Dude, you gotta learn to close your tags.

Well, except for this one.

I've seen that advertised.

I don't see it in any showrooms.

Surely, this will create some kind of tear in the space-time kerjigger that will kill us all or open up a portal into an evil alternate universe where everyone has goatees.

Mark my words.

My granddaughter said the singularity didn't happen.

I'm thinking of my mom, Ace.

I don't want to see her behind the wheel of an f'n flyin' car.
She scares the shit outta me on dry land.

Na'am sayn?

I think that the guys who have the f'n flyin' car pret-a-porter are keeping it under wraps for the same reason.

Mom.

I don't see it in any showrooms.

Yeah, they talked to me about some custom heat exchangers about 15 years ago. At that time they said they were only 5 years away from commercial use. But they have done things like work out the interface with the FAA. And it looks like they're closer to a decent prototype

I'm surprised that they've survived this long. When I talked to them they were heavily funded by the Saudis. I don't know how they've kept alive since then.

I dunno about this, I tried to read the article to my wife (who is a certified rocket scientist) and she dozed off on me. Either she's really tired, or really unimpressed.

I watched Kurzweil's presentation to the Council on Foreign Relations this weekend on C-SPAN2. Absolutely mind-blowing. The transcript and audio are here.

I cannot recommend it highly enough. Set aside an hour, spark a bowl, and let Professor K tell you how it's going to be.

Avery Brooks. "No flying cars" Most portentiously funny commercial in years.

Set aside an hour,

Done.

spark a bowl,

Done.

and let Professor K tell you how it's going to be.

Doing...

What about this one Ace?

http://images-eu.amazon.com/images/P/B00004CII0.02.LZZZZZZZ.jpg

Good Lord, people! Didn't they see Event Horizon?!? Don't they know what happens when we start taking interdimensional shortcuts using massive gravity fields?!?

Liberate Tutemae indeed.

That being said, what I want to see is Earth: Final Conflict-style interdimensional shuttles. That would be sooooooo freakin' sweet.

(note: why are links to imdb banned?)

why are links to imdb banned?

The spammers are employing poison pills. Bastiches.

It's pretty obvious that or scientists have finally cracked the secrets of the UFO that crashed in Roswell. About frellin' time.

Absolutely true fact: I myself have never sparked a bowl.

But I know "the kids" like to do it, so I threw it out there.

Ace, you'll never see a flying car in the showroom because there isn't enough market for them. Supply and demand, buddy.

As for Heim theory: I am not a physicist, but I was able to gather that it is a Theory of Everything that up till now, hasn't been taken seriously (the folks at heim-theory.com have a lengthy explanation of why not. To summarize, their boy just can't get no respect).

But now NASA and the USAF are interested. So we'll see what happens.

O/T: Anyone else remember an article in Discover magazine about 6 years ago about a scientist who was claiming to believe that time didn't exist? Now that guy was pretty wacky.

Absolutely true fact: I myself have never sparked a bowl.

But you do shoot up tar heroin, right?

Kurzweil, although very interesting, is the antichrist as far as I am concerned. I hold very Luddite views, and I see nothing but bad from the coming "singularity".

The best *and shortest* case in point is the pure and simple fact that we live in a service economy. More people today are employed in a service job than ever before. Now, take Amazon, EBay, or whatever else, and exponentially (sp?) graph them out against a graph of service-industry jobs. Begin with telemarketing. Sure, who really cares if we lose our telemarketers across the oceans? No one, until that's not the only thing.

America is an economy based on the service industry. The service industry is being quickly outdated. So what next? When one webmaster is able to do the job of 200 (generous estimate) cashiers, what happens to our job market?

Sorry to take up so much space. But this issue is one that worries me to no end.

JL Mould,

You've lost sight of the fact that the jobs serve us. Jobs which are no longer of service will be devalued (and eventually disappear). No one laments the fact that there are no chimney sweeps anymore -- that labor has no value.

Regarding the idea that the service industry constitutes a large (or the largest) portion of American employment: so what? That wasn't always the case. Things change over time.

GM-

But, at no point has the service industry been the one mainstay of our economy. Sure, chimney sweeps were golden until there was gas heat, but they were never the mainstay of the middle-upper middle class. We live in a white collar world unlike any that has previously existed.

We are talking more than just base level Service Economy here. Amazon (I am just breaking it down to the basest level possible) could wipe out whole companies based on service. I work for a fairly large family owned corporation, and online industries such as Amazon could nuke the whole corporate setup.

I understand that things change over time, but there is the key phrase. Time. It is one thing that really is not available anymore. Three years could be the birth and death of an empire now. Economically speaking, our job landscape is not ready to deal with these changes. With the birth of online shopping, more and more people are finding it advantageous to do their shopping on the web.

Now, it hasn't yet gotten to the nuts-and-bolts (ie groceries), but who really works in the nuts-and-bolts industry anymore?

