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| kanzure | fenn_: New idea. If you can't think of a solution off the top of your head, you are framing the problem incorrectly. | 17:46 |
|---|---|---|
| kanzure | fenn_: So we have to decide if we want to go with the automated (open source) analytical toolchain methodology (with public 'access ports' for calibration before we accept results), plus your wiki idea at the same time. | 18:12 |
| kanzure | epitron: I was talking with some buddies in my cal 2 class today, it turns out that a significant percentage of them want eugenics, population control, and to kill off stupid people. And they quite literally believe this. | 18:14 |
| kanzure | (obviously we need lots of people for *variation* and *viability*) | 18:14 |
| epitron | hahhaha | 18:14 |
| epitron | well it makes sense | 18:14 |
| epitron | those memes trickle down from the highest levels of society | 18:14 |
| kanzure | I was genuinely freaked. I used to want to kill stupid people too, but that was only because I was 11 and angry ;) | 18:14 |
| epitron | yeah | 18:14 |
| epitron | it's a tricky meme though because it sticks | 18:15 |
| kanzure | yes | 18:15 |
| epitron | think about it | 18:15 |
| kanzure | it's quite deceptive | 18:15 |
| epitron | i guess you have :) | 18:15 |
| kanzure | you think it solves the problem | 18:15 |
| kanzure | but then you realize it doesn't | 18:15 |
| kanzure | because you are shooting yourself in the foot | 18:15 |
| epitron | exactly | 18:15 |
| kanzure | I am not saying that those people are the foot, but merely that they are in fact a part of our body | 18:15 |
| epitron | haha | 18:16 |
| epitron | the "body model of society"? | 18:16 |
| kanzure | Perhaps :) | 18:16 |
| epitron | that's the most arcane meme ever | 18:16 |
| kanzure | epitron: I have been trying something interesting for the past half year | 18:16 |
| epitron | i bet that's what the ruling class teach their children still | 18:16 |
| kanzure | I've decided to purge the word "intelligence" from my working vocabulary | 18:16 |
| epitron | interesting | 18:16 |
| kanzure | indeed | 18:16 |
| kanzure | so the same goes with stupidity | 18:16 |
| epitron | how's it been working out? | 18:16 |
| epitron | cool :) | 18:16 |
| kanzure | hard to communicate with others | 18:16 |
| kanzure | but it works out on my end | 18:17 |
| epitron | you ever tried speaking E'? | 18:17 |
| kanzure | erm, elojanban? | 18:17 |
| kanzure | longbjan? | 18:17 |
| kanzure | lonjan? | 18:17 |
| epitron | no, english-prime | 18:17 |
| kanzure | oh, not at all | 18:17 |
| epitron | english without the verb "to be" | 18:17 |
| kanzure | I was thinking of the created langs | 18:17 |
| kanzure | ooh | 18:17 |
| epitron | it's basically the way scientists speak | 18:17 |
| epitron | :) | 18:17 |
| epitron | "seems like" "similar to" etc | 18:17 |
| epitron | instead of "is" | 18:18 |
| kanzure | yes, I try writing that way from time to time | 18:18 |
| epitron | it's difficult! :) | 18:18 |
| epitron | ^ | 18:18 |
| epitron | definitely gets you to think more precisely though | 18:18 |
| kanzure | the language peculiarities preclude cognizant preprocessing of pre- and post translational barriers in the removal of grammatical guiding elements, such as to be verbs, in thought identification processes; however, removing such preprocessing allows faster problem solving, and possibly quicker correct solution finding. | 18:19 |
| kanzure | hurray for sounding scientific | 18:19 |
| kanzure | Personally, I use Elizier Yudkowsky's stance on death: "PLEASE STOP DYING". | 18:20 |
| kanzure | but calling that out in a high school calculus class just doesn't work ;) | 18:20 |
| kanzure | *Eliezer | 18:20 |
| epitron | in what sense does he mean dying | 18:21 |
| kanzure | as in the most terrible of senses: in that when you die, you opt to *burn* your information (your body), you opt to burry it away under the ground to rot and dissipate | 18:21 |
| kanzure | as well as not doing enough science during your lifetime to help figure out how to stop aging (if possible) | 18:21 |
| epitron | why would you yell that in calculus | 18:22 |
| epitron | :) | 18:22 |
| epitron | also, there is a reason for people to die. it's the same reason we have to keep deleting and reinstalling windows | 18:22 |
| epitron | people's brains get cluttered | 18:22 |
| kanzure | Again, note that the topic of conversation included population control, eugenics, sterilization, etc. | 18:22 |
| kanzure | Then simply wipe their brains. | 18:22 |
| epitron | why not also be reborn then? | 18:23 |
| epitron | you get a fresh body :) | 18:23 |
| epitron | i'm not saying our current way of life is optimal | 18:23 |
| kanzure | note that I don't use Windows. :) | 18:23 |
| epitron | i'm just saying there IS a reason for it | 18:23 |
| epitron | exactly | 18:23 |
| kanzure | Haven't had to reinstall my Linux installation in four years. | 18:23 |
| epitron | we just need a better windows ;) | 18:23 |
| epitron | a better organizational system | 18:23 |
| kanzure | right, but we need to be around long enough to set it all up | 18:24 |
| kanzure | and so far nobody has done this | 18:24 |
| epitron | you ever read about that stragen phenomenon in physics where as soon as one generation of physicists dies, a whole bunch of new discoveries are made? | 18:24 |
| kanzure | No, I didn't know I could read about it | 18:24 |
| epitron | haha | 18:24 |
| kanzure | but yes, I've observed as much | 18:24 |
| epitron | well, some wise physicists talk about it | 18:24 |
| epitron | i think feynman talked about it | 18:24 |
| epitron | he probably heard it from bohr or something | 18:24 |
| epitron | bohr was always stickin' it to the man | 18:25 |
| kanzure | Feynman had a source for everything, just very well hidden | 18:25 |
| epitron | sure | 18:25 |
| kanzure | I've extracted as much information on Feynman as humanly possible, | 18:25 |
| epitron | i know feynman pretty well :) | 18:25 |
| kanzure | so I have a pretty good idea of how to replicate a Richard Feynman | 18:25 |
| epitron | haha | 18:25 |
| kanzure | such as the pattern-tilesets during infancy, | 18:25 |
| epitron | he also liked to tell you how he did things | 18:25 |
| kanzure | the encyclopedia sets, etc. | 18:25 |
| epitron | he liked doing the trick, then telling you how it was done | 18:25 |
| kanzure | yep | 18:26 |
| kanzure | good method | 18:26 |
| kanzure | Alright, I need to get to work | 18:26 |
| kanzure | Can't figure out where I want to start this evening. | 18:27 |
| epitron | haha | 18:27 |
| epitron | start with what makes you happy | 18:27 |
