171–180 of 204 posts
This is great for us, but it’s important recognize the real cost of this success: probably hundreds, maybe thousands, of others also worked hard, and bet years of their lives, and… failed. In the words of Willy Wonka, they lost - they got nothing.
I remember when blue LEDs started appearing in guitar FX pedals just out of novelty,resulting in a pedals becoming harder to use as when the pedal was on the brightness meant visibility of the controls was reduced. On pedals I made I always used fine sandpaper to increase the diffusion of each LED, and the result was significantly better. Early blue LEDs,especially, seemed to have a very narrow projection angle.
They sell LED dimming (and blackout) stickers on Amazon, and those things have been a lifesaver for me. My new USB-C charging block is brighter than the sun and the LED is functionally useless, so it's been masked with the blackout version of the stickers, but my Dyson fan which has a blue power LED (which turns to red when it's on heat mode) and BRIGHT WHITE LED temperature readout in heat mode has gotten the dimmin…
Earlier quoted context omitted.
I'm totally with you, but what's the other guys story going to be? "This weird researcher wouldn't follow orders, and I didn't dig deeper to understand his level of commitment or anything. If I had, I would've at least seen his level of dedication and possibly rallied to support him." That's the best possible version, and highly unlikely since, as you noted, narcissism. Anytime I see someone intelligently committed t…
A counter argument is that they paid his salary for all those years, they paid for his lab, for his machines etc. They don't owe him a job.
Childish behaviour aside, the conservative decision to cut costs and shut down the research is justifiable to some degree. The only problem is that the GAN research path is well trodden by others already, and therefore, a smart CEO should see that it is also a dead end.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Blue LEDs that are on to let you know something has power is abominable, but that isn't the fault of the blue LED. What is abominable is the use of the "cooler" blueish white light being used at night indoors. That should be considered a crime against humanity.
> What is abominable is the use of the > "cooler" blueish white light being > used at night indoors. We only associate warm orangey-white light with nocturnal lighting because of centuries of sitting around fires and candles.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
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 .
I don't understand. This is literally part of what the video talks about: how he got fired after giving them billions. How is this an ideological battle? It's what was described in the video. I don't disagree that I talk about capitalism on some threads that aren't specifically mentioning it, but in this case it's 100% part of the content. I can only hope that the same treatment happens for accounts with the opposite…
The more important point, though, is the pattern of posting like this. An isolated case isn't a problem but if it becomes a pattern, that's different; that's not the intended use of this site.
For sure accounts with the opposite view get the same treatment—as long as we see them. (We don't read everything that gets posted—there's far too much of it.)
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…
Professions that leverage passion pay peanuts.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
He just said he likes the color blue because of the ocean, where does bis success come in on that?
Ok, let me maybe phrase it as a question. Had he not invented the blue led, would he be telling everyone his childhood in the fishing village made him love the color blue, or would that inspiring memory not exist or maybe not be so significant?
No. Nobody would care. He'd learn to stop telling that dumb story.
But here's the thing. It's a beautiful story, it's a touch of his personality, and those are nice things to have.
And, I must insist, he's earned a little self-indulgent reminiscence.
Assuming everything is reported fairly, I really can't imagine being Nichia's customer. Ever. Sacking and not compensating the employee that single-handedly made Nichia successful by inventing a working blue LED and saving Nichia from bankruptcy is just not acceptable.
I agree with you. It says the original CEO was a researcher himself and that's why he understood the risks funded the request. Things changed after his son-in-law took control as CEO. It doesn't mention if the son-n-law had any background in the industry or semiconductor research, or was just appointed CEO just because he was the son-in-law. I think that's where the company went wrong.
I guess this is a universal; most US companies were killed off by similar thought-process.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Totally. I actually went to check mouser to see if they had nichia brand stuff - a few odds and ends but they're not even listed on the manufacturer list for LEDs. Will watch out for them and avoid whenever possible from now on.
I feel like the engineer who invented the blue LED would not want this story to cause a boycott of Nichia despite their treatment of him.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
There's little of that to go around in Japan. They strongly subscribe to power structures (see Senpai-Kohai) - seniors are unimpeachable and highly respected.
Hofstede's cultural dimensions theory isa interesting read about this.