[TUHS] Questions for TUHS great minds

Steffen Nurpmeso steffen at sdaoden.eu
Thu Jan 12 05:46:50 AEST 2017


Hello.

"Steve Johnson" <scj at yaccman.com> wrote:
 |>>  Or does the idea of a single OS disintegrate into a fractal cloud \
 |>>of zero-cost VM's?  What would a meta-OS need to manage that?  Would \
 |>>we still 
 |recognize it as a Unix?
 |
 |This may be off topic, but the aim of studying history is to avoid \
 |the mistakes of the past.  And part of that is being honest about where \
 |we are now...
 |
 |IMHO, hardware has left software in the dust.  I figured out that if \
 |cars had evolved since 1970 at the same rate as computer memory, we \
 |could now buy 1,
 |000 Tesla Model S's for a penny, and each would have a top speed of \
 |60,000 MPH.  This is roughly a factor of a trillion in less than 50 years.

I am even more off-topic, and of course this was only an example.
But this reference sounds so positive, yet this really is no
forward technology that you quote, touring along several hundred
kilogram of batteries that is.

Already at the end of the eighties i think (the usual
")everybody(") knew that fuel cells are the future.  It is true
that i have said in a local auditorium in 1993 that i wished with
18 everybody would get a underfloor with fuel cells in the
sandwich that it is, and four wheel hub motors, and a minimalistic
structure that one may replace at will.

It was already possible back then (but for superior tightness of
the tank), just like, for example, selective cylindre
deactivation, diesel soot filter, diesel NOx reduction cat ("urea
injection").  (Trying to clean Diesel in the uncertain conditions
that multi-million engines at different heights and climate are in
is megalomaniacal, in my opinion.  And that already back then.)

Unfortunately fuel cell development has never been politically
pushed as much as desirable, and was mostly up to universities
until at least about 2006, and in Germany, to the best of my
knowledge.  It may not be popular in the U.S. at the moment, but
it is Toyota again, with the Mirai, who spends money due to
responsibility.  That is at least what i think.  (And again it is
the question whether a doubtful technology is spread millions and
millions of times all over the place, or whether only some
refineries have to be improved.)

--steffen


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