I'm an all out eco head, but expecting a silver bullet to solve our energy problems is bound to fail. Those early using the "energy dashboards" are self-selected to have an interest in energy savings and/or new gadgets. This will not translate to the general public. The EnergyStar programmable thermostats were predicted to save between 15-30% for a typical home. When used as prescribed they did deliver those savings. The mechanical engineers, EnergyStar and widget makers declared victory and pushed the devices out to the public. Down the line a few brave inquisitive academics at the Florida solar center went into the field and found that on average they were not seeing any energy savings. This was confirmed in several additional studies. The reason for the failure was simple: the perceived reward is less than the perceived effort. This is the same class of UI failure as the flashing "12:00" problem on VCRs. Just too much hassle to keep futzing with. These homeowners are not bad people. They intended well and proved so by buying the units in the first place. The basic UI and UX failed them so they just jammed the units in locked vacation mode at 72 degrees.
Marketing is hard. It has taken decades and great expense to learn how to successfully market unneeded junk to people. It will also take a very long time to learn how to market to the whole public to use less of something that they perceive a benefit. One effort was made in California to provide on your electric bill how your energy usage compared to your typical neighbors to try and generate competition. While many people did respond well in the short term there was always one outlier that increased their usage. Wisely, the sociologist went back and looked for common factors among those that increased their usage. They found the population was well described by two factors: they did not buy green power and they were republicans. Was this a case of conspicuous consumptions or a political statement? When this population read their bill why did they go over to the wall and turn on a light? Did they say to themselves, "I'm not getting my fair share," "look how important I am," or "I hate those Al Gore types telling me what to do?" Did these people consciously decide to use more energy, was it by accident or just coincidentally that this population all went out and bought an energy hog appliance without thinking? Designing solutions that stick for a mass public is not easy.
There is value in rebranding the problem. Us old times here remember the energy crisis of the 70s. The big word was conservation. The public took that to mean, "put on a sweater and shiver in the dark." Efficiency seems to carry a much better acceptance. It seems to tell folks to get more value for their money. So, yes language does matter. When oil hits $150 a barrel when the US economy picks-up you will see efficiency become sexy for its own value.
The fundamental flaw is that the original bargain is not being upheld. The deal was, you disclose how your thing works and we'll give you a monopoly on it for a while. The first failure is that we no longer require an idea to be "reduced to practice." That is you only have to describe something that could be built and this allows the new class of patent trolls to "front run" technology with vaguely defined ideas. The second failure is that the disclosure no longer allows/requires you to describe it in a way that is useful to another engineer. Have you ever had a discussion with another engineer about a problem that you did not know the solution and have someone step up and say, "I'll bet there is a solution waiting in the patent office. Lets go look through those 17 year old patents to solve this problem." Never happen. So what is the point of patents if they never really provide engineers with technology? The bargain is is just not fulfilled.
Can someone explain this stuff to me? Can you really patent ideas for things? Like, can I patent "A method of energy production whereby isotopes of hydrogen and helium are fused to release heat" without ever working out the details? If so, where's the monetary incentive to make ideas work?
No you can not, at least that is what the law says. It says you must "reduce to practice," your idea. The patent office has been doing a poor job of late making sure application fulfill that requirement. Patents can be broken in court even if they are issued by the patent office if it can be shown that they were issued in error, such as not properly reducing to practice. The problem with taking it to court is that it is very expensive.
Some of your non-programming products that you do for an agency may be of values to others. Even well supported programs like OpenOffice could use more examples, templates, artwork, tutorials, help files, etc.
Actually, Washington Attorney General Rob McKenna is the worst kind of political hack. He has shaken down the major businesses in the state to support his infomercials under the guise of public service announcements. ("Hello, this is Washington Attorney General Rob McKenna with this consumer minute....") It is an ugly way of getting around campaign limits.
Washington State has a history of statewide non-Governor positions being very bipartisan, but McKenna is all about pure ambition. He has chosen a few minor out of state companies to use as sacrificial lambs to populism and let major polluters and slime ball businesses run free in the state. He clearly has his eye on the Governor's office that is open in a few years due to term limits. The Current Governor is Washington's former AG and a prime mover behind the big tobacco settlement.
Avian Carriers! I don't think so. The packet size for avian carriers with clay tablets is just too small (read zero delivered data). Now Avian Carriers with coconuts is a different matter. That has been used since f King Author's use of swallows.
The real question is where is that doubt being manufactured? There is an entire industry manufacturing that doubt. Those who do not like the conclusion of science have funded a massive industrial doubt complex. Those industries are tobacco, oil, coal as well as those who do not believe in evolution. For just one example take a look at right wing oil billionaire Koch funding just one of is pet DC PR/thinks to the tune of $151 million. Also take a look at the US chamber of commerce's massive effort to attack science to the point that many other companies such as Nike and Apple are being driven out. These movements don't just happen they take big bucks!
