Advancing Technology

[Easy Bakes 253]

But will you be a profitable market segment? If you aren't, it doesn't matter what you demand, you're not getting it. There is a legitimate advantage to internet aware applicances, which is why manufacturers are starting to make more of them.

Explain those advantages from the consumers point of wiew.

[RipRap 4,400]

Whoa! How did we went from e-fridges to a religious debate! We're getting off topic here!

[Ocram's Razr 964]

Even if there is no profitable market for non-internet connected appliances, appliances now are mostly "low-tech" so I could get all my appliances used.

[hym 358]

Explain those advantages from the consumers point of wiew.

It's simple. Take an internet aware oven, for example. They are now manufacturing ovens with cooling elements in them. Throw the casserole in the oven before going to work and the oven will keep it cool all morning and afternoon for you. If the casserole takes an hour to cook, log into your oven about an hour before you arrive at home and tell the oven that you will be home at the expected time, so it should start cooking the casserole for you. Say you get stuck in traffic and the casserole is finished cooking. An internet aware oven can be programmed to acknowledge that you aren't home yet, and switch to a warming mode to keep the casserole warm till you arrive home.

Consider an internet enabled fridge with and RFID tag reader in it. The fridge can track the various foodstuffs you have in your fridge/freezer, provide you a shopping list automatically when you want to go to the store, find and locate coupons for those same items to save you money on your purchases, and if you provide the fridge your address, it can provide directions to the stores that carry the products you're looking for. Or, if you have no idea what to make for dinner, but you do know that you have a lot of frozen chicken, you can push the "What Am I Making Tonight?" button and the fridge will give you a series of recipes that are primarily chicken oriented and don't use very many food items that you don't already have in your fridge.

Even if there is no profitable market for non-internet connected appliances, appliances now are mostly "low-tech" so I could get all my appliances used.

Good luck with that. The average American moves approximately every 7-10 years, so most appliance manufacturers design their appliances to offer about 10 years of reliable service. There is no mad rush for internet enabled home appliances just yet, but the drive is there and the non internet aware appliances have a limited lifespan ahead of them.

[hamsterTK 93]

I think what he means are appliances that require a monthly subscription to a pay service, and would be bricked if you didn't want it.

I wouldn't buy something like that.

  Edited July 5, 2011 by hamsterTK  

[A Nonny Moose 8,262]

The march of technology is currently one of the driving forces in our economic structure. If too many resist, which won't happen, it could slow down the rush to the precipice, and we all know what happens to lemmings.

Well, so much for gloom and doom.

Anyone know what's happening on the CPU side of things, in a nutshell? I've been expecting the announcement of the 128-bit home system ever since I had an AIX box from IBM back in the 1980's that had two 128-bit power chips as the central processors. Treated everything like it was in real memory.

[RipRap 4,400]

On other terms of advancing technology, take a look at this!

Look how much we have progressed in the past 100 years...

[Merlin of Flyote 8]

Look how much we have progressed in the past 100 years...

100 years? 40+ years ago the first calculators went on sale in Britain, first PC's in the 80's.

  Edited July 7, 2011 by Merlin of Flyote  

[jacksunny 741]

I had no idea Apple made so many computers...

[A Nonny Moose 8,262]

I had no idea Apple made so many computers...

100 years is a bit of exaggeration, but yes, Apple has managed to make a lot of product, mostly without worms in them.

100 years ago, in 1911, an obscure clerk in the Swiss Patent Office had published a paper on the Photoelectric Effect five years earlier. Pretty much every advance in computer science and electronics has grown from Albert Einstein's first paper, for which he got a Nobel Prize.

Our current education system with the idea of "No child left behind" stifles any Einsteins we might have had now.

[RipRap 4,400]

Look how much we have progressed in the past 100 years...

I am not talking about computers, but the overall advancement of technology in our society. The past 100 years have been the fastest advancement of technology. We came from a newspaper reading people to movie going people to radio listening people to TV watching people to Online Surfing people to Mobile Device Freaks. Another technology that we've advanced upon is the automobile. 100 years ago the automobiles were slow and easy to get damaged. Now we have these things called turbocharger and air bags.

From This: (1911)

To This: (2011)

  Edited July 7, 2011 by 111222333444  

[A Nonny Moose 8,262]

The whole business was kicked off by the Industrial Revolution in the U.K. The formation of the Royal Society by Newton, Hooke, Wren and others were the springboard. Émigré Scots living in England were some of the best engineers. The Victorian Era started the ball rolling, and it has been running downhill at an ever more frantic pace since. I often wonder what happens when the ball hits the bottom.

