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Does anybody here remember the Industrial Revolution?
It was a time of massive change. The natural order of things, which had
stood of test of time for many centuries, was suddenly swept away.
Bizarre, futuristic new machines made become possible to mass produce
goods in hitherto-unimaginable quantities. Steam locomotives made and
broke the fortunes of entire communities. Suddenly distant towns were
just a few minutes away. Engineering feat such as massive bridges and
towering buildings became a common sight. Impassible ravines could now
be tamed by them. The sky itself seemed almost within human reach.
Even today, people still romanticise about the steam engines. The
locomotives, the massive winding engines, even steam-powered computers.
But, you know, we actually *have* locomotives today! And in a sense,
they're much *better* than what we had before. They're faster, quieter,
more reliable, and require far fewer people to operate. And yet, nobody
really gets excited about electric trains. It's just "too easy".
Likewise, we have electric motors that output far more torque or have a
much higher top-speed than any steam engine, and take up a fraction of
the space. Some of them are remotely operated, so you don't need
technicians at all. And yet... nobody finds this impressive. I guess for
shock and awe, bigger really *is* better...
I think I myself may have lived through a different revolution. When I
was a kid, computers were small plastic boxy things that you hook up to
your TV and play computer games on. Graphics were blurry, blocky and
garishly colourful. The 8-bit era of computer graphics is well documented.
Most people spent the next ten years looking at 8- or 16-colour
graphics. But I had access to an Amiga; my mind was blown by
4,096-colour images and stereophonic digital audio. With enough
simplification, trickery and down-right hacking-the-metal, you could
find games that generate those "oh my god, it looks like a real
photograph!" moments.
Today, my *actual photographs* are digital images!
Flashback may have been limited to 32 colours, but the fluidity of the
main character's motion was astonishingly life-like.
We had had little digital music disks for years, of course. But
everybody dreamed dizzily of the day when a digital *video* disk might
exist, allowing perfect pausing, instant chapter access, and all the
other trippy stuff that CDs already do. But the technology of the time
just couldn't quite handle it. As Amiga Format described it, "the
difficulty is to come up with a compression algorithm sophisticated to
squeeze all the data onto the disk, yet simple enough to decompress in
real-time".
The solution? Well, Moore's law. Computers got faster. Today you can buy
a $15 computer that can decode HD video in realtime without issue.
Ladies and gentlemen, we are all living in the future! We have cheap
audio and video digitising hardware. We have digital films and TV. We
have computer games that render a fully-interactive 3D world of stunning
realism in real-time. We have 3D TV. And nobody really cares any more.
That's the thing. Ten years ago, the idea of being able to actually
*edit* video on a mere *home computer* was... shocking. Sensational.
Stunning. Only people with expensive TV studios can actually *edit*
video. Hell, a camera to merely *shoot* video costs thousands of pounds,
so only the very richest people can afford one.
Yet today, a bunch of bored college students can make a
blockbuster-style full length feature film in their spare time! Complete
with (what appear to be) big-budget special effects, such as lengthy
space battles in full CGI.
You would *think* people would be shouting from the rooftops in awe of
how utterly epic all of this is... But that's the thing. The revolution
has happened. It's over. We're here now. If I could show my teenage self
a guy watching TV live over the Internet, I think my little head would
have exploded. But today, it's a case of "been there, done that". Now it
isn't *hard* any more, it just doesn't seem *impressive*. What was once
futuristic science fiction and become mundane familiar reality.
All this technology, and we use it to make viral cat videos. (Which are
all seemingly copies of each other, I might add...)
Even the prodigious march of CPU power no longer seems to impress
anyone. For one thing, we seem to have hit some kind of a wall with how
fast you can make a CPU run before it requires an active refrigeration
system. So now they want to just add more cores instead. I'm sure they
*could* quite easily gives us not two cores or four cores, but twenty
cores if there was a market for it. But most workloads simply aren't
very parallel.
And you know what? I'm not sure it matters. I think if you could take
the average computer user and somehow make their processor suddenly able
to execute single-threaded code 10x faster, THEY WOULDN'T EVEN NOTICE!
Because it seems to me that today, your PC is almost always waiting for
disk or network access. The CPU is hardly ever the thing you're waiting
for. (Hardcore gaming aside... and even then, most of the hard work is
GPU-limited. GPUs, BTW, have a bazillion cores and it's trivial to add
more...)
The party is over, my friends. We have all this sensational technology,
and nobody even seems to notice any more.
It's as if technology that can just barely manage to perform a given
task is somehow "more impressive" than technology that can trivially
perform it with ease. Even though, logically, the latter is obviously
far superior...
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Orchid Win7 v1 <voi### [at] dev null> wrote:
> Ladies and gentlemen, we are all living in the future!
Actually we are living in the present.
> The CPU is hardly ever the thing you're waiting
> for. (Hardcore gaming aside... and even then, most of the hard work is
> GPU-limited.
Not always. There are many computationally-intensive things that games
have to do with the CPU because the GPU is too specialized for that.
(And besides, it's already pretty busy calculating pixel shaders to do
other things.)
The is not just theoretical, because some games *do* benefit from
extra CPU cores, and in fact some of them require additional cores if
you want to turn on certain features.
One recent example I have played is RAGE. It will work on a dual-core,
but will benefit from four cores. However, more to the point, there's
an optional graphical feature in it that will require you to have at
least *six* cores or else it will be too inefficient. (Yes, I tried
it with my quad-core, and it indeed was too heavy for it.)
(The game engine in RAGE uses tons and tons of textures. The game
developers can basically add any specialized texture anywhere in the
entire game world. The engine loads and unloads textures on-the-fly,
as the player moves in the world. Naturally because of the sheer amount
of textures, they take an enormous amount of memory, and because texture
RAM and disk space is limited, the "least important" textures will have
a lower resolution. What the feature in question does is that, while
loading textures to the GPU's texture RAM, it will "sharpen" them to
add more detail and remove pixelation. Since textures are being constantly
loaded in an almost endless stream, this requires a lot of computing
power, which is where the extra CPU cores come handy. Or this is what
I have gathered from the info on the subject out there.)
--
- Warp
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On 19-4-2014 21:02, Orchid Win7 v1 wrote:
> Does anybody here remember the Industrial Revolution?
you mean the 2nd industrial revolution?
No I was not born then. Neither was anybody else that is alive today.
---
This email is free from viruses and malware because avast! Antivirus protection is
active.
http://www.avast.com
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On 19/04/2014 8:02 PM, Orchid Win7 v1 wrote:
> Does anybody here remember the Industrial Revolution?
F.O.
And when you come back.
F.O. again. :-P
--
Regards
Stephen
I solemnly promise to kick the next angle, I see.
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Le 19/04/2014 21:02, Orchid Win7 v1 nous fit lire :
> I'm sure they *could* quite easily gives us not two cores or four cores,
> but twenty cores if there was a market for it. But most workloads simply
> aren't very parallel.
Did you look at Intel schedule for the next two years ?
They plan to have cpu with 15 true core, IIRC... and assembling them by
2, 4 or 8. Alas, it's the expensive branch for servers.
I'm glad to have a 6/12 cores here (at a raisonable price).