If some well intended person had files a patent on SPAM years ago and prevented anyone from SPAMing think how our inboxes would be different (OK bad example, too lawless). While it takes a fair bit of work, getting a copy of Patent it yourself from Nolo Press, conducting your own patent search and writing your own patent is with in reach of your average engineer. The cost to file is just a few hundred dollars. If you give engineers a few minutes around the water cooler to chew the fat, inevitably one of them will have their inner evil genius come up with some evil scheme that they would never implement, but is really cool. If just a few of those engineers were to patent those ideas and keep the true evil types from implementing them. Plus nothing looks better than a patent or two on your resume.
This would also really thwart the business plans of the big corporate patent trolls - their plan is to create a huge patent portfolio and sell it as "protection" to be used as a club against anybody who comes after them. Usually big companies acquire large patent portfolios as a form a mutually assured destruction - never used, unless they are attacked. The joy of a bunch of working stiff geeks owning the evil patents is that you can't threaten a working stiff with patent violations.
No, seriously, welcome. You may find some very different views and outstanding analysis along with lots of stale jokes and Microsoft bashing. From the fast and furious posting of recent member to/. it is clear that many of you are likely from a K street lobbying form. If I had the time it might be interesting to track back which PR firm you might be from. You are obviously well funded (API/Exxon?) to bother posting this on a technology site. To improve the effectiveness of your astroturf efforts you should use the jargon and dialect of your target audience as your comments contain far too many terms that are not native to/.
Mr. Gates, here is a nickle. Call your mother and tell her there is serious doubt that you will not be graduating as a computer scientist.
When I'm hiring I very much value both technical education and a good liberal education. I value technical experience and real world non-technical experience. There is much more to being an important contributor than just being able to spew an algorithm on the white board in an interview. Or even being able to code like a wizard. Good social skills to work with your co-workers, broad life experience to understand when marketing research has it wrong. My ideal candidate would be a liberal arts major who spent a few years in the peace corp installing windmills in Africa, speaks a foreign language, went back to school to get a CS/EE/Math or Physics degree and has been doing lots of different type of work for several years (embedded, web, apps). As someone else where posted I'd like a pony too. If I had to make a choice I'll pick a smart well rounded person that has a good liberal education over a techno-savant every time. In the end it is always a better long term investment.
I'm sure that there are lots of studies from manufacturers of hand cleaners and other potions that there products kill xx% of flue viruses. I know I'm being bombarded by directions all the way from my HR department to the CDC on how to prevent getting swine flu. While I'm sure that some of those narrow studies are correct that lots of alcohol will kill the virus, does any of this really make any difference with preventing transmission of the flu. There are lots of assumptions built into suggestions that people cough into their elbow, wash their hands, etc will prevent the transmission of the flu. Are there any real world population studies to see if this makes any difference? I know this is almost like asking/. if they are sure that the world is not flat, but some times it worth checking.
There is a famous study (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hawthorne_effect) in which they were looking at the effect of lighting levels on productivity in a manufacturing environment. If they turned up the light productivity improved, if they lowered lighting level productivity improved, if they returned lighting to the original level productivity improved. The reason was that changing light levels signaled to the workers that something was up and that they were likely being watched. Walk into a room dripping with cleaner and your knows will tell you that something is up and you better watch out.
I would not describe it as bleak, but as ripe with opportunity for innovation. The biggest barrier is that manufacturers have little interest in playing nice with each other.
One important point to remember about these big DC "think" tanks is that they do work for hire. They are also a social/psychologist mix of the people on the boards, the management and the worker bees. Sure they have "brands," be that liberal, pro-business, liberal, globalization, etc. They are all part of the DC machine just like lobbying firms, law firms, trade groups, etc. A fascinating example is the US Chamber Of Commerce. The chamber is an old brand that styles its self as the spokesperson for business They have been fighting against climate legislation tooth and nail. A number of its members see climate legislation in their business and social interest. This has resulted in some of the largest members leaving the Chamber, including Nike and the largest electrical companies in the county. Turn out the the director has close ties (http://switchboard.nrdc.org/blogs/paltman/are_chamber_of_commerce_presid.html) to the rail and coal industries (20% of rail's business comes from hauling coal). It would be interesting to see ho much money is moving from coal and rail into the Chamber. If you were to look at Heartland I expect you will see similar ties or funding. Follow the money. Another interesting hired gun shop is the schizophrenic Discovery Institute in Seattle. It has been doing a bunch of anti-evolution work and on Microsoft's dime having a big conference on the Microsoft campus today pushing public transport as a cure fog climate change. Maybe someday Discovery will rationalize their brand, but until then they seem to be willing to push anything.
