> How the hell they think medicine would have advanced, if every time
> someone wanted to run an experiment, they had to pay half their research
> budget to buy papers on the prior experiments done in the same field, is
> beyond me.

Let me fill you in: THEY DON'T CARE. So long as somebody gives them 
money. ;-)

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On 4-8-2012 6:02, waggy wrote:
> Orchid Win7 v1 wrote:
>> On 03/08/2012 05:50 PM, Darren New wrote:
>>> In addition, the school itself gets a copy of the thesis (or many
>>> copies) and they wind up in the department or library or something.
>>> Certainly when the student publishes a thesis, the school isn't going to
>>> fail to have a vanity copy.
>>
>> Sure. But that doesn't help *me* read it. I always seem to have trouble
>> getting my hands on interesting papers and stuff...
>
> At my university, I have to deliver two printed copies to the school library.

I had about 300 IIRC. Different system. Ours is better ;)

> I must also deliver an electronic copy to a commercial online publisher to make
> available through their private (paid) service. Registering a copyright and
> providing open access are add-on costs for the author.

I thought that even the USA had gone over to the sensible system that 
everything one writes is automatically copyrighted.

> I'll shell out the bucks for the copyright since my thesis has immediate
> commercial applications and I don't want one company monopolizing it.

I don't see how a copyright could help here. A patent might, but a 
copyright just protects the wording, not the idea. You could prevent a 
company to get a patent because of prior art. But as the thesis is an 
official document with a date, you don't need a copyright either.

> (I don't
> mind not getting a piece of it since public funds paid for the research and most
> applications involve safety.)
>
> I'm also on the open-access side of scholarly publication.  However, I have
> worked with professional technical editors and think we need to figure out how
> to get them back into the technical publication process. Peer review generally
> works well enough for checking the content, but it seems silly that researchers
> also need to have the specialized skills of a proofreader, copy editor, graphic
> artist, and sometimes even page layout specialist.

It is part of the western world's attempt to keep the Chinese out. Their 
English is often so bad that we can reject the papers they send to the 
journals without even looking at the content. Or looking at it, 
reproducing and publishing first, depending on your morals.

> Modern software doesn't make these respectable jobs obsolete, it just gives
> authors the tools to do all of them themselves, poorly, when we could be doing
> more of the research we're good at.

Somehow I think you do not understand the reasons behind modern 
research. Employing someone to do research is mainly because otherwise 
the statistics look bad. When researchers do actually research they 
spends money on top of their salary. To cut the costs it is important to 
prevent that.

> [It feels good to leave that preposition there at the end, where it belongs.]
>
>


-- 
Women are the canaries of science. When they are underrepresented
it is a strong indication that non-scientific factors play a role
and the concentration of incorruptible scientists is also too low

Post a reply to this message

On 3-8-2012 18:52, Darren New wrote:
> On 8/2/2012 12:54, Stephen wrote:
>> Is it an American thing?
>
> FWIW, as a native American,

IMWTK is that genetically 'native American' or someone born in the USA.

> it's one of the few "rules" that never
> seemed controversial. Then again, I learned to type on a manual
> typewriter, so maybe times have changed.
>


-- 
Women are the canaries of science. When they are underrepresented
it is a strong indication that non-scientific factors play a role
and the concentration of incorruptible scientists is also too low

Post a reply to this message

On 04/08/2012 7:30 PM, andrel wrote:
>> FWIW, as a native American,
>
> IMWTK is that genetically 'native American' or someone born in the USA.

Yes, my question.

I understand 'native American' to mean indigenous peoples, pre-Columbian 
Americans.

-- 
Regards
     Stephen

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On 8/4/2012 11:22, andrel wrote:
>> available through their private (paid) service. Registering a copyright and
>> providing open access are add-on costs for the author.
>
> I thought that even the USA had gone over to the sensible system that
> everything one writes is automatically copyrighted.

We did, in 1974 or so, IIRC. That doesn't mean it's registered. That just 
means it's copyrighted.

>> I'll shell out the bucks for the copyright since my thesis has immediate
>> commercial applications and I don't want one company monopolizing it.
>
> I don't see how a copyright could help here.

Only to the extent it allows him to prevent someone else from monopolizing 
the copying.