Most parallel works now are aimed at GPU (with 2048 WU... or more)
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> The party is over, my friends.
I would imagine a lot of people said the same in 1850 about the
Industrial Revolution. And look what's changed since then (in terms of
manufacturing).
Sure, desktop CPU clock frequency is not as important as it used to be,
but there are plenty of other metrics. Two off the top of my head are
battery energy density and internet connection speed, both show no sign
of having reached the limit, and both will give real benefits to a large
number of people.
Bring on 8000x4000x120p streaming video, projected from my phone :-)
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On 22/04/2014 09:30 AM, scott wrote:
>> The party is over, my friends.
>
> I would imagine a lot of people said the same in 1850 about the
> Industrial Revolution. And look what's changed since then (in terms of
> manufacturing).
Um... has anything changed? Apart from the invention of plastic, I can't
really think of anything.
> Sure, desktop CPU clock frequency is not as important as it used to be,
> but there are plenty of other metrics. Two off the top of my head are
> battery energy density and internet connection speed, both show no sign
> of having reached the limit, and both will give real benefits to a large
> number of people.
I don't know, man. I think Internet speeds have now reached the point
where page loading is near-instant, and any further boost is of no real
benefit.
...until you try to download a large file, but that's reasonably rare.
Still, with Bioshock: Infinite clocking in at 17 GB, I'm sure glad of
the speed on the rare occasions where I use it! o_O
Actually, come to think of it, it seems that now Firefox is that's
holding things up! It seems to take longer for Firefox to do the page
rendering than it does to actually download the files! So all that stuff
I said about CPU speed not mattering anymore? I guess I was wrong. :-S
(Assuming it's actually CPU-limited, and not disk-limited...)
> Bring on 8000x4000x120p streaming video, projected from my phone :-)
From what I've seen, the limitation is that all projectors work at
800x600, or if you buy an expensive one, 1024x768. Christ only knows why
they don't make them in any higher resolutions...
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On 19/04/2014 09:08 PM, Warp wrote:
> Orchid Win7 v1<voi### [at] devnull> wrote:
>> Ladies and gentlemen, we are all living in the future!
>
> Actually we are living in the present.
*sigh* O RLY?
>> The CPU is hardly ever the thing you're waiting
>> for. (Hardcore gaming aside... and even then, most of the hard work is
>> GPU-limited.
>
> Not always. There are many computationally-intensive things that games
> have to do with the CPU because the GPU is too specialized for that.
> (And besides, it's already pretty busy calculating pixel shaders to do
> other things.)
>
> The is not just theoretical, because some games *do* benefit from
> extra CPU cores, and in fact some of them require additional cores if
> you want to turn on certain features.
AI would be the main one, I guess... depending on what algorithm the
game uses.
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On Tue, 22 Apr 2014 20:17:55 +0200, Orchid Win7 v1 <voi### [at] devnull> wrote:
> On 19/04/2014 09:08 PM, Warp wrote:
>> Orchid Win7 v1<voi### [at] devnull> wrote:
>>> Ladies and gentlemen, we are all living in the future!
>>
>> Actually we are living in the present.
>
> *sigh* O RLY?
>
>>> The CPU is hardly ever the thing you're waiting
>>> for. (Hardcore gaming aside... and even then, most of the hard work is
>>> GPU-limited.
>>
>> Not always. There are many computationally-intensive things that games
>> have to do with the CPU because the GPU is too specialized for that.
>> (And besides, it's already pretty busy calculating pixel shaders to do
>> other things.)
>>
>> The is not just theoretical, because some games *do* benefit from
>> extra CPU cores, and in fact some of them require additional cores if
>> you want to turn on certain features.
>
> AI would be the main one, I guess... depending on what algorithm the
> game uses.
I've noticed physics takes a big chunk as well.
--
-Nekar Xenos-
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On 22/04/2014 7:16 PM, Orchid Win7 v1 wrote:
> On 22/04/2014 09:30 AM, scott wrote:
>>> The party is over, my friends.
>>
>> I would imagine a lot of people said the same in 1850 about the
>> Industrial Revolution. And look what's changed since then (in terms of
>> manufacturing).
>
> Um... has anything changed? Apart from the invention of plastic, I can't
> really think of anything.
>
I despair of the youth of today. </echo, echo, echo...>
How are we to keep The Empire if the, the ... others are so abysmally
wanting.
The change that I've seen in my lifetime, and it is not really that
long, is quite a lot. From few cars on the road (car spotting was going
out of fashion) to going to an airport to watch plains taking off, in
the 50's and 60's. To Dick Tracey video watches and to watch 40 year old
TV programmes on demand. From thinking 9600 baud was state of the art
to fibre optic speeds. I could go on and I do. ;-)
> I don't know, man. I think Internet speeds have now reached the point
> where page loading is near-instant, and any further boost is of no real
> benefit.
>
> ....until you try to download a large file, but that's reasonably rare.
> Still, with Bioshock: Infinite clocking in at 17 GB, I'm sure glad of
> the speed on the rare occasions where I use it! o_O
>
A lot of people use their broadband connection to stream Terrestrial TV.
They might not know it but they do.
> Actually, come to think of it, it seems that now Firefox is that's
> holding things up! It seems to take longer for Firefox to do the page
> rendering than it does to actually download the files! So all that stuff
> I said about CPU speed not mattering anymore? I guess I was wrong. :-S
> (Assuming it's actually CPU-limited, and not disk-limited...)
>
I've noticed that too, recently. But if you think that is bad. Try it on
a thin client. </boak>
--
Regards
Stephen
I solemnly promise to kick the next angle, I see.
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>>> The is not just theoretical, because some games *do* benefit from
>>> extra CPU cores, and in fact some of them require additional cores if
>>> you want to turn on certain features.
>>
>> AI would be the main one, I guess... depending on what algorithm the
>> game uses.
>
> I've noticed physics takes a big chunk as well.
I thought the whole point of PhysX was to put that on the GPU?
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Orchid Win7 v1 <voi### [at] devnull> wrote:
> I don't know, man. I think Internet speeds have now reached the point
> where page loading is near-instant, and any further boost is of no real
> benefit.
If you haven't noticed, YouTube has for some time supported
1920x1080 video. Likewise most online video rentals do so.
(While increase in resolution doesn't linearly correlate to bitrate
requirement with modern video compression techniques, the extra
details in full-HD video does obviously need a higher bitrate than
lower-resolution one, if you want any kind of finer detail preserved.)
> ...until you try to download a large file, but that's reasonably rare.
> Still, with Bioshock: Infinite clocking in at 17 GB, I'm sure glad of
> the speed on the rare occasions where I use it! o_O
It's nice when I buy such a game from Steam and it takes like an hour
to download instead of the 10 to 20 hours that it took not so many
years ago (when my internet connection was much slower.)
> From what I've seen, the limitation is that all projectors work at
> 800x600, or if you buy an expensive one, 1024x768. Christ only knows why
> they don't make them in any higher resolutions...
I'm sure there are higher-resolution ones, but they are probably quite
expensive.
