X-Message-Number: 33256 From: "Jens Rabis" <> References: <> Subject: AW: CryoNet #33255 Date: Thu, 20 Jan 2011 11:50:11 +0100 Hi cryonauts, hi Mike I suggest to stop any investment in a) resuscitation technologies, b) life extension technologies. But invest to freezing technologies. Because: 1. a) comes later automatically 2. b) is not our (Cryonics Institute) job 3. c) Only a few hundred years, we are rich (because of the time factor - the exponential growth of wealth). We do not have enough money to "dance to several weddings!" Or? ********* ich schlage vor, jede Investitionen in a) Reanimationstechnologien, b) Lebensverlangerungstechnologien zu stoppen. Dafur aber in Einfriertechnologien zu investieren. Weil: 1. a) kommt spater automatisch 2. b) ist nicht unser (Kryonikinstitute) Job 3. c) Erst in ein paar hundert Jahren sind wir reich (wegen des Zeitfaktors - exponentieller Wachstum des Reichtums). Wir konnen uns es jetzt(!) nicht leisten " auf mehreren Hochzeiten zu tanzen! " Oder? Best greetings Jens Rabis Germany-Berlin " The time is with us, we can ... more! Life is for my ... curiosity :-) " -----Ursprungliche Nachricht----- Von: [mailto:] Im Auftrag von CryoNet Gesendet: Donnerstag, 20. Januar 2011 11:00 An: Betreff: CryoNet #33255 Message #33255 From: Date: Wed, 19 Jan 2011 06:49:14 EST Subject: Automated Data Collection In a message dated 1/19/2011 2:00:07 A.M. Pacific Standard Time, writes: Mike Darwin writes: > MD: I'll leave this question to Brian, because he can discourse at > length on the magic that is differential scanning calorimetery (DSC). > DSC can detect the minutest of phase changes in a sample, > and if your numbers all sum out right, then you can be pretty sure > "what's what" after cooling to any given temperature. I was still at > 21CM when Brian began this work, and it was horrible - the kind of > thing that would drive me barking mad. Basically you crimp a tiny > volume of solution 'just so' into sealed metal pans, and put them in > the device and cool them. Of course, the catch is, that you must do > this thousands and thousands of times to build a picture of how > different solutions behave under different regimens of cooling and > re-warming. It is boring, repetitive and truly > dull work.>> These days, this is what one builds small robots to do. (That is what has made much of recent science possible. No one could handle the precision and boredom associated with many modern data collection tasks -- automation is why they are possible at all. Luckily, technology to do things like that has gotten dirt cheap in the last decade or so.) Perry, I'm often surprised by what is automated and what is not. I love to visit factories of all kinds everywhere I go (hospitals too), and I see that my interest must be shared by others, because there are now these (to me at least) absolutely captivating TV programmes like "How It's Made." In Chen Chang, I saw all kinds of factories, and I observed a lot of automation, but only where cleanliness, rapidity and high precision were required. Where people can do, they are still used. By contrast, in Germany, the UK and the US, even very basic tasks that are not very sophisticated are automated. The difference is the cost of labor (and the regulatory burden). As it turns out, it costs a tremendous amount of money to automate any kind of precision, multi-step process. A machine to manufacture needles may cost upwards of a million dollars. Of course, that's a bargain compared to paying the people required (in a developed country) to do the job. Aside from the high direct costs, people are a pain the arse. And even then, costs are as low as they are because a lot of manufacturing automation will not be a 'one-off' - other people need needle making machines, too. Preparing the sample for analysis in the DSC requires (at least) these steps: 1) Someone has to mix up the various solutions that are to be evaluated. These solutions will 'one-offs' that are made up just for the purpose of evaluation. It's not like you are taking samples from various batches of medicine, soda, beer, etc., that being produced en masse for commerce. 2) The DSC 'pans' are very small, indeed tiny little metal containers - smaller than most hearing aid batteries. They must be filled with care and precision: no air bubbles can be present, and care must be taken to avoid contamination of the sample with water from the atmosphere in the case of hygroscopic CPAs (i.e., most of them). 3) The pan must be very artfully closed and crimped, and only then is it place in the DSC. The whole thing is a nightmare of careful and precise labor. And of course, you can't mix up 1 mL of your putative CPA mixtures, because you can't measure that precisely or repeatedly. [Actually, you can, but microchesmistry has its own headaches and is only economical if the reagents cost a fiortune.] Could a machine do all this? Absolutely! Just be prepared to shell out $1-2 million and to spend a couple of years ironing out the bugs. AND you will have a lot of overhead in the form of skilled people to maintain the machine. Turn out, wasting a brilliant mind like Brian Wowk's on such dreary business is cost effective. Also, there are technicians who can be trained to do this work. The brutal fact is that this civilization does not much value intellects such as Brian's. Nor do they value any intellect that does not provide a return on investment within ~5 years, on average. As someone who has had direct experience trying to automate some comparatively simple things, such as cardiopulmonary bypass (CPB) (which is very simple to automated compared to some of the unbelievably complex and exactly manufacturing processes I've seen automated), it can be surprisingly difficult, even if you have you have experts, and enormous computing power at your disposal. CPB is arguably no more complex than flying and landing a jetliner - and that process has been fully automated for at least a decade. Yes, you still need a pilot, and you would still need a perfusionist in automated CPB, but such automation provides enormous added safety (used wisely) and it also may allow for the use of knowledgeable, but less skilled personnel, in emergent situations - such as in-field CPB for refractory cardiac arrest. [You can have knowledge without reflexes!] However, such automation is challenging, and even if achieved, there has to be a market for it. Due mostly to regulatory constraints, that market is not there for automated CPB. That means you have no economies of scale and that further drives up the price and drives down the reliability of any system you do develop. Wide use = robustness and reliability. As to automating CPA evaluation, well, that is so far from a priority for this civilization it is impossible to put into words. At least not words I can post here ;-0. Mike Darwin Content-Type: text/html; charset="US-ASCII" [ AUTOMATICALLY SKIPPING HTML ENCODING! ] Rate This Message: http://www.cryonet.org/cgi-bin/rate.cgi?msg=33255 End of CryoNet Digest ********************* Rate This Message: http://www.cryonet.org/cgi-bin/rate.cgi?msg=33256