Thanks a bundle! Especially for Siwiak and Makarov's books; indoor propagation and attenuation and Matlab simulation are/exactly/ what I'm looking for.
Now all I hope is that I can get 'round the interference caused by monitors, speakers and mobile phones to get accurate enough readings. 3d positional data, here I come:)
"Governments that have tried to control the technology directly (Soviet Russia and Nazi Germany are two of the most prominent examples that come to mind) really haven't made out too well in that whole survival game."
Which is not to say they made for bad science. I'd actually go on to say that the engineering sciences in the USSR and Nazi germany surpassed the rest of the world. Nazi's had rockets and better planes, as well as better tanks at their disposal, and damn near beat the allies to the A-bom. The USSR, well, I have a special respect for these guys: they stunned the world by putting something in orbit (to which one american tv presenter said 'well, you have Sputnik, we have colour tv!'); they tried to put huge mirrors in space to battle SAD in Syberia; they put the first space station up; when first going into space, the US spent millions developing a pen which would work in zero g...the USSR gave their cosmonauts pencils:) ; their planes would be better than the US counterparts if only they had the funding and the electronics; their planes, whilst performing so well, are desingned to be repaired by a 17 year old farmboy with a wrench...an f-15 needs a ground crew of 17; they discovered and implemented surface effect craft; their camshaft cumbustion engines where considered impossible by the west until a year or so ago...while that design comes from the 70's; the basic (mathematics) research in the USSR is still being 'discovered', and has been fundamental in many discoveries. The list goes on and on and on. But they did kinda suck at electronics:)
Now, you are right: these nations died. But they produced great science, arguably better than the rest of the world in spite of or because of being directed by the government.
Now that's real science:P Thanks for posting that; it's an interesting and informative read.
On a side note, do you know of any good document or online resource for someone interested in antenna theory (specifically energy decrease over distance and measurement of that decrease), who has had his highschool physics, but isn't getting any electromagnetic theory in his mechanical engineering study? I ask because, well, I have 'plans', and you seem quite knowledgeable in this area.
No: saying someone is wrong just because he doesn't have a background in that area without countering the claims or showing that the premise is incorrect is pseudoscience. Real science is talking about the actual claims, not about the person making them.
Actually, I had a rather interesting discussion with someone about this. The guy was somewhat technical, but not techie (if you can appreciate the difference:) ).
Basically, I said that with a couple of hundred geeks in a city buying wifi (or whatever wireless tech) towers and setting them up, at a cost of â600 plus the cost of the supporting pc's and the software to drive it all (probably open source, if someone sits down to write it), everyone with a wifi (or whatever) PDA or 'mobile phone' could have free telephone services, cutting out the telco's completely except for inter-city communications (nothing which a relay of hotspots couldn't sort out).
His responce? "That has to be illegal somehow." Goes to show how moronic regulation is now accepted, or even expected, by the general public.
I so agree with that. To me the first film, when I saw it in the cinema, dragged on too much. Then I saw the extended version, and I swear, even with an extra half hour tagged on,/it was shorter!/.
That's how much the extra material added to that movie.
Yeah, I know. But the guy was making the point that you HAD to have a prototype to file a patent...we were kinda off topic from copyright, if you read the discussion.
Wow...you know very little about manufacturing. Go read books with titles like "Industrial Production Techniques", and you'll be surprised at the fact that the prototype is just the beginning of the manufacturing process.
In other words, once you've done your research, and made your first protoype, only then can one really start work on the manufacturing process; that is when you start designing and buying molds, presses, lathes, parts and electronics in mass quantaties.
Yeah, but I'm making the point that it is therefore not intellectual/property/...it's just a process, but it isn't property and no rights can be had over it; it is therefore not IP.
Copying stuff you haven't payed for is illegal. So is price-gauging/fixing. P2P is a way of civil protest against the fact that we are being screwed.
And the wierdest thing is this: music companies have for years been telling us that cd's are so expensive because of distribution costs. Now there is a distribution method which is cheaper, faster and non-physical (except for all those electrons). So why haven't they adopted it? Why are they pricing electronic music the same?
I think they've just been lying all those years. The fact that there is no online music distribution by the labels either shows criminal negligence towards their shareholders (for they should implement any method by which their product becomes cheaper) or criminal price fixing. Maybe even both.