--
- Warp
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On Tue, 22 Apr 2014 19:16:33 +0100, Orchid Win7 v1 wrote:
> From what I've seen, the limitation is that all projectors work at
> 800x600, or if you buy an expensive one, 1024x768. Christ only knows why
> they don't make them in any higher resolutions...
Um, I've got one that does full 1080p. It's nearly 10 years old (I'd
have to check when we actually bought it, but it's at least 8 years old).
I honestly don't know where you get the crazy idea that higher
resolutions aren't available. I mean, if you're projecting on a 8-10
foot 16:9 diagonal area, 1024x768 is going to look like shit. 800x600
even more so.
1920x1080, though, looks pretty nice on the ~12' diagonal space we've got
in our living room. When I can get the room dark enough (we need
blackout blinds in there, but have mesh ones that direct sunlight just
dances through, more or less).
But another case of "maybe Andy should google before making blanket
statements about how 'all' of something is absolutely limited to 'x'." ;)
Jim
--
"I learned long ago, never to wrestle with a pig. You get dirty, and
besides, the pig likes it." - George Bernard Shaw
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Jim Henderson <nos### [at] nospamcom> wrote:
> I honestly don't know where you get the crazy idea that higher
> resolutions aren't available. I mean, if you're projecting on a 8-10
> foot 16:9 diagonal area, 1024x768 is going to look like shit. 800x600
> even more so.
Well, he also is of the opinion that the screen of an iPhone is
postal-stamp-sized, you have to keep it an inch from your eyes to
see anything, it's impossible to use a web browser on one because of
the small size, and the screen gets so dirty in 10 seconds that it
won't be usable after that.
Of course the millions of people who use iPhones all day long for
surfing the net and play games are delusional.
--
- Warp
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On Tue, 22 Apr 2014 20:02:17 -0400, Warp wrote:
> Jim Henderson <nos### [at] nospamcom> wrote:
>> I honestly don't know where you get the crazy idea that higher
>> resolutions aren't available. I mean, if you're projecting on a 8-10
>> foot 16:9 diagonal area, 1024x768 is going to look like shit. 800x600
>> even more so.
>
> Well, he also is of the opinion that the screen of an iPhone is
> postal-stamp-sized, you have to keep it an inch from your eyes to see
> anything, it's impossible to use a web browser on one because of the
> small size, and the screen gets so dirty in 10 seconds that it won't be
> usable after that.
True. Wait, you mean that isn't the case? ;)
> Of course the millions of people who use iPhones all day long for
> surfing the net and play games are delusional.
Naturally. I'm sure my 9" tablet is running about 320x200 and requires a
magnifying glass to use.
Jim
--
"I learned long ago, never to wrestle with a pig. You get dirty, and
besides, the pig likes it." - George Bernard Shaw
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On 22/04/2014 11:27 PM, Warp wrote:
> Orchid Win7 v1<voi### [at] devnull> wrote:
>> I don't know, man. I think Internet speeds have now reached the point
>> where page loading is near-instant, and any further boost is of no real
>> benefit.
>
> If you haven't noticed, YouTube has for some time supported
> 1920x1080 video. Likewise most online video rentals do so.
I wouldn't know about online video rentals. But I have noticed that
YouTube used to be unreliable to the point of being useless (i.e., every
8 to 10 seconds it freezes to buffer some more data - moreso at busy
times of the day), and the pictures used to be so utterly blurry that
you can't even recognise people's faces. They do seem to have fixed that
now, so there's that I guess...
> It's nice when I buy such a game from Steam and it takes like an hour
> to download instead of the 10 to 20 hours that it took not so many
> years ago (when my internet connection was much slower.)
Indeed. What I downloaded Star Wreck (which is, like, 4GB), it took TWO
DAYS to fetch it via BitTorrent. The other day I downloaded 17 GB inside
of an afternoon...
>> From what I've seen, the limitation is that all projectors work at
>> 800x600, or if you buy an expensive one, 1024x768. Christ only knows why
>> they don't make them in any higher resolutions...
>
> I'm sure there are higher-resolution ones, but they are probably quite
> expensive.
The majority one the ones in the price list I looked at were 1024x768.
And we wanted it so we could do computer training sessions; almost every
known application program needs a higher resolution than that if you
actually want to see the entire main window...
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>> I would imagine a lot of people said the same in 1850 about the
>> Industrial Revolution. And look what's changed since then (in terms of
>> manufacturing).
>
> Um... has anything changed? Apart from the invention of plastic, I can't
> really think of anything.
You just need to look at a modern car, building or home appliance to see
countless things that would simply be impossible to manufacture 100
years ago even with a limitless amount of money. Not because of the
reliance on electronics, but because processes and materials simply
hadn't been developed. Sure plastics have been around for ages, but
today we take for granted there are plastics that you can leave in
direct sunlight for decades without fading or going brittle. In another
decade or two we'll take bio-plastics for granted and they will have the
same or even better performance than we have today.
Another large part of the change is making things more efficient to
manufacture, and thus affordable for more people. Food processing and
transportation has become hugely more efficient over the last few
decades, just look at the sort of things the average person could afford
to eat in 1900 or even 1960 compared with today.
> I don't know, man. I think Internet speeds have now reached the point
> where page loading is near-instant, and any further boost is of no real
> benefit.
Who would ever need more than 640KB?
> From what I've seen, the limitation is that all projectors work at
> 800x600, or if you buy an expensive one, 1024x768. Christ only knows why
> they don't make them in any higher resolutions...
Have you felt the *heat* from a modern portable projector? If they made
the pixels even smaller, they'd need an even bigger light and a fridge
to stop the thing melting. There's still a way to go until you have
something small that can project clearly and sharply on to a big wall
without filling your room with heat and fan noise.
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Orchid Win7 v1 <voi### [at] devnull> wrote:
> I wouldn't know about online video rentals. But I have noticed that
> YouTube used to be unreliable to the point of being useless (i.e., every
> 8 to 10 seconds it freezes to buffer some more data - moreso at busy
> times of the day), and the pictures used to be so utterly blurry that
> you can't even recognise people's faces. They do seem to have fixed that
> now, so there's that I guess...
I very often get the sense that you always look for the worst possible
interpretation of things (related to technology), and always try to see
the faults in things, and take things in the most negative way possible,
without even trying to investigate further or trying to find out if what
you think is not really how it is. I also have noticed that you seem to
like to generalize personal experience, is if it were true for everybody,
without even trying to find out if it is indeed the same for everybody or
whether it's just a local problem.
Some time ago the YouTube player changed so that it would be able to
switch to a higher or lower resolution version of the video on-the-fly,
depending on your connection speed. This, in my experience, has gone a
bit of back and forth in terms of what exactly it does, but you can still
see this in that if you manually change to a higher resolution it won't
pause the video, and instead will start downloading the higher resolution
stream and switch to it on-the-fly. Likewise (and especially) if your
connection is laggy, it will automatically switch to a lower-resolution
version of the stream that takes a lot less bandwidth.
If at some point you had a laggy connection for some reason, that's hardly
YouTube's fault.
--
- Warp
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Jim Henderson <nos### [at] nospamcom> wrote:
> > Of course the millions of people who use iPhones all day long for
> > surfing the net and play games are delusional.
