I'm open to any additional questions you guys might have; well for another hour or two at least.
Elon Musk’s Mission to Mars
141–150 of 150 posts
Re: Elon Musk’s Mission to Mars
#142There's one interesting quote in the article: Musk: I can’t tell you much. We have essentially no patents in SpaceX. Our primary long-term competition is in China—if we published patents, it would be farcical, because the Chinese would just use them as a recipe book. If your process/ideas are sufficiently complex, it reduces competition if you don't file a patent.
Lots of industries do this. Patents are useful when it's obvious what your idea is, and where it's easy for people/competitors to have have a poke inside. Like a vacuum cleaner or a non-reflective mobile-phone screen coating, or one-click or something like that. But for industries where that's not the case, like rockets (my current) or to pick another example from a previous job, magnetic bearings for sub-sea tubo-ma…
A small factor as well is that once the patents expire, you have no advantage. As Coca Cola will attest, a secret can last for a lot longer.
My feeling is that you should use both. Patent the things you can't hide and keep secret the things you can.
If you think the competition is close to duplicating what you've kept secret, patent it then if possible.
Of course, if they, too, can keep it a secret, there's no point in patenting it. But if you know how to detect it, it might be worth patenting it.
Re: Elon Musk’s Mission to Mars
#143Earlier quoted context omitted.
"Men wanted for a hazardous journey. Small wages, bitter cold. Long months of complete darkness. Constant danger, safe return doubtful. Honour and recognition in case of success." More than 5000 applications followed. Not everybody is made for adventure though.
This was the ad that Shackleton placed in the paper to find a crew for his most famous expedition: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Imperial_Trans-Antarctic_Expedi...
...but unfortunately actually didn't. Still a great quote though!
http://conversation.cipr.co.uk/posts/andy.green/the-myth-of-...
Re: Elon Musk’s Mission to Mars
#144I'm an Elon fan, but his comment about the old Russian engines his competitors are using deserves some scrutiny. He's talking about the NK-33 which has a thrust to weight ratio of 137. That's better than any current SpaceX engines though the Merlin 1D under development is apparently aiming for a ratio of 150. As for the engines being in a warehouse in Siberia since the 60s - that part is basically true. There was an…
> The NK-33 was and still is a masterpiece. Its a bit aggressive to label this engine a masterpiece when it has never actually launched successfully. I don't even think there has been an attempted launch with the NK-33, just ground tests for the N-1F rocket which was cancelled. Interesting note - the second attempted launch of the N-1 rocket, which used the original version of the NK-33 (NK-15) resulted in the larges…
Here is more on the N-1 and the explosion: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/N1_(rocket)#Launch_history
Re: Elon Musk’s Mission to Mars
#145> The problem is that at a lot of big companies, process becomes a substitute for thinking. You’re encouraged to behave like a little gear in a complex machine. Frankly, it allows you to keep people who aren’t that smart, who aren’t that creative. Sounds like so many complaints about the enterprise software landscape, and has certainly proved to be true in my own experience. Codified processes usually start with the…
Processes are a bit like abstractions in software engineering. They allow you to build on top of it to avoid having to think about everything, but if you don't understand your abstractions, in the long run, you're not going to do anything great.
To paraphrase Bezos, the problem is not process, but the mindless application of them (see this interview: http://www.wired.com/wired/archive/8.07/bezos_pr.html).
Re: Elon Musk’s Mission to Mars
#146Re: Elon Musk’s Mission to Mars
#147> The problem is that at a lot of big companies, process becomes a substitute for thinking. You’re encouraged to behave like a little gear in a complex machine. Frankly, it allows you to keep people who aren’t that smart, who aren’t that creative. Sounds like so many complaints about the enterprise software landscape, and has certainly proved to be true in my own experience. Codified processes usually start with the…
This observation goes well beyond enterprise software - this is preferred modus operandi of "legacy" companies, and in my mind the primary reason anyone that prefers autonomy has a hard time working for these companies. When you are the size of Walmart, unless you are strategist working for Walmart corporate, you want your employees to behave like soldiers in the military. This is not surprising given that the modern multi-national corporation, was built on the top down hierarchical model shaped after the military industrial complex. Whats further true is that, this was arguably the best way to organize a large group of people towards a common objective (increasingly share holder value in the case of the better run organizations, or executive compensation in the case of the worst type of these organizations) until very recently. However this model has run its course, and will have a very hard time defending itself against smaller, but very scalable and nimble organizations. Just as the US military realized post 9/11 that it was equipped to fight 20th century wars, but not 21st century wars, which look much more like insurgencies and are way more distributed in nature, large MNC's will have to realize that their top down, process first organization structure is doomed to fail! All we need now is more entrepreneurs to look away from social media a bit and follow Musk's lead in creating real, but more scalable and nimble companies.
