USA and Socialism

 To continue on the same topic. True, USA is the country of an ultimate individualism. However let's talk about San Diego Balboa Park. The park is open to public and has a huge parking lot at Inspiration Point (300 spots? not sure ) plus plenty of free parking on the street along Park Boulevard, plus plenty of free parking at San Diego Zoo. Everybody can come and lay on the grass, picnic. There are plenty of museums, some expensive, some free. And here it is, the true diamond of Balboa Park: Balboa Park Recreational  Center.  This is the place to play badminton, ping pong and volleyball, 7 days a week.  It is an indoor facility! There is about 30 badminton courts there.  Here it comes... The facility is free to use by everybody. It is supported by property taxes and perhaps by some personal grants (?). You come, sign up and play. 

How does it compare to other countries?  Indoor sports facilities in Europe are expensive.  When I lived in Sweden, it costed about $5-$10 per hour  to play.   China is the badminton center of the world. Yet as I hear from my Chinese friends, playing badminton in China is expensive, it is the sport of the chosen few and rich.

The classical argument is: yes playing at Balboa Recreation Center  is free but only rich folks know about it and play there; the poor people are too busy to put their food on the table and are not there. However, this is not what I see there. This place is truly a melting pot of incomes, cultures, and nationalities.  You can see rich, very rich, poor and very poor people playing together.  You can see Chinese, Vietnamese, Filippinos, Indians and Whites all playing together. You can see young people, children,  old and very old people, all playing together.  Perhaps it is an illusion of a social peace, but it is there.

Deja vu from the past: similarities of the US and USSR

 1. Democratic Party.

In December of 2024, in the middle of the war between Ukraine and Russia, and between Hamas and Israel, a Democratic Party leader, 84-years old Nancy Pelosi was on an 'official trip to Luxembourg', to commemorate the WW2 Battle of Bulge.  While being on this trip, she fell and broke her hip; her hip has been replaced since then and she is doing OK.   I am assuming that the 'offficial trip' lingo means that all her expenses on the trip were paid by the Democratic Party.  Here is the list of my questions to Nancy

1. Is the trip to Luxembourg important and the highest priority for the Democratic Party, at the time of the two major international conflicts, and the loss of the presidential election?

2. Why a 84 year old woman choses not to be more concerned with internal US politics and stays home?

3. Did she participate in the Battle of Bulge (I am assuming not) or perhaps any of her family member did?  Why is she there in the first place?

2.Republican Party.

A few days ago, my neighbors  have seen a major cavalcade of police cars on our local streets - I was not there but the Nextdoor website  shows the video. 

This is what the neighbors say:

'So what VIP is in Carmel Valley right now? As I walked on Carmel Creek Road and approached the intersection of Carmel Country Road, I saw police cars followed by at least 10 unmarked black SUVs and a black van all with red/blue flashing lights plus an ambulance — all tailed by the two SD Police cars whose taillights I managed to capture in this photo taken as they drove down Carmel Country Road — maybe toward the Grand?'

Turns out that it was a  visit by JD Vance, the vice president, perhaps because of the family connections  (his wife is from San Diego).  JD Vance kind of plays the game of being a straight talking blue color guy. Why then  so much of security and entourage? Is it really needed? 

23rd piano concerto of Mozart

 It is great  music, perhaps, the best music that has ever been written.  There is a story about this concerto and Joseph Stalin. AI generated the text below that seems to be  correct:"Mozart's Piano Concerto No. 23 in A major, K. 488, is notable for its connection to Joseph Stalin. In 1944, Stalin heard a radio broadcast of the concerto, performed by Maria Yudina, and was so moved that he demanded a recording..."

The question that bothers me is,  does  the  music go across the political, cultural and religious borders? Is it indeed a common language for all of us, good and bad, masters and slaves, tyrants and victims ?  Stalin was a tyrant who killed so many people, so many people who were good people and sometimes completely innocent.  And if Stalin has been touched by this, what does it all mean?  Does it mean that he had a flip side of himself? Is he  then a part of the European culture?  Perhaps, he is, in a twisted way. 

https://youtu.be/riRK7P_ynfc?si=4I_vHh0YXpuMNBBp

My inventions and patents

 I have quite a few inventions and patents; I do not remember how many? 30? 40? 50?  US industry in general pushes you towards this path, as the regular publications are discouraged.  I do not have a single invention I am truly proud of.  

