment.

The doctrine of equivalents [DoE] is fairly complicated by itself because of the element-by-element function-way-result test and the limit on vitiation of claim elements. DOE is further complicated by the prosecution history estoppel [PHE] that creates a presumption against equivalents associated with narrowing claim amendments made during prosecution for a “substantial reason related to patentability.” In Festo, the Supreme Court explained that courts should presume estoppel based upon a narrowing amendment. However, the patentee may avoid the estoppel by providing evidence that the “rationale underlying the [narrowing] amendment … bear[s] no more than a tangential relation to the equivalent in question.” Festo Corp. v. Shoketsu Kinzoku Kogyo Kabushiki Co., 535 U.S. 722, 740 (2002) (TAN). In prior posts, I called this expansion [DoE]; retraction [PHE]; re-expansion [TAN] process DoePHETAN. The complication comes from the courts who – as I previously explained “wanted to empower patentees with the doctrine of equivalents but then became afraid that they had gone too far” and perhaps given too much power to a jury.

The petitions here are powerful and their parallelism may create interest from the court. Unfortunately, neither call for simplifying this process but rather ask for more detailing — What is the meaning of “tangential?”; At point must the “rationale” be declared?

= = = =

Recent DOE Decisions from the District Courts: Steyr Arms, Inc. v. SIG Sauer, Inc., 17-CV-483-JD, 2020 WL 905534, at *4 (D.N.H. Feb. 25, 2020) (court rejects DoE claim because the accused “pin” was not sufficiently structurally similar to the claimed “bridge”).

Speedfit LLC v. Chapco Inc., 215CV1323PKCRLM, 2020 WL 758824, at *2 (E.D.N.Y. Feb. 14, 2020) (patentee waived DoE claim after failing to include it in its pretrial infringement contentions).

KAIST IP US LLC v. Samsung Elecs. Co., Ltd., 2:16-CV-01314-JRG, 2020 WL 731360, at *7 (E.D. Tex. Feb. 13, 2020) (confirming jury verdict — finding that “the jury had substantial evidence from which to find infringement under the doctrine of equivalents.”).

Epistar Corp. v. Lowes Companies, Inc., LACV1703219JAKKSX, 2020 WL 771096, at *9 (C.D. Cal. Feb. 11, 2020) (unequivocal disclaimer during prosecution will bar DoE).

ViiV Healthcare Co. v. Gilead Scis., Inc., CV 18-224-CFC, 2020 WL 567398, at *3 (D. Del. Feb. 5, 2020) (refusing to apply the disclosure-dedication rule)

Equivalents at the Supreme Court published first on https://immigrationlawyerto.tumblr.com/

0 notes

epistolizer · 7 years ago

Text

Hit & Run Commentary #10

President Trump’s immigration policies are being cast as the villain in the saga of a 39 year old father being deported after having been living undocumented in the United States since he was nine years old. How about much of the blame being placed on the Obama administration and the court system pussyfooting around for nearly a decade with one repeated stay after another instead of decisively settling this case? Perhaps this example ought to serve as a reminder to all of us that this governing by kicking the can down the road cannot go on forever indefinitely.

Albert Mohler posted an article titled “Moralism Is Not The Gospel But Many Christians Think It Is”. If that is the case, isn’t that more the fault of professional religionists such as himself rather than the mere pewfillers often forced to abide by an extensive list of regulations if they desire to remain in the good graces of those wielding authority? Sometimes these requirements are, at best, merely tangentially related to anything explicitly stated in Scripture or, at worst, the mere opinions of the ecclesiastical staff. If the mere pewfillers are the ones coming off as judgemental about enforcing nitpicky rules, it is often because they have been forced to live under the most stringent requirements their entire lives while they are passed over in terms of position, opportunity, or even attention in favor of newcomers and the like who (though perhaps sincerely Christian) are not held to the same standard as those that have bought into what is being taught from the pulpit that believers must act a certain way and if you don’t you aren’t likely one. Right or not, those told that it’s evil to date and further bashed from the pulpit if they are then not married by the age of 24 are going to raise an eyebrow in resentment if they see the pregnant teen moms fawned over with babyshowers.

In a review of “Thor: Ragnarok”, homeschool activist Kevin Swanson condemned the superhero genre for depicting Germanic gods. One can legitimately point out how these films promote a version of ancient alien hypothesis in that Thor is depicted as an extradimensional entity. But the movies do not really depict Thor as an actual god or that your child is likely to abandon their Christian faith if they happen to enjoy these sorts of costumed adventures. In the first Avengers movie, didn’t Captain America say that there was only one God and that he certainly wasn’t Loki? Even if movies consisted of nothing more than accurate detailed depictions of Bible stories, would those of this sort of hardline mentality accept that or would they find something else to gripe about. Coming to mind particular are fundamentalist objections to “The Passion Of The Christ” and criticism of Roma Downey’s series “AD”.

