TODAY's PACE OF TECHNOLGY.....sickening

Slickwater wrote:

Someone tell me what the freakin deal is. 4 years ago, the cutting
edge of technology was at an acceptable grueling pace. Now it has
slowed down to a pitiful, stomach-wrenching crawl and it makes me
sick. Then, for example, we invented the Pentium chip and the DVD
player, now everyone thinks were makin the same leaps by making
existing Pentium chips a few Megahertz faster and a DVD player that
hold slightly more gigabytes. What the hell is the matter with
scientists today. The fact that we haven't colonized the moon yet and
had several manned missions to mars makes me want to puke. What the
heck is takin these chumps so long? I'm so mad.

-Slick

Slickwater wrote:
Slickwater wrote:

Someone tell me what the freakin deal is. 4 years ago, the cutting
edge of technology was at an acceptable grueling pace. Now it has
slowed down to a pitiful, stomach-wrenching crawl and it makes me
sick. Then, for example, we invented the Pentium chip and the DVD
player, now everyone thinks were makin the same leaps by making

The pentium was only a fair bit faster than the fastest 486 systems.
DVD players only had a little better picture quality than VCD players.

existing Pentium chips a few Megahertz faster and a DVD player that
hold slightly more gigabytes. What the hell is the matter with
scientists today. The fact that we haven't colonized the moon yet and
had several manned missions to mars makes me want to puke. What the
heck is takin these chumps so long? I'm so mad.

Funding, and huge aerospace companies not wanting to lower the cost of
anything.

--
http://inquisitor.i.am/ | | Ian Stirling.
---------------------------+-------------------------+--------------------------
"I meant, have you ploughed the ocean waves at all?" Colon gave him a cunning
look. 'Ah, you can't catch me with that one, sir' he said 'Everyone knows
horses sink' -- Terry Pratchett - Jingo

What the hell is the matter with scientists today. The fact
that we haven't colonized the moon yet and had several manned
missions to mars...

Those are political decisions. Congress must first approve the huge
budgets needed for those projects.

The fast pace of the space program in the 1960's was driven by the
cold war with Russia. Congress voted for large budgets for NASA
because they didn't want Russia to reach the moon first.

James

In article ,
Ian Stirling wrote:

Slickwater wrote:
Slickwater wrote:

Someone tell me what the freakin deal is. 4 years ago, the cutting
edge of technology was at an acceptable grueling pace. Now it has
slowed down to a pitiful, stomach-wrenching crawl and it makes me
sick. Then, for example, we invented the Pentium chip and the DVD
player, now everyone thinks were makin the same leaps by making

The pentium was only a fair bit faster than the fastest 486 systems.
DVD players only had a little better picture quality than VCD players.

Yes, the Pentium 60 wasn't much faster than the 48DX at 100 MHZ (or
thereabouts - whatever they maxed out at wasn't much faster). So what?
Find me a commercially-available 486 that outperformed a Pentium 90
(which hit the market within a year or so). Stupid comparisons. Try
measuring processor floating point performance; measure disk, video and
overall data throughput for a bit more meaningful comparison.

VCDs use MPEG-1 compression; DVDs use MPEG-2. If you think that's "only
a little better picture quality" you're using a REALLY crappy TV. For
better video still, try getting a progressive scan DVD player hooked up
through component video.

existing Pentium chips a few Megahertz faster and a DVD player that
hold slightly more gigabytes. What the hell is the matter with
scientists today. The fact that we haven't colonized the moon yet and
had several manned missions to mars makes me want to puke. What the
heck is takin these chumps so long? I'm so mad.

Funding, and huge aerospace companies not wanting to lower the cost of
anything.

Oh, please. You must be a graduate of the "It's All a Big Conspiracy!"
school of higher education.

--
Herb Schaltegger, Esq.
Chief Counsel, Human O-Ring Society
"I was promised flying cars! Where are the flying cars?!"
~ Avery Brooks

Slickwater wrote:

What the hell is the matter with
scientists today. The fact that we haven't colonized the moon yet and
had several manned missions to mars makes me want to puke. What the
heck is takin these chumps so long?

Don't blame the scientists.

Blame both the private sector and our elected representatives in
Washington. Neither has come up with a reason why a manned mission to
Mars is so urgently needed that it is worth funding it at this time.
Ditto for colonizing the Moon.

If the Viking probes to Mars in 1976 had found actual life forms there,
or if SETI succeeded, then America's (and the world's) view of the value
of space exploration might have changed.


--
Steven D. Litvintchouk
Email:

Remove the NOSPAM before replying to me.

Mike Dennis wrote:

All of the items you mention are following normal technology life cycle
curves. Each will run it's course, later to be replaced by a breakthrough
new technology that will likewise follow it's own curve, and so on.