I had some ideas that were good but were 'ahead of time' in a way, that is, it was an interesting idea but there was no true application for it at that time,  or we tried to apply it where it was not needed.  Dry lipid nanoparticles was that kind of invention, which was not needed till RNA technology came in, and brought COVID vaccines with it.  I tried it with the drugs that were stable and did not need the lipid encapsulation.

 Then I had good ideas that were killed and not patented because we had other priorities and had no resources to prototype it. Such an example was a chemical graft between rhodamine dyes  and metal complex dyes  (such as RR23 magenta dye). This dye would be photochemically stable and also stable to migration, therefore quite good for inkjet photo applications.  When we communicated it to our dye supply company, they said that they tried to prototype it and it did not work.   It may have been caught in the corporate politics, I do not know. 

There was a whole bunch of patents that were put together as  'defensive publications'  which provided a patent protection for commercially released products.   There is a lot of work behind them, but no 'inventive act'. 

Then there was a category of 'bad' inventions, those that looked like a good idea but did not work 'well'.

However I started to write this for a different reason. The year was about  1970 and I was 10 years old. I took a 10x 20 cm piece of a textolite board, covered it with a white ski wax  and put  a polyethylene film on top. The  wax layer was sandwiched in between the board and the film.  When squeezed, the board looked brown because the wax was locally squeezed out, but if not, it looked white.  The polyethylene film was then attached to the board on one side  by a tape, similar to  the book binding: the textolite was the back cover and the transparent polyethylene sheet was the first page.

It was possible to write on the polyethylene with a wooden stick, because the ski wax was pushed out by the stick. The text had  the color of ttextolite and the overall grayish-white layer of the wax provided the background .  In order to erase what was written, one had to lift the polyethylene film and then re-attach it, evenly distributing  the wax back in place.  

This made some kind of a scratchboard  with the contents that could be easily  erased and re-written down again. I used it for a while and then it was thrown away. It was not a bad idea, I think; not sure where did I get it from.

Now when I see an Amazon Reader  or a notebook with a touch sensitive screen, I think of it. The shape factor and, partially, the usage model were similar.

Roses

 There are between 320 and 350  roses species, and over 30,000 cultivars. Not surprising that the subject of rose growing is so confusing. There are so many roses!  Many look very similar but are technically different, which makes the identification difficult.  They say, only 10 species of roses were used in the production of cultivars.

Yet the variety of rose color and smell is incredible. Another variety is the shape of the flower, the size of it and the number of petals.

I have seen colors in white, yellow, red, purple color scheme with all the shades in between. There is no naturally occurring blue rose.

Cultivars of roses started to be produced in large scale in France (at least to what the European knowledge tells us). France is still a major source of rose cultivars.

Google search and artificial intelligence

 I find the quality of Google Search data to degrade with the artificial intelligence system in place.  In the old times, the Google search relied on a 'highly cited' webpage information, where  the actual human beings provided  the actual advices. That is, the experts in the field (or perhaps just smart ordinary people with experience) expressed opinions.   The problem with artificial intelligence is, its advices are given as based on 'plausible looking' or nearly 'linguistic' arguments, which are often wrong.  For example,  as I was fixing the laundry dryer with the sensor light blinking, the AI was consistently suggesting me to check if the sensor was broken and needed replacement. The point is, the humidity sensor cannot get broken. It has no moving parts and no electronics.  After some pain and trial and error attempts, I was able to find out  that the door switch was broken. As the dryer was trying to start, it sensed the 'open door'  and was stuck in the 'sensing' mode.

My thought is, in this case the AI not only did not help, but was clearly harmful. It diluted the true expert-based information on the web (which may have existed) with trivial, primitive, basic,  non-intelligent guesses. As there is no factual knowledge behind it, it generates a lot of wasted effort. It also dilutes the information on the web with plausible, nice-flowing bullshit.

Another dream about HP

 I am retiring from HP. This time,  there was a true retirement party, with about 100 people in the room, multiple dining tables -- it was a big crowd.  Viomesh Joshi (aka VJ) was there too- which is strange, because by the time of my retirement in 2020 he was already leading 3D Systems in San Diego.  Somehow I ran into  VJ  somewhere between the dining tables or maybe on the way to bathroom and started to explain to him why HP 3D printing technology is so deficient.  I had about 2 minutes of his time;  he was listening to my spiel with some amazement, but made no comments. I never  spoke to VJ in real life.   Interestingly, Skip Rung who retired from HP in about 1999 was also there and I saw him briefly.

Bringing manufacturing back to US

 I could see the stages in which manufacturing was leaving US

-first the manufacturing scale up is left to 'tax shelters'- the countries with more favorable tax system: Singapore, Ireland, Puerto Rico.  The manufacturing   and development expertise still remains in the US, first, de-facto, then only nominally.

