Channel 9 @ MS is carrying our story.

Reflections on fusion history, current events, and predictions for the 'fusion powered future.
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KJNW
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Channel 9 @ MS is carrying our story.

Post by KJNW »

Microsoft came back and did a story on us after the Science Fair, and it just got posted. I was a bundle of nerves trying to talk and I wander a bit, but I don't think the verbal slips are as horrific as I remembered them. Although the kids did far better than I did in front of the camera.

http://channel9.msdn.com/Series/Show-Us ... ar-Edition

At one point I can hear myself saying 2.75 to the 10th when I was actually thinking 2.75 times 10. The difference is the distance between about 350,000 neutrons per second and 27 billion neutrons per second (which would probably mean we were standing in the middle of a fireball a half mile wide).

Our beloved legislature just disemboweled the public school budget in Washington State, and the majority of the kids have nothing to look forward to for the next three years. I hope to be permitted to take a "Gee Whiz" science show on the road within the school system. At least then, the kids will get a taste of what real equipment looks like.
Carl Greninger
North West Nuclear Consortium
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Steven Sesselmann
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Re: Channel 9 @ MS is carrying our story.

Post by Steven Sesselmann »

Carl,

This was a nice documentary, and I think you are doing a great thing for those students. It really is sad, that so many teachers teach subjects that they are not passionate about. This applies not just to physics, but to every other subject as well. We all remember the great teachers from school, because they inspired us.

PS: Great to see the GS-900 at work in your lab

Steven
http://www.gammaspectacular.com - Gamma Spectrometry Systems
https://www.researchgate.net/profile/Steven_Sesselmann - Various papers and patents on RG
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Doug Coulter
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Re: Channel 9 @ MS is carrying our story.

Post by Doug Coulter »

Too bad it's silverlight-only so only microsoft fanboys need apply to watch it.
Why guess when you can know? Measure!
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Re: Channel 9 @ MS is carrying our story.

Post by Tyler Christensen »

You can download the video file in various formats to the right of the video
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Doug Coulter
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Re: Channel 9 @ MS is carrying our story.

Post by Doug Coulter »

Got it, after only a half hour of downloading an 18 min video (230 megs for the low rez version, gheez).

Carl -- why not upload this to youtube or someplace that makes it easy to see?

I love the inspirational aspect for the kids -- very very good show there. Kudos.

What's sad is in this bubble wrapped world, I proposed to do something like this around here for the local schools and it was rejected out of hand -- "think of the children" rules all too much these days.
The teachers were all for it, but the admins, nope. Could partly have been they didn't want some private guy to show them up....you know, with their millions they should be showing me up, not the other way around.

No fusor - for certain, that's "nuclear and radiation and scary and bad". (eg just what the kids want)

No laser that punches holes in things -- you'll put your eyes out with that.

No telescope -- during the day the sun is bad (even with thousand dollar filters) and we can't keep them up at night either.

No chemistry -- they might find out that there are legal applications of it, which the authorities don't want to believe (my own lab was raided as a drug lab, but no dice for them, we don't do that here - we were lucky not to get shot by those idiots).

No basic electronics if there are voltages over 5v or currents over 0.1 amp. No sparks, arcs, or anything interesting. Radios you buy on ebay, right? No transmitters. Old computers only old guys are interested in the guts of. Of course, no Tesla coils or rail guns or can crushers.

And of course, nothing really fun for the kids -- explosives or ballistics are a complete no-no. As if Newton didn't do that for a living.

Even VA Tech once hired me as a consultant to make an FM discriminator for their laser doppler particle tracking - no one there knew how, you buy them, right? But only if they're 10.7 mhz, else they are too magic for the Physics dept to figure out. And again to solve an attenuation measurement problem for their fiber optics -- they couldn't lash up an a/d and computer, and were trying to use analog multipliers and didn't understand DC drift. This wasn't the students!

In fact, almost everything Don Herbert (Mr Wizard) did is now "against policy" or against something -- but you can't even do it free with donated everything for the kids. I know, I've tried. It just makes you a "suspect". Why would anyone do it without some ulterior motive. They can't seem to believe that yes, there are motives that aren't immediately self serving - in some bad way.

So glad to hear someone is pulling it off at all -- but I notice you didn't get onto school grounds with it either, as I've also failed to do despite some attempts. Sadly, easier to get a gun or drugs there than something that would do them some good.