| kanzure | re: self-replication, I've been wondering if the method that fenn and I proposed will be of any good | 18:27 |
| kanzure | since it's a very large, nearly hopeless effort IMO | 18:27 |
| epitron | ah | 18:27 |
| kanzure | don't know if you saw the logs, but basically we had the idea of using automated machinery to do it | 18:27 |
| kanzure | and then letting people build this machinery and make measurements on all sorts of material | 18:27 |
| epitron | well, reduce the scope of the problem then | 18:27 |
| kanzure | and have them automatically submit data to a database | 18:27 |
| epitron | implement a small bit | 18:27 |
| epitron | implement something that others can build on | 18:28 |
| kanzure | the problem though is that you can't just implement a small bit | 18:28 |
| kanzure | yeah | 18:28 |
| kanzure | so, let me explain | 18:28 |
| epitron | well, everything is made of small bits :) | 18:28 |
| epitron | ok | 18:28 |
| kanzure | the thing is that you need to do an entire simulation with all of the different materials | 18:28 |
| kanzure | there's something called a closed-dependency loop, a directed cyclical graph | 18:28 |
| kanzure | in the sense that these materials, when combined in a certain way, can produce each other | 18:28 |
| kanzure | obviously if you put sand in a bucket, you're not going to get a second bucket with sand in it | 18:28 |
| kanzure | so that's not a closed-dependency-loop system :) | 18:29 |
| kanzure | we were thinking of loading up tons of materials and systems into a massive database | 18:29 |
| kanzure | and then use some graph-analysis software to find the loops | 18:29 |
| kanzure | but that would require very explicit specifications on the interconnectedness of all of the parts | 18:29 |
| kanzure | to the extent that each time you add a new part, you have to go through the entire database and say how it connects | 18:29 |
| kanzure | or how the variables are related | 18:29 |
| kanzure | or if there is any interface at all between two parts | 18:30 |
| kanzure | so this is exponentially growing | 18:30 |
| kanzure | *not* good | 18:30 |
| kanzure | but how else are you going to be able to find the materials that can work together? | 18:30 |
| kanzure | what's worse, you need exponential growth **done by human hand** since we don't have computers to do it | 18:30 |
| kanzure | ah, maybe we can have a giant neurofarm of brains inserting the data | 18:30 |
| kanzure | but the problem with this is that you need self-replication for giant neurofarms | 18:30 |
| kanzure | (for the industrial infrastructure) | 18:30 |
| kanzure | so we are back to square one | 18:30 |
| kanzure | hehe | 18:30 |
| kanzure | you see how that happens? ending right back where you started? | 18:31 |
| epitron | hmm | 18:33 |
| epitron | if it's an exponential problem, the universe is a good computer | 18:34 |
| epitron | physical systems are incredibly interconnected and information dense | 18:34 |
| epitron | o_O | 18:34 |
| kanzure | yes, | 18:35 |
| kanzure | Moshe Sipper cited a proof that some other guys came up with showing that self-replicators can be evolved | 18:35 |
| kanzure | which is incredibly weird since evolution requires self-replication | 18:35 |
| kanzure | or preservation of a code | 18:35 |
| kanzure | I need to go get that ref, because that's pretty funky ;) | 18:36 |
| kanzure | so either way we hit a hard problem though | 18:40 |
| kanzure | a physical environment is not good -- you can't search for results | 18:40 |
| kanzure | a digital simulation is not good -- we have no Grand Unified Theory, we can't magically install a database of millions of different materials and systems | 18:40 |
| kanzure | therefore the problem is incorrectly framed | 18:40 |
| kanzure | or it's the wrong problem when considering self-replication | 18:40 |
| kanzure | maybe we should just pick a bunch of materials to work with and then constrain our search-space | 18:44 |
| kanzure | i.e., deployal in a certain niche | 18:44 |
| kanzure | this would constrain search space to specific minerals and then ways of working with those minerals | 18:45 |
| kanzure | but then we still need to detail systems for working with those minerals | 18:45 |
| kanzure | unless we come up with our own insights for working with different minerals | 18:45 |
| kanzure | usually that requires specific testing and experimentation ... I wonder if it can be done from first principles, i.e. not knowing anything about the mineral in the first place | 18:45 |
| kanzure | maybe there exists a book to detail this sort of minerology information | 18:45 |
| kanzure | there can only exist so many different ways of processing materials, right? | 18:46 |
| kanzure | perhaps I'll go through some of the minerals and figure out the manufacturing processes (perhaps a complementary page to my analytical instrumentation page) | 18:46 |
| epitron | haha | 18:46 |
| kanzure | and then make some broad generalizations and mention what features of the mineral necessitated the variations in the mining and processing machinery | 18:46 |
| kanzure | already have a list of minerals - http://heybryan.org/mediawiki/index.php/Elements (just hit an element and see a list) | 18:47 |
| kanzure | Transformation of Ba-Al-Si precursors to celsian by high-temperature oxidation and annealing - all 4 versions » | 18:50 |
| kanzure | HJ Schmutzler, KH Sandhage - Metallurgical and Materials Transactions B, 1995 - Springer | 18:50 |
| kanzure | ... mineralizer-free processes that are capable of yielding celsian in modest ... final ceramic | 18:50 |
| kanzure | phase, by mechanical alloying; (2) deformation processing to produce a ... | 18:50 |
| kanzure | Cited by 15 - Related Articles - Web Search - Find it at UT | 18:50 |
| kanzure | yeah, Google Scholar seems to have lots of information on the minerals | 18:50 |
| kanzure | tis good | 18:50 |
| epitron | ok | 18:52 |
| epitron | anyhow, if the project is too intractable, i'm sure you can reduce its scope somehow | 18:52 |
| kanzure | "Introduction to Mineral Process Engineering" hurray | 18:52 |
| epitron | just focus on a skeletal mathematical verison of a simplified self-replicator | 18:53 |
| epitron | or something :) | 18:53 |
| epitron | using virtual materials | 18:53 |
| kanzure | Acidophiles in bioreactor mineral processing | 18:53 |
| epitron | ones that don't exist | 18:53 |
| kanzure | virtual materials requires a GUT (Grand Unified Material) | 18:53 |
| kanzure | would require a massive physical framework and models extracted from many papers | 18:53 |
| epitron | i mean, you make up a symmetric set of materials | 18:53 |
| kanzure | many, many papers, the last 80 years of physics | 18:53 |
