DNA animation

[John Larkin]

On Wed, 15 May 2019 07:18:16 -0700 (PDT), George Herold
<gherold@teachspin.com> wrote:

On Wednesday, May 15, 2019 at 9:36:56 AM UTC-4, Martin Brown wrote:
On 14/05/2019 23:32, Clifford Heath wrote:
On 15/5/19 1:28 am, Jeroen Belleman wrote:
Rick C wrote:
[...]

Humans will not be different in any significant way in 1,000
years.  Are we any different than we were 1,000 years ago? [...]

I wonder. If you see how much we changed some animals and
many plants, what might happen if we start applying those
methods to ourselves? And that doesn't even take direct
gene-editing into account.

A much more likely source of big change is the modified selection
pressure from the environment we have changed.

Although the main environmental modifications at present seem to result
in a huge increase in weight, morbid obesity and type II diabetes.

I choose to believe we're on the eve of a revolution.

I know that our current ethical norms are against such
things, but those norms evolve, too.

I completely agree. I've progressed far enough in my thinking that I
believe we have a *moral imperative* to diversify our own germ line,
creating many sub-species of specialists and hybridising with animal
genetics. Yes, that's much more than just "a step too far" for most
folk, rather it transplants the dialog onto another planet. I've been
brewing up a novel about it for well over a decade now.

The most interesting one would be to see if we can generate the right
structures in a human to permit chloroplasts and photosynthesis. We
wouldn't need to eat quite so much if we could directly make sugars.

And green humans like the Treens in Dan Dare would be quite cool.
Without doing any numbers.. it seems like there would hardly be any gain.
(I'm lucky to get ~10 hours of full sun in a week.)
It takes a corn plant all summer to make a few ears of corn.
(I'm guessing I have about the same area as a corn plant.)

George H.

--
Regards,
Martin Brown

Get as much sun as you can. It not only makes vitamin D, it does other
good stuff.

MS is unheard of in sunny climes. People in cold gloomy places get it.


--

John Larkin Highland Technology, Inc

lunatic fringe electronics

 

[Rick C]

On Tuesday, May 14, 2019 at 4:51:07 PM UTC-4, Tom Gardner wrote:

On 14/05/19 16:25, Martin Brown wrote:
On 14/05/2019 15:50, Rick C wrote:
JL's talents include designing analog electronics at the board level,
drinking beer and eating burgers.  He is largely ignorant of the
greater world and chooses to remain that way.  Are you really
surprised at this point?

He is still a decent engineer and obviously intelligent. I cannot understand why
he has such a preference for "just so" stories.

Being American, he may not understand what is meant
by a "just so" stories.

Yes, well certainly being American is a tough handicap to overcome.

Depends what you mean by significantly different. We are on average about 4"
taller than we were in the Victorian and Elizabethan era - something I have to
bear in mind when I visit older buildings.

I once viewed a house for sale where I had to duck going
between some rooms. I'm 5'3"/1.6m tall

Must have been a farm house with so many ducks.

--

Rick C.

-+++- Get a 5,000 miles of free Supercharging
-+++- Tesla referral code - https://ts.la/richard11209

 

[Bill Sloman]

On Thursday, May 16, 2019 at 12:41:16 AM UTC+10, John Larkin wrote:

On Wed, 15 May 2019 07:18:16 -0700 (PDT), George Herold
gherold@teachspin.com> wrote:

On Wednesday, May 15, 2019 at 9:36:56 AM UTC-4, Martin Brown wrote:
On 14/05/2019 23:32, Clifford Heath wrote:
On 15/5/19 1:28 am, Jeroen Belleman wrote:
Rick C wrote:
[...]

Humans will not be different in any significant way in 1,000
years.  Are we any different than we were 1,000 years ago? [....]

I wonder. If you see how much we changed some animals and
many plants, what might happen if we start applying those
methods to ourselves? And that doesn't even take direct
gene-editing into account.

A much more likely source of big change is the modified selection
pressure from the environment we have changed.

Although the main environmental modifications at present seem to result
in a huge increase in weight, morbid obesity and type II diabetes.

I choose to believe we're on the eve of a revolution.

I know that our current ethical norms are against such
things, but those norms evolve, too.

I completely agree. I've progressed far enough in my thinking that I
believe we have a *moral imperative* to diversify our own germ line,
creating many sub-species of specialists and hybridising with animal
genetics. Yes, that's much more than just "a step too far" for most
folk, rather it transplants the dialog onto another planet. I've been
brewing up a novel about it for well over a decade now.

The most interesting one would be to see if we can generate the right
structures in a human to permit chloroplasts and photosynthesis. We
wouldn't need to eat quite so much if we could directly make sugars.

