I had not read your entire post before I composed my Wall of Text.

I readily agree that just one founder with a cool idea and the gumption to implement is often far better than a whole startup full of professionals. There are many good reasons for that that I will discuss later as I expect I must sleep soon.

The vast majority of my professional colleagues regard astrology as morally reprehensible, but the specific reason I left Pasadena to live in Santa Cruz was so that I could get way the Hell away from scientists, mathematicians and engineers:

The Caltech Community
v.
The Outside World:
A Suicide Cult Primer

http://www.warplife.com/mdc/books/silicon-valley-shaman/cult...

I wrote that in response to Misha Mahowald - one of but six Institute women who were ever really nice to me - making plain that she would win a Nobel someday then going on to hurl herself in front of a train at the age of thirty-three.

You may be familiar with Carver Meade's Foveon digital camera sensor. Actually he collaborated with Misha but she perished before they could bring their product to market.

While I readily admit it doesn't make a whole lot of sense my connection with Misha has a lot to do with that she chose her own nickname - I don't even know her given name - and that "Misha" is Russian for "Mike".

I was completely overcome with the worst kind of despair and inconsolable grief when I visited just after Senior Ditch Day in 2012. Either the students had all been lobotomized or perhaps they were the reanimated undead.

My plan is to send hardcopies, registered mail return receipt requested to each of Caltech's Trustees, well well as regular snail mail to its most-prominent financial backers, many of my fellow alumni, the California State Fepartment of Mental Health, each of its County Mental Health Clinics, every Mental health professional in the San Gabriel Valley as well as many press outlets most importantly the Sacramento Bee, LA Times, San Francisco Chronicle and the Examiner, the San Jose Mercury News, the Portland Oregonian, the Vancouver Columbian, the New York Times, Wall Street Journal and the Washington Post.

Clinical depression was common among us Caltech Community members when I was at the Institute but I witnessed something profoundly disturbing and quite bizarre in 2013.

I am not the only one to point out this problem, but I expect that I am unique in that I blast this all over the Internet, also that I publish this stuff under my real name.

I at first intended to major in Fine Art when I transferred to UCSC. That's why I chose Porter College rather than Crown or Merrill. To this day I cannot rember changing my major back to Physics but I do remember my attempt to fall backwards off the roof if the six storey Physics and Astronomy building because I was failing the thermo class after aceing a far-more difficult thermo at Caltech.

Mere sucidal ideation is cause for an involuntary ten day psychiatric hospitalization. I didnt know what to after I crept down off that precipice so I dropped twenty dollars in a payphone call to "The Norse Goddess", the first of my three Caltech girlfriends.

She advised me to consult a Psychologist; the campus mental health receptionist told me I must wait two weeks for my appointment so I did.

A year or so after I interviewed with two professional astrologers who wanted software that would calculate the compatibility of a par of lovers. They at first were dismayed that I was also an astronomer but I was the consummate professional when we met. Say what you will about astrology but those two gave me the very best specification I have ever obtained from my clients. Their method of calculation was strictly deterministic.

I went on to work graveyard shift phone support for Microport SystemV/AT. At our Christmas party our President Chuck Hickey presented me with a special award for eriting the best weekly status reports.

While doing SQA for MacTCP 1.1 I was pleasantly surprised to find my Microport manager Henry Seltzer doing SQA for A/UX 2.0's MacTCP emulation, a wrapper sround Berkeley sockets.

Henry was taking contract work so he could finance the astrology software that he and his girlfriend Star were developing.

I will go into more detail later but one fine evening a witch turned me into a redwood tree. Unfortunately I wanted to score with the with's roommate whereas I regarded the witch as a devoted friend.

During the Summer of 2012 I became completely convinced that the Magic Mushrooms that grow wild all over the Santa Cruz mountains had laced the water supply with Psilocin. After Kuro5hin's Blarney pointed out that Psilocin has a short shelf life when expised to water I concluded that Occupy Santa Cruz had dosed every law enforcement officer in the North County with LSD.

"I didn't want to hear that."
-- Multnomah County, Oregon Deputy Sheriff

I expect you've seen "Lost Boys"? Remember the rustic log cabin where the grandfather lived? "too damn many vampires"?

I could have been cast as an extra had I been paying attention to the news. Our Christmas party where I received my special status report award was held in that same cabin.