[Rezwan]

No single logic diagram is going to work for all visitors. So a mini-survey about what type of information about (Focus) Fusion they need today might help them and you.

So true. That means: On to mini survey design! 8-/

This is the interesting part of the site. Logic. Which manifests as structure. And relates strongly to content. I’d like to have a live session to go over this. Get people together in a room, with some whiteboards and such. Get a sense of emergent logic and strategy for approaching fusion.

Perhaps we can set something like this up at a college somewhere. Get students and other citizens.

About that grey nav bar, maybe it can be split into two, top tier and bottom, different colors, the top being “content” as in, “things to read”, and the bottom, “action”, as in things to do and other features.

Speaking of the nav bar – that code does not validate at all. All the drop down menu bits. Do we need the drop down menus?

Back to Aeronaut and the popups on the drop downs. I guess there’s a way to put something in that can detect if a text only reader is viewing the site, and can substitute a different nav bar for such readers… Anybody know the rules on this?

[Rezwan]

Aeronaut wrote: I like the new double-wide window atop the image map.

What the heck is a double-wide window, and to what image map do you refer?

Dumping the mouseovers (I’m thinking they’re alt text) will make the pages less annoying while moving the mouse.

Hmmm. Not so sure about that one. alt text is for images, when they don’t appear, and used by the visually impaired. The stuff that pops up on links is “title” text, which I think is also necessary for visually impaired. Not sure, though. In any case, I want the site to be accessible to all. Must go over the rules for that…

One other thing I’d like to see is to have the “Notify me via email when someone posts on this thread” default to unchecked.

Do you mean in the forums? I looked around, don’t know where to find that. Will take more concerted search. In the meantime, if you want to go over your subscriptions and uncheck yourself from a few, here’s the place to go.

[Rezwan]

I fixed the problem as far as I can tell. Try it now.

[Rezwan]

Hey JShell! Thanks for the feedback. By the way, when you get a chance, put in an avatar/picture/bio, if possible.

I agree about the popups with the pictures. I was waiting for someone to say something. It started out as an experiment in a css class. Been bugging me for some time. No one complained. You have motivated me to drop the bells/whistles. Cleaner! Faster load time! Yay. That’s done.

right now I get the impression that I’m being told all the exciting things about focus fusion before I even have a chance to hunt around the site and find out what its about

I see you’re a man who likes mystery. But are you suggesting that the home page reveals what the site is about all in one go and leaves no mystery?! Thanks! That’s a good thing, I thought. It means we’ve clarified the whole message in one page. Elevator pitch. Links for details.

How do other people feel? Do you want the first page to be a mostly blank teaser, or tell all, with the promise of greater detail further in?

I’m basing my goal on the axiom that “a useful home page makes it instantly clear what the site is about”.

Trust me, after people drill down into the next level from the homepage links, there will be further drilling down. There’s a lot more left.

I’m keeping your note in mind, but working through the rest of the site before taking final action. I think there are quite a few more sub-categories to go from each one of the links currently on the home page. It’ll be a pretty content rich site, ultimately.

Then, under “Learn More about Focus Fusion”, you could include the following (with or without their own links)

Intriguing idea. I’m just having a logic problem with it, because “focus fusion” is technically a subcategory of aneutronic fusion, one of many contenders in the fusion race, and so forth. I guess what I’m trying to say is that the fusion umbrella is bigger than the focus fusion umbrella. For many people coming to this site, it might be helpful to get the context that way. Given that the focus fusion stuff is in the top fold of the page, they will get that first thing. Most people don’t scroll past the visible window. For those who do, they’ll get the logical picture.

But I’m still shuffling things around. Not sure what the final layout will be.

The plasma network thing is going to split off and become it’s own website for professionals.

Also, it seems that there is some repitition with the information and links in the grey boxes and the information and links in the central white area– perhaps one link to the information from the home page would be enough?

Would be, but the grey box is supposed to be consistent throughout the site, on article pages as well as home page. I suppose we could keep it off the homepage, but usually sites have the nav throughout site. I’m thinking of losing the dropdowns in the grey menu bar. Plus, the dropdown popups – I guess that’s from the “alt” tag in the a href thing. Or maybe that’s title tag, and I should just have alt. Is that w3 compliant? Let me test it.

Thanks for your feedback, & enjoy the snow.