And green humans like the Treens in Dan Dare would be quite cool.
Without doing any numbers.. it seems like there would hardly be any gain..
(I'm lucky to get ~10 hours of full sun in a week.)
It takes a corn plant all summer to make a few ears of corn.
(I'm guessing I have about the same area as a corn plant.)

Get as much sun as you can. It not only makes vitamin D, it does other
good stuff.

MS is unheard of in sunny climes. People in cold gloomy places get it.

MS certainly happens Australia. It killed one of my parents friends.

https://www.medicalnewstoday.com/articles/321139.php

seems to have been restricted to American patients, and claimed that more sun between ages 5 and 15 halved the risk. The sample size was small, and there's no discussion of possible confounds which puts in the class of scientific studies which frequently turn out to be misleading.

--
Bill Sloman, Sydney

 

[Rick C]

On Tuesday, May 14, 2019 at 6:46:06 PM UTC-4, Clifford Heath wrote:

On 15/5/19 12:59 am, Rick C wrote:
On Tuesday, May 14, 2019 at 9:07:35 AM UTC-4, Martin Brown wrote:
On 13/05/2019 14:37, Rick C wrote:
On Monday, May 13, 2019 at 5:48:57 AM UTC-4, Martin Brown wrote:
In a strict sense they don't fit the usual definition of "Life".

I think you are being rather arbitrary about judging viruses. There
are numerous bacteria which do very little or nothing at all in a
spore state. It is only when they are in a hospitable environment
that they "come alive" and begin to reproduce. Same with many plant
seeds.

The difference is that whereas a virus absolutely depends on its target
host for replication the bacteria and archaea are fully self contained..

An arbitrary distinction. You want to "see" the virus as the object that carries the seed of viral life then I get that. But I look at the life cycle and a virus has one, so clearly it is alive. The fact that it has cast off loaded it's excess baggage and uses the nest of another like a Cuckoo doesn't mean it isn't alive.

Well, all life relies on its environment - at the very least an energy
source. The question is at what level of development is the specific
environment. Humans need plants - and we rely on some chemicals they
make (essential amino acids) but don't directly use any of their
high-level machinery. Viruses do - but it's just a question of level.

As I said elsewhere: life is a quine, that also outputs its own machine.
The machine must operate on "ambient factors" so we're down to deciding
on the allowed sophistication of those factors. I think it's fair to say
that it's only "life" if the required factors are *less* sophisticated
than the life form that requires them.

That would disqualify viruses, which are clearly less sophisticated than
their required medium.

That's your definition which simply rejects the idea that the virus is a seed and the life form is what happens in the cell it invades. In fact an argument could be made that a virus is the ultimate level of sophistication of life where the excess baggage has been trimmed away by evolution.

I believe a distinction between viruses and other life forms is arbitrary and most importantly - without value.

--

Rick C.

-++-+ Get a 5,000 miles of free Supercharging
-++-+ Tesla referral code - https://ts.la/richard11209

 

[Bill Sloman]

On Thursday, May 16, 2019 at 12:32:28 AM UTC+10, John Larkin wrote:

On Wed, 15 May 2019 09:06:27 +0100, Martin Brown
'''newspam'''@nezumi.demon.co.uk> wrote:

On 15/05/2019 00:32, John Larkin wrote:
On Tue, 14 May 2019 16:25:46 +0100, Martin Brown
'''newspam'''@nezumi.demon.co.uk> wrote:

On 14/05/2019 15:50, Rick C wrote:
On Tuesday, May 14, 2019 at 7:04:31 AM UTC-4, Martin Brown wrote:
On 14/05/2019 04:50, John Larkin wrote:

<snip>

> I don't pick up nonsense, I invent it. For fun and profit.

We aren't bother by the nonsense you sell (and it doesn't look all that nonsensical. We are bothered by the nonsense that you pick from climate change denial propaganda web-sites, and books of creationist propaganda.

You don't invent any of that, you just redistribute it. You may do it for fun, but the damage it does to your scientific credibility probably isn't helping you profits

I don't think we'll invite you to any of our brainstorming sessions.
Some people poison brainstorming.

Others produce so much utter nonsense that the merely unexpected ideas get squeezed out. Equally poisonous.

A little nonsense now and then
Is cherished by the wisest men.

- Willy Wonka

When one of the more prolific posters on the news group gets most of his output by recycling dubious propaganda, we aren't talking about a little nonsense, we are talking about industrial scale intellectual pollution.