The implications are wider than that...saying that IP is property like anything else implies taxation of IP...now consider having to pay taxes on the rights to the Beatles music...even if they didn't sell a single thing! Means double taxation too: once for the rights themselves, and then again on any moneys gained for the sale of a 'license' to listen to that muwsic (ie thge sale of a cd).
Not entirely...because a trade secret as such isn't protected by any law; once the trade secret is out as public knowledge, anyone can use it, just as if a company sells it's trade secret to another, they can still use it.
A trade secret is basically something which you could (and sometimes should) patent, but which you don't because that means you can keep it secret for years and decades....a patent otoh runs out and reverts to the public domain, with you providing full disclosure on how your patented process works.
I think he was talking total development costs. If you factor in the fact that a simple press mold costs about $100.000, and then you figure out that avery body part and a hell of a lot of engine parts etc need such molds, you might be able to understand the fact that making cars is expensive...and that's just for material costs, not supporting infrastructure and development/people costs.
Oh, I dunno...maybe a design for a revolutionary computer chip? Or what about a total, workable design for small holographic memory? You can design these things totally theoretically, from the calculations to the design to the materials to the actual production machines used to produce them.
You've spent years on this, and (theoretiocally, granted, but your simulations back the theoretical work up) now you're ready to build...and then you find out you need a minimum of at least a million to get the machines/material/workspace/manpower to build even just one of these modules.
But you've just finished your studies, have a nice student debt...now what?
As an engineering student (last year), I have a couple of ideas, three of which will make money. But one of those needs such specialised equipment that I need 5 million to just get a proof-of-concept done. I can build it; I know I can and I have the data to back it up, as well as market research to know it will sell. But I do not have 5 million, and unless I get the patent, there is little hope of ever getting that funding (let alone the protection such a patent will give me [copuled with NDA's] when I go hunting for VC).
Now I did invent this process; I did my patent research and know the process doesn't exist. But because of the lack of 5 million, I can't build it...are you seriously suggesting I didn't invent it?
As for an example on inventions which was atributable to someone who didn't build a prototype...look at Qualcom, look at lots of chip designs, look at any research frim/think tank which licenses it's IP.
Now kindly remove my "flamer" tag and add the "stupid" one to yourself.
It's not that simple. I agree with your last sentence, but how would you set up the milestones for different solutions? You can't...there's just too much out there, of varying complexity and potential expense to build.
In the end, to do a correct job of sorting out just and unjust patents and their infringement, you have to rely on essentially a subjective judgement call.
The real problem is that lawyers aren't the people to make that call: it's the people in that and related fields of study/application which are most qualified to do so.
Now that's one of the more stupid things I've heard in this thread. There are a lot of things which are prohibitively big and expensive to build out of your own pocketbook, but which you can think up and design. If it's innovative enough, you patent it, then sell the idea to a multinational. Or you find investors...but to safeguard yourself from idea-theft, you might just want to have a patent on your whole solution.
I mean, come on! 250 kilometers of cable in an aeroplane, with minimal shielding (as that adss weight); we know gameboys and laptops create interference (which is not odd at all, since those devices also have minimal shielding due to weight issues) during takeoff and landing (the most intensive periods in any flight), and then you're surprised that a mobile phone, which intentionally sends out and recieves electromagnetic radiation, disturbs the complex nest of cbles in a plane?
You'd like to think that, wouldn't you? But what about that tool which allows you to watch dvd's on linux? If I recal correctly, they managed to outlaw that 'screwdriver'.
I love the idea, and the science around it, but the article sucks! No pics, diagrams or any actual detail on the way the thing works. I'm sick of this kind of 'it works because of herbs!' reporting; it's way too simple for any inquiring mind and because of that it's non-informative.
A shame, 'cause I'd be interested in the practical implementation of this valve system. And I want pretty movies and/or pictures, of course:)
...if they took the curvature of the earth over those 40 miles into account in the z-axis of the setup. Or even if inclination of the orbitplanes is taken into account at all.
Slashdot Mirror
Thanks a bundle! Especially for Siwiak and Makarov's books; indoor propagation and attenuation and Matlab simulation are /exactly/ what I'm looking for.
