Tips for picking a brain:

1. Do not pick if the skin is too green–it’s not ripe yet.

2. The brain should be viscous and phlegmatic, yet hold up to a good thumping. Not too firm, not too soft.

3. The end that was twisted from the brain stem should be pliable when you poke your thumb through the outer membrane. If you can’t break the membrane with your fingernail, the brain was picked prematurely.

4. Smell is the most reliable indicator of freshness.

5. Have fun with it, but keep it platonic.

[ More posts about company names ]

Now that’s a great name! Like a Bond Girl. And kudos to Chardonnay for not being shy about having it and putting herself out there. And good luck battling those wildfires!

For the rest of us who aren’t so lucky namewise, here is a Bond Girl name generator to help spice up our personal nomenclature. My Bond Girl names are Tawnie Small and Yoko Dos, both of which I quite like.

Spyburbia, baby — you heard it here first!

How do you fool so many in suburbia for so long? “She said they were from Canada.”

Yes Virginia, there really are spies everywhere, even in your neighborhood. Especially in your neighborhood, most likely. And if they say they’re from a mysterious blank spot on the globe called “Canada”, call the FBI immediately. [In Ordinary Lives, U.S. Sees the Work of Russian Agents]

Anyone remember that ’70s Charles Bronson B-movie classic, Telefon? As Wikipedia reminds us,

During the Cold War of the 1950s, the Soviet Union planted a number of long-term, deep-cover sleeper agents all over the United States, spies so thoroughly brainwashed that even they didn’t know they were agents; they could only be activated by a special code phrase (a line from Robert Frost’s poem “Stopping by Woods on a Snowy Evening” followed by their real given names). Their mission was to sabotage crucial parts of the civil and military infrastructure as a precursor to a possible US/USSR active conflict or war.

I think ol’ Bob Frost was probably one of those secret agents as well. Just look at this video — something just doesn’t look quite right:

1. IP.com
2. USPTO
3. WIPO
4. Google Patents
5. Patents.com
6. FreePatentsOnline
7. Patent Lens
8. Faqs.org
9. FreshPatents.com
10. PatentStorm
11. Patent Genius
12. GetThePatent.com

Air Colbert
Airplane 2.0
An Airplane Named Desire
California Dreaming
Chic Mobile
Contents May Be Under Pressure
Dark Horse
Entourage Air
Fog Cutter
Gogo Dancer
Jane
Jefferson Airplane
Let There Be Flight
Mach Daddy
Midnight Ride
Moodlights, Camera, Action
My Other Ride’s A Spaceship
Red, White & Blue
Runway Angel
San Fransico Pride
Superfly
The 1-Year-Old Virgin
The Tom Clark Express
Three If By Air
Tubular Belle
Unicorn Chaser
Virgin & Tonic
Youtube Air

Next time you get on a plane, ask what its name is.

Kevin Costner’s much publicized Ocean Therapy Solutions company developed a soon-to-be-implemented oil and water separation machine. BP has ordered 32 of them thus far to help deal with their latest environmental disaster.

You can view the patent filing, description and drawings for Costner’s oil spill clean up machine here. Click on the pic in the upper right corner to see the full diagrams.

Uh oh. Seems like Cisco Systems runs a big chuck of the Internet on some thing called iOS. It’s deja vu all over again: you may recall back in 2007 when the iPhone was announced that Cisco owned the trademark for the name “iPhone”. Once again, Apple rolls out the strategy of “name it what we want, get legal to make it happen later”. Cool. If every company operated like this, it would make the job of naming companies much, much easier. And put more lawyers to work, recharging our economy in the process.

UPDATE: Kudos to Apple for making a legal deal with Cisco this time before launching the product. Says Cisco: “Cisco has agreed to license the iOS trademark to Apple for use as the name of Apple’s operating system for iPhone, iPod touch and iPad.  The license is for use of the trademark only and not for any technology.”

