sid_vicious's Journal: Dvorak's Take on IBM's "Research"

Well, since I submitted this story and subsequently got it bounced by the editors, I might as well throw it out in my journal because *I* thought it was interesting. I'm sure the story got bounced because the editors just figured it was Dvorak rumor-mongering and not because IBM's in bed with the penguin.

John Dvorak suggests in his November 20th, 2001 'Inside Track' column that IBM has been taking credit for other folks' inventions. Specifically, one of the "inventions" refuted by Dvorak is IBM's hard drive "pixie dust".

Good use of journal...

[heliocentric]

I might as well throw it out in my journal...

I've seen the whole LJ [livejournal.com] thing all too many times and frankly I can't see sharing my deep person things with the world, nor do I see sharing just part of my life... So the idea (as suggested before by others) to use a /. journal as a means for their own little topical /.-esq dohicky I think is a great use of the space the /. team has put forth for users.

Keep 'em coming, you're listed as one of my friends so I get one of those spiffy messages when you add a new journal entry.

Now, I guess telling you that your use of a /. like way in what should be a post to your topic I guess is considered OT, but you did mention your reasoning for posting this news in your journal so I'm posting to that, however, here's my two cents on topic:

As far as IBM and stealing other's ideas, it's something I was gravely fearful of when I worked there. There were all these lovely "You tell us exactly what you're doing so we don't get things confused and accidently own what you're doing" forms. I felt stuck in providing too much info as to show that the emperor has no clothes, yet prevent them from doing a "ahem, we own that thing-a-ma-gig." As Murphy's Law implies, if anything I ever thought up was good, I wouldn't have explained it in the proper way so I just decided I'd quit my job and go to grad school full time and develop as much as I can so there would be a smaller chance of IBM claiming anything of mine as theirs. And yes, I'm looking for any suggestions for means to prove that what I'm working on was not developed while at big blue... best things I can think of to cheaply show when I did something is the classic mail myself a letter to get it post marked, but how do I prove that I didn't have things earlier than a certain date? Right now I figure I'll just burn that bridge when I get to it, er uh, something like that.

Re:Good use of journal...

[sid_vicious]

Keep 'em coming, you're listed as one of my friends so I get one of those spiffy messages when you add a new journal entry.

Thanks! I'm surprised anyone noticed my journal entry here..
:-)

And yes, I'm looking for any suggestions for means to prove that what I'm working on was not developed while at big blue...

What type of projects were you working on while at IBM, and what type of research work are you doing now in grad school? I presume they're fairly closely related, or there wouldn't be too much cause for concern..

... best things I can think of to cheaply show when I did something is the classic mail myself a letter to get it post marked, but how do I prove that I didn't have things earlier than a certain date?

Hmmmmm. I dabbled a little bit with copyright issues a few years ago when I was interested in getting some of my personal work logged with the copyright office. They referred to what you're describing - send yourself a copy of your work by certified mail - as a "Poor Man's Copyright". IIRC, they also implied that recent court rulings haven't favored that as a way of proving ownership of information.

On the plus side, you've always got your university to back you up if Big Blue comes knocking on the door. I think they'll usually provide legal counsel to researchers in situations like that. The #1 thing that I imagine could give you a leg up in such a situation is to keep detailed notes of your research and to have your faculty advisor on your side.

On a similar but unrelated topic, check out the website at the University of Maryland [umd.edu] where I was a student a few years ago. Notice the sphere with the flag of Maryland mapped on it at the top of the screen? I created an animated .gif with an almost exactly-similar design (except the sphere rotated) for my webpage while I was a student there. I even submitted it as part of a "design a logo for the University Honors Program" and got it rejected. A year and some change later, it's the logo for whole University - it's on their billboards, pamphlets, web pages, letterhead. I've still got the old .gif on my computer at home, but how do you prove prior art on something digital?!