- cross-posted to:
- wikipedia@lemmy.world
- wikipedia@lemmy.ml
- cross-posted to:
- wikipedia@lemmy.world
- wikipedia@lemmy.ml
and the politicians pinky promise they won’t use it for market manipulation… pinky promise
I always wondered what happened to all the neat reports of cars that ran on old oil or could get 50mpg in the 50s. Guess they were too disruptive. We can’t have nice things. 😮💨
Lol, early 2000s diesels can get 60+mph
Cars that run on old oil are basically just diesel engines. It’s also pretty easy to get a vehicle with high fuel efficiency, it’s really hard to get one that also meets emission standards and doesn’t kill you in a crash.
Where’s this “Land of the Free” that I keep hearing about?
as long as you’re white and not an immigrant
Patents Granted To Two Formerly Secret Inventions
I have now fallen into a hole and will research this indefinitely.
Here’s a story about a guy who figured out how to track stealth planes: Congratulations, Your Genius Patent Is Now a Military Secret
Also in 2016, there were 5,680 patents according to this site. Yikes. That’s a big increase.
You can set up a genetic engineering lab for under 5000 bucks in your garage, and I would prefer you not being able to google how to DIY some super-ebola, thank you very much.
Look, we need to open source genetic engineering.
Some bastard will create super-ebola, sure, but some proactive individuals will quickly create a free vaccine for it, and for cancer and the common cold. (It will also turn you into a literal furry, of course, but that’s probably a price worth paying.)
secrecy orders have been imposed not only on inventions affecting military defense but also on those alleged to threaten economic stability, with critics noting that many such restrictions rest on speculative or unproven harms.
I suspect the “threatens economic stability” is stuff like printers that can produce dollars and the type of paper/thread/plastic material that makes up modern currency. I think people are looking for a conspiracy here when it’s just a logical choice. Some things people shouldn’t have a playbook on how to create.
This is the plot of The Saint and now I have to watch it again.
They’ll suppress it unless they can make money off it like crypto or “AI”.
Bitcoin was publicly released with full code and no pre-mining. It could not be patented for this reason.
The original creator is still unknown and has never moved their coins.
This strategy is the way.
Yo.
Thanks for curing me of my ignorance, i had no idea. I’m going to have to read more about this! I always thought crypto was cool in theory, unfortunate the state of its practice.
In which case some rich cunt will patent it and nuke the internet of its details
Tough to get a valid patent when the prior works were published publicly before you ever applied for it…
Good luck scrubbing anything off the internet with even a little social momentum. If people think its good enough to share, then it’s never fully getting scrubbed.
That is not how the internet works
No.
Anyone want to bet that there are inventions that are great but would cost some people serious money and that’s why we’re not seeing them?
It looks like they fuck over inventors.
Most of these appear to be for government projects such as with the Department of Defense and the NSA.
Sometimes, a regular invention outside of government contacts gets labeled with this and the government don’t pay for it. The inventor isn’t allowed to talk about it so they get fucked out of any income.
Not taking that bet. From the linked wikipedia page.
According to reporting in Wired and Slate, the United States Patent and Trademark Office has at times considered applying secrecy orders to inventions deemed disruptive to established industries.
You may be sure that there are times when they did more than consider it.
I mean, if some dude invented a neutron bomb in his garage, how would they know until it’s too late? 🤔
They do have networks of radiation sensors and reporters because of the guy who built an atomic device out of smoke detectors, giving himself and others radiation poisoning. Also, there have been some nuclear weapons go a tiny bit permanently missing, and suitcase-size dirty bombs were a huge scare for a hot minute, etc etc.
Honestly it’s really shocking we escaped the past century alive.
Oh good, apparently my late father’s Folding Crossbow isn’t a restricted patent…
https://patents.google.com/patent/US4926834A/en
I still posess the prototype, albeit a bit damaged now.
that’s cool. Seems a bit ‘busy’ for something that should be foldable
Honestly it is a bit busy, like feature creep.
