Madelaine McMasters

valerie Inshan wrote: Madelaine McMasters wrote: http://maps.secondlife.com/secondlife/Forgotten%20City/179/224/36 Thanks Maddy! Will send my alt too. Snugs will be waiting.

valerie Inshan wrote: Morning Hippie and all! Happy Hump day to you! Say, I'm looking for kinda virtual Las Vegas in SL to show my new outfit. Anybody got a SLurl? http://maps.secondlife.com/secondlife/Forgotten%20City/179/224/36

Hippie Bowman wrote: valerie Inshan wrote: HA! Here you are Mr. Bowman. And you're not even late today! Hugs and love ya! (and... peace! ) Oh Far out Picture! Morning Val! Big hugs! Peace! Good morning, Kids!!!

JackWolf Schiner wrote: Before we get started, thank you for the link. Obviously, the author has a strong if not heavy opinion on the topic. The author's "opinion" is backed up by the facts. Tesla's work under Edison was primarly in power generation and distribution, not incandescent lighting. Your statement... "It is easy to write about something like light bulbs. Not much to tell unless it is written from the historic point of view and trying to decide if you give Edison credit for Tesla's work." ...suggests that Edison is given credit for the invention of the lightbulb, when it was really Tesla's brainchild. Neither of them invented the incandescent bulb, but if you wish to credit one or the other with making it a commercial success, that credit unambiguously belongs to Edison. It was interesting until he used the term ‘comic’ within the article. I was not sure, if he was a comedian or comic book but will assume the later. If the assumption is correct, the first point made is he just wasted the time ripping into a comic book. Yes, he was ripping some comic for promulgating the erroneous idea that Tesla is the uncredited mastermind behind our modern system of electrical power and lighting. He's not. I don't much care what particular example he was picking apart, the facts he used to do so remain the facts. Many kid's early introduction to self motivated reading is via comics. I think that makes them worthy of criticism. The great thing about literature of any sort is the only limitation is the imagination of the writer. Not so. Historical, biographical, journalistic and scientific literature are necessarily constrained by both imagination and reality. There are countless examples of flights of fancy in all these genres, but I'd argue that means the works are mislabeled. Back to the correction and the second point needing made, over the years two very different camps have developed to support either Edison or Tesla. It is worth listening to any debate between two individuals over the topic of which they believe did what. This sounds suspiciously like the "balance in journalism" argument which thinks that everything has two equal sides. That's a load of nonsense some journalists are apparently unable to recognize. Not all arguments are balanced. When beliefs are refuted by evidence, there's an imbalance. It was not from that point of view but from that as a writing topic. It is not same when the thought process overlooks the most minuscule point of focus. The third and final points as they relate to second, the quoted used needs to be looked at once more this time use a forensic microscope instead of a telescope. If you're now stating that your mention of Edison and Tesla was not meant to convey any information, but was just a string of words intended to show that one could manufacture a topic, what distinguishes your effort from a random process? “It is easy to write about something like light bulbs.” The key words are ‘easy to write about something’. If that were not true, you would not have taken the time to write out a reply, so we can move along now. That statement makes no sense. People do difficult things every day. Your condescension is unwelcome. “Not much to tell unless it is written from the historic point of view and trying to decide if you give Edison credit for Tesla's work." This is where the whole thing can get a bit confusing so hang on and allow me to explain. Prior to the later sentence, we have something compared to being ‘easy’ adding to it by saying, ‘not much to tell’ referring to the light bulb itself. It becomes complex when the ‘historic’ and ‘deciding if’ should do something or not. It is a mere comparison of topics from simple to the complexity of topics and the possible debates to ensue. So tell me where do I have history wrong when I was talking about writing topics not facts or history? Although I'm sure humans have a long and noble history of creating topics, I'm not aware of any attempt to record it, and wonder if doing so would be a tautology or infinite loop. If you absolve yourself of any responsibility to reflect your intent, the facts, or logic, your writing can have no wrongs. The Oatmeal strip http://theoatmeal.com/comics

Dillon Levenque wrote: That's because you were born to be wild. ;-). Ceka Cianci wrote: This one always gets me wanting to get on my Katana hehehehe Wild? While leaning on the crutch of a second wheel? Oh, please.

