Still some ways from HD replacements.
on
Disk Drives Explained
·
· Score: 2, Informative
Unfortunately, we're still quite a ways from developing solid-state drives cheaply that can finally compete against today's hard drives.
I think within the next 15 years we will finally see the breakthrough that will essentially turn our primary storage into physically-removeable cartridges of solid-state non-volatile memory storing over 250 GB of data on a cartridge somewhat smaller than the physical dimensions of a 3.5" floppy drive. And unlike today's non-volatile memory, the new solid-state memory can be erased many trillions of times without affecting the life of the memory.
The big advantage of solid-state storage is that since the delay in reading and writing data is a tiny fraction of that of hard drives, they could access data at extraordinarily fast speeds. Imagine loading something like Windows 2000 Professional in under two seconds from start to finish!:-)
You mean the 10 MB hard drives that are 5.25" full-height drives?? Those things really used quite a lot of power to run them.
And to think we've reached ATA-133/Serial ATA hard drives storing twenty thousand times what that 10 MB hard drive can do and at many, many times the access speed. And all in a drive that is 1/3 the height and 2/3 the width of that original 5.25" drive.
I personally hate the fact that 80x86 processors won out over more logical contenders (680x0, Alpha), but that's life.
I think you're forgetting that back in the 1980's, the Intel 8086/8088 were weak processors compared to the more power Motorola 68000 and DEC Alpha CPU's. However, once the 80386 came out in 1986 with true 32-bit processing, the tide began to turn in favor of Intel because it could at least run all the legacy software written for the 8088/8086 unmodified.
As operating systems advanced, they could finally take full advantage of the 32-bit flat memory addressing model introduced by the 80386. Today, the Intel Pentium 4 and AMD Athlon XP CPU's still use the memory model pioneered by the 80386 some 17 years ago. It is with the arrival of the AMD Athlon 64 that x86 CPU technology will finally advance to the 64-bit flat memory model (sorry, the Intel Itanium is a totally new CPU that could run x86 code in emulation--it's not a true x86-class CPU).
But Carmack's approach still has a fair chance to win the X-Prize first. Carmack is taking a lot of shortcuts that a more advanced design like Ruth's simply can't use.
Given what I know about Armadillo Aerospace's rocket design, I have some serious concerns whether it will actually work as advertised. I mean, has Armadillo actually started constructing a rocket that can lift three crew members to 62.1 miles altitude, return safely, and do it again within two weeks?? Meanwhile, it appears that Scaled Composites' entry is well on its way to make an attempt at winning the X-Prize probably as early as November of this year!
I believe that the Starchaser team are well-advanced on constructing the Thunderbird rocket that will attempt to win the prize late this year. I think the race will come down to between Scaled Composites and Starchaser for the one to meet the X-Prize criteria.
I'm really surprised that AOLTW didn't do this on a wider scale earlier.
After all, AOLTW owns a huge music and film library, and they can easily support direct sales through AOL just from this library.
Re:Are Competitors Building Dead-End Technology?
on
X Prize Race Heats Up
·
· Score: 4, Informative
Fortunately, Scaled Composite's entry into the X-Prize competition is not as dead-end as some people think.
Remember, by launching SpaceShipOne at over 50,000 feet altitude, that right there saves a tremendous amount of propellant needed to fly to the 62.1 mile altitude. It's the same method that allowed the relatively small X-15 with its XLR-99 rocket motor to reach over 354,000 feet, or 67.5 miles into space. During the late 1980's, there were serious studies about building a small spaceplane launched from the top of a modified 747-200 that has been fitted with a de-rated version of the Space Shuttle main engine; Rutan could apply what he learns from SpaceShipOne and build a small spaceplane that could carry as many as seven crew or its equivalent in cargo to the International Space Station. Indeed, I've heard of a company that proposes towing a fully-fueled spaceplane behind another large jet and then launching it at around 40,000 feet; because it launches at this altitude, the spaceplane needs far less propellants to reach low Earth orbit (LEO).
I think people are forgetting that US Navy carriers are more than just the carrier operating alone.
