Backyard Aquaponics
A place to discuss aquaponics

The soda instructions are pretty cool. The Dept of Redundancy Dept and the Natural Guard would be impressed.

We go to an Amish doctor in KY, who uses Iridology to diagnose you, then prescribes tinctures made from various medicinal plants. I wonder if Elderberry cola, or "Dr Slippery Bark Elm", or "Mullein Dew" would sell to the Amish. I would like it.

The guy that started Celestial Seasonings Tea company lived in Colorado, and started picking various plants to make various teas. I bet cola would work. Just do it.

Virgil's Root Beer and others is very awesome. It is all natural. We use Turbinato or raw sugar at home, with good results.

Best of luck.

John

I admire your patience John

Especially as he has already said we can use his designs and all he asks for in return is a photograph. However I am learning a lot about the patenting process which is quite interesting.

We are about to build a monolithic dome and are going to use a technique and tools I invented. If it all works according to plan, one would be able to build any size of monolithic dome up to 75 feet/24 meter in diameter with at the most 3 people in a very short time. The result will be a super strong, well insulated and perfectly shaped dome while using off the shelf materials and for a very low price.

So, shall I patent the tools and working methods (which actually are just a smart combination of several different techniques and tools) and try to lock in the BIG MONEY to satisfy my greed, or shall I just publish it all in the open source domain and give it to others so they can benefit of it too?

If I would patent it, morally I should share the profits with anybody that contributed to my "invention" and hell, that's a lot of people to share with. My greedy ego tells me, screw them, take it all for yourself and get rich so you can buy all these things you couldn't afford before. Off course, all the input that you had for your "invention" came for free through the web and others, but that is their stupid mistake to not ask for any money. Is that going to make me a better person or will it benefit the society? No, I don't think so.

If I would put it into the open source people might credit me for the "invention" and it saves me the hassle of chasing after people with law suits. It would not contribute to more wealth in the legal sector (lawyers and the likes) which I consider to be important (lawyers are blood sucking rats living of people's disputes that could be solved easily with reasoning among each other). It would give anybody the opportunity to apply the "invention" for free and hence it would spread faster and easier and with being open to improvements from any side.

I go for open source and sleep and feel better.

And John, your "invention" is exactly the same as in the link of Dave Donley. Removing a ring and adding zip ties is in my opinion nothing more than trying to make money of other peoples ideas. Your generosity is nothing more than giving away what you got for free to start with. Personally I don't think this can be called "chique".

I think that if you have a refinement on something, you should patent it. Don't feel bad about it either. Do I think you are going to make millions of of a refinement on a monolithic dome structure? Probably not. Do I think that you should have the right to control how your refinement is implemented? Absolutely. Stephen King has the power to mandate whatever he wants in movies made from his books. Apparently it is the strongest contract to that effect in Hollywood. And yet, he never tampers with the final product. It is there as a safeguard in case some studio or director goes totally nuts. How would you feel if your system of building monolithic domes became well known, and some unscrupulous builder started cashing in on it, building subpar versions, but calling it your technique. Because you did not work to protect your intellectual property, you have no recourse to stop it. If you have it patented, that builder would not be able to build with that technique without your licensing it, and if you needed to pull his license, you would have that ability. He would no longer be able to say he was using your technique. ( I am assuming of course that if he was using said technique, the buildings would not be subpar to begin with.)

I don't know that he should patent an idea but in the same spirit he shouldn't criticise others who do.

Many inventors have very altruistic notions about bettering society and hence want their inventions to be freely available. Nothing wrong with that.

However, they might be more effective and do more good if they patented their ideas, built businesses around them and then used their acquired capital and influence to fund more innovation and be a more effective force for good if they so choose.

Ah yes, the true golden rule. "He who has the gold, makes the rules." I don't have much money, so I have to settle for "be the change you want to see in the world." It is nice, but I would so much easier if I had gold...

Sorry Stuart, I generally appreciate your contributions to the forum and respect your knowledge you have in many fields. But knowledge in any field doesn't make one an authority in other fields automatically. Neither does knowledge equals wisdom.

Who do you think you are that you can determine for me or anyone else what they should or shouldn't criticize?

Your ideas about patenting invention and build businesses around it to make more innovation possible sounds at first sight very nice, but as it turns out in real life.....it only contributes to an endless spiral of greed. Much of the path you're on I have already travelled and found it an ultimate dead end. You're free to walk it yourself, all the way, and come possibly to the same conclusion. Or not. That's your freedom and right to self determination. Don't you dare to touch mine.

Hi Ron, Stephen King's works of fiction and fantasy cannot be compared to a practical application of tools and working methods. It's just a different game, at least in my opinion.

To be honest, I couldn't care less about some dodgy contractor using my invention the wrong way. That's his responsibility, not mine. If the guy want's to abuse my name and/or invention, nobody could stop him anyway. Same for a patent. As we can see from the example in this topic, some smart guy makes some minor changes to a design or solution and then calls it his own.

I repeat, I think that is not "chique". And for the ones here that think chique is a bullying or curse word, check the dictionary before saying something about it.

Personally I want to have a crack at both.

In this case it is not what or who that is criticised but they way it is done.

Contrast these five comments:











The first two are criticising ideas, situations, actions.

The third one is an implicit criticism of a person but it is their actions that are explicitly being criticised. There is a big but subtle difference to calling someone a jerk and calling their behaviour jerky.

The last two in my opinion well and truly cross the line.