In many technical areas, such as building codes, the law will say something like, "The city of Nowhere adopts in whole the International Building Code of 2007." The problem is that the International Building Code and most other codes are written and copyrighted by private organization that charge lots of money for a copy.
Old Disney animation cells sell for big bucks. What about using archival grade printing, perhaps on an archival plastic media, and make hard copies. These might have the additional, collector's advantage of being able to be broken-up as well as being non-digital and thus harder to reproduce.
No seriously, it is nice to see so many new faces here at slashdot. I know that you were sent by your agency, but what the heck, stay around listen to what others have to say and you might learn something.
MS is tying up traffic in Seattle today to bring all of their people together in one of the city's sports stadiums. Anybody know if that is the usual monkey-boy chair toss or is something up?
Slashdot Mirror
Marketing is hard. It has taken decades and great expense to learn how to successfully market unneeded junk to people. It will also take a very long time to learn how to market to the whole public to use less of something that they perceive a benefit. One effort was made in California to provide on your electric bill how your energy usage compared to your typical neighbors to try and generate competition. While many people did respond well in the short term there was always one outlier that increased their usage. Wisely, the sociologist went back and looked for common factors among those that increased their usage. They found the population was well described by two factors: they did not buy green power and they were republicans. Was this a case of conspicuous consumptions or a political statement? When this population read their bill why did they go over to the wall and turn on a light? Did they say to themselves, "I'm not getting my fair share," "look how important I am," or "I hate those Al Gore types telling me what to do?" Did these people consciously decide to use more energy, was it by accident or just coincidentally that this population all went out and bought an energy hog appliance without thinking? Designing solutions that stick for a mass public is not easy.
There is value in rebranding the problem. Us old times here remember the energy crisis of the 70s. The big word was conservation. The public took that to mean, "put on a sweater and shiver in the dark." Efficiency seems to carry a much better acceptance. It seems to tell folks to get more value for their money. So, yes language does matter. When oil hits $150 a barrel when the US economy picks-up you will see efficiency become sexy for its own value.
Bob was a great educator of working EEs. His passing is a great loss for all of us.
The fundamental flaw is that the original bargain is not being upheld. The deal was, you disclose how your thing works and we'll give you a monopoly on it for a while. The first failure is that we no longer require an idea to be "reduced to practice." That is you only have to describe something that could be built and this allows the new class of patent trolls to "front run" technology with vaguely defined ideas. The second failure is that the disclosure no longer allows/requires you to describe it in a way that is useful to another engineer. Have you ever had a discussion with another engineer about a problem that you did not know the solution and have someone step up and say, "I'll bet there is a solution waiting in the patent office. Lets go look through those 17 year old patents to solve this problem." Never happen. So what is the point of patents if they never really provide engineers with technology? The bargain is is just not fulfilled.
Visit the Microsoft campus
Is this tied close to something unique in NJ law or will this likely have broader influence with other state supreme courts?
No you can not, at least that is what the law says. It says you must "reduce to practice," your idea. The patent office has been doing a poor job of late making sure application fulfill that requirement. Patents can be broken in court even if they are issued by the patent office if it can be shown that they were issued in error, such as not properly reducing to practice. The problem with taking it to court is that it is very expensive.
Some of your non-programming products that you do for an agency may be of values to others. Even well supported programs like OpenOffice could use more examples, templates, artwork, tutorials, help files, etc.
Washington State has a history of statewide non-Governor positions being very bipartisan, but McKenna is all about pure ambition. He has chosen a few minor out of state companies to use as sacrificial lambs to populism and let major polluters and slime ball businesses run free in the state. He clearly has his eye on the Governor's office that is open in a few years due to term limits. The Current Governor is Washington's former AG and a prime mover behind the big tobacco settlement.
Avian Carriers! I don't think so. The packet size for avian carriers with clay tablets is just too small (read zero delivered data). Now Avian Carriers with coconuts is a different matter. That has been used since f King Author's use of swallows.
The real question is where is that doubt being manufactured? There is an entire industry manufacturing that doubt. Those who do not like the conclusion of science have funded a massive industrial doubt complex. Those industries are tobacco, oil, coal as well as those who do not believe in evolution. For just one example take a look at right wing oil billionaire Koch funding just one of is pet DC PR/thinks to the tune of $151 million. Also take a look at the US chamber of commerce's massive effort to attack science to the point that many other companies such as Nike and Apple are being driven out. These movements don't just happen they take big bucks!
This would also really thwart the business plans of the big corporate patent trolls - their plan is to create a huge patent portfolio and sell it as "protection" to be used as a club against anybody who comes after them. Usually big companies acquire large patent portfolios as a form a mutually assured destruction - never used, unless they are attacked. The joy of a bunch of working stiff geeks owning the evil patents is that you can't threaten a working stiff with patent violations.
So go forth, file patent evil and save the world!