Today, a USN carrier task force will not only have the carrier, but also a number of destroyers armed with the Aegis defense system surrounding the ship to provide air defense and also launch longer range attacks using Harpoon and Tomahawk missiles. Also, about 2-3 attack submarines also operate with the task force, searching out for enemy submarines and also launching offensive operations using Tomahawks against distant targets and Harpoons against enemy surface surface ships.
When the USSR still existed, they spent a huge sum of rubles building special submarines armed with large cruise missiles and also flying specially-armed Tu-95 Bear bombers carrying large cruise missiles specifically to counter the USN carrier task forces. That also explains why the Soviets built and launched large nuclear-powered satellites whose sole purpose was to try to track the movements of our carriers. Today, with the USSR no longer extant, these Soviet-era anti-carrier forces no longer exist; today's military threats are no match for the USN carrier task force. The navy of Communist China don't have anywhere near the numbers, weapon systems, or tactics needed to take on our carriers.
Besides, carriers are actually a bargain when it comes to projecting power. It is very costly to set up and operate fixed military bases in foreign countries; a carrier can carry an extremely formidable strike force anywhere in the world easily. I think the Soviet Union's biggest blunder militarily was the fact they never really addressed the need to project power using an aircraft carrier until it was way too late; if they had aircraft carriers that could launch conventional aircraft operating by the early 1970's they could have been much more successful in projecting power, especially in Africa.
By today's standards, IBM's AS/400 machines can't be considered high-end servers. Yet IBM has ported Linux over so it runs under AS/400.
From the story it appears IBM may have sold a bunch of servers of varying capacities running Linux to the Japanese government as part of the deal with the two Japanese partners in the project.
I think you may want to look carefully at one of the major vendors that is developing this Linux-based computing system: IBM.
You know, the same IBM that spent over US$1 billion to port Linux over to run on S/390 and AS/400 hardware. In short, the so-called "Linux wins" are mostly due to the fact they're getting IBM big iron computers running Linux.
However there are rumours there could be a possible government money source behind this interest by Rutan.
Maybe, but probably not likely. A more probable source of funding is Paul Allen's Vulcan Ventures group, something that is not so far-fetched given the fact Vulcan Ventures has several billion US dollars in investment money to play around with. I wouldn't put it above the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation to be one of the financiers, too.
If my hunch is right, at least Allen and/or Gates are backing someone who DOES have the expertise to build something that can win the X-Prize. After all, some 17 years ago Scaled Composites built the amazing Voyager airplane, the first airplane to fly around the world non-stop unrefuelled. When Scaled built the amazing Proteus airplane that could cruise at over 65,000 feet altitude, I knew it would only be a matter of time before they built a flyable vehicle that could be a serious contender for the X-Prize.
I'll give it to Rutan's Scaled Composites group, too. =)
Mostly because unlike most of their competitors, Rutan's extensive experience with highly-advanced aerospace materials and unusual aircraft design shows he has the expertise that can build a successful X-Prize competitor. Besides, the research from SpaceShipOne could evolve into something that people long for: relatively cheap access into Low Earth Orbit (LEO).
There were proposals to build a small spaceplane in the late 1980's that could fly into space from the back of a modified 747 that has been fitted with a rocket motor that provides the initial boost before the spaceplane launches from the 747 and flies on its own power to LEO; Rutan has the expertise to build such a vehicle, one that could carry as many as seven crew or its equivalent cargo load to the International Space Station.
To prevent the problem from happening in the future, NASA, Boeing and Lockheed-Martin need to do the following:
1. Develop a new foam insulation that exhibits less tendency to shed from the External Tank during the launch phase. They may have to go back to the CFC-based insulation material, probably with a special EPA waiver.
2. Redesign the wing leading edges using stronger materials and structures behind the insulating tiles. Fortunately, with 2002 materials technology that could work without adding undue weight to the wing.
3. Replace the current insulating tiles with ones that are made of materials that are less susceptible to foreign object damage (FOD). During the late 1980's, Lockheed (before it merged with Martin Marietta) seriously studied new insulation tiles using metal-based materials; maybe it's time to replace all the tiles with this new material, which (using our current knowledge of aerospace materials) could actually lighten the weight of the shuttle.