| kanzure | hm | 18:53 |
| kanzure | perhaps | 18:53 |
| epitron | imaginary materials | 18:53 |
| kanzure | but then how do you search for materials that satisfy those properties | 18:53 |
| epitron | you create them that way ;) | 18:54 |
| epitron | like creating a RSA keypair | 18:54 |
| kanzure | material science --> material engineering ? | 18:54 |
| epitron | i mean... | 18:54 |
| epitron | abstract it more | 18:54 |
| kanzure | so given a set of properties, engineer a material to satisfy the requirements | 18:54 |
| epitron | no, you just say that "this material satisfies them" | 18:54 |
| epitron | and model what happens if that imaginary material exists | 18:55 |
| epitron | it's like a thought experiment | 18:55 |
| kanzure | right | 18:55 |
| kanzure | but then you need to implement it | 18:55 |
| kanzure | and you need to be able to make the material | 18:55 |
| kanzure | or find it | 18:55 |
| epitron | ok | 18:55 |
| epitron | what if you made a universe that made it easy to make self-replicators | 18:56 |
| kanzure | huh? | 18:56 |
| kanzure | make it in *our world* | 18:56 |
| epitron | a universe that you could simulate really easily | 18:56 |
| epitron | say, remove a dimension | 18:56 |
| kanzure | I understand the imaginary/virtual materials idea | 18:56 |
| epitron | and certain laws of physics | 18:56 |
| kanzure | and it is a good idea of course | 18:56 |
| kanzure | and that's what we are doing anyway | 18:56 |
| epitron | alright :) | 18:56 |
| kanzure | but I am saying that there is a divide between our simulations | 18:56 |
| kanzure | and reality | 18:56 |
| kanzure | in that if we did come up with something that worked in a simulation | 18:56 |
| kanzure | with those "virtual materials" that gave some specs for the materials | 18:56 |
| epitron | yeah, because reality requries that you have terraflop computers | 18:56 |
| kanzure | we can't easily correlate those to materials in our world | 18:56 |
| kanzure | no | 18:56 |
| kanzure | that's bullshit | 18:57 |
| epitron | what? :) | 18:57 |
| kanzure | look, let's say that you have sets A, B, C, D on your computer | 18:57 |
| kanzure | and you have a collection of balls in a bag | 18:57 |
| kanzure | how do you correlate A-D and 1-4 (balls) together ? | 18:57 |
| kanzure | you have to have some way to have a one-to-one correspondence | 18:57 |
| kanzure | and nobody says that you have those specific balls | 18:57 |
| kanzure | or even know of their existence | 18:57 |
| epitron | hmmm | 18:57 |
| kanzure | and even if you assumed they did exist, how would you find that ? given your simulation of sets A-D? ;) | 18:57 |
| kanzure | thus, materials engineering | 18:58 |
| epitron | this is getting to abstract | 18:58 |
| kanzure | *or* material restriction (as I mentioned above) | 18:58 |
| kanzure | http://heybryan.org/mediawiki/index.php/Materials_engineering | 18:58 |
| epitron | i've actually just been acting like a rorshach blot, saying vague things because i don't knwo what you're talking about ;) | 18:58 |
| epitron | seeing what sticks | 18:58 |
| kanzure | then just ask questions | 18:58 |
| epitron | haaha | 18:58 |
| kanzure | indeed | 18:58 |
| epitron | i don't wanna know | 18:58 |
| kanzure | that's how I work with programming somehow | 18:58 |
| kanzure | *sometimes | 18:58 |
| epitron | not right now | 18:58 |
| kanzure | rubber ducky method | 18:58 |
| kanzure | ask somebody else to try explaining what I am saying | 18:58 |
| kanzure | and then they spit out something so terribly stupid | 18:58 |
| kanzure | that it makes me smarter | 18:59 |
| kanzure | hehe | 18:59 |
| kanzure | oops | 18:59 |
| kanzure | I mean, makes me find the solution | 18:59 |
| kanzure | not smarter | 18:59 |
| epitron | o snap u used the word | 18:59 |
| epitron | btw, you seen muxtape.com? | 18:59 |
| kanzure | no? | 18:59 |
| epitron | it's pretty crazy | 19:00 |
| kanzure | looks like a color chart | 19:00 |
| epitron | giant pile of free music | 19:00 |
| kanzure | what's a mixtape? | 19:00 |
| kanzure | ooh | 19:00 |
| kanzure | food, brb | 19:00 |
| epitron | really big :) | 19:00 |
| kanzure | Microbial mineral processing: The opportunities for genetic manipulation. - all 3 versions » | 19:00 |
| kanzure | AA Nicolaidis - Journal of Chemical Technology and Biotechnology, 1987 - csa.com | 19:00 |
| kanzure | Microbial mineral processing: The opportunities for genetic manipulation. AA Nicolaidis | 19:00 |
| kanzure | Journal of Chemical Technology and Biotechnology 38:33, 167-186, 1987. ... | 19:00 |
| kanzure | Hydrodynamics of Bubble-Mineral Particle Collisions | 19:01 |
| kanzure | HJ Schulze - Mineral Processing and Extractive Metallurgy Review, 1989 - informaworld.com | 19:01 |
| kanzure | haha | 19:01 |
| kanzure | quite specific | 19:01 |
| -!- You're now known as fenn | 19:19 | |
| kanzure | Method for purification and production of saline minerals from trona | 19:21 |
| kanzure | Hydrometallurgical extraction process | 19:21 |
| kanzure | Purification of kaolin clay by froth flotation using hydroxamate collectors | 19:21 |
| kanzure | PURIFICATION OF ALUMINUM SULPHATE | 19:22 |
| kanzure | PURIFICATION OF SAND | 19:22 |
| kanzure | http://rruff.geo.arizona.edu/AMS/amcsd.php American mineralogist crystal structure database | 19:25 |
| kanzure | Surface-mediated mineral development by bacteria | 19:27 |
| kanzure | D Fortin, FG Ferris, TJ Beveridge - Reviews in Mineralogy and Geochemistry, 1997 - Mineral Soc America | 19:27 |
| fenn | "detail systems" | 19:30 |
| fenn | packages are really just code objects | 19:30 |
| fenn | when i say [[human:power]] it refers to a class in a module | 19:31 |
| fenn | that class inherits from the built-in "power" class | 19:31 |
| kanzure | ah | 19:31 |
| fenn | in this way you can add functionality for specifications that wouldn't exist without tedious enumeration of everything that could ever be done | 19:31 |
| kanzure | ah | 19:31 |
| kanzure | so we still have to do it by hand though | 19:32 |
| kanzure | Steps toward interstellar silicate mineralogy. II. Study of Mg-Fe-silicate glasses of variable … - all 2 versions » | 19:32 |
| kanzure | J Dorschner, B Begemann, T Henning, C Jaeger, H … - Astronomy and Astrophysics, 1995 - adsabs.harvard.edu | 19:32 |
| kanzure | Title: Steps toward interstellar silicate mineralogy. II. ... 300, 503-520 (1995) ASTRONOMY | 19:32 |
| kanzure | AND ASTROPHYSICS Steps toward interstellar silicate mineralogy II. ... | 19:32 |
| fenn | for example, module "geartrain" would have a "backlash" property (and ways to define it) | 19:32 |
| fenn | why are you giving me all these minerology links? | 19:32 |
| kanzure | hm? | 19:32 |
