Becoming a mad scientist

[Rerouter]

The definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over again, but expecting different results

Where a true mad scientist finds the things that give different results every time and works to understand why.

*looks over to exeriment running in the workshop composed of 15 different ebay chemistry apparatus connected together in a frightningly bodgy way and shakes fist*

[Cyberdragon]

This old thread needs to be updated with our favorite mad youtubers...

Mad scientists often do crazy things for the hell of it...

"So I was in my garage making explosives..."

Y'all know who I'm talking about...

[helius]

If you haven't yet seen it:

[Nominal Animal]

What does the "mad" in "mad scientist" refer to?  Angry? Crazy? Insane? Crazy/insane how?

I'm more of a nutty professor type myself (although I'm neither a professor nor made out of nuts), but I do love to science.

[Rerouter]

generally to earn the mockier "mad" you either need to reach a point where anyone looking at what your doing without context would turn and run. even if you have all the safeguards in place.

Or you get to the point where you Learn to Stop Worrying and Love the Bomb (old movie reference), where you see the problems and not the symptoms and approach things in ways people attacking symptoms see as crazy.

[Nominal Animal]

generally to earn the moniker "mad" you either need to reach a point where anyone looking at what your doing without context would turn and run

My work is usually the opposite: people get exasperated with me for overengineering things, and being too paranoid about security and robustness (I tend to trust no-one, not even myself). What does that make me, the sane but dull scientist?

where you see the problems and not the symptoms

You mean, as in answering the underlying problem rather than the question someone asked?

and approach things in ways people attacking symptoms see as crazy.

Oh, that. No, I don't qualify then, because they see me and my work as not cost effective rather than crazy (even when I show how much it saves in the medium to long term).

[VEGETA]

The only one worthy of the title "crazy mad scientist" is Hououin Kyouma. He created really interesting gadgets which can be done by us if we really put effort into it.

[MT]

Becoming?!...

[apblog]

Are you sure aren’t actually a mad engineer?

http://cowbirdsinlove.com/46

[ebastler]

My work is usually the opposite: people get exasperated with me for overengineering things, and being too paranoid about security and robustness (I tend to trust no-one, not even myself). What does that make me, the sane but dull scientist?

The obsessive-compulsive scientist? 

[dmills]

That LANL archive on madscience is fascinating!

Seems the NIF was at least somewhat about pit physics with the civilian fusion research a nice side effect (No real surprise there, the MTF stuff will have been much the same).

Also some good stuff on fast pulsed power for things like EBW and slappers, and  a very funny squabble between LANL and the air force over cleanup of an old ICBM site that suffered a fire, the requested changes to the report by the airforce (Which are attached as an appendix) have some very funny attempts at spin  (Basically the airforce wanted to consider the AVERAGE activity in the rubble they wanted to dispose of, (which would make it low activity waste) where LANL were looking at PEAK activity which makes it special nuclear material waste. Seems the costs of disposal change somewhat when there is meaningful amounts of Pu in play.

Now, where did I put that Lithium 6 foil?

Regards, Dan "FOR SCIENCE!"

[Eka]

Are-U-Me?  Also an old RPG reference?

generally to earn the moniker "mad" you either need to reach a point where anyone looking at what your doing without context would turn and run

My work is usually the opposite: people get exasperated with me for overengineering things, and being too paranoid about security and robustness (I tend to trust no-one, not even myself). What does that make me, the sane but dull scientist?

Paranoid Scientist. I've been called that.

where you see the problems and not the symptoms

You mean, as in answering the underlying problem rather than the question someone asked?

They didn't like it when I wanted to add job training subsidies and moving expense subsidies to the available unemployment benefits. That was stepping over department boundaries...  Can't do that even though a comparable sized country was saving hundreds of millions a year by doing it.

and approach things in ways people attacking symptoms see as crazy.

Oh, that. No, I don't qualify then, because they see me and my work as not cost effective rather than crazy (even when I show how much it saves in the medium to long term).

Penny wise, pound foolish. Ran into it often.

I hate the way some doctors like to treat symptoms rather than dig down and figure out what is really going wrong. The pharmaceutical industry and reliance on them to do all new drug development isn't helping. When NIH had the money to do research, real cures were found, not symptom masks that provide income streams for the companies that develop them.

[Nominal Animal]

Paranoid Scientist. I've been called that.

I think I am more of a paranoid professor/teacher type, then, because I can never just state how things are. I seem to have to explain the basis or reasoning, too.

I hate the way some doctors like to treat symptoms rather than dig down and figure out what is really going wrong. The pharmaceutical industry and reliance on them to do all new drug development isn't helping. When NIH had the money to do research, real cures were found, not symptom masks that provide income streams for the companies that develop them.

It is easier to just oil the squeaky wheel, than actually investigate.  Never attribute to malice what you can attribute to stupidity or laziness, or something like that.

But yes, the pharmaceutical and health industries provide treatments, not cures.  Curing their customers would deprive them of a steady source of revenue. It isn't cost-effective.