> Naturally. I'm sure my 9" tablet is running about 320x200 and requires a
> magnifying glass to use.
I'm not even sure what you are talking about.
An iPhone5 has a screen resolution of 1136x640 pixels. And people use it
without magnifying glasses all the time.
--
- Warp
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On 23/04/14 14:55, Warp wrote:
> Jim Henderson <nos### [at] nospamcom> wrote:
>>> Of course the millions of people who use iPhones all day long for
>>> surfing the net and play games are delusional.
>
>> Naturally. I'm sure my 9" tablet is running about 320x200 and requires a
>> magnifying glass to use.
>
> I'm not even sure what you are talking about.
>
> An iPhone5 has a screen resolution of 1136x640 pixels. And people use it
> without magnifying glasses all the time.
>
Umm, I think Jim was being ironic. Either that or he bought his tablet
off a market stall in a 3rd world country.
John
--
Protect the Earth
It was not given to you by your parents
You hold it in trust for your children
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On Wed, 23 Apr 2014 09:55:52 -0400, Warp wrote:
> Jim Henderson <nos### [at] nospamcom> wrote:
>> > Of course the millions of people who use iPhones all day long for
>> > surfing the net and play games are delusional.
>
>> Naturally. I'm sure my 9" tablet is running about 320x200 and requires
>> a magnifying glass to use.
>
> I'm not even sure what you are talking about.
>
> An iPhone5 has a screen resolution of 1136x640 pixels. And people use it
> without magnifying glasses all the time.
No, that can't possibly be true. ;)
(I'm being hyperbolic. My Nook HD+ tablet runs at full HD, something
that's clearly impossible unless I spent about three trillion dollars on
it).
Jim
--
"I learned long ago, never to wrestle with a pig. You get dirty, and
besides, the pig likes it." - George Bernard Shaw
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On Wed, 23 Apr 2014 15:26:56 +0100, Doctor John wrote:
> On 23/04/14 14:55, Warp wrote:
>> Jim Henderson <nos### [at] nospamcom> wrote:
>>>> Of course the millions of people who use iPhones all day long for
>>>> surfing the net and play games are delusional.
>>
>>> Naturally. I'm sure my 9" tablet is running about 320x200 and
>>> requires a magnifying glass to use.
>>
>> I'm not even sure what you are talking about.
>>
>> An iPhone5 has a screen resolution of 1136x640 pixels. And people use
>> it without magnifying glasses all the time.
>>
>>
> Umm, I think Jim was being ironic. Either that or he bought his tablet
> off a market stall in a 3rd world country.
;)
Jim
--
"I learned long ago, never to wrestle with a pig. You get dirty, and
besides, the pig likes it." - George Bernard Shaw
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I saw games going from atari stick figures from my childhood into the nearly
photorealistic games of today. Same for much better photos being taken and
instantly shared to anyone in the world.
what you really don't get is this: what you used to call a PC is today
everywhere. It's in your pocket, in your TV, next to it, on your desk, on your
lap, on your hand... same for screens. And all are interconnected and
wirelessly communicating with each other. then again, you didn't even knew
youtube was 1080p now...
that's far more impressive than raw CPU power in an old beige box in the
basement
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On 23/04/2014 08:58 AM, scott wrote:
> Sure plastics have been around for ages, but
> today we take for granted there are plastics that you can leave in
> direct sunlight for decades without fading or going brittle.
Really? Where are they?
> Another large part of the change is making things more efficient to
> manufacture, and thus affordable for more people. Food processing and
> transportation has become hugely more efficient over the last few
> decades, just look at the sort of things the average person could afford
> to eat in 1900 or even 1960 compared with today.
Yeah, well, that's a bit before my time, so I don't really have a handle
on that.
>> I don't know, man. I think Internet speeds have now reached the point
>> where page loading is near-instant, and any further boost is of no real
>> benefit.
>
> Who would ever need more than 640KB?
Nobody. 640KB is enough to store a *vast* amount of text.
...and then they invented ways to store stuff that isn't text. And
suddenly that 640KB looked really puny.
That's kinda my point. When the Internet first started, the limiting
factor with surfing the web was how damned long it took to load the HTML
and all the images. That has long since stopped being a problem. So
until the next bandwidth-heavy thing comes along, there's no real reason
to increase.
BTW, I just saw on the news that Peterborough is getting gigabit-speed
Internet access. (Quite how that's physically plausible I'm not sure,
but presumably they know what they're on about.) My employer's *LAN*
isn't that fast! The politician was standing there enthusing about how
this is going to "super-charge local businesses", but I can't think of
too many businesses where this extra speed will be of any use... (Unless
you're a web-hosting company or something - in which case, you *already*
have gigabit speed - or more...)
>> From what I've seen, the limitation is that all projectors work at
>> 800x600, or if you buy an expensive one, 1024x768. Christ only knows why
>> they don't make them in any higher resolutions...
>
> Have you felt the *heat* from a modern portable projector? If they made
> the pixels even smaller, they'd need an even bigger light and a fridge
> to stop the thing melting. There's still a way to go until you have
> something small that can project clearly and sharply on to a big wall
> without filling your room with heat and fan noise.
I guess the problem is that you're generating a lot of light, and then
trying to selectively absorb the colours you don't want. If you could
somehow do it the other way around - only generate the optic power you
actually want in the first place - it could be a lot more efficient.
But I'm not sure how you would do that...
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Jim Henderson <nos### [at] nospamcom> wrote:
> (I'm being hyperbolic. My Nook HD+ tablet runs at full HD, something
> that's clearly impossible unless I spent about three trillion dollars on
> it).
I have an iPad Mini that has a resolution of 2048x1536. And it's
incredibly thin and light.
--
- Warp
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On Wed, 23 Apr 2014 21:57:11 +0100, Orchid Win7 v1 wrote:
> BTW, I just saw on the news that Peterborough is getting gigabit-speed
> Internet access. (Quite how that's physically plausible I'm not sure,
> but presumably they know what they're on about.)
*headdesk* *headdesk* *headdesk*
--
"I learned long ago, never to wrestle with a pig. You get dirty, and
besides, the pig likes it." - George Bernard Shaw
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On Wed, 23 Apr 2014 17:13:33 -0400, Warp wrote:
> Jim Henderson <nos### [at] nospamcom> wrote:
>> (I'm being hyperbolic. My Nook HD+ tablet runs at full HD, something
>> that's clearly impossible unless I spent about three trillion dollars
>> on it).
>
> I have an iPad Mini that has a resolution of 2048x1536. And it's
> incredibly thin and light.
That's completely and physically impossible. It must have cost you a
quadrillion dollars.
Jim
--
"I learned long ago, never to wrestle with a pig. You get dirty, and
besides, the pig likes it." - George Bernard Shaw
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>> Sure plastics have been around for ages, but
>> today we take for granted there are plastics that you can leave in
>> direct sunlight for decades without fading or going brittle.
>
> Really? Where are they?
