Ryan said: I have a new iBook. I could take that iBook with me to Afganistan.
I could not find parts or a full replacement unit in Afganistan. I could not
make those parts there either. I could take my 1941 Lithgow Enfield Rifle
there and get a local with some simple machine tools to make a new trigger
spring or turn out a new firing pin. Thats the difference.
[Tomb] Correct. Now assume we deploy our early laser rifles by 2015. It
is now 2183. Your "new iBook" analogy fails because by this time the laser
rifle IS the Lithgow Enfield (actually, not the original laser rifle, but a
laser rifle refined for a further 120 years!). Now, if you
were to say "grav rifle" (or some other New-to-the-GZGverse tech), I'd
agree.
[Mike] Well, there have been a lot of advances recently in microchip
lithography. And some similar advances in making chip substrates could give
you a very nice desktop chip fab in less than 100 years. It's be handy for
small shops.
The problem for the colony is, of course, that the DTLitho machines can't be
made locally. And a colony can't support too many electrical engineers, or the
infrastructure to train them (labs, not libraries).
Forget the chicken-and-egg problem, what makes the machines ?
> Tomb wrote:
> Ryan said:
Ryan said:
I couldn't get a 50 year old Cathode Ray tube fixed there now. The thing to
think about is the amount of technology behind the construction and repair of
the weapon is the issue, not whether it is cutting edge or not.
[Tomb] It also has something to do with a few other things like the
particulars of the region you are talking about. You couldn't get a 50 year
old CRT repaired because you're in a smashed and beaten up region of the
world, but weapons are ubiquitous. I think if you went to other
underdeveloped areas of the world, you'd find the opposite - you could
get the 50 year old CRT repaired (at least some failures - fuses,
inductors, resistors, capacitors, even some tubes) but you'd have some
difficulty getting parts for the rifle (or at least, you'd have to have them
made or imported).
You need basically one type of complex tool to work on a weapon that is all
steel and wood. A milling machine. For a laser, you would likely need far more
compelx tools to manufacture new components.
[Tomb] The construction facilities that we would deploy if setting up a
colony in somehwere inhospitable today would differ markedly from those of 100
years ago. Even though they might have the same tasking. The same can be
extrapolated 200 years down the road.
What do you think goes into a Laser of 2183? Electronics?
[Tomb] Maybe. Depends on what design advances are made. Maybe we find a
way to do it with gas or something that doesn't require electronics. Or maybe
it only requires the equivalent of modern day chips, which could be available
surplus in vast quantity and smalls size to transport. Or even manufactured.
I'm not sure we won't see a chip fab in a box one day
- pour in sand, get out chips. (a little more to it than that, but maybe
not).
Would such an industrial process be able to be shoved into a container to be
shipped 50 Light years away and not need anything else other than bulk refined
material?
[Tomb] This is the question. My suspicion is that it will not only be
feasible but "old hat" by 2183. This is the foundational assumption where our
differences lie. And is ultimately just a "decision" since it is arguable
either way. IMU, it will work that way. You will be able to have a portable
system that will provide a low volume output of most types of things you
need... but YMMV. The limitations for these systems are: volume of production,
access to cutting edge designs, and resources to work from.
> Tomb wrote:
> What do you think goes into a Laser of 2183? Electronics?
The USAF has an Anti-missile laser aircraft (Testbed only IIRC) based on
the 747, it uses a laser that is powered not by an electric generator, but byt
a chemical reaction process.
It made me wonder a while back, why not use the same thing on a
tank-mounted
laser in DS2 - you'd have ammo charges, but it would be possible to use
such
a laser on a non-FGP vehicle.
2B^2
> --- Tomb <tomb@dreammechanics.com> wrote:
> [Tomb] Correct. Now assume we deploy our early laser
While you're at it, let's assume flying pigs as well.
By 2015, we'll be doing pretty well to have a working infantry weapon with a
laser rangefinder on it.
It
> is now 2183. Your "new iBook" analogy fails because
Which doesn't make it easier to repair. I could walk around with a "Computer"
from the 1950s (actually, I'd need a truck to haul it around) and I couldn't
get it repaired anywhere, not the US and not Afghanistan and not anywhere
inbetween.
Mechanical stuff is easy. You can get good tolerances with simple equipment.
