Lack of technological progress

Thargor · 04-06-2015 3:51pm

Post them then.

Capt'n Midnight · 04-06-2015 4:59pm

nyarlothothep wrote: »

NASA are incredibly slow at getting to Mars, where's the innovation there? The Orion capsule is based off a 60s design, it's ugly as hell. Could they not create new synthetic materials that can shield against different types of radiation but which are also light weight? Also why the slow pace with these ion drives, surely they could get them up to spec and what is being done about landing and taking off from Mars? Surely there could be some novel solutions to get around the fuel problem for this? Nukes for takeoff? It would be the first time humanity would go into "deep space", imagine what the astronauts would see out there. Yet here we are earthbound, mired in trivial political disputes. It's all so frustrating.

There's three main types of Radiation Shields two of which depend on the properties of atoms not materials. For gamma rays you need something heavy like lead. For neutrons you need something light like hydrogen, so water or hydrocarbons are good, ie. food or fuel. For charged particles you can use magnetic fields. It's a mix and match. But weight and power are in finite supply.

Ion drives have been around for ages. Efficient and reliable but slow. Too slow for humans unless you are using them in addition to chemical rockets. Don't believe the hype about VASMIR , the numbers don't include the mass of the fuel or power source.

Nukes for takeoff are out of the question for now. Too many cancer deaths downwind from fallout. You could use nukes when in orbit but that upsets communications satellites, so you'd have to carry them for a good while on a chemical rocket. Assume a 1% failure rate for chemical rockets and you probably don't want to stand downwind.

ScumLord · 04-06-2015 5:04pm

nyarlothothep wrote: »

NASA are incredibly slow at getting to Mars, where's the innovation there? The Orion capsule is based off a 60s design, it's ugly as hell. Could they not create new synthetic materials that can shield against different types of radiation but which are also light weight? Also why the slow pace with these ion drives, surely they could get them up to spec and what is being done about landing and taking off from Mars? Surely there could be some novel solutions to get around the fuel problem for this? Nukes for takeoff? It would be the first time humanity would go into "deep space", imagine what the astronauts would see out there. Yet here we are earthbound, mired in trivial political disputes. It's all so frustrating.

Give NASA a couple of billion dollars and they'll get you to mars no problem. The technology isn't really the issue as such, we can go there it's just going to be ridiculously expensive. Sending a robot is fine but sending humans into space for months along with all the resources like water, food and oxygen that they need means sending a massive vessel.

The cold war was probably a big influence behind us going to the moon, it gave us an incentive. At the moment there's little financial incentive to go past orbiting earth. I know there's the possibility of things like Helium 3 and asteroids made out of gold but our economy wouldn't actually take getting unlimited access to resources to well, it would in effect make all those rare resources worthless once we have them in abundance.

Technologically we're probably ready to start exploring our solar system. Socially we probably aren't mature enough to do it. A lot of our politics and economy structures just wouldn't make any sense in space.

Capt'n Midnight · 05-06-2015 5:19pm

ScumLord wrote: »

Give NASA a couple of billion dollars and they'll get you to mars no problem. The technology isn't really the issue as such, we can go there it's just going to be ridiculously expensive.
...
A lot of our politics and economy structures just wouldn't make any sense in space.

NASA won't get you to Mars for a couple of billion. You'd need a bottomless pit filled with money.

In the past dynasties and religions were able to complete major fortifications and cathedrals that took longer than a human lifetime.

OldieWilson · 05-06-2015 5:22pm

I would consider the fact that I have a device in the palm of my hand that can give my pretty much any information I need, to be pretty impressive

challengemaster · 05-06-2015 11:43pm

How's this for Sci-Fi reality

http://anonhq.com/bye-bye-oxygen-tanks-aquaman-crystal-help-humans-breathe-underwater/

nyarlothothep · 06-06-2015 12:44am

ScumLord wrote: »

Give NASA a couple of billion dollars and they'll get you to mars no problem. The technology isn't really the issue as such, we can go there it's just going to be ridiculously expensive. Sending a robot is fine but sending humans into space for months along with all the resources like water, food and oxygen that they need means sending a massive vessel.

