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Re: fast divider?

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On 3/04/2026 1:53 am, john larkin wrote:
> On Thu, 2 Apr 2026 14:41:48 +1100, Bill Sloman <bill.sloman@ieee.org>
> wrote:
> 
>> On 2/04/2026 3:12 am, john larkin wrote:
>>> On Thu, 2 Apr 2026 02:13:38 +1100, Bill Sloman <bill.sloman@ieee.org>
>>> wrote:
>>>> On 1/04/2026 7:06 pm, john larkin wrote:
>>>>> On Wed, 1 Apr 2026 15:54:44 +1100, Bill Sloman <bill.sloman@ieee.org>
>>>>> wrote:
>>>>>> On 1/04/2026 2:14 am, john larkin wrote:
>>>>>>> On Tue, 31 Mar 2026 22:30:44 +1100, Bill Sloman <bill.sloman@ieee.org>
>>>>>>> wrote:
>>>>>>>> On 31/03/2026 8:40 pm, john larkin wrote:
>>>>>>>>> On Tue, 31 Mar 2026 16:35:49 +1100, Bill Sloman <bill.sloman@ieee.org>
>>>>>>>>> wrote:
>>>>>>>>>> On 31/03/2026 2:00 am, john larkin wrote:
>>>>>>>>>>> On Mon, 30 Mar 2026 16:42:12 +1100, Bill Sloman <bill.sloman@ieee.org>
>>>>>>>>>>> wrote:
>>>>>>>>>>>> On 30/03/2026 2:18 am, john larkin wrote:
>>>>>>>>>>>>> On Sun, 29 Mar 2026 15:52:53 +1100, Bill Sloman <bill.sloman@ieee.org>
>>>>>>>>>>>>> wrote:
>>>>>>>>>>>>>> On 29/03/2026 8:38 am, john larkin wrote:
>>>>>>>>>>>>>>> On Sat, 28 Mar 2026 16:44:40 +1100, Bill Sloman <bill.sloman@ieee.org>
>>>>>>>>>>>>>>> wrote:
>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>> On 28/03/2026 5:39 am, john larkin wrote:
>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>> On Sun, 22 Mar 2026 03:00:16 +1100, Bill Sloman <bill.sloman@ieee.org>
>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>> wrote:
>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>> On 22/03/2026 1:52 am, john larkin wrote:
>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>> On Sat, 21 Mar 2026 16:36:43 +1100, Bill Sloman <bill.sloman@ieee.org>
>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>> wrote:
>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>> On 20/03/2026 4:05 am, john larkin wrote:
>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>> On Tue, 17 Mar 2026 22:30:01 +0000, someone
>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>> <cffbf4deb9142bce48974efc0e64dede@example.com> wrote:
>>
>> <snip>
>>
>>>>> Invention is precisely running into - running toward - the unexpected.
>>>>
>>>> That's a bizarre way of looking at it. It's doing something in a way
>>>> that hasn't been done before, but it is goal directed, and you wouldn't
>>>> start the process if you didn't have a pretty clear idea of what you
>>>> wanted to do, if not exactly how you were going to do it.
>>>
>>> I strongly disagree; that is backwards. Sometimes we imagine products
>>> or circuits that nobody ever wanted or expected. It just happens
>>> sometimes at 2AM.
>>
>> And very few of them look sensible after the sun has come up.
> 
> Most are obviously goofy. Many have already been invented and are on
> the market. There are still lots that might become products.

Not a particularly plausible claim.

> So the next step is to research what's out there. Lately we hire a
> bright college student to research the science, technology,
> competitors, market. They deliver a report for $1000.

Bright college students don't know all that much. They can learn, but 
their point of view is shaped by an education system that tells them 
what to think, and that does tend to concentrate on area that are easy 
to teach.

> One unstated benefit is that we get to evaluate the kids, even if the
> technology idea was silly.  And it's fun.

It will tell you quite a bit about the kids.

>>> I have a folder full of ideas, most speculative and unexpected and
>>> probably dumb.
>>
>> If you knew a bit more, it would be a much thinner folder.
> 
> It would be thicker.

Dream on.