Calling someone a liar once may not be bullying if it is true but you need to be able to substantiate the claim if it is challenged. In this case given the nature of the claim, the comments preceding and following the claim and the authors own implicit statement that
they had no evidence to support their claim I would call this behaviour bullying.

The last comment criticises the patent but then goes on to say that the individual in question is a liar, criminal, has committed a fraud and that they are intellectual thieves. Such claims may not be bullying in nature especially if they can be substantiated but it depends on the actions that precede and follow such a statement. At the very least if there is a lack of willingness to substantiate such claims they contribute nothing positive that can benefit anyone participating either actively or passively in the discussion.

I would appreciate it if people would take the time to rethink their comments before posting them.

I'd like to ask people to ask themselves "would I say this to someone in person in front of strangers?"

Paul,

Good luck on your monolithic dome. You may check out using Basalt Rebar, as that allows you to make a much thinner and economical concrete shell without spalling, as metal rebar rusts and makes the concrete explode if the concrete is not thick enough.

I sourced Basalt Rebar through Alibaba, but I really could not trust the companies in China, as they had no guarantees on their shipment policies. With your location in Thailand, you are in a better position.

The other company I dealt with for purchasing Basalt rebar is Sudaglass - here in the USA, they mostly supply David South's Monolithic Dome company in Italy TX with Basalt Rebar.

I got a Basalt sample pack from Smarter Building Systems - who also really work for Sudaglass - at this link:

http://www.smarter-building-systems.com ... packs.html

Fiberglass Rebar also works without spalling. But Fiberglass rebar does not have the same coefficient of expansion as concrete, while Basalt does. Basalt is the perfect solution for concrete.

Fiberglass is found in the USA, Basalt in Russia and China. Sudaglass gets their Basalt products from the old USSR. Basalt fiber was classified cold war technology in the USA until 1995 or so.

David South put up a YouTube video with the construction of a small dome using nothing more than Basalt roving, which is a kind of Basalt rope. (Basalt is volcanic rock, heated to 2000 degrees, then sprayed through platinum rhodium nozzles to create basalt fibers, like rock wool, but with epoxy to make rebar.) No rebar at all in his dome, just basalt rope. Amazing.

You don't need a patent at all. David South's patents have expired long ago. Rather, you will have trade secrets on how you do your construction process, like using basalt roving. You can put your construction process on the web if you want, but I would rather teach a class hands on and make anyone learn as an apprentice, just so they get it right the first time.

I have an engineer coming over today to help me get started with computer simulated load testing. I am interested more in space frames than just domes, and the engineer and I are both interested in creating a hyperbolic paraboloid structure. This will be a trade secret. I don't have to tell you how to do this, or provide you my engineering results. That is a trade secret.

A patent is like a "No Trespassing" sign, but the trade secret is the real 10 foot high concrete wall with concertina wire on top. You can read my patent, and build it yourself, but it won't work as well as my version, because I have left my trade secrets out of my patents, on purpose.

The link to the picture Mr. Donley put up is close to what I have, but it is not the same, and won't work as well as what I manufacture because... well, I am just not going to tell you.

And there is nothing wrong with that. I have intellectual property, some in my patents, some on paper, and some only I know.

I do a lot of lucid dreaming, and plug into Something Greater Than Myself to get my best ideas.

I try to help people and do not try to "see how much money I can make", because that is childish, and we are only on this planet a short time. Real success is measured in how you help other people, not money. Anybody can make money. Real success is measured in people.

But, in helping people, I still don't have to leave my front door open and let someone take everything I have.

You can blame every patent holder as being greedy, but 90% of the patents never make any money at all.

A patent helps ideas to spread. If I had never applied for and received a patent, this thread would never have been made. A patent gives you credibility in the eyes of the public.

If a patent helps you in your monolithic dome idea then good. But if a big company wants your idea, they can hire more lawyers than you can. The DIY people, they can also do whatever they want and you will never know.

So who cares about a patent...

The biggest consideration is the number of people you can help with your idea. If a patent helps people, then use it to help others. People who are greedy to make a lot of money off their patents often fail. Good enough for them.

If you are starting a business, you will read "The Lean Startup" by Eric Ries, it was on the best seller's list for a long time. (You can download the PDF version for free..., yes free.) Mr. Ries said on Youtube about patents that they are worthless, because you should always innovate. He also said to go to your greatest competitor and tell them your idea. Most of the time they are not even interested, as the cost of ramping up and doing the R&D to work out the details will put them too far down the timeline to keep up with current trends.

I hope you have a good outcome on your monolithic domes. I hope they help a lot of people with shelter. The real problem with air forms is the electricity needed during the construction process. Some places that need this type of structure will never have electricity, or even a generator, or gasoline, or an even air form they need to use one time. All they have is some mortar, and sand on the seashore. If you can solve that, it would be a real help to a lot of people.

John

John, thanks for all your good advice on monolithic domes. But I think you will have no idea where I'm talking about until you see what it is. And when it is published, I will let it know here too.

Only in that they are both intellectual property.

Btw, I am very interested in these tools and techniques. I bet that if we did a poll, 75 % of our active members want to build a monolithic dome.

It is odd that we don't produce basalt rebar in the states. The bedrock in western Washington state is basalt. And while Pittsburg is probably the most known for steel, there are quite a few foundries in Washington because of the relatively low energy costs. That is why Boeing builds jets there...

I read a few posts, but I have to agree with some of the arguments against the site.

I like the openness of the design , but if you pretty much show us how easy it is to make it and say that you would sue whoever tries to recreate it themselves it is a dick move.