The cold war was probably a big influence behind us going to the moon, it gave us an incentive. At the moment there's little financial incentive to go past orbiting earth. I know there's the possibility of things like Helium 3 and asteroids made out of gold but our economy wouldn't actually take getting unlimited access to resources to well, it would in effect make all those rare resources worthless once we have them in abundance.

Technologically we're probably ready to start exploring our solar system. Socially we probably aren't mature enough to do it. A lot of our politics and economy structures just wouldn't make any sense in space.

I don't think it's possible even now without some serious advances in radiation shielding which we're simply lacking. It's a bit crap imo. In relation to nuclear propulsion I was thinking it could be used by the lander to take off from Mars but meh, it's a crap idea. Fusion on the other hand...but that will be another 20 years. :rolleyes:

Capt'n Midnight · 06-06-2015 11:57am

challengemaster wrote: »

How's this for Sci-Fi reality

http://anonhq.com/bye-bye-oxygen-tanks-aquaman-crystal-help-humans-breathe-underwater/

http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2014/09/140930113254.htm

"When the material is saturated with oxygen, it can be compared to an oxygen tank containing pure oxygen under pressure -- the difference is that this material can hold three times as much oxygen," says Christine McKenzie.

Silicone materials that act like artificial gills allowing someone to breath underwater but needing several square meters of area have been around since 1964. http://boingboing.net/2014/11/04/the-aqua-hamster-and-the-artif.html

The breathing fluid used in the film The Abyss was real as was the rodent breathing it.

Concorde was a toy for the super rich. Economics and the US attitude of "not invented here" killed it. The US tried to make one. But Mach 2 wasn't good enough, but no one stopped to think how much more Mach 3 would cost. For a start it rules out aluminium because of the extra frictional heat. So costs start to spiral. One of the reasons the Tu-144 was faster than Concorde was the colder air flying over Siberia so you didn't heat up quite as much.

And the US groupthink didn't have any idiots on board because any idiot could have told them if you have a plane that goes three times as fast as existing planes then you'd only need to buy a third as many to cover existing routes. So now R&D costs would be spread over a fraction of the number of planes initially envisaged and cost per plane goes up yet again.

There was also the problem of the sonic boom. But considering how much of the earths surface is covered by water , deserts , areas of low population, there'd still be plenty of scope for long haul, if the price was right. Concorde Mark 2 would have had longer legs to enable a lot more options.

The big thing to come out of Concorde was Airbus so not nearly the total waste a lot of people assume it was.

papu · 09-06-2015 2:48pm

3-D Printing,
Intel keeping with moores law,
Internet and internet of things,
mind-controlled prosthetics,
"Robo-rat" controlled by brain electrodes,
Cloning,
Rosetta Comet Landing,

Those are just off the top of my head, you complain about the lack of technological progress.. what are you doing to change this?:rolleyes:

lazybones32 · 14-06-2015 8:04pm

I read only today -or yesterday- that the potential candidates for a manned-mission to Mars were released from their 'captivity' in a module in Hawaii (which resembles Martian environment). The will is there but I don't think the Public demand exists. People seem more preoccupied with *insert triviality here* than with a human setting foot on our nearest Planet. For the 6 month trip to the Red one, I would urge caution. It won't accomplish anything that will justify the expense involved and has very many potential catastrophes attached: 6 months in a module in Hawaii is very different to spending 6 months in Space; a dangerous landing and take-off and a 6 month return journey.

patscally · 22-06-2015 10:21am

Fusion power is 30 years away. It is forever 30 years away. It was so in the 1960's, the 1990's and is still so in 2015. Fusion power seems to be in some type of time warp.

Pookla · 27-06-2015 8:35pm

papu wrote: »

Intel keeping with moores law

Of all the things we've accomplised (or are accomplishing) this is actually the most impressive to me.

I honestly thought that we'd have run out of steam for this decades ago.

Computer engineers certainly are an impressive bunch! :cool:

amen · 27-06-2015 9:45pm

Computer engineers

Id say more like physicists and electronic engineers.

Pookla · 27-06-2015 9:47pm

amen wrote: »

Id say more like physicists and electronic engineers.

Engineers and scientists in general.

I'm impressed by them all.

Capt'n Midnight · 01-07-2015 6:55pm

Pookla wrote: »

Of all the things we've accomplised (or are accomplishing) this is actually the most impressive to me.

