INFORMAVORE's SUNDAY No 470

EDITORIAL.

It is my pleasure to share with you again my weekly discoveries and proofs  of progress in the real world.

Here I confess you that in addition to my great intellectual loves, rather harmonious and happy: : http://egooutpeters.blogspot.com/2011/08/taxonomy-mon-amour.html

http://egooutpeters.blogspot.com/2011/08/technology-mon-amour.html

there exists a third one, as passionate as the others, but not harmonious at all, mixed with silent and not so silent desperation- the love of Progress. It can survive only by associations with the other two stories of love. Outside technology, it is quite impossible to find signs of progress...Morally, socially, politically, financially the World is broken and in regress. I will tell you more about this in the near future.

Peter

SEARCH

INTERNET

Seeing the future of the office Internet:

http://www.technologyreview.com/video/?vid=739

 

7 Years Later – Top Internet Properties 2004 – 2011:

http://www.searchmarketingstandard.com/7-years-later-top-internet-properties-2004-2011

SEARCH & FIND: What, where, how.  

 

Searcher Demographics – We Are What We Search: http://searchenginewatch.com/article/2103242/Searcher-Demographics-We-Are-What-We-Search

 

A comparison engine for large data sets: http://www.findthedata.org/

Wendy Boswell: What are people searching for on the Web? http://websearch.about.com/b/2011/08/19/what-are-people-searching-for-on-the-web.htm?nl=1

 

How to Find the Most Popular Searches on the Web:

http://websearch.about.com/od/topsearches/a/find_top_search.htm?nl=1

The Top 25 Web Searches of the Decade: http://websearch.about.com/od/enginesanddirectories/tp/top-web-searches-of-the-decade.htm?nl=1

The Top Twenty YouTube Videos of All Time

http://websearch.about.com/od/freevideos/tp/top-videos-youtube.htm?nl=1

                               

Six Ways You Can Use the Real-Time Web:

http://websearch.about.com/od/web20/tp/real-time-web.htm?nl=1

 

BLOGS and SOCIAL SITES

 

Helping Social Networkers Connect Even More

New apps let social media users connect through many different channels: http://www.technologyreview.com/communications/38365/?nlid=nlcomm&nld=2011-08-22&a=f

 

Facebook, Twitter boom despite Google+ challenge

Report shows strong growth for social nets, especially Tumblr and LinkedIn:  http://www.computerworld.com/s/article/9219463/Facebook_Twitter_boom_despite_Google_challenge?source=CTWNLE_nlt_pm_2011-08-24

The 7 Deadliest Twitter Mistakes: http://www.searchenginepeople.com/blog/7-twitter-mistakes.html

International Bloggers and Internet Control http://cyber.law.harvard.edu/sites/cyber.law.harvard.edu/files/International_Bloggers_and_Internet_Control_0.pdf: .

GOOGLE

 

Google Wants Search to Know What You Know

A revamped search engine might return different results depending on whether you've researched a subject before:

http://www.technologyreview.com/web/38441/?nlid=nldly&nld=2011-08-26

 

The 1000 most-visited sites on the web, according to Google: http://www.google.com/adplanner/static/top1000/index.html

 

Video: How Google Improves Their Search Algorithms:

http://searchengineland.com/video-how-google-improves-their-search-algorithms-90602

 

Wendy Boswell: change the Google home page background image:

http://websearch.about.com/b/2011/08/16/change-the-google-home-page-background-image.htm?nl=1

 

Hypertext Visionary Jorge Luis Borges Celebrated with Google Logo:                 http://searchenginewatch.com/article/2103895/Hypertext-Visionary-Jorge-Luis-Borges-Celebrated-with-Google-Logo

Google Bombs Explained: http://google.about.com/od/socialtoolsfromgoogle/a/googlebombatcl.htm?nl=1

WORDS, BOOKS, LIBRARIES

 

The Secret Language Code- the secret meaning of pronouns: http://www.scientificamerican.com/article.cfm?id=the-secret-language-code&offset=2

 

Print vs. Online

The ways in which old-fashioned newspapers still trump online newspapers: http://www.slate.com/id/2302014/

Amazing libraries:

http://weburbanist.com/2011/08/22/bountiful-books-13-incredibly-intricate-historic-libraries/:

SCIENCE

 

Fundamental Discovery About Neurons May Radically Alter Current View of Neurotransmission: http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2011/08/110823154038.htm

 

