DMD 0.154 release

[Georg Wrede]

John C wrote:
> Have you got the ClearType tuning applet? It installs into the Windows 
> Control Panel and allows you to fine-tune the sub-pixel rendering to 
> make it sharper or softer.

It may be out-of-line here for me to take issue, but I have exactly 2 
things with ClearType.

First, to get a patent for something, the US law states that it has to 
be outside "the state of the art". I disagree. Anybody who has been to 
an art fair where there's a tinted-lead window (like in Churches), a bit 
in front of a picture or a text, has come to think of this idea, 
possibly more than a tousand years ago.

Second, understanding that the human eye understands grey-tones 
_separately_ from color, only needs an undergraduate "degree" in physiology.

Therefore: the way beavers fell trees (gnawing at them till the stem 
becomes narrow enough to not support the _inherent_ imbalance in _any_ 
living thing (thus resulting in a fall to one or another direction), and 
thus enabling trees to fall in the first place), _should_ not be 
patented by man. (Opposition says: so how come the beaver is successful 
in making a deliberate and successful effort at making dams??? Well, 
it's because it can _look_ at the Birch (or whatever), and see the 
imbalance. Now, try to patent _that_!)

Given the antics of the Contemporary American Judicial System, and the 
corollaries of "whoever gets the smartest lawyer wins", as opposed to, 
whoeven remotely represents "right" or the "truth" (and the unfortunate 
conviction on this aberration being some kind of reality -- which it 
becomes, when everybody start actually believing that), it is no wonder 
that ClearType can ever be faced without a roar of laughter at the 
Patent Office.

---

I have personally invented the same technique, I guess some two decades 
ago. I originally aimed it at Sony Trinitron displays. (There were no 
color LCD displays around at the time.) (More accurately, only those of 
them that happened to "about" match the vertical grid to the nominal 
horizonal resolution of the display, were my target. (Which was too 
seldom to show _obvious_ economic profitability to prospective venture 
capitalists.)) I don't have any Official Documents corroborating this, 
and that is _only_ because I never thought the idea anywhere near 
worthwhile to even _try_ to patent. It simply was way too obvious to me. 
(As in, not being an idea "every highly skilled craftman in the industry 
wouldn't come to think of at the first hint of need.)

---

Bottom line: (andy you may (and should!)) distribute this text to any 
party that even remotely may have a vested enough interest in 
challenging the ClearType "patent".

I'll be more than eager to appear on the Witness Stand.
(Oh yeah, and I'm the guy they can't bribe: I'm not in it for the 
money.) (By this time even the opponents oughtta guess I'm not from the US!)