Paul O’Brien

On House to Astonish, annotations for Wolverine #16.

On House to Astonish, annotations for Uncanny X-Men #24.

Violent, dark, and dirty: What Americans think about the Middle Ages | YouGov Americans have favorable views of chivalry and castles, but not the Crusades or the Inquisition

Really, it did.

It is very difficult to achieve a 3% favourability rating.

An YouGov poll last year reported that 9% of Americans had a favourable view of the Black Death.

Okay, this is quite outstanding from Bedford Council.

It’s rare that “incredibly ominous” might count as understatement, but…

On House to Astonish, annotations for X-Men #25.

Sorry, but the guy who has survived longer an achieved more of his priorities than anyone else in politics over the past two decades, who has outmaneuvered multiple leaders of two larger parties and reoriented politics around his priorities is not “bad at politics”. This is cope.

If you sincerely cannot figure out, in February 2026, whether you’d rather be governed by the worst, weakest, most feckless, most moderate Democrat, or the bloodthirsty fascist who has systematically dismantled American government and tormented its people, you are either a moron or a collaborator

Madcap doesn’t qualify, no. He’s a guest.

On House to Astonish, Daredevil Villains #72: Nuke.

On House to Astonish, Daredevil Villains #72: Nuke.

On House to Astonish, this week's chart post.

!! … ah

YouTube video by Lee Mendelson Film Productions, Inc. Vince Guaraldi - earliest television recording of "Linus and Lucy"

Actual footage of Vince Guaraldi performing "Linus and Lucy". I'm gobsmacked that this exists, but utterly thrilled too. www.youtube.com/watch?v=9EMf...

On House to Astonish, this week's X-Axis.

Yes, it would have been more accurate (even for the purposes of this thread) if I’d said that the inventive step can’t come solely from the program.

At best, this clarifies the correct analysis in borderline cases where there's genuinely something different about the hardware.

So under the old case law "an ordinary computer running a new program" failed at the first hurdle because it was a "computer program as such". Now it gets over the first hurdle, but it fails at the second because there's nothing new and inventive about the computer.

The new approach says that you get over the "computer program as such" hurdle just by having something in there that isn't a computer program.

BUT a valid patent also has to be for something novel and inventive, and that has to be found in the non-program bits.

The Patents Act says that a "computer program as such" can't be patented at all. The previous UK case law said that this extended to a patent which was just for a computer running a program.

As I understand it, what they're saying is basically that the existing UK case law has been analysing this question under the wrong heading, and that the way the European Patent Office approaches it is correct.

It’s an EU Regulation that we retained after Brexit and personally I’d be happy to see it repealed - it’s widely ignored anyway - but that’s not a question for the courts.

This isn’t correct. Rightly or wrongly, there’s legislation banning the use of terms like milk and cheese to promote non-dairy products, and Oatly weren’t disputing that. The case was about how much further the ban goes and whether it stopped Oatly trademarking “Post Milk Generation”.

No, that was already the law. The Supreme Court's ruling is that Oatly cannot trademark the phrase "Post Milk Generation".

There are also two separate areas of the map called "Progressive American Democrats" and "American Progressive Democrats", which sounds wonderfully schismatic.

Interesting how many responses to this are of the “come on Greens, you’re better than this” variety, which was a stock response when Corbyn’s Labour did anything particularly underhand. There is no “nice guy” party.

Erotic mascot fanfic?

to non Americans, there are 4 types of Superbowl advert

a) a CGI amphibian would like you to buy insurance
b) a basketball player is eating some chips, unexpectedly
c) this beer is America. it is our manifest destiny to conquer the rest of humanity
d) the guy from Stranger Things is driving a car

87. Half Man Half Biscuit - Dickie Davies Eyes (Probe Plus) All the singles to top the NME Indie Charts since its launch in 1981, complete with an overview of the other music in the charts each week.

Blog update: Half Man Half Biscuit's temporary swansong 45 "Dickie Davies Eyes" climbed to number one on the indie charts in October 1986. "Mention the Lord of the Rings just once more/ and I'll more than likely kill you" remains a superb opening line.

indienumber1s.blogspot.com/2026/02/87-h...