4. Make sure that NASA has ALL ground tracking cameras operating during every Shuttle launch. NASA had a devil of a time identifying the problem of the wing leading edge damage because some of their tracking cameras were turned off as a money-saving measure.
College baseball is another one. They have had to slap limits on the properties of aluminum baseball bats because they were starting to affect the game too much. There are now rules governing how much rebound is allowed from a bat. Note that major league baseball doesn't have this problem because they still use wooden bats.
I think what will happen is that within 15 years we will see the emergence of baseball bats made out of composite materials (carbon fiber, epoxy resin, etc.) that will be standardized by both the NCAA, Major League Baseball and the minor leagues. There are two reasons for this: 1) unlike wooden bats, composite-material bats are far less likely to break and 2) composite-material bats can be made to have the same level of "bounce" as wooden bats.
We may see limitations imposed soon.
on
Sports Technology?
·
· Score: 2, Insightful
I think the problem is that technology is way outrunning what we expect in many sports. The result is that there is way too much emphasis on the "power" game and that ruins the experience for everyone in the long run. I expect the following to happen:
Golf - While they have done a nice job reiging in club technology, you have ball technology going through the roof. Golf courses are being made obsolete. Expect the governing bodies to put in restrictions very soon to level things off.
The USGA and the Royal & Ancient Club of St. Andrews are very seriously looking at the issue of oversized clubheads and golf balls with too much "bounce." Expect with a few years a very strict standard for clubhead sizes, materials used etc. As for golf balls, we may see within a few years a standardized golf ball with a lower "bounce" rate than currently.
Tennis - Due to new racket technology, it is possible to just crush the ball. Because of this new technology, the game is just turning into serve-ace or serve-return-point. Wimbledon, which is played on a very fast surface, has become very boring to watch. Unless this trend is reversed, expect tennis to become extremely boring with all surfaces rendered obsolete.
I expect that within a few years we will see a reference standard for tennis rackets that will limit the size of the head and also limit how much "bounce" it can put on the tennis ball. Also, we may see a slightly larger tennis ball with a lower "bounce" rate, which means the ball will travel slower.
Swimming - With the new swim suits everyone has started wearing, you have seen records just start to fall like rocks. At first this seemed like a joke, but if you realize it, this is taking away factors that in many ways could be considered unimportant to the sport, like drag in the water. Of course, you could also think of it in a way that the most prepared (ie, do all you can to reduce drag) wins.
I wouldn't be surprised if we see these new style swimsuits banned after the 2004 Summer Olympics. These new suits are very expensive and offer too much an advantage to any team that can afford them.
Track - new surface technology as well as wind suits (similar to the swimming suits) have allowed people to run faster. Still, you have to accelerated your body to be that fast, and world records are not falling at any serious rate (the world record has only changed.1 seconds in about 15 years).
One thing we may see is that there will be a strict ban on full-body suits in running races up to 1,600 meters. Such full-body suits offer too much an advantage in terms of lowering wind resistance and also are extremely expensive to procure.
I'll be more impressed if the folks at the Langley Research Center compared the Apple Power Macintosh G5 with the 2.2 GHz PowerPC 970 CPU against a system running the Pentium 4 3.2 GHz CPU (which has Hyperthreading instruction registers to have almost dual-CPU performance).
My guess is under Jet3D the P4 3.2 GHz machine will likely outpace the 2.2 GHz G5 PowerMac handily in single CPU mode.
You're forgetting that today's military jet engines used on fighters are actually quite small engines. If it weren't for the afterburner unit these engines would at most generate 18,000-20,000 lb. of thrust!
The high-bypass engines used on today's jet airliners are physically very big engines. For example, the engines on the Boeing 777 are so big that the engine nacelle is the diameter of the 737 fuselage! At that physical size, an impact by a MANPAD missile would shut down the engine but the physical effect on the engine would be surprisingly low.
Actually, the films you mentioned are not as confidential as you think. I've seen movies of the Boeing 777 jet engines being subjected to some extreme tests, like firing dead (yet NOT frozen) chickens using an air-powered cannon at the front fan at speeds up to 300 mph and also deliberately damaging the front fan with small explosive charges to ensure the nacelle stays together in case of front fan failure.