--
Bill Sloman, Sydney

 

[Bill Sloman]

On Wednesday, May 15, 2019 at 11:36:56 PM UTC+10, Martin Brown wrote:

On 14/05/2019 23:32, Clifford Heath wrote:
On 15/5/19 1:28 am, Jeroen Belleman wrote:
Rick C wrote:
[...]

Humans will not be different in any significant way in 1,000
years.  Are we any different than we were 1,000 years ago? [...]

I wonder. If you see how much we changed some animals and
many plants, what might happen if we start applying those
methods to ourselves? And that doesn't even take direct
gene-editing into account.

A much more likely source of big change is the modified selection
pressure from the environment we have changed.

Although the main environmental modifications at present seem to result
in a huge increase in weight, morbid obesity and type II diabetes.

For some people. If you ancestors weren't frequently starved your genome might be lighter on "stock up with fat while you can" mechanisms.

The Dutch have been taller then their neighbours since Dante's time (and probably earlier) which implies that they have been tolerably well fed for quite a while, and morbid obesity isn't common in the Netherlands.

I choose to believe we're on the eve of a revolution.

I know that our current ethical norms are against such
things, but those norms evolve, too.

I completely agree. I've progressed far enough in my thinking that I
believe we have a *moral imperative* to diversify our own germ line,
creating many sub-species of specialists and hybridising with animal
genetics. Yes, that's much more than just "a step too far" for most
folk, rather it transplants the dialog onto another planet. I've been
brewing up a novel about it for well over a decade now.

The most interesting one would be to see if we can generate the right
structures in a human to permit chloroplasts and photosynthesis. We
wouldn't need to eat quite so much if we could directly make sugars.

We really haven't got the surface area to make it worth the effort, I saw an analysis - a very long time ago - which worked how much foliage we'd need to photosynthesise all the sugars we burn. Roughly a tree's worth.

> And green humans like the Treens in Dan Dare would be quite cool.

But it would be purely cosmetic. Photocells capture quite a bit more energy per unit area, but switching our metabolism over to using electricity would require a more substantial make-over.

--
Bill Sloman, Sydney

 

[Bill Sloman]

On Wednesday, May 15, 2019 at 11:41:27 PM UTC+10, Joseph Gwinn wrote:

On May 15, 2019, Bill Sloman wrote
(in article<8a31eb25-0236-4f8b-9143-e831f1bdc35d@googlegroups.com&gt:

On Wednesday, May 15, 2019 at 9:32:47 AM UTC+10, John Larkin wrote:
On Tue, 14 May 2019 16:25:46 +0100, Martin Brown
'''newspam'''@nezumi.demon.co.uk> wrote:

On 14/05/2019 15:50, Rick C wrote:
On Tuesday, May 14, 2019 at 7:04:31 AM UTC-4, Martin Brown wrote:
On 14/05/2019 04:50, John Larkin wrote:

The inventor critters could have evolved from inorganics in a
more reasonable incremental way than we are supposed to have.
They might have originated on a gas giant, or in superfluid
helium, or something.

They would have had to invent a time machine as well then. The universe
has only fairly recently become cool enough for the microwave background
radiation to permit superfluid helium to condense naturally.

You really do have absolutely no physical intuition whatsoever.

JL's talents include designing analog electronics at the board level,
drinking beer and eating burgers. He is largely ignorant of the
greater world and chooses to remain that way. Are you really
surprised at this point?

He is still a decent engineer and obviously intelligent. I cannot
understand why he has such a preference for "just so" stories.

Because science keeps being blindsided by astounding discoveries.

Name one.

The classic examples have to be Relativity and Quantum Physics, and thus the
atom bomb.

The connection between relativity and quantum physics and the atom bomb is pretty remote.

The Einstein-Szilard letter

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Einstein%E2%80%93Szil%C3%A1rd_letter

may have got the Manhattan project going, but it was Szilard's chemical connections that prompted him to write it, and Einstein was dragged in because he was famous, not because his contributions to relativity or e=mc^2 were all that relevant - special relativity came out in 1904.

In 1900, people though that Physics was pretty much settled, and that all
that remained was to tidy up a few constants, and figure out a few odd little
results like the photoelectric effect existed and why thermal radiation was
red, not blue (like the theory said).

Some elderly physicists said stuff to that effect. The reset of the field wasn't blind-sided.

Max Planck had invented quantisation to sort out the ultraviolet catastrophe in 1900, but it took Einstein's 1904 paper on the photoelectric effect to give the idea some traction.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ultraviolet_catastrophe

> Little did they know....

More than you do ...

--
Bill Sloman, Sydney

 

[Tom Gardner]

On 15/05/19 15:32, John Larkin wrote:

I don't think we'll invite you to any of our brainstorming sessions.
Some people poison brainstorming.

