Or had to keep a heavily used CF server running...
By around 97, we (at UOL, a major ISP/portal in Brazil) had to develop a small program that automatically restarted it when cfserver (IIRC) locked up. During peak hours, it had to be restarted every minute or so.
By 98, all applications were migrated to saner platforms.
When I saw the submission title, I thought "oh no." And then I felt relief that it was not about the CF platform.
Coldfusion was pretty bad when it was first introduced, and it hasn't improved much. I've been dodging it for years, but some of my friends haven't been so lucky. Each of them hates it, and one had even quit his job because his employer didn't want to give it up.
Yes, I would be sad if CF became "mainstream" again and I had to learn it. If I recall correctly, everyone needed ColdFusion when it was first introduced, and it is only barely alive due to that initial boom.
CF was one of the nicer programming languages I've ever worked with. Circa 2002-2005 there wasn't anything close to a better alternative.
The down-fall of CF was Rails since Rails is open-source, huge community, is free, and powered by Ruby. CF was closed sourced, small community, and powered by Java. Yuck.
I also quit a job because of their attachment to CF, I joined initially with an apprehensive mind because I'd spoken to a few of my friends about it and they got this look in their eyes like I used to see only amongst people that had tried to keep windows servers in the late 90's running for extended periods of time.
Nevertheless I resolved to give it a shot, the experience was so bad I was reduced to a gibbering wreck, quivering and wishing for my sane C64 BASIC interpreter rather than having to write cf tag based code structures because the designers of the language couldn't be bothered to even finish the rudimentary cfscript implementation they made in an extremely half assed fashion.
CF needs to die; forever, I want it wiped from the face of the planet, if I ever decide to become a berserker instead of biting my tongue for blood I will just remember the pain inflicted on me trying to use this steaming pile of excrement.
Enough bad things can simply never be said about CF, this article headline alone almost gave me an aneurysm, and I felt a soothing feeling of relief wash over me when I realised they were only referring to the potentially junk science version so widely misunderstood by the public at large. I can think of no realisation in the same vein that would actually make me feel such a positive response except in this specific narrow example.
Normally, I don't like backhanded comments. But Adobe's recent products (post Macromedia merger) are so bad that it's OK to jab at them (because it's true!)
We're talking about cold fusion, right? Maybe things have changed, but I was under the impression that it was not yet possible to reliably reproduce the effects. In such a context, reproduction would be quite noteworthy.
No, I'm not. As I've said elsewhere, I can understand why this is interesting to researchers. But to be interesting to me (and, I suspect, at least some others) there needs to be some reliably repeatable demonstration of "new physics". I don't see any evidence for that here.
There are lots of people investigating lots of exciting ideas out there. That's great. But there's a big difference between "wouldn't it be cool if..." and "hey, I can show that...".
When I saw the conference details, I hoped cold fusion was at the "show that" phase. Disappointingly, it continues to not be. Hence my post.
One of my clients is working somewhere in this field; they're having a much easier time recruiting new scientists and other personnel, and they are well funded.
An NDA prevents me from saying much else, but I think I can say that the field is better developed than many people realize.
"some describe cold fusion as the 'Fleishmann-Pons Effect' in honor of the pioneers, Marwan noted."
Really? In honor of the possibly-crazy-but-much-more-likely-liars-and-con men whose experiments couldn't even come close to being replicated. The whole article acts like any current research is a vindication of Fleishmann and Pons, but honestly, if cold fusion ever does come to pass, it will be despite Fleishmann and Pons' fraudulent work. How much time and credibility was wasted trying to recreate that BS?
liars-and-con men whose experiments couldn't even come close to being replicated.
Well, in the first few weeks after the announcement, several labs said they had replicated the experiment, so if Fleishmann and Pons were liars or con men, I suppose we must assume a vast conspiracy of such across several notable institutions... well, that or some people were excited, mistaken, and desperately wanted to find evidence of something that apparently wasn't there.
Bad results -- even replication of results ultimately found to be bad -- do not require liars, only error.
cold fusion won't move any closer to mainstream acceptance until people can start to show any examples of positive net energy cold fusion, either in the lab or in nature.
or, alternatively, show that it is possible to do coldER fusion. just, show that there's a process with the possibility of scaling down.
Exactly. Cold fusion is not necessarily 'junk science' but until someone uses it to generate net energy it is an interesting theoretical idea rather than solid science on which real world technology can be built.
Doubters and such should note several things about this press release:
1. It's from the American Chemical Society. While no one is infallible, they're not exactly flakes.
2. There are some serious names and institutions involved. Same caveat as 1.
3. Ask yourself if your doubts are based on hearsay of hearsay. Unless you are a nuclear chemist or physicist who has tried experimentally to produce low energy nuclear reactions without success, maybe there are reasons research has continued for so many years in the face of overwhelming public and professional ridicule.