It think it's likely nowadays that we may see the engine manufacturers subject the engine/nacelle combination to the type of destructive event caused by the impact of Man-Portable Air Defense (MANPAD) surface-to-air missile. They want to make sure the engine/nacelle combination will still maintain reasonable structural integrity even after impact from the warhead of a MANPAD missile so an airliner that has been attacked by a terrorist with a MANPAD missile can still fly on the remaining operating engine(s) and make a safe emergency landing.
Well, the version of the Long March launch rocket that lifted the unmanned Shenzhou prototypes into low Earth orbit have more lifting capability than the Delta II rockets we've used to launch probes to Mars, so if China is talking about sending robotic probes to Mars they already have the rocket to do so.
Whether the Chinese have the technological skills to build a spacecraft that can last several years on a Mars mission is still an iffy proposition, though.
Despite some reservations about the small size of the navigation keys on this keyboard (which I can understand some user's legitimate concerns), I love it because I can type all day and not have wrist pain afterward, mostly because you don't have to turn your wrists at an unnatural angle to type. The newer MS keyboards based on the Natural layout have a lot of keys are effectively overkill unless you are heavily into multimedia; the MS Natural Elite is all the keyboard I ever need.
Having tried Netscape 7.1, I'm actually pretty impressed by this browser, even though rendering times are still slightly slower than IE 6.01 SP1 on some web pages. I especially love the tabbed browsing feature, which allows me to view more than one web page easily. =)
...could mean the very likely possibility that the DARPA program could pave the way for a next-generation supersonic transport that could fly at Mach 2.0, seat 300 passengers, fly from Los Angeles to London non-stop, meet today's strict regulations for jet engine noise and exhaust emissions and generate no audiable sonic boom in the flight path when the plane is flying Mach 2.0 at altitude.
Sounds far-fetched? It's closer than you think. Scientists using the latest supercomputers to do computational fluid dynamics (CFD) research discovered the true reason for the sonic boom: a pressure wave buildup as an object travels faster than the speed of sound. Dissipate that pressure wave buildup and/or deflect the pressure wave energy away from the ground, and the result is that the sonic boom would be barely audiable or not audiable at all when the plane is flying at altitude.
Such a plane could be a huge boon for air travel. Imagine flying from Los Angeles to Sydney in HALF the time it takes now with a 747-400 flying nonstop, even if the new plane has to stop in Honolulu for refuelling. Or imagine flying London to Sydney in 40 PERCENT less time, even if the plane has to stop at Dubai in the Persian Gulf and Singapore to refuel.
I think your comment was nothing short of superb. =)
As I said in another message, humanity only advanced when people started thinking out of the box in advancing culture and science in defiance of established norms. If we were to have a society that wanted to solve immediate problems first it would be an invitation to cause a society to stagnate and regress. That was what happened in the Western Roman Empire when the Christian authorities created a limited range of knowledge for everyone to know, and when the Western Roman Empire fell, it regressed quickly to more or less a tribal society.
People would be better advised to look up at night and realize that they, or their children, are never going to leave this planet. They should come to realize that they either fix their problems on earth or that they will have to live with them.
If we had lived like that throughout history humanity would never have advanced to what it is today, I'm sorry to say.
Just about every major advance in human culture and science were created by people who thought out of the box in defiance of the established view. To squash that because we have to fix our immediate problems first is an invitation to creating a society that wants to regress to a Dark Age of culture. This is not a joke, either--I've actually read some literature from environmental extremists that want to drastically cull the human race and reduce them back to the state of Stone Age-level noble savages.
While I can understand your concerns, at least we don't have the equivalent of the old Hays Office that strictly enforced what could be shown in a motion picture. If we had that in place for videogames most of the videogames out there would either be not allowed to be sold or have to be severely re-written to conform to what amounts to a censorship code.
I believe that Lieberman and Kohl likes the improvements planned by ESRB because they are going to a rating system similar to what the Motion Picture Association of America (MPAA) implemented some time ago, namely giving clear and descriptive reasons on why a movie get a G, PG, PG-13, R or NC-17 rating.
