When The Chips are Down

Back around 1994, I read in a science magazine article, that the computer chip was coming to it's end. The ability of manufacturing at photon width had reached it's limits, and the progress that we had experienced over the past 36 years in chip development would cease; hmmmmmm now 18 years later, I am hearing the same old song and dance, about the computer chip, only with a few twists; Moore's Law is going to come to an end, in less than 10 years, and that chips will be so easily produced at that time, they will be worth only pennies.

Seems that the predictions are at odds with themselves. So let's break it down a bit. Moore's Law first. What is it??

From the Wikipedia article: Moore's law is a rule of thumb in the history of computing hardware whereby the number of transistors that can be placed inexpensively on an integrated circuit doubles approximately every two years. The period often quoted as "18 months" is due to Intel executive David House, who predicted that period for a doubling in chip performance (being a combination of the effect of more transistors and their being faster).[1]

The law is named after Intel co-founder Gordon E. Moore, who described the trend in his 1965 paper.[2][3][4] The paper noted that the number of components in integrated circuits had doubled every year from the invention of the integrated circuit in 1958 until 1965 and predicted that the trend would continue "for at least ten years".[5] His prediction has proved to be uncannily accurate, in part because the law is now used in the semiconductor industry to guide long-term planning and to set targets for research and development.[6]


and I (Schnee Wolfe) would hazard a guess that Moore's Law is also responsible for the huge advances in other technologies, like energy production, cell phones, medicine, rocketry, and auto mobiles, almost anything you can name. The background noise of change is advancing at greater than the 5 year doubling that was predicted when I left school in 1968. Society is keeping up JUST, but for how long is anyone's guess. Our institutions are creaking, and our banking and governmental bodies are struggling to keep up. The leaders of today are creating laws and regulations for the present, based on the past, and as soon as they are set on paper, before being voted on, are obsolete. Technology has superseded them. 



They are predicting that around 2020, the ability to double the performance of the Integrated Circuit will have hit a road block. No explanation, just a flat out statement. They, being the futurologists / scientists of today. My own thoughts on this, let's wait and see. My experience has lead me to believe that in 3 years, there will be a new "break through" that someone is working on even as I write this. Break throughs are no longer a surprise, but are the norm. The only True Technological Break Through, is when a totally NEW technology is perfected, as in say Fusion Power, or a Warp Drive. The rest is convergence and tweaking of existing technologies.


But at the same time as there is the prediction of the end of the computer chip, they are predicting that Integrated Circuits will be everywhere, as ubiquitous as electricity is today. Also that with this "everywhere, and no where" experience, there will be such convergence and exponential growth in the use of computing power, we will be able to experience the world as never before. Chips (IC units) will be the new scrap paper. A new throw away society?? Technology at the snap of our fingers, or the whisper of a word, the wink of an eye. New and wide spread energy sources, along with an era of Abundance, never before known to humanity, as a whole. Disease eradicated by the middle of the century, and an egalitarian society, for all, where humans and robots will mingle together as equals. MIT has even predicted that by the turn of the mid century, humans and robots may even be marrying or at least living common law.

We are moving from a Man Made Society to a Robot Made Society, where the last usefulness of humanity over robots and computers, will have been reached, (for now). The art of creation, imagination and ingenuity. The big question in the minds of futurologists, "Will this usher in an era of Utopian wealth and ease for all of humanity, or a Dystopia where only a few are able to take advantage, and the majority are relegated to a sub human existence.

Future Meds Today

During the Second World War, British Bomber Command created a squadron, which they named the Pathfinder Squadron; the British were bombing Europe at night, and they were finding that a lot of their bombs were going wide of the target; collateral damage was not really a problem back then, other than it was a waste of effort; this is a bit like some medicines today, we take a medicine, and it attacks the whole body, not just the parts that we want to affect; and the side affects, or collateral damage, can be devastating, or keep a useful medication off the market;
   So what did the Pathfinders do? They flew in ahead of the main stream, at low altitude, and with pin point accuracy, would literally, "Light up the target area" with incendiary flares, which the main stream of bombers, could use to place their bomb aiming instruments on; thus increase the accuracy and effectiveness.

Bring the age of medication to the 21st century, and combine new technology, with the philosophy of the Path Finder Squadron, and a whole new arena of drugs comes into existence; take a pill that has properties that identify the area or cells that are to be attacked. Light up the cells for further attack, via other medications, nano-tech machines, or even computer guided laser surgery; all for pin point accuracy.