Yebbut. There are two phases to brainstorming:
- firstly rapid generation of ideas, which requires complete
suspension of disbelief
- followed by selection of the ideas that might work, and
discarding the others

Alternatively consider team makeup...

If you have two "ideas men" only, then sparks will fly and
everybody will also have great fun - but nothing will be
able to come of it.

If you have two "critics" only, then there will be very
realistic plans, but they will be boring.

OTOH, if you have one "ideas man" and one "critic" you
stand a change of getting novel and realistic plans.

Of course if you want to get something used in the real
world you also need "workers", "finishers", "communicators",
"chairman".

A little nonsense now and then
Is cherished by the wisest men.

- Willy Wonka

Notice the words "little" and "now and then".

 

[Rick C]

On Tuesday, May 14, 2019 at 11:25:34 PM UTC-4, whit3rd wrote:

On Tuesday, May 14, 2019 at 4:32:47 PM UTC-7, John Larkin wrote:

Because science keeps being blindsided by astounding discoveries.

Huh? Science is NOT blind to possibilities, those discoveries are
the result of planning and careful work.

I was very surprised when it came out that flight navigation was
possible by means of interpretive dance, but the scientist who
was studying those bees recognized it with no trouble; the
scientist SAW THE POSSIBILITY, it's everyone else who
was blind to it.

Everyone who notices something new, is doing science; that
observation isn't just a feature of 'science', it's the definition of it.
Astounded, occasionally. Blindsided, no.

That's just JL's way of dismissing any field of study that can't use a few simple equations to analyze every issue they encounter like the work he does.

--

Rick C.

-++++ Get a 5,000 miles of free Supercharging
-++++ Tesla referral code - https://ts.la/richard11209

 

[John Larkin]

On Wed, 15 May 2019 15:54:01 +0100, Tom Gardner
<spamjunk@blueyonder.co.uk> wrote:

On 15/05/19 15:32, John Larkin wrote:
I don't think we'll invite you to any of our brainstorming sessions.
Some people poison brainstorming.

Yebbut. There are two phases to brainstorming:
- firstly rapid generation of ideas, which requires complete
suspension of disbelief
- followed by selection of the ideas that might work, and
discarding the others

Alternatively consider team makeup...

If you have two "ideas men" only, then sparks will fly and
everybody will also have great fun - but nothing will be
able to come of it.

If you have two "critics" only, then there will be very
realistic plans, but they will be boring.

Sometimes the seed of a great idea comes from someone that nobody
expected anything from, like an intern invited in to observe.
Sometimes the inspiration is just a question.

Brainstorming is a group extention of a basic process: send your
mental tendrils as far and wide as possible into the potential, real
or absurd, solution space, dredge up anything interesting or amusing,
and play with it to see what develops. More people can spread out
further into that space, or riff on what someone else finds.

Our little fiberoptic back channel monitor, the minimal FSK
generator/detector thing, is trivial and not worth optimizing, but has
inspired about 20 approaches so far and has been a lot of fun.
Exercizes like this tend to linger in the back of ones brain and
sometimes turn out to be useful years later.

The logic gate Icc charge dispenser F/V converter, based on a
suggestion in this group, is really slick. It's barely possible to
brainstorm circuits in a public forum, but it's difficult because the
majority of posters are dour and idea-hostile or frankly uninterested
in electronics.

OTOH, if you have one "ideas man" and one "critic" you
stand a change of getting novel and realistic plans.

Of course if you want to get something used in the real
world you also need "workers", "finishers", "communicators",
"chairman".


A little nonsense now and then
Is cherished by the wisest men.

- Willy Wonka

Notice the words "little" and "now and then".

Most professions, including brain surgery and electronics design, are
mostly disciplined implementation... grunt work. I spent the weekend
tweaking impedances and crosstalk clearances and bypassing on a very
big PC board. Good thing, because all that staring at the presumably
finished design turned up a big mistake. Then, for comic relief, I got
to write a test plan for the customer to review.

Of course original thought happens a small fraction of the time,
except that most people never do it.


--

John Larkin Highland Technology, Inc

lunatic fringe electronics

 

[Rick C]

On Wednesday, May 15, 2019 at 10:05:43 AM UTC-4, Tom Del Rosso wrote:

Martin Brown wrote:
On 14/05/2019 23:32, Clifford Heath wrote:
On 15/5/19 1:28 am, Jeroen Belleman wrote:
I know that our current ethical norms are against such
things, but those norms evolve, too.