Young Brains Lack the Wisdom of Their Elders, Clinical Study Shows: http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2011/08/110825102253.htm

 

How Many Species On Earth? About 8.7 Million, New Estimate Says: http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2011/08/110823180459.htm

Oldest fossils on Earth discovered:

http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2011/08/110821205241.htm

 

Discovery of a 160-Million-Year-Old Fossil Represents a New Milestone in Early Mammal Evolution: http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2011/08/110824131535.htm

UC Davis Entomologist Lynn Kimsey Discovers New Species of Wasp: Gigantic Wasp With Long, Powerful Jaws

http://entomology.ucdavis.edu/news/warriorwaspnewspecies.html

 

Why Spiders Don't Drop Off of Their Threads: Source of Spider Silk's Extreme Strength Unveiled: http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2011/08/110817120223.htm

 

Parasite Uses the Power of Attraction to Trick Rats Into Becoming Cat Food: http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2011/08/110819141519.htm

Secret life of millipedes: http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2011/08/110822092316.htm 

 

Riot control: How can we stop newspapers distorting science?:L

http://www.guardian.co.uk/science/blog/2011/aug/22/riot-control-newspapers-distorting-science

TECHNOLOGY

New energy storage device could recharge electric vehicles in minutes: http://www.physorg.com/news/2011-08-energy-storage-device-recharge-electric.html  Thanks to Rich Murray!

 

Power-Scavenging Batteries

Inexpensive chips harvest mechanical energy to charge batteries for wireless sensors. http://www.technologyreview.com/energy/38434/?nlid=nlmat&nld=2011-08-25

The Next Generation of Technology- 35 Innovators under 35:

http://www.technologyreview.com/article/38322/?nlid=nldly&nld=2011-08-23

Visual tour: the future of tablets;:

http://www.computerworld.com/s/article/9219375/Visual_tour_The_future_of_tablets?source=CTWNLE_nlt_dailyam_2011-08-23

 

Tablet computers

Difference Engine: Reality dawns:

http://www.economist.com/blogs/babbage/2011/08/tablet-computers?fsrc=nlw|newe|08-26-11|new_on_the_economist

 

Quick and Cheap Data Storage? New Multiferroic Material Is Both Electrically Charged and Magnetic: http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2011/08/110822101946.htm

 

Unexpected Adhesion Properties of Graphene May Lead to New Nanotechnology Devices: http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2011/08/110823141907.htm

 

Engineers Discover Nanoscale Balancing Act That Mirrors Forces at Work in Living Systems:

http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2011/08/110823180520.htm

May I remind you this very useful link for solving your PC/IT problems: http://ask-leo.com/

 

Exploring the Possibilities for Zeolites: Team Creates Database of 2.6 Million Varieties of Molecular Sieves: http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2011/04/110405113020.htm

EDUCATION, CULTURE, ART

Dave Pollard- a new essay from the series: “How the World

Works”:                               http://howtosavetheworld.ca/2011/08/21/what-we-measure-reflects-our-culture/

 

The Shrinkage Solution

A pair of civil engineers proposed that we genetically engineer shorter people to conserve resources:

http://www.technologyreview.com/article/38351/?nlid=nlbio&nld=2011-08-23

Free computer science courses, new teaching technology reinvent online education

Stanford Engineering professors are setting out to add a new level of interactivity to online education by offering three of the university's most popular computer science classes for free. http://news.stanford.edu/news/2011/august/online-computer-science-081611.html

Genomics in Education: http://www.nslc.wustl.edu/elgin/genomics/

Famous last words, our 20 favorite final line in literature:

http://flavorwire.com/167171/famous-last-words-our-20-favorite-final-lines-in-literature

 

And something similar to the site from above, Bulwer  Lytton Contest 2011: http://www.bulwer-lytton.com/2011.htm

 

The meaning of life in under 300 words:

http://www.spring.org.uk/2011/08/the-meaning-of-life-in-under-300-words.php

Egotist Rex: Are a Dictator's Defiant Statements Indicative of Self-Delusion?: For months Col. Muammar Qadhafi has resisted the popular rebellion in Libya, making a series of strong and sometimes bizarre statements along the way

http://www.scientificamerican.com/article.cfm?id=libya-qadhafi-psychology

 

People are biased against creative ideas, studies find:

http://www.physorg.com/news/2011-08-people-biased-creative-ideas.html

Bob Rankin- ASCII art- an Internet treasure:

http://askbobrankin.com/ascii_art_an_internet_treasure.html?awt_l=4jAx_&awt_m=J1Ior0xHJ8P6SL