This is something I actually like, because parents will know clearly why certain games rated by the ESRB as M are not advisable for those under 18 (strong violence, explicit sexuality in various forms, strong language, and so on).
Slashdot Mirror
Unfortunately, we're still quite a ways from developing solid-state drives cheaply that can finally compete against today's hard drives.
:-)
I think within the next 15 years we will finally see the breakthrough that will essentially turn our primary storage into physically-removeable cartridges of solid-state non-volatile memory storing over 250 GB of data on a cartridge somewhat smaller than the physical dimensions of a 3.5" floppy drive. And unlike today's non-volatile memory, the new solid-state memory can be erased many trillions of times without affecting the life of the memory.
The big advantage of solid-state storage is that since the delay in reading and writing data is a tiny fraction of that of hard drives, they could access data at extraordinarily fast speeds. Imagine loading something like Windows 2000 Professional in under two seconds from start to finish!
You mean the 10 MB hard drives that are 5.25" full-height drives?? Those things really used quite a lot of power to run them.
And to think we've reached ATA-133/Serial ATA hard drives storing twenty thousand times what that 10 MB hard drive can do and at many, many times the access speed. And all in a drive that is 1/3 the height and 2/3 the width of that original 5.25" drive.
I personally hate the fact that 80x86 processors won out over more logical contenders (680x0, Alpha), but that's life.
I think you're forgetting that back in the 1980's, the Intel 8086/8088 were weak processors compared to the more power Motorola 68000 and DEC Alpha CPU's. However, once the 80386 came out in 1986 with true 32-bit processing, the tide began to turn in favor of Intel because it could at least run all the legacy software written for the 8088/8086 unmodified.
As operating systems advanced, they could finally take full advantage of the 32-bit flat memory addressing model introduced by the 80386. Today, the Intel Pentium 4 and AMD Athlon XP CPU's still use the memory model pioneered by the 80386 some 17 years ago. It is with the arrival of the AMD Athlon 64 that x86 CPU technology will finally advance to the 64-bit flat memory model (sorry, the Intel Itanium is a totally new CPU that could run x86 code in emulation--it's not a true x86-class CPU).
But Carmack's approach still has a fair chance to win the X-Prize first. Carmack is taking a lot of shortcuts that a more advanced design like Ruth's simply can't use.
Given what I know about Armadillo Aerospace's rocket design, I have some serious concerns whether it will actually work as advertised. I mean, has Armadillo actually started constructing a rocket that can lift three crew members to 62.1 miles altitude, return safely, and do it again within two weeks?? Meanwhile, it appears that Scaled Composites' entry is well on its way to make an attempt at winning the X-Prize probably as early as November of this year!
I believe that the Starchaser team are well-advanced on constructing the Thunderbird rocket that will attempt to win the prize late this year. I think the race will come down to between Scaled Composites and Starchaser for the one to meet the X-Prize criteria.
I'm really surprised that AOLTW didn't do this on a wider scale earlier.
After all, AOLTW owns a huge music and film library, and they can easily support direct sales through AOL just from this library.
Fortunately, Scaled Composite's entry into the X-Prize competition is not as dead-end as some people think.
Remember, by launching SpaceShipOne at over 50,000 feet altitude, that right there saves a tremendous amount of propellant needed to fly to the 62.1 mile altitude. It's the same method that allowed the relatively small X-15 with its XLR-99 rocket motor to reach over 354,000 feet, or 67.5 miles into space. During the late 1980's, there were serious studies about building a small spaceplane launched from the top of a modified 747-200 that has been fitted with a de-rated version of the Space Shuttle main engine; Rutan could apply what he learns from SpaceShipOne and build a small spaceplane that could carry as many as seven crew or its equivalent in cargo to the International Space Station. Indeed, I've heard of a company that proposes towing a fully-fueled spaceplane behind another large jet and then launching it at around 40,000 feet; because it launches at this altitude, the spaceplane needs far less propellants to reach low Earth orbit (LEO).
I think people are forgetting that US Navy carriers are more than just the carrier operating alone.
