Saturday, April 28, 2012

LENR and DESTINY.

“In retrospect, all surprises are causal”

This is a very wise statement, I created it for a presentation of the influential book “Black Swan” and I understand it only, say, 85%.
At my age it is not surprising that
- I am not more shocked by surprises;
- I well know that surprises are vital for both victory and creativity; humor is a pleasant form of surprise;
- I have accepted that a form of Pareto’s Law governs surprises, 80% of them are bad and 20% neutral or good;
- Surprises have a splendid mathematical theory by Itti and Baldi, see: http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0893608009003256
- In essence surprises happen only when Nature acts faster than we can think; therefore Scouts and good researchers are instructed to practice anticipative thinking, to be prepared.

The tortuous ways of our scientific field - see again my “Metaphor history of LENR” - were full with surprises, more negative than Pareto predicts. However, a rather rational geography of LENR was developed and symposia, including ICCF’s were organized mainly by the greatest contributors.
The great surprise is that the dream of technology oriented LENR-ists like me, will become reality first in Greece a country absent from the LENR world map a year ago.
Geography is destiny- in retrospect this can be easily explained. Greece is a country of genius, the cradle of the European civilization. The ancient Greeks had perhaps the last friendly religion; their Gods were hybridizable with humans of both sexes (and even more) and were not completely immune to a bit of corruption. Greece was a place where surprising inventions were made, please see e.g.:
http://egooutpeters.blogspot.com/2011/08/scientific-values-of-professor.html
It is regrettable that that the ancient Greeks have not used the opportunity to generalize their findings, to formulate the Scientific Method and to build a world based on technology. After a world of light the Dark Ages came and who knows when will they end completely?!
Thanks to Goddess Athena- at least technology is again free and flourishing. The descendants of the ancient Greeks had plenty of time, more than 2500 years to be excellent technologists and engineers- and Fast Company Defkalion Green Technologies has surprised us all. A very pleasant surprise, reading about their techno-deeds converts chronos in kairos.


An other subject, age is destiny too and determines what I can do. Allow me please to use recent or future events for exemplifications.

Athanor is a sensationally interesting laboratory device see: http://22passi.blogspot.com/2012/04/spazio-riservato-ai-test-dellathanor.html I would be so happy to make this test myself too
and enjoy judging the results.
However, unfortunately, I am 74 years old and not 14and I have no personal lab, I am sitting many hours per day at my PC- Athanor has to prove what it can do without me. Sorry!

Today, journalist Ruby Carat has published : http://coldfusionnow.org/?p=16981- it is about a cross-US tour. She has met i.a. with Andrea Rossi and the inventor has not disclosed the location of his robotized E-cat factory. A group of
Rossi fans have decided to organize an expedition to a suspect area of Everglades- something like a robotized E-cat factory was seen from a helicopter there. One of them has invited me to join – “You will publish the photos on you blog” he said.
However, unfortunately, I am 74 years old and not 24.from a distance greater than 2 meters I am not able to distinguish
an E-cat from an alligator or a panther, so it’s too risky for me.
Next time (next life)!

I am really enchanted with the list of jobs published by Defkalion Green Technologies see: http://www.defkalion-energy.com/jobs
The very first position was created just for me, however I have some serious doubts that I will survive the relocation and will be able to work in the style of the DGT people, i.e. day and night
However, unfortunately I am 74 years old and not 34, and 40 years makes a great difference. Not in my favor!

OK, it is a great list; any position at DGT would be OK if it has
do with chemistry or materials science, I can forget that “Aquila
non capit muscam”, I will even accept a young man telling me what I have to do
However, unfortunately I am 74 years old and not 44 no chance!

Some rich people here –but not sufficiently rich to make serious investments, smart but no so smart to understand a complex situation, honest but not very that I could trust them, have called me, said that they have read about Rossi and DGT and want to pay me for developing a similar device in maximum 6 months.
However, unfortunately I am 74 years old and not 54We met and they were amazed that I so old and still breathing. They paid me a cheap warm beer and… addio vecchio!

ICCF-17 is coming, it is in a very fine place, I want to meet my many old friends, I want to speak about my poisoning theory, I hope to meet brand new friends and see at lease one breakthrough in action, a demo!
However, unfortunately I am 74 years old and not 64So Judith says me, please sit home old man, it is difficult and costly to recover you dead or ~alive from so far!

It is one of my favorite clichés to say that somebody has “a holistic and holographic vision” of his profession, specialty
whatever. For LENR, such a superior vision really needed to understand the basic difference between the old processes that give fractions of watts or only a few watts of heat excess and the new ones that give kilowatts. Nobody understands the New Paradigm.
However very fortunately I am 74 years old and not 14, 24, 34, 44, 54 or 64- I have climbed the shaking learning curve for more than 23 years, have lived vividly small victories and painful failures and I understand perfectly this difference.
Because this writing is much too long I will tell you the answer in very few words.
The old systems work with active sites, the new ones work with hyper-active sites.
Peter

PS I am writing a new issue of QUI CITO and the Internet wants to help me with this essay; it sends for encouragement this:
Maintain Your Brain: The Secrets to Aging Success: http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2012/04/120427163335.htm
The Internet likes me and I like the Internet.

Friday, April 27, 2012

QUI CITO 12

eBook Reader Central. All You Need to Know About eReaders:
http://portables.about.com/od/ebookreasers/tp/Ebook-Reader-Central.htm?nl=1

Why Science Can't Explain Why There's Something Rather than Nothing
http://bigthink.com/ideas/why-science-cant-explain-why-theres-something-rather-than-nothing

After the Workshop:                                        http://www.execupundit.com/2012/04/after-workshop.html#links

Lifeform of the week: Death’s-head hawkmoth is stranger than fiction:
http://earthsky.org/biodiversity/lifeform-of-the-week-deaths-head-hawkmoth-is-stranger-than-fiction

Free on-line converter:
http://www.stumbleupon.com/su/1SSOsi

Liquid Solar Cells Can Be Painted Onto Surfaces:
http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2012/04/120425140455.htm

Issue 130 - Hoax-Slayer Newsletter:                                                      http://www.hoax-slayer.com/issue-130.shtml

Visualizing English Word Origins:
http://ideasillustrated.com/blog/2012/04/01/visualizing-english-word-origins/
]
Food in every country: http://www.foodbycountry.com/

Non GMO Project: http://www.nongmoproject.org/
I am signaling this but it does not mean that I agree with this NGO.