   For now this is being researched for Cancer Treatment, but it may be that we expand this to treat other diseases;

   One added advantage of this, is that it isn't necessary to be able to "see" the target cells, it is just enough to know that they are there. For instance, technology is going to be able to identify a tumor almost immediately it has begun forming. At this time, we are able to identify tumors or growths, in cancer cells only after they have begun to affect the body, in the near future, we will be able to detect them very early; making early treatment all the more important and effective. Instead of attacking 30,000 cancer cells replicating every 2 weeks, we will be able to detect 200 spread out in the body, replicating every 4 months; and dealing with them without needing to identify where; the technology or the medications will find them. Doctors will only have to be sure that they have detected their presence in the body, via say, blood, saliva, urine, perspiration or expelled breath.

   The machines for detecting minute changes in the human body are already coming into existence. I have mentioned in other blogs, the Star-Trek Tricorder, XPrize; but there are other developments happening in the realm of detection, that have preceded this XPrize, and have nothing to do with it, that may be here before the Tricorder. We are on the verge, of having CT, and MIR scanners in the doctor's office, that will be hooked up to the examination bed, which will in the future become a diagnostic bed, with multiple instrumentation to examine the body laying upon it.

In the last century there was a movie, where a team of medical professionals were shrunk and injected into a human body. 13 years ago, Nano-Technology produced the first parts of a nano-engine; today we are working on manufacturing small Nano bots for injection into the human blood stream, for various treatments and identifications of malfunctioning organs. Instead of an Angio-plasty, and Stents, a patient may be injected with Nano-bots with the ability to clean the arteries of the body of plaque on an out patient basis; when done the bots will just be expelled or absorbed by the body.

    In a study of rats, with damaged heart muscles, from heart attacks, their stem cells were injected into their heart muscles, with the idea to test what the effect would be. Hoping the damaged muscles would be repaired. Well, the damaged area was repaired, but also, the stem cells went on to regenerate other parts of the heart's muscle. The question now is, what would be the effect on the whole body, if stems cells were injected that could affect a healing of say, torn ligaments, or arthritic knees. Then too, where would they stop working? Medicine is only just beginning to "play" with stem cells, now that the constraint of not being able to use the patient's own cells, has been removed.

  100 years ago, most people could not afford an accurate thermometer, and 20 years ago, having a blood pressure monitor was low tech, and the blood test kit for blood sugar, was low tech strips that only gave an approximation; today we have thermometers, blood sugar monitors, and blood pressure monitors that are high tech, with LED read outs immediately; but for the most part they are invasive to use. A woman in the US, has developed at one of the Universities the technology to test blood sugar using the patient's own saliva; no more sticking a body part for blood. But wait, others have been developing other tech that works on the saliva, the expelled breath, and the bodies own skin temperature and perspiration. It will only take a convergence of technology to bring these together and produce a machine in our homes that will be as ubiquitous as the thermometer has been for the past 50 years, and in another 30 years will be a common as the wrist watch was, part of our everyday attire. Plugging us in to a whole new order of medical detection and diagnosis. 
 
    Sci-Fi tries to predicted the future of society and technology, but more and more, I see society and technology outstripping Sci-Fi; Jules Verne, predicted the Nuclear Submarine and The Rocket to the Moon; but even his predictions happened almost 100 years later. In the 60s Sci-Fi predicted our world, but it only has taken 30-50 years for some of the more outlandish ideas to become fact. And in 20 years anything we predict today will be on the drawing board somewhere in the world.

Welcome to the future, have your boarding pass ready!!

Pair of Dimes and how we view the world

When Change happens there is what is called a Paradigm Shift. This shifting of Thought Patterns, is in the Psychological aspects of thinking: The World View of The Individual, and collectively, Society

When Telephones were invented, the nearest form of a similar communication method was the telegraph system. This required an operator or intermediary, to send and receive the communications for the sender and the receiver; With Telephones the operator or intermediary was taken out of the loop, and communications become direct between the receiver and operator, two way and with a sense of immediacy; this was a sea change in communications over long distances (10 miles) and change how society operated;

Simplistic to us today, who are 100 years from that society. Yet a similar effect was experienced in the early 80's when cellular phones (cell phones to us) and later in 1989, when the Internet was created and e-mails and later video communications were possible, which later in 2010, Cellular Phones and the Internet Computers were combined to bring us the Star Trek Communicator Uber device, the Smart Phone, and in 2012 to combine with Tablet Computers. Thus bringing a communications immediacy and familiarity that wipes out distances of time and space, language and social/cultural barriers, to enabling the interaction of Millions of people in real time, via Twitter, and other social media. Truly creating a World Wide Web of Humanity with Connectiveness that is unrivaled in human history.