Electronics are hard, and always will be hard. There will never be a backyard
microchip industry in the sense that there is backyard smithing or machining.
The complexity of the Enfield
is not in it's components--any given spring or
simillar item is easy and was feasible centuries before the Enfield was
actually produced. It's in designing the system in the first place (and in the
ammunition, but that's a seperate subject).
> --- Tomb <tomb@dreammechanics.com> wrote:
...
> - pour in sand, get out chips. (a little more to it
Tom, The problem with the oversimplification of
the design/production process is the end of
FT as a game! The large fleets of warships are created to protect the large
fleets of civilian freighters that ply the spaceways. If no need exists for
freighters, I.E. colonies become self sustaining after a generation or two,
trade becomes extinct and the excuse for the game ceased to exist.
Bye for now,
> On 29-Jan-02 at 19:26, John Atkinson (johnmatkinson@yahoo.com) wrote:
> By 2015, we'll be doing pretty well to have a working
Really? I thought the next generation weapon had a laser rangefinder to set
where the grenades go off. I would think 13 years would be enough time to get
all the kinks out. But then there is Roger's Rule of Thumb, "Nothing is ever
easy." This one is from many years of being a Unix Sysadmin, but it seems to
apply elsewhere.
> The complexity of the Enfield
If you say so... Of course the ammo for a LASER is non-existant so we
KNOW
it is not an issue for LASERs. ;-)
I thought I heard some deer hunters at work (I live in Texas where EVERYBODY
except me hunts deer it seems) talking about a "LASER sight" so-and-so
bought last deer season. Granted they were talking about a sporting sight. But
if it can done today for sport why not in a decade or two for the
military (you know, the guys with the mult-million dollar budgets)?
Scott
> From: Roger Books <books@jumpspace.net>
> --- Roger Books <books@jumpspace.net> wrote:
> > By 2015, we'll be doing pretty well to have a
Sure. And if it's in service in a mere decade, I'll eat my hat. That thing has
enough bells and whistles to guarantee that it will NEVER be maintainable by
real live soldiers, and besides it weighs 24 lbs.
From: John Leary <john_t_leary@yahoo.com>
> If no need exists for freighters, I.E. colonies
Sorry, no. Just because you're capable of surviving without imports doesn't
mean that's the most efficient way to go. If you read up on economic and trade
theory you should easily find proof of this.
--- Scott Clinton <grumbling_grognard@hotmail.com>
wrote:
> I thought I heard some deer hunters at work (I live
We don't need a laser sight on every weapon right now. And there are some
available for those units that need them. But they aren't available to
everyone for a couple reasons.
1)Military technology used by actual warrior (ie: Not
the Navy, Air Force, or other aviators) lags about 1-2
decades behind the civillian world.
2)Most of those billions are wasted on new planes and ships, not weapons used
at under 1km range.
3)They still havn't made one that will stand up to the abuse dished out by Joe
Snuffy.
4)They aren't necessary.
Scott:
> If you say so... Of course the ammo for a LASER is non-existant so
Not necessarily true. It may not be economical to recharge the power
cells, and the lasers may use gases which must be replaced--certainly
some present day lasers do. I'm not saying they *will* after 200 years of
development, I'm saying they *might*
> On 29-Jan-02 at 20:16, John Atkinson (johnmatkinson@yahoo.com) wrote:
24lbs? Holy Sh*t batman. Does it come with an integral tripod?
My God you live here in Texas and you don't hunt! I'm in shock...) But I have
to agree with you on this one. Technology doesn't stand still.
Don
> I thought I heard some deer hunters at work (I live in Texas where
The 24 pounds number is nothing to be scared of. Take a look at other laser
applications, or even general electronics,
and you'll see that the 1st-generation prototypes are always orders of
magnitude larger/heaver/more expensive than the 3rd or 4th generation
units.
I'm not saying they will ever enter service, but a 24-pound 1st
generation design is not especially scary.
> Roger Books wrote:
On 29-Jan-02 at 20:29, Edward Lipsett (translation@intercomltd.com)
wrote:
> I'm not saying they will ever enter service, but a 24-pound 1st
If it were all electronics I wouldn't worry, but there are many pieces that
won't allow weight reduction without reducing survivability or function.
