skysight-inc/HackerNews huggingface dataset:
Ask HN: Legal rights to University project?
Hi all,

I go to a University in Pennsylvania that requires Engineering students to complete a "Senior Design" project during your last term as a student. Generally students will do projects very academic in nature, along the lines of finding more effective RFID methodologies, different algorithm improvements, etc. (things that generally don't interest me greatly). The end purpose of these projects is to be a sort of "capstone" project that incorporates all the things you've learned in school.

I've managed to negotiate a special case where I will be able to essentially do an independent study to create my startup idea as my Senior Design, since it is, in essence, a culmination of all the skills that I've learned thus far. I will essentially need nothing from the University in order to complete this project, outside of their mandatory adviser to oversee the independent study.

My question is this, for those that may have some experience: Does the University legally retain rights to any work that is generated in this project (essentially, the whole company... if I eventually incorporate)? I've made it clear that this is intended to eventually be run as a business, though I am not yet incorporated. I have signed no papers other than a short form that described the project, and whatever I signed when I committed to coming to the University four years ago.

I'm in the process of trying to get to the bottom of the issue by talking to faculty, but I wanted to see what ideas everyone here has first.
Why ChromeOS is a Smartbook OS
well, things like etsy (have i got that right?) are catching on.

also, we bought a couple of paintings from a similar site about 8 or 9 years ago, so this idea has been around a while (no idea of they still exist - cannot remember the site's name; the artists were from ex-soviet block countries, if i remember right).

love the site, btw.

when we bought something (from a similar site) we were a bit surprised by what we received - we had no idea that one work included some collage, or that it was so textured. showing that kid of information on a computer screen isn't trivial. might be something to worry about (we kept both and still have them, and really like them).
The title is a bit baited... nowhere in the linked page (or benchmarks) do they make the specific claim in the title.
I regret my oneworld ticket approach to a 6.5 month backpack break - in retrospect I should have seen far fewer places and got a better feel for the ones I was in. It's also not nice having flights booked so far in advance that it's hard (not impossible) to stick around in the various paradises you come across.
I had severe finger pain two years ago and went to a chiropractor but none of that helped. I got a Kinesis keyboard and a good chair and the pain slowly subsided and is now gone. I find that the worst thing is the mouse, so I have a kensington trackball and switch hands. It really could be just a keyboard/mouse/posture thing.
Well nobody argues the wave function represents our ignorance about the system's state. It's certainly not in the Copenhagen interpretation anyway. The wave function sacrifices realism.
MIT and Harvard researchers demonstrate a better way for computers to see
Convincing the Boss to Accept FOSS
Well I suspect the primary reasons on Android and the iPhone are (a) most users don't need non-superuser functionality and all they don't want to complicate the user interface with user access control (b) root users can easily pirate paid apps obtained from the App Store / Android Market. Google actually disabled access to paid apps in the Android Market from the Google Developer Phone (which is a network-free version of G1 with root privileges).
I like that there's innovation in the space, but there's a couple things about this library that bother me:

- Namespacing is horrible. I've found several global objects it declares, like Browser. Not cool.

- As others have noted, it has no notes on what browsers it supports. IIRC, the thing slowing down sizzle the most is having to support older browsers. There's certainly cases where the browser is predictable, but for everyday use I'll stick with jQ.

[Edit: Supports / targeted for IE8, FF3.5, Opera 10, and Chrome out of the box. I went straight to rightjs.org, and missed the note. Thanks Igor!]

- Extends the prototypes of basic objects, like String, Array, even Object.
Now that is an interesting question.

This advice may be so ill-informed that I'll put the disclaimer up front: I'm not a lawyer, let alone an IP lawyer. That said, if the university isn't paying you, and you don't use any university resources, and you don't assign them any rights, I don't see how they can assert any rights. Looking over your work and assigning it a grade doesn't make it theirs. Otherwise they would own everything.

Now, if you were an assistant professor using university offices and labs and a certain amount of public funding to conduct work that is nigh-indistinguishable from the work your side business is doing -- to the extent that many of your grad students can't tell from moment to moment if they're doing schoolwork or startup work -- that would be a more interesting question.
To get access doesn't mean you get access for free!

It's pretty clear that their business model is build on providing that feed to other companies and charging them for the data they provide to ehtir customers.
And they will be certainly charging access.
Well, a bit cynical, but as a visualisation this graphic is indeed pointless. You don't stick something like this in a press release. You just don't. There is a small subset of people on this plant who will understand this graphic, but the recipients of the press release most likely won't. Science for them will be reduced to incomprehensible glibberish. Not something a press release celebrating the launch of the LHC should do.
The fastest lib though is always going to be no lib.

