I remember reading years ago about the problem of designing food lockers for use in Yosemite National Park-- the idea being that tourists could store their food in them, and bears would be unable to get them open. One ranger summed up the problem:
"There is considerable overlap between the intelligence of the smartest bears and the dumbest tourists."
The one that grates on my ear is "need". Today it's horribly overused, and I think I first noticed it becoming ubiquitous in the '90's.
But what about the mastodons? The phrases that should be there but aren't, and we don't notice because they're extinct today? The "-wise" suffix (used to turn nouns into adverbs, coinage-wise) was a bit of newspeak that was so common on Madison Avenue it was made fun of at the time. It should be easy enough for a writer to scan some old magazines for good examples, and they could serve a useful purpose in a script, underscoring a character's immersion in vogue, or sad devotion to a movement that has no future. (Here's hoping that the young audiences of 2060 don't notice the lack of "war on terror" references.)
"Because I don't have addresses for Chris Evans, who is cc'd on your letter, I'd be grateful if you would forward this letter to Evans."
Something tells me that Mr. Meyer will hesitate to reveal to his client how he was taken to the woodshed by a superior lawyer. I wouldn't be surprised if the omission of his client's address was deliberate self-defense, or at least instinctive.
(And note that Mr. Levy refers to the client as "Evans" without an honorific-- I have to wonder if that was a tiny little jab, less overt than "Mr./Ms. Evans".)
Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: ...it is his intellectual property that he is defining/protecting...
So you are averse to clear, specific language, and you don't like "pejorative" adjectives (although you use pejorative nouns, like "thieves", even when it is dishonest to do so-- I wonder how you feel about "hypocrite").
Re: Re: Re: ...it is his intellectual property that he is defining/protecting...
Well, at least we can agree that such an instructor should be fired and his textbook abandoned (although why you say it in such unclear language is, well, unclear).
Your argument seems to depend almost entirely on the emotional power of bad terminology like "intellectual property" (a legal term which I guess in this context means copyright) and "protect" (cripple) and "thieves" (non-thieves). Without it, all you're saying is that the instructor has a natural right to be a dick and a bad teacher (I agree), and a legal right to impose artificial restrictions on the use of the text he writes, and to sue anyone who breaks those restrictions (might stand up in court, IANAL).
Re: ...it is his intellectual property that he is defining/protecting...
A book is not damaged by being read. To prevent it from being read is not protecting it. To alter it in such a way as to make it less readable, while adding nothing at all to its content, is to damage and desecrate it. That is what a book needs protection from.
An instructor who uses this method is deliberately rendering the textbook which he wrote (at least in part) less usable to his/her students, in the hopes that this will allow the instructor (who already receives a salary) to extort some money from his students (who are already paying tuition). Students who want to share a textbook are not thieves and I doubt that they would smile much at a so-called teacher who attempted to destroy that ability in order to line his own pockets.
"I get that you somehow think you are entitled to benefit from a lifetime of another's scholarship and expertise and have no reciprocal duty to pay compensation- but that's not neither fair, nor just, nor legal."
I have derived immeasurable benefit from the lifetimes of scholarship and expertise of Archimedes, Euclid, Galileo, Da Vinci, Kepler, Newton, Mendeleev, Franklin, Gauss, Euler, Faraday, Maxwell, Curie, Einstein, Bose, Fermi, Turing, Gödel, and too many others to count, without ever giving any of them a dime. This is perfectly legal and absolutely right, and anyone who says that I shouldn't have been allowed to do so because of "fairness" is an enemy of science.
"Predictably, a hue and cry of righteous indignation (peppered with quite crude language) is raised without any serious exploration of the issues as seen by the professor/patentee... If learning truly comprises, in part, the exchange of ideas, engaging the individual [the Professor?] in a thoughtful discussion would present a wonderful learning opportunity for all who participate."
It's difficult to explore issues as seen by a man who describes them in an incoherent and illogical way. Unless he deigns to take part in this discussion, all we can do is underscore his very, very bad reasoning.
"Research-active universities do not reward professors for publishing textbooks yet many top professors have written textbooks. One can only assume the motivation WAS monetary."
There you have it folks. He's clearly not suitable for his position. What's the VERY first thing you learn when dealing with any branch of scientific research, no matter what field? You NEVER ASSUME... This guy woke up one morning, said "The motivation for top professors to write textbooks is monetary, and ONLY monetary..." He saw a problem, came up with his own conclusion without any research.
Actually that's a pretty common starting assumption in basic economics: that all the actors are seeking their own profit, measured by some simple metric like money. It's a crude, first-order approximation, the kind of thing you study in the freshman year, a good model to try first -- and test, and reject if it doesn't fit the evidence.