--- Edward Lipsett <translation@intercomltd.com>
wrote:
> The 24 pounds number is nothing to be scared of.
It is if you've ever humped an M-240 (Euros spell that
"FN MAG") and knew in your bones how heavy that is when added to the rest of a
combat soldier's load.
> Take a look at other laser applications, or even
Anyone here ever heard of a prototype of a military weapon LOOSING weight
during the design process?? Usually the 1st generation design is much lighter
than the final product.
> --- Roger Books <books@jumpspace.net> wrote:
> > Sure. And if it's in service in a mere decade,
Nah, just a grenade launcher, laser rangefinder, integral computer, wireless
modem, keyboard, 12" monitor, auxillary diesel generator, emergency rations,
and a tube of nanites for use in making repairs. Oh yeah, and an actual bullet
launcher
equivelant to an M-4 carbine.[1]
> Nah, just a grenade launcher, laser rangefinder,
John L said: The problem with the oversimplification of
the design/production process is the end of
FT as a game! The large fleets of warships are created to protect the large
fleets of civilian freighters that ply the spaceways. If no need exists for
freighters, I.E. colonies become self sustaining after a generation or two,
trade becomes extinct and the excuse for the game ceased to exist.
[Tomb] I don't figure so John. Here's why: If a colony becomes self
sufficient, that means it can get by without external input. Get by, I said,
not have all the luxuries it wants. There would still be a trade in these
goods. Not have every high tech state of the world gizmo.
And you make the large assumption that trade exists only between
immature colonies and their major powers. Look at today - England and
the US and Canada have vast trading relationships, and they aren't based on a
lack of self sufficiency (at need, I suspect any of them could be self
sufficient with a bunch of belt tightening and some rethinking).
Trade exists in part to move goods from regions where they are cheap to
produce to regions where a demand exists. That does not stipulate you cannot
produce that good at the other end, but perhaps it isn't as cheap. You might
not choose to produce that good. But do not and could not are not the same
things.
And you further assume that the self-sufficiency of a colony will get it
out from under the power that started it... ha ha ha! That power
probably built the colony to reap a return and to import things _it_
needs. So making the colony self sufficient is stage 1. Stage 2 is having the
colony contribute its goods back to the parent power in
exchange for a few luxuries and latest-design goods that the colony
can't (easily) produce but probably wants.
Not all relationships in trade relate to what people need - many relate
to what people want and what people can afford. This is why St.Jon can sell
piles of new ships to those with huge drawers of unpainted lead.
I do think that some powers may choose a colonial strategy based on the
_maintenance_ of demand for a few key resources from home... just to
keep the colonies beholden to their founding power. But this will not be the
case everywhere.
John A said (roughly):
1) We won't have a laser rifle deployed by 2015. Taking bets their won't be a
laser rifle design that is fully operable in at least limited operational
deployment by 2015 within the USAF (even if it is in sniper or some special
service role)? In front of hundreds of witnesses, I'll put $100 USD on it if
you are a betting man. I happen to have confidence that the energy issue will
be beaten by then and the weapon design is already tucked away. I'm willing to
put my money where my mouth is....
2) We won't have chip fabs ever like we have mills. In matters of combat
engineering or Roman history, I'll give you credit for knowing more than me.
When it comes to chip design and fabrication technologies, I'm sorry but I
don't believe you have sufficient expertise to make that judgement
- I'm far closer (though still not an Oracle) to that environment and
the companies doing the work. I'm not saying it'll be 10 years till we have
"fab in a box, pour in sand" but modern fabs can be remarkably small and the
technologies are coming along to make them orders of magnitude smaller. I'm
not going to be around to see it, but I bet the technology for a portable chip
fab (one capable of producing something as simple as control electronics for
lasers...) will be available within
40-50 years. The pour in sand variety, if we haven't shifted entirely
from a chip-based system of electronics which is quite possible, will
likely be feasible in under 100. Maybe much sooner. No point in betting
here... but if I knew I'd be around, I'd offer you a bet here too.
Tomb.
> --- Tomb <tomb@dreammechanics.com> wrote:
> 1) We won't have a laser rifle deployed by 2015.
My statement was that they would not have begin fielding a laser weapon
intended for line service. After all, your comparison was to an Enfield, not a
sniper rifle.
I doubt that they'll have even a sniper rifle, though.