BUSINESS

 

Steve Jobs’s Best Quotes: http://blogs.wsj.com/digits/2011/08/24/steve-jobss-best-quotes/

 

Global Capitalism at Risk: What Are You Doing About It?” http://hbr.org/2011/09/global-capitalism-at-risk-what-are-you-doing-about-it/ar/1

Getting to Eureka!: How Companies Can Promote Creativity:

http://hbswk.hbs.edu/item/6734.html?wknews=08242011

 

What Is Culture and Why Is It Important?:

http://knowledge.wpcarey.asu.edu/article.cfm?articleid=2022

How to build company culture: http://knowledge.wpcarey.asu.edu/article.cfm?articleid=2023

Evolution of a good employee:

http://mappingcompanysuccess.com/2011/08/my-generation-evolution-of-a-good-employee/

The Economics of Enough: How to Run the Economy as if the Future Matters By Diane Coyle Princeton University Press, 2011:

http://www.strategy-business.com/article/11312?gko=6a99e&cid=BL20110825

 

How Dangerous Is Common Sense to Managers?:

http://hbswk.hbs.edu/item/6785.html?wknews=08242011

10 Psychological Techniques to Help You Get a New Job: http://www.spring.org.uk/2011/08/10-psychological-techniques-to-help-you-get-a-new-job.php

Perceptions:

http://mappingcompanysuccess.com/2011/08/perceptions/

 

Economic Inequality Is Linked to Biased Self-Perception:

http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2011/08/110823131227.htm

Very controversial- 5 reasons Capitalism has Failed: http://www.alternet.org/story/152118/5_reasons_capitalism_has_failed?akid=7442.112117.BQmcHs&rd=1&t=2

Why capitalism has not failed:

http://www.alternet.org/newsandviews/article/655007/here%27s_why_capitalism_has_not_failed/#paragraph3

Making sense of our world (it is about Personal Knowledge Management): http://www.jarche.com/2011/08/making-sense-of-our-world/

 

Cryptocurrency -by James Surowiecki author of “Wisdom of Crowds”  The bitcoin, a virtual medium of exchange, could be a real alternative to government-issued money—but only if it survives hoarding by speculators: http://www.technologyreview.com/computing/38392/?nlid=nldly&nld=2011-08-24

Exposing that which lies below the surface:

http://www.jarche.com/2011/08/exposing-that-which-lies-below-the-surface/

 

Diagnose and Eliminate Workplace Bullying:

http://blogs.hbr.org/cs/2011/07/diagnose_and_eliminate_workplace.html

 

Getting Leaders to Change:

http://www.greatleadershipbydan.com/2011/08/getting-leaders-to-change.html

HOW TO STAND UP TO YOUR BOSS (WITHOUT BEING A PAIN IN THE ASS (by Guy Kawasaki):

http://bigthink.com/ideas/39796?utm_source=Big+Think+Weekly+Newsletter+Subscribers&utm_campaign=5c715ed5c0-Wednesday_Newsletter_August_24_2011&utm_medium=email

 

Entrepreneur- Murphy’s Law:

http://mappingcompanysuccess.com/2011/08/entrepreneur-murphys-law/

 

To catch a liar:

http://blogs.hbr.org/cs/2011/06/to_catch_a_liar.html

HEALTH & MEDICINE

 

Puzzle of Brain Function (important for psychiatry): http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2011/08/110819092421.htm

 

Hologram Method Used to Study Neurons

The approach could ultimately be used to rapidly screen new drugs designed to protect brain cells: .

http://www.technologyreview.com/biomedicine/38438/?nlid=nldly&nld=2011-08-26

 

Designing drugs based on what parasites eat:

http://www.cosmosmagazine.com/node/4649/full

 

Could New Drug Cure Nearly Any Viral Infection? Technology Shows Promise Against Common Cold, Influenza and Other Ailments, Researchers Say:

http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2011/08/110826134012.htm

 

Drug Interactions, What you Should Know: http://www.fda.gov/Drugs/ResourcesForYou/ucm163354.htm

 

Infected Insects Fight Dengue Fever:

http://news.sciencemag.org/sciencenow/2011/08/disease-fighting-mosquitoes-prol.html?ref=em&elq=1fa0aa62f7b94374a1d22a6d09651c90

