Post-Mortem

I've talked about Bose-Einstein condensates before, and actually, kind of salivated over them, thinking that some Next Big Thing will result from them. And I think I've mentioned fermionic condensates as well. But I'd have to google myself on that topic, and I just don't have the time. So, at the risk of repeating myself, I think fermionic condensates might be big shit as well. (And fermionic condensates (FCs) would be like a degenerate electron gas, supercooled and paired up to behave themselves, but they can't unify the way a BEC does due to the Pauli exclusion principle. With me? Good).

Well, it occurs to be that, as long as you have your electrons all stacked in the available energy states, as in a supercooled example, then you get your FC. Of course, what's really required is that the electrons be stacked relative to each other. In other words, they don't need to be supercooled temperature-wise, they just have to be supercooled relative to each other's energy states. And, in fact, there is now a way to do that with tunable short-pulse beam of electrons that are moving at close to the speed of light. These "cool" relativistic beams of ultrashort pulses, done with a fucking really nice tight tuning mechanism, should produce relativistic fermionic condensates. And that, dearies, should make for some really awesome applications, like superconducting charges without the materials, I'm guessing. But then, if I thought of it, I sure others much, much smarter have as well. Stellar tectonics, anyone?

Okay, okay, time to cover my Kickstarter post-mortem. It was a success, but also a failure. It was failure in the sense that kickstarter is about strangers giving you monies for your project. That didn't happen with me. Friends, family, and acquaintances made up the vast majority of contributors. So, it was my failure to adequately plan out the campaign. Not that I didn't read up and do research. We Kurmans are notorious for advance preparation when it comes to a new endeavor that interests us. Why, I've known my brother to practically put in expert hours (10,000 plus) in book-learning prior to tackling a new thing that he gets hooked on. Almost overnight. I kind of do the same thing, but I notice I have a particular blind-spot. I will do all of the research, examining and planning for all of the aspects, drilling down on every facet, covering every base - except one. And in that sub-category, I will make a beginner's mistake. Quite simply because, well, I don't know. What I do know is it must have something to do with my fascination in overall systems thinking and analysis, but not quite being fascinated with one boring detail.

So, in the kickstarter project, I think I did well on prepping the material rewards, not so well on presentation and marketing my target group.

Bill Hicks on Marketing:



You would think, as an artist, and having said many times that presentation is 90% of the whole deal, that I would have spent more time on polishing the videos. But honestly, I just wanted to get past that, and get the product vision out there. I could have done a much better job, but felt that, given pretty much everyone and his uncle is now kickstarter, that I better get something out NOW.

And I really, really didn't do a good job on identifying my demographic. What is my demographic? Well, the creepy-crawlie/Charles Adams/Edward Gorey/H.R. Giger/maybe-kinda Carlos Huante fan base out there. Instead, I had people telling me they liked my steampunk robot animals.

Steampunk? WTF? Well, steampunkish, in the sense that I used bronze, mistaken as brass, but honestly, do you see any goggles, any 19th-century design, any zeppelins and high-pressure steam engine shit in these things? I don't. And maybe that's my blind spot. But I'm going for the ultra-violet biomechanical crowd, the mutant metal creepy crawlie crowd, the Prometheus crowd.

Steam powered?

Degenerate fermionic condensate, Cooper-paired neutron fusion, matter/antimatter powered, bitches! With cigarettes and booze!

Okay, so, given that the Intertubes today are powered by photos, I really screwed the pooch by not targeting the tumblers, snapchats, and twits. I did do a half-hearted tweet campaign, but I just couldn't go fishing for those paramecia. ( Speaking of which, there were some nasty and infantile comments on reddit, and to be honest, twenty years ago I'd have engaged in a two-week-long flamewar with those losers, but, uh, fuck 'em. I notice it's becoming easier and easier to ignore over-priveleged, pretentiously pompous, pampered, undertalented, simpering little buttholes and not react to them).

And as far as social networks are concerned, my anecdotal experience is that the facebook and google+ and living social and all the rest aren't quite the Kevin Bacon dissipators we are all led to beleive. My guess is, I got to two degree of separation before the whole message drowned in noise.

My thoughts, anyway. And unlikely it is I will do another campaign, maybe not much an analysis.

Oh, yeah, pictures of machinerettes (which are little versions of mechanicules):

In Color...

...and in Black and White