After the manufacturing is moved to other countries, the local US engineering expertise erodes. The people are laid off; there is no growth. No new hires. The colleges gradually stop to supply engineers as there is no jobs for them. The education system evolves to new demands, more towards environmental protection, regulatory control, etc.

Note that there is a lot of inertia in this system. However, when the people are lost, they are gone; they will not come back. They are not there. It will take perhaps a lot of money, willingness and patience to turn the tide.

 There is not only the people aspect, there is also the 'hardware'--- factories, heavy equipment, clean rooms.  Some manufacturing areas are very difficult (capital intensive) to shut down. Once it is shut down however, it is really shut down. 

Another dream today

 I am working again in Russian Academy of Sciences, the same old institution I used to work at.  I wearing a lab coat that I found in the lab; perhaps it was a somebody else's coat (which turned out to be the case, see below). I then was going to leave the building, and, for some reason, I was still wearing this coat. The security officers, two women, started to  do a check me. They patted me in the front and in the back (the security checks have become more stringent than in the old times). And yes- they found something on my back- it was a carpenter's hammer! What an  embarrassment! I said to them that I had no idea where did the  hammer come from. I asked them what would happen now, and they said: 'twenty days of prison'.  I then saw a somebody else's name  on the lap of the coat, and I said: look, this is not my coat! This is a mistake! Not sure if I was getting some slack because of this, or perhaps they needed some time to report on me and to make the decision. So, I was back in the building thinking about the twenty days in prison that were coming up.  ~~Then another researcher (whom I did not recognize) approached me and said  'Take it easy man! it will be alright!  Let's do a research project together- I have heard you are doing some nice work on polyurethanes!  I have something in mind for you'. The dream ended at that point.

Scientists working in US industry, pluses and minuses

 The main plus to work in US industry is of course  the very high pay. Also, if you joined the company early enough, stock options may make you rich. 

The downside is,  US companies need scientists for a not very long period of time,  only  until the product is made and further  improvements, upgrades, etc are still needed.  This sometimes requires a very deep and specialized expertise and US industry is happy to find the right people  and to pay them well.  However, when it is done, this is the end of it; the product is passed to completely different people.

It does not necessarily mean that you will be immediately laid off; in fact you can/may stay with the company for a while,  in particular if the company is still profitable. However, your career growth stops and people gradually forget you. The new generation comes in and is going to replace you- either because the company focuses now on other things in which you do not have an expertise, or the research is stopped completely; what is left is the optimization, material sourcing , logistics  aka 'supply chain activities'.

The challenge to an industry PhD  is to constantly change and adapt, which is sometimes hard to do.

Another bike ride today

 41.6 miles,  3hrs 40 min; this translates to moving speed  of 11.34 miles/hour. The gear switcher broke and I had to ride a two-gear bike on the way back.  My little device showed 11.7 miles/hour, perhaps it accounted for more stops  I made as it measures moving average, excluding the stops. Perhaps the fact that the gear switcher broke increased my speed. I have been  very slow recently.

Another dream

 Russian Academy of Sciences is closing down. My institute is closing down as well; we were told to pack all our things and put them on storage. The building needs to be vacated. So, we are packing boxes full of papers and chemistry samples. The next thing I remember we are on a train, with open windows, with all these boxes, and the train is going through endless and confusing sequences of  train tracks, sometimes through very narrow passages between buildings. An industrial landscape everywhere. Finally, the train stops  inside  some kind of a depot, and I unload my boxes. The depot looks like a smaller version of a research institution, but there is not much room and no windows, however everything looks very neat and clean. I am greeted by the manager, who is a latino (or perhaps middle-eastern), in his early fifties. He is very polite. He says that my materials will be stored for 20 to 30 years. He also shows some familiarity with my work, as he is trying to ask questions related to my research. The questions are nice, but somewhat simplistic;  he acts as a  community college graduate wanting to excel and perhaps to look smarter than he actually  is.  I start to wander in this depot; many rooms, there are some computers here and there,  but no windows and very low ceilings.  The dreams ends there.

Before this dream I had multiple other dreams about my institute being closed down. It seems to be a recurring theme.

Artificial Inteligence

 I do not have much experience with it. Yet, the artificial generation of nice,  sleek texts  that look professional  is now possible- it was not the case some 10 years ago. There is a lot of excitement about  it.  

As a former scientist, I always had a dislike to smooth flowing  sleek texts and therefore I somehow do not trust  anything associated with the artificial intelligence.  I have two points to make here. 