This is only true if you already know all of the performance hacks in each browser. By using a library, you can outsource the need to worry about that to a third party. Also, only about 5% of your code is ever going to underperform, so deciding to not use a library means you're wasting time on the other 95%.
I discovered something new: monazite.
that was the world before 1970. Law is just a set of Boolean functions of the society that defines the law.

It was illegal in 1860 to have a half black half white president in U.S.
When I turned a university project into an internship with them, we made it very explicit to everyone concerned exactly when the project started becoming "something other than class work" and what consequences that had for all parties involved.

I tend to think that 999 out of 1,000 legal worries people have are groundless. Want to sleep better at night? Draw up a simple letter of understanding between you and the University and ask for your professor to sign it. After doing so, take it to the university counsel or IP office (major research institutions have one) and ask them to sign off on it. If they do, congratulations. If they don't, consider your options.
Help Your Website Convert
5 Networking Tips (for shy people) From Tiger Woods
Hybrid iPhone Applications
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Human_sex_ratio
The global average is ~1.06 males per female. With China's population of 1.3 billion people that works out to ~25 million extra men. But the global 65+ ratio is 0.79 males/female.

So a basic solution to gender imbalance has traditionally been older men married to younger woman. With death culling enough young men to fix the problem. When that is not enough, the widow population can fill in for an even larger shortage. China's gender imbalance might seem huge, but individual city's have often faced similar problems so it’s not hard to find past examples of the situation.
Get suggestions from them then make an book that can be sold at urban outfitters
Hadoop and Solr popularity continue to scale well
"[...] many are happy to take you along for the ride."

If you are a woman, sure.
For geeks (and perhaps geek's spouses) owning your own domain and only contracting out the email hosting to Google is probably the way to go here. If it all goes wrong then you control the domain and what happens to emails sent to it.
This. Especially regarding your tech transfer office. Usually, you've signed something somewhere that says the university owns everything that you do that relates to them in some way. So you've gotta get them to either give you a release on the IP, or an exclusive license.

Thank the Bayh-Dole act.
Most universities have some kind of IP policy. E.g. Harvard says that software you write using their money or facilities belongs to them:

http://otd.harvard.edu/resources/policies/IP/

In practice I've never known IP to be an issue for undergrads. So I wouldn't annoy your professors by bugging them a lot about this.

You are many, many times more likely to lose because you built something people don't want than because your college sued you over IP. So if you're going to worry about something, worry that what you're building won't seem desirable to customers.
Another alternative is the last Royal Mail ship: http://www.rms-st-helena.com/
Hm, I hadn't realized that the tech transfer office was now routinely dealing with undergraduates. Ouch.
I agree with you completely. I looked through the API and jQuery is much cleaner in that sense. However, I think it's great that someone is squeezing extra performance out of JS.

Also, from the linked article:

"First, all the old browser patches and hacks were moved in a separated dynamically loadable module. The core by itself now focuses on the modern browsers support, meaningly FF >=3.5, IE >=8 Opera >10=, Safari 3,4, Google Chrome, while the old browsers support module handles IE6,7, Konqueror and old versions of Opera and FF."
The easiest thing to achieve what you're asking for is to install Debian (instructions are for a G1, but I assume it's workable on other Android platforms).

http://android-dls.com/wiki/index.php?title=Installing_Debia...
I certinaly don't. I'll bite:
>> than to point out other's misspellings.
It depends on your use case. I don't think you should be against something just because you have a solution you assume is the best it can be.
What Not To Build
When I saw the Litl (before Chrome OS was revealed) I thought that it would make a pretty good AppleTV competitor, with the added benefit that when not in use in that way it would act as a portable web access device.

(Though as far as I can tell, neither Litl, nor Google are pushing their devices in this way. Though it wouldn't be too hard to stream your audio and H.264 video via the web onto ChromeOS)
Michael Phelps was also suspended from competition for several months and lost some of his endorsement deals as a result of the pipe photograph. Plus while people in your life (and mine) may have just shrugged and moved on, this was a big deal for a lot of people and was endlessly discussed in the media.