If you buy a 10 year old BMW you don't expect the dashboard to crack if
you lean on it or for it to have gone yellow. Or most bumpers on cars
now are plastic that can withstand 2 tons forcing them into another car
at a few mph without damage (IIRC that's an EU requirement now). That
sort of performance from plastics has been developed gradually after
they were initially invented. The first LCD displays were around the
70's, but it's not like nothing has changed since then, the "invention"
is only the first step, after that Engineering and development takes over.
> That's kinda my point. When the Internet first started, the limiting
> factor with surfing the web was how damned long it took to load the HTML
> and all the images. That has long since stopped being a problem. So
> until the next bandwidth-heavy thing comes along, there's no real reason
> to increase.
I remember when an mp3 took hours to download, today it's an mp4 and
software that takes hours. Until everyone has 500ppi screens with all
content at that resolution downloadable within seconds then I see no
reason for the continual increase in speeds to stop.
> BTW, I just saw on the news that Peterborough is getting gigabit-speed
> Internet access. (Quite how that's physically plausible I'm not sure,
> but presumably they know what they're on about.)
Is that not just fibre to the house? The obvious next step after fibre
to the cabinet. My village is looking forward to FTTC in a few months
and Peterborough is just up the road!
> isn't that fast! The politician was standing there enthusing about how
> this is going to "super-charge local businesses", but I can't think of
> too many businesses where this extra speed will be of any use...
I would imagine this would benefit medium-size companies (around 50-200
people) that currently cannot justify the cost of a really fast
connection but due to the number of employees would make good use of
more bandwidth.
> I guess the problem is that you're generating a lot of light, and then
> trying to selectively absorb the colours you don't want. If you could
> somehow do it the other way around - only generate the optic power you
> actually want in the first place - it could be a lot more efficient.
That's exactly the problem, and also that the light source itself is
very efficient at converting electricity to heat :-) People have looked
at using lasers but it doesn't look like that technology has worked out yet.
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Jim Henderson <nos### [at] nospamcom> wrote:
> On Wed, 23 Apr 2014 17:13:33 -0400, Warp wrote:
> > Jim Henderson <nos### [at] nospamcom> wrote:
> >> (I'm being hyperbolic. My Nook HD+ tablet runs at full HD, something
> >> that's clearly impossible unless I spent about three trillion dollars
> >> on it).
> >
> > I have an iPad Mini that has a resolution of 2048x1536. And it's
> > incredibly thin and light.
> That's completely and physically impossible. It must have cost you a
> quadrillion dollars.
It depends on whether you are talking about American quadrillions or
European quadrillions.
--
- Warp
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Le 2014-04-22 20:43, Jim Henderson a écrit :
> On Tue, 22 Apr 2014 20:02:17 -0400, Warp wrote:
>
>> Jim Henderson <nos### [at] nospamcom> wrote:
>>> I honestly don't know where you get the crazy idea that higher
>>> resolutions aren't available. I mean, if you're projecting on a 8-10
>>> foot 16:9 diagonal area, 1024x768 is going to look like shit. 800x600
>>> even more so.
>>
>> Well, he also is of the opinion that the screen of an iPhone is
>> postal-stamp-sized, you have to keep it an inch from your eyes to see
>> anything, it's impossible to use a web browser on one because of the
>> small size, and the screen gets so dirty in 10 seconds that it won't be
>> usable after that.
>
> True. Wait, you mean that isn't the case? ;)
>
>> Of course the millions of people who use iPhones all day long for
>> surfing the net and play games are delusional.
>
> Naturally. I'm sure my 9" tablet is running about 320x200 and requires a
> magnifying glass to use.
Andy has also assured me that iPads, Kindles, Nooks, and the various
android-based thingamajigs weren't tablets at all, because tablets were
2 inch thick laptops that weigh 20lbs and on which you write with a
Palm-Pilot stylus.
--
/*Francois Labreque*/#local a=x+y;#local b=x+a;#local c=a+b;#macro P(F//
/* flabreque */L)polygon{5,F,F+z,L+z,L,F pigment{rgb 9}}#end union
/* @ */{P(0,a)P(a,b)P(b,c)P(2*a,2*b)P(2*b,b+c)P(b+c,<2,3>)
/* gmail.com */}camera{orthographic location<6,1.25,-6>look_at a }
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On Thu, 24 Apr 2014 12:05:59 -0400, Warp wrote:
> Jim Henderson <nos### [at] nospamcom> wrote:
>> On Wed, 23 Apr 2014 17:13:33 -0400, Warp wrote:
>
>> > Jim Henderson <nos### [at] nospamcom> wrote:
>> >> (I'm being hyperbolic. My Nook HD+ tablet runs at full HD,
>> >> something that's clearly impossible unless I spent about three
>> >> trillion dollars on it).
>> >
>> > I have an iPad Mini that has a resolution of 2048x1536. And it's
>> > incredibly thin and light.
>
>> That's completely and physically impossible. It must have cost you a
>> quadrillion dollars.
>
> It depends on whether you are talking about American quadrillions or
> European quadrillions.
Fair point. I'll go with the long scale - after all, we're exaggerating
for effect here, no point in doing that by half measures. ;)
Jim
--
"I learned long ago, never to wrestle with a pig. You get dirty, and
besides, the pig likes it." - George Bernard Shaw
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On Thu, 24 Apr 2014 15:32:42 -0400, Francois Labreque wrote:
>> Naturally. I'm sure my 9" tablet is running about 320x200 and requires
>> a magnifying glass to use.
>
> Andy has also assured me that iPads, Kindles, Nooks, and the various
> android-based thingamajigs weren't tablets at all, because tablets were
> 2 inch thick laptops that weigh 20lbs and on which you write with a
> Palm-Pilot stylus.
Oh, right, I forgot about that. Cell phones also weigh about 2 pounds,
and are shaped like bricks. ;)
Jim
--
"I learned long ago, never to wrestle with a pig. You get dirty, and
besides, the pig likes it." - George Bernard Shaw
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>> I have an iPad Mini that has a resolution of 2048x1536. And it's
>> incredibly thin and light.
>
> That's completely and physically impossible. It must have cost you a
> quadrillion dollars.
Well, it is an Apple product... ;-)
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On 24/04/2014 08:37 AM, scott wrote:
>>> Sure plastics have been around for ages, but
>>> today we take for granted there are plastics that you can leave in
>>> direct sunlight for decades without fading or going brittle.
>>
>> Really? Where are they?
>
> If you buy a 10 year old BMW you don't expect the dashboard to crack if
> you lean on it or for it to have gone yellow. Or most bumpers on cars
> now are plastic that can withstand 2 tons forcing them into another car
> at a few mph without damage (IIRC that's an EU requirement now).
I thought that was fibreglass...
What I did see, that was quite interesting, was a guy who "studies
nature" to try to look for clever ideas that we can copy. One of his
suggestions was to create colour by diffraction rather than using
chemical dyes. Chemicals degrade in the Sun, but a grating doesn't
suddenly change size just because you hit it with a ton of UV...
(Naturally, a suggestion is one thing, making a viable product is
something else entirely.)
> I remember when an mp3 took hours to download, today it's an mp4 and
> software that takes hours. Until everyone has 500ppi screens with all
> content at that resolution downloadable within seconds then I see no
> reason for the continual increase in speeds to stop.
