Posted on 01/03/2010 7:28:32 PM PST by ErnstStavroBlofeld
televisions: Yes, we already are. As long as the viewing object will be the human eye, resolutions are as high as they need to be. In fact the dirty little secret is that at normal viewing distances, the average person can barely tell the difference between normal and high def. Anything beyond that goes to waste.
computers: Yes, we already are. Intel and AMD have both looked at 128 bit and 256 bit processors. What for. Corporate America isn't buying the most powerful processors available today. It seems like the slowest part of the system now is the human minds on the other side of the screen. Making the computers faster hardly helps.
aircraft: I've been in this business since the 1960’s. I worked for several companies that tried new and innovative ideas. Unfortunately there are some fixed realities that no amount of wishing will get around. Two of my best friends worked at Boeing in the 1990’s, on their top secret project called the Sonic Cruiser. Notice the aircraft they just flew, the 787. It is neither a canard, or buried engines, or any of the other things the Cruiser employed. Because Boeing doesn't have an imagination? Because Boeing are idiots? No, simply because the 787 configuration beats all the other wild ideas hands down.
Someday, probably after a propulsion system breakthrough, it will be possible to build completely different types of aircraft. As long as we are limited to Turbofan engines and flight in this atmosphere, all of us idiots will just have to keep building aircraft that look like the ones at your local airport.
I apologize for the name calling.
No problem.
I actually would like to be alive for the next great leap in aviation technology, but it’s probably not going to happen. What we really need is a propulsion breakthrough. Maybe the government will finally tell us what’s inside the B2 to let it do the impossible things that it does.
Speaking of the B2, I would have loved to have been in Boston Friday when it flew over. The Cambridge lefty crowd must have had a stroke.
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