 

Doing away with the dentist’s drill by helping teeth regenerate themselves:                                            http://www.gizmag.com/regenerating-teeth/19608/

 

Does Religion Influence Epidemics?:

http://news.sciencemag.org/sciencenow/2011/08/does-religion-influence-epidemic.html?rss=1

 

How to relieve back pain: http://backandneck.about.com/od/exerciseandsport/tp/backexerciseprogram.htm?nl=1

http://pilates.about.com/od/pilatesroutines/ss/Pilates-Back-Exercises.htm?nl=1

https://mail.google.com/mail/#inbox/131fced9191ec592

http://yoga.about.com/od/yogaandbackpain/a/backpainhub.htm?nl=1 Due to my working system at the PC 17/7/365 I know welll this problem

Analyzing your sleep: http://www.technologyreview.com/video/?vid=732&nlid=nlbio&nld=2011-08-23

 

Health Risks With Nanotechnology? Nanoparticles Can Hinder Intracellular Transport: http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2011/08/110824091143.htm

 

The Petri Dish Gets a Makeover

A nanopore membrane creates faster, surer cultures for everything from hospital diagnostics to water-quality checks:. http://www.technologyreview.com/biomedicine/38404/?nlid=nldly&nld=2011-08-23

FOOD & COOKING

Cooking games visited teach children how to cook:

http://savedelete.com/cooking-games-visited-teach-children-how-to-cook.html

Cooking may be 1.9m years old, say scientists

Researchers say cooking was commonplace among Homo erectus and probably originated early in their era or earlier:

http://www.guardian.co.uk/science/2011/aug/22/cooking-origins-homo-erectus

Lager's mystery ingredient found

Missing ancestor of yeast used in cold-brewed beer is identified:

http://www.sciencenews.org/view/generic/id/333563/title/Lagers_mystery_ingredient_found

MISCELLANEA

 

How to burglar-proof your stash of cash:

http://columnfivemedia.com/work-items/mint-infographic-how-to-burglar-proof-your-stash-of-cash/

SELECTED NEWS

SPAM & SPYWARE   

VIRUSES & e-CROOKS

 

7 Ways To Save Your Online Information From Computer Hackers:

http://savedelete.com/7-ways-to-save-your-online-information-from-computer-hackers.html

 

Web hoaxes: how to make sure you don't fall for 'em:

http://websearch.about.com/b/2011/08/17/web-hoaxes-how-to-make-sure-you-dont-fall-for-em.htm?nl=1

Researchers see improved Zeus malware:

http://www.pcworld.com/businesscenter/article/238777/researchers_see_improvements_in_breakaway_zeus_malware.html

The latest issue of “Hoax Slaye”r:

http://www.hoax-slayer.com/issue-118.shtml

WiFi

Roots II – Tolerance

Motto: A civilized society is one which tolerates eccentricity to the point of doubtful sanity – Robert Frost

Wikipedia defines tolerance as ‘the practice of permitting a thing of which one disapproves, such as social, ethnic, sexual, or religious practices’.

Wikipedia also defines the very paradox of intolerance - a tolerant person might be antagonistic toward intolerance, hence intolerant of it. The tolerant individual would then be by definition intolerant of intolerance. It is almost like a circular reference in Excel.

I remember a Romanian joke about tolerance in a marriage: she tolerated his promiscuous behavior, he tolerated her promiscuous behavior, and therefore they were leaving together in a tolerance house (Romanian synonym for red-light house).

I will have to take you back to the end of introductory post (Roots), just for continuity sake.

Tolerance is praised nowadays as one of the key pre-requisite to globalization, communication and mutual understanding between all people, as the ultimate virtue that must be universally practiced in order to get everything in good order. Of course that ‘good order’ in the view of tolerance is that I would let you do whatever you want, even thou I disapprove and it is wrong as per my standards. Alternatively, being intolerant means I try to stop you and inflict my view of right and wrong upon you, which would be breaching your basic human rights. Tolerance is the twin sister of freedom, one of the 3 basic human rights born during the French Revolution (together with equality and brotherhood).

In other words, I am free to do as I please, you MUST be tolerant and let me do it. Or… I am free to do as I please, you ARE NOT FREE to choose if you want to tolerate this or not. Well… we already have a breach of one’s basic human rights.

