Is it just me or.....?

[violette829]

Nope.

[Nimrod]

Re: Is it just me or.....?

Originally posted by Baron Dants Do armenians not get enough credit? It seems to me that everytime there is something in the american media about an armenian man or woman doing something good, they never mention that he/she is armenian, yet they emphasize, for example, on the armenian identity of a criminal. This story is just another case of an armenian man doing something that is quite remarkable, yet no mention of him being armenian, and we actually get the sense that he is "pure" American, if that term even makes sense.

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Watchmaker With Time to Lose

Pasadena Jet Propulsion Laboratory Web Site
January 08, 2004

Garo Anserlian, master watch and clockmaker

They said it couldn't be done. But in the sleepy little town of
Montrose, California, nestled in the hills surrounding JPL, master
watchmaker Garo Anserlian of Executive Jewelers is perfecting
a timepiece for hundreds of Earthlings bound to Mars' irregular
day. Past the glass cases of what looks like an ordinary jewelry
store is a workshop where watches are losing 39 minutes a day.

Rover controllers have to monitor Spirit (and soon, Opportunity)
all the time; this doesn't just mean 24 hours a day " it means 24
hours, 39 minutes a day. The martian day is longer than Earth's,
but this minimal variance can amount to physical and mental fatigue. Every day, team members are reporting to work 39 minutes later than the previous day.

"Everything on this mission is based on local solar time on Mars," said Julie Townsend, Mars Exploration Rover avionics systems engineer. "From home, during the mission practice tests, it was very difficult to constantly translate Earth time to Mars time."

Townsend and her co-worker Scott Doudrick, a systems engineer on the project, set out to find a solution for this otherwordly problem. The pair began to ask watchmakers to tackle the challenge but each one turned them away, saying that it couldn't be done unless they placed a large order (10,000 plus) for quartz-controlled watches; they insisted that attempting to convert mechanical watches was not possible.

A neighborhood store located on a strip of distinct specialty
shops "not a chain store in sight " Garo's workshop is far from a
cookie-cutter assembly line. Tables covered with disassembled watches and clocks seem to mirror the intent watchmaker's mind; taking things apart and fixing them is, for him, second nature.

"When I do something I like to know the maximum about it," he
stressed. "This is not just a hobby, it is my career."

A man who found his passion at the age of eight, an underling to
his father, now guides his own young apprentice, nine-year-old son, David. Clearly enamored of his father, David relayed his own novice clock-making prowess and declared that he would one day take over the store. When he does inherit the business, he will have benefited from his father's finely honed skills, acquired under master watch and clockmakers in Switzerland and Germany.

Garo acknowledged that the Mars watch request is the strangest he has ever received. It took him about two months to design, fine-tune and streamline the process that would keep the watch on Mars time.

"Since I was a young child I've put my heart into making very precise time pieces, now I was being asked to create a watch that was slow on purpose " it was going to be a challenge if it was even possible," Garo said. "I spent more than $1,000 trying to figure this out "damaging watches, trying different parts, just searching for a way."

Watchmaking is a careful process that involves very small parts and wheels. In order to make the watches useful to the Mars Exploration Rover team, Garo had to physically attach additional specific lead weights thus precisely altering the movement of the wheels and hands on certain existing famous-maker wristwatches. Working on the 21-jeweled self-winding mechanical wristwatches was sometimes frustrating.

"At one point my helpers and I looked at each other and said 'forget it, we're wasting time and money.'" But Townsend and Doudrick wouldn't let him quit. The two came by his shop every week, assuring him that his highly anticipated watches would be a valuable asset to the team.

Garo finished Doudrick's watch first and after initial testing,
discovered that it was off by no more than ten seconds in 24 hours Earth time " an amazingly accurate feat for an entirely mechanical watch. Now, when the store is fully staffed, the experts can retrofit and thus create about ten watches per day. After he accommodates all rover team members who wish to own a custom-made Mars watch, he will market his patented rarity to the public.

Garo watched with million of others as mission control described
Spirit's near-perfect landing. But his connection to the mission
was personal.

"I felt proud; I got goosebumps," he said. "I saw that some of them had two watches on and I thought, one of them was mine! I was proud as an American that it landed and secondly that my watches will be used."