I honestly thought that we'd have run out of steam for this decades ago.

There are lots more tricks left

In 1982 it was 15,000 nm. 1991 was 130nm Today it's 14nm and there's plenty of room at the bottom.

One big problem is smaller features can be damaged by smaller dust. One way of increasing is to make smaller chips so reducing the chances of contamination on any particular one. Now that you have smaller chips you can stack them on top of each other and use vertical interconnects , so everything is close so less delays, to connect them. Handy for memory or multiple cores. So you can stuff more into a package even without waiting for Moore's law to catch up.

Sam Russell · 01-07-2015 6:57pm

As an exercise, look around you home for things that could not be there 30 years ago.

Many things that are 'new' could have been there if they could be afforded, or have been improved significantly in performance. The mobile phone (just about but the size of a concrete block and about as useful) is now the smart phone with amazing computational power and able to connect to the world, so that is new. The home computer was there, just not as good or common. The colour TV was there, just not able to get satellite or DVB-t signals but the flat screen is new. Microwave cookers were there.

What else?

mg1982 · 01-07-2015 7:11pm

I suppose the point being that a lot of the progress is involved around the internet and mobile phones and TV. Most of these advances are more entertainment based. In other areas has there been as much progress as we thought there would be say 30 years ago. I would say that is debatable.

Capt'n Midnight · 01-07-2015 8:03pm

Sam Russell wrote: »

As an exercise, look around you home for things that could not be there 30 years ago.

Many things that are 'new' could have been there if they could be afforded, or have been improved significantly in performance. The mobile phone (just about but the size of a concrete block and about as useful) is now the smart phone with amazing computational power and able to connect to the world, so that is new. The home computer was there, just not as good or common. The colour TV was there, just not able to get satellite or DVB-t signals but the flat screen is new. Microwave cookers were there.

What else?

DVD players and DVD's
Internet access
Decent insulation in the walls and fridges reducing energy costs.
Very cheap gadgets.
Lots more foreign food.

And things that were luxuries for the rich and privileged are now within the reach of more, mainly because the technology has gotten cheaper.

There is a concept of mature technologies. Stuff where further improvements reach diminishing returns. The shape of airliners hasn't changed since the 1950's. Today's manned space flights use rockets that are clearly based on a 1950's ICBM. You could design something better from scratch but it wouldn't be much better and it wouldn't be tried and tested.

Someday we'll get true LED TV's , not just backlit. That would save perhaps half the power of existing TV's Flexible TV's are on the horizon.

In the Biotech world we are at the point where the 1990 Human Genome Project was budgeted at $3Bn and take 15 years.

Today $1,000 sequencing of an entire genome overnight looks practical in the near future. Compare that to the cost of health insurance.

Sam Russell · 01-07-2015 8:38pm

Capt'n Midnight wrote: »

DVD players and DVD's

Cds were there and DVDs are just bigger capacity.

Internet access

The internet was there, just not in the home.

Decent insulation in the walls and fridges reducing energy costs.

There was nothing stopping decent insulation, just the developers and builders.

Very cheap gadgets.

That is just a price issue (mostly) but it is true.

Lots more foreign food.

We always had bananas and oranges, and maybe kiwi fruits. True we do have more but that again is a question of cost.

And things that were luxuries for the rich and privileged are now within the reach of more, mainly because the technology has gotten cheaper.

That is all a question of cost. Foreign holidays were always possible if you can afford them, but Ryanair has transformed air travel - but that is just economics.

There is a concept of mature technologies. Stuff where further improvements reach diminishing returns. The shape of airliners hasn't changed since the 1950's. Today's manned space flights use rockets that are clearly based on a 1950's ICBM. You could design something better from scratch but it wouldn't be much better and it wouldn't be tried and tested.

Someday we'll get true LED TV's , not just backlit. That would save perhaps half the power of existing TV's Flexible TV's are on the horizon.

In the Biotech world we are at the point where the 1990 Human Genome Project was budgeted at $3Bn and take 15 years.

Today $1,000 sequencing of an entire genome overnight looks practical in the near future. Compare that to the cost of health insurance.

As things become cheaper, more people can afford them. Technical advances are sometimes very small advances that have a profound impact - like glues or velcro. They are not future changing in themselves but do change the way things are done. 3D printers could revolutionise the spare parts business.