| kanzure | I'm doing some background research | 19:32 |
| fenn | mineralogy* :) | 19:33 |
| fenn | that still doesnt look right.. stupid mineralogists | 19:34 |
| kanzure | no kidding | 19:35 |
| kanzure | I am trying to find a good paper that reviews mineral engineering techniques | 19:35 |
| kanzure | and see if I can make up any generalizations | 19:35 |
| kanzure | hehe: Reflectance spectroscopy and asteroid surface mineralogy - 1989 | 19:35 |
| fenn | kanzure: are you related to forrest bishop? | 19:36 |
| kanzure | fenn: nope | 19:36 |
| kanzure | but I have had others ask me the same question | 19:36 |
| fenn | seen his page? iase.cc | 19:36 |
| kanzure | IIRC, he does awesome electronics | 19:36 |
| kanzure | and other h+ stuff | 19:36 |
| kanzure | ah, right, space propulsion | 19:37 |
| fenn | the 'bishop rings' of orion's arm were apparently his idea | 19:37 |
| fenn | so anyway, small world, big deal | 19:38 |
| kanzure | right | 19:39 |
| kanzure | but still good stuff | 19:39 |
| fenn | yep | 19:39 |
| fenn | he did a lot of freitas' early illustrations | 19:40 |
| kanzure | fenn: any ideas on how to search for mineralogy papers? I can't find anything in general, that reviews a wide range of mineral engineering techniques | 19:40 |
| fenn | what specifically are you looking for? like how to get the stuff out of the ground and turn it into refined products? | 19:40 |
| kanzure | refining | 19:41 |
| kanzure | getting it out of the ground is just mechanical motion + scooping + drilling + etc. | 19:41 |
| kanzure | big giant drills, hehe | 19:41 |
| kanzure | plus exploding asteroids, collecting the materials and then melting them down | 19:41 |
| kanzure | which is the refining process | 19:41 |
| kanzure | hm, maybe I should look at the patent databases | 19:42 |
| fenn | actually there are a wide variety of leaching methods | 19:43 |
| kanzure | see patent 3886259 - process for mineral refining | 19:43 |
| kanzure | leaching methods? | 19:43 |
| kanzure | oh | 19:43 |
| kanzure | good | 19:43 |
| fenn | dissolve stuff while it's underground and pull it up | 19:43 |
| fenn | generally nasty and bad for the environment | 19:43 |
| kanzure | assume we don't have to deal with an environment though | 19:43 |
| kanzure | i.e., asteroid mining | 19:43 |
| fenn | bad for the ecosystem i mean | 19:44 |
| fenn | there's always an environment | 19:44 |
| kanzure | as for local testing, we've already been doing it for years so we know it works | 19:44 |
| fenn | seeing as i know next to nothing about geology and earth-based mineral refining, i'll leave that one up to someone else | 19:47 |
| fenn | maybe we can get a grad slave assigned to the project, once we reach critical mass :) | 19:48 |
| fenn | who wrote all the asteroid mining and orbital algae farming pages? | 19:49 |
| kanzure | me | 19:51 |
| fenn | you have much to learn, young grasshopper :) | 20:00 |
| fenn | there's a lot in common between analytical chemistry instruments and asteroid mining techniques | 20:03 |
| fenn | dont underestimate the economy of solar reflectors | 20:04 |
| kanzure | hm | 20:04 |
| kanzure | I've realized that all that we really have to worry about is mineral purification at this point | 20:04 |
| kanzure | analytical instrumentation is useful for determining how 'pure' a sample is | 20:04 |
| kanzure | but as for purifying it, | 20:04 |
| kanzure | I'm still looking. | 20:05 |
| kanzure | somehow, no matter the method, you have to separate the elements | 20:05 |
| fenn | a neat idea is to distribute 'laser beams' of purified minerals, straight out of the (bulk) mass spectrometer | 20:05 |
| kanzure | how does that work? | 20:05 |
| fenn | instead of packets, you just beam the atoms where you want them to end up | 20:05 |
| kanzure | I know about mass spectrometry -- basically accelerate some ions and throw 'em at a recording utility | 20:05 |
| kanzure | oh | 20:05 |
| kanzure | you don't mean for purification | 20:06 |
| fenn | since they're in free fall in an orbit, the only thing that can screw up the beam is solar wind | 20:06 |
| kanzure | hehe | 20:06 |
| kanzure | right, and we can probably set up a warning network for solar wind storms | 20:06 |
| fenn | it's purification and distribution at the same time | 20:06 |
| fenn | then at the other end, you have plates that get atoms condensing onto them, which you can scrape off (or presumably you can do something with the beam directly) | 20:07 |
| kanzure | I don't see how that would work, can you describe how to do the mass spectrometer -> mineral laser -> purification already done method ? | 20:07 |
| fenn | ok, take an asteroid | 20:07 |
| fenn | heat it up really frickin hot, so that everything is a plasma | 20:07 |
| kanzure | oh | 20:07 |
| kanzure | in mass-spec you separate ions by charge | 20:08 |
| fenn | now set up a voltage gradient, you get separation of mass vs charge ratio | 20:08 |
| kanzure | so since everything should have a different charge, you're done | 20:08 |
| kanzure | then what? | 20:08 |
| fenn | then recombine the electrons with the beam so it doesn't spread out | 20:08 |
| fenn | after focusing of course | 20:08 |
| fenn | uh, that's the hard part :) | 20:08 |
| kanzure | hm | 20:08 |
| kanzure | well | 20:09 |
| kanzure | there's always the idea of using a matter beam | 20:09 |
| kanzure | i.e., BEC, but we havent' achieved BEC for molecules or large samples yet | 20:09 |
| kanzure | and then we'd just shoot a beam of atoms out | 20:09 |
| fenn | a beam of BEC's? | 20:09 |
| kanzure | yep | 20:09 |
| fenn | or a really long BEC? | 20:09 |
| kanzure | either way | 20:09 |
| kanzure | I guess we'd do separate BECs | 20:09 |
| kanzure | for the different materials | 20:09 |
| fenn | a really long BEC would probably have super-weird unexpected physics | 20:10 |
| kanzure | once separated, the materials are all cooling down, right? | 20:10 |
| fenn | they're superconductors right? | 20:10 |
| kanzure | so we need to encapsulate them | 20:10 |
| kanzure | BECs? Don't remember. | 20:10 |
| kanzure | oh | 20:11 |
| kanzure | originally my idea was to process each asteroid individually | 20:11 |
| kanzure | and have the equipment attached to the asteroid | 20:11 |
| kanzure | but it looks like mass-spec of asteroids might require larger equipment | 20:11 |
| kanzure | as in, equipment in which the asteroids could be maneuvered into | 20:11 |
| fenn | why's that? | 20:11 |
| kanzure | because this way you can capture the materials as they are separated | 20:11 |
| kanzure | just like in normal mass-spec | 20:11 |
| fenn | you'd need a bag to keep all the dust bits from flying off and getting lost (and making a mess) | 20:11 |