Gold is trading at $282.00 per oz, right now (commodity price for gold bullion
according to Monex). So $100 US, that's.354 oz of gold. On 1 Jan 2015, if
there is an unclassified deployment of an
operational man-portable laser weapon not intended for
use in vacuum by the US Armed Forces, I will remit to you.354 oz of gold,
converted into the currency of your choice, provided we are both still alive
and communicating in any form. I don't think $100 US will be quite such a
significant sum in 13 years.
> --- Don M <dmaddox1@hot.rr.com> wrote:
> What no can/bottle opener?
No. That would be useful and light-weight.
> At 7:52 PM -0600 1/29/02, Don M wrote:
Not so far. Ther American Soldiers to get them don't use bottle openers, they
use their teeth.
> From: John Atkinson <johnmatkinson@yahoo.com>
Besides, the Israelis already did that, and we wouldn't want to be copying a
successful design - not a sufficiently innovative approach. ;-)
2B^2
> On Tue, Jan 29, 2002 at 09:06:31PM -0500, Tomb wrote:
See WWII.
> Trade exists in part to move goods from regions where they are cheap to
You might even move goods from an area where they cost X to produce to
an area where they cost less than X to produce - _if_ the recipients can
use the time they save in not producing the things to do something else which
earns them more than they'd save by making their own things.
> And you further assume that the self-sufficiency of a colony will get
Which is why the parent power tends to get annoyed when the colony wants
to break free - it's a major loss of investment.
> John Atkinson wrote:
> Sure. And if it's in service in a mere decade, I'll
Er... John? You seem to have mixed up two different weapons which both LRFs to
set the fuses of airburst grenades, or else you use a very variant of
the pound...
The OCSW (IIRC "Objective Crew-served Support Weapon", though it could
be
"Objective Crew Served Weapon" instead) is a 25mm, tripod-mounted
weapon.
The gun part of it - ie., not including the FCS, tripod etc. - weighs
about 24 lbs.
The OICW, or "Objective Infantry Combat Weapon", is the 5.56mm/20mm
combo weapon. It currently (as in "existing prototypes") weighs "only" a
little over 8 kg. "Measures are being introduced" to reduce this to less than
7 kg
- which is only slightly more than a loaded M14A1. Heavy, yes, but
soldiers have managed weights like this and worse before.
Now, whether either of these weapons will actually work as advertised is
somewhat debatable. Those 20mm and 25mm grenades are *tiny* - unless the
US have made revolutionary advances in high explosives lately, neither would
seem to have powerful enough grenades to defeat today's modern body armour.
Later,
Ryan said:
As far as shipping lasers, again though, if you're shipping out lasers for
every Colonial Militiaman that needs one why did St John make the rules the
way he did? Isn't the NAC giving its best weapons to the SAS and other special
forces types first?
[Tomb] Seems to me NAC Royal Marines and Merc Figures have Laser Rifles.
These aren't special forces. The ubiquity of lasers in the figure ranges
offers some insight that they aren't that much of a holy grail.
I'm pretty sure that what firms like Holland and Holland, McMillian Brothers
and Remington are offering in 2183 will still be different from what the NAC
is equipping it's ground forces.
[Tomb] So?
Yes but a few engineers doesn't an entire Industry make. You need more than
just the basic raw materials and far more than just the know how. Open source
is struggling. Congress isn't helping right now either.
[Tomb] While we're NOT going to start that, IF I believed that were
true, I'd blame that on two things: 1) People's perception of the industry
struggling because no one can (surprise) make much money on free stuff and a
lot of companies launched frivolous open source projects in attempts to get
labour for free (which was a bad plan before it was done) and 2) it costs
money to run hosts for Open Source. But neither of these points, nor the legal
struggles of open source, is
anything other than a Red Herring to the discussion at hand - I cited
Open Source as a way of pointing out a certain type of human spirit -
that which is not perhaps solely motivated by money and that which wants to
build things. The Law crushing the later part and the basic need to eat having
some impact on the former hardly refute the idea that you will be able to find
a number of trained personel willing to trade in a
$60KUS per year job in a big UberCity for a 100-acre farm, a job paying
$30KUS per year, and the chance to be a big-wheel in a small pond and to
build a new world. The desire to get away from UberCorps and UrbanHell are
already well represented by the phenomena of "Downshifting" and the colonies
would offer an ideal outlet. I'm not saying people will be in a rush to move
to some awful mining hellworld, but that isn't most
colonies - most colonies will be established on reasonably earth-like
worlds in order to keep colonization costs and problems manageable and
in order to offer us a chance of seeing them self-sufficient sometime.