My point is that the 'future' home predicted in the 1950s has not happened yet for most people, just a very few items, and even then they are usually very prosaic changes - less water used in the loo, for example.

If you take out the internet/TV/smart phones, there is not much else.

patscally · 02-07-2015 10:02am

What about the big developments in medical diagnosis. Ultra sound, MRI scanners, CAT scanners, very rapid testing of bloods and many more too numerous to list here. These developments plus micro surgery have been life saving for huge numbers of people.

Sam Russell · 02-07-2015 11:25am

patscally wrote: »

What about the big developments in medical diagnosis. Ultra sound, MRI scanners, CAT scanners, very rapid testing of bloods and many more too numerous to list here. These developments plus micro surgery have been life saving for huge numbers of people.

I do not have any of those things in my home - don't know about you.

The biggest advances currently are to do with computer power - both software and hardware - and medicine. Much of those computer based advances have transferred to medicine. Without a doubt people are surviving life threatening illness that even a decade ago the would not have.

ScumLord · 02-07-2015 2:25pm

Sam Russell wrote: »

As things become cheaper, more people can afford them.

And that's where a lot of the development goes. The technological progress that happens on the production line is rapid. The end result to us might be a slightly better product that's slightly cheaper but the development that had to happen to make that happen can be pretty incredible.

The problem today is development is spread out, the company that makes the glue can make it's own advances, the company that makes the CNC mill makes it's own advances and the company putting all the things together makes advances. All these changes may only mean a cheaper phone with the same features as the expensive phone from the last generation to the end user but the work and technology that had to go into that was vast and on a global scale. We just don't see any of that.

Sam Russell · 02-07-2015 3:20pm

Well, if you look at motor cars, electric window used to be only found on the top versions of the top cars, now every car can have them. EBS brakes are now mandatory. Most of the (used to be) expensive extras are now everywhere, and no longer expensive.

Prices for technology based devices have plummeted, mainly due to China becoming a major manufacturer, but cars have continued to rise in price despite the world overproduction.

But this is all to do with price, not technology advancement.

Akrasia · 02-07-2015 3:22pm

Sam Russell wrote: »

Cds were there and DVDs are just bigger capacity.

DVDs and CDs are obsolete now. Flash memory was invented in 1987 but this technology revolutionised personalised electronics, from personal audio (MP3 players ), sim cards for mobile phones and smart cards (credit cards, debit cards etc)

Advances in the capacity of flash memory has turned the mobile phone into a multi media device

Flash memory made digital cameras possible and analogue cameras obsolete, and with SSDs, Flash memory drives are starting to replace traditional hard drives and USB drives able to hold 2tb of data are enabling us to carry more information around on our person than anyone could have dreamt possible in the 1980s

The internet was there, just not in the home.

The internet in the 1980s was nothing compared to what it is now. But even if the internet can be considered to be old tech, the methods of accessing it are new. Wifi was only invented in 1991, but not available commercially until late 1999 (it took a while to agree on the shared standards to allow various devices to communicate together)

Since then, wifi chips have become ubiquitous and have changed our relationship with the internet, and information access. If the phone is considered a seperate technology to mobile phones, the internet should be considered a seperate technology to wireless internet.

Technology isn't stalled here either. Analogue television signals are dead now, these are being broadcast as digital signals, who cares? Well, nobody yet, but soon the opening up of this spectrum will allow low cost ultra high capacity mobile broadband.

My point is that the 'future' home predicted in the 1950s has not happened yet for most people, just a very few items, and even then they are usually very prosaic changes - less water used in the loo, for example.

If you take out the internet/TV/smart phones, there is not much else.

