As a Ph.D. Candidate myself, I've thought about and seen some of these issues in action.
The general rule is that univerities have the rights to all work produced by faculty and students at the university. When possible, the university will license technology to companies, and part of the proceeds are paid to the inventor e.g. the student.
Is this reasonable? Consider:
- grad students are generally paid by the school
- the school's equipment is generally used by the student for the work
- the work is being produced for the school as a requirement for the degree
From a pragmatic standpoint, grad students are in the employ of the university, which provides funding and equipment for the work. That they lay some claim to it is not unreasonable.
So, what to do if you want it to be all yours, to do with as you desire (GPL, sell, bequeath to your cats)? IANAL, but my sense is that the work must be done on your own time, on your own equipment, and be unrelated to your academic research.
For those considering grad school, and anticipate generating important work, it might be worth talking to students and faculty about a prospective school's attitude towards technology licensing issues. Some schools (ahem)UR(cough) are pretty thick, obtuse, and uncooperative, making it plain difficult to license your work. The school might compensate the student generously, or perhaps miserly, from licensing fees. Also, it may depend on the specific funding: coporate funding may entail free access to all work produced under the grant, fellowships may have stipulations regarding who claims the work.
Finally, it will also depend on the attitude of the faculty. If a group of respected faculty push for certain policies (better licensing fees, freedom to GPL, etc), the university may be more willing to meet those desires. -----
D. Fischer
On a different note, because Purdue has long been strong in the agricultural tech. area, I've heard that it's been jokingly referred to as "CowTech":) -----
D. Fischer
The article commented on PS2 developers struggling with programming the new hardware. This is what happened with the N64, and one reason for its lower sales compared to the PS1.
But regarding their upcoming system, Nintendo wrote, "Instead of going for the highest possible performance, which does not contribute to software development, our idea was to create a developer-friendly next generation TV game machine that maintained above-standard capabilities" (From http://www.nintendo.com/gamecube/ind ex. html)
In the end, it's all about gameplay. The graphics are just icing. This is why Starcraft still continues to sell well, despite being 2 yrs old and using 640x480 2D sprite graphics.
Rather than being the Betamax, the PS2 may be the N64 redux, while Nintendo captures the market with rapidly developed, fun games upon the 'cubes release.
The real 'X-factor', IMHO, is the X-Box (no pun intended). MS has shown savvy in which games it has produced and distributed, but many other consumer market attempts have shown less insight: no internet acceptance until late in the game, MSN, various attempts at entering the banking industry, etc.
Re: clipboards
That's a nifty idea. It might be easier to sandwhich the mobo between two, thin, clear plexiglass sheets. That would give strength, and you wouldn't have to work as hard to smooth solder joints and fill in empty holes. -----
D. Fischer
Can you rephrase your last paragraph. Your double negative parses to "I think art can be simply beautify, etc. without needing to make a point." But given the apparent typo: Should "It does appear to inspire feeling" be "It does *not* appear to inspire feeling", I wanted to make sure I didn't misunderstand your first sentace about beauty and meaning.
In defense of the art, I did like the fact that it was: somewhat original, trying to capture the art of writing without using writing, and wasn't trying to make some tedious social commentary.
Of course, I'd rather spend a few hours looking at portraits by artists of old. -----
D. Fischer
Some good thoughts. Here are a few others, based on my own inner demons.
The notion behind these thoughts is to establish that the concepts and ideas were generated from within the company, before any possible implementation date by the thiefs. If it comes to it, you may have a leg to stand on if you identify the party responsible and pursue legal action. Since this could occur *after* they take a product to market using your ideas, this will help show that you generated them earlier.
- First & foremost: talk to your IP legal counsel and ask how to document IP retroactively for information that isn't properly documented, dated, etc.
- After determining what info was stolen, make sure you have current documentation and/or duplicates of it.
- If not already done, write up the information in a proper lab book, dated, signed by author and knowledgable witness
- Possibly place copies in sealed envelopes with dated forms notarized by lawyer.