Museum of Printing History: http://www.printingmuseum.org/

Wednesday, April 25, 2012

QUI CITO No. 11

Have We Reached the End of the Internet Age?: http://bigthink.com/ideafeed/have-we-reached-the-end-of-the-internet-age

The Innovativeness of Nations:                                                              http://www.strategy-business.com/article/00100?gko=bb447&cid=TL20120419

Can you make yourself smarter?: http://www.nytimes.com/2012/04/22/magazine/can-you-make-yourself-smarter.html?_r=1

How Thinking About Death Can Lead to a Good Life: http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2012/04/120419102516.htm
Moore's Law Lives Another Day: http://www.technologyreview.com/computing/40287/?nlid=nlcomp&nld=2012-04-25

The three-dimensional transistors of Intel's new generation of chips continue the 50-year trend of faster, more tightly packed chips.
It's the Network: Ever Wonder Why Your Friends Have More Friends Than You or Diamond Is Harder Than Graphite?: http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2012/04/120419091225.htm

Facts, 360 B.C.-A.D. 2012. In memoriam: After years of health problems, Facts has finally died: http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/local/ct-talk-huppke-obit-facts-20120419,0,809470.story
You can forget facts but cannot forget understanding: http://www.gurteen.com/gurteen/gurteen.nsf/id/cannot-forget-understanding

Meat Eating Behind Evolutionary Success of Humankind, Global Population Spread, Study Suggests: http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2012/04/120420105539.htm

Stand Up! Sitting Down Is Killing You: http://bigthink.com/ideafeed/stand-up-sitting-down-is-literally-killing-you
Reverse Innovation and the Myth of Cannibalization: http://www.forbes.com/sites/forbesleadershipforum/2012/04/19/reverse-innovation-and-the-myth-of-cannibalization/

Google Quiz: http://websearch.about.com/library/quizzes/google_quiz/blgooglequiz.htm?nl=1
We are what we eat, so what are we: http://data.massivehealth.com/#
Google’s Cutts Explains How Google Search Works: http://www.stateofsearch.com/matt-cutts-going-to-the-roots-how-does-google-search-work/
The age of Inequality:                                                                          http://www.project-syndicate.org/focal-points/the-age-of-inequality
Which classical character are you?: http://blog.oxforddictionaries.com/2012/04/which-classical-character-are-you/

The Steve Jobs Way:                                                                           http://www.strategy-business.com/article/00109?gko=d331b&cid=20120424enews

It's Time to Go on an Information Diet:                                 http://bigthink.com/ideas/its-time-to-go-on-an-information-diet

Mathematics of Eternity Prove The Universe Must Have Had A Beginning. Cosmologists use the mathematical properties of eternity to show that although universe may last forever, it must have had a beginning: http://www.technologyreview.com/blog/arxiv/27793/?nlid=nldly&nld=2012-04-25
Stop Blabbing About Innovation And Start Actually Doing It: http://www.fastcompany.com/1833190/stop-blabbing-about-innovation-and-start-actually-doing-it
Google Drive: Stash Your Stuff in the Cloud?: http://askbobrankin.com/google_drive_stash_your_stuff_in_the_cloud.html?awt_l=4jAx_&awt_m=J_9pJGgeM8P6SL

Monday, April 23, 2012

The new edition of Ed Storms’s CF/LENR Guide.

 A few days ago this valuable document was published:
Edmund Storms: 

A STUDENT’S GUIDE TO COLD FUSION.
Edition 2012
http://lenr-canr.org/acrobat/StormsEastudentsg.pdf
A must-read for our community.

Thank you, Ed- you have created an excellent review of the field, very dense in information, comprising almost all the essential facts and ideas of interest. Also a great performance in taxonomy, you have succeeded to classify and correlate an increasingly huge diversity and richness of data, some of them fluid or with lower reliability. You possess both the holistic, details in the whole, and holographic, whole in the detail, vision of the field.

With full respect to this accomplishment I try to add something to the understanding of cold fusion/LENR whatever this discipline/field/science/technology is today.

But first perhaps a possible change- in the title. This opus  is much more a guide for Researchers than for Students- usually we have to deliver to students (at least University students stricto sensu, not learning people – largo sensu) - knowledge with predominantly firmly established facts with only a small proportion of open, undecided, not completely understood  problems.
If we refer to the interpretation and understanding of experimental data, in case of LENR, what we don’t know or don’t can comprehend is almost matching what we already know and can explain- and use for prediction. It will be a real Student’s Guide when certainties will be preponderant and applied commercially. That day is not so far, I hope.

Re the central issue – NAE.

It seems (as I have shown in my ancient paper:
http://www.lenr-canr.org/acrobat/GluckPunderstand.pdf
later published in Fusion Technology) that LENR is indeed a
catalysis like phenomenon taking place in small active sites... Somewhat philosophically defined, catalysis occurs when matter at a level is able to stimulate some processes at an other level of organization. Chemical catalysis is stimulation of processes at the level of electron layers (chemical) by special structures at the atomic level. It is an influence from inside out. LENR goes in the opposite direction; matter smartly organized on the chemical level determines some unexpected phenomena on the nuclear level. A complex phenomenon involving more levels and stages of collaboration.
The catalytic nature of cold fusion- it takes place in active sites, specifically nuclearly active sites, is not my idea, it a natural idea.
Important things take place in restricted, special zones or areas, and this includes miracles.

I remember discussing about it with many scientists already at ICCF-2 Como in 1991, inter alia with a great electrochemist professor Heinz Gerischer (R.I.P!) while walking together along that beautiful lake. Corrosion, the Prof’s specialty is also very local.

If “nuclearly active” environment” is better than site, zone is for now a non-relevant question, I think it is OK to accept this, NAE is nice.
It is true that for the Pd-D systems there is a real NAE mystics- neither dimension nor chemical composition can explain local nuclear activity. Nobody except me believes that existing NAE in real Pd based systems are actually poisoned, deactivated by a simple mechanism - due to adsorption of gases different from deuterium- from air. OK, Pd –D system are more scientific than technological- in the best case we can use some 2.10 exp 8 g of Pd and the total power in world is around 15 exp 12 W. How many W can generate a g of Pd?

