Your not the only one... I have a pet peeve about a few things I've worked on. There is a academic paper out there on beam combining that is verbatim from one of my ideas I partially described from PL. Right down to the patent. The difference is they had the funding to finish the problem. I've even been asked to scan my entire library. One fellow offered me unlimited photocopier access to make him a "book" or PDF of everything I knew. He offered me like 700$.
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There are four paragraphs from PL in a published academic text that are verbatim and un-attributed from one of my PL posts. I found it in the local library when they bought the book.
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While I willfully give most of what I know about entertainment lasers in the spirit of the many professionals who taught me, when someone who is not even trying to design something arranges for their friends to harass me about a particular schematic, I get POed.
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"Please send me full details and any notebooks of repumping tubes and would you please send me a pinchoff tool, I'll pay the shipping" Gets annoying.
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"Please to have full schematics and PCB layout of abstract console immediately and teach me its use"
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"Please tell me how to reactivate a cathode after it has seen air" Not on your life am I going to let some one trash customers expensive Ion lasers with a cheap chop and pump, without a even a passivated glove box and using welding grade gas. I got burned badly by a chop and pump guy a couple of times, and the industry needed that like a plague.
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"Can you tell me how to bypass the secure rom in XYZ motherboard"... Now why would I willingly violate my NDA with my former employer..
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I had to earn the Pinch-Off tool by spending a year of part time weekend and evening work developing a small tube lab for a wealthily friend. A good ethical man. When it was purchased and given to me on perpetual long term loan it was 1200$. Now they sell the same tool for only 3200 seven years later. It took two years , many trips to the library, and a lot of experimenting to develop a hermetic pinch that works. Given the opportunity to have the real tool was golden, and resulted in a lot of research lasers and medical systems staying running. That kind of effort is not something I would give away willingly. If you don't have the Google-Fu to find it, you probably do not have the needed skills to use it.
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Yep, happens a lot. I have the joy and pleasure of seeing an optical design of mine in Walmart and Home Depot, when the owner of the patent decided to pursue teaching philosophy instead of retaining his substantial royalties and fighting for them. Net result, a fellow in China is credited with my design, and renamed it. He got his hands on it when it was decided that manufacturing in Asia was going to be cheaper then making the product in the USA long term. The copy was out in three months..
The only good news is when I need one of my award winning parts, I don't have to make it myself.
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Believe me, I do hold back a bit from what I can really post to PL or show at SELEM, and for good reason.. Yet sometimes I benefit when people publish stuff, too.. TWO EDGE SWORD, and must be balanced accordingly. Knowledge that takes months or years to learn, where I have to pay for research reports and documents, or make a trip out of state, or frying stuff by trail and error, is EXPENSIVE. Expensive stuff gets retained and kept quiet.
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Your not the only one... When you get really good at doing things, the requests can switch to threats., If we're ever together at Selem, ask me about the Biker Gang who wanted a free medium frame Krypton and "Knew where I lived". That individual had a massive chest of gold teeth, gold fillings, and jewelry from the cemetery across from his house. His children played with the teeth of the dead.
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People are people, and most of us are inherently greedy. Not all of us are that lazy, however.
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Steve
Last edited by mixedgas; 04-30-2018 at 10:05.
Qui habet Christos, habet Vitam!
I should have rented the space under my name for advertising.
When I still could have...