Granted, this isn't nearly the scandal it may once have been, nor is it considered nearly as shameful as in the past, so the social mores are definitely changing. But that photograph definitely had a negative impact on his life.
You used to be able to putter around the caribbean on a few of the mailships. Voyages normally lasted a day or 2 and the price was insanely cheap. But just like everything else, as more tourist figured out how the islanders got around a new business opportunity came up. Now the mailships aren't much cheaper then the puddle jumpers.
This isn't legal advice, but software written by undergrads and not funded by the University is usually owned by the student.
Based on overall comparison for Safari (6x) and Chrome (8x):

http://rightjs.org/images/benchmarks/safari.png
http://rightjs.org/images/benchmarks/chrome.png

I admit this is very crude calculation but it is clear that (according to these tests only) RightJS is much faster than jQuery.
You forget that the Chinas economic boom is artificially propped up by China [1] forcing its banks to lend money to other countries so that they can buy Chinese goods. I read an article recently which had a great analogy, comparing Chinas lending to the US (so that the US can continue to buy Chinese exports) to Lucent Technologies in the nineties, lending money to dot com startups so they could keep buying Lucent hardware - economic growth continues steadily, but eventually when these loans are to be cashed in, the economy will crumble. Of course, China has an exit that Lucent did not, as mentioned here (and the article mentioned it too) - China has the option of war!

It seems to me that the Chinese economy is a giant bubble; one which I'd rather not see burst, but bubbles tend to do that... China isn't stupid though, so hopefully they can buy themselves enough time to figure something out and avoid a giant crash (and most likely a war).

[1] meaning that it can (and probably should) be treated as a declining economy
When I enrolled at York, it was required that I sign a contract which laid out the IP situation. IIRC, this was fairly lenient in my favour, although this was for an undergraduate degree. I gather that the situation was different for PhD programmes. You have probably signed something like that too when you signed up, in among the endless paperwork. Dig it up and read it. Chances are you're safe as long as you don't use their equipment and facilities.

If there's any remaining doubt I'd probably try to solve the problem in advance by drafting a plain-English document which declares that the university has no rights to the works and get the advisor, the departmental head, and a relevant person who oversees research across the entire university to sign it. In fact, you probably have a dedicated person who oversees such matters at the university, so it may be best to take the draft to them directly and see if they have an equivalent standardised contract that they'll be more willing to sign than your draft.
Glazoom: Add-ons for Firefox
Thanks Igor, I went directly to rightjs.org and was unable to find this info. Should have looked on the blog.
If the issue is "copyright" the author retains all interest in the copyrighted work unless a specific form is signed; there is no other way to assign copyright.

You should be easily able to ask for and receive copies of anything you signed when you first came to University.

Personally I would not worry about it, just go ahead. Further don't bug faculty about it, it will only raise red flags.
A type-based solution to the "strings problem"
Edward Tufte (http://www.edwardtufte.com/tufte/) isn't a bad place to start when it comes to useful (information packed) and non-ugly (in a spare, efficient way) infographics.
I know; I just feel that as RightJS hasnt made this claim it's unfair to make it for them :) reading the blog they wanted to focus on other great features/additions/improvements.

(the main problem is it reads like bait: which is why all the negative/reactionary comments are appearing :))
Maybe i'm out of my league by criticizing this incredibly intelligent man's arguments, but here goes.

First, Dijkstra argues, "There is no such thing as 'making money': some people succeed in transferring money out of the pockets of others into their own." The implication of his argument is that economic activity is zero sum - you can't create value, you can only take it from someone else. This is patently false - there is far more wealth in the world now than there was 100 years ago. If it is impossible to 'make money,' then where did this extra wealth come from? When I buy a computer from Dell, it's a win-win situation. Dell gets money from me, and i get a powerful tool which I could use to develop software, which I could then sell to others for more than the cost of the computer. The software that I write is wealth that I have created - the world is better off with the software in it than without the software.

Dijkstra then expresses his animus against banks, saying they become rich by trying to speculate at someone else's expense. This may be true of investment banks, but what about a bank that makes loans to new businesses? Exactly whose expense are the banks profiting from? The business gets ahead because it needs capital to get off the ground, and the banks get ahead because they earn interest on money that would otherwise be sitting idle.

I agree with his main argument, that 'software engineering' is a rather meaningless term, but I disagree with his hateful attitude towards the industrial world.
Interesting: "California software giant" is the tag the WP writer puts on Google.

(I put in a search to see what the net had on those words - seems mostly Oracle and a company with the SG name.)
Bringing A/B Testing To The Fortune 5 Million
They aren't. This is why I recommend not worrying about it. However, if you're the worrisome sort, "Look, you and I both know you don't really care about undergraduates. How about you sign this piece of paper? You aren't giving away anything you care about, and it gets me out of your office quickly!" works wonders.
If you are serious about travel then get trained and crewed on a yacht. I met a lot of refugees from the 99-00 dotbomb. People that were college educated, unemployed, and worn out from the long hours. This was a welcome refuge for them. The hours were great and so were the locations. And the money was totally tax-free.

And, as a guy, 90% of their female colleagues were drop dead gorgeous. I really considered calling in work and resigning so I could join a crew on the next boat looking to hire.
Really well done. I love the idea too, and if I hadn't already started on another project this was essentially going to be my next :)

Glad someone beat me to it though, since maybe now I can find an easy avenue to sell some paintings on if I ever get back into it.