Used, indeed, by a team of scientists and engineers who looked to a truly old world craft for a solution to a very modern problem. And like the rover team, that faced countless challenges and criticism, Garo gets to say, "I told you so" to those who said it couldn't be done.

I 100% agree with that. That really should be acknowledged and someone should seek justice for that, because in this nation if you do not fight for your rights, no one else will. It s just like how the Mexicans got their recognition in the 60's. Hourly protest and instead of stressing how "cool" a negative thing amongst our culture like a "gang" can be why not emphasize and make a marching protest against this sort of injustice happening to Armenian scholars that are still as of today concealed for the most part.

That way, we will contribute more towards our own benefits since it is damn-well about time. Also, we will prevent further discrimination against other Armenian kids in high schools all over L.A. that are getting picked on and hassled for no reason other than being "Armo." Most of these Anglo-whites still as of today recite this phrase while violating an Armenian students rights and this is verbatim: "Huh?!Well what the hell did Armos ever do good for the world huh? All you guys do is fraud." That as we speak is as false as their petty assumptions.

[Nimrod]

The reason they are concealing it is because they are envious mindless bigots and you Armenians they know will not care. That just gives their poor judgments even more support to discriminate against us. Which is wrong entirely of and in itself. Yet, our Armenian corps. and organizations are not doing anything but selling out and if we do not step up to the plate now, this is not Iran Syria Lebanon Greece or Armenia or Russia or Iraq, this nation WILL suck us underneath and soon begin walking on us. It is really TIME FOR US TO STEP UP AND USE OUR POTENTIAL TO ELIMINATE ALL ELSE that is negative while conveying a better image of us all over the nation with our achievements from the past and as of today.

[EvrLstngDaze]

It is really TIME FOR US TO STEP UP AND USE OUR POTENTIAL TO ELIMINATE ALL ELSE that is negative while conveying a better image of us all over the nation with our achievements from the past and as of today.

and what do you suggest we do? (this is not meant to be a mean statement, just honestly what needs to be done?)

[EvrLstngDaze]

Apparatus and method for detecting cancer in tissue—Damadian invented the magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) scanner that has revolutionized diagnostic medicine. The MRI yields radio signal outputs from the body's tissue that can be either transformed into images or analyzed to provide the chemical composition of the tissue. (1989)
- from infoplease.com

WHAT ALFRED NOBEL SAID:

In his Last Will and Testament, Alfred Nobel bequeathed prizes in medicine to the person who "...shall have made the most important discovery within the domain of physiology or medicine. . ." He specifies only "discovery" and does not allow for techniques or inventions that exploit the discovery, as he does in chemistry and physics. Unfortunately, techniques are the only things that the awards in medicine are to be given for this year. So the Nobel committee has violated Alfred Nobel's last will and testament.

WHAT THE NOBEL COMMITTEE SAID:

The award for medicine in the year 2003 is to go to Paul Lauterbur and Peter Mansfield "for their discoveries concerning magnetic resonance imaging." This statement is a deliberate misrepresentation to avoid a challenge based on Nobel's will. These men did not make medical discoveries as defined by Nobel. Dr. Damadian made the discovery - that cancer tissue and normal tissue respond differently to a magnetic field.

Obviously, inexcusable disregard of the truth has led the committee to make a decision that is simply outrageous. The Nobel charter allows for three people to be named for the prize. There is no excuse whatsoever to exclude Dr. Raymond Damadian.

The essence of science is allegiance to the truth. The last institution that should disregard the truth is the one that considers itself the arbiter of scientific achievement.

The Nobel Prize Committee for Physiology or Medicine has disgraced itself. The only way to right this wrong is for the committee to correct its error.
- that's from http://www.fonar.com/nobel.htm

that's a couple of months' old news, but you guys should check it out anyway! how more racist can the committee get! it's disgusting.

the issue is not the prize itself, but it's history. Usually scientists with nobel prizes have been looked upon as authority, and have higher status. After a couple of decades no one will probably know that the MRI WAS INVENTED BY AN ARMENIAN!

I suppose the last sentence is pretty nationalistic, and "racist" towards armenians, however if they gave him the nobel prize, the issue would probably not have come up in the first place

[patlajan]

Here's a video of him talking about it. http://www.newsday.com/mynews/ny-dam...5932.realvideo