Say, we place a mathematical, physical, chemical,  or even an engineering problem to AI. How do we know that the answer that is given is actually true?  Whatever the AI tells me,  I can accept  as a brainstorming hypothesis that I  later will need to validate, but not as the final solution. Of course, having hypotheses helps when one has a mental block, so it is not completely useless.

My second point, I never realized how big is the demand for nice looking smooth flowing texts. They flow  like honey or milk and fill many, many pages. There is a big market for it! You can use it as a  high school essay; you can use it as a college essay, you can write a book and add it to your resume, you can write  speeches for  CEOs, you can become a ghost writer for a politician- no end to it. Is it true and insightful? Nobody knows and nobody cares but this is not the point. 

The pages are being filled. This is depressing. 

Russia Internationally

 Many of political problems Russia is facing now on a political level may root in a deep dislike of Russians and Russia on  social, cultural, and every-day-life level. This is of course on top of the fact that  all the countries of the  former Eastern Bloc hate Russians for keeping them as satellites for too long, and leaving them economically and politically underdeveloped. Former Soviet Republics hate Russia as de-facto colonizers, even worse there.

The question comes to mind, what does Russia bring to the European/International  table that is of value?  Simple things that are easy to understand. Tell me.  Is it a good business environment, being trustworthy and reliable? Is it highly developed technology that can be used elsewhere?  Is it culture (literature, music, painting of international significance?). Is it good business acumen and ability to learn and scale up technologies?  Is it  respect to people within the country and to the neighbors? Is it sports and athletics?  Chess?

I am trying to think about something simple here, like 'French wines are great' 'German automakers are reliable', 'Japanese speed trains go fast and are always on time',  'British pubs are great and British comedy is funny' 'Italian cuisine is unbelievable', 'Chinese know how to scale up technologies' 'American National Parks are open to public and very nice to visit' 'Swedes are fair'

Very little of it. Russia does not bring much love into the hearts of their neighbors. 

It takes a long time to develop such love but  it is essential for any kind of progress on international level. Otherwise it may remain 'the country nobody cares about' with all the consequences.

The curse of big companies and big money (HP Case)

 Today's discussion is about wrong technical/strategic decisions made by big companies.  We ignore for a moment clearly wrong business decisions such as HP ignoring Steve Wozniak in 1976.  His personal computer design was declined 5 times. The newly formed  Apple Computer took it in 1976 and the rest is history.  Let's talk about what happened during my time at HP printing division. Here is my list of completely wrong  things (as has been proven by time)

1. Inkiet printer (to replace LaserJet) for office printing

2. Highlighter smear problem of inkjet inks in the office  -does anybody even remember this?

3. Printing inkjet on  coated offset media

4. Inkjet photo kiosk business

5.  Image permanence of inkjet photographs

6. 3D printing of final parts (not molds, not prototypes, but actual parts)

Nothing is of the same size as the Wozniak failure, but those were major projects, with many millions of  dollars spent on it, and hundreds of very talented engineers were trying to make it work. Why? Why spending the money on this? Each one is a separate case worth writing about, and maybe I will some day. 

Overall, the main problems at HP were:

1. Bad marketing team/culture (always optimistic, never no-nonsense, direct Israeli style).

2. High level project managers were not engineers and could not figure out what can or cannot be done from the technical standpoint; they came from the 'market needs' and 'business needs'.

3. No technical leadership and decisions by consensus- the consensus typically leads to a very ugly final outcome.

4. Too slow; many projects were implemented when there was no need for them already 

Interestingly, successes of  few of HP inkjet businesses came unplanned and unexpected.

(more about it later)

It just occurred to me: What if Steve Wozniak's design would had been accepted by HP?  Then HP would have started making Apple-like computers!  Perhaps 100 of them would have been made, mostly for geeks. The whole thing would die off in a couple of years, and we would not have the personal computer revolution! So yes, the things turned out well in the end.

Still another dream

 I am on the way to Sweden (Lund) and my former supervisors and colleagues agreed that I can have a re-run of my  Ph.D defense there. We all thought that it would be some kind of a show, a skit, not a true defense, as I  had had  my Ph.D.  already from the Soviet Union, and it was fully recognized.  And then endless problems emerge as I cannot get to the Chemical Center  in time.  I am keeping losing my way, I am constantly being side-tracked, perhaps I am even being slightly drunk and disoriented.  The dream repeated itself several times;  I eventually have made it to the  Chemical Center but then it is too late and the people  have left already.