It's also seemingly somewhat generational. Some folks deride games but feel nothing is wrong with vegetating for hours in the evening watching television, playing cards, or some other equivalent waste of time.
That's next up on my reading list, looks great (written by the author of "The Omnivore's Dilemma"). If anyone hasn't read it yet, "The Doors of Perception" by Huxley is a fantastic short read. At the very least the last chapter with his opinions on drugs in society is excellent.
The "Smart" car and many like it are effectively crumple zones on wheels, with a high alloy steel cage around the driver. Modern safety standards make just about any vehicle pretty safe. Repair after a fender bender is another story...
Steve Jobs was a brilliant businessman and Apple did turn out polished products at somewhat reasonable prices (I typically don't buy Apple, but many do). The iPhone, iPod, computers all worked "out of the box" wonderfully, and came with lots of software and features. This is everything Jobs would have hated.
Efficiency losses and heat from devices running are negligible compared to solar heating. All of humanity in 2015 used ~155,000 TWh of energy according to wikipedia. Given on average the earth has a solar flux of 1.362 kW/m^2, you can estimate the total flux given a radius of 6371393 m : Area of one half sphere : 1/2*4*Pi*(6371393^2), multiply by 1362 W/m^2, roughly 3.47e20 W, or ~3e12 TWh, or about *20,000,000* times that of total human consumption. So you can see we never have to worry about holodecks and replicators consuming too much waste heat any time soon, but any CO2 or methane that changes the heat capture in the atmosphere by 0.0002% will leave us fairly screwed.
Everything you said is true, but if a material is superconducting at say 120 K using it at 77 K still is advantageous for loss-less current, simple magnets for the applications OP mentioned, etc. Most applications now use helium since most are trying to push the magnetic field and the applications largely don't care too much about economy (think national lab magnets, accelerators, fusion devices, etc.). Wind turbines generators for example can't afford helium plants or banks of inefficient cryocoolers. Lots of other considerations as well - a new superconducting material doesn't mean you magically have a cable that can create magnets - see flux jumping, AC losses (if applicable), chemistry with oxygen (some require silver making expense go up), etc.
Additive manufacturing will never replace common manufacturing techniques like casting or forging. This isn't just due to structure, but energy costs as well. Rastering layer by layer, constantly heating and cooling, is far more energy intensive than a "melt and pour". Batch injection molding 1000 parts will always be faster than build by layer.
Not to shit on AM however - complexity becomes free. With AM you can make a gadget as optimum as you want with intricate bio-inspired structural conmponents, and so long as production volumes are relatively low, say 10,000, AM might be able to compete based on the combination of better performance and material cost savings. Things like rocket engine components are ideal for this.
Not necessarily a revolution, but a very welcome new tool. CNC machining probably had a greater impact, but went largely unnoticed by the general public. Advanced automation (think robotics mixed with machine learning and AI) is probably poised to make a larger contribution than AM, IMO.
On the other hand, such a venture could dynamically incentivize ubiquitous experiences while intrinsically maintaining resource-maximizing customer service.
SpaceX's suit is an "IVA" suit for in the spacecraft, not made for movement in vacuum. The EVA suits are orders of magnitude more difficult to design. I'm sure SpaceX will come up with an elegant design for a fraction of the cost of what NASA needs, but they don't have it yet AFAIK.
I don't disagree the least bit, but I believe Nintendo has started to make money by selling old games on Wii U and Switch. Probably what prompted them to take this more seriously all of a sudden.
The Shanghai maglev was built by Germany. Anything reduced to the basics can be made to sound simple (i.e. a rocket is just a directed flame/combustion) but to develop the completed design, optimized for cost safety etc with a full set of engineering drawings, control circuits, etc. is very valuable.
Or making a rocket better than a 60 year old government agency with a budget a not-so-insignificant percentage of GDP? The mode of thinking that another more experienced company or organization would have accomplished something were it feasible is valid until someone else tries. I am however also a fanboy (though as of late he seems to be Hughes-ing himself).