Today, a USN carrier task force will not only have the carrier, but also a number of destroyers armed with the Aegis defense system surrounding the ship to provide air defense and also launch longer range attacks using Harpoon and Tomahawk missiles. Also, about 2-3 attack submarines also operate with the task force, searching out for enemy submarines and also launching offensive operations using Tomahawks against distant targets and Harpoons against enemy surface surface ships.
When the USSR still existed, they spent a huge sum of rubles building special submarines armed with large cruise missiles and also flying specially-armed Tu-95 Bear bombers carrying large cruise missiles specifically to counter the USN carrier task forces. That also explains why the Soviets built and launched large nuclear-powered satellites whose sole purpose was to try to track the movements of our carriers. Today, with the USSR no longer extant, these Soviet-era anti-carrier forces no longer exist; today's military threats are no match for the USN carrier task force. The navy of Communist China don't have anywhere near the numbers, weapon systems, or tactics needed to take on our carriers.
Besides, carriers are actually a bargain when it comes to projecting power. It is very costly to set up and operate fixed military bases in foreign countries; a carrier can carry an extremely formidable strike force anywhere in the world easily. I think the Soviet Union's biggest blunder militarily was the fact they never really addressed the need to project power using an aircraft carrier until it was way too late; if they had aircraft carriers that could launch conventional aircraft operating by the early 1970's they could have been much more successful in projecting power, especially in Africa.
By today's standards, IBM's AS/400 machines can't be considered high-end servers. Yet IBM has ported Linux over so it runs under AS/400.
From the story it appears IBM may have sold a bunch of servers of varying capacities running Linux to the Japanese government as part of the deal with the two Japanese partners in the project.
I think you may want to look carefully at one of the major vendors that is developing this Linux-based computing system: IBM.
You know, the same IBM that spent over US$1 billion to port Linux over to run on S/390 and AS/400 hardware. In short, the so-called "Linux wins" are mostly due to the fact they're getting IBM big iron computers running Linux.
However there are rumours there could be a possible government money source behind this interest by Rutan.
Maybe, but probably not likely. A more probable source of funding is Paul Allen's Vulcan Ventures group, something that is not so far-fetched given the fact Vulcan Ventures has several billion US dollars in investment money to play around with. I wouldn't put it above the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation to be one of the financiers, too.
If my hunch is right, at least Allen and/or Gates are backing someone who DOES have the expertise to build something that can win the X-Prize. After all, some 17 years ago Scaled Composites built the amazing Voyager airplane, the first airplane to fly around the world non-stop unrefuelled. When Scaled built the amazing Proteus airplane that could cruise at over 65,000 feet altitude, I knew it would only be a matter of time before they built a flyable vehicle that could be a serious contender for the X-Prize.
I'll give it to Rutan's Scaled Composites group, too. =)
Mostly because unlike most of their competitors, Rutan's extensive experience with highly-advanced aerospace materials and unusual aircraft design shows he has the expertise that can build a successful X-Prize competitor. Besides, the research from SpaceShipOne could evolve into something that people long for: relatively cheap access into Low Earth Orbit (LEO).
There were proposals to build a small spaceplane in the late 1980's that could fly into space from the back of a modified 747 that has been fitted with a rocket motor that provides the initial boost before the spaceplane launches from the 747 and flies on its own power to LEO; Rutan has the expertise to build such a vehicle, one that could carry as many as seven crew or its equivalent cargo load to the International Space Station.
To prevent the problem from happening in the future, NASA, Boeing and Lockheed-Martin need to do the following:
1. Develop a new foam insulation that exhibits less tendency to shed from the External Tank during the launch phase. They may have to go back to the CFC-based insulation material, probably with a special EPA waiver.
2. Redesign the wing leading edges using stronger materials and structures behind the insulating tiles. Fortunately, with 2002 materials technology that could work without adding undue weight to the wing.
3. Replace the current insulating tiles with ones that are made of materials that are less susceptible to foreign object damage (FOD). During the late 1980's, Lockheed (before it merged with Martin Marietta) seriously studied new insulation tiles using metal-based materials; maybe it's time to replace all the tiles with this new material, which (using our current knowledge of aerospace materials) could actually lighten the weight of the shuttle.
4. Make sure that NASA has ALL ground tracking cameras operating during every Shuttle launch. NASA had a devil of a time identifying the problem of the wing leading edge damage because some of their tracking cameras were turned off as a money-saving measure.