-- 
Darren New, San Diego CA, USA (PST)
   "Oh no! We're out of code juice!"
   "Don't panic. There's beans and filters
    in the cabinet."

Post a reply to this message

On 8/4/2012 11:30, andrel wrote:
> On 3-8-2012 18:52, Darren New wrote:
>> On 8/2/2012 12:54, Stephen wrote:
>>> Is it an American thing?
>>
>> FWIW, as a native American,
>
> IMWTK is that genetically 'native American' or someone born in the USA.

Native american: I was born in America.

American Indian: My ancestors 1000 years ago were born in America.

-- 
Darren New, San Diego CA, USA (PST)
   "Oh no! We're out of code juice!"
   "Don't panic. There's beans and filters
    in the cabinet."

Post a reply to this message

andrel <byt### [at] gmailcom> wrote:
> On 4-8-2012 6:02, waggy wrote:
> > I must also deliver an electronic copy to a commercial online publisher to make
> > available through their private (paid) service. Registering a copyright and
> > providing open access are add-on costs for the author.
>
> I thought that even the USA had gone over to the sensible system that
> everything one writes is automatically copyrighted.
>
> > I'll shell out the bucks for the copyright since my thesis has immediate
> > commercial applications and I don't want one company monopolizing it.
>
> I don't see how a copyright could help here. A patent might, but a
> copyright just protects the wording, not the idea. You could prevent a
> company to get a patent because of prior art. But as the thesis is an
> official document with a date, you don't need a copyright either.
>
I am presuming that if I don't register the copyright, the commercial publisher
will do so.  I hope that by holding the copyright, and paying the service for
open access, it might make it more difficult for them to enforce a
cease-and-desist if I choose to post my own thesis to my own website.

I did ask an expert (though not a lawywer) about this, who informed me that it
does help to register the copyright.  Also, my advisor has consulted with IP
lawyers who work for this public institution, and they have filed legal claims
to these ideas on our behalf.  The University of Texas system also has plenty of
legal precedent set in favor of the student on matters of who owns the research
done in pursuit of a thesis or dissertation.

[snip]
> Somehow I think you do not understand the reasons behind modern
> research. Employing someone to do research is mainly because otherwise
> the statistics look bad. When researchers do actually research they
> spends money on top of their salary. To cut the costs it is important to
> prevent that.
>
Most of the research our lab does is extremely cheap, largely because of Moore's
Law.  I learned quickly to send my advisor plenty of pretty pictures that can be
used in presentations to solicit more research funding.  We also get sent to
conferences and meetings to do this ourselves.  (I rather suck at this part.)

Post a reply to this message

Orchid Win7 v1 <voi### [at] devnull> wrote:
> > How the hell they think medicine would have advanced, if every time
> > someone wanted to run an experiment, they had to pay half their research
> > budget to buy papers on the prior experiments done in the same field, is
> > beyond me.
>
> Let me fill you in: THEY DON'T CARE. So long as somebody gives them
> money. ;-)

Oh, but they do.  Sure, the managers get credit for the annual budget they
control.  But, they also get credit for the number of people working for them,
and for the total value of the infrastructure and equipment they control.
Anything that eats into the budget without contributing the others is
non-optimal.

Post a reply to this message

On 4-8-2012 6:02, waggy wrote:

> Modern software doesn't make these respectable jobs obsolete, it just gives
> authors the tools to do all of them themselves, poorly, when we could be doing
> more of the research we're good at.

This is where Andy could have looked for a job. If research-funding had 
been more sensible.


-- 
Women are the canaries of science. When they are underrepresented
it is a strong indication that non-scientific factors play a role
and the concentration of incorruptible scientists is also too low

Post a reply to this message

On Sat, 04 Aug 2012 12:30:15 -0700, Darren New wrote:

> Native american: I was born in America.
> 
> American Indian: My ancestors 1000 years ago were born in America.

Here in Utah, that's not the common parlance.

"Native American" here generally is taken to mean a member of an American 
Indian tribe (the term "Indian" as applied to indigenous peoples is now 
seen even here in Utah as a misnomer, applied because Columbus thought 
he'd reached India, as you probably know).

"American Citizen" is used to reflect someone who is a citizen of the US; 
"Natural Born [American] Citizen" is used to denote someone who received 
their citizenship by being born here.

Jim

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