In his review of “Star Wars” The Last Jedi”, homeschool activist Kevin Swanson lamented that parents should not be surprised if after steadily watching these sorts of films that their children walk away from the church. That is because watching these films is the epistemological equivalent of regularly attending a mosque and then converting to Islam. First, if Swanson wants to remain consistent with his Calvinist soteriology, doesn’t he have to admit that those walking away from the faith as a result of allegedly being exposed to Star Wars were never intended to rank among the predestined to begin with? Second, in his remarks does Swanson intend to criticize those Christian leaders that for decades level condemnation against those believers that would have been drawn towards creative pursuits such as literature and filmmaking?

Isn’t the greater outrage not that a Trump appointee to Americorps articulated blunt remarks over how protected demographics often live their lives at variance with majoritarian preferences but rather that this constitutionally dubious agency continues to exist?

Al Sharpton said the integrity of Evangelicals that support President Trump. But does a “minister” that advanced the lies of Tawana Brawley and stoked the burning of Freddie’s Fashion Mart possess any integrity himself?

President Trump is now being accused of speaking in an Indian accent to imitate the Prime Minister of India. If that is to be condemned, will similar criticisms be leveled against those that spoof the President’s own elocutionary idiosyncrasies such as his oddly shaped lips and sounding hoarse much of the time?’

If all countries are to be viewed as possessing equal quality with no one allowed to admit what these places are really like, aren’t those that vacation in Bermuda, Aruba, or the Bahamas but not Hati even more racist than Donald Trump?

If President Trump does not want his offspring criticized in the media, perhaps he should utilize other minions as his policy advisors and enforcers.

A Washington Post column laments in the title, “Trump Evangelicals Have Lost Their Gag Reflex”. Shouldn’t these establishmentarian elites be the first to celebrate religious conservatives for having advanced their sense of political sophistication to the point that distinction is now made between an elected official’s policy positions and personal moral failings? Didn’t the liberal pundits used to pine how they wished America could be more like France where no one cared how many mistresses a high official might have bedded? If Evangelicals now downplay the importance of private virtue in public life, it is for the most part for having been ridiculed for decades how if they didn’t let go of their outdated morality particularly in regards to sexual ethics, they would forever consign the Republican Party to electoral defeat. For were not influential media outlets the ones that depicted public officials that consistently lived by their professed values such as Ted Cruz, Michele Bachmann, and Rick Santorum as something akin to a Sasquatch with communicable leprosy?

For Afrosupremacisit Propaganda Month, a Vermont school has announced it will fly the Black Lives Matter flag for the month of February. Mind you, these are the same sorts that threaten renewed rounds of looting of hair care product providers and electronics retailers unless every remaining remembrance of the Confederacy is removed from public view.

The growing concern is that social media is potentially harmful to democracy. This perspective is now so pervasive that even the Facebook corporate office concurs. Do the propagandists in in the mainstream engage in the same degree of manufactured outrage when it comes to the dangers posed by centralized hierarchical journalism and media analysis?

If so-called “Indigenous People” cannot celebrate Columbus Day because of the mistreatment received at the hands of European colonizers, why should European-Americans support Indigenous People Day because of the mistreatment innocent settlers experienced at the hands of heathen savages?

President Trump has been accused of an alleged affair with a pornstar. If true, talk about low hanging fruit. It doesn’t say much as to the prowess of your manhood and skills as a lover to bed a woman that will not only sleep with anyone for the right amount of money but also allow the encounter to be videoed.

Celebrity Chef Gordon Ramsay announced that he lost over 50 pounds over fear that his girth would cause him to lose his wife to another man. Frankly, it sounds like she is not worth keeping. Where is the media outrage that would have erupted about fat shaming and positive body image if it was his wife that felt similar pressure to lose weight in order to save her marriage?

In a broadcast commentary transcript, Cal Thomas concluded, “You may not like his behavior. You may not like his personality. But you cannot deny the objective results. This President in his first year in office is bringing about real change that is promoting the general welfare.” So is Thomas now saying that the health of a nation is determined solely in terms of materialistic financial statistics? The promised wall is no more closer to being built, proposals are being suggested for what will essentially amount to yet another amnesty, and (as usual) the State of the Union promises to be a litany of yet additional handout programs that the country can no longer afford. As a self-professed student of Francis Schaffer, one would think Thomas would know better. Does Thomas renounce the inclusion of his name in an edition of National Review published prior to the election suggesting that a Trump presidency would mark the ruination of the Republic?

During the 2018 State of the Union Address, Democrats booed President Trump’s remarks that immigration policy should consider quality individuals or nuclear family units rather than import entire slum villages as results from chain migration. If Joe Kennedy III is stepping forward to spearhead the antithesis of the Trump agenda, perhaps hundreds of migrants can be warehoused on the numerous spacious Kennedy family properties.