Parhelion Palou wrote: Madelaine McMasters wrote: Ceka Cianci wrote: offering help can cause friction when it comes out of nowhere.. If you ever see me looking at steam irons at Best Buy, and you approach me wearing a blue shirt and khaki pants, before you can even say "May I help you.", get ready to be hit by one of them coming out of nowhere. I'm not a cowgirl, but know how to swing an iron on its power cord. So that's what happened to your husband. :matte-motes-wink: I signed an NDA as part of the divorce settlement. Let's just say I'm hopeful he'll thank me for having fewer wrinkles than other men his age.

Ceka Cianci wrote: offering help can cause friction when it comes out of nowhere.. If you ever see me looking at steam irons at Best Buy, and you approach me wearing a blue shirt and khaki pants, before you can even say "May I help you.", get ready to be hit by one of them coming out of nowhere. I'm not a cowgirl, but know how to swing an iron on its power cord.

9-2-2013 The fifth time's the charm as long distance swimmer, author and journalist, Diana Nyad swims 103 miles from Cuba to Florida in 52 hours, making her the first human to do so without a shark cage. During the final stretch of her historic swim, crew members instructed Nyad to follow the path they'd cleared for her. Nyad replied "I've never been able to follow it in my life." Let that be beacon of hope for those who can not or will not follow the beaten path. And for all those Cubans who'd like to immigrate to the US... don't try this at home. (Yes, I'm aware I'm sending mixed messages.)

JackWolf Schiner wrote: It is easy to write about something like light bulbs. Not much to tell unless it is written from the historic point of view and trying to decide if you give Edison credit for Tesla's work. I think you've got your history a li'l wrong... http://www.forbes.com/sites/alexknapp/2012/05/18/nikola-tesla-wasnt-god-and-thomas-edison-wasnt-the-devil/2/ ETA: if one is passionate about writing, there could be endless things to write about lightbulbs, none of which need come from the history of its invention. That's the beauty of storytelling, like SL, it's "Your World, Your Imagination".

valerie Inshan wrote: Madelaine McMasters wrote: valerie Inshan wrote: This picture is hilarious!!! Morning Maddy! Hugs you! Hilarious? Hilarious?! Hey, I don't laugh at the way you look... ... much. ;-) What's wrong with my look? :smileysurprised: I give up. You French can't cook worth a damn, but goodness you sure look fine.

valerie Inshan wrote: This picture is hilarious!!! Morning Maddy! Hugs you! Hilarious? Hilarious?! Hey, I don't laugh at the way you look... ... much. ;-)

Now that I'm out of my lab chair and climbing ladders and sawing stuff, I find myself filling with slivers and aches. I had country feet when I was a kid. Now I swear like a trucker when I walk across the stones to the sandy part of my beach. Toughening up is hard work, Kenbro! I loved hearing people complain about their work commutes, only to replay "You think you've got it tough, my commute is two flights of stairs... in my pajamas!". I recently read an article about Nuance moving into EHR transcription with their voice recognition software. Are they a competitor or a supplier to you?

Hippie Bowman wrote: valerie Inshan wrote: Labor Day, huh? While I'm working like a dog? Pffft. *shouts* HAPPY LABOR DAY GUYS!!! Have fun and enjoy! Hugs all around! OMG I love that pictures! HEHEH! Morning Hugs Val! Peace! It must be tough to spend all day sitting on a CATerpillar, Val. Harley Davidson invited 100,000 people to their 110th anniversary celebration in Milwaukee this weekend. I ended sitting up on a hog. Good morning, Kids!!!

