Winds -- September 17, 2015

Wow, talk about a beautiful day for slicers and dicers in the midwest. The link is dynamic. And with the fall migration, it should be a bountiful buffet, as they say, for foxes, wolves, and vultures over the next few weeks.

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Poll Results

Wow, the CNN and Drudge Report polls are pert-near identical regarding the second GOP presidential debate. The candidate, CNN, Drudge Report results:

• Donald Trump - 59% -- 53%
• Carly Fiorina - 17% - 21%
• Marco Rubio - 6% - 6%
• Rand Paul - 4% - 4%
• Ben Carson - 4% - 4%
• Jeb Bush on tiptoes - 3% - 1%

Time for about six candidates, including Jeb Bush to call it quits. 6'3" and he stands on his tiptoes for the group photo. It looks like Drudge readers are a bit more circumspect than CNN poll-takers.

And this is why Hillary will lose big if it's mano a mano with Donald Trump, and without question, everyone in America wants to see that debate. If that link breaks, here's the upshot: Wednesday's GOP debate appears to be the highest-rated event in CNN's history, according to preliminary Nielsen ratings.

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The Apple Page

The Wall Street Journal is reporting:

WASHINGTON-A federal appeals court on Thursday ruled Apple Inc. was entitled to an injunction barring rival Samsung Electronics Co. from incorporating features into its devices that infringe the iPhone maker’s patents.

A trial judge who previously denied Apple’s request “abused its discretion when it did not enjoin Samsung’s infringement,” the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit said.
The decision is a notable win for Apple, which has argued that Samsung should have to do more than pay monetary damages for infringing upon Apple’s patented technology.
Thursday’s decision stems from a 2014 trial in San Jose in which a jury concluded that some Samsung devices violated iPhone patents, including an Apple patent on “data tapping,” a feature that allows the user to call a phone number in an email by clicking on it.
The jury awarded Apple more than $119 million in damages, but the presiding judge denied Apple’s request for an injunction blocking Samsung from including infringing features in its devices.

I wondered the same thing. Not issuing an injunction was tantamount to allowing a competitor to steal a patent at the backdoor, pay a court-determined "royalty" to the injured party, and then let the competitor sell the stolen product out the front door, with no further penalty. 

The bad news, of course, is this: if Apple ever loses a similar patent ruling, it could be devastating for the fruit company.

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Tesla Spotting

By the way, after taking our middle granddaughter to soccer practice last night, I spotted a Tesla, with the Texas license plate "GAS NOMO" on the north side of Grapevine, TX, westbound on Texas Highway 114. It pulled off into the highly expensive enclave called Carillon, in Southlake.

Later on the ride home, I asked our granddaughter, age 8, if she was familiar with the Tesla automobile. She was not, but she told me that "Tesla" worked for "Edison." She recalled there was a disagreement over the safety of AC/DC but could not recall whether Tesla supported AC or DC and what Edison supported. Working backwards we rationalized since batteries were DC, and Tesla uses batteries, and the cars are called Tesla, then it was likely that Tesla advocated DC as safer and Edison wanted to go with AC. She mentioned that ultimately the two parted ways, and Edison joined up with someone else (I said I thought it was Westinghouse; she did not recall). She then, as an aside, mentioned the Rockefellers (oil) and the Vanderbilts (trains).

So, that was it: Tesla and AC or DC; Edison and AC or DC? It's a bit confusing; not easily reconciled. See wiki and the link above.

I did not mention to our granddaughter that the Tesla ran on coal. She is being taught all about the future of wind and solar energy at school and I did not want her to get a failing grade.