But he himself says two paragraphs later: "I invented the patented system largely for the same reason that I research and publish: the challenge and joy of puzzle-solving."
So either he admits he's not "a top professor" and is making some weird assumptions, or he's just not paying attention to what he writes.
1) Yes, I read what he wrote; I just don't agree with it.
2) You assume that an author cannot profit by writing a really good new textbook when there is a lot of copying going on. Are you new here?
3) You assume that no scientist capable of writing a really good new textbook that would be a big hit would be willing to do so if there weren't a lot of money in it. I'm guessing you don't hang out with scientists much.
"My hope is that one can engage in civil debate with an open mind to change one’s opinion when presented with logic and evidence."
We are delighted to hear this, Professor, and I really hope you're reading this blog.
In your second paragraph you write: "Research-active universities do not reward professors for publishing textbooks yet many top professors have written textbooks. One can only assume the motivation WAS monetary."
In response I quote your fourth paragraph: "I have... maxed out from any sort of career advancement at my institution. I invented the patented system largely for the same reason that I research and publish: the challenge and joy of puzzle-solving."
You go on to say: "With rampant piracy, the best and brightest will no longer publish textbooks and the students will suffer from inferior quality textbooks."
"Rampant piracy" will give the students access to the best textbooks that exist. Magically stopping piracy will restrict them to the horribly expensive books written by their merely average instructors (often released in a new, slightly modified edition every year to kill the second-hand market). According to your scheme it will prevent classmates from sharing a book, which is simply indefensible. And if you want to argue that the best minds in the field will be unable to make a substantial profit writing textbooks where there is copying, or that they would be unwilling to do so without such profit, you will have to present a much better argument, backed by real evidence.
This is getting about as long as a rebuttal comment should be, but I note that many of your further arguments about what you expect publishers to do with this new technology (e.g. yo expect them to lower the price of textbooks once they have an effective monopoly) look to me like wishful thinking at best, and astonishingly ill-informed.
The same thought occurred to me: maybe he intends to lock down this horrible idea, not for his own profit, but so that no instructors can do this to their students.
What a great idea! (It's a great idea even if it isn't what he actually has in mind.) If you're the first to think of something really contrary to the advancement of civilization, you can patent it and prevent it from being put into production. Whole branches of DRM technology could be rendered purely academic. Anti-anonymity technology could be relegated to pure CS theory where it belongs. Just imagine if someone had thought to patent Monsanto's loathsome genetically modified seeds before Monsanto did. We could have national grants for the most appalling ideas to be patented and mothballed, and breath a world-wide sigh of relief every time someone nipped a real stinker in the bud. All the shameful laxness of the Patent Office could be turned into a fore for good. Promote the progress, indeed!
I was thinking of something I read years ago about an experiment with pigeons. Now that I look into it, I see that there's a new, simpler theory to explain the pigeons' behavior, but I'm not convinced (it looks a little like a distinction without a difference). Search for "Justification of Effort by Humans and Pigeons".
I think we're looking at a conflict within a brain that evolved to understand the possession of tangible goods (berries, arrowheads, clothing) and also to grasp more abstract concepts (stories, skills, music, software). Any ape can grasp the first, but only human beings can grasp the second-- and not all human beings are good at it(*).
When a modern person thinks about commerce in abstract things, the two mental functions come into conflict. In Mr. DeMartini's case, it appears that the primitive thinking prevails. There is actually a grain of sense in this: if consumers think in a primitive way, a marketing campaign that plays to it can make a lot of money; what makes a Rolex better than a less expensive fine watch? Basically the fact that it's more expensive. (This is a form of cognitive dissonance, something even birds exhibit.) It is plausible that consumers might lose respect (and desire) for games that were sold cheaply, simply because they were sold cheaply. But in this case the evidence is that most gamers don't, in fact, think that way.
(*) Someday we'll have to ask dolphins about it. If they're better at any kind of thinking than we are, I'll bet it has to do with commerce in memes.
"At this point, I can only conclude that the government knows it put out a ridiculously misleading report... or the people involved are so clueless that they honestly think that correlation between companies getting patents honestly means those patents "drives" the innovation in that technology, contrary to plenty of actual studies on the impact of patents on innovation."
I'd like to suggest a third possibility: they concocted a nice, puffy statement, associating the Department's policy with some good things. That was their job. It was good copy, it scanned well; whether the report was accurate or misleading was not the point. The phrase "all evidence suggests..." is good prose, a solid first sentence, but evidence had nothing to do with the report.
I have learned the hard way that it's not just the liars you have to watch out for, it's the people who do not care whether what they're saying is true or false.
On the post: DailyDirt: Are Animals Getting Smarter?