Look at the advances in Medicine. Life expectancy has increased from something like 50 to at least 85 or more. This, mind you, is causing pension plan actuaries to have a slight hemorrhage. To whom I say "Azawai'igoz'.

Without Newton/Leibniz's calculus, the engineers would be still trying to do it with geometry, and having a tough time. Look where we've gone now in all the sciences.

I think we are all aware of all of this, but it never hurts to marvel at it once in a while.

[Merlin of Flyote 8]

The whole business was kicked off by the Industrial Revolution in the U.K. The formation of the Royal Society by Newton, Hooke, Wren and others were the springboard. Émigré Scots living in England were some of the best engineers. The Victorian Era started the ball rolling, and it has been running downhill at an ever more frantic pace since. I often wonder what happens when the ball hits the bottom.

Look at the advances in Medicine. Life expectancy has increased from something like 50 to at least 85 or more. This, mind you, is causing pension plan actuaries to have a slight hemorrhage. To whom I say "Azawai'igoz'.

Without Newton/Leibniz's calculus, the engineers would be still trying to do it with geometry, and having a tough time. Look where we've gone now in all the sciences.

I think we are all aware of all of this, but it never hurts to marvel at it once in a while.

One of the biggest drivers of the Industrial Revolution was the Royal Navy and it's bid to be the premier navy of the world. That however, science in general(16-1700's), and the automobile (1890's) is longer than 100 years. TV in Britain at least, is from the 1950's, Radio the 1930's, Computers the 1980's

[A Nonny Moose 8,262]

Merlin, were there not some tentative moves towards TV in the 1930s? I think it went to sleep for the duration of the war.

[Merlin of Flyote 8]

Merlin, were there not some tentative moves towards TV in the 1930s? I think it went to sleep for the duration of the war.

Quite correct there were some experimental broadcasts in the 1930's, but most people didn't have sets to watch them. The main reason for people in Britain buying TV sets in the fifties was the Coronation of Her Majesty The Queen in 1953. I remember the first Calculators coming on stream about 1968/69 about a year before I left school.

[A Nonny Moose 8,262]

Well, that's progress for you. We got our first TV the year I graduated from high-school (1955), and calculators were not available, but I had a slide rule. Beat the daylights out of an abacus.

Watched a TV special on the efforts in France (international consortium) towards fusion power. Looks like this one might work. This will give us yet another natural resource that is not infinite to consume. I wonder just how much ₁H² and ₁H³ there is in the ocean, and whether extracting it will cost more than running the power station.

Mind you, fusion power on a practical level will put paid to petroleum as a fuel, which is good considering the dwindling supply that can then be used elsewhere. With this kind of system, since we have to have Hydrogen extraction plants for the ocean anyway, by-product ₁H¹ will become abundantly available as automotive fuel. And this one has no polluting combustion products, and it recycles cleanly too. A great idea whose time is overdue.

And then there is all that waste Helium.

It would be interesting to see if you can power a jet aircraft with liquid hydrogen. Might be better off as a rocket, eh?

  Edited July 9, 2011 by A Nonny Moose  

[Cobraroll 138]

I'm for any product that has Helium as a by-product. We're running seriously low on it, and the only reason why it isn't more expensive is because the US is selling out its reserves on it. I think I read somewhere that if the availability was to regulate the price, a party balloon's worth of Helium would cost about $50.

Until then, we'll have to do with Hydrogen airships. Really hoping that the CargoLifter project will come through one day. 160 tons of payload carried through the air? Yes, please! The only downside is that it takes approximately 34 seconds to transform a Hydrogen airship into a very warm pile of wreckage. Helium, being somewhat heavier and somewhat more impossible to set ablaze, is ideal for this purpose.

All in all, thumbs up to fusion reactors. They might not be cost-effective today, but in the long term, they'll haul in the €s.

[Merlin of Flyote 8]

Well, that's progress for you. We got our first TV the year I graduated from high-school (1955), and calculators were not available, but I had a slide rule. Beat the daylights out of an abacus.

Watched a TV special on the efforts in France (international consortium) towards fusion power. Looks like this one might work. This will give us yet another natural resource that is not infinite to consume. I wonder just how much ₁H² and ₁H³ there is in the ocean, and whether extracting it will cost more than running the power station.

Mind you, fusion power on a practical level will put paid to petroleum as a fuel, which is good considering the dwindling supply that can then be used elsewhere. With this kind of system, since we have to have Hydrogen extraction plants for the ocean anyway, by-product ₁H¹ will become abundantly available as automotive fuel. And this one has no polluting combustion products, and it recycles cleanly too. A great idea whose time is overdue.

