At Maxis, we didn't arrive at the totally obvious name The Sims until very late in development.

At first there was the secret development name, Project X, but everybody had a Project X, and we certainly couldn't ship with that.

Then there was Jamie's obvious name, Dollhouse, which was quite descriptive, but boys would hate it.

Then there was Will's quirky name, Super Happy Friends Home, which only the Japanese would love.

Then there was Jim's high minded name, Jefferson, for the pursuit of happiness, but it made everybody think of the sitcom The Jeffersons.

Then there was the legendary perfectly descriptive catchy epic name, that everyone on the team really loved, which we dreamed up together in a brainstorming session when we were all quite stoned, but by the next day we all forgot it, and nobody could ever remember what it was again, although we could all distinctly remember the warm glow of knowing that it was the best possible name in the world, which everyone would love. Those were good times! ;)

But for some reason, during all that time, despite racking our brains, nobody ever though of "The Sims", which is retrospect was a totally obvious name for a continuation of the SimCity franchise focusing on the people in the city. (The original SimCity manual referred to the people in the city as "the Sims," so there was a long standing precedent.)

I have no idea who eventually came up with the name The Sims, and I'm happy with it, but it definitely wasn't the perfect name that everybody forgot. It's lost in the sands of time...

You know what's worse than patent trolls gaming the system? It's all of those people in the world who say, "Yeah, IV is smart. They've found a loophole and are exploiting it. Nothing to be done."

Wrong. Who runs this place? You and me. And if enough of us want to change the law to put IV and it's clones out of business, we can do it. This place is our home, our nation, and we get to decide what's allowed here. Our biggest challenge is not IV, but all of those people in the world who give IV and people like them a nod, a kind of respect, an admiring acknowledgement that they've abused the system and gotten away with it. It's the same respect given to influential bankers in Wall St and London, it was the same respect given to Bush, the same respect given to wealthy men accused of rape and murder who never serve time. Any and every action taken against these entities seems to either melt away entirely or result in a slap on the wrist. Meanwhile people who hack celebrity emails get 10 years hard time. People making $20k a year get audited and go to prison.

It is not okay. There is nothing to admire, and patent trolls are merely smug abusers of our society. Organizations that follow the letter of the law but ignore the principles behind them should inspire our strongest contempt. Their existence's only positive value is as a clarion call to vigorous action by our legislators to amend the law to close the gap between the letter and spirit. The longer we wait, the less legitimacy the rule of law has.

Our elected officials, the people we keep voting into office cycle after cycle, are far more interested in playing their political games. They do have some time leftover to actually govern. But governing takes common sense, and whatever they have is shattered by lobbyists who's only job is to undermine common-sense with smooth-sounding arguments - or, if that doesn't work, threats of withdrawing campaign support. Our leaders are dazzled by arguments of complexity when the heart of the problem is genuinely, truly simple:

Introduce and pass a bill to eliminate software patents, retroactively, and do it now.

I'm an avoid back country snowboarder (split boarder) in the Canadian Rockies, and now further north into Coastal Alaska and I've spent many seasons as ski patrol, and taken numerous Avalanche training courses.

After my first 4 day course, the message was very clear:

"You are now the least knowledgeable people that should be in the back country".

I kept thinking "I know just enough to know I know nothing".

Reading this article it was very hard not to angry. Severe lack of training and practice caused deaths.

* 16 people is a huge no-no.

* The fact that someone in the group (a Liftie!) didn't even have a beacon should be a HUGE warning sign.

* Hitting the slope at 11:45 seems wrong to me - the day had warmed by then allowing the snow to consolidate.

* No clear route identification or plan

* The didn't dig a snow pit to assess avalanche conditions on the slope they were about to hit - my personal number 1

* Multiple people dropped in at once - the biggest no-no of all!

* They saw evidence of big slides on the way down, but kept going anyway!

* Waiting for those above by just standing around waiting in the potential slide path.

* Calling 911 immediately shows a lack of experience and understanding. Those buried have ~13 minutes before their chances of survival drop to essentially zero - help is not coming to save them. YOU MUST SAVE THEM.

* Calling 911 to report a body is a freaking waste of time and could cost others' buried their lives. KEEP SEARCHING AND DIGGING!

I hate to say it: They were asking for it, and a lot of them knew better.

Please, please, please, never go into the back country without training. Even a weekend course will be great. Don't let your friends or those more experienced than you convince you it's not needed - anyone that says that is not worth going with, because you are risking your life with people that don't know what they're talking about.

EDIT: If you want the first-person avalanche experience, watch this video. I go snowboarding here all the time. Turn the sound way up to really feel it. This person was saved by well trained back country ski partners. http://vimeo.com/6581009