6 ms·
Do they also provide training for breaking into sawmills, stealing industrial designs, applying them to vacuum cleaners and patenting them so you can accumulate
by stefantalpalaru 10y ago
Do they also provide training for breaking into sawmills, stealing industrial designs, applying them to vacuum cleaners and patenting them so you can accumulate wealth thanks to a state granted monopoly?
http://machinedesign.com/news/industrial-design-design-dyson-way http://machinedesign.com/news/industrial-design-design-dyson... :
> As it happened, Dyson was also having suction problems at the factory which made his Ballbarrow, a wheelbarrow he invented that uses a ball instead of a wheel. There, overspray of an epoxy powder was collected on an 8 8-ft cloth screen in front of a gigantic fan with a three-phase motor — a sort-of giant vacuum cleaner. Production had to stop every hour to brush out the screen and gather the powder for reuse. Otherwise, the screen would clog and powder would fly all over the factory.
> The spray-equipment maker said large industrial users collected airborne debris in a cyclone. The cyclone, it turned out, was a 30-ft-high cone that spun dust out of the air using centrifugal force — the kind of thing you might see on top of a saw mill.
> Under cover of darkness, Dyson went to a nearby sawmill, climbed the fence, and “surveyed at close hand the gigantic symbol of my future.” He made some sketches and climbed all over it to learn how it worked, what its proportions were, and what it was made of.
> The next day, Dyson and his workers welded a 30-ft cyclone together from sheets of steel and attached it to the roof. He “gleefully” tore the cloth screen from the opening of the duct and started the conveyor. The overspray “went straight into the gaping hole, up the [duct work] and around the walls at the top of the cyclone, spiraling down through the inverted cone to be collected by a bag at the bottom, while the air escaped into the sky. Production went on and on, with no stoppages until the end of the day,” says Dyson.
> The similarity between ripping off the cloth filter and tossing out a vacuum-cleaner bag was obvious. It also occurred to him there was “no reason why it shouldn’t work in miniature, using a cyclone about the size of, say, a Perrier bottle.” That night, Dysonmodeled a foot-long version of the cyclone out of cardboard and duct tape. He covered the large end, leaving a hole in the top for the escaping air. Then, he attached a short length of hose to the discharge hole of the machine (where the bag had been) and connected it to the top of the cyclone, which was fixed to the shaft of the cleaner. The world’s only bagless vacuum cleaner worked flawlessly.
- abstractbeliefs 10y agoAnd what's specifically wrong with this, aside from the way the information was specifically acquired? In tech, we bemoan laws against technological breaking and entering with a view to learn about how things work (we call it reverse engineering), but applied to mechanical engineers this is not right? While I understand the law regarding trespass is different, this is just a means to an end. I think your argument would hold more weight if you could elaborate more on the patent and monopoly stuff, but instead you focus on the act and context of learning how the cyclone works.
- stefantalpalaru 10y ago> In tech, we bemoan laws against technological breaking and entering with a view to learn about how things work (we call it reverse engineering), but applied to mechanical engineers this is not right? There are people in prison for doing exactly that. Some impressionable ones killed themselves to avoid that fate. Praising one guy that got away with it because of luck and money is disingenuous at best. By the way, the PR spin that followed is a thing of beauty: recent articles talk about a "visit" to the sawmill. Any mention of night or climbing all over the target have been removed. > I think your argument would hold more weight if you could elaborate more on the patent and monopoly stuff It's not an argument, it's an observation. The guy got incredibly rich by stealing a design, claiming it as his own and preventing everybody else from using it without his expensive permission. What is there to argue about? The way the society benefits from overpriced vacuum cleaners and silly fans with the rotor hidden from sight?