You don't get one massive breakthrough after another. It's never been that
way and it never will be. Your idea of a breakthrough might not be the same
as someone else's.

"Slickwater" is upset that we haven't colonized the Moon or sent a
manned expedition to Mars yet. Neither of those missions requires
fundamental scientific breakthroughs. They only require sufficient
funding to do the necessary engineering.

Remember that with the funding Congress voted for Apollo, NASA had
designed and built the Saturn V rocket--which together with its payload
stood some 365 feet tall. And early in the space program, NASA had a
backup plan in the event that the in-flight rendezvous & docking
technique didn't work out--an even bigger booster called "Nova," which
would have been some 550 feet tall and capable of sending a spacecraft
all the way to the Moon and back without any use of rendezvous.

That's what NASA can get done with enough $$$.


--
Steven D. Litvintchouk
Email:

Remove the NOSPAM before replying to me.

Herb Schaltegger wrote:
In article ,
Ian Stirling wrote:
snip

Yes, the Pentium 60 wasn't much faster than the 48DX at 100 MHZ (or
thereabouts - whatever they maxed out at wasn't much faster). So what?
Find me a commercially-available 486 that outperformed a Pentium 90
(which hit the market within a year or so). Stupid comparisons. Try
measuring processor floating point performance; measure disk, video and
overall data throughput for a bit more meaningful comparison.

IIRC, there were sequent multiprocessor boxes that would.
However, not exactly general purpose.

A number of factors conspired to make the advances comparatively
rapid at that time.
Increasingly capable design tools, enabling the designers to take
advantage of the relatively fab geometry upgrades.

Fabs were relatively cheap and easy to upgrade. Over time they've
gotten more and more hard and expensive to build.

existing Pentium chips a few Megahertz faster and a DVD player that
hold slightly more gigabytes. What the hell is the matter with
scientists today. The fact that we haven't colonized the moon yet and
had several manned missions to mars makes me want to puke. What the
heck is takin these chumps so long? I'm so mad.

Funding, and huge aerospace companies not wanting to lower the cost of
anything.

Oh, please. You must be a graduate of the "It's All a Big Conspiracy!"
school of higher education.

In some ways, it acts like one, though I don't believe there is general
intent.

You've got huge aerospace companies with lots of congressmen backing them.
You've got NASA wanting to build expensive stuff.
And congressmen can authorise NASA to do so, and send lots of work to
their constituents.

This can be a viscous circle, which can lead to "space is expensive"
getting stuck in peoples minds, perpetuating it.

If people know that space is expensive, then getting funding for
projects that propose methods that dramatically lower the cost of
space launch can be nearly impossible, as if you ask the obvious
source (NASA), they tell you it can't.

--
http://inquisitor.i.am/ | | Ian Stirling.
---------------------------+-------------------------+--------------------------
"When I use a word," Humpty Dumpty said in a rather scornfull tone, "It means
Just what I choose it to mean - neither more nor less." -- Lewis Carrol

(Slickwater) wrote in
om:

What the hell is the matter with
scientists today. The fact that we haven't colonized the moon yet and
had several manned missions to mars makes me want to puke. What the
heck is takin these chumps so long? I'm so mad.

Damn straight! We were promised flying cars! Where's my flying car? I WANT
MY FLYING CAR, DAMMIT!!

--
JRF

Reply-to address spam-proofed - to reply by E-mail,
check "Organization" (I am not assimilated) and
think one step ahead of IBM.

Jorge R. Frank wrote:

(Slickwater) wrote in
om:


What the hell is the matter with
scientists today. The fact that we haven't colonized the moon yet and
had several manned missions to mars makes me want to puke. What the
heck is takin these chumps so long? I'm so mad.


Damn straight! We were promised flying cars! Where's my flying car? I WANT
MY FLYING CAR, DAMMIT!!

http://www.moller.com/skycar/

I don't know if it's for real or not, but if it's a hoax, it's a real
elaborate one.


--
Steven D. Litvintchouk
Email:

Remove the NOSPAM before replying to me.

In article ,
"Jorge R. Frank" wrote:

(Slickwater) wrote in
om:

What the hell is the matter with
scientists today. The fact that we haven't colonized the moon yet and
had several manned missions to mars makes me want to puke. What the
heck is takin these chumps so long? I'm so mad.

Damn straight! We were promised flying cars! Where's my flying car? I WANT
MY FLYING CAR, DAMMIT!!

Hey, no fair stealing my old .sig! Oh, yeah - I changed it. Well,
then, okay. That's different.

Where the hell is Jorge's flying car?!?!?

--
Herb Schaltegger, B.S., J.D.
Reformed Aerospace Engineer
"Heisenberg might have been here."
~ Anonymous