Isn't the fact that it's interesting, and that the pay-off would be huge, reason enough? The idea that there is a confirmed, reliable, reproducible effect, but that people are hiding that, seems a little odd.
You seem to be confusing being hopeful or popular with being (proven) right.
If you are referring to my point 3, there are plenty of problems (cancer, biotech, AI, energy) that are both interesting, and have the possibility of a large pay-off, while NOT suffering ridicule from the mainstream - in fact, while enjoying some respect. Most researchers will (quite rationally) choose career options that are interesting, potentially valuable, and safe.
Sure, cold fusion is interesting, and has the chance of a big pay-off, but it also presents enormous problems to a would-be researcher, including lack of funding, dismissive colleagues, and ignorant pseudo-skepticism from the public. For a professional scientist to pursue it in the face of such problems require more than faith and courage; it probably requires at least some evidence they've seen with their own eyes. If you're interested, lookup Francesco Scaramuzzi and Julian Schwinger along with keywords of "cold fusion."
there's some strange emotional subtext to your posting that i don't quite get.
these people can choose what they want to work on. i am not putting a gun to their heads forcing them to do this. nor am i laughing at them.
if they're right - great. who wouldn't want a free lunch? but i don't see the point in painting them as heroes or presenting this work as something successful when, as far as i can see, it is not.
i've done research. you do it because it's interesting, not because of what other people think. and everyone has problems with funding: it's a market; if there's more money in one area there are more people too.
as i said, i'm not sure why you're so emotionally involved with this, but it doesn't seem healthy. if you're involved in cold fusion maybe you should look elsewhere, because science isn't really about being loved or acclaimed by the public...
Thanks for playing psychiatrist. I'm not sure why you think I'm emotional about this. Are you?
BTW, if you do research solely by what you find interesting, more power to you. But to propose that most or all researchers do so, while not caring what their colleagues and peers think, doesn't square with well-documented reality (e.g. Kuhn, The Structure of Scientific Revolutions).
> Ask yourself if your doubts are based on hearsay of hearsay. Unless you are a nuclear chemist or physicist who has tried experimentally to produce low energy nuclear reactions without success
And what if my doubts are based on my fathers work, who did actually try to reproduce this experimentally? And published the failure in Fusion Technology? And I went to the lab and saw the equipment too.
Basically the problem with the experiments is that no one does the calorimetry correctly. And especially that people do not calculate the Faraday Efficiency of the electrolysis, and so show excess heat when there is none.
Where the story left off, there were a few competent researchers with well-designed experiments that were getting indications that something was happening that was not covered by current theory. However, cold fusion research was by then out of fashion, and no one was interested in looking deeper into those results and confirming or refuting them.
As Goodstein notes, "What all these experiments really need is critical examination by accomplished rivals intent on proving them wrong. That is part of the normal functioning of science. Unfortunately, in this area, science is not functioning normally. There is nobody out there listening."
If they can reliably produce excess heat from these experiments, I don't think we care if it's due to fusion or not. It would certainly be something we want to study.
It could be something worth of study, but, unless there is Helium or neutrons, it's not cold fusion.
The Hagelstein explanation seems interesting, but, again, unless we see some nuclear fusion, those guys are studying something completely different. Not to say uninteresting, but not what we could call nuclear fusion.
40 comments
[ 4.2 ms ] story [ 60.1 ms ] threadBy around 97, we (at UOL, a major ISP/portal in Brazil) had to develop a small program that automatically restarted it when cfserver (IIRC) locked up. During peak hours, it had to be restarted every minute or so.
By 98, all applications were migrated to saner platforms.
I still have to support CF.
Beats head against desk
When I saw the submission title, I thought "oh no." And then I felt relief that it was not about the CF platform.
Coldfusion was pretty bad when it was first introduced, and it hasn't improved much. I've been dodging it for years, but some of my friends haven't been so lucky. Each of them hates it, and one had even quit his job because his employer didn't want to give it up.
Yes, I would be sad if CF became "mainstream" again and I had to learn it. If I recall correctly, everyone needed ColdFusion when it was first introduced, and it is only barely alive due to that initial boom.
The down-fall of CF was Rails since Rails is open-source, huge community, is free, and powered by Ruby. CF was closed sourced, small community, and powered by Java. Yuck.
:-(
Nevertheless I resolved to give it a shot, the experience was so bad I was reduced to a gibbering wreck, quivering and wishing for my sane C64 BASIC interpreter rather than having to write cf tag based code structures because the designers of the language couldn't be bothered to even finish the rudimentary cfscript implementation they made in an extremely half assed fashion.