>> That said, I will absolutely avoid calls from recruiters who call me once a month when I'm not looking. If they leave a voice mail I wont' respond. If they email I'll ignore it. Etc. But that's ignoring initial contact, not suddenly going silent once a conversation has begun.
LinkedIn recruiters are notorious for this - "I see you work on nuclear fusion rocket engines and list finite element analysis as one of your competencies, I have a perfect job for you designing coffee mugs in Bumbleville, Montana with a lovely starting salary of $30,000 - could we talk this week?"
I hadn't considered the fuel tank surface area issue, but you're likely correct. RT liquid fuel cells would be best, but not sure where they all are in terms of efficiency. I have seen some nice progress with methanol, energy densities above lithium already IIRC. You work in this area?
I always thought this might be the winning application for fuel cells - high energy conversion and loss of mass as you go (or maybe a single dedicated turbogenerator instead of fuel cells?). With liquid hydrogen there could even be an additional advantage - vapor boil-off could cryogenically cool a superconducting engine, although I doubt the small efficiency gain here would balance the safety issues of finicky superconductors. Certainly electric jets will be the future once energy storage mechanisms are found - high bypass turbofans could be replaced with 100% bypass and would be real slick...
Yup. "The DIamond Makers" is a great book BTW. Also, this is nothing new - DeBeers already goes around buying many of the companies making artificial diamonds. Check out the footer of "element 6" company for instance.
The Oatmeal was the source for most of the strife on Edison today, I'm well aware. The elephant was more Edison's business partner mostly (iirc Morgan), and the elephant was going to be put down anyway as it killed people at a circus. AND on top of this, Edison regretted the whole AC DC feud as his biggest mistake. He was quick to recognize AC's advantages.
Tesla made contributions to AC. He had nothing to do with the transistor, his radio schemes were largely impractical (radio has a rich history with many inventors, and Tesla if wiped from history would result in little if not zero change to the timeline), radar is laughable, etc. He basically screwed around with high voltage and high frequency noting strange effects that others around the world have seen before, but he did nothing with them. More to the point, even if he were a fantastic businessman, his approaches to the various technologies, radio especially, were not particularly good ones.
Margaret Chenney's book on Tesla is the most kind, but there are more scholarly books that even discredit some of his contributions to AC. Edison was not a perfect character (who is?), but was in my opinion overall an excellent person. His biggest fault was not giving credit publicly to his laboratory scientists who pioneered various technologies. He was however a very public figure who relied on his image and publicity. Who does this remind you of today?
Virtually all of Tesla's "inventions" were completely impractical (and no, not "ahead of his time"), whereas Edison's inventions were made for the market. I never understood the whole "Tesla" is a genius thing -- he didn't even believe in atoms, loved eugenics, detested obese people etc., and yet somehow Edison is the asshole.
I have read books on both of them with an open mind. I greatly admire Edison, although he doesn't do a great job giving credit to those in his labs -- not unlike Musk at the helm of SpaceX. Tesla would put on shows and make provocative statements to boost his own ego, but show little of anything practical. The best work he ever did was in Edison's lab, and then joined with many electrical engineers who helped the AC motor/generator.
It's more basic and universal. In third world countries more kids means more profit as you get "free" labor. In first world countries there is absolutely no labor or financial incentive and the drain is huge (day care, food, clothing, doctor bills, etc.). Every single country that moves towards a first world system sees their birth rates drop. Not a bad thing seeing as how the alternative would really screw the world.
Not to mention those large plants are much more efficient than a combustion engine, with optimized steam turbines squeezing out the highest efficiency. The "oh but everything comes from coal anyway" is a terrible argument even if it were true.
Slashdot Mirror
It's also seemingly somewhat generational. Some folks deride games but feel nothing is wrong with vegetating for hours in the evening watching television, playing cards, or some other equivalent waste of time.
Where did you get this info? Would like to read up more...