College baseball is another one. They have had to slap limits on the properties of aluminum baseball bats because they were starting to affect the game too much. There are now rules governing how much rebound is allowed from a bat. Note that major league baseball doesn't have this problem because they still use wooden bats.
I think what will happen is that within 15 years we will see the emergence of baseball bats made out of composite materials (carbon fiber, epoxy resin, etc.) that will be standardized by both the NCAA, Major League Baseball and the minor leagues. There are two reasons for this: 1) unlike wooden bats, composite-material bats are far less likely to break and 2) composite-material bats can be made to have the same level of "bounce" as wooden bats.
I think the problem is that technology is way outrunning what we expect in many sports. The result is that there is way too much emphasis on the "power" game and that ruins the experience for everyone in the long run. I expect the following to happen:
.1 seconds in about 15 years).
Golf - While they have done a nice job reiging in club technology, you have ball technology going through the roof. Golf courses are being made obsolete. Expect the governing bodies to put in restrictions very soon to level things off.
The USGA and the Royal & Ancient Club of St. Andrews are very seriously looking at the issue of oversized clubheads and golf balls with too much "bounce." Expect with a few years a very strict standard for clubhead sizes, materials used etc. As for golf balls, we may see within a few years a standardized golf ball with a lower "bounce" rate than currently.
Tennis - Due to new racket technology, it is possible to just crush the ball. Because of this new technology, the game is just turning into serve-ace or serve-return-point. Wimbledon, which is played on a very fast surface, has become very boring to watch. Unless this trend is reversed, expect tennis to become extremely boring with all surfaces rendered obsolete.
I expect that within a few years we will see a reference standard for tennis rackets that will limit the size of the head and also limit how much "bounce" it can put on the tennis ball. Also, we may see a slightly larger tennis ball with a lower "bounce" rate, which means the ball will travel slower.
Swimming - With the new swim suits everyone has started wearing, you have seen records just start to fall like rocks. At first this seemed like a joke, but if you realize it, this is taking away factors that in many ways could be considered unimportant to the sport, like drag in the water. Of course, you could also think of it in a way that the most prepared (ie, do all you can to reduce drag) wins.
I wouldn't be surprised if we see these new style swimsuits banned after the 2004 Summer Olympics. These new suits are very expensive and offer too much an advantage to any team that can afford them.
Track - new surface technology as well as wind suits (similar to the swimming suits) have allowed people to run faster. Still, you have to accelerated your body to be that fast, and world records are not falling at any serious rate (the world record has only changed
One thing we may see is that there will be a strict ban on full-body suits in running races up to 1,600 meters. Such full-body suits offer too much an advantage in terms of lowering wind resistance and also are extremely expensive to procure.
I'll be more impressed if the folks at the Langley Research Center compared the Apple Power Macintosh G5 with the 2.2 GHz PowerPC 970 CPU against a system running the Pentium 4 3.2 GHz CPU (which has Hyperthreading instruction registers to have almost dual-CPU performance).
My guess is under Jet3D the P4 3.2 GHz machine will likely outpace the 2.2 GHz G5 PowerMac handily in single CPU mode.
You're forgetting that today's military jet engines used on fighters are actually quite small engines. If it weren't for the afterburner unit these engines would at most generate 18,000-20,000 lb. of thrust!
The high-bypass engines used on today's jet airliners are physically very big engines. For example, the engines on the Boeing 777 are so big that the engine nacelle is the diameter of the 737 fuselage! At that physical size, an impact by a MANPAD missile would shut down the engine but the physical effect on the engine would be surprisingly low.
Actually, the films you mentioned are not as confidential as you think. I've seen movies of the Boeing 777 jet engines being subjected to some extreme tests, like firing dead (yet NOT frozen) chickens using an air-powered cannon at the front fan at speeds up to 300 mph and also deliberately damaging the front fan with small explosive charges to ensure the nacelle stays together in case of front fan failure.
