You most certainly do not need free access to this knowledge to do your job effectively any more than a mechanic requires free tools to do his job effectively.
I agree with you, but choose a different analogy next time. Every mechanic I've ever met has had to purchase his own tools.
Poor schools tend to be in shitty neighborhoods where teachers don't want to work, for example.
That's one theory.
An alternative theory is that the teachers in both good and bad neighborhoods have equivalent abilities, but kids in neighborhoods with "threats of physical violence" have so many things other than learning on their minds while they're at school -- like surviving the walk home, or protecting their little sisters from street gangs, or trying to understand why Mom didn't come home last night and feed them dinner -- that there's nothing the teacher can do in his/her one hour per day with the kid to make a demonstrable difference during the remaining twenty-three. Under this theory, the neighborhood (specifically, a caring parent) has a larger influence on student learning than the teacher does.
This is testable: Teachers transferred from the good neighborhood to the bad neighborhood would, under your theory, show improved performance when compared to their peers while, under the alternative theory, their performance would remain unchanged. Interestingly, the experiment has been done. Care to know what the result was?
The absolute balloon altitude record was set by the BU60-1 balloon from the Institute of Space and Astronautical Science of the Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency, which reached 53.0 km (173,900 ft) on the morning of 23 May 2002.
Given the choice between Fantasy and Science Fiction, I've always been a Science Fiction guy. My one Honorable Mention in Fantasy would have been Heinlein's Glory Road -- for some reason, the kind of book I can read over and over.
Yeah, good point. Plus you won't need the $4 billion to make the fab in the 22 acres, to make the "reproductive pair" of 300 nm bacteria. A few generations from now one will need the Gross National Product of Peru to make a new fab.
Even the smallest bacteria are around 300 nanometers in diameter. State-of-the-art silicon processes have a minimum feature size around 22 nm or so -- plus or minus a generation or two -- so the transistors made in these processes (less than 100 nm in diameter) are significantly smaller than the smallest bacteria. It would depend on the layout rules in the specific process, but it's likely that one could make a NAND gate (4 transistors) in a modern process, fit within a 300-nm circle -- including contacts.
Of course, "the interesting thing about a dancing bear isn't how well he dances, but that he dances at all." Biological computing is interesting and valuable for reasons other than the size of the devices. It's just a never-ending source of amazement (at least to me) that we've gone beyond bacterium-size and are now into virus-size transistors -- and the inorganic molecule-size transistors are on the horizon.
Yes, "Software Engineer" is a made-up title. However, for example, note this passage in the Florida statutes (471.031 (1)(b)1.): "A person may not [...] use the name or title “professional engineer” or any other title, designation, words, letters, abbreviations, or device tending to indicate that such person holds an active license as an engineer when the person is not licensed under this chapter, including, but not limited to, the following titles: [...] 'software engineer,' 'computer hardware engineer,' or 'systems engineer.'"
I was merely pointing out that the run-of-the-mill person starting out may not even think of the Professional Engineering laws in his/her state, innocently use the term "software engineer" as part of the new business, and run into easily-avoidable legal trouble.
And yes, the Mechanical PE exam is a bear, as is the Civil exam. The Electrical Engineering exam, however, is not -- the passing rate in most states is much, much higher than the others, and many people have passed meeting only the minimum experience requirements.
Mazda sold only 2,896 RX-8 cars last year, with 1,245 of them in North America and 963 in Japan. Cumulative sales of Mazda vehicles with rotary engines total about 1.995 million as of the end of August
Unless my math is off, it looks like final cumulative sales will fall just short of 2 million cars:
2,896 cars/year is 241.33 cars/month; even assuming the end is on 30 June that means only 10 more months of production -- a total of 2413.33 cars -- for a cumulative total of 1.9974 million (only to the precision of the starting "about" 1.995 million, of course). Man, just one year short. Maybe there will be enough sympathy sales that final year to put them over the top?
You're right -- the story at the national level is well-known. I was trying to give him a forum to share his personal experiences, but I didn't want to bias the question by assuming he had any, and ended up not asking the question I really wanted to ask. Self-editing never works.
Let me try again:
How have the BATF (now the BATFE) and other government agencies affected your enjoyment of amateur rocketry since 9/11?
Back in the 1950s and 1960s in the US, model rocketry was promoted as a way to interest youth in science and technology and, therefore, strengthen and defend the nation. However, amateur and, to a lesser extent, model rocketry are today seen by much of the public as a dangerous technology that should be suppressed, to keep it out of the hands of dangerous terrorists. How can the rocketry community regain public support?
You need to contact an actual tax attorney and/or accountant, and try again, rather than listen to people putting you down. The law does nothing of the sort; there are, in fact, tens of thousands of self-employed programmers and software engineers in the US, and there are dozens of ways to set oneself up in the business.