Re: Elon Musk’s Mission to Mars
#148Earlier quoted context omitted.
not wanting to get into a philosophical debate here, but even as someone who generally argues for smaller government, i disagree.. people generally discount the significant economic advantages (to all in an economy) that government investments provide; in most cases, investments in transformative projects which otherwise would not have occurred were it up to the private-sector alone. take development of the us inters…
Just because government can do big projects doesn't mean it should. And Fedex's success depended far more on aviation advances than on the Interstate Highway System. Aviation that was pushed by private industry (while also enjoying support from the militaries of the world). In the US, the major "infrastructure" type projects that were government driven are often listed as the Erie Canal, the Hoover Dam, and the IHS.…
..never said i'm in favour of ‘trying to pick winners and losers' nor do i think the current approach to alternative energy (essentially doing just that) is the right way to go by any means.
rather, i'd like to a concerted effort by the government to find a solution itself (i.e. let’s get a man on the moon in ten years ... let’s have all new vehicles running on a clean and sustainable fuel source within the next 20 years). that type of approach is fundamentally different than let’s invest in this particular company’s particular solution or let’s give a loan to these guys.. it’s more analogous to the projects you described in which the government funded research/planning, developed particular approaches, and then contracted-out the development of potential solutions/implementations, and where it all fit together towards achieving a tangible goal. that’s very different than what’s going on today.
and i'd say ‘alternative energy’ is a poster-child for a project in which the cost of development and commercialization is fairly significant, but the economic and societal benefit of an adequate solution being realized far outweighs it; to me, that makes for an ideal case (and one of few) where increased government involvement can play a good role. especially so, given the government has already distorted the market by subsidizing ‘traditional energy’ sources for so long.
as to what happens tomorrow, i doubt we’ll find-out how it impact this issue in any meaningful way. as i see it, it’s a choice between continuing to pick winners and losers or just giving up entirely; neither is ideal as far as i'm concerned..
Re: Elon Musk’s Mission to Mars
#149Earlier quoted context omitted.
Just because government can do big projects doesn't mean it should. And Fedex's success depended far more on aviation advances than on the Interstate Highway System. Aviation that was pushed by private industry (while also enjoying support from the militaries of the world). In the US, the major "infrastructure" type projects that were government driven are often listed as the Erie Canal, the Hoover Dam, and the IHS.…
..never said i'm in favour of ‘trying to pick winners and losers' nor do i think the current approach to alternative energy (essentially doing just that) is the right way to go by any means. rather, i'd like to a concerted effort by the government to find a solution itself (i.e. let’s get a man on the moon in ten years ... let’s have all new vehicles running on a clean and sustainable fuel source within the next 20 y…
Jerry Pournelle has been a huge advocate of X-prizes for advancing technology. These were very valuable at the dawn of the aviation era, and races like the Schneider cup helped push boundaries. The cost is zero if the company/organization fails to reach the defined threshold. Too bad so much govt. spending is associated with buying votes instead of advancing technology.
Re: Elon Musk’s Mission to Mars
#150Earlier quoted context omitted.
..never said i'm in favour of ‘trying to pick winners and losers' nor do i think the current approach to alternative energy (essentially doing just that) is the right way to go by any means. rather, i'd like to a concerted effort by the government to find a solution itself (i.e. let’s get a man on the moon in ten years ... let’s have all new vehicles running on a clean and sustainable fuel source within the next 20 y…
Jerry Pournelle has been a huge advocate of X-prizes for advancing technology. These were very valuable at the dawn of the aviation era, and races like the Schneider cup helped push boundaries. The cost is zero if the company/organization fails to reach the defined threshold. Too bad so much govt. spending is associated with buying votes instead of advancing technology.
now there's something we can agree on.
happy election day good sir.