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Thank you. This is a good clarification. I believe attaching the names of people like Nathan Myhrvold to this is key. Being associated with him and Intellectua
by chasing 13y ago
Thank you. This is a good clarification.
I believe attaching the names of people like Nathan Myhrvold to this is key. Being associated with him and Intellectual Ventures needs to be seen as an embarrassment. (Think of how people react to Zynga.) Myhrvold's clearly interested in being some sort of public icon of brilliance, given his cooking books, appearance on the Colbert Report, and Intellectual Ventures inclusion in the (not so good) SuperFreakonomics book. Take that away from him.
Or, at least, make the patent trolling stuff such a giant part of his public persona that the other stuff won't override it. So every article prints his name as "Nathan Myhrvold, noted patent troll..."
This isn't a total solution, but we've got to run people's names through the mud who do this. Especially to make the bar higher for scumbags who are considering getting into this line of work. Really make them think about what they're giving up.
- gknoy 13y agoI noticed that his wikipedia page's FIRST citation references exactly that.
- npsimons 13y agoExactly; I was seriously considering buying his cooking books (they are pretty cool), but after careful consideration, I've decided he's too much of an asshat to support financially. This is the same FUDster who trollishly responded to Stephenson's analogy of the Hole Hawg in "In the Beginning was the Commandline" by claiming that people only flocked to UNIX because it was "retro" and only used Linux because it was "cheap".
- NelsonMinar 13y agoThere's a whole lot of names to attach to Intellectual Ventures; Myhrvold is only the most visible. Their list of Senior Inventors may be particularly interesting to Hacker News members. I don't think there's any "run through the mud" here, I imagine these folks are all proud of their work at Intellectual Ventures. Here's what's on IV's site today at http://www.intellectualventures.com/index.php/inventor-network/senior-inventors http://www.intellectualventures.com/index.php/inventor-netwo... Bran Ferren: Co-Chairman, Applied Minds, Inc. • Daniel Hillis: Co-Chairman and Chief Technology Officer, Applied Minds, Inc. • Leroy Hood: Co-Founder and Director, Institute for Systems Biology • Muriel Ishikawa: Senior Scientist and Inventor • Robert Langer: Institute Professor, Massachusetts Institute of Technology • John Latham: Emeritus Professor, University of Manchester, U.K. • Eric Leuthardt: Neurosurgeon & Biomedical Engineer • Roy Levien: Co-Founder and Consulting Inventor, Rax • Mark Malamud: Co-Founder & Consulting Inventor, Rax • John Pendry: Professor, Imperial College London • John Rinaldo: User Interface Architect • David Smith: Augustine Scholar & Professor, Duke University • Thomas Weaver: Senior Interviewer, Fannie and John Hertz Foundation • Chuck Whitmer: Software Architect • Richard Zare: Blake Wilbur Professor, Stanford University
- npsimons 13y agoI imagine these folks are all proud of their work at Intellectual Ventures. In the same way your dog might be proud of taking a crap on a neighbors lawn, it doesn't matter how these people feel; in fact, it only emphasizes the point that these people should be named and shamed and told exactly why their behavior is harmful to others.
- zimpenfish 13y agoWhat are the odds of there being two distinct John Lathams at Manchester Uni? Sadly the IV/JoLat is a Climate wonk, not the loveable CS wonk I was lectured by (many years ago.)
- willthames 13y agoI was immensely disappointed to see his name there, and then heartened to see your reply. He was pretty much the person who most made me want to choose Manchester for CS.
- peterstjohn 13y agoIt's been over 13 years since I graduated and I still remember his varied and wonderful choice of trousers ;).
- greendata 13y agoThis a thousand times. Nathan Myhrvold is fundamentally responsible for this. Name, Shame, and Shun