Isn't progress wonderful!
- Thread starter Orionaut
- Start date
These types of problems are solved by computers that look like this:
Not computers that look like this:
Computing power per watt is very important in the former. The lower it is, the more computers you can have in a given space, using a certain amount of power and requiring a certain amount of cooling. There is plenty of development in this area. Unfortunately it doesn't necessarily mean you'll be able to get 120fps in Crysis or what ever the latest game is that must have over 60fps.
Don
Man of Honour
What was his famous quote, something like "Nobody should need more than 640 FPS in Crysis"?
Soldato
Thats mostly due to suspension and tyre technology. Put a Group B on modern suspension and tyres, and then let's see...
Funny when every new big expensive phone comes out there is always some comment, can it play Crysis?
Soldato
Why is that? I'm not aware of any drop off in safety standards that have resulted in lower fares. More competition, more flights, more people can travel around the globe. Where's the downside?
Caporegime
The record for "Most Spectators Killed" is still held by Group B.
Soldato
Just think: from the 60s to the 80s it was common for most people to get milk in containers that were cleaned and re-used, delivered by fleets of electric vehicles. They would bring other basic groceries to you too.
Progress is great.
Progress is great.
Amusing but rather silly when you think the MSC Oscar was launched last year.
A ship that makes noahs ark look like a piddling dinghy.
Look at the Airbus A320 family; their flight computers run on a mixture of 80s hardware, some with an Intel 80186 CPU, some with a Motorola 68010 IIRC (Edit, now they apparently run on the Intel 80286).
the in-flight entertainment systems will be magnitudes more powerful than the computers keeping you up in the air.
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Man of Honour
Are the stages exactly the same? As far as I know, very few stages are the same now as they were in the mid 80s.
Maybe a modern WRC car is faster than a Group B car on any rally stage, given that they are much better in almost every way, but the comparison would have to be on identical tracks. Preferably also in identical conditions. Perhaps, for example, Group B drivers would have been faster without spectators being on the track and grouped at the side of the track in the most dangerous positions.
A modern WRC car will spank a Group B car in everything apart from power to weight ratio, but a Group B car will spank a modern WRC car in power to weight ratio (e.g. Delta S4 has 2.2 times the power to weight ratio of a Focus WRC and that's with the stated figure for a conservative tune on the Delta, which is less than half the power it was capable of). I think which would win would depend on the stage, with the group B brute forcing a win if there were enough straighter parts.
Man of Honour
It makes real ships look like dinghies too.
Given that this thread is about progress, the obvious example would be the most famous huge ship of its day - the Titanic. MSC Oscar could carry 4 Titanics if they were in pieces and you could fit two whole Titanics on it.
Still billions short of funding but an exciting looking project nonetheless.
good thing is it, European space agency has said it now technologically feasible and is giving them some money.
it's just a shame it's taking so long to do anything. looking at 2019 really (and these things always fall behind) before we see a full sized motor fitted to an aircraft for flight experiments, let alone an actual skylon plane.
have faith that once they test a full sized engine they will get enough funding, as it's something that is needed.
although i'm not convinced about its economics for passenger flight, thats very much an after thought. its all about rapid reusability for low earth orbit.
Oh yeah I know they've gotten a few million from the British and European space agencies, but was continually denied funding by the UK government. Fortunately the Engine prototype worked and they've received £50m of funding now. The whole project though? Still woefully short of donors - I guess this will change if/when the engine gets built.
And as you said, it's more about reducing the £cost/kilo of getting things into space, which is what is necessary if space travel is ever going to become common.
Goddamn, sometimes I wish I'd been born 100 years in the future
. Of course by then the planet might be a wasteland..
And as you said, it's more about reducing the £cost/kilo of getting things into space, which is what is necessary if space travel is ever going to become common.
Goddamn, sometimes I wish I'd been born 100 years in the future
. Of course by then the planet might be a wasteland..Yeah, a passenger one thats not just a joy ride is unlikely to happen any timr soon.
But skylon as a project for satalite delivery could be a massive boon to the uk.
I hope airbus gets the contract for the airframe work, would be interesting to work on one