Hello to everyone from Seattle

[Sergei Barna]

Hi to all the members. My name is Sergei. I found the forum from Doug's posts on Seeking Alpha, and joined primarily for his trading posts. The fusion stuff looks pretty interesting, but it's way over my head. I only took some basic physics and quantum mechanics in college, and promptly forgot most of it other than the basic mechanics, dynamics and kinnematics stuff Right now I'm in grad school for finance. I'm originally from Ukraine, but have been in the US for the past 15 years. I'm also interested in macro economics, politics, and military history and theory.

[Doug Coulter]

Welcome Sergi!

Hopefully we'll be finding Alpha, not merely seeking it! I think you'll find the other guys here have pretty wide ranging interests, and we make new subforums to allow for that as required.

Right now the hot topic here involves Ukraine, actually - it's been where we've been getting inexpensive surplus detectors from, and they are a real good deal for those of use who need them.

I know a couple of the other members read the trading stuff (and I could wish they'd chime in more). It's not like we're going to forget physics here, it's just that it's a real part of my life, and by extension, this place, as that's how it gets funded. Absent that, we'd have to be begging for money, and then we'd look like all those charlatans out there that claim to be able to build a fusion power reactor (or spaceship drive) if you'd only give them a few million bucks (and plenty of time, and more millions). We know that's fake, because we know how much unanticipated stuff comes up when you go from "looks good on paper" to reality, here.

Welcome aboard, have fun!

And if you really know basic mechanics etc - you might find yourself ahead of some pretty self-important degreed dudes in science, actually. Not so much here -- the people here are very real, but they are the exceptional ones.

I did my military theory while on the other side, in the cold war. I used to analyze your home country for a living. Never did dislike it -- the more I studied, the more the same we seemed in most important ways, and that the "fight" was more like brothers temporarily failing to get along. And in that case, it was never the people who had the problem -- it was our ignorant governments creating fake enemies to keep themselves in power, more like -- in other words, politics that served them rather than us.

[William A Washburn]

Welcome Sergei,

First of all, welcome to a really great group of researchers and friends. As Doug says, your interest
in mechanics will not be wasted here. If you do not believe this look at some of the machine retrofits
to computer control that have been done. Truly great engineering. In addition, thanks to your country for
the wealth of electronics and nuclear components they have been supplying to us all in the USA. The quality
has been excellent for those components I have received and at very resonable prices.

Welcome again, Bill Washburn