Just keep in mind that it's more likely you will run afoul of your state's Professional Engineer statues if you call yourself an "Engineer" and do not have a P. E. license. But this, too, is easy to avoid; usually just by not using the word "engineer" in your business name or as a title on your business cards. Or, by actually sitting for the exam(s) and getting the license. . . .
I don't disagree, but I wasn't debating whether or not the external technology would look better on the balance sheet than the cash -- i.e., whether or not the deal would be done. I started with the assumption that the technology would be acquired, and then pointed out that when something is acquired most senior managers would like to have an asset on the balance sheet as a result, and so buying it from an external source, instead of generating it internally, is often the more attractive option.
It is of course true that the value of a purchased technology -- like that of most assets -- is subject to future writedowns in value. The active word being "future", as in, "some other guy's problem" -- or, at least, "a problem for another day", if it occurs at all. The expense of the internal R & D lab, though, is certain, and present today.
Viewed still another way, an internal R & D lab is a constant expense, from which one expects to get valuable technology assets which, at some time in the future, will have higher net present value than the money paid out -- but no guarantee you'll get them. ("Genius doesn't work on an assembly line basis. . . You can't simply say, 'Today I will be brilliant.'") External technology, however, requires no expense until it is needed/wanted, and someone else has taken the risk. (One can argue that, in a perfect market, the "someone else" would receive a return on the technology commensurate with the risk taken, but that's not always the way to bet.)
The reason 'Detroit' haven't done anything with the startups is because they have their own R&D factories. Why partner when they can do it themselves better and cheaper?
Because when technology is purchased, it is considered an asset, and appears so on the balance sheet. Internal research and development organizations, however, are viewed as liabilities, since they have payroll and other continuing expenses. It's an accounting advantage when outside technology, either in the form of entire companies or just their IP, is purchased.
Said another way, the external technology has a value that is explicitly recorded on the balance sheet. The value of technology created by the internal R & D organization, OTOH, is not explicitly realized. One reason for this is that its valuation is quite difficult to determine (unless it's sold outside the company, of course, when it becomes worth what someone is willing to pay for it). Case in point: Your company's R & D organization develops a new opposed-piston engine technology. How much is it worth, in a dollar figure justifiable to an external auditor? Could someone make an equally reasonable argument for a figure one-tenth that of yours?
That would be the Honjo tragedy (see p. 8 of this pdf for gory details) of the Great Kanto Earthquake that demolished Tokyo at two minutes before noon on 1 September 1923.
The Honjo tragedy was just the best-known of many sub-firestorms in open fields that developed as the city built largely of wood, and filled with people cooking lunch on open-fire hibachis, got hit by a magnitude 7.9 - 8.2 (depending on the source) earthquake. More than 100,000 people died in the earthquake and resulting fire and, of these, between 30,000 and 40,000 died at Honjo. People in open fields miles from the flames died of hypoxia or were baked by superheated, oxygen-poor air; people in open fields closer to the flames died from burning, falling debris. It was about as horrible as horrible gets, and we may all hope that, however we go, it won't be like that.
As an aside, it is difficult to overestimate the sociological and political effects of this earthquake. For example, strife between ethnic Koreans and Japanese led to the massacre of thousands of Koreans and other ethnic minorities following the earthquake and firestorm. After the event, watch our for your fellow survivors, too.
"Chalmers, a man with a keen sense of humor, had used the example of a man looking down on a microscope slide and seeing the bacteria formed into the words 'Take us to your leader.' Everyone thought Chalmers's idea highly amusing."
In the beginning, hardware was not "open." Any antique radio collector will tell you that the schematics of 1920s radios were some of the best-kept secrets the manufacturers had (at the time), since the parts used in their products were readily available. Giving the user a schematic was viewed as a license to compete, and there were hundreds, if not thousands, of radio receiver manufacturers -- many of whom got started by reverse-engineering an existing design.
It was only in the 1930s that schematics began to be shipped with products, as the shakeout of the manufacturers meant that competition was based on economies of scale and factors other than just knowing how to build a radio.
All true. However, while internal oscillators have many good uses, their frequency stability is terrible -- usually something in the range of 0.1%, or 1000 ppm -- so it is difficult to use them when accurate timing is needed. For the application for which this invention was first used, paging receivers, timing accuracy of 100 ppm or so was needed, so a crystal was necessary.
Slashdot Mirror
You most certainly do not need free access to this knowledge to do your job effectively any more than a mechanic requires free tools to do his job effectively.
I agree with you, but choose a different analogy next time. Every mechanic I've ever met has had to purchase his own tools.
"350 Years of Science Online" has a different meaning than "350 Years of Science, Online".
Poor schools tend to be in shitty neighborhoods where teachers don't want to work, for example.
That's one theory.