- If you have working, but non-public, implementations then photograph (if hardware) or print and date code (if software), etc.
- Perhaps now is the time to file that patent.
- Talk to professional contacts!!! You may have a colleague at the (presumably) offending company who knows about the theft and is willing to provide information. I don't know if it would be considered bribery, but since whistle-blowing can be hazardous to one's career (despite protectionary laws), possibly make an opening in your company as a safety net if someone comes forward and subsequently loses their job.
IANMOA (I am not much of anything), but documentation is always good, even after the fact; and most people view corporate theft as slimy and would rather not be part of it. Use that to your advantage. -----
D. Fischer
Yes, I was thinking that the computer wasn't stolen; it just up and left, wanting to be free and all.
Sure, the hardware is a real monetary loss, but as for the corporate info, isn't this what all of us Napster supporters are for? Freedom to acquire others' information without consent or cost.
I don't know anything about memory industry testing methods in particular, but given that RAM chips are produced in volume, I doubt every chip is inspected by a human. More likely, there is an automated inspection system that checks for surface defects, perhaps runs quick functionality tests, and batch sampling inspection by human inspectors.
Not that that would lead to lower quality overall. It might even be better since people might get sloppy after looking at a few hundred identical chips every day, whereas machines don't get bored. (well, except for my computer. It insists I play Unreal Tourn. now and again:) -----
D. Fischer
What we need is a P2P math exchange program: Mathster! Trade your favorite equations, theorems, proofs and computations with like-minded individuals.
Then us math junkies and scientists could get our Math for free. We would also be screwing the onerous, monopolistic Math empires who sell Math at egregiously high prices, and profit off of poor, starving mathematicians who are stuck with terrible contracts.
I can appreciate that. I wanted a "dot-com" because of the hype -- it's easier for the average joe to remember.
It probably didn't come across, but I meant my comments to be tongue-in-cheek. At the same time, I think people generally want ".com" and ".net" and ".org" are 2nd & 3rd choices, respectively. Also, according to GreatDomains.com Valuation general system, the monetary worth of a domain name decreases roughly by 10x, 100x, (.net) or 1000x(.org) everything else being equal. That is, "biz.com" would be worth $10 million, "biz.net" $1 million, and "biz.org" $10k (high-end guesses based on the GD system).
Of course, I predict the current naming system will be outdated and replaced within 10yrs (5yrs if I'm feeling saucy:) and our kids will be boggled that people paid millions for ".com". -----
D. Fischer
I can make some educated guesses about the DNS system, but all I really know is that it translates words to numbers. I don't know anything about the techniques used.
I assume they use some sort of category sorting method to optimize the search / matching process from word to IP. But even then, I'd think that since every unique name is equivalent to a ~ Base 40 number (26 letters + 10 digits + misc punctuation), it would be trivial to convert name to lookup value to IP #.
Offhand, I can't see why we need TLDs.
Just allow a person to choose a domain name. All subdomains could then be arbitrary strings prepended with a period (.)
Thus,
http://this-is-my-stinking-address
is acceptable.
And I can have
http://arbitrary.sub.domain.s.on.this-is-my-stin king-address
I wouldn't be surprised if there were reasons why this wouldn't work, or is a bad idea, but I don't know what they are. -----
D. Fischer
Could be. I should check my optics books to find the typical value. And, like all other vision issues, it will vary from person to person. I'd gauge mine to be in the range of 120 - 160. -----
D. Fischer
I was thinking in terms of eyes fixed, looking forward, but ff you allow for eye movement, then 200 full-angle FOV is believable. I glanced at the site and didn't see an explicit comment on whether they considered eye-tracking. -----
D. Fischer
But ".web" clearly means "web" and not "non-web internet".
Out of curiosity (being a non-guru web user), what do you do with domains that aren't web associated, and how would ".web" help describe their use/purpose?