Let’s go one step further. Tolerance does not seem wrong as a basic concept; however it is a fine line between tolerance, acceptance and practice. And this is where Pandora’s box opens, because history has shown that things that are initially forbidden are first practiced in secrecy, then bashfully tolerated, then more and more brought to public knowledge, gradually accepted and finally turned into normal habits for bigger and bigger part of the population.

I perceive our own education towards tolerance as one of the biggest roots of current crisis. Everybody gets his or her unique perception about good and bad through the basic education in the family, and is permanently further modeled by own personality, circle of friends and own experience. Personal level of tolerance is influenced by many factors – from character to context, circle of comfort and instinct of survival (sometimes it is purely dangerous to be intolerant), perception about own dignity and basic rights, protection and love (we can be very tolerant when it comes to ourselves but extremely intolerant when it comes to threats to our children or loved ones).

In general we have became more and more tolerant with the bad things around us, we choose more and more to create and protect our own microenvironment, assuming that as long as we do not bother other people they would not bother us. We tolerate bad service and rude behavior, bad management and corrupt politicians, expensive but low-quality service. Even more, it seems to me that we tend to tolerate more frequently exactly those things that we can actually change (maybe not easily but still… within our power); but we are too lazy or too afraid or plainly not motivated to do so. We look so often for personal gain in the things we do, that we have almost forgot to do things just for the simple reason of being right and proper. On the other hand, we are quick and loud in publicly showing our disappointment and “intolerance” either towards petty little things that do not matter or towards exactly the opposite- major global problems, which we know will not be changed simply by our manifest of intolerance (actually what I am doing now would fit into this latest category, right?...)

What does this have to do with the roots of the global crisis? Well, potentially everything. In the first part I was commenting about Eastern (ex-communist) countries and Western (traditionally capitalist) ones. I had some comments from an exceptional American reader that made me read my first post again, as he seems to have picked something in-between my lines. His perception was that I was somehow accusing the Western world from dispersing the “morale rot plague” through the Eastern world. I have to say it is far from me to say anything like that. I would say that on both sides of the Berlin Wall people have learnt in the long period of Cold War to tolerate different things and not tolerate others and when then came in contact with each other the diplomatic approach was to tolerate everything just to preserve the newly gained contact.

To cut it short: the root of current world evolutions seems to me that lies within the clash of very different civilizations. Kind-of-Babylon city only that this time the stage is the whole world and there are almost 7 billion actors. We all preach the path of tolerance, but the huge diversity does not allow us to make the further natural step towards acceptance or the even bigger step towards uniform practice. We however inflict on each other every day things that we do not believe in, until the comfort line is crossed. And I am not referring now only to race & color, religion & belief, culture & history, tradition & habit, value & morale, social & political systems etc.

I remember one of my University teachers who asked us why we think there is no movie about the life of a normal teacher that studies, gets married, has children and teaches other people until retirement and then goes to a village and enjoys the silence and flowers and family for the rest of his life. The answer was: because this is such a normal life pattern that would be boring for anyone to watch. But take a 2-hour action-movie and try to live at that pace everyday for one year. You will not make it and will not want to hear another action story in your life again. You will want to go to the village and retire and forget about business schemes, secret lives, complicated intrigues and painfully twisted love stories.

Maybe he is right, maybe the true lies somewhere in the middle – one month of adventurous vacation and then one year of normal life would be just fine for most of the people.

Coming back to the topic, diving into diversity as a challenge and using tolerance as a survival tool may be challenging and nice as an occasional case-study, touristic attraction or movie scenario, but not for everyday living over extensive period of time. At a certain point you have to withdraw into a circle of comfort and get a normal life.

And for this purpose we create family and friendship circles, long term commitments and self-satisfactory set of values on individual levels. While on social level, we empower other people to take care of those other things, which we presume should be “ensured” with our money and our vote. It is part of our human rights; however if we do not break out of our circle of comfort from time to time, to exercise control and corrective measures on those mandated people, in the long run we will have no guarantee that they fulfill their tasks. Because the basic human nature will teach them to take the easy ways out.

When a child does something wrong (and is caught), he/she is punished by the parents until he/she learns how to behave. When a mature individual does something wrong (and is proved guilty), the punishment should come – from the justice system set by the society. When a social group does something wrong (and is publicly disclosed), the usual punishment is marginalization or even extinction of that group from social life. When a society does something wrong … it is very hard to expose and even harder to correct.