Fascinating how liberal agitators demand the remainder of the country refrain from comment when Columbus Day is rebranded as “Indigenous People Day” in urban cesspools of multiculturalism but they have no problem imposing their New York values upon the bastions of the Confederacy when it comes to what memorials will be allowed to remain on public property.

At an event titled “The People’s State Of The Union”, celebrities, activists, and social justice front groups converged to reinforce amongst themselves just how much they despise the idea of others enjoying a standard of living just above that of mere squalor to the point that they are advocating violent Communist upheaval. For if these limousine revolutionaries really gave the proverbial rodent’s rear shank about actual poverty, wouldn’t they have actually instead directed the resources needed to give themselves a gigantic pat on the back to actual poor people?

Did the thought police all jacked out of shape at a racially questionable sweatshirt sold on line ever get around to expressing similar degrees of outrage regarding the knockout game or the looting of businesses over unpopular trial verdicts?

Pope Francis repeatedly lectures the West about defending the oppressed and downtrodden in terms of throwing borders open to swarms of migrants and refugees. Yet in regards to the persecuted in Red China he certainly doesn’t mind turning the proverbial blind eye in terms of forcing two underground bishops to step down and granting Vatican approval to the bishops of the Chinese Catholic Patriotic Association.

A Super Bowl commercial proclaimed the following: "You come with open minds and the instinct that we are equal. Some people may see your differences and be threatened by them. But you are unstoppable. You'll love who you want. You'll demand fair and equal pay. You will not allow where you come from to dictate where you're going. You will be heard, not dismissed. You will be connected, not alone. Change starts now." Does that include Roy Moore loving whom he wanted to love in his younger days? And what of those now advocating bestiality, necrophilia, and these reports of a man fathering a child with his own 20 year old daughter? Will those that disagree with this predetermined agenda be guaranteed the same right to be heard and not dismissed or will that privilege only be granted to those acquiescing to the preferences of nefarious cabalistic elites? For what if the individual approaches the evidence and articulated justifications with this supposedly open mind and he concludes that the change needed is not to the extent advocated by the nihilistic vanguard?

Amusement Park King’s Dominion will no longer be referring to its classic wooden roller coaster as “The Rebel Yell”. Such an allusion to Confederate heritage might unduly trigger the weak minded and sociologically delicate. Instead the attraction will be renamed “Racer 75”. Just how much longer will this stupidity continue? Should the entire park be renamed since “King” refers to not only monarchy but one ruled over by a patriarchal figure without paying due homage to the gynocracy for the atrocities committed in the name of phallocentrism. And shouldn’t the name “Racer 75” also be considered offensive? For does not “Racer” imply a competition based on speed with that quantifiable measurement used to determine such potentially psychologically damaging categorizations such as winter and loser. Lastly, since the 75 is a chronometric recognition of when the ride was built, shouldn’t that also be considered offensive since that measurement is ultimately a relativistic one calculated through tabulation of the temporal interval having elapsed from that moment back to the existence of Christ?

By Frederick Meekins

0 notes

chrisbowler · 7 years ago

Text

Year End Planning

Forget about goals. Instead, focus on habits. This is a common refrain of late. The likes of James Clear, Shawn Blanc, and Nir Eyal all make the case for habits being greater than goals.

I won’t go so far as to tell someone to not set goals. But I do agree that habits are what will enable you to meet your goals. I still like to set an end destination in mind, but I’ve finally begun to see how powerful — and vital — the habits and routine are for getting to the finish line.

What has made the most difference for me is running in 2017. My year looked a little like this:

I got into using Strava based on Rian Van Der Merwe’s recommendation

This got me running a little more regularly as I enjoy the stats aspect of these fitness apps

Having friends who used Strava was incentive to run more, especially those folks who could run faster or further than me (I’m a competitive type)

A friend was planning to run in a half-marathon event, so I set the goal to run the same distance at the same time

I made a plan, then ran the 21 KM a few weeks early

From there, I decided I might as well go for the real thing and run a full marathon in 2018

Keeping a pretty regular rhythm to my weeks is something I’ve done for some time (as regular readers have likely noticed — I talk about this stuff a lot). So all of that to say the biggest key for me seeing progress was one thing: running regularly. Putting in a plan to incrementally increase how often or how far I was running has made a significant difference.

In November 2016, I ran to my church and back for the first time. A distance of 14 KM. It was a big jump in my distance at that time and was a significant milestone. In November 2017, my average runs are 15 KM and quite comfortable. And all because I’ve been running 3 times per week.

So as we get ready for the end of this year and the start of the next, I wanted to share a number of articles I’ve enjoyed the past 12 months. They’re all focused on the themes of habits and rhythms and how to ensure you actually accomplish the things that are important to you.