You really have to be joking

Right now we have the technology to do all the below:

unlimited access to all the television, music and movies ever made instantly streamed wirelessly to any room of your house
Video conferencing,
Automatic coffee makers
Flat screens on every wall of your house
Touch screen technology,
Voice controlled technology
Robotic autonomous vacuum cleaners,
robotic autonomous lawnmowers,
Video games consoles with photo realistic virtual reality built in,
fridges that can order food for you by themselves,
no iron shirts
Self cleaning windows
home climate control,
remotely controlled lights, ovens, doors (you can pre-heat your oven on the way home from work with an app on your phone)
GPS navigation
Self driving cars (tesla allow you to remotely call your car to drive itself from the garage to your front door)
Personal tablet computers

These technologies and many more are all real and exist today as opposed to being fantasies and visions of the future in the 1950s

If you took your grandparents from their home in the 1950s and brought them into a normal middle class household today, they'd be suitably impressed

never mind the industrial technology, the robots that operate in the Amazon warehouses are futuristic even by todays standards, it's amazing how advanced these are getting and most of it is happening behind closed doors

ScumLord · 02-07-2015 3:32pm

Sam Russell wrote: »

My point is that the 'future' home predicted in the 1950s has not happened yet for most people, just a very few items, and even then they are usually very prosaic changes - less water used in the loo, for example.

But the future home from the 1950sw didn't even imagine most of the technology in the home today. They imagined we'd have a big refrigerator with switches all over it doing very basic automated tasks. they didn't really foresee mobile technology, they thought we'd all be eating food pellets rather than being able to make even the most expensive foods available to the majority of people.

The thing is technology is only half the battle, you have to figure out ways of making the technology work and being smarter in how you produce the technology. If you were to include business practices and ways of thinking our technological advances have been huge. It's not just about the actual technology but how it's changed our way of thinking.

Sam Russell wrote: »

But this is all to do with price, not technology advancement.

But reducing price is done through technological advances. It involves advances at every stage of production. Better cad software means less engineers, advances happen across the board constantly.

Akrasia · 02-07-2015 4:00pm

ScumLord wrote: »

But reducing price is done through technological advances. It involves advances at every stage of production. Better cad software means less engineers, advances happen across the board constantly.

Exactly, even something really simple like spreadsheets that everyone takes for granted.

Before Spreadsheets paperwork was stored in binders in filing cabinets. you needed an army of clerks to process basic accounting and logistical tasks like ordering stock, dispaching orders etc.

The earliest spreadsheets, lotus 123 and Visicalc had row limits of 8192 rows per sheet

The first versions of excel had a maximum number of rows per sheet of 16,384

From Excel 1997 to Excel 2007, this row limit changed to 65,536

From 2007 to current versions, the limit is 1,048,576 rows per sheet

This is one simple example of how better technology makes business more efficient. It is much easier to manage data on a single sheet compared with multiple sheets in multiple folders. It could take much longer to do the same exact admin task in 1997 compared with 2007. This is before we even talk about all the additional formating and automation features that are possible with modern spreadsheets that weren't available before. 'Shared worksheets' used to be saving it on a floppy and handing it to a colleague so they could work on it.

Logistics and accounting are a huge part of production

Sam Russell · 02-07-2015 4:16pm

Akrasia wrote: »

DVDs and CDs are obsolete now. Flash memory was invented in 1987 but this technology revolutionised personalised electronics, from personal audio (MP3 players ), sim cards for mobile phones and smart cards (credit cards, debit cards etc)

Advances in the capacity of flash memory has turned the mobile phone into a multi media device

Flash memory made digital cameras possible and analogue cameras obsolete, and with SSDs, Flash memory drives are starting to replace traditional hard drives and USB drives able to hold 2tb of data are enabling us to carry more information around on our person than anyone could have dreamt possible in the 1980s

The internet in the 1980s was nothing compared to what it is now. But even if the internet can be considered to be old tech, the methods of accessing it are new. Wifi was only invented in 1991, but not available commercially until late 1999 (it took a while to agree on the shared standards to allow various devices to communicate together)

Since then, wifi chips have become ubiquitous and have changed our relationship with the internet, and information access. If the phone is considered a seperate technology to mobile phones, the internet should be considered a seperate technology to wireless internet.

Technology isn't stalled here either. Analogue television signals are dead now, these are being broadcast as digital signals, who cares? Well, nobody yet, but soon the opening up of this spectrum will allow low cost ultra high capacity mobile broadband.