The suggestion of ".web" = ".meta-web-services" makes sense, but isn't that what ".net" was for? -----
D. Fischer
This has been raised before, but again, why do we need TLDs?
They have become mostly meaningless. While ".com" should mean ".company", what it really means is ".lucky-enough-to-get-name-first" and ".org" should be ".non-profit-organization", it really means ".loser-too-late-for-the-party" or ".org.com" to the layman (no offense to.org-ers out there, but I bet you'd rather have.com)
Why not just allow names to include letters a-z, dashes '-', underscores '_', pipes '|', periods '.' and maybe a few other characters.
Then a person can have
http://this-is.my_name.for_using||the.w.e.b
Or, more sensibly, using the Compaq example:
www.compaq.com
compaq.com
compaq.company
compaq.germany
compaq.de
compaq.co.de
And so forth. So why can't this be done? Is it a political/economic issue, or is it a technical problem for resolving name->IP# ? -----
D. Fischer
Your phrasing suggests that our FOV is >180, but it is more like ~120 (that's full angle, not half-angle:)
The simplest way to ballpark it is to look straight ahead, with both arms extended, index fingers extended, pointing up.
Slowly rotate arms backward, while looking forward. When you no longer see your fingers in your peripheral vision you've found the extent of your FOV.
Of course, this is not perfect because: 1) it's hard to keep your eyes looking straight ahead 2) since you know where your fingers are physically, I think you can fool yourself into to thinking you see them, when you're actually mentally visualizing where they are (just a hypothesis based on the past 5 min:) -----
D. Fischer
I believe the edges, or frame area, contain the connection wires to drive the LCD. So paneling LCDs may not be significantly more effective than putting standalone LCD displays side by side.
"We've heard that a million monkeys at a million keyboards could produce the Complete Works of Shakespeare; now, thanks to the Internet, we know this is not true." -- Robert Wilensky, University of California
(Ok - first, I really not looking for a flamewar here; I'm not trolling.)
"HIV/AIDS is a problem for everyone, not just homosexuals."
What's both interesting and saddening is that it seems like AIDS has been dealt with as if it's a political issue, not a disease that is a "problem for everyone."
Consider, if a form of smallpox returned, which had a relatively slow spread rate, but was still deadly. How would it be dealt with? Would doctors be required to not inform those in contact with the infected that they might be at risk. Would we allow them to donate blood, even though there was a checkbox indicating they were sick and the blood shouldn't be processed (mislabeling happens)? Would it be politicized rather than treated as a disease, with political correctness taking priority over public health?
I intend no insult or accusation to someone with such a disease. I wouldn't wish it upon anyone; I don't think anyone who has AIDS 'deserves' it as some have horribly said. Nor do I think quarantines are the answer, nor making them social outcasts. But I think AIDS should be handled as a disease and not as a political/minority-rights/voting issue.
As always, this is just my perception from events over the past decade, talking with doctors, and listening to the voices in my head. -----
D. Fischer
Slashdot Mirror
As a Ph.D. Candidate myself, I've thought about and seen some of these issues in action.
The general rule is that univerities have the rights to all work produced by faculty and students at the university. When possible, the university will license technology to companies, and part of the proceeds are paid to the inventor e.g. the student.
Is this reasonable? Consider:
- grad students are generally paid by the school
- the school's equipment is generally used by the student for the work
- the work is being produced for the school as a requirement for the degree
From a pragmatic standpoint, grad students are in the employ of the university, which provides funding and equipment for the work. That they lay some claim to it is not unreasonable.
So, what to do if you want it to be all yours, to do with as you desire (GPL, sell, bequeath to your cats)? IANAL, but my sense is that the work must be done on your own time, on your own equipment, and be unrelated to your academic research.
For those considering grad school, and anticipate generating important work, it might be worth talking to students and faculty about a prospective school's attitude towards technology licensing issues. Some schools (ahem)UR(cough) are pretty thick, obtuse, and uncooperative, making it plain difficult to license your work. The school might compensate the student generously, or perhaps miserly, from licensing fees. Also, it may depend on the specific funding: coporate funding may entail free access to all work produced under the grant, fellowships may have stipulations regarding who claims the work.
