Tech Tuesday for 10/16 Swimming Bullets and Mortal Coil

14 thoughts on “Tech Tuesday for 10/16 Swimming Bullets and Mortal Coil”

1. TT4: No surprise to anyone who has studied the human vision system. The brain makes up an embarrassing amount of what we see, and can be readily fooled.

   TT11: With no disrespect to Paul Allen the person, I spent far too much of my technical career fighting with Microsoft’s horrid technology decisions, and a number of years watching them largely halt the development of video compression algorithms by buying up and suppressing anything that looked like it might be better than their own limited tech. No kind words or thoughts about Microsoft from me. I generally disagree with “giant of technology” other than in the sense that he got obscenely rich. His largest technical contribution appears to have been buying up QDOS so they could get the original IBM contract.Report

   1. Allen did a lot more ‘good’ by funding other people than he ever did at MS.Report

2. tt4 – so do we now owe Kanye an apology?Report

   1. I wouldn’t go that far…

      I’m just thinking that it’s another strike against eye witness testimony.Report

3. TT7: Larger ships, especially carriers, often have workshops on-board for fabricating things. I can very easily see ships, even smaller ships, buying one or two of these metal fab printers and using them to print parts, so that the only things the shop would need are the tooling to finish the part (deburring, smoothing, etc.). Loading an assortment of powdered alloys would probably take up a lot less space in the hold than all the various spares, and would make the logistics a bit easier.

   On the other hand, the movement of the ship at sea might make printing a challenge.Report

   1. Curious the logistics of RAS/UNREP for base minerals and materials involved in that.Report

      1. Pelican cases.Report

         1. That small a container, really?Report

            1. Depends on how much you need, but you’d want something watertight and buoyant.
               https://www.pelican-case.com/0500.html

               I’m sure Pelican could be convinced to make something bigger.Report

               1. They already have contracts for various off-sized pieces of hardware so makes since.Report

   2. I suspect real time dynamic positioning and vibration isolation are solved problems, somewhere (eg, the integrated circuit industry has been working on those for a long time). The two I’d be worried about are speed (will hours be available to fabricate the part?) and power. Besides lasers, most of the metal printing systems require a controlled temperature electric furnace for final treatment of the printed parts. Aren’t most of the current-generation big Navy ships turning out to be electricity limited?Report

      1. At first, a parts printer would be limited to things that are for non-critical systems. You wouldn’t want to be printing a main drive shaft bearing, for instance. But maybe something for an AC unit would be fine. As the printers get faster, that would change.

         As for power, IIRC that becomes an issue during combat, when all the weapons systems and radars are online. During normal cruising, there is power to spare. But perhaps @kolohe is more dialed into the state of things and can correct me if I am wrong.Report

4. If anybody wants a different lefty to kick around, Seattle’s Kshama Sawant has some pointed criticism on how Paul Allen spent his money.Report

   1. Likely the most unpopular opinion I have is Buying Yachts Is Good and more people should buy yachts. Yacht construction provides good jobs at good wages.Report

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