6 ms·

I was watching the Boardwalk Empire not so long ago. When the main character was a boy, people were wearing fancy clothes, sending letters, and riding horses. A

by f6v 5y ago

I was watching the Boardwalk Empire not so long ago. When the main character was a boy, people were wearing fancy clothes, sending letters, and riding horses. As a grown man, he talked on the phone and flew a plane. Whereas my parents were flying planes when they were young. I fly almost the same planes(yes, more safe and efficient) and it takes the same time to get from A to B.

supernovae 5y ago
General Aviation was destroyed for many reasons, none of which were really technology or innovation problems. Commercial General Aviation was decimated by NIMBAs, Commercial Airline pressure, massive population growths, expensive to insure/maintain/own and to be honest, a lack of care of passion from aviation for the past few generations. But.. the homebuilt and sport space has innovated quite a bit - glass cockpits, auto pilots, efficient engines, electric power plants, micro jets, composite aircraft..
- dredmorbius 5y ago
  NIMBYs, not NIMBAs?
  - supernovae 5y ago
    yah, yard/area ;)
    - goodcanadian 5y ago
      My brain imagined that "A" stood for "airspace."
InitialLastName 5y ago
> I fly almost the same planes(yes, more safe and efficient) and it takes the same time to get from A to B. It takes even longer now while you wait in lines to get through the security parade.
lotsofpulp 5y ago
Now you can contact almost anyone on earth using a pocket size computer and even see them, and share with them a very large portion of humanity’s knowledge.
- dTal 5y ago
  >a very large portion of humanity’s knowledge. I know that's the meme, but I think it's false and a dangerous thing to tell ourselves. Walk into any university library, pull a random book off the shelf, and flip to a random page. What are the odds that the information on that page can be found in a google search? And that's just the things that are publicly documented at all. There's libraries worth of implicit industrial knowledge too, including material that is explicitly proprietary. How does Intel or AMD design a modern computer chip? How does Rolls Royce design a jet engine? How do you fabricate a mono-crystalline solar cell? How do you mine for raw materials? This is "I, Pencil" writ large. I would estimate only the smallest fraction of humanity's knowledge can be found on the internet - well under a percent, at least if you don't count "emailing an expert". If we had to rebuild society on the basis of what we could find on the internet, we'd be lucky to reach 20th century technology levels.
  - lotsofpulp 5y ago
    Fair enough. A very large portion of catalogue-able knowledge? Or orders more than was available before within a few seconds in your hands.
  - Jensson 5y ago
    > Walk into any university library, pull a random book off the shelf, and flip to a random page. What are the odds that the information on that page can be found in a google search? If you include pirating sites? Close to 100%, most books are scanned into pdf's and can be found free online. So only thing stopping this is legal and not technological.
    - dragonwriter 5y ago
      > > Walk into any university library, pull a random book off the shelf, and flip to a random page. What are the odds that the information on that page can be found in a google search? > If you include pirating sites? Or...just Google’s own collection: https://support.google.com/websearch/answer/9690276?hl=en https://support.google.com/websearch/answer/9690276?hl=en
johncearls 5y ago
While your parents have been flying in the same planes, they payed twice as much (inflation adjusted) and a lot less often. I too wish I was vacationing in Luna City tovarich, but things have gotten better by quite a bit. https://www.theatlantic.com/business/archive/2013/02/how-airline-ticket-prices-fell-50-in-30-years-and-why-nobody-noticed/273506/ https://www.theatlantic.com/business/archive/2013/02/how-air...
- ClumsyPilot 5y ago
  I think appropriate comparison would be, what would equivalent travel cost, in money an time, to the parents of your parents. The argument is not that nothing is getting better, but that the rate of improvement has slowed. So the frequently touted 'exponential progress' is a myth.

by f6v 5y ago

supernovae 5y ago

General Aviation was destroyed for many reasons, none of which were really technology or innovation problems. Commercial General Aviation was decimated by NIMBAs, Commercial Airline pressure, massive population growths, expensive to insure/maintain/own and to be honest, a lack of care of passion from aviation for the past few generations. But.. the homebuilt and sport space has innovated quite a bit - glass cockpits, auto pilots, efficient engines, electric power plants, micro jets, composite aircraft..

dredmorbius 5y ago
NIMBYs, not NIMBAs?
- supernovae 5y ago
  yah, yard/area ;)
  - goodcanadian 5y ago
    My brain imagined that "A" stood for "airspace."

InitialLastName 5y ago

> I fly almost the same planes(yes, more safe and efficient) and it takes the same time to get from A to B. It takes even longer now while you wait in lines to get through the security parade.

lotsofpulp 5y ago

Now you can contact almost anyone on earth using a pocket size computer and even see them, and share with them a very large portion of humanity’s knowledge.

dTal 5y ago
>a very large portion of humanity’s knowledge. I know that's the meme, but I think it's false and a dangerous thing to tell ourselves. Walk into any university library, pull a random book off the shelf, and flip to a random page. What are the odds that the information on that page can be found in a google search? And that's just the things that are publicly documented at all. There's libraries worth of implicit industrial knowledge too, including material that is explicitly proprietary. How does Intel or AMD design a modern computer chip? How does Rolls Royce design a jet engine? How do you fabricate a mono-crystalline solar cell? How do you mine for raw materials? This is "I, Pencil" writ large. I would estimate only the smallest fraction of humanity's knowledge can be found on the internet - well under a percent, at least if you don't count "emailing an expert". If we had to rebuild society on the basis of what we could find on the internet, we'd be lucky to reach 20th century technology levels.
- lotsofpulp 5y ago
  Fair enough. A very large portion of catalogue-able knowledge? Or orders more than was available before within a few seconds in your hands.
- Jensson 5y ago
  > Walk into any university library, pull a random book off the shelf, and flip to a random page. What are the odds that the information on that page can be found in a google search? If you include pirating sites? Close to 100%, most books are scanned into pdf's and can be found free online. So only thing stopping this is legal and not technological.
  - dragonwriter 5y ago
    > > Walk into any university library, pull a random book off the shelf, and flip to a random page. What are the odds that the information on that page can be found in a google search? > If you include pirating sites? Or...just Google’s own collection: https://support.google.com/websearch/answer/9690276?hl=en https://support.google.com/websearch/answer/9690276?hl=en

johncearls 5y ago

While your parents have been flying in the same planes, they payed twice as much (inflation adjusted) and a lot less often. I too wish I was vacationing in Luna City tovarich, but things have gotten better by quite a bit. https://www.theatlantic.com/business/archive/2013/02/how-airline-ticket-prices-fell-50-in-30-years-and-why-nobody-noticed/273506/ https://www.theatlantic.com/business/archive/2013/02/how-air...

ClumsyPilot 5y ago
I think appropriate comparison would be, what would equivalent travel cost, in money an time, to the parents of your parents. The argument is not that nothing is getting better, but that the rate of improvement has slowed. So the frequently touted 'exponential progress' is a myth.