Unfortunately, I am not worried about the poor saps like myself caught in this web. I am worried about the economy as a whole. Wide-scale unenployment (however unlikely) could happen. It is a possibility that should be considered.

Wow. I am really windy.

Actually, from how they describe the space drive, it creates it's own local gravity field, so it could make flying cars.

Yo Ace: flying cars? So 2005.

That being said, what I want to see is Earth: Final Conflict-style interdimensional shuttles. That would be sooooooo freakin' sweet.

So, this is what it feels like...when doves cry??!

JL Mould -

Actually, we are now at a stage of moving out of the service economy and into an information-based economy. Post-post-industrial, so to speak. That's what's driving the entirely new market dynamics. What's going to happen? No idea. But ever more dependence on innovative ideas and ever less dependence on material resources.

Basically, we're at the entry point to the Singularity. I'm still not convinced that it will happen. The technology required to trigger it is definitely possible, but the projections that Kurzweil and others make of the capabilities of that technology are based on assumptions that are completely untested.

As for what happens after... The whole point of a Singularity is that you can't tell what's on the other side. If you could, it wouldn't be a Singularity. We are talking about the curve of scientific knowledge and technological development going vertical. On Tuesday you buy your flying car, and by Friday it's a museum piece, because everyone has their own spaceship. Who cares about the service economy of the U.S. of A. when you've evolved into an energy being and inhabit the Oort Cloud of Tau Ceti?

Am I the only one who's wondering if the damn thing will even work? I remember reading in Scientific American about 10 years ago experiments with magnetic fields so intense they tore the superconducting magnets apart. They didn't report any anomalous gravity effects, so either a) they weren't looking, b) the theory's crap, or c) we're going to need some pretty massive upgrades in our materials technology before this becomes feasible.

But as long as we're bullshitting like a bunch of freshman geeks I don't think it'll work as advertised. The problem is that most of the combinations of physical constants don't allow matter as we know it to exist, much less complex thinking machines (organic or inorganic). My prediction: They'll turn this thing on and get back an expanding cloud of subatomic particles.

My prediction: They'll turn this thing on and get back an expanding cloud of subatomic particles.

Cool!, So then they'll have invented a new kind of bomb... :-D

when you've evolved into an energy being and inhabit the Oort Cloud of Tau Ceti?

Now that's what I'm talking about.

I've heard Kurzweil's argument about the approaching "singularity" and think it's bogus. There will no doubt be amazing technological advances in the years to come, but people will remain just as perverse as ever. Which is more likely: a new golden age of peace and prosperity, or more wars fought with novel high-tech weapons?

Kurzweil's belief that we will someday transfer our minds into machines is just creepy. Who would want to live like that? The whole thing has a pseudo-religious aspect to it. Maybe Kurzweil is trying to start a religion for all those secular humanists out there.

Eh, my life's not so great. I've got problems.

when you've evolved into an energy being and inhabit the Oort Cloud of Tau Ceti?

Now that's what I'm talking about.

You'd need to evolve walking upright first, dear. I'll admit, you've come a long way with the opposable thumbs, but turds are not tools.

Hey Gabriel, there ARE still chimney sweeps because there are loads of people who still need their chimneys swept, cleaned etc. Check your yellow pages. It's just not a common profession because people build fires more for aesthetic than for heat.

Related, the US (country that invented incandescent lights) still spends about $2 billion on candles. 'Cause they're pretty and you can make them smell like cinnamon or whatever.

And when there are flying cars, there will be guys like me who put up the hula girl and/or fuzzy dice.

The US isn't just a great place 'cause of our left brains.

Hey kids. I'm a disbeliever to in all this. You look at historically the more technology empowers the masses the more societies crumble and fall (Yes kids we are all the barbarians at the gates now). I think this whole "Singularity" mumbo jumbo doesn't even look at the people half of the equation at all.... it focuses all on how great the tech is going to be.

As power in societies become massively de-centralized through technology and the power of the state becomes massive something has got to give.

thats going to be a restriction on the freedom to use, and consume technology.

Warp 8 and finaly ifinate vilocity and pump it all the way up to ludicris speed

I think this whole "Singularity" mumbo jumbo doesn't even look at the people half of the equation at all.... it focuses all on how great the tech is going to be.

Well put. There's as much chance that technology will come up with some new way to oppress or kill us all, as there is of us in flying cars or warping to the other side of the galaxy.

MMdeuce:

Am I the only one who's wondering if the damn thing will even work?

I'm not wondering at all. I don't believe it for a moment.

yeah, well I've got a warehouse full of buggy whips and I need to unload em.

Eh, my life's not so great. I've got problems.

HAAAAAAAAA!!!!!!!!!

Oh God, I'm just dyin'.

Just f'ing dyin'.

> Liberate Tutemae indeed.