I completely agree. I've progressed far enough in my thinking that I
believe we have a *moral imperative* to diversify our own germ line,
creating many sub-species of specialists and hybridising with animal
genetics. Yes, that's much more than just "a step too far" for most
folk, rather it transplants the dialog onto another planet. I've been
brewing up a novel about it for well over a decade now.

The most interesting one would be to see if we can generate the right
structures in a human to permit chloroplasts and photosynthesis. We
wouldn't need to eat quite so much if we could directly make sugars.

And green humans like the Treens in Dan Dare would be quite cool.

In a generation we've gone from reluctance to allow 13-year-olds to wear
makeup to allowing them to get tatoos, and ear piercings an inch wide
used to be found only in National Geographic pictures of African tribes.
So people will definitely lose their inhibitions about having 4 arms
eventually.

And they'll also fix themselves to make their mods inheritable. Improve
your eyes and pass them on to all your descendants. Some people won't
do it, and they won't be able to breed together or they'll make blind
kids. That might be a plot point in the sci-fi.

I guess you can make any point you wish when you make up data.

--

Rick C.

+---- Get a 5,000 miles of free Supercharging
+---- Tesla referral code - https://ts.la/richard11209

 

[Rick C]

On Wednesday, May 15, 2019 at 10:37:20 AM UTC-4, John Larkin wrote:

On Tue, 14 May 2019 17:28:50 +0200, Jeroen Belleman
jeroen@nospam.please> wrote:

Rick C wrote:
[...]

Humans will not be different in any significant way in 1,000
years. Are we any different than we were 1,000 years ago? [...]

I wonder. If you see how much we changed some animals and
many plants, what might happen if we start applying those
methods to ourselves? And that doesn't even take direct
gene-editing into account. We don't know much about how
DNA composition translates into traits, but we'll learn.
I choose to believe we're on the eve of a revolution.

I know that our current ethical norms are against such
things, but those norms evolve, too. Is it ethical to
allow a serious hereditary disease to persist in a lineage
if we know how to fix it? There will be accidents, but on
the whole, those who embrace these methods are likely to
ultimately out-compete those who don't. If we manage to
avoid blowing ourselves up before, that is.

Jeroen Belleman

At the rate we are progressing with CRISPR and such, we may live for
500 years and feel, and look, any way we want to.

Progress just keeps happening.

Yes, and our homes will be powered by nuclear fusion in 10 or 20 years.

Great stuff progress. We should have more of it.

--

Rick C.

+---+ Get 5,000 miles of free Supercharging
+---+ Tesla referral code - https://ts.la/richard11209

 

[Martin Brown]

On 15/05/2019 15:32, John Larkin wrote:

On Wed, 15 May 2019 09:06:27 +0100, Martin Brown
'''newspam'''@nezumi.demon.co.uk> wrote:

The laws of physics and chemistry are determined by experiment and there
have been some very elegant experiments done to test and break the
existing paradigms. Scientists are human so there can be large egos
involved the Hoyle vs Ryle debacle over the Steady State vs Big Bang
cosmologies (a derisive name Hoyle coined for Einstein-de Sitter
expanding universes which stuck) was particularly bitter. The last guard
of the old paradigm sometimes never accept that they were wrong.

However, you are rather prone to picking up nonsensical gibberish and
trying to push it as a valid idea in what is nominally a science group.

I don't pick up nonsense, I invent it. For fun and profit.

We only have your word for that, but I am inclined to believe you.

I don't think we'll invite you to any of our brainstorming sessions.
Some people poison brainstorming.

You could not be more wrong. I enjoy brainstorming new ideas.

However, I am not prepared to allow you to attack modern scientific
research from a position of wilful ignorance without pushing back.

A little nonsense now and then
Is cherished by the wisest men.

- Willy Wonka

But not when you are trying to peddle it as science.

--
Regards,
Martin Brown

 

[Tom Gardner]

On 15/05/19 17:06, John Larkin wrote:

On Wed, 15 May 2019 15:54:01 +0100, Tom Gardner
spamjunk@blueyonder.co.uk> wrote:

On 15/05/19 15:32, John Larkin wrote:
I don't think we'll invite you to any of our brainstorming sessions.
Some people poison brainstorming.

Yebbut. There are two phases to brainstorming:
- firstly rapid generation of ideas, which requires complete
suspension of disbelief
- followed by selection of the ideas that might work, and
discarding the others

Alternatively consider team makeup...

If you have two "ideas men" only, then sparks will fly and
everybody will also have great fun - but nothing will be
able to come of it.

If you have two "critics" only, then there will be very
realistic plans, but they will be boring.

Sometimes the seed of a great idea comes from someone that nobody
expected anything from, like an intern invited in to observe.
Sometimes the inspiration is just a question.

