Re: [ATM] Standing Under Foo-co

["David Harbour" <scarab2@cox.net>]

Dan,

So happy to get your further note so soon.

Fact is, everyone around me (1995) was using Ronchi; now Ronchi is okay if
you are very careful with it. However, this is what is the matter with
Ronchi: Ronchi can tell you a lie. A razor blade and a micrometer screw
cannot lie to you. I wanted more amateurs to use Foucault, and I knew the
main reason they didn't is because they didn't understand it on an
"intuitive" level- but I KNEW (since I had taught myself) that I could
explain it in a more lucid manner than others had. So in 1995 I started
writing and illustrating "Understanding Foucault".

The thing that hung me up was that I had no experience with computers- I was
completely computer illiterate, and I resisted my friends' suggestions to
get one and learn how to use it. Well, one of my friends knew how to solve
that- on a cross country business trip, he just "dropped off" a complete
computer and set up for me! He said: "Here it is, learn how to use it".

I am indebted to him, as, without the computer, the article probably would
not have been written. It took me a long time to understand "cyberese", but
I finally got there, and during a short period when I was feeling good,
after the article was finally finished (took me about 300 hrs to illustrate
and write it)- I tauight myself how to program html and I put up my web
site.

Ralph Dakin told his story in a Sky and Telescope article how he built his
first slitless tester, and cut his hand severely on the exposed blade. My
old #5 (lost, somewhere in atm land) functions as both a slit equipped and a
slitless tester (all Foucault testers function as a slitless tester when the
blade is brought close enough to the optical axis- closer than the width of
the slit). It is easy to mount your knife in such a way that you don't injur
yourself. Poor Ralph Dakin.

I am so happy that so many have benefitted from "Understanding Foucault"-
and it is pretty generous and polite of you to compliment me on it, Dan.
Thanks, thanks, thanks, from the bottom of my heart. It is the only
meaningful thing I have ever done in my life; other than that, I am pretty
much a big failure. Thanks, Dan-

Davey

----- Original Message ----- 
From: "Daniel Fundo" <fundo@bellsouth.net>
To: "David Harbour" <scarab2@cox.net>
Sent: Monday, May 16, 2005 6:57 PM
Subject: Re: [ATM] Standing Under Foo-co


> Dave,  I have read your "U.F." article also.  Where were you when I was
> learning all this stuff the hard way???  <<VBG>>
>
> I don't know how many hours I've spent "shaving" my right eyebrow!  I
> have completed at least 25 mirrors, so I looked weird quite often.  The
> hardest part was explaining the rouge red hands to the nuns in my
> Cathilic school!
>
> I doubt that I spent more than a few weeks without a mirror to finish.
> The Amateur Astronomers Association of Pittsburgh had a shop only a mile
> or so from my home.  There were lots of unfinished mirrors lying around,
> and one of the instructors asked me to work on them.
>
> Keep well
> Pax Christi
> *****-----
> Dan F.
>


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