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Thanks for the long response and I agree that experimentation like yours needs to have more venues for exposure, which is hard to do in our contemporary content

Thanks for the long response and I agree that experimentation like yours needs to have more venues for exposure, which is hard to do in our contemporary content treadmill. "The enemy of art is the absence of limitations." Seeing research budgets spent on equipment - that either never gets used or is poorly maintained - just to save a spot on a given funding bracket leaves a bad taste in my mouth.

fuzzfactor 4y ago
I know what you mean. I built my own laboratory from surplus research equipment where I only had certain types of pieces but I ended up with stronger resources than any one original owner. Was able to use more features over more years doing invoiceable routine work the research way, and between vessels explore applications that were not invoiceable. That's where the real progress is, and it's possible to make it eventually pay off. Got so much more out of the equipment for many more years than the original companies. And I made money making progress on the instruments while it cost them money every inch of the way. So what if I could have gotten a whole lot more out of millions of dollars worth of new gear, I was just making the most of the limited stuff I could get affordably instead. I was also a lot more of a loose cannon when it didn't really cost me a million dollars either. The large petrochemical labs, with all their PhDs and virtually unlimited budgets compared to mine, could not do what I could do with their old equipment. Even after they had gotten a head start on newer models they had acquired before declaring their older ones surplus. And it took even more time before I had access to the surplus. Even though these were industrial labs they were hampered by a carryover from the academic laboratory background. And I was welcome to the unexplored possibilities overflowing out the basement doors with the truckloads of "obsolete" electronics. So I can't complain.

fuzzfactor 4y ago

I know what you mean. I built my own laboratory from surplus research equipment where I only had certain types of pieces but I ended up with stronger resources than any one original owner. Was able to use more features over more years doing invoiceable routine work the research way, and between vessels explore applications that were not invoiceable. That's where the real progress is, and it's possible to make it eventually pay off. Got so much more out of the equipment for many more years than the original companies. And I made money making progress on the instruments while it cost them money every inch of the way. So what if I could have gotten a whole lot more out of millions of dollars worth of new gear, I was just making the most of the limited stuff I could get affordably instead. I was also a lot more of a loose cannon when it didn't really cost me a million dollars either. The large petrochemical labs, with all their PhDs and virtually unlimited budgets compared to mine, could not do what I could do with their old equipment. Even after they had gotten a head start on newer models they had acquired before declaring their older ones surplus. And it took even more time before I had access to the surplus. Even though these were industrial labs they were hampered by a carryover from the academic laboratory background. And I was welcome to the unexplored possibilities overflowing out the basement doors with the truckloads of "obsolete" electronics. So I can't complain.