Kenbro Utu wrote: Madelaine McMasters wrote: I don't think I've answered your question. You should have asked me about woodwoorking. I get the drift. When you first mentioned instruments, I have to confess I conjured up the image of elevators, forceps, retractors and endoscopic catheters, i.e., the mechanical type. I can imagine the road blocks to creating new electronic devices, especially those dependent on current or upcoming technology. Thanks for trying to answer. BTW, was the competition Philips? They actually used to own the company I work for, one of a handful. While I don't have hands-on contact with the healthcare industry, my knowledge is pretty expansive because I have to have a working understanding across all specialties of healthcare, while keeping abreast of new drugs, procedures and diagnostics. Keeps the mind young. I've got friends at Philips, but I never worked with them. The competitors I consulted for after GE are all smaller companies, giving GE pain in little niches. It's interesting that you work for a company that Philips unloaded. Philips and GE, GE in particular, are known for sucking up smaller companies and grinding them into pulp. Where you there for the divestment? If so, how do you like the new, post Philips management style? I ended up at GE due to an acquisition and was expelled when they discovered I'm a pain in the neck. My Dad was a self employed mechanical engineering consultant. I figured if he found a way to work from home, I could too. I loved the flexible schedule. I could work any 80 hours per week that I wanted. And if you think electronic medical device design is tough, take a look at drug discovery. The minimum cost to introduce a new drug is easily in the tens to hundreds of millions!

Wake up, Hippie!!!! Good morning, Kids!!!

Jacki, I found a forum thread in which someone says they tried a 660ti in a Dell 9100 and it did NOT work. Unfortunately, they didn't say why. I'm out of town until Monday evening, but if get Wi-Fi on the road, I'll continue searching for info. http://en.community.dell.com/support-forums/desktop/f/3515/t/19478203.aspx (Last post on that page).

Hi Jacki! That looks like a big box. I had a 2003 vintage XPS and it was huge. I did a little surfing and found this description for your PC... http://www.engadget.com/2010/07/31/dell-studio-xps-9100-arrives-with-six-cores-little-fanfare/ That article says the PC could be ordered with this... http://www.amd.com/us/products/desktop/graphics/ati-radeon-hd-5000/hd-5970/Pages/ati-radeon-hd-5970-overview.aspx Here's the spec sheet for the 660ti... http://www.asus.com/Graphics_Cards/GTX660_TIDC22GD5/#specifications The spec sheet for the HD5970 says it draws up to 294 Watts and I think the nVIDIA says 225W maximum. Your PC should have the required 6 or 8 pin power cable already. You're right, the Asus nVIDIA board looks big, but it's no longer than the ATI board, though maybe it's thicker? I can't tell. So, if there's a concern, it will be the thickness of the brick. Can you look inside your PC and tell if there's room for that added thickness? nVIDIA makes the GPU chips that other manufacturers put onto circuit boards with all the other bits, like fans and connectors. I'm not familiar with the relative quality of various manufacturers, but Asus is a big name. Good luck! ETA: I posted this in a "Permalink" under my previous answer, but I have to click on the "Permalink" to see it, so I'm reposting it here and will continue to update this answer as I find new information. I found a forum thread in which someone says they tried a 660ti in a Dell 9100 and it did NOT work. Unfortunately, they didn't say why. I'm out of town until Monday evening, but if get Wi-Fi on the road, I'll continue searching for info. http://en.community.dell.com/support-forums/desktop/f/3515/t/19478203.aspx (Last post on that page). ETA2: Here's a thread in which someone put a GTX 660 in an XPS 9100. No mention of troubles, other than fan noise... http://www.tomshardware.com/answers/id-1673086/case-fan-graphics-card-question.html Grrr, here's a thread in which someone says the 660 did NOT work, but again, no reason why... http://www.polycount.com/forum/showthread.php?t=122719 (search for "660" on that page) Darn, I was hoping this would be cut-and-dry, Jacki! I'll be out of town until tomorrow evening. If I find Wi-Fi and some time on the road, I'll continue investigating. You might give Dell support a call, but it seems people have had mixed success with that. They were pretty helpful when I called them years and years ago.

