One thing I recently found is more important than any other -- hard drive rotation speed. I bought a new laptop with a 7200 rpm drive and the increase in performance against a comparable machine with a 5400 rpm drive is impressive. HP offers the 7200 rpm drive for $10 or so. Best investment in a computer you'll ever make.
If you read the signs attached to the walk buttons at crosswalks it usually says something like: "Press Button Wait for Walk Signal"
Note that nowhere in that statement is anything tying the button press to the appearance of the walk signal. Waiting for the walk signal is merely good advice in most places that aren't California.
Astronomy provides a lot of opportunities for serious, significant contributions by amateurs. One way to find out if it interests you enough is to find a local amateur group that is actually regularly involved in such projects. This is not your normal stargazing or imaging groups, but groups that are carrying out observations of astronomical phenomena that the professionals don't have the time or equipment availability to do themselves. This way you can get a feel for what the activity is like and learn how to understand where it fits in the broader astronomical research spectrum before you spend anything on equipment. If you like it, you may find that your local groups already have the equipment they need or you can buy your own - cost is not too high (in the $2-5K range).
I'm personally involved with a group that does exoplanet sightings, NEO object discovery, cataclysmic variable monitoring among others. We're in the east side of SF bay and find we can usually observe over half the nights here.
"......Sotomayor wondered if speed-dating could be patentable, Breyer questioned whether a professor could patent a lesson plan that kept his students from falling asleep....."
Uh hate to break it to Supremies, but there's a lot of patents already issued on both dating methods and teaching methods. Honest. You should get on your clerks case for not being able to find something anyone at all familiar with the patent system could find in about 5 minutes.
Actually using goats is common in the SF Bay Area. In the East Bay goats are regularly used to "mow" the steep hillsides in Berkeley and Oakland where mowers can't go. This keeps fire hazards down.
For the non-CS folks among us:
The Art of Electronics - Horowitz and Hill
Numerical Recipes - Press et al (I know it's got flaws, but this is an interesting and readable book on math!)
Classical Mechanics - Goldstein
Radio Amateurs Handbook - ARRL eds.
The entire MIT Intro Physics texts by A.P. French
Halliday and Resnick.
I didn't mean that he's obliged to search. What I meant was that IF he should know something then he is obliged to reveal it. See CFR 1.56. So if in the normal course of his work he happened to find something then he's on the hook.
Well I am a Patent Agent and the bad news is that your boss can file the patent, in your name, whehter you like it or not. You are the inventor but the company owns the rights, unless you specifically got them to sign them away (very very unlikely).
Better just try and find something published more than a year ago that discloses your idea. That will stop the patent. Just inform your legal department.
You are obliged to do this anyway.
Actually I agree with your central point. It's just that it takes either a political leader with exceptional vision (Gore?) or a crisis (Manhattan Project) to get the government to do the right thing QUICKLY. Over the long term the political process does get the focus in the more or less right direction, e.g. EPA. But it's hard to keep the focus and direction - just look at NASA.
I was the definite recipient of government directed basic research - they paid me to do the research that led to my PhD in elementary particle physics.
In general industry does a better job of producing "useful" results. A little stimulus or incentive from the government is often a good help.
First of all that's just wrong. Central planning is MUCH less efficient than the distributed planning we have. In the old Soviet system a relatively small number of planners in Moscow planned everything. In the US meanwhile orders of magnitude more planners associated with every business in existence did OOM more planning.
Secondly, PARC discovered a LOT of stuff that's useful. The failure of PARC was in Xerox's failure to understand or capitalize on the discoveries. Read "Fumbling The Future" for an inside look.
Notice that this article was published in 2000. It doesn't say that the equipment was "broken"; it merely points out that there exist chemical pathways that would result in relatively stable organic compounds that wouldn't have been detected by the Viking equipment. The next mission can look for traces of these compounds specifically, now that someone has pointed out that there is a mechanism for their creation.
IAAPA (PA=Patgent Agent)and I can tell you that you should consult with a patent agent or lawyer before proceeding. While you can, in principle, represent yourself, there are enough arcane details of the process that make it very hard to be successful. The professionals can help you with searching. In principle you need to search both the patent database and the technical realm as well. Your patent can be invalidated by an article that describes your invention that was published before you filed, just as much as a prior patent.