And under those circumstances, the colonies can afford to trade land and
future prospects for skilled labour. And people will go. Or did you forget how
the American West was colonized?
And 20 years ago everyone thought we were to have established a base on mars.
40 years ago, they thought we'd all have robots running around in our houses
cleaning things. That and we'd all have personal flying vehicles.
[Tomb] And a few years before that, they thought we'd only need 5
computers in the world. And a famous man thought we'd only need 640K ever.
Guess what? Some predictions are wrong, but generally, the world has evolved
into something that would not have been predicatable, and
generally (IMO) it has done so in the "better-than-predicted-capability"
direction.
The thing is though, many of those chips are made at a single plant. Memory
prices sky rocketed a few years ago because the one of the few plants that
made them in South East Asia burned down. That small a manufacturing pool is
very much due to the precise nature and intensive needs of such a product. You
do far more than lay bits of sand out on a cookie sheet. Processors have some
amazing amounts of precision metallurgy in them.
[Tomb] Again you work into what I think of as apples and oranges. This
was the case because it could be the case. These chip fabs could make lots of
chips and there was no good reason (that anyone thought about) to change that.
I think you'll find the US Gov't has made conscious efforts to reduce
dependence on Japanese and other Asian silicon... because it is now aware of
the risks. But that is besides the point... the point is that this situation
arose because of cheap available transport and no real need not to have it be
the case. Is the colony analogous? Do they have cheap, abundant shipping? If
so, then this situation may arise. If not, then it won't.
[Tomb] As a further aside, the memory price bump was hardly crippling.
It was an inconvenience. A colony could withstand this just as easily, if that
mattered. It was remedied reasonably quickly. And if it hadn't been, other
alternatives were available (with some expense).
I'd be bloody surprised if you could get such processes easier as time goes
on. Just look at the modern automobile. Its gotten more complex to make and
requires more specialized parts than 30 years ago. Not less.
[Tomb] Don't ever confuse current day market practices in an industry
that has a HUGE interest in selling you a car every 5 years, service
throughout the lifespan, and preventing you from working on the device
yourself with what our technology is capable of if we need it to be!
I can rewind a stator for a motor with the same things my grandfather would
have used. I cannot repair a one piece surface mount computer board from my
Honda Insight. The parts come from a particular factory.
[Tomb] I can probably repair some surface mount boards (not easy, I will
admit). And I definitely can repair boards using DIPPS or other more easily
accessible interconnection technologies. And the colonies don't necessarily
require the utmost in small packaging to do the job. They just need robust. A
bunch of chips soldered into DIPP sockets and using non SMT resistors,
capacitors, etc. will be a bit bigger and less wieldy, but it will work for
most purposes. Heck, there is a reason most embedded systems use computers out
of date in the "computer world of consumers". One reason is reliability is
proven. The other is that you can do a heck of a lot with an old 386 and it is
very low power! So what if our colonies in 2180 use computers from 2150?
They're still 150 years from now, and in 20 years we've taken a desktop PC
that weighed 30 pounds, multiplied power and capability many times over, and
crammed a more capable unit into a watch! Where will we be 150 years from now?
So what if the colony can't support the cutting edge tech. It'll support
sufficient technology to make your idea of colonization seem like living with
primitives in caves. IMO.
> [Tomb] If you include the cities in ND, I think you'd find more than a
> cheaper, and the argument I believe indicated that mass transport of
Yes, but the whole point is that these items aren't going to be getting made
insitu. If they are being shipped in and they are already the cream of the
crop in weaponry then I highly doubt the average militiaman is going to have a
first rate weapon. Likely he'll have something cheap, reliable and effective.
[Tomb] I'm not suggesting they have the top line laser rifle with:
- multi power source capability
- fancy multi-mode synthetic vision sights (IR/TI/Doppler/etc)
- Range good to (est) 1500-200m
- Armour penetration
- Accuracy in the well-sub-MOA range
- Ability to fit in plenty of other peripherals of military use
- Ability to act as communicator, designator, etc.