:)
Now all I hope is that I can get 'round the interference caused by monitors, speakers and mobile phones to get accurate enough readings. 3d positional data, here I come
"Governments that have tried to control the technology directly (Soviet Russia and Nazi Germany are two of the most prominent examples that come to mind) really haven't made out too well in that whole survival game."
:) ; their planes would be better than the US counterparts if only they had the funding and the electronics; their planes, whilst performing so well, are desingned to be repaired by a 17 year old farmboy with a wrench...an f-15 needs a ground crew of 17; they discovered and implemented surface effect craft; their camshaft cumbustion engines where considered impossible by the west until a year or so ago...while that design comes from the 70's; the basic (mathematics) research in the USSR is still being 'discovered', and has been fundamental in many discoveries. The list goes on and on and on. But they did kinda suck at electronics :)
Which is not to say they made for bad science. I'd actually go on to say that the engineering sciences in the USSR and Nazi germany surpassed the rest of the world. Nazi's had rockets and better planes, as well as better tanks at their disposal, and damn near beat the allies to the A-bom.
The USSR, well, I have a special respect for these guys: they stunned the world by putting something in orbit (to which one american tv presenter said 'well, you have Sputnik, we have colour tv!'); they tried to put huge mirrors in space to battle SAD in Syberia; they put the first space station up; when first going into space, the US spent millions developing a pen which would work in zero g...the USSR gave their cosmonauts pencils
Now, you are right: these nations died. But they produced great science, arguably better than the rest of the world in spite of or because of being directed by the government.
Now that's real science :P Thanks for posting that; it's an interesting and informative read.
On a side note, do you know of any good document or online resource for someone interested in antenna theory (specifically energy decrease over distance and measurement of that decrease), who has had his highschool physics, but isn't getting any electromagnetic theory in his mechanical engineering study?
I ask because, well, I have 'plans', and you seem quite knowledgeable in this area.
No: saying someone is wrong just because he doesn't have a background in that area without countering the claims or showing that the premise is incorrect is pseudoscience. Real science is talking about the actual claims, not about the person making them.
Actually, I had a rather interesting discussion with someone about this. The guy was somewhat technical, but not techie (if you can appreciate the difference :) ).
Basically, I said that with a couple of hundred geeks in a city buying wifi (or whatever wireless tech) towers and setting them up, at a cost of â600 plus the cost of the supporting pc's and the software to drive it all (probably open source, if someone sits down to write it), everyone with a wifi (or whatever) PDA or 'mobile phone' could have free telephone services, cutting out the telco's completely except for inter-city communications (nothing which a relay of hotspots couldn't sort out).
His responce? "That has to be illegal somehow." Goes to show how moronic regulation is now accepted, or even expected, by the general public.
AFAIK, DSL is only an upgrade of the ISP's hardware. It still runs over j.random copper wire.
I so agree with that. To me the first film, when I saw it in the cinema, dragged on too much. Then I saw the extended version, and I swear, even with an extra half hour tagged on, /it was shorter!/.
That's how much the extra material added to that movie.
Yeah, I know. But the guy was making the point that you HAD to have a prototype to file a patent...we were kinda off topic from copyright, if you read the discussion.
Wow...you know very little about manufacturing. Go read books with titles like "Industrial Production Techniques", and you'll be surprised at the fact that the prototype is just the beginning of the manufacturing process.
In other words, once you've done your research, and made your first protoype, only then can one really start work on the manufacturing process; that is when you start designing and buying molds, presses, lathes, parts and electronics in mass quantaties.
Yeah, but I'm making the point that it is therefore not intellectual /property/...it's just a process, but it isn't property and no rights can be had over it; it is therefore not IP.
That's a Berlusconi waiting to happen...*shudder*.
Copying stuff you haven't payed for is illegal. So is price-gauging/fixing. P2P is a way of civil protest against the fact that we are being screwed.
And the wierdest thing is this: music companies have for years been telling us that cd's are so expensive because of distribution costs. Now there is a distribution method which is cheaper, faster and non-physical (except for all those electrons). So why haven't they adopted it? Why are they pricing electronic music the same?
I think they've just been lying all those years. The fact that there is no online music distribution by the labels either shows criminal negligence towards their shareholders (for they should implement any method by which their product becomes cheaper) or criminal price fixing. Maybe even both.
