Most exciting new science here continues to be measuring the altitude of dust layers overhead using an ultra-sensitive near-infrared photometer to measure the twilight glow before sunrise or after sunset. The method reliably detects the stratospheric aerosol layer and dust layers in the troposphere so long as the zenith sky is cloud free. The method also detected the altitude of the ozone layer over the Mauna Loa Observatory in June 2014-16. See details for the basic twilight aerosol profile system in my column in MAKE Magazine. This method also detects meteoric smoke from 70 to 130 km when conditions are good.
More of my science is at www.sunandsky.net. See video clips--including music made from my UV-B and cosmic ray data--at www.youtube.com/fmims. Science updates and links to my weekly science column are posted on Facebook (fmims or Forrest M. Mims III) and Twitter (@fmims). I've started a science blog here. Email me at fmims@aol.com.News
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My paper with by Dr. Lin Chambers (NASA LaRC) and Dr. David R. Brooks (IESRE) was published by the Bulletin of the American Meteorological Society (October 2011) following revisions in response to three expert reviewers. The paper describes a new method of measuring total column water vapor using an infrared thermometer pointed at cloud-free zenith sky. The paper describes 25 months of data here (Texas) and 10 days at Hawaii's Mauna Loa Observatory in June 2010. Abstract (with link to full PDF) is here.
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I grew up with f.mims and many others; I was a sponge for information, I would get it wherever I could. I also agree with the comment about Don Lancaster and snake oil. Some of his projects were from another planet.
A full list of my books, scientific papers, magazine articles and newspaper columns is at www.forrestmims.org. I am wrapping up "Environmental Science: A Practical Perspective." I am also planning a popular version of the Mauna Loa Observatory book and a new memoir about my work as a serious amateur scientist.Copyright 1983, 2000, 2021 by Forrest M. Mims, III. All rights reserved.
I AM REMISS, I HAAVE FAILLLLED...To mention the Engineers Notebooks sold and free originally from Radio Shack By Forrest H. Mims...Those were REALLY Great too... As were ALL of the Tom and Jerry articles in Popular Electronics.Ah! Muse, called Inspiration by any other name... Thy Font Springs Everlasting...
I've been making my way through Democratizing Innovation by Erik Von Hippel. It's a pretty good read about the state of user innovation and 'free revealing' (sort of like open-source). The book reads like SparkFun turned into a statistical study! It's very good, and very close to what we are doing here on a daily basis.
Man, if you really want to get worked up, you should give Benjamin Tucker a go, or maybe find a copy of The Dispossessed......but that's neither here nor there, really. I haven't read Von Hippel's book, but pragmatic arguments for the benefits of "free revealing" hardly need anybody's preferred variety of ideological Kool-Aid. The question Nate's addressing here isn't "should patents exist", exactly. It's how an organization like SFE, doing what SFE does, should proceed in the world as given.Meanwhile, in the big picture, there's certainly an economic argument to be made for some level of state-sanctioned incentives for innovators, but we also have a couple millennia of the history of technology & science to work from. Would you suggest that, for example, peer-reviewed academic science hasn't produced any important results?
Lets say you ship a product that contains a novel invention. Sometime later, somebody else files a patents for that same invention. Patent lawyers do a search for "prior art" before filing the patent application. If they find your product, they may decide not to proceed, or they may try to reword their patent to cover some use of the invention that is not related to your product.Even if that patent gets issued, you are free to continue shipping your product until the patent holder files a patent infringement suit against you. If that happens, you'll claim your invention predates their patent, and so their patent is invalid. If you have proof to back up your claim, then the patent holder will instantly drop the suit.If they press you and it goes to court, the judge will throw their patent out as invalid because you have established prior art. Since that nukes the patent (and all the time and money that went into acquiring it), patent holders tend to avoid filing against somebody that can claim prior art.Disclaimer: This is a very simplified description, and I am very much NOT a lawyer.