"Tu temet." Loose stercum!

We have, as a species, survived two singularities already.
Remember, a technological singularity is just a point where technology so drastically changes society that no meaningful predictions can be made beforehand as to what will result after. A sort of societal event horizon.
The first was agriculture. That turned us from roving bands of ape-like critters into people.
The second was steam power. That ended the need for everything to rely on muscle-power to get done. Julius Caeasar would have understood how things worked through the 1700's. But he would be completely lost now.
Vernor Vinge is the go-to guy with regards to the next singularity.

"Surely, this will create some kind of tear in the space-time kerjigger that will kill us all or open up a portal into an evil alternate universe where everyone has goatees."

Dude, I have a goatee. I look around, and I see many people with goatees. I think that it is far more likely that if we do open up a space-time kerjigger that opens a portal into another universe, WE will be the goateed evil ones.

And we will plunder that other weak and naive universe without mercy.

YOU LIE!! You have indeed been a part of the magical flyin car, even if as a mere spectator.

I challenge anyone south of the Mason/Dixon line to say they have not seen that force of nature we call the Duke boys. That General Lee flew every episode!!!

Down with Boss Hogg!

Dude, I have a goatee. I look around, and I see many people with goatees. I think that it is far more likely that if we do open up a space-time kerjigger that opens a portal into another universe, WE will be the goateed evil ones.
And we will plunder that other weak and naive universe without mercy.
Posted by TABoLK at January 6, 2006 12:05 PM

Brilliant.

Goatee?

Call it what it really is.

A pussy stapled to your face.

Set aside an hour, spark a bowl, and let Professor K tell you how it's going to be.

I'm down to seeds and stems again... fuuuuck!!

KEVIN REILY and he was singing I,LL TAKE YOU HOME AGAIN KATHLINE

Think about how bad it is to have a tire blow out at freeway speed, then consider how much worse the equivalent would be in a flying car.

We also need the stasis fields to make the inevitable crashes survivable.

Pixy, the article you linked has two big problems.

First, regarding your comment on Moore's Law, clock rate is not a factor. Moore, being quoted in an article by Carver Mead, spoke solely of the density of discrete transistors that could be placed in a given amount of space. Power usage and performance are separate issues.

Second, the issues with voltage leaking are not that bad taken by themselves. The driving problem is the volume of transistor real estate growing at a much greater rate than improvements in power efficiency from smaller manufacturing nodes. The fact is that the amount of power drawn per MIPS is better than ever BUT we've been coming up with ways to exploit ever more performance as measured in MIPS.

Intel ran into serious problems at 90 nm in the P-4 line because the sheer number of transistors had grown so much and that the chip's design was extremely focused on high clock rates for its advantages. AMD and Intel's guys in Israel handily demonstrated that there other ways to achieve the same goals that were more compatible with future process nodes. 65 nm is in full swing at Intel with AMD not far behind. The Yonah laptops coming out next month are more powerful than anything previous while providing high portability and battery life. (The Powerbooks based on Yonah or its successor should be awfully nice as well.)

The P-4 Prescott design that lead Intel's 90 nm production added a lot of new instruction and pipeline depth to the P-4 platform. This meant a lot more transistors. Doing it at 130 nm would have been impossible without refrigeration. However, if Intel just wanted a better power profile and lower manufacturing cost for the earlier 130 nm P-4, then 90 nm would have done that quite well despite the greater leakage at that node.

A good example of this is the chipset in the Sony Playstation 2. It was originally produced at .25 micron but intended for .18 micron. Those .25 chips were just for engineering samples and early dev kits. The yields were horrible and this made them terribly expensive. Sony was overoptimistic about when the .18 production line would be ready and was forced to use .25 chips for the first million or so machines shipped in Japan. The .18 chips were ready by the US launch but those first gen Japan units cost Sony dearly. Fortunately for them the long term strength of the platform more than made up for it.

More recently, Sony re-engineered the PS2 chipset at 90 nm. This allowed them to put the two main processors on a single die and reduce the power draw for the whole system immensely, not to mention reducing their cost per unit to a small fraction of the early .18 production. At $149 they now enjoy a nice profit margin on the PS2 and can drop the price to $100 quickly if sales start to slump. The unit is amazingly small, although it now has an external power supply. 90 nm delivered excellent results in this case. You can bet Microsoft is very anxious to get the Xbox 360 chipset, which pushes hard on the limits of 90 nm, down to 65 nm.

Voltage leakage is a big hassle but Moore's Law is far from dead. 45 nm and 32 nm production nodes are already far into development. The fabs are fiendishly expensive but the rewards are also immense and it trickles down to everything eventually. There are some classes of chips that are just now migrating to .25 micron nodes. These are low price chips with tight margins so they don't move to smaller nodes until the big boys have long since perfected them and made them cheap to adopt.