[gameprogrammer] Re: Innovation and Creativity. Getting OT?

Like it or not you guys are emphasizing my point, "the military is a
user" it does not invent, it does not create, it rarely innovates, it is
only concerned with "What good is it? How can I use it?"
The Mass Spectrometer has been around longer than 80 years (1886
Goldstein) and probably back to the Bunsen burner.  Yes it was improved
during the Manhattan project.
Least, I forget, yes the steam engine allegedly was invented [Thomas
Savery and Thomas Newcomen] to drain mines...I prefer to think it was
invented to keep miners from drowning and sold as something to keep
mines open longer. James Watt improved on the Steam Engine and obtained
several patents all for profit (frugal Scot).  Yeah the Navy later used
them for their submarines (users).
While I am at it, let me state that inventors are never funded by the
military complex. At least I haven't found an example. Inventors are
usually seen as "Nuts", "Kooks", "Eccentrics", etc! But being seen that
way did not stop Thomas Edison from combining the improvement James Watt
made to the Steam Engine and the work of Michael Faraday (the electric
generator(1)) to produce the direct current that lit up a New York
Street.
Westinghouse and Tesla modified how electricity is transmitted without
military money. Yet, the military is a big user of that precious
commodity.
In fact, since we started this with WAR and the ATOMIC BOMB, let me
emphasize the following. Most of the scientist that worked on the
Manhattan project were piece-nicks. What they developed at Los Alamos
was the ability to "Control a Nuclear Reaction". That capability has two
uses: let the reaction occur in milliseconds and destroy whatever is
near conversion from matter to energy --OR-- let the reaction occur over
a period of years and convert the heat to electricity for peaceful uses.
Well, we know how the military likes it reactions controlled--fast
furious and hot.  Not that many nuclear power plants around, except on
WAR vessels, on the tips of Multiple-reentry vehicles (many per ICBM) or
stowed inside the bellies of ancient B-52s, newer B2s, or the silent
stealth fighter/bombers.
What we see hear about the "threat of war" is simply the military
complex excuse for abusing technology and providing game developers with
ideas for playing "Thermonuclear" games instead of a "nice game of
chess."
You ask the question:
>Why are PCs getting faster if all we did was to type reports on the
PCs?
PC speed is simply driven by the corporate profit motive and the
pride/curiosity of some mathematician (applied engineer of some kind) to
improve on a technology. Think about it for a moment: Charles Babbage
and the difference engine and then the Analytical Engine...[time laps]
invention of the "Fleming Valve" a diode, De Forest and his invention of
the triode, and then J. Presper Eckert with partner John W. Mauchly
building UNIVAC. Still it took William Shockley (Nobel Laureate) to
invent the transistor so IBM would get into the game of computing
machines. [Of course don't forget the contributions of Konrad Zuse who
could not talk Hitler into financing his machine/research.]
Incidentally, how many of you programmers have thanked Maurice Wilkes?
He is the man responsible for inventing microcode. It only took IBM
slightly more than a decade to implement it. Mix transistors with
microcode and you have some very fast computers (for the day) that don't
need men to run-around pulling patch cords.
Well there are armies of engineers in the employ of corporations and
some engineers destroy their marriages, get titled as Geeks while they
develop or improve on circuit design, logic design, and others [David
Olofson take a bow] who improve on the foundations laid down by John
Backus on programming languages. To improve on scanners, tokenizers,
syntax checkers, declaration checker, in fact to deal with the tangled
web of symbol tables takes dedication. It does not take military
funding, but it would be nice.
So do we only type reports? No we run simulations (lots and lots of
math) for research and in our case to have fun and build games, even
though we don't always get paid...dedication? The faster the machine,
the circuits, the microcode, the languages, the faster we like it.
Harder, faster, pumping more electrons through shorter and shorter delay
paths with more application specific Instruction Set Architectures as
guides to development. Pride and the need for fun push for more
efficiencies which make faster machines.
Forgot to mention, in my past, --stripped out because something may be
classified or really boring--.
Yes, I am a geek. Yes, I went through... Outside of the brilliant work
of a young mathematician named Shwartzchild or the converted memories of
a soldier name Tolkien...
Well, I stray too far a-field, so before I step into a black hole
(computing simulations) of fantasy (simulate to long and you'll think
it=92s the real thing)...lets write code...and figure out where or how =
to
find round-off answers, why conversions from Linux to VC.net are
difficult, why C/C++ is slower than FORTRAN, how to build games that are
better because we stand on the work of Giants who come before me (us) or
who publish graphic libraries that we can use to speed up project
deadlines (I give thanks to those programmers).
Regards,
P.S. in private we could look at the chain of wars, working backwards,
starting with Iraq and Afghanistan to see what technological advances
are being brought to you by Hallibur...a great idea for a game or
consider a game called the death of Archimedes or the rise and fall of
the Archimedian screw.