No, seriously, welcome. You may find some very different views and outstanding analysis along with lots of stale jokes and Microsoft bashing. From the fast and furious posting of recent member to /. it is clear that many of you are likely from a K street lobbying form. If I had the time it might be interesting to track back which PR firm you might be from. You are obviously well funded (API/Exxon?) to bother posting this on a technology site. To improve the effectiveness of your astroturf efforts you should use the jargon and dialect of your target audience as your comments contain far too many terms that are not native to /.
Mr. Gates, here is a nickle. Call your mother and tell her there is serious doubt that you will not be graduating as a computer scientist.
When I'm hiring I very much value both technical education and a good liberal education. I value technical experience and real world non-technical experience. There is much more to being an important contributor than just being able to spew an algorithm on the white board in an interview. Or even being able to code like a wizard. Good social skills to work with your co-workers, broad life experience to understand when marketing research has it wrong. My ideal candidate would be a liberal arts major who spent a few years in the peace corp installing windmills in Africa, speaks a foreign language, went back to school to get a CS/EE/Math or Physics degree and has been doing lots of different type of work for several years (embedded, web, apps). As someone else where posted I'd like a pony too. If I had to make a choice I'll pick a smart well rounded person that has a good liberal education over a techno-savant every time. In the end it is always a better long term investment.
Had to be said
I'm sure that there are lots of studies from manufacturers of hand cleaners and other potions that there products kill xx% of flue viruses. I know I'm being bombarded by directions all the way from my HR department to the CDC on how to prevent getting swine flu. While I'm sure that some of those narrow studies are correct that lots of alcohol will kill the virus, does any of this really make any difference with preventing transmission of the flu. There are lots of assumptions built into suggestions that people cough into their elbow, wash their hands, etc will prevent the transmission of the flu. Are there any real world population studies to see if this makes any difference? I know this is almost like asking /. if they are sure that the world is not flat, but some times it worth checking.
This has been around a while : http://www.hitl.washington.edu/projects/vrd/ -s
There is a famous study (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hawthorne_effect) in which they were looking at the effect of lighting levels on productivity in a manufacturing environment. If they turned up the light productivity improved, if they lowered lighting level productivity improved, if they returned lighting to the original level productivity improved. The reason was that changing light levels signaled to the workers that something was up and that they were likely being watched. Walk into a room dripping with cleaner and your knows will tell you that something is up and you better watch out.
I would not describe it as bleak, but as ripe with opportunity for innovation. The biggest barrier is that manufacturers have little interest in playing nice with each other.
One important point to remember about these big DC "think" tanks is that they do work for hire. They are also a social/psychologist mix of the people on the boards, the management and the worker bees. Sure they have "brands," be that liberal, pro-business, liberal, globalization, etc. They are all part of the DC machine just like lobbying firms, law firms, trade groups, etc. A fascinating example is the US Chamber Of Commerce. The chamber is an old brand that styles its self as the spokesperson for business They have been fighting against climate legislation tooth and nail. A number of its members see climate legislation in their business and social interest. This has resulted in some of the largest members leaving the Chamber, including Nike and the largest electrical companies in the county. Turn out the the director has close ties (http://switchboard.nrdc.org/blogs/paltman/are_chamber_of_commerce_presid.html) to the rail and coal industries (20% of rail's business comes from hauling coal). It would be interesting to see ho much money is moving from coal and rail into the Chamber. If you were to look at Heartland I expect you will see similar ties or funding. Follow the money. Another interesting hired gun shop is the schizophrenic Discovery Institute in Seattle. It has been doing a bunch of anti-evolution work and on Microsoft's dime having a big conference on the Microsoft campus today pushing public transport as a cure fog climate change. Maybe someday Discovery will rationalize their brand, but until then they seem to be willing to push anything.
In many technical areas, such as building codes, the law will say something like, "The city of Nowhere adopts in whole the International Building Code of 2007." The problem is that the International Building Code and most other codes are written and copyrighted by private organization that charge lots of money for a copy.
The discovery came to light after FORMER Microsoft Research employee Robert Morgan carelessly left details of his work...
Old Disney animation cells sell for big bucks. What about using archival grade printing, perhaps on an archival plastic media, and make hard copies. These might have the additional, collector's advantage of being able to be broken-up as well as being non-digital and thus harder to reproduce.
The two main wireless protocols in contention for use at the home level are 6LoWPAN ( http://www.ietf.org/html.charters/6lowpan-charter.html ) and ZigBee Pro ( http://www.zigbee.org/ ). ZigBee is the much more interesting network for this application
No seriously, it is nice to see so many new faces here at slashdot. I know that you were sent by your agency, but what the heck, stay around listen to what others have to say and you might learn something.
MS is tying up traffic in Seattle today to bring all of their people together in one of the city's sports stadiums. Anybody know if that is the usual monkey-boy chair toss or is something up?