| kanzure | sure | 20:12 |
| fenn | besides that it wouldnt really matter how big the asteroid is | 20:12 |
| kanzure | hm | 20:12 |
| fenn | there's a problem with the drilling concept -- how are you going to anchor into the asteroid? | 20:12 |
| fenn | there's nothing to push against | 20:12 |
| fenn | cant use suction cups because it's a vacuum | 20:12 |
| kanzure | ideally, you start drilling in the direction opposite of its motion | 20:13 |
| kanzure | you need to be able to withstand the impact force | 20:13 |
| fenn | sticky tape might work if you can blow away dust - but there's static electricity messing up that idea | 20:13 |
| kanzure | the impulse, I believe. | 20:13 |
| kanzure | alternatively, | 20:13 |
| kanzure | I was thinking of biofuels | 20:13 |
| kanzure | just sprinkle the bacteria on the surface | 20:13 |
| kanzure | and then come back to scoop them up | 20:14 |
| kanzure | presumably they are metabolizing off of the minerals | 20:14 |
| fenn | uh.. | 20:14 |
| kanzure | and then we need a way to melt them down and extract the metals | 20:14 |
| kanzure | we can engineer bacteria to eat metal | 20:14 |
| fenn | that seems more practical on mars or somewhere with water and an atmosphere | 20:14 |
| kanzure | extremophiles can survive on an asteroid =) | 20:15 |
| kanzure | that's the beauty of it | 20:15 |
| fenn | survive, but can they flourish? | 20:15 |
| fenn | i dont think they can | 20:15 |
| fenn | not enough water, not enough mineral diversity | 20:15 |
| kanzure | http://heybryan.org/mediawiki/index.php/Moontank (but not just for the moon) | 20:16 |
| kanzure | ah, that's true, there's not enough resources | 20:16 |
| kanzure | you need to leave a package of nutrients | 20:16 |
| kanzure | that can dispense extra nutrients as needed | 20:16 |
| fenn | sure, if you can demonstrate a bacterial colony flourishing in a vacuum tank, i might believe it | 20:16 |
| kanzure | but importantly, you can't let them get too greedy | 20:16 |
| kanzure | because it'd be genetically easier to just eat the minerals from the provisional tank | 20:16 |
| fenn | if it were possible, then why dont we see bacteria in moon rock samples already? (earth meteors do hit the moon quite often) | 20:17 |
| kanzure | meteors from earth hit the moon? | 20:17 |
| kanzure | as in, rocks from earth break off and hit the moon? | 20:17 |
| fenn | yes, after an asteroid hits earth | 20:18 |
| kanzure | have we confirmed this by tracking such a rock? | 20:18 |
| fenn | no, but we have meteors from mars on earth | 20:18 |
| fenn | i dont really see the difference | 20:18 |
| kanzure | perhaps there is something that can be done via engineering to make life more viable in such environments | 20:19 |
| fenn | yes | 20:19 |
| kanzure | I am pretty sure it's the resource diffusion problem | 20:19 |
| kanzure | or availability problem | 20:19 |
| kanzure | since you can't get nitrogen when your asteroid is just carbon heh | 20:19 |
| fenn | i just dont think it's worth the extra complexity | 20:19 |
| fenn | if all you want is pure elements | 20:20 |
| kanzure | true | 20:20 |
| kanzure | why not just mimic what the bacteria would do anyway | 20:20 |
| fenn | just throw up a multi-km aluminum foil reflector | 20:20 |
| kanzure | ? | 20:20 |
| fenn | er, toss up | 20:20 |
| kanzure | ? | 20:20 |
| kanzure | but still, what would that do? | 20:20 |
| fenn | well, it depends how you use it | 20:20 |
| kanzure | sunlight reflection? | 20:20 |
| fenn | you can sputter off rock-vapor onto a conveyor belt | 20:20 |
| kanzure | ah | 20:21 |
| fenn | or you can use it like a pulsed laser to blast out areas | 20:21 |
| kanzure | okay | 20:21 |
| fenn | through thermal cracking and gas generation | 20:21 |
| kanzure | how's that? | 20:21 |
| fenn | when you get something hot enough it turns into a gas | 20:22 |
| fenn | the gas pressure would tend to push on the sides of the crack, blasting the rock apart | 20:22 |
| fenn | on a microscopic level of course | 20:22 |
| fenn | you would need a quick shutter to turn the beam on suddenly | 20:22 |
| fenn | the sunlight beam | 20:22 |
| fenn | heck you could just use a huge co2 laser if you wanted | 20:24 |
| kanzure | wait, what? | 20:24 |
| kanzure | so you quickly 'snap' at the rock | 20:24 |
| kanzure | and it breaks apart | 20:24 |
| kanzure | and then you have what, a collection of broken up particles | 20:24 |
| fenn | yes | 20:24 |
| kanzure | if you have a supermassive co2 laser, you would aim it at the rock (ahead of time), and fire? | 20:25 |
| kanzure | and then you would, what, push the materials somewhere? | 20:25 |
| fenn | the whole rock doesn't explode at once | 20:25 |
| kanzure | that's a large, centralized system | 20:25 |
| fenn | you just get a stream of smoke and dust and vaporized rock | 20:25 |
| kanzure | oh | 20:25 |
| kanzure | and out of that 'stream crack' you put your machinery | 20:25 |
| kanzure | which would package the materials and send 'em off? | 20:25 |
| fenn | right | 20:25 |
| fenn | though this all seems somewhat primitive to me :) | 20:26 |
| kanzure | if it works ;) | 20:26 |
| kanzure | a giant km aluminum sheet for hitting a rock does not sound that good | 20:26 |
| kanzure | how would you snap the sheet exactly? | 20:26 |
| fenn | snap the sheet? | 20:26 |
| kanzure | you'd need some awesome acceleration on the edges | 20:26 |
| kanzure | yeah | 20:26 |
| kanzure | that's what you said, right? | 20:26 |
| fenn | no | 20:26 |
| fenn | you've read about point-focus mirror arrangement? | 20:27 |
| kanzure | http://kmr.nada.kth.se/wiki/Main/PointFocus ? | 20:27 |
| fenn | http://kmr.nada.kth.se/wiki/Main/PointFocus | 20:27 |
| fenn | yep | 20:27 |
| kanzure | oh, it's a solar concentrator | 20:28 |
| fenn | ok, so that's basically the structure we're building in zero-g | 20:28 |
| kanzure | a giant mirror-funnel | 20:28 |
| fenn | just because it's easy to make | 20:28 |
| fenn | now, the sunlight becomes more and more focused as you approach the focal point | 20:28 |
| fenn | there's presumably a plane somewhere between the focal plane and the mirror, where you'd put the shutter | 20:28 |
| kanzure | that's okay, you can cycle cold rocks | 20:28 |
| kanzure | on the other side of the mirrors | 20:29 |
| fenn | so, even though you have multi-TW/cm^2 on the asteroid face, the shutter only experiences, say, a few MW/cm^2 | 20:29 |
| kanzure | is TW/cm^2 enough to melt the materials? | 20:30 |
| kanzure | I guess it has to be, nevermind. | 20:30 |
| fenn | it doesnt matter | 20:30 |
| kanzure | that's quite a number of watts | 20:30 |
| kanzure | no? | 20:30 |
| fenn | you dont want to melt the rocks anyway | 20:30 |