My understanding was that displays aren't increasing their ppi rating
because 100% of all Windows software assumes a fixed 72ppi, and if you
increased the dot pitch everything would become too tiny to see.
>> BTW, I just saw on the news that Peterborough is getting gigabit-speed
>> Internet access. (Quite how that's physically plausible I'm not sure,
>> but presumably they know what they're on about.)
>
> Is that not just fibre to the house? The obvious next step after fibre
> to the cabinet. My village is looking forward to FTTC in a few months
> and Peterborough is just up the road!
Fibre to the house is a simple concept. Why didn't they do this before?
Oh, yes, that's right - because fibre is so astronomically expensive
that nobody can afford it...
>> isn't that fast! The politician was standing there enthusing about how
>> this is going to "super-charge local businesses", but I can't think of
>> too many businesses where this extra speed will be of any use...
>
> I would imagine this would benefit medium-size companies (around 50-200
> people) that currently cannot justify the cost of a really fast
> connection but due to the number of employees would make good use of
> more bandwidth.
I guess I haven't worked in many industries, but most of them don't seem
like they would have much need for such a thing. The only thing I can
think of is that at my last place, they were determined to host
absolutely *everything* using Terminal Services, so that the desktop has
absolutely no software on it and everybody has to hammer the Internet to
get anything done. (It also has the nice side-effect of preventing
anybody being able to print stuff...)
>> I guess the problem is that you're generating a lot of light, and then
>> trying to selectively absorb the colours you don't want. If you could
>> somehow do it the other way around - only generate the optic power you
>> actually want in the first place - it could be a lot more efficient.
>
> That's exactly the problem, and also that the light source itself is
> very efficient at converting electricity to heat :-) People have looked
> at using lasers but it doesn't look like that technology has worked out
> yet.
Tangential, but... one of the 3D technologies I saw on Tomorrow's World
involved scanning a laser across a corrugated screen. It also involved
using "a supercomputer" to control the motors scanning the laser; I'm
guessing today it would be less of a problem. But who really wants to
look at spinning monochrome wireframes?
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On Thu, 24 Apr 2014 21:51:02 +0100, Orchid Win7 v1 wrote:
>> Is that not just fibre to the house? The obvious next step after fibre
>> to the cabinet. My village is looking forward to FTTC in a few months
>> and Peterborough is just up the road!
>
> Fibre to the house is a simple concept. Why didn't they do this before?
> Oh, yes, that's right - because fibre is so astronomically expensive
> that nobody can afford it...
Andy, if I break my desk from hitting my head against it so much when you
say silly things like this, I'm going to send you the repair bill.
And it will be "astronomically expensive". ;)
(Fibre was "astronomically expensive" when it was difficult to
manufacture. Advances in manufacturing technology make it a lot more
affordable now than it was even 10 years ago)
Jim
--
"I learned long ago, never to wrestle with a pig. You get dirty, and
besides, the pig likes it." - George Bernard Shaw
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On Thu, 24 Apr 2014 21:37:43 +0100, Orchid Win7 v1 wrote:
>>> I have an iPad Mini that has a resolution of 2048x1536. And it's
>>> incredibly thin and light.
>>
>> That's completely and physically impossible. It must have cost you a
>> quadrillion dollars.
>
> Well, it is an Apple product... ;-)
Nice response! :D
Jim
--
"I learned long ago, never to wrestle with a pig. You get dirty, and
besides, the pig likes it." - George Bernard Shaw
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> I thought that was fibreglass...
For very low production volumes it could be, but for any car that
everyone has heard of it will be moulded plastic. Note that high
strength plastics are usually glass-filled, so in a way they are the
same as fibre-glass. It's just the glass particles are tiny so that it
doesn't affect the appearance, and more importantly the plastic can go
through the injection moulding machine. Things like your phone casing
and your monitor case/stand are likely to be glass filled plastic, it's
a very cheap way to get a lot of strength and toughness.
> What I did see, that was quite interesting, was a guy who "studies
> nature" to try to look for clever ideas that we can copy. One of his
> suggestions was to create colour by diffraction rather than using
> chemical dyes. Chemicals degrade in the Sun, but a grating doesn't
> suddenly change size just because you hit it with a ton of UV...
Presumably you'd need a layer of protection on top of the diffraction
grating anyway to prevent damage, so I struggle to see any advantage
than just putting a UV protective coating on top of a normal
plastic/paint (like cars have for example).
> My understanding was that displays aren't increasing their ppi rating
> because 100% of all Windows software assumes a fixed 72ppi, and if you
> increased the dot pitch everything would become too tiny to see.
I think that 100% figure has been coming down and will continue to do
so. Once people get devices like the new Samsung Windows 8 laptop/tablet
(3200x1800 13") software vendors will be forced to comply. Anyway, even
if Windows software doesn't change people use Android and iOS which
works fine at very high ppi.
> Fibre to the house is a simple concept. Why didn't they do this before?
> Oh, yes, that's right - because fibre is so astronomically expensive
> that nobody can afford it...
And why is it now possible to make it so much cheaper than before?
Perhaps because there have been new manufacturing processes invented and
developed and new materials? But wait, nothing has changed since the
industrial revolution!
> Tangential, but... one of the 3D technologies I saw on Tomorrow's World
> involved scanning a laser across a corrugated screen. It also involved
> using "a supercomputer" to control the motors scanning the laser; I'm
> guessing today it would be less of a problem. But who really wants to
> look at spinning monochrome wireframes?
I think I posted this before, but a friend from University set this up:
http://lightblueoptics.com/videos/holographic-laser-projection-technology/
Given that he appears to have won several times in the IOCCC recently
(tangental, but a full PC emulator capable of running DOS games in under
4KB of C source?!) I guess it didn't come to much :-)
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On 25/04/2014 09:42, scott wrote:
>
> http://lightblueoptics.com/videos/holographic-laser-projection-technology/
>
Is that Stephen Fry doing the voice-over?
John
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>> What I did see, that was quite interesting, was a guy who "studies
>> nature" to try to look for clever ideas that we can copy. One of his
>> suggestions was to create colour by diffraction rather than using
>> chemical dyes. Chemicals degrade in the Sun, but a grating doesn't
>> suddenly change size just because you hit it with a ton of UV...
>
> Presumably you'd need a layer of protection on top of the diffraction
> grating anyway to prevent damage, so I struggle to see any advantage
> than just putting a UV protective coating on top of a normal
> plastic/paint (like cars have for example).
Presumably what you do is make a translucent layer which has inclusions
inside it that refract the light. So the outer surfaces are smooth, yet
you still get colour. Hard to see how you could do that cheaply though.
Has anybody invented a UV coating that actually works yet?
>> Fibre to the house is a simple concept. Why didn't they do this before?
>> Oh, yes, that's right - because fibre is so astronomically expensive
>> that nobody can afford it...
>
> And why is it now possible to make it so much cheaper than before?
> Perhaps because there have been new manufacturing processes invented and
> developed and new materials? But wait, nothing has changed since the
> industrial revolution!
I'm sure things have changed. Just perhaps not as rapidly and
dramatically as the original revolution.