That's next up on my reading list, looks great (written by the author of "The Omnivore's Dilemma"). If anyone hasn't read it yet, "The Doors of Perception" by Huxley is a fantastic short read. At the very least the last chapter with his opinions on drugs in society is excellent.
The "Smart" car and many like it are effectively crumple zones on wheels, with a high alloy steel cage around the driver. Modern safety standards make just about any vehicle pretty safe. Repair after a fender bender is another story...
Steve Jobs was a brilliant businessman and Apple did turn out polished products at somewhat reasonable prices (I typically don't buy Apple, but many do). The iPhone, iPod, computers all worked "out of the box" wonderfully, and came with lots of software and features. This is everything Jobs would have hated.
Efficiency losses and heat from devices running are negligible compared to solar heating. All of humanity in 2015 used ~155,000 TWh of energy according to wikipedia. Given on average the earth has a solar flux of 1.362 kW/m^2, you can estimate the total flux given a radius of 6371393 m : Area of one half sphere : 1/2*4*Pi*(6371393^2), multiply by 1362 W/m^2, roughly 3.47e20 W, or ~3e12 TWh, or about *20,000,000* times that of total human consumption. So you can see we never have to worry about holodecks and replicators consuming too much waste heat any time soon, but any CO2 or methane that changes the heat capture in the atmosphere by 0.0002% will leave us fairly screwed.
Everything you said is true, but if a material is superconducting at say 120 K using it at 77 K still is advantageous for loss-less current, simple magnets for the applications OP mentioned, etc. Most applications now use helium since most are trying to push the magnetic field and the applications largely don't care too much about economy (think national lab magnets, accelerators, fusion devices, etc.). Wind turbines generators for example can't afford helium plants or banks of inefficient cryocoolers. Lots of other considerations as well - a new superconducting material doesn't mean you magically have a cable that can create magnets - see flux jumping, AC losses (if applicable), chemistry with oxygen (some require silver making expense go up), etc.
Additive manufacturing will never replace common manufacturing techniques like casting or forging. This isn't just due to structure, but energy costs as well. Rastering layer by layer, constantly heating and cooling, is far more energy intensive than a "melt and pour". Batch injection molding 1000 parts will always be faster than build by layer.
Not to shit on AM however - complexity becomes free. With AM you can make a gadget as optimum as you want with intricate bio-inspired structural conmponents, and so long as production volumes are relatively low, say 10,000, AM might be able to compete based on the combination of better performance and material cost savings. Things like rocket engine components are ideal for this.
Not necessarily a revolution, but a very welcome new tool. CNC machining probably had a greater impact, but went largely unnoticed by the general public. Advanced automation (think robotics mixed with machine learning and AI) is probably poised to make a larger contribution than AM, IMO.
On the other hand, such a venture could dynamically incentivize ubiquitous experiences while intrinsically maintaining resource-maximizing customer service.
Considering the best advice if you're hiding is to mute or turn off your phone, likely having these could lead to *more* casualties.
SpaceX's suit is an "IVA" suit for in the spacecraft, not made for movement in vacuum. The EVA suits are orders of magnitude more difficult to design. I'm sure SpaceX will come up with an elegant design for a fraction of the cost of what NASA needs, but they don't have it yet AFAIK.
I don't disagree the least bit, but I believe Nintendo has started to make money by selling old games on Wii U and Switch. Probably what prompted them to take this more seriously all of a sudden.
The Shanghai maglev was built by Germany. Anything reduced to the basics can be made to sound simple (i.e. a rocket is just a directed flame/combustion) but to develop the completed design, optimized for cost safety etc with a full set of engineering drawings, control circuits, etc. is very valuable.
See the book "China RX" - nearly everything is made overseas. AFAIK there is not even a penicillin production facility in the US.
Or making a rocket better than a 60 year old government agency with a budget a not-so-insignificant percentage of GDP? The mode of thinking that another more experienced company or organization would have accomplished something were it feasible is valid until someone else tries. I am however also a fanboy (though as of late he seems to be Hughes-ing himself).