| fenn | you want to induce thermal shock, and vaporize a thin surface layer | 20:30 |
| fenn | these two processes operate on different timescales | 20:30 |
| kanzure | http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thermal_shock | 20:31 |
| fenn | so i guess there'd be one frequency modulated by another one | 20:31 |
| fenn | or you could just use thermal shock and hope the momentum carries the particle outwards | 20:32 |
| fenn | or maybe just blow gas on it | 20:32 |
| kanzure | TW/cm^2 should be able to move an object in space | 20:33 |
| kanzure | especially if we have slowed it down | 20:33 |
| fenn | yeah but is it fast enough to get out of the way? otherwise smoke will be covering the area we're focusing on | 20:33 |
| fenn | damn wikipedia.. every time i read it i find some new tangent to run down | 20:35 |
| kanzure | the solution is to take the integral | 20:35 |
| fenn | no i believe you must use the arc-tangent | 20:36 |
| fenn | tan^-1 | 20:36 |
| kanzure | that'll just give you the angle, not the set of all tangents | 20:38 |
| kanzure | wait | 20:38 |
| kanzure | I should have said you should take the derivative again | 20:38 |
| kanzure | to get a picture of all of the tangents | 20:38 |
| fenn | what's the point of having different desktops in KDE if window titles from all desktops pile up onto the same task bar? | 20:52 |
| kanzure | don't know | 20:53 |
| kanzure | I dislike the KDE scrolling method for the taskbar | 20:53 |
| fenn | yuck, that is bad | 20:53 |
| kanzure | I pile up 50 to 70 tabs a night for different windows (mostly papers that I'm reading) | 20:53 |
| fenn | scroll wheel is so easy to hit on accident, especially with a laptop touchpad | 20:54 |
| kanzure | okay, for dissipating the gas quickly enough | 20:54 |
| kanzure | to get out of the way of the sunlight | 20:54 |
| kanzure | just have an angular momentum of the asteroid | 20:54 |
| kanzure | such that it'll create a spiral of gas that we can harvest above or below it | 20:55 |
| fenn | the asteroid is spinning around the focal point? | 20:55 |
| kanzure | no | 20:55 |
| kanzure | I was thinking of a case where there's a shutter | 20:55 |
| kanzure | a hole | 20:55 |
| kanzure | through which the light will come | 20:55 |
| kanzure | and on the other side we have the rock | 20:55 |
| kanzure | and this rock will be spinning in place | 20:55 |
| kanzure | the light will hit it and evaporate a layer | 20:55 |
| kanzure | and that layer will also retain the angular momentum, ideally | 20:56 |
| kanzure | I see no reason why it would not | 20:56 |
| fenn | the asteroid will be rough, but i guess it's sorta like turning rough stock on a lathe | 20:56 |
| fenn | so eventually it'll become a nice neat cylinder | 20:56 |
| kanzure | sure | 20:56 |
| kanzure | oh | 20:56 |
| kanzure | the shavings from a lathe | 20:56 |
| kanzure | also spiral, right? | 20:56 |
| kanzure | I've never actaully used one. | 20:57 |
| kanzure | *actually | 20:57 |
| fenn | it depends, on a lot of things | 20:57 |
| fenn | sometimes you get long stringy ribbons, sometimes you get dust | 20:57 |
| fenn | sometimes it melts into a glob :( | 20:57 |
| kanzure | as you increase the distance of your contraption from the sun, the greater the surface area you need | 20:58 |
| kanzure | I bet we'll want this thing pretty close, no where near the asteroid belt | 20:58 |
| kanzure | not to mention the extraction processes we will need to get the km^2 of aluminum in the first place | 20:58 |
| fenn | i think the mirror is going to be the least expensive part of the system | 20:58 |
| fenn | hurr | 20:59 |
| fenn | ok, so it's a bit more than i thought | 20:59 |
| kanzure | hm? | 20:59 |
| fenn | 1*km^2 by 1 micron thick is ~6tons of aluminum | 20:59 |
| kanzure | yeah ... | 20:59 |
| kanzure | also, if we want to get energy through another way | 20:59 |
| kanzure | I was thinking of the orbital algae farms | 20:59 |
| kanzure | using these to get biofuel | 21:00 |
| kanzure | which would power the mining machinery | 21:00 |
| fenn | no no no no NO! | 21:00 |
| kanzure | on this note I found an awesome document | 21:00 |
| fenn | i dont care about your document, it's crap | 21:00 |
| kanzure | that explained how to get a metal forge up and running on vegetable oil | 21:00 |
| kanzure | hm? | 21:00 |
| fenn | ok, on earth, maybe | 21:00 |
| kanzure | bacteria grow on their own, as long as you provide the nutrition | 21:01 |
| kanzure | we can bootstrap the nutrition with sea water | 21:01 |
| fenn | oh, sea water | 21:01 |
| fenn | yes, ON EARTH | 21:01 |
| kanzure | hehe | 21:01 |
| kanzure | yes, but think about it | 21:01 |
| kanzure | how much water is in the atmosphere | 21:01 |
| kanzure | the rest of the sea water contents are what we need to export | 21:01 |
| kanzure | there's water that is accessible from the other side of the atmosphere | 21:01 |
| fenn | how exactly are the bacteria going to grow in a giant chunk of nickel and iron? | 21:02 |
| kanzure | no, this is not the same idea | 21:02 |
| kanzure | this is for photosynthesis and storage of energy | 21:02 |
| fenn | oh | 21:02 |
| kanzure | the reason why biofuels do not work on earth is surface area | 21:02 |
| kanzure | in space we have all the freakin' surface area we want | 21:03 |
| fenn | lots of ways to store energy in space | 21:03 |
| kanzure | you need to scale up the surface area | 21:03 |
| kanzure | it's not for storing energy | 21:03 |
| kanzure | it's for collecting it | 21:03 |
| fenn | not really | 21:03 |
| kanzure | yes, I've considered solar cells | 21:03 |
| kanzure | but you'd need to be able to manufacture the solar cells | 21:03 |
| fenn | algae is only really good for intricate molecular reactions we can't do otherwise | 21:04 |
| kanzure | i.e., photosynthesis | 21:04 |
| fenn | it's only considered in the context of supporting human "exploration" | 21:04 |
| kanzure | ? | 21:04 |
| kanzure | oh | 21:04 |
| kanzure | solar cells? | 21:04 |
| fenn | algae | 21:04 |
| kanzure | I don't think you read the orbital algae farm article | 21:05 |
| fenn | photosynthesis is only like, 3% efficient | 21:05 |
| kanzure | the idea is to have giant tanks of algae | 21:05 |
| kanzure | in water | 21:05 |
| kanzure | wtf? | 21:05 |
| kanzure | I'm pretty sure it's much more | 21:05 |
| kanzure | our solar cells do 20% | 21:05 |
| kanzure | and they are supposed to be less efficient | 21:05 |
| fenn | Sugarcane is an exception as it can have almost 8% efficiency. | 21:05 |
| kanzure | from Wikipedia - The light energy is converted to chemical energy using the light-dependent reactions. This chemical energy production is more than 90% efficient with only 5-8% of the energy transferred thermally. | 21:05 |
