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It was almost impossible to make the blue LED [video]

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Re: It was almost impossible to make the blue LED [video]

#91

Post by robocat »

timr wrote: post #74
rpnx wrote: post #63

Earlier quoted context omitted.

They didn't sack him, he quit for better pay. In Japan companies rarely sack employees and employees rarely quit. People are expected to stay with the same company basically their whole life. That's why he didn't get fired for disobeying orders. Firing someone in Japan is somewhat socially taboo (just like quitting) and therefore rare. In Japan, companies are considered to be like "family". It would be kind of a joke…

That's sort of true (less so these days), but it's also quite common for companies to treat undesired people like crap in order to drive them to quit. It's what they do instead of firing in the lifetime employment model -- you've been promoted to head of the floor-sweeping department. Ganbatte! I don't know if that was going on here, but it sure sounds like it. (It could also be that the actual story is completely di…

> treat undesired people like crap in order to drive them to quit

There is a Japanese word for it:

追い出し部屋 Oidashibeya https://jlearn.net/dictionary/追い出し部屋

A crappy NYT article but gives the idea: https://archive.ph/k84cb

Re: It was almost impossible to make the blue LED [video]

#92

Post by AnimalMuppet »

IshKebab wrote: post #73
dymk wrote: post #61

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Who cares? Its a weird gotcha to get hung up on.

Doesn't look like he is dying on any hills to me. I agree with him, it's a funny small lie that is really common and people rarely notice.

Lie? What's the lie? And, what is your evidence that it is actually a lie?

Re: It was almost impossible to make the blue LED [video]

#93

Post by lucianbr »

Draiken wrote: post #53

It's incredible to see with cases like this how extremely absurd the relationship of capital and labor is. If I was someone aspiring to be a researcher, I'd most definitely give up due to stories like this. The person created probably close to trillions of value to humanity (his LEDs spawned multiple new industries), yet he was compensated less than what I make with web development. Meanwhile the CEO and other busine…

> The person created probably close to trillions of value to humanity (his LEDs spawned multiple new industries), yet he was compensated less than what I make with web development.

While decrying unfairness towards a single researcher, you seem to ignore the contribution of who knows how many people comprising "multiple new industries". I mean, the people working in those industries also contributed to those trillions, no?

It definitely seems unfair to Nakamura. Just pointing out it's really hard to be fair to everyone, as your comment inadvertently proves. At least he got a Nobel prize, which means both recognition and money.

Re: It was almost impossible to make the blue LED [video]

#94

Post by dang »

wutwutwat wrote: post #21
ballenf wrote: post #8

I loved the closing interview where Nakamura explained he grew up in a fishing village with a view of the sea, inspiring his love of the color blue.

[flagged]

"Please respond to the strongest plausible interpretation of what someone says, not a weaker one that's easier to criticize. Assume good faith."

https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html

Re: It was almost impossible to make the blue LED [video]

#95

Post by dang »

Draiken wrote: post #53

It's incredible to see with cases like this how extremely absurd the relationship of capital and labor is. If I was someone aspiring to be a researcher, I'd most definitely give up due to stories like this. The person created probably close to trillions of value to humanity (his LEDs spawned multiple new industries), yet he was compensated less than what I make with web development. Meanwhile the CEO and other busine…

Could you please stop using HN for ideological battle? Your account has been doing this a lot lately, and when an account is primarily doing that, this is a line at which we ban the account. Past explanations: https://hn.algolia.com/?sort=byDate&dateRange=all&type=comme...

We detached this subthread from https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=39314755.

Re: It was almost impossible to make the blue LED [video]

#96

Post by ak217 »

tobr wrote: post #75

What happened to zinc selenide then? Was there some reason it didn’t work out as well?

Selenium is much more toxic than gallium, so even if it could be tweaked to work, it's a very hazardous chemical to produce or recycle. I'd expect that to be the main reason nobody bothers with zinc selenide anymore.

Re: It was almost impossible to make the blue LED [video]

#97

Post by dudeinjapan »

bawolff wrote: post #83
hugryhoop wrote: post #26

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's complicated. For 1 employee which disobeyed orders and saved the company you'll have 99 which disobeyed orders and don't produce anything useful or even made harm. This is called the Halo effect.

I think it would have been reasonable to fire him before he made the breakthrough. Sometimes you have to cut your losses. Its his treatment after success that seemed egregious.

It is extremely difficult to fire employees in Japan. Disobeying orders is in general not a fireable offense.

Re: It was almost impossible to make the blue LED [video]

#98

Post by IshKebab »

AnimalMuppet wrote: post #92
IshKebab wrote: post #73

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Doesn't look like he is dying on any hills to me. I agree with him, it's a funny small lie that is really common and people rarely notice.

Lie? What's the lie? And, what is your evidence that it is actually a lie?

[flagged]

Re: It was almost impossible to make the blue LED [video]

#99

Post by TylerE »

tobr wrote: post #80
BoppreH wrote: post #44

Which is why I was always baffled by the decorative lights in my old office. It was a wall with small scattered lights in different colors, so they used recessed LEDs. Fine. But instead of color LEDs with a neutral diffuser, it had red+green+blue triple LEDs to make white light, with a red/green/blue plastic in front to recolor it! I understand how this could be cheaper to assemble or maintain, but I'll never not bal…

Are you sure they were RGB triplets and not white LEDs? Either way, is fun to imagine continuing this - grouping three of these filtered LED lights to make a new white light source, which you can then again filter with translucent plastic, etc!

Imagine, if you built a giant grid of such things, and could modulate the tranlucency 30 times a second or so, you could show some sort of.... moving picture show.

Re: It was almost impossible to make the blue LED [video]

#100

Post by quenix »

stratigos wrote: post #35

Blue LEDs are the bane of my light-sensitive eyes' existence, and it pains me so to know they almost never existed at all. I keep a PC repair kit with me, even though I dont have a desktop computer, because I need to take all of my electronics apart and take these stupid blue LEDs out of them.

LED lighting wouldn't exist if not for blue LEDs. And neither would much of modern display technology. The importance of this discovery was not because we could make shiny blue light with it.
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