Legal fees aside, there are fees to be paid to the USPTO. For a not too complex patent these can run in the 2-3K range. Lawyers typically get about another several $K to do the research, write the application and negotiate the details with the USPTO.
Also plan on waiting about 3 years (or more) before you actually have a patent. However, if someone infringes your idea, you have protection since you have an application on file.
I was the highest ranking technical person at a foutune 100 company. I got there by being very good at what I did and being able to anticipate what would be needed before it was. But it still took a lot of tricks that I learned along the way:
1. It is better to ask for forgiveness than permission. It is still better to ask for neither.
2. When telling your boss or anyone senior to you that they are wrong or headed in a bad direction, humor is a great asset.
3. Be flexible. Think like a jazz musician - improvise as needed instead of just playing what's on the page.
4. If he's such an idiot, how come he's your boss?
5. Hire good people but pay more attention to their character than their tech chops. In the long run, people who can work together and admit that a co-worker, or boss, has a better idea are valuable. Ditto for people who can (nicely) speak up when you (boss) are about to do something wrong.
6. Remember it's just business.
7. Keep a close group of friends who are roughly peers. There don't have to be many of them, but you should use them to test things. Also be a friend to others in the same way.
8. You will get enough glory and compensation. It helps a lot to let your team members take credit. Even for stuff you do.
One of the wierdest things I learned early was that it is very hard to give an idea to someone. Their natural impulse is to think you're up to something or you want something. Cultivate the skill to give someone an ideas without them realizing that you're doing it. Your reward is to hear your idea coming from them weeks later as if it were their own. When this happens be among the first to acknowledge the success of your subject. Never, never, to anyone except your friends in 5, reveal that you were responsible. After a while people who oount will figure out what you are up to and it will increase their respect and evaluation of you.
The last thing was told to me by one of the best bosses I ever had -- If you want to know how much a corporation will value you regardless of your contributions, get a bucket of water, put your arm in and pull it out. The hole you leave will be about the same size as the impact you will leave after you're gone.
IANAL BUT I am a Patent Agent which is just as good as far as patents go. This threat (if it's real) by SCO really pisses me off. I'd be glad to volunteer my expertise to help investigate SCO's claims and help draft a formal response.
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One thing I recently found is more important than any other -- hard drive rotation speed. I bought a new laptop with a 7200 rpm drive and the increase in performance against a comparable machine with a 5400 rpm drive is impressive. HP offers the 7200 rpm drive for $10 or so. Best investment in a computer you'll ever make.
If you read the signs attached to the walk buttons at crosswalks it usually says something like: "Press Button Wait for Walk Signal" Note that nowhere in that statement is anything tying the button press to the appearance of the walk signal. Waiting for the walk signal is merely good advice in most places that aren't California.
Astronomy provides a lot of opportunities for serious, significant contributions by amateurs. One way to find out if it interests you enough is to find a local amateur group that is actually regularly involved in such projects. This is not your normal stargazing or imaging groups, but groups that are carrying out observations of astronomical phenomena that the professionals don't have the time or equipment availability to do themselves. This way you can get a feel for what the activity is like and learn how to understand where it fits in the broader astronomical research spectrum before you spend anything on equipment. If you like it, you may find that your local groups already have the equipment they need or you can buy your own - cost is not too high (in the $2-5K range). I'm personally involved with a group that does exoplanet sightings, NEO object discovery, cataclysmic variable monitoring among others. We're in the east side of SF bay and find we can usually observe over half the nights here.
"......Sotomayor wondered if speed-dating could be patentable, Breyer questioned whether a professor could patent a lesson plan that kept his students from falling asleep....." Uh hate to break it to Supremies, but there's a lot of patents already issued on both dating methods and teaching methods. Honest. You should get on your clerks case for not being able to find something anyone at all familiar with the patent system could find in about 5 minutes.
Actually using goats is common in the SF Bay Area. In the East Bay goats are regularly used to "mow" the steep hillsides in Berkeley and Oakland where mowers can't go. This keeps fire hazards down.
For the non-CS folks among us: The Art of Electronics - Horowitz and Hill Numerical Recipes - Press et al (I know it's got flaws, but this is an interesting and readable book on math!) Classical Mechanics - Goldstein Radio Amateurs Handbook - ARRL eds. The entire MIT Intro Physics texts by A.P. French Halliday and Resnick.