Re: as smart as they need to be to survive
On the post: DailyDirt: Are Animals Getting Smarter?
as smart as they need to be to survive
"There is considerable overlap between the intelligence of the smartest bears and the dumbest tourists."
On the post: Google Books Data Mining Reveals Mad Men's Big Historical Flaw: Business Lingo
negative space
But what about the mastodons? The phrases that should be there but aren't, and we don't notice because they're extinct today? The "-wise" suffix (used to turn nouns into adverbs, coinage-wise) was a bit of newspeak that was so common on Madison Avenue it was made fun of at the time. It should be easy enough for a writer to scan some old magazines for good examples, and they could serve a useful purpose in a script, underscoring a character's immersion in vogue, or sad devotion to a movement that has no future. (Here's hoping that the young audiences of 2060 don't notice the lack of "war on terror" references.)
On the post: Chris Evans' Lawyer Threatens Forum; Apparently Unfamiliar With Free Speech, Safe Harbors & Streisand Effect
adding insult to injury
Something tells me that Mr. Meyer will hesitate to reveal to his client how he was taken to the woodshed by a superior lawyer. I wouldn't be surprised if the omission of his client's address was deliberate self-defense, or at least instinctive.
(And note that Mr. Levy refers to the client as "Evans" without an honorific-- I have to wonder if that was a tiny little jab, less overt than "Mr./Ms. Evans".)
On the post: DailyDirt: Space Tourism Is Almost Here
iron pyrite propulsion
On the post: What Kind Of Professor Patents A Way To Make It More Expensive & More Difficult For Students To Learn?
Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: ...it is his intellectual property that he is defining/protecting...
Your style is familiar to anyone who has read Orwell's "Politics and the English Language". Don't hurry back.
On the post: What Kind Of Professor Patents A Way To Make It More Expensive & More Difficult For Students To Learn?
Re: Re: Re: ...it is his intellectual property that he is defining/protecting...
Your argument seems to depend almost entirely on the emotional power of bad terminology like "intellectual property" (a legal term which I guess in this context means copyright) and "protect" (cripple) and "thieves" (non-thieves). Without it, all you're saying is that the instructor has a natural right to be a dick and a bad teacher (I agree), and a legal right to impose artificial restrictions on the use of the text he writes, and to sue anyone who breaks those restrictions (might stand up in court, IANAL).
On the post: What Kind Of Professor Patents A Way To Make It More Expensive & More Difficult For Students To Learn?
Re: ...it is his intellectual property that he is defining/protecting...
An instructor who uses this method is deliberately rendering the textbook which he wrote (at least in part) less usable to his/her students, in the hopes that this will allow the instructor (who already receives a salary) to extort some money from his students (who are already paying tuition). Students who want to share a textbook are not thieves and I doubt that they would smile much at a so-called teacher who attempted to destroy that ability in order to line his own pockets.
On the post: What Kind Of Professor Patents A Way To Make It More Expensive & More Difficult For Students To Learn?
Re: Re: Re: Re:
I have derived immeasurable benefit from the lifetimes of scholarship and expertise of Archimedes, Euclid, Galileo, Da Vinci, Kepler, Newton, Mendeleev, Franklin, Gauss, Euler, Faraday, Maxwell, Curie, Einstein, Bose, Fermi, Turing, Gödel, and too many others to count, without ever giving any of them a dime. This is perfectly legal and absolutely right, and anyone who says that I shouldn't have been allowed to do so because of "fairness" is an enemy of science.
On the post: What Kind Of Professor Patents A Way To Make It More Expensive & More Difficult For Students To Learn?
Re:
It's difficult to explore issues as seen by a man who describes them in an incoherent and illogical way. Unless he deigns to take part in this discussion, all we can do is underscore his very, very bad reasoning.
On the post: What Kind Of Professor Patents A Way To Make It More Expensive & More Difficult For Students To Learn?
Re: Financing Math Instructor
It certainly sounds that way.
On the post: What Kind Of Professor Patents A Way To Make It More Expensive & More Difficult For Students To Learn?
Re: Re: Re: Re: Re:
There you have it folks. He's clearly not suitable for his position. What's the VERY first thing you learn when dealing with any branch of scientific research, no matter what field? You NEVER ASSUME... This guy woke up one morning, said "The motivation for top professors to write textbooks is monetary, and ONLY monetary..." He saw a problem, came up with his own conclusion without any research.
Actually that's a pretty common starting assumption in basic economics: that all the actors are seeking their own profit, measured by some simple metric like money. It's a crude, first-order approximation, the kind of thing you study in the freshman year, a good model to try first -- and test, and reject if it doesn't fit the evidence.
But he himself says two paragraphs later:
"I invented the patented system largely for the same reason that I research and publish: the challenge and joy of puzzle-solving."