>>> We hire smart kids, college students, to explore them
>>> and write up a report on the possible uses, competitors specs and
>>> pricing, any interesting offshoots that occur to them. They get a
>>> fixed fee when they turn in the report.
>>
>> An expensive self-indulgence.
> 
> Super cheap, compared to the alternates, like hiring a
> usually-fatheaded marketing manager.

The usual term is market research organisation. Marketing manager look 
after the people who talk to the customers - Tom Peters thought that 
that ought to include the engineers but marketing managers don't feel 
that they can control what the engineers tell the customers.

>>>>> Sometimes that's accidental, but can be deliberately provoked.
>>>>> Inventing needs the right skills and personality but improves with
>>>>> practice in the right environment. Books have been written about that.
>>>>
>>>> None of them useful enough to have been touted at places that encouraged
>>>> inventions and applying for patents. EMI Central Research was just such
>>>> a place, and I worked there for three years without ever running into
>>>> such a book. The histories of Bell Labs
>>>>
>>>> https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Idea_Factory
>>>>
>>>
>>> I have that one; good book.
>>>
>>> Someone said that all the great inventions at Bell in those days were
>>> done by people who ate lunch with Harry Nyquist.
>>>
>>>> didn't mention any such book either. People will write books with the
>>>> flimsiest of justifications if they think the product will sell.
>>>> Teaching people how to make genuine inventions would be a very good
>>>> thing if you could do it, and a lot of confidence tricksters claim that
>>>> they can. The evidence supporting such claims doesn't seem to exist.
>>>
>>> The real evidence is purchase orders.
>>
>> People don't give you purchase orders for patents. They buy products.
> 
> Exactly. Patents are "An expensive self-indulgence."

They can be. But they were invented to let people publish and sell their 
trade secrets, and it is a system that does make sense if you use it 
sensibly.

>> A good and patentable idea can be central to a product, but inept
>> development can wreck the best of ideas. The Lintech electron beam
>> tester was based on a patented idea of their boss, whose name was on the
>> patent (which he'd got to own). He cheap-skated on the development to
>> such an extent that one of his ex-engineers was able to build a pretty
>> much identical machine which destroyed his business - nobody ordered a
>> Lintech machine after the Schlumberger competitor hit the market, and
>> after Lintech had delivered the last of the machine it had sold they
>> went bankrupt. Mike Engelhart  - of LTSpice fame - worked on that project.
>>
>>>>> Some people invent things. Some intelligent and (over)educated people
>>>>> actively resent invention, because they can't do it.
>>>>
>>>> I can't say that I've met any of them. My father and two of my friends
>>>> have each got their names onto about 25 patents and none of them ever
>>>> talked about people resenting that work.
>>>>
>>>>>>> Given an enormous space of undiscovered ideas, one profits from a
>>>>>>> method of exploring them in parallel with minimal filtering.
>>>>
>>>> At EMI Central Research we were encourage to submit patent queries. One
>>>> of my colleagues put in a record number of patent queries - about fifty
>>>> in one year - and was seen as having rather poor judgement. None of them
>>>> turned into a patent. He would have benefited from better filtering.
>>>
>>> The real evidence is purchase orders.
>>
>> It seems to be the only evidence you can understand. You seem to have
>> got your name on exactly one patent, taken out by a group you were
>> working with, so your grasp of what constitutes a patentable idea and
>> what you can do with it does seem to be second hand.
> 
> Why the obsession with patents?

It's the same idea as scientists exploit when they publish their results 
in peer-reviewed journal. You create a free market for good ideas.

> Only a small fraction of patents become commercial successes. Most are
> abandoned in the expensive process before they are issued, and then
> most issued patents are abandoned because of the maintenance fees.

All true. The Lintech patent was taken out by Cambridge Instruments and 
abandoned when the parent company went bust. The graduate student half 
of the two named inventors took over the patent by paying the 
maintenance fees. It was a wise move, and would have paid off even 
better if he'd paid more attention the people who ended up using the 
machines rather than to the bosses who bought them.

> Expensive vanity, mostly. OK if you are a big drug company maybe.