Yes, indeed.

It can be very hard to break out of a preconception - I may
have suffered from an example of that today since writing
my previous response. Now I'm trying to figure out how to
choose between two possibilities.

Brainstorming is a group extention of a basic process: send your
mental tendrils as far and wide as possible into the potential, real
or absurd, solution space, dredge up anything interesting or amusing,
and play with it to see what develops. More people can spread out
further into that space, or riff on what someone else finds.

That's the necessary and sometimes beneficial /first/ part.

The separate second part, analysis and pruning, is also necessary.

Our little fiberoptic back channel monitor, the minimal FSK
generator/detector thing, is trivial and not worth optimizing, but has
inspired about 20 approaches so far and has been a lot of fun.
Exercizes like this tend to linger in the back of ones brain and
sometimes turn out to be useful years later.

Yup.

The logic gate Icc charge dispenser F/V converter, based on a
suggestion in this group, is really slick. It's barely possible to
brainstorm circuits in a public forum, but it's difficult because the
majority of posters are dour and idea-hostile or frankly uninterested
in electronics.

Depends on whether they are primarily ideas men
or critics.

Also it is easier to be remote critic and
more difficult to force remote suspension of
critical faculties.

OTOH, if you have one "ideas man" and one "critic" you
stand a change of getting novel and realistic plans.

Of course if you want to get something used in the real
world you also need "workers", "finishers", "communicators",
"chairman".


A little nonsense now and then
Is cherished by the wisest men.

- Willy Wonka

Notice the words "little" and "now and then".

Most professions, including brain surgery and electronics design, are
mostly disciplined implementation... grunt work. I spent the weekend
tweaking impedances and crosstalk clearances and bypassing on a very
big PC board. Good thing, because all that staring at the presumably
finished design turned up a big mistake.

Been there, done that. I expect everybody on this group has.

Then, for comic relief, I got
to write a test plan for the customer to review.

You are lucky to have a customer that can meaningfully
review it; it isn't guaranteed!

Of course original thought happens a small fraction of the time,
except that most people never do it.

Depends on the person, to some extent. "Ideas men" habitually
spit out ideas, but have little follow-through after they spit
out their next idea. That's an "allowable weakness" provided
another team member counterbalances it.

 

[John Larkin]

On Tue, 14 May 2019 20:25:29 -0700 (PDT), whit3rd <whit3rd@gmail.com>
wrote:

On Tuesday, May 14, 2019 at 4:32:47 PM UTC-7, John Larkin wrote:

Because science keeps being blindsided by astounding discoveries.

Huh? Science is NOT blind to possibilities,

Sadly, sometimes not just blind but outright hostile.

those discoveries are
>the result of planning and careful work.

Or some crazy amateur who doesn't know he/she isn't allowed to
discover things.

--

John Larkin Highland Technology, Inc
picosecond timing precision measurement

jlarkin att highlandtechnology dott com
http://www.highlandtechnology.com

 

[John Larkin]

On Wed, 15 May 2019 18:09:59 +0100, Tom Gardner
<spamjunk@blueyonder.co.uk> wrote:

On 15/05/19 17:06, John Larkin wrote:
On Wed, 15 May 2019 15:54:01 +0100, Tom Gardner
spamjunk@blueyonder.co.uk> wrote:

On 15/05/19 15:32, John Larkin wrote:
I don't think we'll invite you to any of our brainstorming sessions.
Some people poison brainstorming.

Yebbut. There are two phases to brainstorming:
- firstly rapid generation of ideas, which requires complete
suspension of disbelief
- followed by selection of the ideas that might work, and
discarding the others

Alternatively consider team makeup...

If you have two "ideas men" only, then sparks will fly and
everybody will also have great fun - but nothing will be
able to come of it.

If you have two "critics" only, then there will be very
realistic plans, but they will be boring.

Sometimes the seed of a great idea comes from someone that nobody
expected anything from, like an intern invited in to observe.
Sometimes the inspiration is just a question.

Yes, indeed.

It can be very hard to break out of a preconception - I may
have suffered from an example of that today since writing
my previous response. Now I'm trying to figure out how to
choose between two possibilities.

Brainstorming is a group extention of a basic process: send your
mental tendrils as far and wide as possible into the potential, real
or absurd, solution space, dredge up anything interesting or amusing,
and play with it to see what develops. More people can spread out
further into that space, or riff on what someone else finds.

That's the necessary and sometimes beneficial /first/ part.

The separate second part, analysis and pruning, is also necessary.