I've been doing similar things, but off their campuses - it's the only way. Then all you have to do is keep the parents in the loop and things are fine, but that's a challenge too as you have to achieve credibility with them and avoid being branded some sort of cult leader - or someone with an unnatural interest in the young. I even got that from a parent whose kid interned here before he learned enough to become CTO of Promiles. (Troy Berg, who helped me write the book on Digital Audio Processing before he went on to be a big success on his own)

One has to wonder how anyone matriculating from the uber-safe schools ever learns to actually DO anything at all. No wonder we have economic problems. Seems all we learn in school is how to whine.

At least Tech now has a fusor at all....things are getting a little better, slowly.

So I have a feel for how hard you worked on this, Carl - been there, still doing that. Good show, man.
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KJNW
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Re: Channel 9 @ MS is carrying our story.

Post by KJNW »

I will upload to "you tube" tonight, and post on this board. Doug, all you have said is absolutely true. I honestly don't expect that I will be able to penetrate the brick and mortar institutions without a battle, but I do have a strategy. Again, the legislature has really slammed the schools this year in our state, and I fully expect that the districts are going to be removing the paper towels from the bathrooms next year to make up the difference. (They will start teaching the kids to flap their hands like ducks.) Anyway, the teachers are going to be scratching for anything to make a curriculum out of. Further, the public school system fears the home school association for good reason because losing students to home school translates to losing revenue for teachers. On the other hand, the home school folk's love my operation as I don’t charge to present, and therefore I can present at science camps for the home schoolers with little resistance. The video has gone viral at over 30,000 hits on one site alone, and I am counting over a dozen well known blogs carrying it. All that adds up to a bunch of collateral, that if presented in a non-confrontational way, will cause some of the rules to be bent. I have standing invitations at several public middle schools now, and an invitation from a public high school to present to teachers. The other card is that I have already withstood the gauntlet of fire, police, radiological and legal concerns presented by a review board at Microsoft, and passed inspection! The only thing I understand they did different was that they positioned a foam truck in the area while I was presenting because of the absurd amount of paraffin in my 1,000 pound castle (54 gallons).
Carl Greninger
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Re: Channel 9 @ MS is carrying our story.

Post by Paul_Schatzkin »

Great footage, I posted it to the front of the site. Been too long since I've posted anything there...
Paul Schatzkin, aka "The Perfesser" – Founder and Host of Fusor.net
Author of The Boy Who Invented Television: 2023 Edition – https://amz.run/6ag1
"Fusion is not 20 years in the future; it is 60 years in the past and we missed it."
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Doug Coulter
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Re: Channel 9 @ MS is carrying our story.

Post by Doug Coulter »

When you get it on youtube, I'll for sure post a link on my site. Good work!
Why guess when you can know? Measure!
KJNW
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Re: Channel 9 @ MS is carrying our story.

Post by KJNW »

The video is now on you-tube. I had to edit it down from 18 minutes to 15 minutes to get it to upload. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OWLhxYjMAtQ

Enjoy!
Carl Greninger
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KJNW
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Re: Channel 9 @ MS is carrying our story.

Post by KJNW »

Thank you very much. I know 5 kids who are going to be thrilled.
Carl Greninger
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Carl Willis
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Re: Channel 9 @ MS is carrying our story.

Post by Carl Willis »

Nicely done media appearance, Carl. Your interviewer actually gives you a chance to explain your apparatus in some meaningful detail, and you do a good job of enthusiastically hitting your main points. Thanks for posting the video.

-Carl
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Re: Channel 9 @ MS is carrying our story.

Post by DaveC »

Carl - My congratulations. Good job of encouraging the science and foraging skills.
It was nice that Microsoft had the interest to boost the awareness.

The school budget issue is more or less the same round the country. Politicians, not being of scientific inclination, (but usually identifying with sports....) cut what's easiest -"esoteric" things like science, shop, math... and then the next generation can only think "outsource", to stay competitve in the marketplace.

Yeah, the schools and admins will whine, (admins will usually still get their raises), but the kids will lose out. Usually, none of the effects impact the legislative crowd, whose own re-election or career ops - seem, unfortunately, all too well insulated.

"Wisdom is justified of her children....", indeed.

Dave Cooper
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