Today I feel quite optimistic, so I would like to believe no matter how deep the roots of the moral crisis we are facing, we will sooner or later get our heads above the water again. We will not be able to put all the bad things back into Pandora ’s Box, as the idea of reversing the global trends is not just impossible to implement, but also completely insane even to try. We will just have to find a way to adapt and survive. And the great news I have today is that we are so easily adaptable!

There is just one question ahead: to what should we adapt?

We should stop believing in the perfect country with the perfect people, the perfect economy and the perfect social and political system. We are all so predictably human and at the same time so predictably different, that we have to start understanding and appreciating diversity of civilizations and societies just as much as we praise ourselves that we appreciate diversity between individuals.

After all, societies are also living animals and we have to respect their power and stop inflicting our distorted expectations on them. We just have to find the right balance between tolerance and its paradox, decide for ourselves and for our surrounding where should one start and the other one begin, within the boundaries of the platinum rule (which you may find described here).

Until next time, I promise to stay tolerant within the boundaries of sanity, while wishing the same for you.

Georgina Popescu

ANTICIPATING THE 1MW DEMO.

DEMO

To convince people is best done using good proofs; if they are public the name of demo, from demonstration (too long!) is used. I want to start a discussion- how have they to be organized and executed. The reason is that two important New Energy demos are due for the coming season;

a)     BLP/Randy Mills’s CIHT technology;

b)     Andrea Rossi’s US 1 MW NI-H LENR catalyst technology;

These will be events, potentially very important ones. No problem with Mills’ demo I know him and it is obvious he will do it only if everything is OK, i.e. as far as I understand he succeeded to transform discontinuous processes in continuous ones. A very challenging action technically- for my flagship research, suspension vinyl chloride polymerization it proved to be impossible and we know enough to state that it will stay so- in batches.

However, I will keep all my crossable parts crossed for Randy.

Please notice that he is not using anticipatitive bragging and does not want to be a favorite of the mass media.

How will Rossi execute his demo is not well known, he intends seemingly to combine an army of 330 E-cat generators to produce

1000 kWatts but other data are not clear.  This demo will take place in the last week of October- there are only 68 days left.

From unclear reasons, only very smart people will be present.\Is this contagious? A factor of success?

This is an opportunity to define and to think about a good demo.

The wise dictionaries say a demo is a showing of the merits of a product or service to a prospective consumer. Then it is easy to imagine that a good demo is one that convinces the customer that

product or service will please him- and this is an important step forward.

I think a good demo must be, first of all well centered- targeted on what is really significant and important, serious (see please http://egooutpeters.blogspot.com/2011/01/other-definition-by-mihail-ralea.html ),

A stressing but sometimes pleasant life situation can illustrate well what I want to say. Take the event and institution of wedding night in its idealized way. According to the traditional roles of sexes, the young husband is the one who has to demonstrate that the marriage will be happy. He has more choices:

- showing his perfect muscles, huge biceps’s etc, demonstrating he is a real sportsman, strong and powerful and can take care of his new wife;

- solving a very challenging IQ test obtaining more than 150 points so she knows that she is the wife of a genius;,

masterfully interpreting e.g. “To be or not to be” or reciting some long classical poems (Ossian is the best choice; :

;

singing a beautiful aria like this better than Pavarotti:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=n_ojGaC99Ls ;

telling excellent jokes that keep her laughing all the night and giving the revelation of a merry life;

preaching with enthusiasm, humility and dedication- so she feels with gratitude that he will take care of her undying soul;;

However, life is realistic, materialistic and pragmatic, actually the main and determining task of the husband is to convince his wife that they will have a happy sex life, using for this facts and experiment, All the other shows will come later- they will have perhaps 50-60 years to mutually discover other virtues- wedding night is specifically and almost exclusively for sex.

By analogy (as much as an analogy is possible) an energy source has to be potent, long-lasting, repeatable, renewable, quasi-continuous,  controllable, functioning with apparent minimum of effort, safe (in multiple senses), predictably good, natural.

With open, clear, transparent verifiable measurements.

I believe if Randy will make a demo, this will be a success.

Re Rossi I don’t know, everything is possible from a real triumph to a bitter fiasco.

Rossi has promised much. Promising and keeping promises or not

this reminds me an other episode of my long career. At my first workplace- the Synthetic Fiber Works Savinesti more Italian specialists were commissioning the plants... The director, whom I remember very positively but other colleagues said later he was a communist rascal working directly with the Secret Police, has asked us, young engineers to socialize with the Italians. So I played chess that I Like and contract bridge that was too complex for me- with Signor Cabassi and other foreigners learning the language and the game. Later I abandoned completely bridge and forgot it Playing bridge needs free, idle time that I never had- should I repeat?  for being restless.