An alternative theory is that the teachers in both good and bad neighborhoods have equivalent abilities, but kids in neighborhoods with "threats of physical violence" have so many things other than learning on their minds while they're at school -- like surviving the walk home, or protecting their little sisters from street gangs, or trying to understand why Mom didn't come home last night and feed them dinner -- that there's nothing the teacher can do in his/her one hour per day with the kid to make a demonstrable difference during the remaining twenty-three. Under this theory, the neighborhood (specifically, a caring parent) has a larger influence on student learning than the teacher does.
This is testable: Teachers transferred from the good neighborhood to the bad neighborhood would, under your theory, show improved performance when compared to their peers while, under the alternative theory, their performance would remain unchanged. Interestingly, the experiment has been done. Care to know what the result was?
The absolute balloon altitude record was set by the BU60-1 balloon from the Institute of Space and Astronautical Science of the Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency, which reached 53.0 km (173,900 ft) on the morning of 23 May 2002.
Given the choice between Fantasy and Science Fiction, I've always been a Science Fiction guy. My one Honorable Mention in Fantasy would have been Heinlein's Glory Road -- for some reason, the kind of book I can read over and over.
Pity that it didn't make the cut.
Yeah, good point. Plus you won't need the $4 billion to make the fab in the 22 acres, to make the "reproductive pair" of 300 nm bacteria. A few generations from now one will need the Gross National Product of Peru to make a new fab.
Even the smallest bacteria are around 300 nanometers in diameter. State-of-the-art silicon processes have a minimum feature size around 22 nm or so -- plus or minus a generation or two -- so the transistors made in these processes (less than 100 nm in diameter) are significantly smaller than the smallest bacteria. It would depend on the layout rules in the specific process, but it's likely that one could make a NAND gate (4 transistors) in a modern process, fit within a 300-nm circle -- including contacts.
Of course, "the interesting thing about a dancing bear isn't how well he dances, but that he dances at all." Biological computing is interesting and valuable for reasons other than the size of the devices. It's just a never-ending source of amazement (at least to me) that we've gone beyond bacterium-size and are now into virus-size transistors -- and the inorganic molecule-size transistors are on the horizon.
Did I mention IBM?
Yes, "Software Engineer" is a made-up title. However, for example, note this passage in the Florida statutes (471.031 (1)(b)1.): "A person may not [...] use the name or title “professional engineer” or any other title, designation, words, letters, abbreviations, or device tending to indicate that such person holds an active license as an engineer when the person is not licensed under this chapter, including, but not limited to, the following titles: [...] 'software engineer,' 'computer hardware engineer,' or 'systems engineer.'"
I was merely pointing out that the run-of-the-mill person starting out may not even think of the Professional Engineering laws in his/her state, innocently use the term "software engineer" as part of the new business, and run into easily-avoidable legal trouble.
And yes, the Mechanical PE exam is a bear, as is the Civil exam. The Electrical Engineering exam, however, is not -- the passing rate in most states is much, much higher than the others, and many people have passed meeting only the minimum experience requirements.
Mazda sold only 2,896 RX-8 cars last year, with 1,245 of them in North America and 963 in Japan. Cumulative sales of Mazda vehicles with rotary engines total about 1.995 million as of the end of August
Unless my math is off, it looks like final cumulative sales will fall just short of 2 million cars:
2,896 cars/year is 241.33 cars/month; even assuming the end is on 30 June that means only 10 more months of production -- a total of 2413.33 cars -- for a cumulative total of 1.9974 million (only to the precision of the starting "about" 1.995 million, of course). Man, just one year short. Maybe there will be enough sympathy sales that final year to put them over the top?
I need to get out more.
What are you on about?
Just one example of the FUD the industry has had to deal with.
You're right -- the story at the national level is well-known. I was trying to give him a forum to share his personal experiences, but I didn't want to bias the question by assuming he had any, and ended up not asking the question I really wanted to ask. Self-editing never works.
Let me try again:
How have the BATF (now the BATFE) and other government agencies affected your enjoyment of amateur rocketry since 9/11?
Back in the 1950s and 1960s in the US, model rocketry was promoted as a way to interest youth in science and technology and, therefore, strengthen and defend the nation. However, amateur and, to a lesser extent, model rocketry are today seen by much of the public as a dangerous technology that should be suppressed, to keep it out of the hands of dangerous terrorists. How can the rocketry community regain public support?
How has the relationship with the ATF and other government agencies affected amateur rocketry since 9/11?
You need to contact an actual tax attorney and/or accountant, and try again, rather than listen to people putting you down. The law does nothing of the sort; there are, in fact, tens of thousands of self-employed programmers and software engineers in the US, and there are dozens of ways to set oneself up in the business.
