Important Patents - Curmudgeonliness
It is astonishing that Ivan Sutherland never secured this patent. Ivan's curmudgeonliness is widely acknowledged to be the unit reference. Of course, lesser mortals have discovered that the Ivan, like the Bell for sound pressure, is much too large a value for practical purposes. Statisticians and scholars have concluded that the milliIvan (1/1000 of the curmudgeonliness of the full Ivan), denoted mI, is a more practical unit for day-to-day use. Reliable metricians report that the peak observed value on the US east coast is Peter Weinberger, clocking in a quite remarkable 137 mI. Patent licensees are authorized to use certain characteristic phrases based on their certified curmudgeonliness values: 100 mI: "Get off my lawn!" 50 mI: "Kids these days!" 25 mI: "Go away, you bother me." 10 mI: "No, don't tell me your name. I'm not interested."