It's like venture capitalism - 19 out of 20 patents weren't worth taking 
out, but the twentieth paid for all the rest. EMI, RCA and IBM all 
patented everything they could. The big drug companies have the same 
business model.

-- 
Bill Sloman, Sydney

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fast divider? john larkin <jl@glen--canyon.com> - 2026-03-15 11:47 -0700
  Re: fast divider? someone <cffbf4deb9142bce48974efc0e64dede@example.com> - 2026-03-17 22:30 +0000
    Re: fast divider? john larkin <jl@glen--canyon.com> - 2026-03-19 10:05 -0700
      Re: fast divider? Bill Sloman <bill.sloman@ieee.org> - 2026-03-21 16:36 +1100
        Re: fast divider? john larkin <jl@glen--canyon.com> - 2026-03-21 07:52 -0700
          Re: fast divider? Bill Sloman <bill.sloman@ieee.org> - 2026-03-22 03:00 +1100
            Re: fast divider? john larkin <jl@glen--canyon.com> - 2026-03-27 11:39 -0700
              Re: fast divider? Bill Sloman <bill.sloman@ieee.org> - 2026-03-28 16:44 +1100
                Re: fast divider? john larkin <jl@glen--canyon.com> - 2026-03-28 14:38 -0700
                Re: fast divider? Bill Sloman <bill.sloman@ieee.org> - 2026-03-29 15:52 +1100
                Re: fast divider? john larkin <jl@glen--canyon.com> - 2026-03-29 08:18 -0700
                Re: fast divider? Bill Sloman <bill.sloman@ieee.org> - 2026-03-30 16:42 +1100
                Re: fast divider? john larkin <jl@glen--canyon.com> - 2026-03-30 08:00 -0700
                Re: fast divider? Bill Sloman <bill.sloman@ieee.org> - 2026-03-31 16:35 +1100
                Re: fast divider? john larkin <jl@glen--canyon.com> - 2026-03-31 02:40 -0700
                Re: fast divider? Bill Sloman <bill.sloman@ieee.org> - 2026-03-31 22:30 +1100
                Re: fast divider? john larkin <jl@glen--canyon.com> - 2026-03-31 08:14 -0700
                Re: fast divider? Bill Sloman <bill.sloman@ieee.org> - 2026-04-01 15:54 +1100
                Re: fast divider? john larkin <jl@glen--canyon.com> - 2026-04-01 01:06 -0700
                Re: fast divider? Bill Sloman <bill.sloman@ieee.org> - 2026-04-02 02:13 +1100
                Re: fast divider? john larkin <jl@glen--canyon.com> - 2026-04-01 09:12 -0700
                Re: fast divider? Bill Sloman <bill.sloman@ieee.org> - 2026-04-02 14:41 +1100
                Re: fast divider? john larkin <jl@glen--canyon.com> - 2026-04-02 07:53 -0700
                Re: fast divider? Bill Sloman <bill.sloman@ieee.org> - 2026-04-03 02:21 +1100
                Re: fast divider? john larkin <jl@glen--canyon.com> - 2026-04-02 08:57 -0700
                Re: fast divider? Bill Sloman <bill.sloman@ieee.org> - 2026-04-03 04:05 +1100
          Re: fast divider? someone <cffbf4deb9142bce48974efc0e64dede@example.com> - 2026-03-26 23:30 +0000
        Re: fast divider? Ross Finlayson <ross.a.finlayson@gmail.com> - 2026-03-21 09:38 -0700
          Re: fast divider? john larkin <jl@glen--canyon.com> - 2026-03-21 10:29 -0700
            Re: fast divider? Bill Sloman <bill.sloman@ieee.org> - 2026-03-23 23:49 +1100
              Re: fast divider? john larkin <jl@glen--canyon.com> - 2026-03-23 08:20 -0700
                Re: fast divider? Bill Sloman <bill.sloman@ieee.org> - 2026-03-24 23:04 +1100
                Re: fast divider? john larkin <jl@glen--canyon.com> - 2026-03-24 05:56 -0700
                Re: fast divider? Bill Sloman <bill.sloman@ieee.org> - 2026-03-25 02:47 +1100

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