But contract bridge (exactly as poker or chess) is similar to life in its own way. It is about the art of bidding. In contract bridge if you promise high and don’t attain you have promised, you are punished severely. You promise less and you do a little more, you are rewarded but not very generously.

Now, if Rossi demonstrates he can offer a commercially mature generator, able to compete with those already on the market,

this would be a real triumph, BUT if he fails- please notice! This will NOT be a catastrophe, will NOT push back LENR research with 20 years- NO, if Rossi’s demo fails, then Rossi’s demo has failed, that’s all. LENR is viable, is developing and has a great future, with or without Rossi...

PS. I have not sent this http://culturaloffering.com/2011/08/23/funny-because-it-could-require-a-deep-dive.aspx directly to these forums, but I think

It is about steam quality in Rossi’s kW level demos. Inexhaustible.

May I ask you to discuss better on “Anticipating the 1 MW demo” instead?

  

TECHNOLOGY- MON AMOUR!

TECHNOLOGY- MON AMOUR!

(a techno-intellectual declaration of love)  

In 1954 every well informed individual knew that in short time we will use atomic energy overall and all the other sources of energy will be obsolete. Therefore, I wanted to become an atomic physicist.

I even had outlined a theory of the Isotach Space that I had sent to the address “Albert Einstein, Princeton, USA.” It seems, he has not received it; perhaps this is the reason that atomic energy did not become the great winner. Due to my bad social origin, I was not admitted to learn atomic physics and so I became a chemical engineer and I have worked in the great chemical works of  Romania  These units claimed by the Party to compete with the

Capitalists, have used many technologies bought from the competition so I have learned very early about know –how, technology transfer, patents, experts, implementation, technological experiments and so on. Competition was hard, and in order to survive on the market it was necessary to improve the technologies thus acquired- to manufacture more, products of better quality, cheaper plus to not destroy the environment completely.

The Party, the political police were perturbing factors, like very toxic bosses, or crazy parasites. Fortunatelyk physical sciences and technologies are not political so we could have exercised our profession, develop insatiable thirst for learning, professional ambition and proudness. To solve problems, to find problems to discover. To live successes and failures.

I remember some revelations and mind changing meetings. With papers and with people.

When I have worked in a factory of plasticizers, the manager who enjoyed the trust of the Party first of all because he had tuberculosis and this was considered something very positive (even the Party activists who were not idiots structurally, genetically were so functionally and collectively) - OK, the manager has visited a modern plasticizer plant in England. He has understood there a lot and came back with very new and surprising things- essence huge technological improvements can be made! Mainly based on the use of vacuum and of catalysts.

 A few years later I was deeply impressed by an UNO expert –

I remember him as Laurie Milton. His job was to inspect all the DDT manufacturing plants worldwide. This was before the criminalization of DDT by the book “Silent Spring” by Rachel

Carson has made its effect. I can say volumes about this, perhaps

in a writing “ECOLOGY- MON AMI” Just allow me to say that our TVs ask me daily money for the African children dying of malaria and that a terribly unpleasant animal, Cimex lecturarius, commonly bed bug, is again consuming American blood.

OK, when Dr. Milton came to us, our DDT plant was important. He has analyzed the manufacturing process we used from start to end and beyond (secondary products). Systematically, logically, step by step, telling us how each step can be optimized. I was not working in that plant and had no special interest for it, however his exposé  was captivating, I understood well, once for ever about  Know What, Know How and about Know Why- the peak of technological knowledge.. Add to this Know Who- the experts in the field and you know what you have to understand about each and all technologies of interest.

From technologies to Technology. I read this paper:

Pierre Le Goff

A NEW APPRAISAL OF CHEMICAL ENGINEERING

In: Industrial & engineering chemistry. - Washington, DC : Soc., ISSN 1520-5045, Vol. 56, No. 8 (1964), p. 18-28

See about the author: Pierre Le Goff’8 February 1923–7 March 2005 http://www.exergia.com.mx/pdf/abstracts/A2006_1.pdf

In the paper, Prof. Le Goff has defined Technology as:

“Processes of transport, transfer and transformation of matter, energy and information that create something useful for people.”