- Selective fire (ss, ab, fa)
[Tomb] Instead, imagine that they have:
- single power source
- basic optical sights
- range good to 400m
- limited penetration vs. modern armour (but fine vs no armour)
- no optional modes nor capacities for foreign add ons
- Single shot only
[Tomb] So instead of a fancy, expensive, hard to maintain system, they
focus on a reliable, robust, simple system. Minimal variety in parts, maximum
reliability and lifespan. Sufficient for the task.
Besides, most of those Ham Radio dudes couldn't even begin to think about how
to make some of the more basic components in their radios.
[Tomb] Don't know how you train your Hams.... but up here you learn to
build a radio from some pretty basic components. Yes, you might need a PLL for
FM. But I can build AM with much simpler components. And I have built AM and
FM radios myself. It isn't that hard... it does take some finesse and patience
though. But this is with tech from years gone by! Hardly 150 years away!
Nope, I'll probably have a few specialist. But I doubt any
[Tomb] You must have stopped in mid sentence here.
I think you'd still have a hard time getting a computer maker to move to ND.
[Tomb] If the government acted to make it a place the workers thought of
going to and that companies paid attention to, and went FAR out of their way
to get the first big anchor company, then other companies would start to
arrive with less of a pull. This is not an overnight process but can be
accomplished. Winnipeg is working on it, New Brunswick has had a fair degree
of success. Ottawa (although having some other pluses to start) has made huge
strides in this area.
> [Tomb] You know, this discussion reminds me of a group of generals
> general increase in educational levels. Nor other factors. History is
We're not talking war fighting here. Its economics and things like Moore's
Law.
[Tomb] Moore's Theorem. There is no way to prove this mathematically as
a truism that I'm aware of and just because a Theory has held for a while does
not make it a law, despite media blatherings.
[Tomb] And the point about war was not that you were fighting a war, but
you were relying on historical precendent to project future events, which is
analogous to how some generals prepare to fight wars, with generally
unpleasant consequences.
Its more like the folks that (as I said above) stated we'd have flying cars by
the year 2001. We're barely to the electric car stage.
[Tomb] Actually, we probably have viable flying car designs around. The
main shortcoming here is it represents an entire transformation of our
transportation system, our urban environments, our driver education, and our
fuel distribution system. That's a lot to take on. It isn't a technological
shortcoming that held this up, it was the unwillingness or failure to consider
the societal ramifications. The same does not hold true for what I'm
suggesting in the colonies IMO.
Likewise Austrailia. They had thousands of people. Many of them knew how to
fix a car. Far far fewer of them knew how to build a tank. In fact the person
( A Colonel Watson) that helped design the Sentinel was shipped (in 1940) from
Great Britain via the US (he looked at the US M3 designs on the way out).
[Tomb] So when you start to do something you've never done, you need
some outside advice. But if we've put out a hundred colonies, this is old hat.
It is no longer "new effort".
The first design (The AC I) they settled on used the final drive design from
the M3. When they got around to looking at the manufacturing side of this it
was realized that this was going to be too sophisticated for Austrailian
facilities at the time (April '41).
[Tomb] Surprise. They tried to port a high tech design to the backwoods!
(Okay, not _real_ high-tech, but higher tech than the facilities could
support).
It would take a year for the fabrication tooling to arrive from England.
(What's the time from one planet to another in FT terms? Half a week? 3
Months?)
[Tomb] And they were doing it in a hurry during a war. Different
constraints than sending out a space colony. They weren't saying "we
have time to redesign the whole thing to use the skills/manufacturing at
hand". They just wanted a quick way to slap some vehicles into production. AND
they also wanted to produce lots of them. This might not be quite a worthwhile
analogy for those reasons. Though it does highlight the point that you need to
take into account what skills and resources are avialable.