However it is a rather different situation for the Ni-H branch due to two publications of Francesco Piantelli – his second patent WO 2010/058288 and his Poster “Proton Reactor” presented at Pontignano in 2010.Unfortunately, these are not cited in Ed’s Guide. Piantelli shows that for Ni-H (and other transition metal-H systems too) NAE are crystalline nanostructures of pure Ni. See please also “Special- contribution of Piantelli to the LENR-specific nanotechnology.” in http://egooutpeters.blogspot.com/2011/08/how-does-apply-prof-piantelli-rules-of.html
Piantelli has advanced from the NAE mystics to NAE science and Rossi and even more DGT, have gone steps further toward NAE technology.

At 5.II.7 Ed speaks about “Theory of Rossi and Piantelli”. I ask him to reverse the order. Piantelli has worked more than 20 years
in order to understand a line of LENR research and was the leading scientist in all the published and patented research works
for Ni-H. Unfortunately, the anti-meritocratic Italian practice to put the authors in alphabetical order favors – for example -Focardi who was kind of second violin in these works. The great majority of heat releasing experiments was performed at Siena Univ. in Piantelli’s lab. Piantelli’s popularity has suffered because he never has never been an enthusiast of Preparata’s theory and also not an optimist regarding the chances of Pd-D LENR to have an industrial future. One of his arguments is the closed electronic structure of palladium.

Great bad question: are the weaknesses of Pd-D i.e. low intensity, difficult reproducibility, short duration- curable or not?

Piantelli’s active sites or NAE are nanostructures and is well known today that one and the same material in bulk and in form of nanostructures have essentially different properties.
These nanoclusters act as NAE, must be built by different processes, some based on hydrogen fragilization of nickel, Ni alloys or other transition metals.
Piantelli also considers as vital to free the active site of any traces of alien gases ( not hydrogen) and uses deep degassing a very, very drastic and time consuming process (see the patent!) similar to a technological exorcisation.
Obviously NAE in Pd –D systems, e.g. electrolysis are fully exposed to all the components of air. If this is a fatal error only the future will say but it is difficult to create an anaerobic environment for such cases.
.
A fundamental question- Pd-D vs. Ni-H similarities and differences.

Ed Storms seem to believe in the economics and rationality of Nature- one set of laws/principles is valid for all forms of LENR, ergo the Pd-D and Ni-H are similar and what we learn in  the frame of  one can be applied in/transposed to the other. See please:
SUMMARY
6. Heat is mostly generated by D+D+e fusion to give He4+e when deuterium is used and H+H+e fusion to give stable deuterium when normal hydrogen is used
This is an over-simplification, IMHO.

SUMMARY
Two assumptions are made:  All LENR occurs in the same environment and by the same mechanism, and the environment and mechanism must not conflict with known chemical behavior or each other.

6.II Testable Predictions
9. No difference exists between the conditions required to cause fusion involving pure D or pure H. However, many more NAE sites are required to obtain a detectable amount of energy when H is used compared to D.
I think that these statements have to be demonstrated, the contrary statements also can be true- in some extent. What is obvious, Ni-H works better than Pd-D. Piantelli has succeeded already to eliminate 2 of the 3 flaws of LENR obtaining reproducible processes working for month in a self-sustaining regime. Intensity was also increased up to tens of watts however more is necessary for industrial application of LENR as an energy source.

I think we cannot dictate Mother or Stepmother Nature how to behave. Nature is known to have no problems only solutions and nothing can limit the number of these. It is one manifestation of Nature’s Extremistanic attitude and unique ambition to be interesting. Science means understanding Nature’s interestingness, Technology is converting interestingness in usefulness.

Involving and explaining Rossi and Defkalion.
More than one year has elapsed from the first Bologna University
Rossi experiment claiming heat generation at more kWatts level and that was followed by a dozen or so of chaotically conceived and badly executed experiments. Inventor Andrea Rossi has stubbornly refused to make simple and absolutely convincing experiments. An inextricable informational hodgepodge has resulted.
Ed Storms, who first has imagined a stampede to Rossi like LENR technologies, now has chosen to wait for more reliable data. He has completely ignored Defkalion Green Technology that has much better engineering than Rossi.

As regarding Rossi, I think that if do not confuse the points of view, we can use this analogy:
- If you try to demonstrate that 0 = 2, that’s a scam.
- If you try to demonstrate that 2 = 4, that’s advertisement.

Rossi has used some methods from bad ads to convince the public that he has better results than he actually has, also due to stability and duration problems his results were disturbingly regressive, both energy intensity per E-cat, and COP decreasing from one experiment to the next. COP= 6 is inadmissibly low,
I am convinced that using probably Edisonian methods, Rossi
has really discovered a new method in LENR, just he cannot manage the system well.
I think it is not reasonable to reject Rossi completely, Krivit style.
NAEology has to explain what is the essence of Rossi’s discovery, what had he added to Piantelli’s successful methods and what kind of functional additive(s) he calls his catalyst.
We will see this hopefully in the 2013 edition of Ed Storms’ Guide.
Peter

Saturday, April 21, 2012

ROOTS VII – THE OTHER

Motto (actually the story of the four people named Everybody, Somebody, Anybody and Nobody):

There was an important job to be done and Everybody was sure that Somebody would do it. Anybody could have done it, but Nobody did it. Somebody got upset about that, because it was Everybody’s job. Everybody thought Anybody could do it, but Nobody realized that Everybody wouldn’t do it. It ended up that Everybody blamed Somebody when Nobody did what Anybody could have done.
(Source – lots of them on the web…)

Reminder: I started the roots series last year with the purpose of exploring how deep the current crisis goes back (not only in terms of time, but also in terms of cause).

Today's choice of root is quite a big challenge in terms of contributing something more than the motto, especially as the above wisdom (or leadership) lesson only costs some 10 euro in Hamburg , coming on a nice metal plate. Still, I will invest some time and words into it, as I would like to tackle the size of the idea of 'the other' in our contemporary perception of reality.