Finally, it will also depend on the attitude of the faculty. If a group of respected faculty push for certain policies (better licensing fees, freedom to GPL, etc), the university may be more willing to meet those desires.
-----
D. Fischer
Here's a Critique of RealCD interface which supports what you just said.
-----
D. Fischer
At least I'm not the only one to have a thing about spelling universities correctly...
:)
Again, it's Purdue and not Perdue.
And just in case it comes up (since it has before), it's Indiana University (IU) and not University of Indiana
On a different note, because Purdue has long been strong in the agricultural tech. area, I've heard that it's been jokingly referred to as "CowTech"
-----
D. Fischer
Perhaps a new moderation category would be helpful:
(Score: -1, Marketing Fluff)
:)
-----
D. Fischer
The article commented on PS2 developers struggling with programming the new hardware. This is what happened with the N64, and one reason for its lower sales compared to the PS1.
But regarding their upcoming system, Nintendo wrote, "Instead of going for the highest possible performance, which does not contribute to software development, our idea was to create a developer-friendly next generation TV game machine that maintained above-standard capabilities" (From http://www.nintendo.com/gamecube/ind ex. html)
In the end, it's all about gameplay. The graphics are just icing. This is why Starcraft still continues to sell well, despite being 2 yrs old and using 640x480 2D sprite graphics.
Rather than being the Betamax, the PS2 may be the N64 redux, while Nintendo captures the market with rapidly developed, fun games upon the 'cubes release.
The real 'X-factor', IMHO, is the X-Box (no pun intended). MS has shown savvy in which games it has produced and distributed, but many other consumer market attempts have shown less insight: no internet acceptance until late in the game, MSN, various attempts at entering the banking industry, etc.
It's going to be interesting.
-----
D. Fischer
Re: clipboards
That's a nifty idea. It might be easier to sandwhich the mobo between two, thin, clear plexiglass sheets. That would give strength, and you wouldn't have to work as hard to smooth solder joints and fill in empty holes.
-----
D. Fischer
Can you rephrase your last paragraph. Your double negative parses to "I think art can be simply beautify, etc. without needing to make a point." But given the apparent typo: Should "It does appear to inspire feeling" be "It does *not* appear to inspire feeling", I wanted to make sure I didn't misunderstand your first sentace about beauty and meaning.
In defense of the art, I did like the fact that it was: somewhat original, trying to capture the art of writing without using writing, and wasn't trying to make some tedious social commentary.
Of course, I'd rather spend a few hours looking at portraits by artists of old.
-----
D. Fischer
Some good thoughts. Here are a few others, based on my own inner demons.
The notion behind these thoughts is to establish that the concepts and ideas were generated from within the company, before any possible implementation date by the thiefs. If it comes to it, you may have a leg to stand on if you identify the party responsible and pursue legal action. Since this could occur *after* they take a product to market using your ideas, this will help show that you generated them earlier.
- First & foremost: talk to your IP legal counsel and ask how to document IP retroactively for information that isn't properly documented, dated, etc.
- After determining what info was stolen, make sure you have current documentation and/or duplicates of it.
- If not already done, write up the information in a proper lab book, dated, signed by author and knowledgable witness
- Possibly place copies in sealed envelopes with dated forms notarized by lawyer.
- If you have working, but non-public, implementations then photograph (if hardware) or print and date code (if software), etc.
- Perhaps now is the time to file that patent.
- Talk to professional contacts!!! You may have a colleague at the (presumably) offending company who knows about the theft and is willing to provide information. I don't know if it would be considered bribery, but since whistle-blowing can be hazardous to one's career (despite protectionary laws), possibly make an opening in your company as a safety net if someone comes forward and subsequently loses their job.