I didn't mean that he's obliged to search. What I meant was that IF he should know something then he is obliged to reveal it. See CFR 1.56. So if in the normal course of his work he happened to find something then he's on the hook.
Well I am a Patent Agent and the bad news is that your boss can file the patent, in your name, whehter you like it or not. You are the inventor but the company owns the rights, unless you specifically got them to sign them away (very very unlikely). Better just try and find something published more than a year ago that discloses your idea. That will stop the patent. Just inform your legal department. You are obliged to do this anyway.
Actually I agree with your central point. It's just that it takes either a political leader with exceptional vision (Gore?) or a crisis (Manhattan Project) to get the government to do the right thing QUICKLY. Over the long term the political process does get the focus in the more or less right direction, e.g. EPA. But it's hard to keep the focus and direction - just look at NASA. I was the definite recipient of government directed basic research - they paid me to do the research that led to my PhD in elementary particle physics. In general industry does a better job of producing "useful" results. A little stimulus or incentive from the government is often a good help.
First of all that's just wrong. Central planning is MUCH less efficient than the distributed planning we have. In the old Soviet system a relatively small number of planners in Moscow planned everything. In the US meanwhile orders of magnitude more planners associated with every business in existence did OOM more planning.
Secondly, PARC discovered a LOT of stuff that's useful. The failure of PARC was in Xerox's failure to understand or capitalize on the discoveries. Read "Fumbling The Future" for an inside look.
FYI the first claim which is the most important one, claims only a doubly linked list. IAAL. DrD
Notice that this article was published in 2000. It doesn't say that the equipment was "broken"; it merely points out that there exist chemical pathways that would result in relatively stable organic compounds that wouldn't have been detected by the Viking equipment. The next mission can look for traces of these compounds specifically, now that someone has pointed out that there is a mechanism for their creation.
IAAPA (PA=Patgent Agent)and I can tell you that you should consult with a patent agent or lawyer before proceeding. While you can, in principle, represent yourself, there are enough arcane details of the process that make it very hard to be successful. The professionals can help you with searching. In principle you need to search both the patent database and the technical realm as well. Your patent can be invalidated by an article that describes your invention that was published before you filed, just as much as a prior patent. Legal fees aside, there are fees to be paid to the USPTO. For a not too complex patent these can run in the 2-3K range. Lawyers typically get about another several $K to do the research, write the application and negotiate the details with the USPTO. Also plan on waiting about 3 years (or more) before you actually have a patent. However, if someone infringes your idea, you have protection since you have an application on file.
I was the highest ranking technical person at a foutune 100 company. I got there by being very good at what I did and being able to anticipate what would be needed before it was. But it still took a lot of tricks that I learned along the way: 1. It is better to ask for forgiveness than permission. It is still better to ask for neither. 2. When telling your boss or anyone senior to you that they are wrong or headed in a bad direction, humor is a great asset. 3. Be flexible. Think like a jazz musician - improvise as needed instead of just playing what's on the page. 4. If he's such an idiot, how come he's your boss? 5. Hire good people but pay more attention to their character than their tech chops. In the long run, people who can work together and admit that a co-worker, or boss, has a better idea are valuable. Ditto for people who can (nicely) speak up when you (boss) are about to do something wrong. 6. Remember it's just business. 7. Keep a close group of friends who are roughly peers. There don't have to be many of them, but you should use them to test things. Also be a friend to others in the same way. 8. You will get enough glory and compensation. It helps a lot to let your team members take credit. Even for stuff you do. One of the wierdest things I learned early was that it is very hard to give an idea to someone. Their natural impulse is to think you're up to something or you want something. Cultivate the skill to give someone an ideas without them realizing that you're doing it. Your reward is to hear your idea coming from them weeks later as if it were their own. When this happens be among the first to acknowledge the success of your subject. Never, never, to anyone except your friends in 5, reveal that you were responsible. After a while people who oount will figure out what you are up to and it will increase their respect and evaluation of you. The last thing was told to me by one of the best bosses I ever had -- If you want to know how much a corporation will value you regardless of your contributions, get a bucket of water, put your arm in and pull it out. The hole you leave will be about the same size as the impact you will leave after you're gone.
IANAL BUT I am a Patent Agent which is just as good as far as patents go. This threat (if it's real) by SCO really pisses me off. I'd be glad to volunteer my expertise to help investigate SCO's claims and help draft a formal response.