It think it's likely nowadays that we may see the engine manufacturers subject the engine/nacelle combination to the type of destructive event caused by the impact of Man-Portable Air Defense (MANPAD) surface-to-air missile. They want to make sure the engine/nacelle combination will still maintain reasonable structural integrity even after impact from the warhead of a MANPAD missile so an airliner that has been attacked by a terrorist with a MANPAD missile can still fly on the remaining operating engine(s) and make a safe emergency landing.
Well, the version of the Long March launch rocket that lifted the unmanned Shenzhou prototypes into low Earth orbit have more lifting capability than the Delta II rockets we've used to launch probes to Mars, so if China is talking about sending robotic probes to Mars they already have the rocket to do so.
Whether the Chinese have the technological skills to build a spacecraft that can last several years on a Mars mission is still an iffy proposition, though.
I myself use a Microsoft Natural Elite keyboard.
Despite some reservations about the small size of the navigation keys on this keyboard (which I can understand some user's legitimate concerns), I love it because I can type all day and not have wrist pain afterward, mostly because you don't have to turn your wrists at an unnatural angle to type. The newer MS keyboards based on the Natural layout have a lot of keys are effectively overkill unless you are heavily into multimedia; the MS Natural Elite is all the keyboard I ever need.
Having tried Netscape 7.1, I'm actually pretty impressed by this browser, even though rendering times are still slightly slower than IE 6.01 SP1 on some web pages. I especially love the tabbed browsing feature, which allows me to view more than one web page easily. =)
...could mean the very likely possibility that the DARPA program could pave the way for a next-generation supersonic transport that could fly at Mach 2.0, seat 300 passengers, fly from Los Angeles to London non-stop, meet today's strict regulations for jet engine noise and exhaust emissions and generate no audiable sonic boom in the flight path when the plane is flying Mach 2.0 at altitude.
Sounds far-fetched? It's closer than you think. Scientists using the latest supercomputers to do computational fluid dynamics (CFD) research discovered the true reason for the sonic boom: a pressure wave buildup as an object travels faster than the speed of sound. Dissipate that pressure wave buildup and/or deflect the pressure wave energy away from the ground, and the result is that the sonic boom would be barely audiable or not audiable at all when the plane is flying at altitude.
Such a plane could be a huge boon for air travel. Imagine flying from Los Angeles to Sydney in HALF the time it takes now with a 747-400 flying nonstop, even if the new plane has to stop in Honolulu for refuelling. Or imagine flying London to Sydney in 40 PERCENT less time, even if the plane has to stop at Dubai in the Persian Gulf and Singapore to refuel.
I think your comment was nothing short of superb. =)
As I said in another message, humanity only advanced when people started thinking out of the box in advancing culture and science in defiance of established norms. If we were to have a society that wanted to solve immediate problems first it would be an invitation to cause a society to stagnate and regress. That was what happened in the Western Roman Empire when the Christian authorities created a limited range of knowledge for everyone to know, and when the Western Roman Empire fell, it regressed quickly to more or less a tribal society.
People would be better advised to look up at night and realize that they, or their children, are never going to leave this planet. They should come to realize that they either fix their problems on earth or that they will have to live with them.
If we had lived like that throughout history humanity would never have advanced to what it is today, I'm sorry to say.
Just about every major advance in human culture and science were created by people who thought out of the box in defiance of the established view. To squash that because we have to fix our immediate problems first is an invitation to creating a society that wants to regress to a Dark Age of culture. This is not a joke, either--I've actually read some literature from environmental extremists that want to drastically cull the human race and reduce them back to the state of Stone Age-level noble savages.
While I can understand your concerns, at least we don't have the equivalent of the old Hays Office that strictly enforced what could be shown in a motion picture. If we had that in place for videogames most of the videogames out there would either be not allowed to be sold or have to be severely re-written to conform to what amounts to a censorship code.
I believe that Lieberman and Kohl likes the improvements planned by ESRB because they are going to a rating system similar to what the Motion Picture Association of America (MPAA) implemented some time ago, namely giving clear and descriptive reasons on why a movie get a G, PG, PG-13, R or NC-17 rating.
This is something I actually like, because parents will know clearly why certain games rated by the ESRB as M are not advisable for those under 18 (strong violence, explicit sexuality in various forms, strong language, and so on).