Search Box code available here.

You can do full searches for US Patents, US Patent Applications, Prior Art, PRC (China) Patents and PRC Patents in translation.

So that’s kinda cool.

Igor Canada

So to make all this cant even campier, let’s process our collective trauma over the Great Recession through the Sages of Grief in songs of “can’t”, leading off with an extra stage that sets-up our cultural addiction to the dream of spectacular profits:

1. Addiction — Show me the money!

You Can’t Resist It
Money Can’t Buy It
I Can’t Wait
I Can’t Decide
Can’t Say No
Can’t Stay Away
Can’t Take My Eyes Off You
Can’t Fight This Feeling
Can’t Slow Down
Just Can’t Get Enough
I Can’t Help Myself
I Can’t Quit You Baby
Can’t Live Without You
I Just Can’t Help Believing
I Just Can’t Wait to Be King

2. Shock and disbelief — Housing prices can’t go down!

I Can’t Be Bothered
Can’t Believe It
Can’t Take It In
Can’t Happen Here
I Can’t Tell You Why
I Can’t Explain

3. Denial — It’s just a blip on the way to greater market value.

It Can’t Rain All the Time
Can’t Stop Me
Can’t Tell Me Nothing
You Can’t Take Me
Can’t Stop, Won’t Stop
Rudie Can’t Fail
I Can’t Go For That
Can’t Give Up Now
You Can’t Catch Me
You Can’t Bring Me Down
They Can’t Take That Away From Me

4. Anger — Bernie Madoff did what with my pension?!!!

I Can’t Stand the Rain
Can’t Stand You
U Can’t Touch This
(I Can’t Get No) Satisfaction
I Can’t Outrun You
You Can’t Win
Can’t Stand It
I Can’t Stand It No More

5. Bargaining — Mr. Banker, will you renegotiate my mortgage?

Why Can’t You See
I Can’t Do It Alone
Why Can’t I?

6. Depression — We’re fucked, and soon we’ll be living in mud huts again.

Can’t Get You out of My Head
Can’t Keep It In
Can’t Stand Losing You
Can’t Get Over You
Can’t Cry Anymore
Can’t Go Back
Can’t Go On
Can’t Get There From Here
Can’t Let Go
Can’t Shake It
Can’t Find the Words
Can’t Get It Out of My Head
Can’t Sleep At Night
Can’t Finish What You Started
Can’t Get Out of What I’m Into
I Can’t Do This
Can’t Stop This Thing We Started
Can’t Stop This
Can’t Go Back Now
Can’t Stop the World
Can’t Let Go
Can’t Get Away
A Fire I Can’t Put Out

7. Acceptance — I don’t really even need a house, now that I have an iPad!

This Can’t Be Healthy
Can’t Deny It
I Can’t Deny
Can’t Have It All
You Can’t Always Get What You Want
You Can’t Turn the Tide
You Can’t Stop the Rain
We Can’t Help You
Can’t Be A Cowboy Forever

Geek.com picks up the story:

It’s everything the iPad was meant to be, according to German-based Neofonie GmbH that designed the device. WePad sports a large 11.6-inch screen and is fitted with a webcam and two USB ports, the two features sadly missing from Apple’s device. WePad runs Intel’s chip and a Linux software that supports both Flash content and Android apps. It’ll come preloaded with an open-sourced office productivity suite, too.

In case you’re wondering, yes – WePad will also do digital magazines. Neofonie teamed up with Europe’s largest magazine publisher Gruner+Jahr that promised to bring its flagship magazine Stern on the WePad.

It gets even better, as the company puts its indelible spin in the power of “We” (perhaps Nintendo might like to jump in here and Wii all over Neofonie as well), which is just so much more awesome than “I” (or “i”):

And if all of that wasn’t enough, Neofonie is dragging the Cupertino rival through the mud with its unapologetic marketing talk. For example, here’s how they defend the name choice:

Some people seem to think life is all about the I, and the Me, Me, Me. We beg to differ. To us, the power of many beats the power of one.

