RE: plop auto cell 36 and 54 points bugfix [was: Re: [ATM],mirror cell design]

["Jerry" <wa4guu@verizon.net>]

	ATM's are good at finding windmills. 

	I am with Ken for the most part. There are those who want to make a
telescope to look through. There are those who are just happy to have a
project to work on even if they never finish. And there are those who wish
to push the envelope. Not always but almost, if you want a telescope of your
own making to look through in this lifetime and you aren't a real
optical/mechanical/electronics engineer, you should stay well inside the
envelope until you have gained enough experience to have a clue why the
envelope boundary is where it is.

	I have my pet windmills. Successful or not I am having fun and there
is no danger of me loosing interest. I might come to find the reasons what
I'm trying to do is hopeless. So I really understand when other ATMs are
trying to do things that on the surface seem unreasonable to me. Even so I
might chime in and ask "WHAT!? YOU CRAZY!?"

	I guess a reason for the ATM list is pushing the envelope. And a new
way doesn't have to be better. A different way to do just as good is worthy
of consideration. So naturally there will be the discussion of half baked
and unproven ideas and even some that someone has fully baked and proven to
himself. The problem arises that the amateur who just wants to build that
scope to look through has a hard time keeping his mind inside of the
envelope when the discussion is on all sorts of things that are outside the
envelope.

	That there are less advanced ATMs who might not understand the
possible half baked nature of the discussion shouldn't prevent the
discussion. But every now and then someone should warn the less advanced
that if they want the best chance to finish a good telescope they should
stay on proven ground and keep it simple. This is especially so if the
discussion is about the less advanced ATMs project. I do that occasionally
and I guess that Ken has done that in this case.

	In the end it is the advisee that decides what route to take. But
the advisors should be honest. There is a tendency for a proponent of some
of these ... let's say less mainstream more prone to failure telescope
making techniques to over sell the advantages and neglect the negatives.
Here I would say that you ought to tilt at your own windmill and not try to
find some sad sack to tilt at it for you. Let him find his own windmills.
Sell the negatives as well as the positives. Tell them that PLOP tells you
where the points are and not what kind of machinery is connecting those
points. Maybe suggest that the machinery for 54 points might be problematic
and maybe if you aren't looking straight up the whole plan is in doubt. I
seem to remember most of those things being said.

	I think maybe that what Ken is getting at is that someone is asking
for help on a difficult project and is about to chuck the whole thing but
really the project is almost done can be finished and maybe even easily.
Some of the solutions offered up are projects that alone are larger and more
difficult than the one that is already about to be tossed overboard. And to
boot it is unproven and never been built by anyone!

	Now really, Jerry has shown that he is hard core ATM. He almost has
the telescope done and I think that he is not going to give up, even if he
has threatened to. We have probably all been there, done that. Kind of goes
with ATM. I think if he were really going to chuck it he would have already.
He has had his problems and overcome them in turn and now it seems that he
only has one left. His last post suggests he knows the source of his
problem. He has the rest of his scope built so it is down to improving the
cell. Not much room for doubt that he will finish.

	But for some people advice to take too difficult a path might push
them to test the flight characteristics of the mirror.

Jerry .... another one. 


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