[Rezwan]

What are you trying to do? What steps do you take, what happens, which links do you click, etc.

[Rezwan]

Benf! I’m back in the USofA. Got back August 17, ’09. I’m working full time for the Focus Fusion Society now. Which is just as well because they’re really cracking down on the internet there now. Which really hampers web work. Multiple filters, and big brother is definitely watching what you post, even intercepting emails. I don’t know if they had my keystrokes and passwords, but I was getting paranoid. I really need to look into that, by the way, if anyone knows about protection against hacking and totalitarian surveillance.

My family is still in Iran, though. So I’m not going to get too wild and crazy with my posts. Not until FFS is up and running, and LPP has all the money they need for research. Then my work here is done.

[Rezwan]

Brian H wrote:
I suggest one more:
Old croaker – more than 500! :cheese:

You got it. Although “Cherished Old Croaker” would have the kinder, gentler spirit espoused by Phil’s Dad.

[Rezwan]

Alex, one more post and you’ll be a “valued friend”. I broke it down at:

Newbie 0-10 posts
New friend 11-30
Valued friend 31-100
Old timer – more than 100.

[Rezwan]

Noob wrote:

On a side note Newbie is not insulting, N00b is.

Should I take offence at that?

Wear it like a badge of honor – Oh! You already are. You’ll only be a “newbie” for 2 more posts. I set the bar at 5 to distinguish the majority of non-posters.

[Editor’s note: bar actually set to 10, and you have 2, so you need 8 more posts. And one to grow on.] [Until we change this at random. ] [So…don’t live for the points. Just express yourself in a genuine fashion, when actual thoughts arise.]

[Rezwan]

Phil’s Dad wrote: How about;

Welcome new friend

Valued friend

Cherished old friend

Wise ancient (for those over 650 posts only)
😉

This is the only suggestion so far.

I’m more comfortable with “colleague” or “fellow traveler”. “Friend” presumes… Although I guess that’s the way of the internet, with facebook friends and what not.

Also, I’ve been told that’s the way of the world. While the ideas are important, relationships are more so. This theory implies that our first priority is to make fusion friends, not just babble on in techno-speak about the program and the ideas.

Then again, I think you kind of have to earn friendship.

How about “beloved”, and then “dearly beloved”? Because, “we are gathered here…”

Either way it sounds like a lot of work for somebody! :ohh:

That’s true! And it can be quantified. A friend of mine just got a job as a “Membership Director” for an organization out west. Nice work if you can get it.

OK, reality check – I’ll try the “friend” approach for now, let me know how it feels. But please, let’s come up with something – still friendly, but not so – clingy?

[Rezwan]

Phil’s Dad wrote: The danger is that people will rate a post on how strongly they agree with it rather than how good it is.

That’s the danger of democracy. And yet we export it all around the world.

[Rezwan]

Do you have a link for that?

Wait! Got it: http://dvice.com/archives/2009/11/nuclear-fusion.php

Thanks!

[Rezwan]

Brian H wrote: The About doc is thorough, but needs some slashing — lots of repetition and duplication. Not to mention redundancy. Did I mention replicative reiteration? And reiterative replication? 😉 %-P

Your expertise in redundancy is unmatched. I shall take these notes to heart.

I’m rather unhappy with the “Threshold Guardian” analogy and terminology. Maybe if you provide a good advance explanation of why you want to lift it from the worlds of mythology and computer adventure and video games it might fly, but it’s not a term used in actual economics or science-based discussion. Barriers, gatekeepers, and vested interests are more “usual” and more understandable terms for the hard-headed and reality-based communities!!

This will take some discussion. Yes, I’m trying to tap into the computer adventure/sci-fi culture, and leverage the emotional and mythic elements that seem to actually drive people. I think when you explain things in terms of the story, people relate to it better. I’m trying to popularize science with theater.

LPP can’t do that. It has to be by the book, peer review, serious. FFS, on the other hand, has a lot of leeway.

There is a lot of conversation on these forums that is technical, science and economics based. That’s great. I want to open things up to the artists, painters, poets, writers, comedians, filmmakers, musicians and such. I think these are the type of people that can address the entrenched political and economic issues.

Sure, “barriers, gatekeepers and vested interests” are understandable terms on an intellectual level, and easily dismissed – “let some policywonk/economist deal with that – wake me up when you’ve sorted it out – good god, the left and right are screeching at eachother again – where can I buy a scientist?”.

But when you switch to symbolic mode and consider that what you are facing is a beast with a sword asking you a riddle – and this is a threshhold guardian here to test of your essence, your humanity, your worthiness – then you get it at the gut and emotional level. Perhaps even the spiritual level, if such level exists.

I think most people like to stay at the “hard headed” “reality based” intellectual level because they find gut and emotion too messy to deal with. And, many of these folks disingenuously use the tools of intellect on behalf of unacknowledged emotional or gut (anger/territoriality) issues – not thinking of anyone in particular here : ) and get trapped in their confirmation biases, while building more and more elaborate protective intellectual scaffolding.

It’s important to distinguish these multiple levels instead of denying one level (mythic/emotional) and pretending to be operating at the other (intellectual). More integrity/honesty that way.

A lot of the barriers we’re experiencing in opposition to fusion are, indeed psychological/symbolic. So, best to take them head on in the world of story/myth/psyche.