Our little fiberoptic back channel monitor, the minimal FSK
generator/detector thing, is trivial and not worth optimizing, but has
inspired about 20 approaches so far and has been a lot of fun.
Exercizes like this tend to linger in the back of ones brain and
sometimes turn out to be useful years later.

Yup.


The logic gate Icc charge dispenser F/V converter, based on a
suggestion in this group, is really slick. It's barely possible to
brainstorm circuits in a public forum, but it's difficult because the
majority of posters are dour and idea-hostile or frankly uninterested
in electronics.

Depends on whether they are primarily ideas men
or critics.

Also it is easier to be remote critic and
more difficult to force remote suspension of
critical faculties.


OTOH, if you have one "ideas man" and one "critic" you
stand a change of getting novel and realistic plans.

Of course if you want to get something used in the real
world you also need "workers", "finishers", "communicators",
"chairman".


A little nonsense now and then
Is cherished by the wisest men.

- Willy Wonka

Notice the words "little" and "now and then".

Most professions, including brain surgery and electronics design, are
mostly disciplined implementation... grunt work. I spent the weekend
tweaking impedances and crosstalk clearances and bypassing on a very
big PC board. Good thing, because all that staring at the presumably
finished design turned up a big mistake.

Been there, done that. I expect everybody on this group has.


Then, for comic relief, I got
to write a test plan for the customer to review.

You are lucky to have a customer that can meaningfully
review it; it isn't guaranteed!

As if! They require a test plan, but they are apparently not required
to read it.


--

John Larkin Highland Technology, Inc
picosecond timing precision measurement

jlarkin att highlandtechnology dott com
http://www.highlandtechnology.com

 

[John Larkin]

On Wed, 15 May 2019 18:27:00 +0100, Martin Brown
<'''newspam'''@nezumi.demon.co.uk> wrote:

On 15/05/2019 15:32, John Larkin wrote:
On Wed, 15 May 2019 09:06:27 +0100, Martin Brown
'''newspam'''@nezumi.demon.co.uk> wrote:

The laws of physics and chemistry are determined by experiment and there
have been some very elegant experiments done to test and break the
existing paradigms. Scientists are human so there can be large egos
involved the Hoyle vs Ryle debacle over the Steady State vs Big Bang
cosmologies (a derisive name Hoyle coined for Einstein-de Sitter
expanding universes which stuck) was particularly bitter. The last guard
of the old paradigm sometimes never accept that they were wrong.

However, you are rather prone to picking up nonsensical gibberish and
trying to push it as a valid idea in what is nominally a science group.

I don't pick up nonsense, I invent it. For fun and profit.

We only have your word for that, but I am inclined to believe you.

I don't think we'll invite you to any of our brainstorming sessions.
Some people poison brainstorming.

You could not be more wrong. I enjoy brainstorming new ideas.

However, I am not prepared to allow you to attack modern scientific
research from a position of wilful ignorance without pushing back.

Primordial soup!


--

John Larkin Highland Technology, Inc
picosecond timing precision measurement

jlarkin att highlandtechnology dott com
http://www.highlandtechnology.com

 

[Tom Gardner]

On 15/05/19 20:14, John Larkin wrote:

On Tue, 14 May 2019 20:25:29 -0700 (PDT), whit3rd <whit3rd@gmail.com
wrote:

On Tuesday, May 14, 2019 at 4:32:47 PM UTC-7, John Larkin wrote:

Because science keeps being blindsided by astounding discoveries.

Huh? Science is NOT blind to possibilities,

Sadly, sometimes not just blind but outright hostile.

those discoveries are
the result of planning and careful work.

Or some crazy amateur who doesn't know he/she isn't allowed to
discover things.

Discovery only counts when you convince others.
That's swings and roundabouts.

It is regrettable, since there are many cases where
the re-discoverer gets all the kudos.

But it is also *necessary*, to trap out all the false
concepts and ideas.

 

[Tom Gardner]

On 15/05/19 20:21, John Larkin wrote:

On Wed, 15 May 2019 18:09:59 +0100, Tom Gardner
spamjunk@blueyonder.co.uk> wrote:

On 15/05/19 17:06, John Larkin wrote:
On Wed, 15 May 2019 15:54:01 +0100, Tom Gardner
spamjunk@blueyonder.co.uk> wrote:

On 15/05/19 15:32, John Larkin wrote:
I don't think we'll invite you to any of our brainstorming sessions.
Some people poison brainstorming.

Yebbut. There are two phases to brainstorming:
- firstly rapid generation of ideas, which requires complete
suspension of disbelief
- followed by selection of the ideas that might work, and
discarding the others

Alternatively consider team makeup...

