Hello.

[WuffenCuckoo]

Credo: "What you think about -- when you are free to think about anything you want to (other than sex) -- determines who and what you are."

 

I wandered, fortuitously, into Science Forums. I liked what I saw, so I promptly joined.

 

First thing I need to know is how to modify my screen name: What I really wanted to use was 'WoofenCuckoo' (== 'barking mad' - courtesy of Berkly Breathed's 'Opus' comic strip), with a bar over the first 'u' and umlauts on all the last two 'u's'. Is this possible? (Wouldn't that be a great name for a garage band?)

 

I am retired. I have a machine shop in my basement and I am a member of the New England model Engineering Society. I am a volunteer (Thursdays) at the Charles River Museum of Industry in Waltham MA.

 

I was a systems programmer (writing mostly real-time operating systems) for over 40 years. When I was first exposed to computers, very close to fifty years ago, I realized that what they were being used for (and are still mostly being used for) -- tools for doing arithmetic and keeping track of business data -- was essentially trivial. What I thought was important was that they opened an unprecedented dimension (orthogonal to the physical world) in human thought and I resolved to try to determine the emergent laws governing information processing. To my astonishment, I seem to be alone (still) in this endeavour.

 

The great practical use of computers is to simulate complex systems. Their protean quality and ability to perform teraflops is important too (as Karl Marx remarked, 'Magnitude has a quality all of its own'), but in a different way.

 

I claim to have discerned some of the underlying emergent laws of information processing. Applied to the brain, say, these laws explain the function of sleep and the synergistic interaction between the sleeping and the waking brain.

 

What I have totally failed at is to convince the editors of peer-reviewed journals that this is not frivolous. As soon as they see the term 'information processing' they go into catatonic shock. Not being affiliated with any research organization does not help either. I now know why Max Plank said, a century ago, that 'Science marches on, one funeral at a time.' I am quite aware that these assertions make me sound like a crank. I assure you that I am not a crank, but you will be able to judge for yourself as I participate into the ongoing debates.

[InfiniteNow]

Hello WC,

 

Welcome to Hypography. Your post above is well thought, and well shared, just be cautious to keep your mind open to that which it has not yet encountered. Hypography is a good place to walk through such open doors, and I look forward to your contributions. :hihi:

 

 

Enjoy.

[GAHD]

Hello

 

checkout Ascii Table - ASCII character codes and html, octal, hex and decimal chart conversion for the letters you're looking for. once you got it written down somewhere PM me and we'll see about the UserName change.