The lower stock and left bow are unfortunately now broken, but I want to do my best to restore it eventually.
I’ve already collected feathers and a new rifle scope, I just need an antique Volkswagen spring leaf…
Yeah you think this is a witch stew, but it isn’t. These are the parts I need to properly fix my dad’s invention.
Like an air cooled fiberglass engine that runs on water, man!?
Water? Brother that’s 50’s tech.
We’re on to Cold Fusion reactors the size of your fist, SRO high-entropy alloys, and room temp superconductors.
:D
Really though.
I’ve been saying it for a while, even if we figured out fusion, it wouldn’t see the light of day.
The petrodollar would tank in value because fusion is obviously superior to gasoline/petrol.
It would be the end of the US currency if petroleum were to be replaced.
I’ve been saying it for a while, even if we figured out fusion, it wouldn’t see the light of day.
Fusion reactors would be absolutely massive, hugely expensive, centralized facilities that provide something of great value for very little labour input. They’re the PERFECT tool of capitalism.
deleted by creator
See I can’t see this being true, because if we figured out how to do it, and let someone else do it first, they would get all of the gains first.
That’s a valid counterpoint that I’m definitely too intoxicated to properly address but idk I think you cooked me on that one.
6543 inventions are currently suppressed.
Like what?
/s
Pills that actually make your wang the size of an elephant trunk while making it prehensile.


Username checks out
I wouldn’t be surprised if most of them have to do with rocketry or bioweapons and other things to make them work. I’ve designed things personally that are not destructive themselves but aid in testing or improving accuracy of hypersonic vehicles. The DOW (formerly DOD) did not allow us to apply for patents due to national security.
The DoD is still the DoD. DoW is its preferred name.
Preferred by the same people who think that trans individuals using their own preferred names are committing a literal crime
it’s always been the department if war, them finally taking the mask off is actually a good…makes seperating the good from the bad a hell of a lot easier
Reticulated splines
Nonsense, Maxis did it for years
Probably a really, really good engine.
Fusion power.
It would upend the petrodollar and basically the entire global economy.
Often it will be a specific new process for making, say an unusual alloy or critical component.
Successfully dividing by zero.
*lights lighting up on NSA dashboard*
My flying boots, for one.
Truman’s house and Presidential Library aren’t too far away if I need to egg it.
Yes this video destroyed me and made me realize that any life-changing awesome invention would surely be suppressed
Literally does make sense. You don’t want the how to for building a good gyroscope out there(too much). Some bits and pieces are really hard to get working well. And when you do you get great ICBMs. Still might want to patent it.
Yeah, let’s voluntarily lower the quality of all of our lives simply to give some minute advantage in the geopolitical chess game.
You would not use those in consumer tech. They are only useful for spaceflight. Which necessarily includes weapons.
All technologies have military and civilian use. Just because you can’t think of a civilian application for precision gyroscope doesn’t mean others can’t. Precision surveying immediately comes to mind as a potential application, plus civilian inertial navigation devices.
And no, there is not some magical level of precision that only the military has use for. If something has military applications, it also has civilian ones. Hell, there are potential peaceful applications of nuclear bombs. If those can be a dual-use technology, anything can be.
I work with precision gyroscopes in a commercial setting. Subsea precision surveying and inertial navigation systems are spot on examples of what we use them for. It helps to know where seamounts are, or where you put that subsea cable or pipeline.
Yes, exactly. I used to design tools to test these and we weren’t allowed to patent them, but I think some of the high level concepts were secret patents though I can’t know that.
For anyone wondering the thing ICBMs (and jet planes) use is called a gyroscope and gives the same output but it isn’t a “spinning top” gyro that you might be thinking of. Rather think super sensitive dynamo, or reversed motor. Tiny rotation turns into voltage signal.
There is an even newer type that uses laser but I don’t know anything about it.