I will call in for help another classic quote: “tomorrow is another day!'. Yes, it is! And so was today yesterday, and now tomorrow is already gone…

Do not get me wrong; in that context from the movie, it was a wise thing to say. This approach can actually be used as a change driver, whenever we need reasonable time to take reasonable steps. However, when we take those four words out of the original context and use them as an excuse for continuous postponement, their sense turns rather sour.

I have come to see 'the other' as a root mostly because of the size of this phenomenon. And it has two major sides – the other as a solution and the other as a benchmark. I will dive into those one at a time and so I will start with ‘the other’ as a solution.

The perception of ‘it has to be done’ is gradually eating more and more from the territory of ‘I have to do it’. No matter if we talk about people, time or space. The story of the four in the motto is only one dimension of ‘the other’. Two other basic dimensions are time and space, but we can even think of more (for example culture). The excuse for not doing something vary from ‘this would never work here’ to ‘this is not the right time for it’, going through ‘not my job’ classical driver of 'the other' approach.

We have become so reliant on the services that ‘the other’ provides that we are gradually eroding our instincts of survival, self preservation and responsibility. We have outsourced so many things in the name of comfort and efficiency, that we are swiftly becoming specialized in one thing only: getting through life as comfortable as possible. We have learned to expect things to happen, to be done, to get solved, regulated, enforced, taken care of and so on.

Civilized society has become master at giving tasks and expecting perfect results, tending however to forget about the complexity and originality of people. There should be no surprise that the outcome is sometimes unpredictable, and not just a simple button-pushing-guaranteed-result-delivery-service.

People wake up in the morning wishing (or even expecting) that things which interfere with their daily comfort, are unpleasant or resemble long-term-hard-work-responsibility patterns are taken care somehow by ‘the other’. They idealize money as the answer to all the problems (as they are a way to pay for such services), therefore they get frustrated when ‘the other’ can externalize more of their life because they have more money.

And so I get to ‘the other’ as a benchmark. People are social animals, deemed to compare. They have a strange satisfaction from seeing themselves better than the less fortunate, however at the same time also looking up to the ones who have done better. In this process they no longer pause to enjoy life as it is, because they will always see the others on both sides, and more of them every day. The secret of happiness is not about getting something (or someone, or somewhere) you want, but still wanting it after you got it, which is very hard if you always compare with ‘the other’.

What is then left? People delegating their regular life to others, to free some time in order to keep on running to catch imaginary ‘others’ who are doing better than them. Then they start complaining that there is too little personal time left for real living. And whenever they get some spare time, as they do not need it for petty little things that are better done by the others, they start wondering what the real purpose of life is. They end up either getting bored by having too much time, or burn-out by working too hard on a job that has nothing to do with their own passion in life (but is supposed to pay for allowing the passion into their life).

So why do we find it so hard to do things ourselves, but easily expect others to do it instead? Why is it difficult to change things that are directly or indirectly related to us, no matter whether it is small or big things, affecting ourselves or our immediate environment? Why the same 'we' that cannot initiate change within us are always so ready, willing and determined to change THE OTHERS? Why do we expect them to immediately come closer to what we expect, molding to fit our image of the ideal them? Why do we always forgive ourselves for not being able to change, but we find it hard to forgive them for not being able to become who we want?

There could be many answers. In no particular order, I would think of comfort, selfishness, human nature (it is easier to recognize mistakes or shortcomings in others before we admit it within ourselves), expectations about roles in society, about rights and duties, misperception about means and results, drivers and motivation for change. Ideally, we may wish to initiate change in the others out of a selfless desire to help them. We learn from own experiences and try to teach also the others, in an attempt to prevent them from hurting themselves in the same way. Still, we tend to forget about their own circle of comfort, about their own resistance to change and get disappointed that we fail to influence them.

Finally, I would also add that one factor that accelerates 'the other' symptom is the fact that we experience nowadays a huge and constantly growing offer of such others. In terms of community, we are part of bigger and bigger ones, therefore we feel smaller and more insignificant every day. We will not manage to change the world, so why should we bother?

And so, the others are protecting our comfort and preventing our change at the same time. We have grown to love the others so much that we do not know how to live without them anymore. Should we do anything about this? I cannot speak for the others who read this, but I will start by taking back some of the things that I have given away. How much? Well… just enough to preserve me into my life.

Hugs,
Georgina Popescu

Thursday, April 19, 2012

QUI CITO No. 10

Does Fracking Cause Earthquakes?:  http://motherjones.com/blue-marble/2012/04/does-fracking-cause-earthquakes

6 Scary Extreme Energy Sources Being Tapped to Fuel the Post Peak Oil Economy.  Think of this as taking fracking to the next level so that we can continue to speed along on our highway to hell -- peak oil, and the earth, be damned: http://www.alternet.org/environment/154936/6_scary_extreme_energy_sources_being_tapped_to_fuel_the_post_peak_oil_economy

Artificial Photosynthesis Breakthrough: Fast Molecular Catalyzer: http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2012/04/120412105430.htm

The Nature of Science and the Scientific Method: http://www.geosociety.org/educate/NatureOfScience.htm

Nutrition for everyone: http://www.cdc.gov/nutrition/everyone:
Promiscuous Queen Bees Maintain Genetic Diversity:
http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2012/04/120416150403.htm

Scientists Discover 'Switch' in Plants to Create Flowers: http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2012/04/120417221825.htm

Do we need a new social medium for science? http://blogs.physicstoday.org/thedayside/2012/04/do-we-need-a-new-social-medium-for-science/  With thanks to Ludwik Kowalski

Imperfection is not our personal problem: http://davidkanigan.com/2012/04/18/imperfection-is-not-our-personal-problem/  I like it!

