Re: colonial weapons

>
>
>And 20 years ago everyone thought we were to have established a base
>on mars. 40 years ago, they thought we'd all have robots running
>around in our houses cleaning things. That and we'd all have personal
>flying vehicles.
>
>[Tomb] And a few years before that, they thought we'd only need 5
>computers in the world. And a famous man thought we'd only need 640K
>ever. Guess what? Some predictions are wrong, but generally, the world
>has evolved into something that would not have been predicatable, and
>generally (IMO) it has done so in the
"better-than-predicted-capability"
>direction.

Real quick google search on "flying car" brought back these primary hits

(first page results):
http://www.moller.com/
http://www.wired.com/news/gizmos/0,1452,43199,00.html
http://www.vtol.co.il/VTOL%20Page%203.htm

For more links, and a brief history of the flying car:
http://www.howstuffworks.com/flying-car2.htm

And for those interested in how flying cars and "highways in the sky"
could 
happen...
http://www.observer.co.uk/uk_news/story/0,6903,442773,00.html

So anyone want to reconsider "and they predicted we'd all own flying
cars"

(On a funny note...  I originally put "start a strategic withdrawl..."
Had 
sudden fits of giggling of the image of a stratego game piece talking
with 
a southern drawl as I told it to attack the bomb...  I should go to
sleep now.)

>We're not talking war fighting here. Its economics and things like
>Moore's Law.
>
>[Tomb] Moore's Theorem. There is no way to prove this mathematically as
>a truism that I'm aware of and just because a Theory has held for a
>while does not make it a law, despite media blatherings.

*cough*  It's Moore's Law.  It's a tongue-in-cheek "joke" in 
hacker/computer jargon.  The "law" states that technology will double 
itself every 18 months.  The actual "implication is that somebody, 
somewhere is going to be able to build a better chip than you if you
rest 
on your laurels, so you'd better start pushing hard on the problem." 
(Jargon File)  Also used to refer to the fact that hardware purchased
today 
is already out-modeled and out-performed.
Similar to Gate's Law, Parkinson's Law of Data, and Murphy's Law.

The actual theorum the joke is based on was in a speech given by Intel 
founder Gordon Moore in 1964.  The theorum states:
	 the logic density of silicon integrated circuits has closely 
followed the curve
	 (bits per square inch) = 2^(t - 1962) where t is time in years;
that
	 is, the amount of information storable on a given amount of
silicon
	 has roughly doubled every year since the technology was
invented
(Thanks to the Jargon file (www.tuxedo.org), www.dict.org, and The Free 
On-line Dictionary of Computing (13 Mar 01) for specific information)

>[Tomb] It always takes tech complexity to make the state of the art
item
>with state of the art efficiency and features. If you are willing to
>settle for a lesser feature set and apply state of the art engineering
>to building something robust and simple (rarely done in the real world
>because people want features and there is no market), you CAN produce
>something far more robust and simple.

Not true...  Robust and simple are OFTEN built in the real world.  The 
problem is, these terms are _really_ subjective terms.	Simple and
robust 
chips are much more complex and unreliable when compared to
fire-starting 
equipment like a lighter.  Which is much more complex than say a 
match.	Most first run products are simple, feature-poor commodities. 
It's 
the 2.0 and beyond that get nasty.

Simple and robust are not always easier to manufacture either.	It is a 
simple procedure you can do in the house to create Oxygen and Hydrogen, 
(both fairly unstable in this condition).  Many other forms of 
fire-starting equipment require massive refineries, complex chemical 
processes, etc.  Still, when it comes down to it...  I'd rather a match
to 
start my fire.