| kanzure | http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Photosynthesis#Molecular_production | 21:06 |
| fenn | Trees convert light in to chemical energy through the process of photosynthesis with a photosynthetic efficiency of approximately 0.2-0.5%. | 21:06 |
| kanzure | hm | 21:06 |
| fenn | it may be a matter of genetic engineering | 21:07 |
| fenn | Through photosynthesis, sunlight energy is transferred to molecular reaction centers for conversion into chemical energy with nearly 100-percent efficiency. The transfer of the solar energy takes place almost instantaneously, so little energy is wasted as heat. However, only 43% of the total solar incident radiation can be used (only light in the range 400-700 nm), 20% of light is blocked by canopy, and plant respiration requires about 33% of the stored energy, which brings down the actual efficiency of photosynthesis to about 6.6% | 21:08 |
| kanzure | Technology Review: Fuel from AlgaeUnfortunately this immediately means that the efficiency is going to be much less than 0.5%, as no crops (other than photosynthetic algae) capture more than ... | 21:08 |
| kanzure | "and plant respiration requir" | 21:08 |
| kanzure | so, at most 43% efficiency | 21:09 |
| fenn | the 20% blocked by canopy is not really fair | 21:09 |
| fenn | right, because plants are green, not black | 21:09 |
| fenn | but anyway, this is compared to a micron thick layer of aluminum foil | 21:09 |
| kanzure | puncturability? | 21:10 |
| fenn | so what? | 21:10 |
| kanzure | swarmer-fixing robots? | 21:10 |
| fenn | just let it degrade | 21:10 |
| kanzure | and where are you going to get this aluminum? | 21:10 |
| fenn | it's not like a tether where you care if a bit of it breaks | 21:10 |
| fenn | well, you dont have to use aluminum, it's just that there's a lot of it on the moon, and aluminum has a very high (highest?) reflectivity | 21:11 |
| fenn | actually probably silver has the highest | 21:11 |
| fenn | oh, i'll consult the oracle | 21:11 |
| kanzure | eh, I'd prefer to stay away from the moon, there's lots of requirements for landing on the moon that are best avoided in my opinion | 21:11 |
| kanzure | but if that's what's required ... | 21:12 |
| fenn | it has something to do with the conductivity | 21:12 |
| fenn | sure, moon makes sense in some scenarios, not so much in others | 21:12 |
| fenn | http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Reflectivity <- look at the graph | 21:13 |
| kanzure | odd dip | 21:13 |
| kanzure | so how do we mine for aluminum | 21:17 |
| kanzure | I'm guessing we need to use oxygen or hydrogen fuel | 21:17 |
| fenn | why? | 21:17 |
| kanzure | my LOX fractional distillation ideas? | 21:17 |
| kanzure | because we need to get the aluminum | 21:17 |
| kanzure | LOX is accessible from LEO | 21:17 |
| kanzure | in the sense that we have the other side of the atmosphere | 21:18 |
| fenn | chemical fuels are only good for high thrust, which you only need to get into orbit | 21:18 |
| kanzure | Hall effect thrusters still need a gas fuel | 21:18 |
| kanzure | so you have your gas there ;) | 21:18 |
| fenn | eh.. | 21:18 |
| fenn | sorta | 21:18 |
| kanzure | Halls are slow, though | 21:18 |
| kanzure | slow acceleration | 21:18 |
| fenn | it doesnt matter | 21:18 |
| fenn | there are a bazillion different proposals for mass launchers from the surface of luna | 21:19 |
| fenn | i happen to like the rotovator concept | 21:19 |
| kanzure | I've never seen a complete proposal/schematic for any type of launcher, anywhere | 21:20 |
| kanzure | (I am angry about this.) | 21:20 |
| fenn | what do you mean complete? | 21:20 |
| fenn | like, tested debugged and packaged for sale? | 21:20 |
| kanzure | okay, 'sufficient' to get the idea | 21:20 |
| kanzure | I haven't seen any schematics, really | 21:21 |
| fenn | ok, i see what you mean | 21:23 |
| fenn | here's a picture http://www.permanent.com/t-massdr.htm | 21:23 |
| kanzure | hahah | 21:24 |
| kanzure | catapult | 21:24 |
| fenn | cool site btw | 21:24 |
| kanzure | that's easy enough to design | 21:24 |
| kanzure | is it a rail gun? | 21:24 |
| fenn | yes | 21:24 |
| fenn | there are other schemes, like slingatron | 21:25 |
| kanzure | there are many pages on the net on railguns | 21:25 |
| fenn | er.. actually it's not a rail gun | 21:25 |
| fenn | it's a gauss gun | 21:25 |
| fenn | but wuteva | 21:25 |
| kanzure | http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Coil_gun | 21:25 |
| fenn | there are a number of papers on tethers.com but i think they might be too long and detailed for you | 21:32 |
| fenn | this one appears to be most relevant to the current discussion: http://www.tethers.com/papers/CislunarAIAAPaper.pdf | 21:35 |
| kanzure | hm, I have not explored the prospects of tethers on the moon | 21:36 |
| fenn | the most appealing aspect of course is that we can do it with today's materials and technology | 21:37 |
| fenn | compared to certain other tether concepts :) | 21:38 |
| fenn | you can't de-orbit something with a mass driver | 21:38 |
| fenn | something i almost never see mentioned is that vacuum tubes are amazingly inexpensive in outer space | 21:41 |
| fenn | so something like a big rail gun suddenly costs a lot less to build | 21:41 |
| fenn | and flywheel energy storage, etc | 21:42 |
| fenn | if you decelerate the bucket at the end and have a loop of bucket track, you can think of the launcher as a giant flywheel | 21:44 |
| fenn | fenn's corrolary to clarke's third law: any sufficiently undeveloped sci-fi technology is indistinguishable from magic | 21:52 |
| kanzure | insufficiently developed, how about? | 21:54 |
| fenn | havent worked out the details | 21:56 |
| fenn | like, the author was too lazy to go and learn about physics and do the math to see if the idea would work at all | 21:57 |
| kanzure | yep | 21:59 |
| kanzure | and if you can't work out the math | 21:59 |
| kanzure | then you should at least propose a way for somebody else to get started on the problem space | 21:59 |
| kanzure | I am pretty sure that the only way we are going to be able to do the autogenix+self-replicator project is if we can do materials-engineering | 22:00 |
| kanzure | where we can engineer materials to meet certain specifications | 22:00 |
| kanzure | based off of their matter and energy requirements | 22:01 |
| kanzure | but, I fear this might require a Grand-Unified-Theory or something | 22:01 |
| kanzure | some 'mega theory' for predicting what the substrate of a certain property has to be | 22:01 |
| kanzure | which is generally not good :( | 22:01 |