Tinted Windows that Generate Electricity. A German company borrows the materials and manufacturing process of OLED displays to make a new kind of solar panel:
http://www.technologyreview.com/energy/40192/?nlid=nlmat&nld=2012-04-19

Peter Diamandis: We're Living as Emperors and Kings Would Have Lived 100 Years Ago                   
http://bigthink.com/humanizing-technology/peter-diamandis-were-living-as-emperors-and-kings-would-have-lived-100-years-ago

The Tyranny of the Many is (Perhaps) as Bad as the Tyranny of One:                                                              
http://bigthink.com/against-the-new-taboo/the-tyranny-of-the-many-is-perhaps-as-bad-as-the-tyranny-of-one

25 Twitter Hashtags for Lots of Facts and Truth: http://savedelete.com/25-twitter-hashtags-for-lots-of-facts-and-truth.html

Crime and Punishment: Neurobiological Roots of Modern Justice: http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2012/04/120418135350.htm

Deathless data. What happens to our digital property after we die?:                http://www.economist.com/node/21553011?fsrc=nlw|hig|4-19-2012|1436604|37088816

Demystifying social media: http://www.mckinseyquarterly.com/Marketing/Digital_Marketing/Demystifying_social_media_2958

Monday, April 16, 2012

QUI CITO No. 9.

Why outsiders solve big problems best: http://bigthink.com/ideafeed/why-outsiders-solve-big-problems-best

Excessive Worrying May Have Co-Evolved With Intelligence: http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2012/04/120412153018.htm

New Test Measures Risk Intelligence -- Decision-Making in Risky Situations: http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2012/04/120412105434.htm

The tiny, lethal weapon that viruses use to kill bacteria: http://www.kurzweilai.net/the-tiny-lethal-weapon-that-viruses-use-to-kill-bacteria

Meet the New Medical Specialist: The Networkologist: http://www.theatlantic.com/health/archive/2012/04/meet-the-new-medical-specialist-the-networkologist/255764/

Social Networks, Small and Smaller: http://www.nytimes.com/2012/04/15/business/path-familyleaf-and-pair-small-by-design-social-networks.html

John Cleese on the 5 Factors to Make Your Life More Creative: http://www.brainpickings.org/index.php/2012/04/12/john-cleese-on-creativity-1991/

Cyberbullying and Bullying Are Not the Same: http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2012/04/120413122202.htm

100 greatest cooking tips of all time: http://www.foodnetwork.com/chefs/100-greatest-cooking-tips-of-all-time/index.html

Is Materialism a Mental Disorder?: http://bigthink.com/ideafeed/is-materialism-a-mental-disorder

What Is Intelligence? Just a Byproduct of Cooperation: http://bigthink.com/ideafeed/what-is-intelligence-just-a-byproduct-of-cooperation

Sunday, April 15, 2012

MEMORIES FROM THE CHESS CLUB

Motto
Alla fin del gioco, tanto va nel sacco il re quanto la pedina.
When the game is over, both the King and the Pawn go back in the same box (Italian proverb)


My oldest grandson, Rudy, 10 years old this week is a very good chess player; he has won more contests for children of his age. I am the only family member whom he cannot defeat because chess has played an important role in my life, actually there were three episodes in my life when I played chess with passion, trying to become the champion of: first the class at the Lyceum, second the little town Savinesti where I have worked and third
the Institute of Chemistry in Cluj. Any time I have succeeded I have started to spend my time with things more useful than this game. So I have a great experience that compensates my lack of talent- I do not possess at all those forms of memory typical for the great players and have to reinvent good moves and solutions and strategies for each game I am playing. However I own an efficient and innovative mode of thinking- in chess.
Rudy wanted to win and he tried to stress me, confuse me, to defocus my attention; he moved, whistled, sang however I have told him that what he does is bad only for him:
“Rudy, you can shout, you can fly, you can do what do you want, your Grandpa is perfectly immune to all these things and does not care, you can stress only yourself!”
I have learned to play chess in the CHESS CLUB of TIMISOARA (my native city) and that was a extremely hard school of reality, a combination of a library and a madhouse and rehearsal room, smoking was permitted and dense smoke was ubiquitous and there were no other rules than those basic of chess. A great variety of human beings was there, many of them quite weird. But you could play up to 10 or even more games an afternoon usually with good players. I am trying now to tell you what have I learned (except or beyond chess) in the, for now, mythical club. Because it was one of the best places of alternative education I have ever been. It is very difficult to systematize what I have learned there, but I hope taxonomy- mon amour will forgive me (see please http://egooutpeters.blogspot.com/2011/08/taxonomy-mon-amour.html )
Life, like chess- is a Fight. Learn how to lose!
The first rule is to learn to lose with dignity, even with a kind of elegance. Very important- you can be the most privileged human on the Earth, however there will be many times more defeats in your life than wins or victories. You will lose fights, battles, disputes, arguments, contests, exams, opportunities, lawsuits, friends, forces etc.  so many things in so many places –arenas, board, office, conference rooms, kindergarten, school, home, bed, swimming pool whatever – and you have to be well prepared for loss, defeats, crises, disasters. 
You will run fast (Citius) and be in front 99.99% of the time, then on the last 10 meters some nobody will appear from nowhere – or even more guys whom you used to ignore as competitors and good-bye medals, you will be beaten in some minute fractions of a second. Imagine please similar mini-tragedies for Altius and Fortius- sport is a metaphor of life.
So rarely are discovered such revolutionary things as the Fosbury Flop- counterintuitive, not natural and a great progress a LENR in sport, I daretosay. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fosbury_Flop
Chess is a good, cheap school for becoming skilled in losing well.
This episode of my life has happened when the local Big Brother was very bloodthirsty so a quotation from the, perhaps greatest specialist in the science of bigbrotherology will fit here:

