asciilifeform: decimation: eco, pelevin, others - were clever chaps; understood that if you suck cock, you become a cock-sucker, even if 'your heart isn't in it' at first

asciilifeform: the action of the 'virus' was evident in his early work, but it got worse.

asciilifeform: same thing happened to russian mega-author v. pelevin

asciilifeform: (eco, not perelman)

asciilifeform: as i understand - he caught a memetic virus - 'postmodernism' - and might as well have contracted 'mad cow'.

asciilifeform: decimation: the only work of that man i found readable

asciilifeform: decimation: this.

asciilifeform: umberto eco.

asciilifeform: perelman had the unfortunate combination of math and iron balls. he would not 'play ball'.

asciilifeform: but once in a while you hear that some busybody found him and told 'fuck off, can't answer for your safety if i see you again.'

asciilifeform: for all we know - perelman was eaten by local fauna, or fellated his nagant

asciilifeform: (as, e.g, k. f. gauss did)

asciilifeform: if he's feeling charitable, he might leave archaeologists a box of notebooks the ants won't eat.

asciilifeform: go find him.

asciilifeform: lives somewhere in russian north, among the trees.

asciilifeform: he also turned down, if i recall, government pensions, interviews with journawhores, all of it.

asciilifeform: not only.

asciilifeform: !s perelman

asciilifeform: partial, if you like. full perelman is when you haven't a post address either.

asciilifeform: this is called perelman mode.

asciilifeform: the most i can offer to interested readers is repeat of mircea_popescu's algorithm 'have sex - with people, do business - with keys.'

asciilifeform: (how to know that schwartz (or taleb, or...) collects 'prize' rather than usg stooge with a shannonizer and irc connection - exercise for alert reader.)

asciilifeform: but poor s. apparently went 'full perelman mode' and doesn't write back any more.

asciilifeform: if i were, e.g, mircea_popescu, and gave a damn, i'd offer schwartz xxxx btc. half to show up here, half after he explains himself.

asciilifeform: and - they have to give a damn.

asciilifeform: but they have to be actual sovereign kingdoms - not muppet shows.

asciilifeform: see galileo & florence.

asciilifeform: but this is the very problem that multiple kingdoms one can defect to is the only known solution.

asciilifeform: but i suspect he'd sooner fellate his 'magnum.'

asciilifeform: if ussr were alive, perhaps he'd have defected.

asciilifeform: you can't pay your enemies to die.

asciilifeform: *institute

asciilifeform: regardless of the outcome of the experiment, he'd end up seen just like the fellow who opened the 'esp instutute'

asciilifeform: he's a clever enough fellow to understand that this would cement his already unenviable position

asciilifeform: this, as i understand, is why schwartz never made any attempt to raise funding

asciilifeform: or a few centuries after we've all died.

asciilifeform: but to even begin the kind of work it would take to 'technologize', is an investment that no one would remotely contemplate without the kind of proof that can only be obtained after his enemies were to give in.

asciilifeform: it exists - if exists - somewhere after the 8th decimal.

asciilifeform: understand that the effect in question, even if it turns out to work as herr schwartz predicted, doesn't yield an 'antigravity jetpack'

asciilifeform: (if schwartz were to be permitted to carry out his experiment, and obtained a positive result)

asciilifeform: decimation: adelberger, for example, would have to perform seppuku - and all of his students, and their students

asciilifeform: decimation: there's also other factors.

asciilifeform: but that'd be it.

asciilifeform: he could, potentially, upgrade to rich pariah instead of modestly wealthy pariah

asciilifeform: schwartz is one of the very few people i know of whose problem cannot be solved with money per se.

asciilifeform: it won't: 'count.'

asciilifeform: if i were to sell a few extra organs, i could run the 50k variant of the experiment. and i'd go to my grave knowing that equivalence principle can be violated. but that'd be all.

asciilifeform: (30+% 3rd deg. burns)

asciilifeform: (he nearly managed it once)

asciilifeform: including the set that want schwartz to die in a fire

asciilifeform: not only standard, but as agreed upon by all pertinent professionals

asciilifeform: i recall mircea_popescu even used this tale as an example in an essay

asciilifeform: concept of 'provenance' is key here

asciilifeform: (atmosphere of controlled temperature, pressure - and, more importantly, provenance)

asciilifeform: if you want the needed accuracy - it's rather more complicated.

asciilifeform: if you want to know what test - bring schwartz out of his hidey hole, wherever it is, and ask him. he enjoys explaining it, me - it just depresses

asciilifeform: The20YearIRCloud: no need to be a con man in the usual sense to acquiesce to usg SOP.

asciilifeform: http://log.bitcoin-assets.com/?date=27-07-2014#772706 ☝︎

asciilifeform: decimation: we came up with a setup that didn't require eotvos balance

asciilifeform: decimation: dig the log

asciilifeform: but the folks involved with 'emdrive' have a rich history of fraud (usg and principals both)

asciilifeform: understand, we'd all love a working perpetuum mobile or reactionless thruster.

asciilifeform: what classical law does it violate?

asciilifeform: there's always an 'imaginary particle' involved

asciilifeform: if you ask any physics crank, his machines never violate physical law

asciilifeform: vasmir doesn't violate newton's 3rd.

asciilifeform: nasa is happy to fund every perpetual-motion crank on the planet - but if you're an industrial organic chemist with a history of rocking the boat - forget it.

asciilifeform: as did podkletnov's, afaik.

asciilifeform: (emdrive, not schwartz)

asciilifeform: in the sense that podkletnov's drive 'worked.'

asciilifeform: his products - work.

asciilifeform: no.

asciilifeform: )

asciilifeform: !s eotvos

asciilifeform: (which others?

asciilifeform: (or in use by chicoms - like his certain other creations)

asciilifeform: al schwarts published a possible recipe for room temperature supercon - afaik, it was ignored.

asciilifeform: (bonus: shoot with the battery)

asciilifeform: don't shoot a man with lead and gunpowder, shoot him with pocket railgun on watch battery - classier.

asciilifeform: result - no rich man need die from most cancers.

asciilifeform: e.g., home 'mri' scanner plus some fairly simple image processing.

asciilifeform: room temperature supercon is a box of surprises.

asciilifeform: because there - yes, critical.

asciilifeform: heat loss in conductors isn't terribly critical << consider why virtually all present-day applications of low temperature superconductors is in high-strength magnets.

asciilifeform: room-temperature superconductors << unless we all perish in laser pistol duels.

asciilifeform: gold also solders beautifully, because the coating remains smooth

asciilifeform: yes

asciilifeform: and everybody's.

asciilifeform: copper plated with gold is more or less 'best of worlds'

asciilifeform: usually the absolute conductivity isn't critical. resistance to corrosion and heat conductivity - is.

asciilifeform: oxidation.

asciilifeform: (while gold is king in all fine electronics)

asciilifeform: decimation: understand why it is rarely used as such.

asciilifeform: they occasionally turn up in loose change even now.

asciilifeform: silver, at the time, (and largely still today) being primarily an industrial metal - the supply was already safely corralled.

asciilifeform: (gold, rather than foreign currency, in that case, but applied across the board)

asciilifeform: khruschev turned this into a hanging offense. retroactively.

asciilifeform: see the many stories of lotto winners who take home mazeratis and then go bankrupt

asciilifeform: other interesting thing about treasure is that, afaik, your tax liability officially begins when the shovel opens the box

asciilifeform: eventually, the soviet denouement is that all precious metal is presumed 'stolen from mint.'