The implications are wider than that...saying that IP is property like anything else implies taxation of IP...now consider having to pay taxes on the rights to the Beatles music...even if they didn't sell a single thing! Means double taxation too: once for the rights themselves, and then again on any moneys gained for the sale of a 'license' to listen to that muwsic (ie thge sale of a cd).
:)
I bet the music companies won't like that
Not entirely...because a trade secret as such isn't protected by any law; once the trade secret is out as public knowledge, anyone can use it, just as if a company sells it's trade secret to another, they can still use it.
A trade secret is basically something which you could (and sometimes should) patent, but which you don't because that means you can keep it secret for years and decades....a patent otoh runs out and reverts to the public domain, with you providing full disclosure on how your patented process works.
I think he was talking total development costs. If you factor in the fact that a simple press mold costs about $100.000, and then you figure out that avery body part and a hell of a lot of engine parts etc need such molds, you might be able to understand the fact that making cars is expensive...and that's just for material costs, not supporting infrastructure and development/people costs.
Oh, I dunno...maybe a design for a revolutionary computer chip? Or what about a total, workable design for small holographic memory? You can design these things totally theoretically, from the calculations to the design to the materials to the actual production machines used to produce them.
You've spent years on this, and (theoretiocally, granted, but your simulations back the theoretical work up) now you're ready to build...and then you find out you need a minimum of at least a million to get the machines/material/workspace/manpower to build even just one of these modules.
But you've just finished your studies, have a nice student debt...now what?
As an engineering student (last year), I have a couple of ideas, three of which will make money. But one of those needs such specialised equipment that I need 5 million to just get a proof-of-concept done. I can build it; I know I can and I have the data to back it up, as well as market research to know it will sell. But I do not have 5 million, and unless I get the patent, there is little hope of ever getting that funding (let alone the protection such a patent will give me [copuled with NDA's] when I go hunting for VC).
Now I did invent this process; I did my patent research and know the process doesn't exist. But because of the lack of 5 million, I can't build it...are you seriously suggesting I didn't invent it?
As for an example on inventions which was atributable to someone who didn't build a prototype...look at Qualcom, look at lots of chip designs, look at any research frim/think tank which licenses it's IP.
Now kindly remove my "flamer" tag and add the "stupid" one to yourself.
It's not that simple. I agree with your last sentence, but how would you set up the milestones for different solutions? You can't...there's just too much out there, of varying complexity and potential expense to build.
In the end, to do a correct job of sorting out just and unjust patents and their infringement, you have to rely on essentially a subjective judgement call.
The real problem is that lawyers aren't the people to make that call: it's the people in that and related fields of study/application which are most qualified to do so.
Now that's one of the more stupid things I've heard in this thread.
There are a lot of things which are prohibitively big and expensive to build out of your own pocketbook, but which you can think up and design. If it's innovative enough, you patent it, then sell the idea to a multinational. Or you find investors...but to safeguard yourself from idea-theft, you might just want to have a patent on your whole solution.
Not only that, but sometimes building a prototype on your own is prohibitive, to say the least.
I dunno...maybe the hyper-technologically advanced reptiles will think of something like a space suit? Or maybe even something akin to a haz-mat suit?
Nah...
I mean, come on! 250 kilometers of cable in an aeroplane, with minimal shielding (as that adss weight); we know gameboys and laptops create interference (which is not odd at all, since those devices also have minimal shielding due to weight issues) during takeoff and landing (the most intensive periods in any flight), and then you're surprised that a mobile phone, which intentionally sends out and recieves electromagnetic radiation, disturbs the complex nest of cbles in a plane?
Common sence should have told you this years ago.
You'd like to think that, wouldn't you? But what about that tool which allows you to watch dvd's on linux? If I recal correctly, they managed to outlaw that 'screwdriver'.
Apparently, WinACE has better compression, but winrar is faster.
I love the idea, and the science around it, but the article sucks! No pics, diagrams or any actual detail on the way the thing works. I'm sick of this kind of 'it works because of herbs!' reporting; it's way too simple for any inquiring mind and because of that it's non-informative.
:)
A shame, 'cause I'd be interested in the practical implementation of this valve system. And I want pretty movies and/or pictures, of course
...if they took the curvature of the earth over those 40 miles into account in the z-axis of the setup. Or even if inclination of the orbitplanes is taken into account at all.