[Rezwan]

Phil’s Dad wrote: You might find this list interesting. http://business.timesonline.co.uk/tol/business/specials/article5816774.ece.

Excellent! Yes, there are some quality, well meaning million/billionaires out there. I still wouldn’t cold call them. (OK, I guess the list is small enough to cold call, I’m just whining). Still, it comes down to personal connections….et voila:

While I was giving some thought to the micro-investor question I got an e-mail from one of the people on the first page of the above list. I’ve known him for a while and had sown the FF seed with him. He tells me his brother has set up a company that looks to invest in “relatively early stage clean technology”. He has instructed them to look into FFS / LPP. I will keep you posted.

And now, back to my current preoccupation: the site still isn’t presentable in my view. The earlier mentioned “dog and pony show” is not in full dress.

Then again, going back to human relationships, that’s not what it’s about either. Eric’s open to having folks come down and seeing the lab and meet in person. That would be the way to go.

And if they want to find out about FFS and the education/advocacy/social aspect of the quest for fusion, as its rep, I’d be happy to meet in person. Coffee. Lunch. What have you. We’re right next to New York City, although this quiet New Jersey suburb is also lovely.

And finally, just because some handy billionaire ex machina situation arises to save the day, don’t lose site of that micro-investor thing. There’s a lot of power in that idea. Worthy of pursuit in its own right.

[Rezwan]

amcnea wrote:
What exactly is the relationship between FFS and LPP? If this is already discussed somewhere can you point me to it please?

See https://focusfusion.org/index.php/site/category/C26/ – scroll down to what is lpp and how is it related to ffs?

Now, the only problem with this that I see is that “micro-investors” or, non-accredited investors who want to chip in funds to the experiment, will get nothing back from their investment. They can only donate. So, this tends to discourage people from donating. Let the big fish be a free rider on my dime! Hah! Let them come up with the whole thing. This issue has always bugged me.

Can something be done about this? I don’t know what the law is or how this can be handled but here is a hypothetical. Could FFS collect micro-investments from registered users, and hence keep information about 1) the Micro-Investor and 2) the amount invested. FFS Could then group this money together into amounts large enough such that shares of LPP could be bought @ $50 per share. Finally FFS could have a broker whom is an “accredited investor” and can purchase the shares from LPP.

That would be illegal, because we’d be promising something that we aren’t allowed to promise. I’ve spoken with lawyers at the SEC about this. It’s just not possible. Micro investors can donate, but you can only invest if you have a lot of money. The rich get rich, the poor are patronized. Much can be done about this, unfortunately, it’s all long term stuff that won’t really affect current needs. If LPP were to go public, anyone could invest. It’s at proof-of-concept stage, though, so can’t really be taken public. But it’s now that it needs the investment money.

I think there is a space now for developing a campaign around making micro-investment, pre-public stock offering, legal. Given the track record of Wall Street, and the fact that taxpayers had to bail out the system with 700bill, we already are the micro investors that prop the whole thing up.

The thing is that science experiments are inherently risky investments. The SEC is trying to protect people from losing money. The primary goal, thus, is protecting investors, not making $ available for innovation.

I think the argument to the SEC would be somewhere along the lines of: by allowing micro investors to invest in scientific innovation, or, say, film – and limiting it to small amounts so that no one gets over-excited and loses their shirts on this – and with full disclosure and warnings that investment may not return any dividend, caveat emptor, etc., and administering this through an online system like ebay or paypal that keeps track of the investment amounts, and also allows oversight of the people receiving the money (to enable better decision-making) – you’ll have a transparent system that is primarily about getting money to people with ideas, with less focus on making money, but which may, paradoxically, end up generating a lot of quality “black swans”. In other words, we would expect that a lot of the investment opportunities in such a system would be flops, but several might succeed and become stars. We could test such a system for a while, and see if this sort of micro-investment, wisdom of crowds, no investor too small program does any better than the ponzi-scheme floating bad-loan generating wall street fat cat thing we have going on now.

We’d have to look at winners and losers in both systems overall. It would be a great social experiment.