> I think I posted this before, but a friend from University set this up:
>
> http://lightblueoptics.com/videos/holographic-laser-projection-technology/
>
> Given that he appears to have won several times in the IOCCC recently
> (tangental, but a full PC emulator capable of running DOS games in under
> 4KB of C source?!) I guess it didn't come to much :-)
This is very interesting. From what I can gather, the primary problem is
the absurd amount of computer power required. (Oh, and the fact that
it's currently only monochrome - again, presumably due to computer power.)
I would imagine making something like this for static images would be
comparatively easy. The hard part is doing moving images. (Aside from
computer power, data transfer rates might be problematic too...)
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Le 2014-04-25 04:42, scott a écrit :
>> I thought that was fibreglass...
>
> For very low production volumes it could be, but for any car that
> everyone has heard of it will be moulded plastic. Note that high
> strength plastics are usually glass-filled, so in a way they are the
> same as fibre-glass.
Both are the same.
Traditionnal fibreglass = sheets of woven glass fibre dipped in eposy resin.
Newer high strength plastics = bits of glass or carbon fibre sprinkled
in epoxy or polyacetate resin.
Also, car manufacturers (and patio furniture manufacturers, for some
reason) do not like to call them plastics because people have a tendency
to associate the word with cheap and flimsy polymers like polyethylene
or polypropylene, so they'll use words like "polymer", "DuraFlex(TM)",
or "synthetic resin".
>> What I did see, that was quite interesting, was a guy who "studies
>> nature" to try to look for clever ideas that we can copy. One of his
>> suggestions was to create colour by diffraction rather than using
>> chemical dyes. Chemicals degrade in the Sun, but a grating doesn't
>> suddenly change size just because you hit it with a ton of UV...
>
Officer: Ma'am, what color was the car that hit you?
Woman: All of them.
Officer: WAT?
Woman: Well, you know how a CD changes color when you move them in your
hand, the car was like that!
>> My understanding was that displays aren't increasing their ppi rating
>> because 100% of all Windows software assumes a fixed 72ppi, and if you
>> increased the dot pitch everything would become too tiny to see.
Most LCD screend have had 96ppi dot pitch for over 15 years. The IBM
9513 T55A monitor I have on this desk, which was bought as part of my
personal Y2K remediation plan is running at 96ppi and I don't remember
having issues with badly designed dialox boxes. Unless 100% of the
software you use is made for Windows 3.1, this would be
Yet-Another-Bogus-Assumption-Made-By-Andy.
>> Fibre to the house is a simple concept. Why didn't they do this before?
>> Oh, yes, that's right - because fibre is so astronomically expensive
>> that nobody can afford it...
No. Because they didn't have BW issues with the copper cabling that was
already installed, so there was little justification to rewire eintire
neigborhoods (the expensive part is the two guys moving around people's
backyards with ladders, not the orange tube and the 2 or 4 fibre strands
in it). The advent of HD TV has changed that. There is now a need for
higher BW to each home - instead of just to the neighborhoods' junction
box - so telecoms are rushing to put fibre to the home.
--
/*Francois Labreque*/#local a=x+y;#local b=x+a;#local c=a+b;#macro P(F//
/* flabreque */L)polygon{5,F,F+z,L+z,L,F pigment{rgb 9}}#end union
/* @ */{P(0,a)P(a,b)P(b,c)P(2*a,2*b)P(2*b,b+c)P(b+c,<2,3>)
/* gmail.com */}camera{orthographic location<6,1.25,-6>look_at a }
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On 26/04/14 20:38, Francois Labreque wrote:
> Yet-Another-Bogus-Assumption-Made-By-Andy.
>
From now on, this is to be known as a YABAMBA
John
--
Protect the Earth
It was not given to you by your parents
You hold it in trust for your children
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> Officer: Ma'am, what color was the car that hit you?
> Woman: All of them.
> Officer: WAT?
> Woman: Well, you know how a CD changes color when you move them in your
> hand, the car was like that!
FWIW, apparently this already exists.
Well, not the entire rainbow, but apparently by suspending metal
particles in the paint, you can get two contrasting colours.
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On Sat, 26 Apr 2014 21:16:07 +0100, Orchid Win7 v1 wrote:
> FWIW, apparently this already exists.
Yes. It has for years. :)
Jim
--
"I learned long ago, never to wrestle with a pig. You get dirty, and
besides, the pig likes it." - George Bernard Shaw
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On 26/04/2014 5:13 PM, Orchid Win7 v1 wrote:
>
> I'm sure things have changed. Just perhaps not as rapidly and
> dramatically as the original revolution.
I don't think that you realise how long the "industrial revelation".
went on for. At least for sixty possibly eighty years. Not exactly
rapid, from a historical perspective. It just seems like that looking at
it from the 21st Century.
--
Regards
Stephen
I solemnly promise to kick the next angle, I see.
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> Presumably what you do is make a translucent layer which has inclusions
> inside it that refract the light. So the outer surfaces are smooth, yet
> you still get colour. Hard to see how you could do that cheaply though.
Well you could just make it in two parts, so long as the two materials
had different refractive indices. A bit like how a CD is made. Maybe you
could use some photo-etch process on the first layer, borrowed from IC
manufacturing?
> Has anybody invented a UV coating that actually works yet?
Yes, people rely on them not to get skin cancer or go blind! Also the
one on your car paint works. I'm sure you can find spectral response
curves if you are interested.
> I'm sure things have changed. Just perhaps not as rapidly and
> dramatically as the original revolution.
You could argue that in some ways things are changing even faster now.
Continuing with your plastics example, at the start hardly anyone used
plastic and development was slow. Today plastic is used in almost
everything and there are millions of different types. I'm sure if you
plotted a graph of the number of new plastics invented against time it
would be going upwards.
> This is very interesting. From what I can gather, the primary problem is
> the absurd amount of computer power required.
Indeed, it looks like they had to spend most of the effort trying to
reduce the computing power needed whilst maintaining a decent image
quality. Maybe in 5 or 10 years someone will come back to this
technology and it will be able to take off.
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> Also, car manufacturers (and patio furniture manufacturers, for some
> reason) do not like to call them plastics because people have a tendency
> to associate the word with cheap and flimsy polymers like polyethylene
> or polypropylene, so they'll use words like "polymer", "DuraFlex(TM)",
> or "synthetic resin".
Never mind that those cheap and flimsy polymers are exactly what you
need for something like a car bumper (you want it to bend rather than
crack or split when deformed). It's also odd how in the past shiny
glossy plastics were seen as cheap, so everyone applied texture to the
surfaces to make it look less "plasticy", but now it seems be back in
fashion to have a high gloss finish (much to the dismay of the plastic
moulders).
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On 28/04/2014 08:59 AM, scott wrote:
>> Presumably what you do is make a translucent layer which has inclusions
>> inside it that refract the light. So the outer surfaces are smooth, yet
>> you still get colour. Hard to see how you could do that cheaply though.
>
> Well you could just make it in two parts, so long as the two materials
> had different refractive indices. A bit like how a CD is made. Maybe you
> could use some photo-etch process on the first layer, borrowed from IC
> manufacturing?