RE MAD***All worked up eh? Perhaps you need to feel that the big money you spent on your patents was not in vain. Truth be told that the patent system has been flawed for years. I mean a long long time, even Tesla would agree with me. This system is a wall for ideas and the cost forces the poor to help the rich profit from their ideas. These Giants that you speak of (no disrespect) also stood on the shoulders of other Giants. Technology these days doesn't come from scratch but is New combinations of existing inventions and this is Exactly sparkfun's business. They enable creative minds to realize how to combine these ideas. I have nothing against patents. I just needed to say something to bring these mad*** back to earth. All mankind's knowledge and the new ideas created from it are a combination a former and new ideas. Thank You Sparkfun for your effort to free the knowledge for all to partake.
In the comments I see a common thread of the little guy incurring cost while the patent attny reaps the rewards.For those near Denver a fast and cheap way to research a possible patent is at the Denver Public Library. Summer of 2008 they obtained PubWest, the online research tool used by patent attnys. You have to go to the Central Library, but its free! Whether you want to patent or not, PubWest is a fabulous research tool allowing you to cross search filed patents, view prior art and review real time submissions in relation to your own inventions.
I agree with you on all points. I once considered intellectual property law as a career path, but now I see (in my experience) much of the importance of it is evaporating. History has proven that given the same resources and needs human beings will often arrive at the same solution to a problem, either through assimilation of a borrowed technology, or through completely independent creation of an identical solution to those arrived at in other cultures perhaps thousands of miles away.One could only assume that as technology becomes more accessible, and as lines of communication become more free and open, we will see more "parallelism" in new technologies. When I participated in the DARPA Grand Challenge, we all started with the same goal. There were varying degrees of interaction and sharing between teams, from zero to frequent. We all had access to the Internet, and therefore, to the same set of "tools", in this case all available means of sensing obstacles, navigating, and controlling vehicles...(to be continued)
I had an idea of mine ripped off, and I am actually HAPPY about it. It was a special thermostat for classic cars. The original design was no longer available and the "standard" type would function, but only partially. I had an on-line discussion, in public, containing very specific measurements and construction specs including the specific standard unit which would serve as the starting point for mods.I did not follow through with the production of the device beyond a design on paper and a non-functional mock-up. A year or 2 later I heard of a place that was making a replacement for the original thermostat, and I decided to buy one. When I got it, I could not believe my eyes. It was my EXACT design!I could never have made it nor marketed it profitably. But by being ripped off, I got exactly what I wanted for about $50! I'd have preferred a than-you and a free prototype, but this was OK. Since I had not put all that much work into it, it was no loss to me.-Tony
I totally agree. I've had people tell me "you should have patented that!" for some of what I have made freely available and quite frankly, I never even considered it for these reasons:* I can't afford the patent process, only big companies can afford to do this, "commoners" like us can't.* I don't see the use in the patent, why keep someone else from using a good idea? I'd rather create than collect money (license fees) from those that do create.* I make my stuff freely and OBVIOUSLY available to intentionally provide evidence of "prior art" so that others can't patent the idea. If you keep an idea secret, others with more money will patent it out from under you and prevent its usage.Based upon patent fights that I've been privy to, patents exist to bully others into paying someone money that they don't really have any right to. Copyright is one thing, a patent is simply and only a restraint of trade. IBM, Microsoft, etc. have the pockets to take away any patent that anyone without deep pockets has. Maybe this served a purpose at one time, but the patent process has been perverted to the point where nothing short of a total re-engineering of the whole concept will fix it. I see no value whatsoever in a patent. Other than bragging rights, that is.IMO,Dennis Clark
If Sparkfun really got squeezed & couldn't give weekends off, would the discovery of an employee spending 16 hours a week writing free software be tolerated?Times were different in 1999. The model was basically do whatever you want on weekends. Someone else would always give you a salaried job doing something else to pay for it.Today, most companies outside government consider all the time you're not in your chair a liability. It's really really really hard to make money in the private sector. Most don't give weekends off & if they found out you had any spare time to write free software you'd be unemployed.As far as patents, if the invention is simple to replicate & not very high in demand, no-one will copy it because they either know it'll just get stolen again or it's not worth enough.If the invention is substantial enough that few can replicate it & it's very profitable, they'll copy it. If you're burning time on it that you could be spending supporting your boss & you don't have a secure paycheck outside your inventing work, you're going to find out why patents were invented the hard way.We all wish 1999 could come back, but it's not. 2ff7e9595c
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