A perfect definition- only the term ‘useful’ can generate problems and the question- “for which people?” Weapons, drugs, torture tools are also manufactured by technologies. The paper was written before the IT era but Le Goff has well understood the role of information.

It is one the most useful and beautiful definitions I know...

Then came my affair with suspension PVC that ended really never, just changed form. It helped me to discover two essential rules of technology:”

1. Everything is progressing.
2.  If something is not improving, it decays. The opposite of progress is not stagnation, but decay.

Therefore if you are working for a technology, you have to work for its continuous advancing.

Information, knowledge are essential for attaining this. Practically

you have to know everything that was published about your technology, you have to know as much as possible  from the unpublished data. You have to know more than the competition.

Exactly as the proverbial salesman who knows more about the products of the competition as about his own in order to tell

why his product is the best, the technologist has to know how to manufacture the best products possible and eventually to become his own most serious and active competitor. This not an idealized situation, it is simply realism and pragmatism, is the key of evolution and progress.

I want to discuss with my reader friends two of the means to fulfill these difficult tasks: Competitive Intelligence and reverse engineering. I am proud that I have discovered independently both in times when information re management was scarce. But they are both natural.

For example, working for PVC, I have gathered some 6200 papers and over 20000 patents. Add to these reports, standards, grey literature, discussion with colleagues, visits in plants. A lot of data

And here enters my beloved taxonomy: we had to organize them

chronologically to see evolution and trends:

logically- to study and evaluate different technological solutions,

technologically- that is in the frame of a process used by a company

It is not easy and you need concentration, stubbornness, motivation, analytical ability and the will and talent to reveal hidden correlations. To be a genuine industrial researcher. Many years we have worked PC-less.

As an application of the laws of Galileo you have to verify experimentally what you have deduced from your studies and analyses. Competitive Intelligence is a special and specialized source of information. When we have discovered it is we used to call it “to make your lesson” Today, competitive intelligence is flourishing first of all due to the Internet- being mainly a form of web search.

It is not industrial espionage, it is legal and ethical. Instead of making CI’s theory- please study: http://www.fuld.com

http://www.scip.org , http://www.sciseek.com

http://www.competia.com and similar sites..

Reverse engineering- is an investigation of inner workings of a product. It is easier when you want to know how is a product, how it is working. But it can be very high art when you are interested in a process i.e. how was the product obtained. It can be discussed

if it is ethical or not but it is made respecting the principle of reciprocity- what you are making with the product of the competition, the competion is free to make with yours. And you cannot copy or steal the features well protected by a smart patent

You can learn a lot anyway. When my mission was to build a good

and progressing PVC technology, I have gathered by diverse means many samples of the best products of the markets and have

developed special analytical methods extra to the standard analyses.

One example PVC is in form of powder and the morphology of the particles –size, porosity, fine structure, outer skin is essential and these correlations were the subject of my PhD thesis. During my work years a wonderful instrument was just invented: the scanning electron microscope. See http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scanning_electron_microscope We could not afford to buy one, however we just bought two chromatographs from  the fine JEOL company, now a leader in microscopy. The specialist who has installed the chromatographs

was a very nice guy, we became friends and I have asked him to make me SEM photos about the most interesting PVC samples.

As far as I remember these were the first SEM photos coming in Romania it was in 1968 (?) These photos have revealed a lot\

about the samples.

Reverse engineering is interesting, challenging, revelatory sometimes impossible; it helps and accelerates technological progress, I mam asking again is it ethical? In a healthy competition- who knows where is the limit of ethical? The dominant moneytheist ethics is strange, a problem for study, In order to stop its effects your idea must be protected by a good, smart, solid, crystal-clear patent attesting the originality of your invention, No wonder that Andrea Rossi has developed strong reverseengineeringphobia. It is difficult to tell why he has not

patented his miraculously efficient mixture of Ni powder and CM Pixie Dust so that everybody using it, has to pay him.

I wonder what could do the competition of the E-cat first of all Defkalion to know more about the unpatented E-cat technology.

I hope they will make 3, 33 or 330 perfect experiments instead

of that “scale-up, not scale-up” of combining 330 E-cats, very unusual to not tell blasphemous for a lover of Good Technology.

Yes, technology and its principles are kind of sacred for me.

It is a privilege for an old technologist like me to assist at the birth of the very important and promising Transition Metals-H LENR technology. Technology has its own Rules that have to be respected as Prof Piantelli has demonstrated for Science..