Melita Magic wrote: I also tried to apprentice myself to a furniture designer/maker - without success. Who takes a soft spoken girly girl seriously in the world? You are fortunate to have had more open minded surroundings. I was very fortunate, Melita. I grew up in a curious family (in more ways than one ;-) I'm also not soft spoken. A good tantrum works wonders, particularly for a woman in her 40s! I'm impressed you've tried to get into these typically boy things and disappointed they didn't open the door for you. There is a "maker" movement growing around the world and you might find that a more welcoming space. It's like the early days of personal computing, with nerdy folks gathering together to discuss ways of making anything and everything. I got my start at home, but the guys (and a few gals!) at the local computer club seemed happy to have a young lady sharing their interests. I recently visited a maker space down in Milwaukee. It was a run down old building filled with every kind of junk you could imagine, inhabited by people who could have been the sons and daughters of the computer club folks of 25 years ago. They all like taking stuff apart and putting it back together in new and interesting ways. And a good many of them are soft spoken!

Kenbro Utu wrote: Madelaine McMasters wrote: I just wrapped up a career in medical instrumentation design. Drop some names on me, if it does not give away any identity. I'm a Quality Assurance Editor for a national medical transcription company. It would be interesting to find out what you worked on. I have often wondered about the work flow from determining a need to developing an approach and then instituting the application of medical instrumentation. I eventually ended up at GE Health Care, working on a wide range of diagnostic products, mostly heart related, and some imaging. Then I went off to consult for the competition ;-) Breaking into the diagnostic market with a new product is tough. Nobody wants to add a step (and the associated cost) to any existing diagnostic or theraputic process, so you've got to replace a device or procedure that's already entrenched. For example, in breast cancer diagnosis, the end game test is the biopsy. That's the most expensive step in the process. It would take a mindblowing breakthrough in cancer detection/screening technology to break us free of palpation, followed by mammography, followed by biopsy. Some mildly effective screening tool hasn't got a chance, as it adds a step and isn't likely to convince a doc to skip a biopsy on a patient who's mammogram caught the radiologist's eye. It's not an "old boy's club", it's an "old ways club". For improvements to existing products, the process isn't much different than for coming up with a new car or TV. You watch customer acceptance and feedback, you keep abreast of technological developments and the competitive landscape and you continually improve. Now and then some game changer (smartphones) comes along and you try to capitalize on it. But those changes are not in the fundamental function of the thing, but rather in form and fit. When I was in college in the late 80's, I learned about research into ways of taking an EKG that didn't require all those messy wires. It's now 25 years later and that research hasn't budged anyone. Most EKGs machines show heart action from 12 different directions using 10 wires. That old research says you can probably detect all the same problems from three orthogonal directions using four wires, but there's not a cardiologist in practice who was trained that way, and once they're making a living, they're not anxious to go back to school. The most interesting work is done by small companies who manage to find a little corner of the world nobody else is addressing. Madison Wisconsin is home to a few such startups, spun out of the University of Wisconsin - Madison campus. I've consulted there on things from gene readers to aids for the blind. The problem for these little shops is federal regulation. There's a lot a young company must do, such as creating internal systems to track the design, manufacturing and service of products, to satisfy the requirements of an FDA 510K premarket notification. Without that, you're not going to market. I don't think a medical instrument, like a basic EKG machine, could be brought to market for less than a couple million dollars and with less than a dozen people, simply because of regulatory requirements. So you've got these substantial costs, which have almost nothing to do with the complexity or expense of the thing you're making. On the patient need side, there are plenty of them, but that's not the issue. Insurance companies are the system's payers and unless they have a need, you don't have a market. And if you've got a device that does something new, or differently, you'd better have a lovely clinical trial proving it works. Clinical trials are not cheap, they don't go fast, and they rarely prove anything conclusively. For all these reasons, the most fertile places for medical device breakthroughs are research universities, like UW-Madison. They bring in grant money, they have cheap labor (grad students) and they feed the peer reviewed literature system (publish or perish). So the seeds germinate in the university labs, the most promising are spun out and nurtured in venture funded startups just down the street (UW has a venture arm called WARF, funded by patent revenues from UW inventions), and if they make it into the marketplace, they're eventually scooped up by small cap companies which are themselves are scooped up by large cap companies like GE. I don't think I've answered your question. You should have asked me about woodwoorking.