That sounds quite plausible. Although probably not as cheap as just
spraying some dye onto things, which is what we do now.
>> Has anybody invented a UV coating that actually works yet?
>
> Yes, people rely on them not to get skin cancer or go blind! Also the
> one on your car paint works. I'm sure you can find spectral response
> curves if you are interested.
Interesting. I was under the impression that UV-resistent coatings are
just overly-optimistic marketing, and in reality none of these coatings
actually work.
>> I'm sure things have changed. Just perhaps not as rapidly and
>> dramatically as the original revolution.
>
> You could argue that in some ways things are changing even faster now.
> Continuing with your plastics example, at the start hardly anyone used
> plastic and development was slow. Today plastic is used in almost
> everything and there are millions of different types. I'm sure if you
> plotted a graph of the number of new plastics invented against time it
> would be going upwards.
Really?
OK, really ancient plastics weren't very good. But the plastics I see
today and the plastics I saw 30 years ago seem pretty much identical in
every respect. What's changed?
>> This is very interesting. From what I can gather, the primary problem is
>> the absurd amount of computer power required.
>
> Indeed, it looks like they had to spend most of the effort trying to
> reduce the computing power needed whilst maintaining a decent image
> quality. Maybe in 5 or 10 years someone will come back to this
> technology and it will be able to take off.
Much like how we had CDs for decades before DVDs were invented. Clearly
a lot of people *wanted* DVDs, but the necessary computer power was
simply unavailable.
Then again, we're trying to simulate the interaction of billions of
photons in a large 3-dimensional space. Maybe there are
quantum-theoretical reasons why you can't do that any faster than the
real world can? (At least, not without using a computer many times
bigger than the real-world system it's trying to simulate!)
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> Interesting. I was under the impression that UV-resistent coatings are
> just overly-optimistic marketing, and in reality none of these coatings
> actually work.
One of the first image results from google gave this:
http://www.alpineastro.com/filters/uv_ir_cut_specs.htm
That's a pretty sharp fall-off below 400 nm. Whether it works or not is
unquestionable, what is usually up for debate is whether it's actually
useful on a camera. On skin, eyes or paint of course it works and is
useful.
> OK, really ancient plastics weren't very good. But the plastics I see
> today and the plastics I saw 30 years ago seem pretty much identical in
> every respect. What's changed?
What you see today is them used in many places where they simply
couldn't be used 30 years ago because plastics with the required
performance didn't exist or were too expensive to manufacture. Car
bumpers were metal or fibre-glass that got dented or cracked, pipes in
your house were copper, anything involving even slightly corrosive
chemicals was stainless steel. Today plastics can be and are used in all
those places, ultimately making things cheaper.
Then there are all the things the consumer doesn't even notice. Like
plastics that are easier to mould (more complicated shapes are possible
to be made faster with finer details), possible to process in thinner
films, flame retardants that are environmentally friendly, stronger and
stiffer plastics that enable things to be made with less plastic for the
same performance etc.
The software we use here for simulating the moulding of a plastic part
(to make sure it will fill correctly and not leave any sink marks, weld
lines etc) has a built-in database of plastic materials to choose from.
There are over 10000 of them, and there are plenty not in the list. They
have all been developed for a specific reason, and most of them recently
(not 30 years ago).
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Le 2014-04-28 13:30, Orchid Win7 v1 a écrit :
> On 28/04/2014 08:59 AM, scott wrote:
>>
>> You could argue that in some ways things are changing even faster now.
>> Continuing with your plastics example, at the start hardly anyone used
>> plastic and development was slow. Today plastic is used in almost
>> everything and there are millions of different types. I'm sure if you
>> plotted a graph of the number of new plastics invented against time it
>> would be going upwards.
>
> Really?
>
> OK, really ancient plastics weren't very good. But the plastics I see
> today and the plastics I saw 30 years ago seem pretty much identical in
> every respect. What's changed?
>
First, You have a tendency to be totally oblivious to what's around you.
You wouldn't see the changes if they hit you in the face (in fact, one
of those changes is actually sitting right there on your nose!)
Second, you worked in the chemical industry for over 10 years. I'm sure
you're familiar with the names 3M, Dupont and BASF, just to name those.
Don't think for a second that these companies don't have large R&D
depts that work round the clock trying to come up with newer compounds
that are easier to work with, thereby reducing production costs, more
resitant, less dangerous, or biodegradable, just to name those
characterisitcs, thereby increasing their marketing value. They're not
just sitting there waiting for Nylon(tm), Teflon(tm) or Kevlar(tm)
royalties to pad their bank accounts.
Many of these plastics will have special medical or industrial
applications, but here are a few examples of everyday uses that you may
have seen:
Have you noticed how nowadays most eye glasses are made of plastic?
Clear plastics with higher IOR (sorry for getting slightly on-topic for
P.O-T) than glass were unheard of 30 years ago. The progresses made in
the domain of contact lenses is even more impressive than that of
conventional glass lenses.
The same goes for the plastic covers on most car headlights. The
average human doesn't often stop to admire the complexity of a car's
tail lights, - unless you're stopped behind a Lamborghini at a stop
light - but there's been tremendous developments made in that area, too.
I know you don't have kids, but the plastics used in baby bottles and
toys have also changed a lot in the last 10 years, due to various "Won't
anyone think of the children?!?!!!?" reasons.
The "technical" garment industry has also greatly benefited from these
new polymers. You're a skier, so you've most certainly seen the
74732327523 tags that are sewn or attached on a new ski jacket or
gloves, touting the amazing breathability, yet still impermeable,
feather light, yet warm as a mammoth pelt, machine washable, yet won't
fade properties these clothes now offer.
> Then again, we're trying to simulate the interaction of billions of
> photons in a large 3-dimensional space. Maybe there are
> quantum-theoretical reasons why you can't do that any faster than the
> real world can? (At least, not without using a computer many times
> bigger than the real-world system it's trying to simulate!)
To perfectly emulate it, we'd need at least one processor per photon,
able to do all the physics calculations and share Heisenberg-principle
violating amounts of information with other processors, in real-time. I
think Slatibartfast was on the right track!
--
/*Francois Labreque*/#local a=x+y;#local b=x+a;#local c=a+b;#macro P(F//
/* flabreque */L)polygon{5,F,F+z,L+z,L,F pigment{rgb 9}}#end union
/* @ */{P(0,a)P(a,b)P(b,c)P(2*a,2*b)P(2*b,b+c)P(b+c,<2,3>)
/* gmail.com */}camera{orthographic location<6,1.25,-6>look_at a }
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> OK, really ancient plastics weren't very good. But the plastics I see
> today and the plastics I saw 30 years ago seem pretty much identical in
> every respect. What's changed?
Since Francois mentioned 3M, that reminded me they make lots of
*plastic* optical films that are used in your mobile phone to improve
brightness, viewing angle and sunlight readability. Another area that
has been continuously improving over the last decade and will continue
to, but which most consumers wouldn't know about.
Or surely you've heard about 3D printers recently? The materials they
use (the professional ones, not the hobby ones) are state-of-the-art
polymers to give the final piece properties as close as possible to
traditional injection moulded plastics. It's not like those materials
existed 30 years ago.
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