For some reason, in my head the test section of road plays "Let Me Call You Sweetheart"

[fancycwabs]

Back in 1988, when I was a senior in high school, I had an interview for a presidential scholarship at Georgia Tech--it took place one evening at the GTRI Radar Research Station at Eglin Air Force Base in Florida (a much closer drive from Mobile than Atlanta was), along with fellow candidate Nicky (which became Nick in college). They took us in separately, and asked us a set of prepared questions off a page, documenting our answers. Questions like historical figures you admire, achievements, and ideas you have.

When they got around to the ideas you have bit, I mentioned an idea that had occurred to me the past summer when we were driving from Mobile to New York and had to endure long stretches of road that had recently been graded so that it made an irritating whine as the family's Cutlass Supreme passed over it. I thought that it would be fun and less irritating if one could manipulate the nature of grading so that the road would play music as you passed over it.

This was met with a cold stare from the interviewer, and I didn't get the scholarship. Nick got one--I ended up getting a different scholarship which turned me into a mechanical engineer instead of a computer scientist or something--Nick's answer to the idea question had to do with forecasting the weather with 100% accuracy given the ability to model things accurately.

This morning, on slashdot, I got to read this, which leaves me with a combined feeling of vindicated and peeved. I guess I need to get to work patenting my other wild notions.

Comments

And no, not Franz Kafka

[resk.livejournal.com]

d00d, I have some many brilliant ideas, I don't even know what to do with them all.

Know any patent consultants?

[loree-borealis.livejournal.com]

That is an awesome idea! :D That interviewer obviously suffered from a small mind. Even if it wasn't the sort of thing to get you the scholarship, it at least merits a "wow, what an interesting idea" or a giggle or something. You were robbed.

[fancycwabs.livejournal.com]

They'll have to pull my interview documents from 1988 when they try to determine "prior art" for the patent dispute. My invention was free for the good of mankind!