In sum, I think this dimension of perception or visualization merits attention.

[Rezwan]

Thanks James! Looking forward to the rest.

jamesr wrote: Aneutronic Advantages – Don’t have cold fusion statement first. I think you get a kind of guilt by association, we do not want FF to be associated in peoples minds with this so even a statement saying it is NOT this creates an association.

I need to mention cold fusion somewhere, because that’s one of those frequently made assumptions. First thing people ask me. “Do you mean cold fusion?” I would think disassociation by declaration in no uncertain terms would be the better policy.

Don’t be so black&white;with the No neutrons – we need to be honest about the small percentage of low energy neutrons.

A comparison of typical Conventional and aneutronic fusion fuels – mention other aneutronic reactions and that pB11 is just the most favourable of these.

Roger that. Much of this will be in the “Aneutronic Fusion” section, which still needs to be fleshed out. Can add disclaimer in “About FFS” article, and link to more detailed explanation. Those articles to which it will link are not yet written, although the info is tucked away somewhere.

Dense Plasma Focus (DPF) Advantage – Mention why pB11 will not work in conventional tokamak design (they can never get hot enough). Fusion with higher charged ions such as Boron will only work in a device that can create the huge magnetic fields needed to suppress the cooling by radiation mechanism. Also mention efficiency due to direct conversion to electricity rather than the thermal cycle.

OK, I’ll put in a sentence. Note that that info is to be spelled out more clearly in the “How hard is it?” section, where we discuss the difficulty of fusion and why the dpf may overcome these difficulties.

Hey, I’m reading “Sun in a bottle” by Charles Seife right now. He puts the difficulty in clear laymen terms. But it’s funny. He labels all the mainstream fusion folk as “wishful thinkers”. And they label us as wishful. Not very confidence boosting.

Of course, need to cross reference this in the “dpf” section – which needs to be better organized. This is currently set up as simple categories, so it just lists things in chronological order. I need to go in and give it more structure.

I think there should be some mention of other plasma focus research around the world. Although LLP may be the only company working on it as a power source there are many groups using and researching plasma focus devices for other uses. They are not something new – we can bring together and discuss relevant advances from other groups.

Yes, that is on the “to do” list. I tentatively started a section for plasma networking, because I want that to be a function of this site. A lot of strucute and content to be done there. Cross referenced with general info about the dpf…

Organizing this venture in terms of data is interesting. Still wrapping my head around it.

[Rezwan]

Breakable wrote: So back to the topic: was the trigger problem solved?

Not yet. Still in progress. A soundbite: “go argue with your instruments”.

They’ve run tests, 8/12 of the capacitors are on cue (based on overall charge output). The question was, which 8? And which 4 are causing problems? So they’ve been going over each switch and each capacitor. Trying different things. They’re nearing the end of this, but as I say, it’s tedious. They do run a few shots between each assembly/disassembly and are also setting up other diagnostic equipment.

[Rezwan]

Since the count is simply measuring post quantity, titles could reflect this.

One who hasn’t posted much could be a “poster child”.

And if you’re at zero posts, you’re “pre-posterous”

[Rezwan]

Alex Pollard wrote: Can we have some change to this classification system?

What titles do you suggest?

Like Brian says, this is a strictly volume based feature of the forums. It counts posts, without evaluating their quality. Machines are simple that way.

But I don’t have to use the word “newbie”. And I can make the cut off anywhere. For example, most people who join don’t even post once. We could have under 5 posts be “newbie” and then go to other designations. Like call everyone “esteemed colleague”. And then anyone with more than 100 posts “verbose colleague”. Just for fun, we could make multiple cut off points and have people’s titles change randomly, with a “silly babbler” title that pops up between 112-114 posts. We can cut it pretty fine.

Also, some people skip all that, like me, with “admin”. So, once the site gets more organized and we figure out a good way to delegate moderation and authorship and editing, people will have new titles.

As to changing titles based on quality of posts…that would require integrating a ranking system into the forums. I know of a ranking system for articles, which I have downloaded, but not integrated, since the code has to be – well, it’s a low priority, I’ll figure it out down the road. I don’t know if I can use this with the forums, too. That’s advanced.

But it’s a useful feature, so it’s on the list of things to look into.

So…standing by for title suggestions.

[Rezwan]

belbear wrote: I tried to upload a short snippet from your FF-youtube movie as attachment, but AVI’s (the standard type of Windows movies) are not allowed in this forum, although a great deal of other (Apple) multimedia formats are

Hi Belbear, please try again. I added avi’s as an acceptable attachment. Learned something about mime types in the process. Who knew?

So, try to upload so I can see if it works.

Thanks!

[Rezwan]

Phil’s Dad wrote: Until he proves otherwise…

Heh!

If he does prove otherwise, that statement’ll get you in hot water again:

dash wrote: I see. Now as a bit of useful feedback, in the future you might want to state exactly what you mean, because the “Until then…” was very ambiguous, and what first came to mind was nothing whatsoever like what you intended to convey.

Such exactitude. From a guy who claims others don’t acknowledge the limits of knowledge. What about the limits of language? Language is like plasma. You can’t straightjacket it into something exact. It defies control. It may give the illusion of precision but it’s really fundamentally ambiguous stuff.

You have to kind of dance with it. Get into a groove.

Your “Until…” statements have seemed pretty straightforward to me. But what do I know?

[Author]

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