“Some people”, indeed. Unfortunately for Neofonie, “some people” also have an army of lawyers standing by to slice the “Pad” right off of their “We”. So if Apple sucessfully keeps them from using “Pad”, and Nintendo jumps in and says they can’t use “We”, they might be left with WePad, or eeP, at least until Asus’s legal eagles claim a risk of confusion with their Eee PC, and take away their “e”.

I think this padacious upstart should just go with truth in advertising, and call it the Neofonie. Ask any “Expert, texpert”. I am he as you are he as you are me and we are all Neofonie… And here are some major recently-granted Apple iPad patents that Neofonie would do well not to tread on:

• Methods and apparatuses for operating a portable device based on an accelerometer (3.30.10)
• Multipoint touchscreen (2.16.10)
• Electronic device having display and surrounding touch sensitive bezel for user interface and control (2.2.10)
• User interface gestures (2.2.10)
• Proximity detector in handheld device (1.26.10)
• Automatic detection of channel bandwidth (1.26.10)
• Systems and methods for color managing content elements on a display device (1.26.10)
• Identifying contacts on a touch surface (11.17.09)

More: Here are 82,212 ‘tablet computer’ related patents for your viewing pleasure.

The clip below is a more recent performance by Eric Idle, with original the transcription below that:

Rex Stardust, lead electric triangle with Toad the Wet Sprocket has had to have an elbow removed following their recent successful worldwide tour of Finland. Flamboyant ambidextrous Rex apparently fell off the back of a motorcycle. “Fell off the back of a motorcyclist, most likely,” quipped ace drummer Jumbo McCluney upon hearing of the accident. Plans are already afoot for a major tour of Iceland.

Dead Monkeys are to split up again, according to their manager, Lefty Goldblatt. They’ve been in the business now ten years, nine as other groups. Originally the Dead Salmon, they became for a while, Trout. Then Fried Trout, then Poached Trout In A White Wine Sauce, and finally, Herring. Splitting up for nearly a month, they re-formed as Red Herring, which became Dead Herring for a while, and then Dead Loss, which reflected the current state of the group. Splitting up again to get their heads together, they reformed a fortnight later as Heads Together, a tight little name which lasted them through a difficult period when their drummer was suspected of suffering from death. It turned out to be only a rumor and they became Dead Together, then Dead Gear, which lead to Dead Donkeys, Lead Donkeys, and the inevitable split up. After nearly ten days, they reformed again as Sole Manier, then Dead Sole, Rock Cod, Turbot, Haddock, White Baith, the Places, Fish, Bream, Mackerel, Salmon, Poached Salmon, Poached Salmon In A White Wine Sauce, Salmon-monia, and Helen Shapiro. This last name, their favorite, had to be dropped following an injunction and they split up again. When they reformed after a recordbreaking two days, they ditched the fishy references and became Dead Monkeys, a name which they stuck with for the rest of their careers. Now, a fortnight later, they’ve finally split up.

[This paragraph is in the original, in between the other two paragraphs, but not in the YouTube clip version above.] [--Divorced after only eight minutes, popular television singing star, Charisma, changed her mind on the way out of the registry office, when she realized she had married one of the Donkeys by mistake. The evening before in LA's glittering nightspot, the Abitoir, she had proposed to drummer Reg Abbot of Blind Drunk, after a whirlwind romance and a knee-trembler. But when the hangover lifted, it was Keith Sly of the Donkeys who was on her arm in the registry office. Keith, who was too ill to notice, remained unsteady during thes thrt ceremony and when asked to exchange vows, began to recite names and addresses of people who also used the stuff. Charisma spotted the error as Keith was being carried into the wedding ambulance and became emotionally upset. However, the mistake was soon cleared up, and she stayed long enough to consummate their divorce.--]