IANMOA (I am not much of anything), but documentation is always good, even after the fact; and most people view corporate theft as slimy and would rather not be part of it. Use that to your advantage.
-----
D. Fischer
Yes, I was thinking that the computer wasn't stolen; it just up and left, wanting to be free and all.
Sure, the hardware is a real monetary loss, but as for the corporate info, isn't this what all of us Napster supporters are for? Freedom to acquire others' information without consent or cost.
(using sarcasm, of course)
-----
D. Fischer
I don't know anything about memory industry testing methods in particular, but given that RAM chips are produced in volume, I doubt every chip is inspected by a human. More likely, there is an automated inspection system that checks for surface defects, perhaps runs quick functionality tests, and batch sampling inspection by human inspectors.
:)
Not that that would lead to lower quality overall. It might even be better since people might get sloppy after looking at a few hundred identical chips every day, whereas machines don't get bored. (well, except for my computer. It insists I play Unreal Tourn. now and again
-----
D. Fischer
What we need is a P2P math exchange program: Mathster! Trade your favorite equations, theorems, proofs and computations with like-minded individuals.
Then us math junkies and scientists could get our Math for free. We would also be screwing the onerous, monopolistic Math empires who sell Math at egregiously high prices, and profit off of poor, starving mathematicians who are stuck with terrible contracts.
Remember, Math wants to be free!
Vive le Math!
:)
-----
D. Fischer
Great, now the cost of my stock trades is going to increase to cover the cost of the /. calls.
;)
Time to look for a new online brokerage...
(yes, I really do use NDB
-----
D. Fischer
"I'm sick of all the hype surrounding 'dot-com'."
:) and our kids will be boggled that people paid millions for ".com".
I can appreciate that. I wanted a "dot-com" because of the hype -- it's easier for the average joe to remember.
It probably didn't come across, but I meant my comments to be tongue-in-cheek. At the same time, I think people generally want ".com" and ".net" and ".org" are 2nd & 3rd choices, respectively. Also, according to GreatDomains.com Valuation general system, the monetary worth of a domain name decreases roughly by 10x, 100x, (.net) or 1000x(.org) everything else being equal. That is, "biz.com" would be worth $10 million, "biz.net" $1 million, and "biz.org" $10k (high-end guesses based on the GD system).
Of course, I predict the current naming system will be outdated and replaced within 10yrs (5yrs if I'm feeling saucy
-----
D. Fischer
I can make some educated guesses about the DNS system, but all I really know is that it translates words to numbers. I don't know anything about the techniques used.
n king-address
I assume they use some sort of category sorting method to optimize the search / matching process from word to IP. But even then, I'd think that since every unique name is equivalent to a ~ Base 40 number (26 letters + 10 digits + misc punctuation), it would be trivial to convert name to lookup value to IP #.
Offhand, I can't see why we need TLDs.
Just allow a person to choose a domain name. All subdomains could then be arbitrary strings prepended with a period (.)
Thus,
http://this-is-my-stinking-address
is acceptable.
And I can have
http://arbitrary.sub.domain.s.on.this-is-my-sti
I wouldn't be surprised if there were reasons why this wouldn't work, or is a bad idea, but I don't know what they are.
-----
D. Fischer
Could be. I should check my optics books to find the typical value. And, like all other vision issues, it will vary from person to person. I'd gauge mine to be in the range of 120 - 160.
-----
D. Fischer
I was thinking in terms of eyes fixed, looking forward, but ff you allow for eye movement, then 200 full-angle FOV is believable. I glanced at the site and didn't see an explicit comment on whether they considered eye-tracking.
-----
D. Fischer
"The internet does not equal the web"
But ".web" clearly means "web" and not "non-web internet".
Out of curiosity (being a non-guru web user), what do you do with domains that aren't web associated, and how would ".web" help describe their use/purpose?
The suggestion of ".web" = ".meta-web-services" makes sense, but isn't that what ".net" was for?
-----
D. Fischer
This has been raised before, but again, why do we need TLDs?
