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

On Tue, 2004-05-04 at 14:50, Ray Gomez-Bravo wrote:
> 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?"

How many counter examples will it take to show you that this is just
wrong? Frank Whittle, a British military officer invented the jet
engine. Scientists working for the USDOD invented the Internet. The
USDOD invented the supersonic aircraft. The US-NAVY invented the nuclear
submarine. The US-DOD invented GPS. And so on and on and on.

> 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. 

You don't get to decide what happened.

> 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).

No, actually not. To best of my knowledge there was only one steam
powered submarine. Steam is not practical for use in submarines.

> While I am at it, let me state that inventors are never funded by the
> military complex. 

Take a look at the amount of money the the US-DOD spend on our national
labs and on private research contracts. Then consider that that is only
the public amount. The "black" budget is larger. 

> At least I haven't found an example. 

You haven't looked very hard.

> 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.

You have a very peculiar view of inventors. Most inventors work for
large companies or the military and live in nice comfortable houses.

> Westinghouse and Tesla modified how electricity is transmitted without
> military money. Yet, the military is a big user of that precious
> commodity.

So what? Some inventors work for IBM, some work for them selves, some
work for the military. Some are military officers.

> 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.

Really? You knew them? Where did you get that idea? Most of them, all of
them, were perfectly happy with the idea of nuking Germany to stop the
holocaust. A few of them had a little trouble with the idea of nuking
Japan. Most of them kept working in the military nuclear labs or for
companies funded entirely by military money for the rest of their lives.
And, lets not forget that a bunch of them went off and invented the
Hydrogen bomb.

I remember being told that no women had ever been involved with the
building of the atomic bomb or with nuclear missiles. I checked it out.
It was just revisionist history. I remember being told that all the crew
of the nuclear bombers that attacked Japan had committed suicide out of
guilt. Turned out not to be true. 

> What they developed at Los Alamos
> was the ability to "Control a Nuclear Reaction". 

Nope, that was developed at the University of Chicago. Some of the
people on that project moved to Los Alamos. You need to get your facts
straight.

> That capability has two
> uses: let the reaction occur in milliseconds 

Much less than milliseconds. More like a nanosecond.

> 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, 

You need to check that. The economies of France, the Russian Federation,
and japan are dependent on nuclear energy. Part of the power that
reaches my house comes from a nuclear power plant. Part also comes from
wind turbines.

> 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."

Now that I might agree with. I remember seeing the premier of the Soviet
Union pounding on a table with his shoe shouting "We will bury you!" at
the top of his lungs. When a nut cake like that has nuclear weapons, and
is threatening publicly to kill you... Well, you have to take it
seriously no matter how little you trust the military or the government.

> 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

Correct. But, you miss the point. If there was no demand there would be
no profit to be made and hence not reason to build faster computers.
This is becoming a problem for Intel and AMD. The speed of their
computers is starting to get out in front of demand and they are having
trouble selling their fastest computers.

> pride/curiosity of some mathematician (applied engineer of some kind) to
> improve on a technology. 

Not with out the money. 

> 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.

IBM didn't have anything to do with inventing the transistor and IBM was
building computers before the transistor was invented. 

It would be fun to argue with you if you at least bothered to get some
fact straight.

>  [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.

Sorry, no. Again. Microcode makes computers slower. It was invented to
make computers cheaper. Most importantly it allowed companies to build
processors with a range of price/performance ratios that all implement
the same instruction set. Microcode took a long time to catch on because
it wasn't a very good technical idea, but it was great for create
marketing plans.

> 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.

And I suppose you are now going to ignore the work on programming
languages done by the USAF and USNavy? Do you even know what they are?
Do you know why a USNAVY Admiral is considered to be one of the giants
of language design? I'll give you a hint, she was there when the term
"bug" was invented.

> 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? 

*All* originally developed for the military.

> 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.

I can tell you have never actually done that. I have. Sure, it was fun.
But, believe me. I did it for the stock options and because I needed a
job. I do *this* for fun.

> 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

Enough is enough, and this is too much.

        Check your facts before you post

                Bob Pendleton

> 
> >-----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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-- 
+--------------------------------------+
+ Bob Pendleton: writer and programmer +
+ email: Bob@xxxxxxxxxxxxx             +
+ blog:  www.Stonewolf.net             +
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