At the very least, with the micro investors funding smaller innovators (inventors, artitsts and designers), you’d create a lot more jobs that would help diversify and enrich the local economy. Like the physicists at LPP. They get a salary. Their salary goes right back into the economy as they rent or buy a house, car, stuff for their families. Then they might invest their savings into some bonds, stocks, and back into the micro-investments of other inventors they think are cool…

It’s about circulating money and ploughing it back into the hands of innovators, creators, artists, scientists, etc… That money always gets back into the economy. Money is like electricity. Currency. The best system allows for the most efficient circulation. I don’t think the system we have now fits that bill. Interview of Matt Taibbi by Stephen Colbert:

Stephen: You say that Goldman Sachs takes advantage of bubbles that they helped create.

Matt: Wall street really used to be about helping investors find good business opportunities which in turn would create jobs. Wall street had an important part in helping stimulate the real economy. What’s happened in the last 20 years is that it’s really turned into one ponzi scheme after another, tech stocks, mortgages, commodities bubble last year. It’s turned into a purely speculative economy, it’s really basically a casino now where Wall street makes a ton of money, but no real jobs are created.

I think this system is bankrupted, and that micro-investment is the way of the future, the true invisible hand of the market. There will be speculation with the micro-investors, but certainly more jobs will be funded at the micro-level, and more innovative activity would take place at this level. I think a lot of laws are against it, but given the technologies of today, they can’t be justified any longer (justification being they protect investors).

Anyway, looking for more ammo for this line of argument

[Rezwan]

Tulse wrote: It would also be helpful to non-physics newbies to have a very brief explanation of what the instruments are and why they will be used (i.e., what they measure).

Yes, I’m working on that section. Actually, take a look at the unfolding layout for the LPP experiment. https://focusfusion.org/index.php/site/category/C30/

What do you think? Should we add anything, take anything away, clarify anything?

Now I have to go in and create categories based on headings (theory, design, methodology, instruments, etc.) And then assign previously written articles the proper category, then create link to page so that you can click on theory and get related articles.

And then…backlog of writing the rest of the articles to flesh out the experiment. Plus, the “instruments” and “design” section can be further broken down/categorized.

Construction continues…

[Rezwan]

Hey, just checked out your bio. I see you’re aware of the Bostick Nardi connection.

Also, thanks for filling in the bio and adding an avatar. We must encourage more members to do this.

Finally: Music? Electronica? If you ever feel like adding some to FFS movie soundtracks (in development) – let me know.

[Rezwan]

Sounds great. Eric would be happy to fit in a talk at Stevens. When could this be done? Turns out, this is where some of the key DPF work was done.

[Rezwan]

I will have to track down that brochure and make it more easily accessible on the site. Not even sure if there’s a link to it now.

The site development continues…

[Rezwan]

I just spent all day Monday at a fundraising workshop offered by the Support Center for Nonprofit Management. The title: “Getting General Operational Support”. It was very informative.

First – as you note,

I would suggest the creation of an informational packet which could be used for such purposes. Something that isn’t technical at all, but tells 1) What Focus Fusion has the possibility of accomplishing, 2) What are the phases of development, 3) How much each phase of development will cost and how long it will take, 4) When/how we will know if the phases are a success or failure. 5) And, what EXACTLY we are asking of them (the billionaires).

LPP has a brochure, and it has gone out to some people. Not all that it should go to, by any means. But developing materials, tailoring them, updating them, and most importantly tracking down people to send them to, following up, phone calling, all that is skilled work that takes time and $. I suppose we could take the list and do a mailing to 100 billionaires. The brochure’s done, we’d just have to print 100, plus postage. Cover letter? Call first and after?

So you see, first we’d need to raise some modest funds for a billionaire-targeted fundraising campaign. And I’m not sure the brochures or more expensive “packet” would do the trick.

And the worst thing they could do is say no or ignore us.

Yes, most likely they’ll ignore a cold mailing. This kind of thing needs personal attention.

I’m all for having billionaires on board. Not least because it will give prestige to the venture and get other people more interested in participating. And for LPP, ease up on the tight budget, speeding up the experiment.

But the workshop had a lot of interesting points to make on fundraising strategy:

1) It’s best to diversify your portfolio of investors. One big investor makes you over-reliant on them. Also, they tend to want a lot of control and glory. Corporate donors want their name everywhere, etc. That might lead to some of the legal problems mentioned.

2) For any grant application, or appeal to big fish, they like to see how solid you are as an organization, how much people care about the issue. How supportive is the core of people interested in this venture? If you can’t muster support from the folks closest to the project, why should they support you? Eventually, with enough core support, you might get the big fish to put up “matching grants”.