And then there is all that waste Helium.

It would be interesting to see if you can power a jet aircraft with liquid hydrogen. Might be better off as a rocket, eh?

That's if the petrol companies don't buy the patent and shelve it.

[A Nonny Moose 8,262]

That's if the petrol companies don't buy the patent and shelve it.

Ah, cynicism. The project is an international consortium, so it will be a good trick if the technology doesn't wind up in the public domain. The only way to profit from it would be build a facility and sell the product. The resulting cheap energy should enable the people running these plants to purchase the petrol companies, lock, stock, and scrapped refineries. Could it happen to a more deserving bunch of thieves?

[RipRap 4,400]

And then there is all that waste Helium.

Did you know we were actually running out of Helium on Earth?

[airman15 4,113]

That's if the petrol companies don't buy the patent and shelve it.

Question is: with the tight grip that petrol companies have on all resources used as fuel, how long will it be until all sources they drill run out? We have been using fossil fuels (which is essentially borrowed energy from dead organisms) for decades and those fuels can't be unlimited. Unless the fuel shortages they report are just there to cover up a scheme which turns out to be a fuel farm (reference: Futurama Benders Game).

[Merlin of Flyote 8]

That's if the petrol companies don't buy the patent and shelve it.

Ah, cynicism. The project is an international consortium, so it will be a good trick if the technology doesn't wind up in the public domain. The only way to profit from it would be build a facility and sell the product. The resulting cheap energy should enable the people running these plants to purchase the petrol companies, lock, stock, and scrapped refineries. Could it happen to a more deserving bunch of thieves?

The petrol companies have a track record of buying the patents to alternative fuels and shelving them. They don't want competition reducing their profits.

  Edited July 10, 2011 by Merlin of Flyote  

[A Nonny Moose 8,262]

That's if the petrol companies don't buy the patent and shelve it.

Ah, cynicism. The project is an international consortium, so it will be a good trick if the technology doesn't wind up in the public domain. The only way to profit from it would be build a facility and sell the product. The resulting cheap energy should enable the people running these plants to purchase the petrol companies, lock, stock, and scrapped refineries. Could it happen to a more deserving bunch of thieves?

The petrol companies have a track record of buying the patents to alternative fuels and shelving them. They don't want competition reducing their profits.

I agree that these pigs are more equal, but I don't think they've hired the dogs yet.

[hym 358]

Ah, cynicism. The project is an international consortium, so it will be a good trick if the technology doesn't wind up in the public domain. The only way to profit from it would be build a facility and sell the product. The resulting cheap energy should enable the people running these plants to purchase the petrol companies, lock, stock, and scrapped refineries. Could it happen to a more deserving bunch of thieves?

Can we get some numbers to show undeniable proof that companies like ExxonMobil, BP, Royal Dutch Shell, ChevronTexaco, and others are actually gouging everyone for everything they are worth? Evil "Big Oil" operates at about 8.9% profit margins, which is nothing to be proud of in the world of profit margins. Your doctor's medical supplier is probably robbing both of you for higher margins than that.

When people hear about record $40 billion profits, what they aren't told is just how big these companies really are. If ExxonMobil was it's own country, it would be the 23rd most powerful economy in the world. When you have corporations this big, they are nearly guaranteed to make ungodly levels of money simply as a result of their immense size.

[A Nonny Moose 8,262]

You will never dig it out of all the window dressing in their financial statements. You would need to be a forensic auditor with full internal access.

One of the biggest problems with the sensational statements of earnings is that they are not given as earnings per share. This is the only way you can really compare companies' performance. The papers like big numbers but if the annual results were reported as return on investment per share, it would be miniscule. One of the things people forget in the dazzling huge numbers is the number of widows and orphans who have funding depending on this,

Generally, unless the company is privately held, they have many millions of shares outstanding, and many of these are owned by insurance and pension funds. When you are trading, you don't go for the window dressing. You look at the history of the return on investment.

[RipRap 4,400]

Yikes! The dogs suck up all the world's resources! These dogs just suck up the resources before they blew up and get inflated again with bails. Then they start sucking money again.

[A Nonny Moose 8,262]

Yikes! The dogs suck up all the world's resources! These dogs just suck up the resources before they blew up and get inflated again with bails. Then they start sucking money again.

Pretty obscure for an intrepid reporter, but right.

One of the things that the world has to learn is that nothing is too big to fail. The way things are going it may be the United States of America. Three weeks to default.