An autobiography is only to be trusted when it reveals something disgraceful. A man who gives a good account of himself is probably lying, since any life when viewed from the inside is simply a series of defeats.  (George Orwell)
( I will have to remember this when continuing my series of writings about “My Cold Fusion History.”)
You will learn soon that defeats are very instructive, you can learn much more from them than from victories. But that is all,
defeats have to be used to learn how to win but actually they have to be avoided by all means. You will see so many times that others are better, smarter, faster, more talented, luckier and
privileged that you. If you want avoid tons of bitterness in your life, you will forget and ignore the poisonous idea of meritocracies,
Victories have absolutely no permanence, the old saying coming from sport- in essence: Winning is a habit. Unfortunately, so is losing.” (Vince Lombardi) is actually a description of some form of inertia, but no victory is some guarantee of the next victory. All victories have to be built from the scratch.
Both in chess and in life you have to learn that confrontations are not taking place between pieces or individuals but between forces.
There is a simple (in principle) and very complex (in execution) recipe to win: surprise, but/and do not err!
Nobody and nothing is inerrant.
Analyzed in toto and in a larger context, both in chess and life (that is much more complex, dynamic, full of contradictions, paradoxes like chess- even as Go (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Go_ (game)
it is impossible to avoid errors. In chess it is a saying that the winner is the player who errs less or errs earlier. Just to mention that I was not motivated or smart enough to learn the strategic game of Go- at a decent level.
Everybody can err, nobody is infallible. I have seen formidable gaffes made by grandmasters. The computer programs that have beaten human world champions are also able to make great errors- but not at the same level of inventive stupidity as humans.
This experience is only one of the ways that leads to the basic
idea that claims of perfection or inerrancy attributed to beings,
creations and ideas are very dangerous. The idea per se is dangerous for those who possess it.
You have to learn to be the master of the circumstances, not the slave of them.
You have to learn to play and live functionally well, even in very
stressing or disturbing or hostile circumstances. This is what I have explained to my grandson Rudy. You have to think orderly
in a chaotic environment, you must develop good filters for noises of any kind. Grow above the obstacles on your way.
But this only a part of greater idea- fragments of it appear in Rudyard Kipling’s poem “If” – http://www.kipling.org.uk/poems_if.htm
 we used to tell it as a kind of prayer in the worst years of communism as consolation for our unending troubles. I have learned to think deeply while queuing for long hours for elementary food products, to read with pleasure papers of interest in a cold room at candle or petroleum light, to ignore completely some idiotic speeches of the Party leader(s).
Being stronger than Fate is the essence of real humanism, even if it is impossible on a longer term. Nature has infinite patience and endless time, learn please that Nature has no problems, only solutions.
But if you are realist, you will realize that when you have a truly bad day, then forget chess, go home and a drink a couple or a troika of beers or tzuikas, decide with whom you will vote and take a nap.
Be strong above circumstances. Do not be dependent or addicted.
Put limits both to your admiration and enmity.
Communities have their own Rules and hierarchies
The Chess Club was a closed community in which everybody was judged solely on his force and skill in playing chess. Your age, profession, culture, status in real life were irrelevant
The greatest authority was Mr. Muresan a former railway worker very ill (silicosis pre-final stage) playing aggressively and an uneducated formidable chess genius. Nobody could defeat Mr. Muresan and even my model- Herr Doktor Schubert, always impeccably dressed with fine golden frame eyeglasses, speaking a lot of languages, bald – a real gentleman, only rarely could make a draw with Muresan. However, Istvan my deaf mute good friend
was one of the best passive players I have ever met, building impenetrable defense positions with his pieces.
A younger colleague of mine, later one of the first 10 players of the country, more lately successfully playing blindfold chess with 10 players and beating them all, even more lately abandoning everything for the realization of his Great Invention- kind of pump
with a mercury piston and eventually dying in misery due to alcoholism- this guy was then only a timid apprentice.
Everybody knew that X is an officer of the Securitate, outside the Club he was a carrier and practitioner of terror, but inside just one of the unpredictable players.
After heroic efforts, I succeeded to belong to the “middle class” of the players, I were not ignored.
Grosso modo, the Chess Club has also shown that the greatest disorder is compatible with very strict rules; anarchy can be perfectly mixed with dictatorship. A place like the Internet today.
Chess is so good for learning problem solving!
The game of chess is very instructive and helps you to learn tactics and strategy. The problem is how to be more efficient, smarter and resistant than you opponent. How to detect his weak points? What to sacrifice, which piece for obtaining a decisive advantage for check-mating his King. The most important is however how to survive in seemingly lost situations/positions by a creative and completely unexpected set of moves.
Be patient, be focused, be inventive, and be resilient!
You must be very careful to say something is impossible.
Diversity is great, you must always try something new both in chess and in life. Enjoy the beauty of your solutions.
The kibitz should shut up.
When I have started to play chess at the Club, the active non-playing “observers” and “critics” were free to tell the actual players what the wanted, how they wanted, when they wanted (i.e. before doing a move or after it)
“Think, little son. you have a wonderful move!”
“You are a complete idiot, haven’t you seen that if you sacrifice the Rook on d4, Georgie is dead, out, kaput, uomo finito?”
“Take of your dirty hand of that piece, it is on its ideal place and if you want to win it has to stay there!”
“You again have forgotten that Sicilian Opening is not for retards like you!”
“Even an absolute beginner could easily win in the position you were 10 moves ago, but you have lost” And so on…
The international name of these annoying individuals is “kibitzer” See please- http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kibitzer
They became the main factor of stress and disturbance in the Club
and considering that actually as a group they were no skilled players, on the contrary, an action was started to get rid of them.
First a citation of the proto-porno writer Pitigrilli was exposed;
“Do not give me advices, I can err myself”
(Non datemi consigli, so sbagliare da me.)
The kibitzer have ignored this and strict rules were introduced in three languages Romanian (“Chibitule, taci din gura!”), Hungarian (“Kibic, kuss!) and German (“Kiebitz, halt dein Maul!)
all these meaning that they should shut up!
The campaign, combined with beating and excluding of some very stubborn kibitzes from the Club was a success- let’s say some 90% success.
However kibitzing is kind of undying killer meme. The kibitzes claim that it is a principle of democracy and a human right that everybody can have an opinion about anything he/she wishes
irrespective that of being a professional or an amateur. The Internet, especially the millions of its forums is a Paradise for the kibitzes, they prosper, flourish and... write. Is this good or is it one of the forms of degenerate democracy? It is and it will last.
Eventually, the conclusion:
Our existence is like a great Chess Club, but sometimes and in some places, it is different.
Peter

Thursday, April 12, 2012

QUI CITO No. 8.