1. induction through a magnetic field

>-----Original Message-----
>From: gameprogrammer-bounce@xxxxxxxxxxxxx [mailto:gameprogrammer-
>bounce@xxxxxxxxxxxxx] On Behalf Of Alexander Whaley
>Sent: Monday, May 03, 2004 10:23 PM
>To: gameprogrammer@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
>Subject: [gameprogrammer] Re: Innovation and Creativity. Getting OT?
>
>>But, no one every said that war was necessary for invention. If that
is
>>what people think has been said, then there is a serious
>>miscommunication going on. Let me state that one more time. No one on
>>this list has stated that war is necessary for invention. I hope no
one
>>on the list *believes* that war is necessary for invention.
>>
>>As you said "necessity is the mother of invention". Strife creates
>>necessity and therefore stimulates invention. War is extreme strife,
and
>>therefore stimulates extreme rates of invention.
>>
>>
>>
>
>War isn't necessary for invention. But the military is a good source of
>funds to push inventions forward.
>
>To take an example from my field of research: Analytical Chemistry. I
>work with something called a Mass Spectrometer. The technology is about
>80 years old. It seperates ions of different mass/charges in order to
>classify them. Then we can identify the different molecules making up a
>mixture (big simplification there). While some people can say that the
>technolgy was being developed prior to WWII, we must not forget that
>during WWII the researchers on the Manhattan project were given
>permission to melt all the silver in Fort Knox to build a massive Mass
>Spectrometer. It's purpose? To extract the correct Uranium (235)
Isotope
>to make a nuclear bomb.  Why the need? Because you must push its
>abundance from about 0.7% to 99%. The technology was also used to test
>organic gas mixtures by the petroleum industry during the same period.
>
>Would the Mass spectrometer have developed as fast without WWII? Not
>really. People need money to do research.
>Would it have eventually reached its pervasiveness in the modern world?
>Yes.
>Is it useful? There is not a single aspect of life that hasn't been
>affected by this technology. This goes from paint to the latest medical
>advances.
>Have scientists recieved any Nobel prizes for this technology? I can
>remember at least 5 nobel winners.
>
>As you can see from this brief outline, the technology is useful. It
>received a huge boost from war simply because the military was willing
>to invest resources that the private sector were not. The army isn't
too
>concerned about profits. It has a virtually unlimited source of income
>(OK, not unlimited, but it can count on having a budget each and every
>year until the world ends). Does the army have to "sell" its ideas
>before it will get money to fund them? I don't really think so.
>
>The US has a ridiculous military budget. Is it all going to pay for the
>troops? No. There are research groups that are funded by the US
military
>to develop ew technologies based on the Mass Spectrometer (e.g. better
>explosive detection systems). Are the groups honest in their budgets?
>No, they double their estimates (I know this is common practice
>everywhere) and they fund other research that way.
>
>Finally: why do we have armies? Because politicians are afraid that
>otherwise the countries would be invaded. Case in point: take out your
>maps, look at South Afrcia, Look in the middle of it, you will find
>Lesotho. A completely independent country. Surrounded by South Africa.
>Now tell me, why would anyone want to invade them? They have mountains
>and water. If South Africa were to attack them, their army wouldn't
>really stand a chance (you don't get the latest weapons seling water) .
>Yet they have an army.
>
>So, the threat of war can be seen as driving science forward. Why did
>the US and  Soviet Union want to get to space?  To provide the world
>with new horizons? Or because it is the "ultimate high ground"? And yet
>we now benefit simply by having satelites that can reach the ends of
the
>world and enable us to communicate, predict weather patterns, etc.
Would
>companies have invested the billions of dollars necessary for the
>research???? For an unproven technology????
>
>
>Besides: just look at the games out tere. How many people like to play
>First person shooters? Why is it so importnat to them? Why do so many
>programmers try to get cutting edge graphics and very high frame rates?
>Why are PCs getting faster if all we did was to type reports on the
PCs?
>
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