You really have to be joking

Right now we have the technology to do all the below:

unlimited access to all the television, music and movies ever made instantly streamed wirelessly to any room of your house
Video conferencing,
Automatic coffee makers
Flat screens on every wall of your house
Touch screen technology,
Voice controlled technology
Robotic autonomous vacuum cleaners,
robotic autonomous lawnmowers,
Video games consoles with photo realistic virtual reality built in,
fridges that can order food for you by themselves,
no iron shirts
Self cleaning windows
home climate control,
remotely controlled lights, ovens, doors (you can pre-heat your oven on the way home from work with an app on your phone)
GPS navigation
Self driving cars (tesla allow you to remotely call your car to drive itself from the garage to your front door)
Personal tablet computers

These technologies and many more are all real and exist today as opposed to being fantasies and visions of the future in the 1950s

If you took your grandparents from their home in the 1950s and brought them into a normal middle class household today, they'd be suitably impressed

never mind the industrial technology, the robots that operate in the Amazon warehouses are futuristic even by todays standards, it's amazing how advanced these are getting and most of it is happening behind closed doors

Yes, all of that is possible now, but very little of it was predicted in the 1950s, or even dreamed of in the wildest dreams of the time. Many of the predictions, such as everyday space travel, or other fancies just never happened.

I remember listening to a BBC Radio 4 programme about Milton Keynes, a new town started in the 1960s. In it, they said all houses built in Milton Keynes had to have enough room for a yacht. Not that they expected many to actually have a yacht, it was just they expected that hobbies would require that amount of space, and by the year 2000, people would have so much leisure time, they would need a hobby. However, the complaint now (after the year 2000) that people in work do not have any time for hobbies, and everyone has to work.

Advances in technology are there and continuing apace, but they are unpredictable and do not benefit everyone. Some advances have changed the way we live and some have not improved life at all. There is less quality TV than 30 or 40 years ago, but there is a lot more of it.

ScumLord · 02-07-2015 6:13pm

Sam Russell wrote: »

Yes, all of that is possible now, but very little of it was predicted in the 1950s, or even dreamed of in the wildest dreams of the time. Many of the predictions, such as everyday space travel, or other fancies just never happened.

I guess the problem for people in the 1950s was that all this stuff was new. They had no idea where it would go and just went with the popular themes of the time. The space race seemed like the way the human race would go, but technology as a whole wasn't in a position to take advantage of space. They needed to find a customer before you can start selling space.

When it comes to leisure time, if we wanted the lifestyle of someone in the 1950s we could be at home, but the fact is the economy kind of forced us to stay at work and use our new found time to make more products in the same amount of time, increasing profits. The achilles heal of mass production is that you need to mass produce. You reduce the cost of your production by making more products in the same amount of work hours, so you can't just produce the same amount and go home or you're not reducing the cost, your labour costs are still the same..

Sam Russell · 02-07-2015 6:47pm

ScumLord wrote: »

I guess the problem for people in the 1950s was that all this stuff was new. They had no idea where it would go and just went with the popular themes of the time. The space race seemed like the way the human race would go, but technology as a whole wasn't in a position to take advantage of space. They needed to find a customer before you can start selling space.

When it comes to leisure time, if we wanted the lifestyle of someone in the 1950s we could be at home, but the fact is the economy kind of forced us to stay at work and use our new found time to make more products in the same amount of time, increasing profits. The achilles heal of mass production is that you need to mass produce. You reduce the cost of your production by making more products in the same amount of work hours, so you can't just produce the same amount and go home or you're not reducing the cost, your labour costs are still the same..

Exactly.

We have used extra production as if it was an increase in wealth, when in fact it meant an increase in work to pay for the extra product. Since the second world war, Governments have increased public debt to pay for increased social security. The private individual has increased private debt to pay for housing, and buying new (sometimes unnecessary replacement) products.

If car manufacturers had produced better cars in the 60s and 70s - cars that could be repaired easily, with sustainable (rust-free) structure, these would not have been scrapped so quickly. Scrapping them led to a significant loss of wealth.

Companies that used to employ thousands of employees now produce more with hundreds of employees. Many people spend their working day looking at a computer screen. This is what technical advance has led to - greater debt and boring work.

The J Stands for Jay · 02-07-2015 6:58pm

Chris___ wrote: »

Mobile phone cameras and built in storage.

2011 Nokia N8 16GB 12mp camera
2011 Nokia 808 16GB 41mp camera

2014 iPhone 6 16GB 8mp camera.

Yeah, but they put 24,000 technology points into the marketing of the iPhone.

Lack of technological progress

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