The happiness factor:                  http://clicks.robertgenn.com/happiness.php                                      

Success can’t just be measured in dollars and cents, report says: http://news.nationalpost.com/2012/04/03/world-happiness-report-canada/                                                                                               

To Measure a Nation, GDP Is Out, Happiness Index Is In: http://bigthink.com/ideafeed/to-measure-a-nation-gdp-is-out-happiness-index-is-in                                                                   To

Find Happiness, Forget About Passion: http://blogs.hbr.org/cs/2012/01/to_find_happiness_forget_about.html
Consumerism and Its Antisocial Effects Can Be Turned On -- Or Off:
http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2012/04/120409175915.htm

Nutrition for everyone: http://www.cdc.gov/nutrition/everyone/
How deep is the ocean? How about the lake?: http://imgs.xkcd.com/comics/lakes_and_oceans_large.png

How to cool electronic devices more efficiently: http://www.kurzweilai.net/how-to-cool-electronic-devices-more-efficiently

Nanotechnology Used to Hunt for Hidden Pathogens: http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2012/04/120409175913.htm

Famous authors name de plumes:       http://flavorwire.com/277632/10-odd-stories-behind-famous-authors-nom-de-plumes?all=1

Brain-Injury Data Used to Map Intelligence in the Brain: http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2012/04/120410130855.htm

Yet more evidence that "natural" doesn't necessarily mean "safer": http://scienceblogs.com/insolence/2012/04/yet_more_evidence_that_natural_doesnt_ne.php

Drinking Alcohol May Significantly Enhance Problem Solving Skills. Scientists found that men who drank two pints of beer or two glasses of wine before solving brain teasers were quicker in delivering correct answers: http://medicaldaily.com/news/20120411/9496/alcohol-solving-skills-analytical-thinking-creativity-study.htm

Monday, April 9, 2012

QUI CITO 7

From built-to-last to built-to-change:
http://www.gerrymcgovern.com/nt/2012/nt-2012-04-09-Built-to-last.htm

Connected but alone:
http://www.ted.com/talks/lang/en/sherry_turkle_alone_together.html

The Food Timeline: http://www.foodtimeline.org/index.html

With Google's New Glasses, Your Head Is Your Smartphone:
http://www.fastcompany.com/1829741/your-head-is-your-smart-phone

What 23 Years of E-Mail May Say About You:
http://www.nytimes.com/2012/04/08/business/mining-our-personal-data-for-our-own-good.html

Use of Common Pesticide, Imidacloprid, Linked to Bee Colony Collapse: http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2012/04/120405224653.htm

How Do You Best Prepare For The Creative Age?:
http://gapingvoid.com/2012/04/07/creative-age/

Neil deGrasse Tyson: Atheist or Agnostic?
http://bigthink.com/think-tank/neil-degrasse-tyson-atheist-or-agnostic

An Athei-Easter Message From Alain de Botton:
http://bigthink.com/ideas/athei-easter-with-alain-de-botton

A Thousand Years of Math History in a New App: http://www.technologyreview.com/blog/editors/27706/?nlid=nlenrg&nld=2012-04-09

New Challenger Pinterest Becomes Third Most Popular Social Network: http://www.technologyreview.com/blog/editors/27712/?nlid=nlcomm&nld=2012-04-09

Google's Search for Clean Energy. The Internet giant thought it could help invent cheap renewable power. That wasn't so easy: http://www.technologyreview.com/business/40015/?nlid=nldly&nld=2012-04-09
A Creation Myth for the Computer Age: http://www.technologyreview.com/blog/editors/27708/?nlid=nldly&nld=2012-04-09
Clayton Christensen And The Innovators' Smackdown: http://www.forbes.com/sites/stevedenning/2012/04/05/clayton-christensen-and-the-innovators-smackdown/?feed=rss_home
How Too Much Happiness Makes You Unhappy: http://bigthink.com/ideas/how-too-much-happiness-makes-you-unhappy
How to Achieve Immortality? Contribute Something: http://bigthink.com/ideafeed/how-to-achieve-immortality-contribute-something
Spam Invades a Last Refuge, the Cellphone: http://www.nytimes.com/2012/04/08/technology/text-message-spam-difficult-to-stop-is-a-growing-menace.html
How to Attend a Conference as Yourself: http://blogs.hbr.org/bregman/2012/03/how-to-attend-a-conference-as.html
How To Google Your Way To Better Search Results: http://websearch.about.com/od/Google-Advanced-Search/ss/How-To-Google-Your-Way-To-Better-Search-Results.htm?nl

Saturday, April 7, 2012

QUI CITO 6

Defying Conventional Wisdom, Water Can Float On Oil
http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2012/04/120404125226.htm

Strategic Learning Today: http://strategiclearner.tumblr.com/
Thanks to Kurt Harden, Cultural Offering!

How much paper does a person use on average in a year?:
http://www.economist.com/blogs/graphicdetail/2012/04/daily-chart-0?fsrc=scn/tw/te/dc/imalumberjack

Inventing the Cleanweb
The energy problem is humanity's greatest challenge. Here's how information technology can provide some answers. http://www.technologyreview.com/business/40013/?nlid=nlbus&nld=2012-04-06

Apple and Facebook Should Be Terrified Of Google-Tinted Glasses:
http://techcrunch.com/2012/04/04/apple-facebook-project-glass/
Ten ways to improve ypur credibility:
http://www.greatleadershipbydan.com/2012/04/10-ways-to-improve-your-credibility.html

White Bread Kills. A history of a national paranoia: http://www.slate.com/articles/double_x/doublex/2012/04/a_review_of_white_bread_a_new_book_about_our_nation_s_fear_of_flour_.html
With thanks to Dave Pell – NEXT DRAFT!

Why Thinking About Averages Can Be Disastrous: http://timkastelle.org/blog/2012/04/why-thinking-about-averages-can-be-disastrous/
With thanks to Harold Jarche!

Plasma Flashlight Zaps Bacteria: http://news.sciencemag.org/sciencenow/2012/04/plasma-flashlight-zaps-bacteria.html?ref=em

Thursday, April 5, 2012

QUI CITO 5

New Light Shone On Photosynthesis:
http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2012/04/120403085225.htm

20 signs that you can’t trusted as a leader:
http://www.greatleadershipbydan.com/2012/04/20-signs-that-you-cant-trusted-as.html

Do we live in an purposeless Universe?
http://bigthink.com/ideafeed/do-we-live-in-a-purposeless-universe

Is the Internet becoming the Bot-Net?:
http://bigthink.com/endless-innovation/is-the-internet-becoming-the-bot-net

Google vs. Facebook: The New Media Showdown
Google co-founder Larry Page is paranoid—and justifiably so, as his company's losing ground in the social media sphere to Facebook despite its best attempts:
http://www.alternet.org/media/154844/google_vs._facebook%3A_the_new_media_showdown

Wednesday, April 4, 2012

Happiness

Motto:
The best vitamin to be a happy person is B1!

