Today’s research, where it exists, is extremely focused, which makes it self-limiting.

Actually, my first connection was to NSFNet as part of a consortium working on medical devices of various kinds, way back when. I was a sys admin doing the care and feeding for the guys who were breadboarding some of the circuits for the devices, rather than any real research.

The biggest problem for NSF was that it thought that things that went boom were failed experiments, while the Repubs like booms. Repubs would rather increase the weapons blast radius to ensure target destruction than to make it more accurate. The ultimate has to be the BOMARC, a surface to air missile with a nuclear warhead. The concept was that the warhead would ensure the destruction of the nuclear bombs on the attacking aircraft. Definitely a large boom.

Unfortunately the NSF was highly politicized after the Republicans took over Congress in ’96, and much of the basic research it was funding was cancelled because it was offensive to people who believe an invisible sky demon created the world 8,000 years ago. DARPA research did not suffer the same problem because DARPA operates semi-secretly and purports its research to be relevant to national defense, which is the third rail of American politics (i.e., if it’s national defense related, touching it is extremely painful if not deadly to a politician). So now…

BTW, I will disagree about the notion that fundamental research is not being currently done by private industry. Intel, for example, is continually pushing the boundaries of optical imaging technology and molecular chemistry in their continual attempt to bludgeon their competitors to death with smaller and smaller semiconductor feature sizes. And while the operating systems research that my employer is doing, and that I am in charge of making sure works, is not high dollar or changing basic theoretical paradigms, it is certainly new basic research on operating systems structure funded by venture capital in hopes of successful commercialization. There are some things, such as high energy physics, where government has to be involved because of the sheer scale of the problems being solved. But for a lot of the smaller research problems, especially the mathematically-based ones, the transition to venture capital funding as vs. NSF funding happened fairly seamlessly as the NSF disintegrated as a funding mechanism for basic research. This of course means we must create a business case for what we’re doing, but (shrug)…

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With real research you made need to put together answers from multiple labs to come up with a real product, and sometimes the “failures” are more valuable than the successes, as with Post-It notes.

This is another reason it needs to be public, so everyone can read it. You don’t know that some corporate lab has actually solved your problem, because the research in kept in a corporate vault. Research needs to be publicly explained.

otoh, i actually ate pretty cheaply [for a vacationer] while i was there. i paid $7 or $8 for a cup of fruit, a cup yogurt and a cup of coffee for breakfast, but that was really $3 for food value and $5 for the convenience of grabbing breakfast-to-go on my way out of the hotel each morning. lunch and supper came from tiny little delis and such, most of them some kind of ethnic food where i had no idea what i was eating, but where i could get a full meal with enough left over for a snack for $4 or $5.

i’m all for research to solve identified problems, but i really like answering questions just to have answers, whether or not those answers have any immediate practical application. govts can afford this kind of ‘unproductive’ research on the basis of providing jobs, kind of like a wpa/ccc for scientists, and if something applicable comes out of it, so much the better.

hipparchia´s last blog post.."It is way worse than I thought it would be."

The City is very consistent in charging all that the market will bear [and then adding a surcharge].

now that’s my idea of science!

as for the hotel, there’s a plaque on the outside of the bldg. i got a really good deal on the room, but they were undergoing major renovations at the time. wouldn’t surprise me a bit to find out there’s a plaque in the room too, and that it costs more.

hipparchia´s last blog post.."It is way worse than I thought it would be."

They are dealing with HF, which provides much longer distance communications at a much lower power input than the higher frequencies normally used to provide interference free transmission and line of sight directionality.

If they can figure out how to use the ionosphere instead of fighting it, it would significantly reduce energy costs for long distance comm links.

That’s my wild-ass-guess. The fact that they’re doing it in Alaska, where it really plays hell with comms, especially during the auroras, is also significant, in that if it works there, it will be better everywhere else.

Given that it’s DARPA, not even the researchers may be sure exactly what they are trying to do. Given that it has been going on so long, the current work probably has nothing to do with the original proposal.

my one visit to nyc, i stayed in the hotel where nikola tesla died. i forgot to ask if it was the same room.

hipparchia´s last blog post.."It is way worse than I thought it would be."