So either he admits he's not "a top professor" and is making some weird assumptions, or he's just not paying attention to what he writes.
On the post: What Kind Of Professor Patents A Way To Make It More Expensive & More Difficult For Students To Learn?
Re: Re: Re: Re: Re:
That is not what you said, nor is it a meaningful rebuttal of my point.
The rest of your text is so densely marbled with specious argument that I don't think further comment is necessary.
On the post: What Kind Of Professor Patents A Way To Make It More Expensive & More Difficult For Students To Learn?
Re: Re: Re:
2) You assume that an author cannot profit by writing a really good new textbook when there is a lot of copying going on. Are you new here?
3) You assume that no scientist capable of writing a really good new textbook that would be a big hit would be willing to do so if there weren't a lot of money in it. I'm guessing you don't hang out with scientists much.
On the post: What Kind Of Professor Patents A Way To Make It More Expensive & More Difficult For Students To Learn?
Re:
We are delighted to hear this, Professor, and I really hope you're reading this blog.
In your second paragraph you write:
"Research-active universities do not reward professors for publishing textbooks yet many top professors have written textbooks. One can only assume the motivation WAS monetary."
In response I quote your fourth paragraph:
"I have... maxed out from any sort of career advancement at my institution. I invented the patented system largely for the same reason that I research and publish: the challenge and joy of puzzle-solving."
You go on to say:
"With rampant piracy, the best and brightest will no longer publish textbooks and the students will suffer from inferior quality textbooks."
"Rampant piracy" will give the students access to the best textbooks that exist. Magically stopping piracy will restrict them to the horribly expensive books written by their merely average instructors (often released in a new, slightly modified edition every year to kill the second-hand market). According to your scheme it will prevent classmates from sharing a book, which is simply indefensible. And if you want to argue that the best minds in the field will be unable to make a substantial profit writing textbooks where there is copying, or that they would be unwilling to do so without such profit, you will have to present a much better argument, backed by real evidence.
This is getting about as long as a rebuttal comment should be, but I note that many of your further arguments about what you expect publishers to do with this new technology (e.g. yo expect them to lower the price of textbooks once they have an effective monopoly) look to me like wishful thinking at best, and astonishingly ill-informed.
On the post: What Kind Of Professor Patents A Way To Make It More Expensive & More Difficult For Students To Learn?
Re: From The Tough Titty Dept.
Oh! I know the answer! Professor AC, over here! I have a solution! Ooh, pick me, pick me, pick me!
On the post: What Kind Of Professor Patents A Way To Make It More Expensive & More Difficult For Students To Learn?
Re: So bad it might...
What a great idea! (It's a great idea even if it isn't what he actually has in mind.) If you're the first to think of something really contrary to the advancement of civilization, you can patent it and prevent it from being put into production. Whole branches of DRM technology could be rendered purely academic. Anti-anonymity technology could be relegated to pure CS theory where it belongs. Just imagine if someone had thought to patent Monsanto's loathsome genetically modified seeds before Monsanto did. We could have national grants for the most appalling ideas to be patented and mothballed, and breath a world-wide sigh of relief every time someone nipped a real stinker in the bud. All the shameful laxness of the Patent Office could be turned into a fore for good. Promote the progress, indeed!
On the post: EA Believes That Making A Lot Of Money Is Less Important Than Keeping Games Expensive
Re: Re: simple psychology
On the post: EA Believes That Making A Lot Of Money Is Less Important Than Keeping Games Expensive
simple psychology
When a modern person thinks about commerce in abstract things, the two mental functions come into conflict. In Mr. DeMartini's case, it appears that the primitive thinking prevails. There is actually a grain of sense in this: if consumers think in a primitive way, a marketing campaign that plays to it can make a lot of money; what makes a Rolex better than a less expensive fine watch? Basically the fact that it's more expensive. (This is a form of cognitive dissonance, something even birds exhibit.) It is plausible that consumers might lose respect (and desire) for games that were sold cheaply, simply because they were sold cheaply. But in this case the evidence is that most gamers don't, in fact, think that way.
(*) Someday we'll have to ask dolphins about it. If they're better at any kind of thinking than we are, I'll bet it has to do with commerce in memes.
On the post: Commerce Dept: Steve Jobs Had Patents, Steve Jobs Made Cool Things; Thus Patents Are Great
the square root of False
I'd like to suggest a third possibility: they concocted a nice, puffy statement, associating the Department's policy with some good things. That was their job. It was good copy, it scanned well; whether the report was accurate or misleading was not the point. The phrase "all evidence suggests..." is good prose, a solid first sentence, but evidence had nothing to do with the report.
I have learned the hard way that it's not just the liars you have to watch out for, it's the people who do not care whether what they're saying is true or false.
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