| kanzure | I've never heard of something like that in materials science. | 22:01 |
| kanzure | unless | 22:02 |
| kanzure | unless we can possibly prove that self-replication can be done within a certain parameter space of materials | 22:02 |
| kanzure | that way, we know which machines to build to automatically test materials for a certain property | 22:02 |
| kanzure | but if the requirements turn out to be something weird like flows and viscosity and deformation, then that's not good for automated testing of a variety of different substances | 22:03 |
| fenn | would you consider bio molecules like amino acids to be 'materials'? | 22:08 |
| kanzure | yes, but not for the macroscale replicators we want | 22:08 |
| kanzure | we're above the level of Brownian diffusion here | 22:08 |
| kanzure | heh | 22:08 |
| fenn | when i was laying out the clay-sand-salt replicator, there was a lot of chemistry going on | 22:08 |
| fenn | not just gears and beams | 22:09 |
| kanzure | right | 22:09 |
| kanzure | but those were batch chemical reactions | 22:09 |
| fenn | and electrodynamic plasma stuff too (maybe) | 22:09 |
| fenn | the AMTEC electricity generator | 22:10 |
| fenn | maybe i can get around that complexity with a sodium battery or something | 22:10 |
| fenn | ok, and then you have control stuff, presumably a standard silicon computer chip | 22:11 |
| kanzure | or graphene molecules | 22:12 |
| fenn | i dont know much about the processes involved, but we can consider materials involved as trace elements for the most part | 22:12 |
| fenn | well, graphene doesnt come from sand | 22:12 |
| kanzure | graphene comes from carbon | 22:12 |
| kanzure | hurray | 22:12 |
| kanzure | and it's really easy to process | 22:12 |
| kanzure | let's not include silicon fabrication | 22:12 |
| fenn | ok, but the point was to do it with silicon | 22:12 |
| fenn | i understand it's possible with carbon and maybe easier | 22:12 |
| kanzure | the amount of machinery required to do silicon fabrication is more than you can afford | 22:13 |
| fenn | bah | 22:13 |
| kanzure | in the sense of dependency loops | 22:13 |
| fenn | dependency loops are good remember? :) | 22:13 |
| kanzure | but not if they exponentially add material requirements | 22:13 |
| kanzure | i.e., the machinery to do si fabbing might add 2 new materials | 22:13 |
| kanzure | and those 2 new materials might each add 2 new materials ... | 22:13 |
| kanzure | but I guess you'll never know unless you scout it out | 22:13 |
| fenn | ok so that's not a loop | 22:13 |
| fenn | that's a tree | 22:14 |
| kanzure | there's a good wikibook on chemical etching and silicon fabbing | 22:14 |
| kanzure | ah, right | 22:14 |
| kanzure | good point | 22:14 |
| kanzure | but anyway, wikibooks has a great article | 22:14 |
| kanzure | I mapped it out at | 22:14 |
| kanzure | http://heybryan.org/notes.html I think | 22:14 |
| kanzure | including the chemicals | 22:14 |
| kanzure | so we can go figure out what elements are in the chemicals | 22:14 |
| fenn | ok that's too much to do right now | 22:20 |
| kanzure | but obviously it's possible to do it | 22:20 |
| kanzure | so that's good :) | 22:20 |
| fenn | there is some wiggle room too, but industry has naturally settled on the optimum | 22:21 |
| fenn | so you'll never read about NaOH etching of silicon, for example | 22:21 |
| kanzure | I want to experiment with graphene transistors. But I don't know how to make an excuse to distract myself from my other projects and ideas. | 22:21 |
| kanzure | I can go buy the parts to do it, plus the chemicals, but shouldn't I be focusing on the other projects ? | 22:22 |
| fenn | dunno.. actually doing something is good for publicity ;) | 22:22 |
| kanzure | we don't need publicity, just damn good ideas | 22:22 |
| fenn | 'hackaday: high school student makes carbon semiconductors in his basement from recycled pop-tarts' | 22:23 |
| kanzure | that's instant "hire this kid" material | 22:23 |
| kanzure | btw, I discovered today that hackaday is blocked from school | 22:23 |
| kanzure | as "criminal skills" | 22:23 |
| fenn | naturally | 22:23 |
| fenn | dont you know the internet is full of sick demented people who like to fuck dogs? | 22:24 |
| kanzure | yes, I do actually | 22:24 |
| kanzure | admittedly, I've explored various regions of the internet in my travels | 22:24 |
| fenn | besides, hackaday has a black background, and a skull, so it must be evil | 22:24 |
| kanzure | ah, of course | 22:24 |
| kanzure | http://www.ridgenet.net/~do_while/toaster.htm The Breakfast Food Cooker (only because I linked to this in #neuroscience a few moments ago, but it is also relevant to skdb) | 22:29 |
| fenn | heh, "Specifically, we need an object-oriented language with multiple inheritance." | 22:33 |
| kanzure | obviously this inheritance is the same as the dependency-loop specifications hehe | 22:33 |
| kanzure | what we need is a simplified way of diagramming | 22:33 |
| kanzure | this is how Feynman did QED | 22:33 |
| kanzure | and he claimed it's the secret to solving any good problem | 22:34 |
| fenn | we already have computer toasters (application-specific programs) | 22:34 |
| fenn | i want a breakfast food cooker! an AutoCook 9000 | 22:35 |
| fenn | ah, mediaglyphics | 22:39 |
| fenn | (feynman diagrams) | 22:40 |
| fenn | Then, one evening, after working at CERN, I stopped on my way back to my apartment to visit some friends living in Meyrin where I smoked some illegal substance. Later, when I got back to my apartment and continued working on our paper, I had a sudden flash that the famous diagrams look like penguins. | 22:47 |
| fenn | ok, aside from the wavy lines and curlicue lines, graphviz has all the same functionality | 22:51 |
| fenn | http://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/Extension:GraphViz | 22:54 |
| fenn | this type of diagram looks useful http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Image:Calvin-cycle3.png | 23:29 |
| fenn | carbon dioxide to diamond via metallic sodium http://pubs.acs.org/cgi-bin/abstract.cgi/jacsat/2003/125/i31/abs/ja035177i.html | 23:40 |
| fenn | i bet the same mechanism can yield different phases of carbon depending on the conditions | 23:41 |
| kanzure | btw, I'll also install the export-db extension while I'm at it | 23:45 |
| fenn | while you're at what? | 23:46 |
| kanzure | the Graphviz extension ;) | 23:47 |
| kanzure | fenn: http://heybryan.org/mediawiki/index.php/Graphviz -- done | 23:53 |
| kanzure | http://heybryan.org/mediawiki/index.php/Special:ViewXML Export db as XML. | 23:54 |
| kanzure | http://dbpedia.org/About "way to extract structured data from Wikipedia" | 23:56 |
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