Just keep in mind that it's more likely you will run afoul of your state's Professional Engineer statues if you call yourself an "Engineer" and do not have a P. E. license. But this, too, is easy to avoid; usually just by not using the word "engineer" in your business name or as a title on your business cards. Or, by actually sitting for the exam(s) and getting the license. . . .
I don't disagree, but I wasn't debating whether or not the external technology would look better on the balance sheet than the cash -- i.e., whether or not the deal would be done. I started with the assumption that the technology would be acquired, and then pointed out that when something is acquired most senior managers would like to have an asset on the balance sheet as a result, and so buying it from an external source, instead of generating it internally, is often the more attractive option.
It is of course true that the value of a purchased technology -- like that of most assets -- is subject to future writedowns in value. The active word being "future", as in, "some other guy's problem" -- or, at least, "a problem for another day", if it occurs at all. The expense of the internal R & D lab, though, is certain, and present today.
Viewed still another way, an internal R & D lab is a constant expense, from which one expects to get valuable technology assets which, at some time in the future, will have higher net present value than the money paid out -- but no guarantee you'll get them. ("Genius doesn't work on an assembly line basis. . . You can't simply say, 'Today I will be brilliant.'") External technology, however, requires no expense until it is needed/wanted, and someone else has taken the risk. (One can argue that, in a perfect market, the "someone else" would receive a return on the technology commensurate with the risk taken, but that's not always the way to bet.)
The reason 'Detroit' haven't done anything with the startups is because they have their own R&D factories. Why partner when they can do it themselves better and cheaper?
Because when technology is purchased, it is considered an asset, and appears so on the balance sheet. Internal research and development organizations, however, are viewed as liabilities, since they have payroll and other continuing expenses. It's an accounting advantage when outside technology, either in the form of entire companies or just their IP, is purchased.
Said another way, the external technology has a value that is explicitly recorded on the balance sheet. The value of technology created by the internal R & D organization, OTOH, is not explicitly realized. One reason for this is that its valuation is quite difficult to determine (unless it's sold outside the company, of course, when it becomes worth what someone is willing to pay for it). Case in point: Your company's R & D organization develops a new opposed-piston engine technology. How much is it worth, in a dollar figure justifiable to an external auditor? Could someone make an equally reasonable argument for a figure one-tenth that of yours?
That would be the Honjo tragedy (see p. 8 of this pdf for gory details) of the Great Kanto Earthquake that demolished Tokyo at two minutes before noon on 1 September 1923.
The Honjo tragedy was just the best-known of many sub-firestorms in open fields that developed as the city built largely of wood, and filled with people cooking lunch on open-fire hibachis, got hit by a magnitude 7.9 - 8.2 (depending on the source) earthquake. More than 100,000 people died in the earthquake and resulting fire and, of these, between 30,000 and 40,000 died at Honjo. People in open fields miles from the flames died of hypoxia or were baked by superheated, oxygen-poor air; people in open fields closer to the flames died from burning, falling debris. It was about as horrible as horrible gets, and we may all hope that, however we go, it won't be like that.
As an aside, it is difficult to overestimate the sociological and political effects of this earthquake. For example, strife between ethnic Koreans and Japanese led to the massacre of thousands of Koreans and other ethnic minorities following the earthquake and firestorm. After the event, watch our for your fellow survivors, too.
How long are you staying? Where in China will you be? Differences matter.
A Third of Sun-Like Stars May Have Warm Earth Analogs
Don't worry; our knowledge of superior digital technology will save us.
Thanks -- try the veal! I'm here all week.
H'mm, pretty small crowd for a Thursday. . . .
"Chalmers, a man with a keen sense of humor, had used the example of a man looking down on a microscope slide and seeing the bacteria formed into the words 'Take us to your leader.' Everyone thought Chalmers's idea highly amusing."
They're not actually computing machines.
Well, not generally programmable computing machines.
In the beginning, hardware was not "open." Any antique radio collector will tell you that the schematics of 1920s radios were some of the best-kept secrets the manufacturers had (at the time), since the parts used in their products were readily available. Giving the user a schematic was viewed as a license to compete, and there were hundreds, if not thousands, of radio receiver manufacturers -- many of whom got started by reverse-engineering an existing design.
It was only in the 1930s that schematics began to be shipped with products, as the shakeout of the manufacturers meant that competition was based on economies of scale and factors other than just knowing how to build a radio.
All true. However, while internal oscillators have many good uses, their frequency stability is terrible -- usually something in the range of 0.1%, or 1000 ppm -- so it is difficult to use them when accurate timing is needed. For the application for which this invention was first used, paging receivers, timing accuracy of 100 ppm or so was needed, so a crystal was necessary.
I am pretty sure I worked for AT&T on digital pagers that did this well before 1990.
I went on to work on "selective call radios" (cellphones) for Motorola which did the same thing in about 1988.
Quite possible -- the priority date for the patent is 7 November, 1983.