Wilhiam Hydraconis wrote: This thread is discontinued. Awww, can't we bring it back from the dead?

I'm an amatuer cabinetmaker, having learned, more or less together, with my father. He and his grandfather taught themselves rough carpentry as needed, and WWII interrupted both their educations. When Dad returned from the War, they went back to work on gramps (then Mom and Dad's, and now my) house. Shortly after Mom arrived, gramps went on the endless vacation, leaving Mom and Dad to continue the expansion on their own. The intent was to grow the little farmhouse to accomodate the impending kids. Nineteen years after the wedding, I finally arrived into a mansion. Dad would often say I was the best plaything he and Mom ever built and goodness did we play. I learned to sew aprons, pillowcases, parachutes, kites, a godawful sundress that made me look like a child convict. My crowning achievement was a "poodle" skirt that has a spider on a thread, not a poodle on a leash. Once I was big enough to help (okay, before I was big enough to help), Dad introduced me to the world of finish carpentry and then to cabinetmaking. Mom was losing patience over the house as Dad focused on his consulting business, and I was enlisted to motivate him with big sad eyes over the lack of pretty trimwork in the dining room. It worked. Nobody pouts like me. Now I've got the place to myself. I'm saddled with exterior repair jobs this year, but once the snow flies, I hope to finish up the only room in the house which still has no woodwork, 62 years after Dad first carried Mom into it... the master bedroom. Mom is still around, and can't wait to see what I do with it. I just wrapped up a career in medical instrumentation design. A hundred or two years from now, not a single thing I ever created professionally will still be around, much less functional. But there is a very good chance that my kitchen table, which weighs nearly twice as much as me and is made of solid cherry from local tree, will still be the center of some family's home life. As you know, Kenbro, wood is good for you.

Czari Zenovka wrote: Perrie Juran wrote: Czari Zenovka wrote: @Perrie - Did you enjoy the trip and anything interesting happening over there in next year? Redheads continue to rule. But of course!!! Pep and Storm get married in the largest wedding Second Life has ever witnessed with Sus serving as the Minister. Storm looked stunning in his lace gown and the debonair Pep wowed everyone wearing a kilt of many colors. A stroke of genius, rather than a champagne toast, it was Martini's for everyone. Even Rodvik attends, offering them the use of his personal SIM's for their Honeymoon. *Grabs my appointment book and looks up* When is the date, please? This is one wedding I don't want to miss!!! At the wedding, Phil, having had a few too many Martini's, finally works up the (Dutch) courage to propose to you but before I could hear your reply I passed out from lack of oxygen...................... I thought Phil was British!!! :matte-motes-agape: I'm glad you made it back safe and sound. The forums wouldn't be the same without a certain Martian. http://community.secondlife.com/t5/General-Discussion-Forum/What-happened-in-History-on-this-date/m-p/2173061#M125299

This day in future history is brought to you by Perrie Juran, with the aid of Czari Zenovka... 8-31-2014 "Pep and Storm get married in the largest wedding Second Life has ever witnessed with Sus serving as the Minister. Storm looks stunning in his lace gown and the debonair Pep wows everyone wearing a kilt of many colors. A stroke of genius, rather than a champagne toast, it is Martini's for everyone. Even Rodvik attends, offering them the use of his personal SIMs for their Honeymoon. At the wedding, Phil, has a few too many Martini's, and finally works up the (Dutch) courage to propose to Czari Zenovka but before Perrie Juran can hear her reply, he passes out from lack of oxygen......................"