So, they decided to down size the weight and size of the vehicle so they could
use locally made truck components for the engines and final drives, when they
finally worked everything out, it was
realized it would be limited to a 2 pounder gun and a 16-18 ton
weight. By september they decided to abandon this design (AC II) and go back
to the AC I. They simplified the final drive and changed to using horzontal
volute bogies and had a working prototype by Jan of '42. And by August of '42
they had the first production vehicle off the assembly lines at the Chullona
Shops build specifically to make these tanks. They built a total of 66 tanks
by July of '43. By this time it was realized the US could supply the entire
requirement of vehicles for the 1st Austrailian Armoured Division that had
recently been formed. Thus the Sentinel never saw combat and was only used for
training in Austrailia. You should know the hull and turret castings were
considered an achievement for Austrailian manufacturing. The
thing used 3 Cadillac V-8s in a clover leaf arrangement.
[Tomb] So what you are saying was it was effectively cheaper to have it
done elsewhere. If that's the case, then the colonies will do the same thing
and import. But if not, then the situation isn't analogous. And another item:
This comparison assumes they were trying to build (on the
frontier) something equivalent to main-line military technology. I'm not
suggesting that by any means. Or don't believe so.
This all shows that just because people know how to do it
[Tomb] But you pointed out they didn't.... so they needed outside help.
and that
you have the raw materials available it doesn't mean that you can do it fast,
cheap and in even close to the same scale that a industry can that is much
larger and more broad.
[Tomb] Can't argue with that.
It takes a multitude of supporting industries for making engines. Let alone
more complex components. Just because you can make one kind of component,
doesn't mean you can turn around and make another in a few days. You have to
re-tool, redesign and re-arrange the factory for that particular item.
[Tomb] It always takes tech complexity to make the state of the art item
with state of the art efficiency and features. If you are willing to settle
for a lesser feature set and apply state of the art engineering to building
something robust and simple (rarely done in the real world because people want
features and there is no market), you CAN produce something far more robust
and simple.
Outside of the Lockheed martin plant, there are a pile of assembly jigs and
stands that were used to make the C141. All of those now rusty bits of metal
were made to build the production C141s. They were made using the prototypes
as an example to get the production floor arranged and configured for making
the aircraft in multiples rather than in single units. Those jigs are now junk
rusting in a field. It took at least a year just to make those jigs and get
them all just right so they could turn out the first production aircraft.
[Tomb] Yep. And I can probably point to plenty of examples of how
industry in the 1920s did things a certain way and it led to big wastes. OTOH,
I can point to the same types of industries today and indicate how they have
stopped those wastes by new industrial processes. They've managed greater
reuse, recycling, etc. and found they need less material and simpler processes
to achieve the same degree of capability. That's what happens over time. Hence
why I suggest the colonies might be 20 years behind, but they'll have robust,
cheap to make tech. Even if you consider it UberTech from your poor 150 year
old vantage point....;)
If you get 15 guys to make a laser rifle in their work shop over 10
weeks using parts shipped in or painstakingly made in-situ then
great. Just because they do that, doesn't mean they can turn around and start
turning them out by the dozens in the same amount of time. More back industry
needs to be set up and running before hand.
[Tomb] This I somewhat agree with. If I get 3 guys working in an
advanced machine shop (in situ) and they make a robust and simple laser rifle
in two or three days, sure they aren't cranking out 200 a day like UberArms
smallest production unit, but they build theirs to last 20 years. They don't
care that UberArms can outproduce them by an order of 600 if they can't get
access to those 600 weapons due to shipping or cost. Further economics may
make it such that these machinists (who get paid in local dollars which may
well be less than the value of the currency backing the manufacture of the 600
guns, not even accounting
for shipping) may take some of their pay in trade/barter. Something
tells me that will thrive on smaller colonies. The gaurantee of the ability to
fix their own kit, the ability to afford
it, and the ability to do goods-for-services barter as well as the
ability to make very long lived kit (if not state of the art) may well justify
exactly what I'm suggesting.
> [Tomb] Very true. Mind you, some of the groups might be happier away
Planets are big places.
[Tomb] All of them? Even if you only have one major power station (for
example)? I think you might underrate some of the issues that will centralize
early colonial populations. And besides, the spiritual taint would be enough
to make some people want to move....;)
Alan said:
If you can make a man-portable laser with a power generator capable of
multiple firing (rather than a 1-shot chemical reaction) and fit it on a
backpack, making a powerplant that would drive a 100-tonne tank for a
thousand km and fit in a suitcase is Noooo problem.