If you have two "ideas men" only, then sparks will fly and
everybody will also have great fun - but nothing will be
able to come of it.

If you have two "critics" only, then there will be very
realistic plans, but they will be boring.

Sometimes the seed of a great idea comes from someone that nobody
expected anything from, like an intern invited in to observe.
Sometimes the inspiration is just a question.

Yes, indeed.

It can be very hard to break out of a preconception - I may
have suffered from an example of that today since writing
my previous response. Now I'm trying to figure out how to
choose between two possibilities.

Brainstorming is a group extention of a basic process: send your
mental tendrils as far and wide as possible into the potential, real
or absurd, solution space, dredge up anything interesting or amusing,
and play with it to see what develops. More people can spread out
further into that space, or riff on what someone else finds.

That's the necessary and sometimes beneficial /first/ part.

The separate second part, analysis and pruning, is also necessary.


Our little fiberoptic back channel monitor, the minimal FSK
generator/detector thing, is trivial and not worth optimizing, but has
inspired about 20 approaches so far and has been a lot of fun.
Exercizes like this tend to linger in the back of ones brain and
sometimes turn out to be useful years later.

Yup.


The logic gate Icc charge dispenser F/V converter, based on a
suggestion in this group, is really slick. It's barely possible to
brainstorm circuits in a public forum, but it's difficult because the
majority of posters are dour and idea-hostile or frankly uninterested
in electronics.

Depends on whether they are primarily ideas men
or critics.

Also it is easier to be remote critic and
more difficult to force remote suspension of
critical faculties.


OTOH, if you have one "ideas man" and one "critic" you
stand a change of getting novel and realistic plans.

Of course if you want to get something used in the real
world you also need "workers", "finishers", "communicators",
"chairman".


A little nonsense now and then
Is cherished by the wisest men.

- Willy Wonka

Notice the words "little" and "now and then".

Most professions, including brain surgery and electronics design, are
mostly disciplined implementation... grunt work. I spent the weekend
tweaking impedances and crosstalk clearances and bypassing on a very
big PC board. Good thing, because all that staring at the presumably
finished design turned up a big mistake.

Been there, done that. I expect everybody on this group has.


Then, for comic relief, I got
to write a test plan for the customer to review.

You are lucky to have a customer that can meaningfully
review it; it isn't guaranteed!

As if! They require a test plan, but they are apparently not required
to read it.

So, a normal customer that might feel able to blame you
for something you couldn't have known and they didn't
specify/avoid.

 

[Clifford Heath]

On 16/5/19 12:40 am, Bill Sloman wrote:

On Wednesday, May 15, 2019 at 11:23:49 PM UTC+10, Clifford Heath wrote:
On 15/5/19 2:00 pm, Bill Sloman wrote:
On Wednesday, May 15, 2019 at 8:33:05 AM UTC+10, Clifford Heath wrote:
On 15/5/19 1:28 am, Jeroen Belleman wrote:
Rick C wrote:

snip

Hybridising with animal genetics sound nuts.

Perhaps the wrong word. Pinching genes is less than I mean; I mean
pinching phenotypic structures.

Yes, that's much more than just "a step too far" for most
folk, rather it transplants the dialog onto another planet. I've been
brewing up a novel about it for well over a decade now.

A little more background reading would seem to be in order.

Thanks for telling me that I'm not the person who knows the most about
what I have or haven't been reading

One doesn't have to know much about it to get the impression that you should have done more.

If " hybridising with animal genetics" isn't quite you had in mind, you clearly ought to have read enough to be able to express what you actually had in mind, with the subsidiary point that you probably didn't have a clear enough idea of what might be done to have had a idea that you could have expressed clearly.

I've read a lot of science-fiction - if you felt like e-mailing me a chunk of the text I might be able to give you comments.

I could share the plot outline. There are still some big "story-telling"
aspects that I haven't figured out how to do.

I know the feeling. Finding a narrative line isn't easy.

Basically it looks back two generations on the aftermath of an
accidental escape of a private experiment by an idealistic viro-ceutical
researcher.

Not a great starting point for a gripping narrative line.

I would be much more willing to engage with you if you didn't try so
damn hard to make yourself odious. There is a great story here and some
excellent vivid characters, but I don't know how to build tension when
the "disaster" foreseen turns out not to have been a disaster at all.
Sort-of an anti-thriller...

The story is told by patient zero, a retired female GP, in response to
questions from her grand-children. That's the literary device to
introduce the story anyhow. There is the story about how it all started,
but there is global social turmoil in the intervening generation... and
then there is "now" - acceptance of what has happened and cannot be
reversed. So the story-telling can jump between these.

Clifford Heath.