He3 is very useful in low temperature cryogenics and neutron detectors, but I imagine a few kg would saturate these markets...
>> That said, I will absolutely avoid calls from recruiters who call me once a month when I'm not looking. If they leave a voice mail I wont' respond. If they email I'll ignore it. Etc. But that's ignoring initial contact, not suddenly going silent once a conversation has begun.
LinkedIn recruiters are notorious for this - "I see you work on nuclear fusion rocket engines and list finite element analysis as one of your competencies, I have a perfect job for you designing coffee mugs in Bumbleville, Montana with a lovely starting salary of $30,000 - could we talk this week?"
I hadn't considered the fuel tank surface area issue, but you're likely correct. RT liquid fuel cells would be best, but not sure where they all are in terms of efficiency. I have seen some nice progress with methanol, energy densities above lithium already IIRC. You work in this area?
I always thought this might be the winning application for fuel cells - high energy conversion and loss of mass as you go (or maybe a single dedicated turbogenerator instead of fuel cells?). With liquid hydrogen there could even be an additional advantage - vapor boil-off could cryogenically cool a superconducting engine, although I doubt the small efficiency gain here would balance the safety issues of finicky superconductors. Certainly electric jets will be the future once energy storage mechanisms are found - high bypass turbofans could be replaced with 100% bypass and would be real slick...
Yup. "The DIamond Makers" is a great book BTW. Also, this is nothing new - DeBeers already goes around buying many of the companies making artificial diamonds. Check out the footer of "element 6" company for instance.
The Oatmeal was the source for most of the strife on Edison today, I'm well aware. The elephant was more Edison's business partner mostly (iirc Morgan), and the elephant was going to be put down anyway as it killed people at a circus. AND on top of this, Edison regretted the whole AC DC feud as his biggest mistake. He was quick to recognize AC's advantages.
Tesla made contributions to AC. He had nothing to do with the transistor, his radio schemes were largely impractical (radio has a rich history with many inventors, and Tesla if wiped from history would result in little if not zero change to the timeline), radar is laughable, etc. He basically screwed around with high voltage and high frequency noting strange effects that others around the world have seen before, but he did nothing with them. More to the point, even if he were a fantastic businessman, his approaches to the various technologies, radio especially, were not particularly good ones.
Margaret Chenney's book on Tesla is the most kind, but there are more scholarly books that even discredit some of his contributions to AC. Edison was not a perfect character (who is?), but was in my opinion overall an excellent person. His biggest fault was not giving credit publicly to his laboratory scientists who pioneered various technologies. He was however a very public figure who relied on his image and publicity. Who does this remind you of today?
Virtually all of Tesla's "inventions" were completely impractical (and no, not "ahead of his time"), whereas Edison's inventions were made for the market. I never understood the whole "Tesla" is a genius thing -- he didn't even believe in atoms, loved eugenics, detested obese people etc., and yet somehow Edison is the asshole.
I have read books on both of them with an open mind. I greatly admire Edison, although he doesn't do a great job giving credit to those in his labs -- not unlike Musk at the helm of SpaceX. Tesla would put on shows and make provocative statements to boost his own ego, but show little of anything practical. The best work he ever did was in Edison's lab, and then joined with many electrical engineers who helped the AC motor/generator.
It's more basic and universal. In third world countries more kids means more profit as you get "free" labor. In first world countries there is absolutely no labor or financial incentive and the drain is huge (day care, food, clothing, doctor bills, etc.). Every single country that moves towards a first world system sees their birth rates drop. Not a bad thing seeing as how the alternative would really screw the world.
The Zuckerberg model is fairly convincing, though.
Not to mention those large plants are much more efficient than a combustion engine, with optimized steam turbines squeezing out the highest efficiency. The "oh but everything comes from coal anyway" is a terrible argument even if it were true.