[Tomb] Not counting of course the fact that said tank is mounting a
laser about 20x as big as the one you are carrying and it mounts a huge power
consumptive ECM suite. Plus let's look at how much energy is involved in
lifting 100 tonnes, holding it suspended, and accelerating it up and down
hills and up to a few hundred kph. I think this statement of Alan's is a bit
"long in the tooth". Unless he'd care to back it with some math?
> And 20 years ago everyone thought we were to have established a base
Real quick google search on "flying car" brought back these primary hits
(first page results):
http://www.moller.com/
http://www.wired.com/news/gizmos/0,1452,43199,00.html
http://www.vtol.co.il/VTOL%20Page%203.htm
For more links, and a brief history of the flying car:
http://www.howstuffworks.com/flying-car2.htm
And for those interested in how flying cars and "highways in the sky" could
happen...
http://www.observer.co.uk/uk_news/story/0,6903,442773,00.html
So anyone want to reconsider "and they predicted we'd all own flying cars"
(On a funny note... I originally put "start a strategic withdrawl..." Had
sudden fits of giggling of the image of a stratego game piece talking with a
southern drawl as I told it to attack the bomb... I should go to sleep now.)
> We're not talking war fighting here. Its economics and things like
*cough* It's Moore's Law. It's a tongue-in-cheek "joke" in
hacker/computer jargon. The "law" states that technology will double
itself every 18 months. The actual "implication is that somebody, somewhere is
going to be able to build a better chip than you if you rest on your laurels,
so you'd better start pushing hard on the problem." (Jargon File) Also used to
refer to the fact that hardware purchased today
is already out-modeled and out-performed.
Similar to Gate's Law, Parkinson's Law of Data, and Murphy's Law.
The actual theorum the joke is based on was in a speech given by Intel founder
Gordon Moore in 1964. The theorum states: the logic density of silicon
integrated circuits has closely followed the curve
(bits per square inch) = 2^(t - 1962) where t is time in years;
that is, the amount of information storable on a given amount of silicon has
roughly doubled every year since the technology was invented (Thanks to the
Jargon file (www.tuxedo.org), www.dict.org, and The Free
On-line Dictionary of Computing (13 Mar 01) for specific information)
> [Tomb] It always takes tech complexity to make the state of the art
Not true... Robust and simple are OFTEN built in the real world. The
problem is, these terms are _really_ subjective terms. Simple and
robust chips are much more complex and unreliable when compared to
fire-starting
equipment like a lighter. Which is much more complex than say a
match. Most first run products are simple, feature-poor commodities.
It's the 2.0 and beyond that get nasty.
Simple and robust are not always easier to manufacture either. It is a simple
procedure you can do in the house to create Oxygen and Hydrogen, (both fairly
unstable in this condition). Many other forms of
fire-starting equipment require massive refineries, complex chemical
processes, etc. Still, when it comes down to it... I'd rather a match to start
my fire.
> At 11:45 29/01/02 -0500, you wrote:
Which is why the US military has such a good dental plan?:)
Cheers
> Roger Burton West wrote:
> You might even move goods from an area where they cost X to produce to
Economic theorists have a way of describing these situations: Producing the
goods cost more than X (the cost of lost opportunities is not an accounting
fiction). If it really was cheaper for the importers of the goods to make it
locally, they will maximise their profits.
Importers have to be careful when importing these goods; unless, order cycles
are short. If a good *could* be made cheaper locally, but isn't, there is
likely a very good reason. The most likely one is that the possibility of the
market drying up is high. Stuffed toys are more expensive than they could be,
because the lifetime of a stuffed toy's popularity precludes designing
machines to stitch them up (even the cheapest ones are likely hand
> On Thu, Jan 31, 2002 at 07:59:56AM -0500, Richard and Emily Bell wrote:
Producing the
> goods cost more than X (the cost of lost opportunities is not an
Yes. I've been a professional economist... :-) I didn't see any point
in using specialised language here, though, when normal language could
describe the situation adequately.
> Importers have to be careful when importing these goods; unless, order
Yes; I certainly wouldn't want to claim this will always happen. Like most
simple economic theories, this one works best with commoditised
goods - i.e. the thing made by one manufacturer is indistinguishable
from the thing made by another. (Where we've been talking about
miniatures, this is true - they're the same miniatures. But any branding
or advertising distorts the situation, which is very likely to be the case in
your stuffed toy example.)