I agree with others about how awesome the speed of the site is. It really makes a big difference, especially on a graphics-intensive site.

What are you using for hosting? Or are you guys running your own hardware?
Declining wages were the result of women entering the workforce.

Think about it: hold demand for goods and services constant (after all, women, while not working, were still eating and wearing clothes) and then suddenly double the available workforce (i.e. women start going to work.)

And while some women may be forced to work, and don't want to, there are a number of women who delay childrearing because of their careers. Women who have children later in life have fewer children on average. Additionally, some women choose to not raise children at all; if they didn't have the choice to work they would have to marry and have children so they wouldn't starve to death.
In theory.

In practice, I found that translating from OCaml to C++ is often painful, while the reverse is quite easy. When I deal with generic code, this difficulty is largely attributable to the differences between Hindley-Milner and templates.

My conclusion is that where it really matters, C++'s templates are less flexible than OCaml's genericness. I dare you to try and prove me wrong with production code without being fired… upon.
I believe the main reason they offer passenger service is that there are some shipments that need a human handler. (Horses, for example) There's definitely demand for passenger berths, albeit not for tourists.
Link to a link with very little added content. The linked article ( http://www.smashingmagazine.com/2009/04/06/design-to-sell-12... ) is not bad though.
Showcase of Strange but Absolutely Beautiful Illustration Portfolios
why would someone right their own tests when all they're trying to do is point out why the current ones are flawed.
For those curious, the response from my department head (who I worked with to set up the independent study):

"
This is a complicated question.

Effectively, the University owns everything (all IP) that we do while we are here, faculty, staff, and students alike. However, they have very limited capability to
effectively copyright, patent, and market everything that is created. If you were to go through the process of doing this through the University, they would return a portion of any income that they acquire. In return, they cover the legal, patent, and marketing costs to get the product to market, or to find some company that would want to market it. Given the number of things that are created in a university, the process of selecting which items to pursue is long and involved.

My suggestion is that you proceed on your own. If you are hugely successful, then you would deal with the university at that time.
"

So it seems like most people here are right on. If I can't easily get any more information, I'll probably just go for it. I was just trying to see where I stand so I don't get myself in a ridiculous situation later where I say "Why didn't I think of this earlier?".
To see if it performs better for their particular use case?

You know, choosing something based on how well it fits the problem?
As a UK student in the last millennium we signed a form on matriculation that handed over copyright and patent rights to the Uni for any work done as part of our study there (or I expect using their facilities; but definitely the former).

I absolutely would bug the department about it.
Dilbert today
I guess to approach this from another angle, I just had a chat with one of the senior tech leads at the corporation I work for (140k+ employees). He said that several of the developers he worked with moved on to do completely different things in the years following a project built about a decade ago.

One went on to be an instructor of some sort, another a farmer. My realtor worked in the same place I did writing HTML and Cobol before she got so burnt out she became a realtor. That was 8 years ago.

There's no limit to what you can do, both as a developer and outside the tech realm. Hackers are not just technical. Hacking can be anything you make it.

Good luck, and I hope you find your passion. :)
Very insightful article about ideas that sound good but are actually a dead end.
Granted I just skimmed the article, but do they discuss the algorithm at all?? It seemed like they're just saying buzzwords, "parallel","gpu","vision is hard", etc.

Does anyone know if a new CV algorithm is involved in this?
I'm an IP lawyer, but I'm not YOUR lawyer and so don't take this as legal advice about your particular situation; if you do consult a lawyer, this might give you some background info for use as a head start in your discussion.

1. U.S. patent law says patents belong to the inventor(s), absent either (i) an agreement to assign the patent rights, or (ii) an implied-in-law duty to assign, such as arises when an employee is "hired to invent" or "set to experimenting."

If your university has some sort of written policy about undergraduate- or graduate work belonging to X, you might well be held to have agreed to it by applying and/or enrolling, either in the school or in your particular course. (pg has it exactly right on this point.)

2. U.S. copyright law says that the copyright in original works of authorship (which might or might not include elements of your project) are owned by the author(s) UNLESS (i) there's an agreement to assign the copyright, or (ii) the author's authoring activities took place within the scope of his employment, or (iii) the work fits into one of a comparatively few specific categories -- translations, contributions to collective works, and some others -- AND the parties agreed in writing that the work would be a work made for hire.

3. U.S. trade-secret law might be a little trickier, because it varies state by state. The pretty-much-universal rule, though, is that at least some degree of secrecy is a sine qua non of trade-secret rights.
Not-so-safe Sex