CF needs to die; forever, I want it wiped from the face of the planet, if I ever decide to become a berserker instead of biting my tongue for blood I will just remember the pain inflicted on me trying to use this steaming pile of excrement.
Enough bad things can simply never be said about CF, this article headline alone almost gave me an aneurysm, and I felt a soothing feeling of relief wash over me when I realised they were only referring to the potentially junk science version so widely misunderstood by the public at large. I can think of no realisation in the same vein that would actually make me feel such a positive response except in this specific narrow example.
</rant>
There are lots of people investigating lots of exciting ideas out there. That's great. But there's a big difference between "wouldn't it be cool if..." and "hey, I can show that...".
When I saw the conference details, I hoped cold fusion was at the "show that" phase. Disappointingly, it continues to not be. Hence my post.
An NDA prevents me from saying much else, but I think I can say that the field is better developed than many people realize.
Then there's fundamentalist religious education. Plenty of funding there. Lots of impressively architected buildings. People with advanced degrees.
Recruitment, funding, and NDAs are but one metric of success.
Really? In honor of the possibly-crazy-but-much-more-likely-liars-and-con men whose experiments couldn't even come close to being replicated. The whole article acts like any current research is a vindication of Fleishmann and Pons, but honestly, if cold fusion ever does come to pass, it will be despite Fleishmann and Pons' fraudulent work. How much time and credibility was wasted trying to recreate that BS?
Well, in the first few weeks after the announcement, several labs said they had replicated the experiment, so if Fleishmann and Pons were liars or con men, I suppose we must assume a vast conspiracy of such across several notable institutions... well, that or some people were excited, mistaken, and desperately wanted to find evidence of something that apparently wasn't there.
Bad results -- even replication of results ultimately found to be bad -- do not require liars, only error.
or, alternatively, show that it is possible to do coldER fusion. just, show that there's a process with the possibility of scaling down.
1. It's from the American Chemical Society. While no one is infallible, they're not exactly flakes.
2. There are some serious names and institutions involved. Same caveat as 1.
3. Ask yourself if your doubts are based on hearsay of hearsay. Unless you are a nuclear chemist or physicist who has tried experimentally to produce low energy nuclear reactions without success, maybe there are reasons research has continued for so many years in the face of overwhelming public and professional ridicule.
You seem to be confusing being hopeful or popular with being (proven) right.
Sure, cold fusion is interesting, and has the chance of a big pay-off, but it also presents enormous problems to a would-be researcher, including lack of funding, dismissive colleagues, and ignorant pseudo-skepticism from the public. For a professional scientist to pursue it in the face of such problems require more than faith and courage; it probably requires at least some evidence they've seen with their own eyes. If you're interested, lookup Francesco Scaramuzzi and Julian Schwinger along with keywords of "cold fusion."
these people can choose what they want to work on. i am not putting a gun to their heads forcing them to do this. nor am i laughing at them.
if they're right - great. who wouldn't want a free lunch? but i don't see the point in painting them as heroes or presenting this work as something successful when, as far as i can see, it is not.
i've done research. you do it because it's interesting, not because of what other people think. and everyone has problems with funding: it's a market; if there's more money in one area there are more people too.
as i said, i'm not sure why you're so emotionally involved with this, but it doesn't seem healthy. if you're involved in cold fusion maybe you should look elsewhere, because science isn't really about being loved or acclaimed by the public...
BTW, if you do research solely by what you find interesting, more power to you. But to propose that most or all researchers do so, while not caring what their colleagues and peers think, doesn't square with well-documented reality (e.g. Kuhn, The Structure of Scientific Revolutions).
And what if my doubts are based on my fathers work, who did actually try to reproduce this experimentally? And published the failure in Fusion Technology? And I went to the lab and saw the equipment too.
Basically the problem with the experiments is that no one does the calorimetry correctly. And especially that people do not calculate the Faraday Efficiency of the electrolysis, and so show excess heat when there is none.
Where the story left off, there were a few competent researchers with well-designed experiments that were getting indications that something was happening that was not covered by current theory. However, cold fusion research was by then out of fashion, and no one was interested in looking deeper into those results and confirming or refuting them.
As Goodstein notes, "What all these experiments really need is critical examination by accomplished rivals intent on proving them wrong. That is part of the normal functioning of science. Unfortunately, in this area, science is not functioning normally. There is nobody out there listening."
Shouldn't it be excess neutrons?
The Hagelstein explanation seems interesting, but, again, unless we see some nuclear fusion, those guys are studying something completely different. Not to say uninteresting, but not what we could call nuclear fusion.
Are you serious? This boggles my mind more than anything about how bio systems work in nature in the last few years...