.org-ers out there, but I bet you'd rather have .com)
They have become mostly meaningless. While ".com" should mean ".company", what it really means is ".lucky-enough-to-get-name-first" and ".org" should be ".non-profit-organization", it really means ".loser-too-late-for-the-party" or ".org.com" to the layman (no offense to
Why not just allow names to include letters a-z, dashes '-', underscores '_', pipes '|', periods '.' and maybe a few other characters.
Then a person can have
http://this-is.my_name.for_using||the.w.e.b
Or, more sensibly, using the Compaq example:
www.compaq.com
compaq.com
compaq.company
compaq.germany
compaq.de
compaq.co.de
And so forth. So why can't this be done? Is it a political/economic issue, or is it a technical problem for resolving name->IP# ?
-----
D. Fischer
What else do you use tld's for?
Email? again, a redundant naming; name@domain.web doesn't tell me much; unless it is necessary to distinguish 'web' from 'internet', say.
Websites: redundant as the original poster said.
FTP sites? that's what the ftp.name.tld is for.
Intranets? if it's "intra", then it isn't "web", really, it seems.
What else? Did I miss anything.
-----
D. Fischer
Your phrasing suggests that our FOV is >180, but it is more like ~120 (that's full angle, not half-angle :)
:)
The simplest way to ballpark it is to look straight ahead, with both arms extended, index fingers extended, pointing up.
Slowly rotate arms backward, while looking forward. When you no longer see your fingers in your peripheral vision you've found the extent of your FOV.
Of course, this is not perfect because: 1) it's hard to keep your eyes looking straight ahead 2) since you know where your fingers are physically, I think you can fool yourself into to thinking you see them, when you're actually mentally visualizing where they are (just a hypothesis based on the past 5 min
-----
D. Fischer
I believe the edges, or frame area, contain the connection wires to drive the LCD. So paneling LCDs may not be significantly more effective than putting standalone LCD displays side by side.
-----
D. Fischer
Well, as has been noted, the infinite-monkeys theory has been definitively disproven:
"We've heard that a million monkeys at a million keyboards could produce the Complete Works of Shakespeare; now, thanks to the Internet, we know this is not true."
-- Robert Wilensky, University of California
-----
D. Fischer
He wrote some great songs, including the classic Poisoning the Pigeons in the Park. I can't verify that he wrote the 'universe' song, but it's very much in the style of his other science songs.
Reading the lyrics do not do Lehrer's music justice. They are a must-listen.
-----
D. Fischer
I think that the multiverse is much in line with the Who made God? problem.
Where did our universe come from?
Oh, it's just part of the larger multiverse.
Where did the multiverse come from?
Oh...uhm...
and so forth.
Similar to this dialog
How did life start on earth?
It came form outer space.
Where did extra-terrestrial life come from?
...
It answers the question by creating a new question one degree removed, but no less challenging.
-----
D. Fischer
(Ok - first, I really not looking for a flamewar here; I'm not trolling.)
"HIV/AIDS is a problem for everyone, not just homosexuals."
What's both interesting and saddening is that it seems like AIDS has been dealt with as if it's a political issue, not a disease that is a "problem for everyone."
Consider, if a form of smallpox returned, which had a relatively slow spread rate, but was still deadly. How would it be dealt with? Would doctors be required to not inform those in contact with the infected that they might be at risk. Would we allow them to donate blood, even though there was a checkbox indicating they were sick and the blood shouldn't be processed (mislabeling happens)? Would it be politicized rather than treated as a disease, with political correctness taking priority over public health?
I intend no insult or accusation to someone with such a disease. I wouldn't wish it upon anyone; I don't think anyone who has AIDS 'deserves' it as some have horribly said. Nor do I think quarantines are the answer, nor making them social outcasts. But I think AIDS should be handled as a disease and not as a political/minority-rights/voting issue.
As always, this is just my perception from events over the past decade, talking with doctors, and listening to the voices in my head.
-----
D. Fischer