Author Unknown (source: The Quote Garden)



How can happiness be described? Most probably differently by each living soul that has ever experienced it. It should be such a simple and inexhaustible resource, as we can find happiness in all the little things which we experience every day (as Robert Brault says it so nice). We can find happiness even when and where we do not expect it at all, but only if we open our hearts to recognizing it.

I see happiness as the most purely rewarding experience that invades one or more of my senses, and then smoothly insinuates into my spirit. It touches both my nerves and soul, either at the same time or in a nice succession. It may come as a pleasant mix of taste and smell, consistency and softness, fire and ice, sweetness and spiciness. It may hide in a smile or in a look, in a kiss or in an embrace, in kind words or in shared silence. It may come as recognition of familiar and comfortable sensations, or as fear and anticipation of new adventures, or even as a combination of those two at the same time. It may hide in a mix of trust and suspicion, question and answer, experience and expectation. It may bring fulfillment in one second and emptiness in the next, may bless you with satisfaction and tease you with frustration, leaving you confused between a sense of belonging and one of possession, torn between dependence and freedom, submission and control.

It started to seem complicated now, after I tried to describe it. However for me is rather simple: happiness is with me wherever I go. Even in those moments which I call unhappy, I feel also ... surprisingly happy! Because my being unhappy means that I am at the same time very much alive, free and able to feel – mad, or sad, or just bad. It clearly means that I am not dead and therefore I will keep on experiencing - taste and smell, light and darkness, smile and tear, love and hate.

So, to all those people who like to wonder whether they were, are, or will ever be happy, I just send out one simple question: why not?

Georgina

QUI CITO No. 4

QUI CITO 4

The Five Personalities of Innovators: Which One Are You?:
http://www.forbes.com/sites/brennasniderman/2012/03/21/the-five-personalities-of-innovators-which-one-are-you/

Shannon's Mathematical Theory of Communication Applied to DNA Sequencing.  Nobody knows which sequencing technology is fastest because there has never been a fair way to compare the rate at which they extract information from DNA.

Until now: http://www.technologyreview.com/blog/arxiv/27689/?nlid=nlbio&nld=2012-04-03

A “must read” IMHO: http://www.hoax-slayer.com/issue-128.shtml

Lifelong Learning: Lesson From A Cab Driver
http://qaspire.com/2012/04/03/lifelong-learning-lesson-from-a-cab-driver/

Scientists produce first genetic brain atlas:
http://www.news-medical.net/news/20120330/Scientists-produce-first-genetic-brain-atlas.aspx

Vowels: http://vimeo.com/32830670

The art of diagramming sentences: http://opinionator.blogs.nytimes.com/2012/03/26/a-picture-of-language/

The Secret Science of Memorable Quotes
Computer scientists have analysed thousands of memorable movie quotes to work out why we remember certain phrases and not others:
http://www.technologyreview.com/blog/arxiv/27691/?nlid=nldly&nld=2012-04-04

Sunday, April 1, 2012

QUI CITO No. 3

A great however incomplete Project:
http://metaphors.lib.virginia.edu/metaphors
This had convinced me that a metaphor story can be very powerful
and can be more expressive than a detailed chrono-history that will
hide the essence and is descriptive not explanatory and predictive
--------
Our brains are so complex, so interesting, so inventive structurally and so fawlty functionally and so marvelous globally! We have to accept that the brain is one of the most important organs and perhaps in a previsible future the hatred toward the people who try to use their brains intensely and meme-free- )intellectuals) will disappear.
This Is Your Brain--It's Organized Like a Woven Cloth and Not So Tangled As Once Thought:
http://www.nsf.gov/news/news_summ.jsp?cntn_id=123711&WT.mc_id=USNSF_61&WT.mc_ev=click
Brain wiring a no-brainer?: http://www.nih.gov/news/health/mar2012/nimh-29.htm
Scans reveal astonishingly simple 3D grid structure — NIH-funded study
Once Considered Mainly 'Brain Glue,' Astrocytes' Power Revealed:
http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2012/03/120329170439.htm
-----------
Words! "Rise to Vote, Sir." "Now I Won!" World Palindrome Champion Crowned: http://www.visualthesaurus.com/cm/blogexcerpts/3194/
----
Professional Help: 5 Strategies for Creative Problem Solving: http://www.theatlantic.com/health/archive/2012/03/professional-help-5-strategies-for-creative-problem-solving/254415/
I am a problem solver myself but I need and love good competition and I admire TRIZ
-----------
Problems with honestans and swindlecants:
http://brainden.com/logic-problems.htm
It was a perfect apartheid in this country, however the great love
of Julia Honest and Romeo Swindly, has changed everything. They
had even children, Dan and Rose the “sira”s- the “mixed ones”. Nobody, indigenous people or strangers is able to communicate with Dan or Rose because they are unpredictable, you never know when they are telling the truth or when they are lying.
Is this so very different with the normal people?
I wonder if this story isn’t too subtle or too stupid, but we have trouble with a man who is a big problem- as Dana and Rose combined – and it very possible that this  man has made both a great Discovery and a terrible cognitive mess.
----------
Leaders of Faster-Than-Light Experiment Step Down: http://news.sciencemag.org/scienceinsider/2012/03/leaders-of-faster-than-light-exp.html?ref=em
I have written in my blog about negative discoveries- see e.g. http://egooutpeters.blogspot.com/2011/01/first-seed.html
However I dislike the idea to obtain success by demonstrating that some Great Authority has made an error. It is OK, I think, to demonstrate that you are smarter than Einstein but it is not fair to show that Einstein was more stupid than you. By the way, what is the bright theory that predicts that the neutrinos can move faster
than light? The real problem is that the light is too slow compared to the huge dimensions of our Universe.