So on crack??

I normally avoid Buffy or Angel communities, largely because we're so behind here in Turkey it's almost impossible to avoid spoilers. However, today I had a quick peek at one and remembered another reason I avoid them:

"Man I love that episode. It is so on crack."

Software patents

Now Europe seems also to be descending into the mire of software patents, I was wondering what it would take to make an idea unpatentable (i.e. put it in the public domain). Is it enough just to publish it anywhere (on LJ, for example), do you need to publish it in a certain medium (e.g. paper) or do you actually need to take out a pre-emptive patent? (I just found a neat software idea in a novel that would be implementable, but I don't have the skills to implement it - though for all I know it may have already been done).