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An Inventor Wants One Less Wire to Worry About

nytimes.com

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Re: An Inventor Wants One Less Wire to Worry About

#91

Post by rbehrends »

vacri wrote: post #50
doctorpangloss wrote: post #18

Did she have a hard time finding investors because it was a hardware business, or because she was a woman? Did she ultimately get investment because she was a woman, in spite of the hardware business? According to a friend's college thesis, there are lots of concrete reasons VCs don't invest in women.[0] In summary, VCs don't take a girl very seriously. The thesis makes the case though that there's real opportunity f…

I've always found it odd that people talking about sexism use 'woman' like it's an adjective. Common use has made it one, but it used to be just a noun. Anyway, my point is that we don't say "man founders" or "man drivers" or "men professionals".

Grammatically, it's an apposition [1] and "woman" is still a noun. This particular construct is uncommon in English, but not all that rare, either. E.g.: Science museum, prime time television, district court judge.

[1] http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/apposition

Re: An Inventor Wants One Less Wire to Worry About

#92

Post by phaemon »

Filligree wrote: post #72
ihavedna wrote: post #63

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It is because woman are considered to be the adjunct, not the norm, not the average, not the expected or assumed. Its even obvious in the word itself - a prefix on the word "man", which can and is often used in place of "person" or "human", and will describe a person who is more than likely assumed to be of the masculine persuasion. A+ on not putting "Woman" in the headline for the article, though!

Appearances to the contrary, the word "woman" is not actually based off "man", or indeed very related.

Of course it is.

    wifman = female human
    werman = male human
    man = human
"wifman" became "woman" but the "man" is literally from "man" (meaning human). I'm not sure how much more related you can get.

Re: An Inventor Wants One Less Wire to Worry About

#93

Post by iopq »

Filligree wrote: post #72
ihavedna wrote: post #63

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It is because woman are considered to be the adjunct, not the norm, not the average, not the expected or assumed. Its even obvious in the word itself - a prefix on the word "man", which can and is often used in place of "person" or "human", and will describe a person who is more than likely assumed to be of the masculine persuasion. A+ on not putting "Woman" in the headline for the article, though!

Appearances to the contrary, the word "woman" is not actually based off "man", or indeed very related.

Yes, it is. It's wif-man, so a "person who is a wife" as opposed to an unmarried girl. That's why women is pronounced [wimen], because that's the original etymology.

Re: An Inventor Wants One Less Wire to Worry About

#95

Post by retube »

acadien wrote: post #60
tommoor wrote: post #56

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The other thing is that this is probably still transmitting sound when there is nothing to charge? Which would be probably even more of a waste than any transmission efficiency

It would be trivial to build in a sensor that detects when a device that needs charging is within range.

Really? How would the charger discriminate between your phone/laptop and any other piece of electrical equipment in the vacinity?

Re: An Inventor Wants One Less Wire to Worry About

#96

Post by adekok »

> Afterward, she said, “I would go back to that person and he would say, ‘Oh, yeah, that should work.’ ” Each expert seemed to dwell in his own private silo, so that whenever she crossed from one discipline to another, she would run into the same wall of constricted thinking.

I do a lot of cross-protocol work, and I've seen that a lot from "domain experts".

Me: Why can't we just do X?

Them: It would violate the standards, and industry practice!

Me: how could anyone tell?

Them: Uh... they couldn't. Good idea. Let's do it.

There's a danger in letting your brain ossify. Cray used to hire young people for precisely this reason:

http://www.cgl.ucsf.edu/home/tef/cray/tribute.html

> Once asked why he often hires new graduates to help him with early R&D work, he replied, "Because they don't know that what I'm asking them to do is impossible, so they try."

Re: An Inventor Wants One Less Wire to Worry About

#97

Post by mjcohen »

saraid216 wrote: post #57
javajosh wrote: post #15

At first I felt awful because I was thinking like part of the establishment: there's no way she came up with something that will replace power cords. I've got a degree in physics, and have always been interested in acoustics, and sound in air has some amazing properties, including the ability to transfer non-trivial amounts of power, especially at nodes, and especially when focused with, say, a parabolic reflector..…

> I was feeling really bad about myself, but then I realized: without such skepticism the surprise and delight of proving others wrong (not to mention being proved wrong) would be lessened, and so my skepticism does serve a useful purpose, and I could go on living with myself again. This is one skeptic who's hoping that he's wrong and that the inventor is right! /song The world needs people like you and me who've bee…

My value to some groups is that I make them feel normal by comparison.

Re: An Inventor Wants One Less Wire to Worry About

#98

Post by acadien »

retube wrote: post #95
acadien wrote: post #60

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It would be trivial to build in a sensor that detects when a device that needs charging is within range.

Really? How would the charger discriminate between your phone/laptop and any other piece of electrical equipment in the vacinity?

The simplest method would be to add a short range transmitter to the charging device. You don't have to limit yourself to using the charging technology for that.

Re: An Inventor Wants One Less Wire to Worry About

#99

Post by vacri »

rbehrends wrote: post #91
vacri wrote: post #50

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I've always found it odd that people talking about sexism use 'woman' like it's an adjective. Common use has made it one, but it used to be just a noun. Anyway, my point is that we don't say "man founders" or "man drivers" or "men professionals".

Grammatically, it's an apposition [1] and "woman" is still a noun. This particular construct is uncommon in English, but not all that rare, either. E.g.: Science museum, prime time television, district court judge. [1] http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/apposition

Thank you for the info, I hadn't come across that term before. There's still a difference in how we talk about men and women, which I find odd to engage in when trying to combat sexism, but I was unaware it was grammatically correct (and 'men [pastime]' just sounds wrong).
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