3) On average, organizations get 80% of their funding from small and medium donors. (They said this in the workshop, and I don’t doubt it – it’s been LPP’s experience as well).

4) Building an organization, and getting people to donate money, takes a lot of time. You have to build the organization, build trust, make it a real vibrant place where people are truly involved in the mission.

5) This time and effort costs $. A lot of money raised is just spent on raising more money. Then, a lot of money is spent on unglamorous things like salaries, heating bills, office supplies.

6) Many potential donors like to ignore those costs and put restrictions on the money. The most restricted funds tend to come from government or specific grants. The least restricted (and most useful) funds come again, from small and medium donors.

7) It’s not really about getting money from people. It’s about developing relationships, finding people who are as passionate about this idea as you. Getting them involved in whatever capacity they can get involved. Eventually, someone will know a billionaire. But by then, hopefully, you won’t even need the billionaire ex machina device.

Not that I’d turn down the billionaire’s offer of funds. That would be mean.

Of course, I’m thinking about FFS as a nonprofit organization with a mission. You’re thinking about investors in the LPP experiment – a for profit endeavor. It’s a similar thing. Takes a while to build the relationships, and the big fish follow the little guys. Small and medium investors save the day. They’re the bread and butter, man. They’re solid.

Now, the only problem with this that I see is that “micro-investors” or, non-accredited investors who want to chip in funds to the experiment, will get nothing back from their investment. They can only donate. So, this tends to discourage people from donating. Let the big fish be a free rider on my dime! Hah! Let them come up with the whole thing. This issue has always bugged me.

After the workshop on fundraising, taking advantage of the handy NYC location, I met with an organizer of the Cornellians in Entertainment networking group. We talked about the crazy world of film financing, the crazy economy where the big guys seem to be playing a number of ponzi schemes and not really trying to make money available to businesses or innovators. And then getting bailed out by taxpayers. It’s the same issue. I think the “accredited investors” model doesn’t really work for the economy. We’re setting up a Cornell meeting about it in the new year to discuss “micro-financing” and the rules and institutions that might make it work. A lot of similarities in the sciences and in the creative arts as far as funding high risk ventures (movies flop, inventions get beaten out by other inventions, etc.)

Anyway, if you have a close, personal connection to a billionaire, by all means, set up a meeting! Get us in the door! But I suspect there’s a more sustainable, community building, organic, feel-good payoff from appreciating small and medium donors.

[Rezwan]

Hello Takitook,

No need to post 2 separate topics for this. I deleted your other one.

Also, sounds like you’re a plasma scientist, the kind of person we’ll be setting up another forum for. Can you give us some info about yourself and the program you work for? Go to your control panel and add a picture/bio/other info (open various personal settings on the left). That link is always in the top line of the forum pages, FYI.

The idea is that scientists working directly on a plasma focus and related lab folk will get a different classification and posting privileges on this forum, and on an additional forum we’ll be setting up for the dpf community.

Also, we have to recruit more of them to this site to have just this type of conversation that you started.

[Rezwan]

Thanks! Great idea. Lectures at colleges and other venues is something we’d like to do more of. Where is this Stevens of which you speak?

[Rezwan]

Here’s a quick list. As mentioned elsewhere, I’m trying to set up a unique weblog for the “instruments” category with unique field id’s re: name, description, purpose, whats measured, cost, issues, images, links, etc.

The instruments are:

ICCD Camera
Pinhole Camera
X-ray lens
3 Scintillators – PMT Xray detectors, each behind different thickness of copper filter
Xray spectrometer
Neutron time of flight detectors – near & far
1 large Faraday cup with graphite collector surface
2 smaller Faraday cups
2 Rogowski coils, and 12 smaller ones, signalled by oscilloscopes
High Voltage probes
radiation badge in a lead box (? why is that on my list of instruments?)

but I started this topic to just look at the ToFD’s.

[Rezwan]

Thanks to Z for sending me this link to Colbert Nation discussing the governments recover.gov website

This site tracks how much money is spent and how many jobs are created in each congressional district.

One detail that blew me away, that the site cost 18 million dollars. Now, true, you can make a website for 18 dollars, but this one has so many great things to click and track, you could easily spend the entire day on this site – since there’s a good chance you don’t have a job.

Aside from cost, Stephen notes that the site makes up 440 congressional districts out of thin air. A mild database problem.

Anway, back to work!

[Author]

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