In the space of 100 years our society has been altered by these technological innovations; the "Change" has had a profound effect upon our Psychological View of the World, and it brings with it a Real Sense of Altered States of Mind. Compared to the Past Sense or States of Mind, World Views, we have moved from being infants playing in the living room or garden, to teenagers, roaming the city, and experiencing the world as young adults. We are no longer citizens of a city state, tribe or nation, but World Citizens in every sense of that word except political, and that is only a matter of time.

When Bede wrote his History of the English, he was projecting his own bias on an unfounded societal unity, that didn't exist; but by inspiring one warlord, he gave "King" Alfred, and his descendants a changed perspective of England, and an Altered State of Mind, or World View, comparable to the changes from hunter gatherer, bronze to iron age societies. That change has lasted over 1000 years of History, and is in some minor ways continuing. 

Today, we are on the threshold of massive Technological Change, that will alter our world views again, and change the way society views the world, itself, and it's place in the universe. We can only say that our lives and the societies we live in, will be changed beyond recognition. Our descendants will look back in 25-30 years and see us, in the latter part of the 20th Century, and Early 21st Century, as we look back on the 19th Century. We cannot begin to predict the individual societal effects or collective effects this might have on social order. From my perspective of history, it will be comparable to the change from Feudal Serf to Free Man, from persons viewing the world through the lens of Religious Dogma to the Renaissance Man who begins seeing the World through the eyes of Scientific Discovery.

Paradigm Shifts, and Overview Effects are two sides of the same coin, and only more specifically, are coming at us continuously now. A day does not go by that something new is not trumpeted from the media that we carry with us as easily as we used to carry a handkerchief, 50 - 60 years ago. Opportunities for massed produced “improved” technology is constantly accelerating, and changing. Various developments that began 8, 3 and 1 year ago, are coming to a newsstand (computer or tablet screen), tech store (on the High Street / Main Street) in your city and cyber space, near you yesterday.

Back before of the 20^th Century, it was easy for our politicians and religious leaders to keep us in little boxes. We happily marched off to wars and died in droves, Cannon Fodder for the Elites. But with the availability of Mass Media (first in the form of telephone and radio), or perhaps better said, Mass Communication Devices, Information has become the leveler of society. We now have access to information libraries and up to date news, that two decades ago were the prerogatives of Heads of States. The only way they have of keeping us in their boxes, is to appeal to our prejudices and fears; keeping us ignorant is actually a benefit to them.

However it is a paradox that while ignorant, we are less useful to society as a whole to bring about progress. So a population that is ignorant, and ill educated, is unequipped for the future. They are like an animal that looses out to a more advanced species. They are going to stagnate and descend in the social order of nations, on the planet. The only other alternative, is for heavy repressive measures to keep the bulk of society under control, via the use of force. That didn't work within Europe in the Middle Ages, when the Church and the Elites tried to keep Science under control, and therefore society in status quo, when the printing press was changing the world. So too, we are seeing that too is not able to keep societies in check (Arab Spring, Syria and Libya) now that we have the WWW/Computers/Smart Phones and Social Media.

Societies as a whole, whether in the West, Middle East, Africa and Asia, are beginning to wake up to new Paradigm Shifts, and seeing the World differently, than the previous generations. They are not going to willing  return to the past, anymore than the English of Alfred's generation would go back to the social chaos of waring tribes.

What will be their future is a question many want to answer, but as in the past 50 years, only very hazy field of views are available. Like the effect of the Birth Control Pill on young women, and their choices, so too the creation of Robotic Artificial Intelligence, combined with new and better materials and technologies to enclose them, to mimic humans, will have a profound effect on humanity. No prediction seems too outlandish, from the first Space Traveler to Mars to Marriage between humans and robots, is promulgated in the media. That is just one change that is happening. What we do know, is that we will get a few things right in a general way, but in a specific way, we will be unable to predict the way that the individual will mold the future. No one would have predicted how computers would change society, back 50 years ago. Star Trek got some things right, in 1968, but only in general. The Communicator of Captain Kirk and later Captain Picard, are a far cry from the communicator of today, and more importantly, how we use them to communicate, and interact over vast distances.

In less than a generation, we will have a device, that will either fit near our ear, or embedded, that will connect us to a WWW cloud, with all the information of Mankind, and able to communicate with anyone on the planet in real time. Science Fiction you say, well, look at your Smart Phone, and it's capabilities, and extrapolate the capabilities of computers into it, in the form of a Blue Tooth ear and glasses, set in 5 to 10 years. Then take the information, that we have someone who can move an object connected to her nervous system, with her mind, and research into electro synaptic telepathy, with an X prize competition, the next step is only to move that into the real world within our brains.

As I have said before, The Future is here, have your boarding passes ready!!

What is th e Overveiw Effect, and what are it's advantages

If nothing else, everyone down here on the surface needs to get a dose of the Overview Effect, yesterday.

First off, what is it

       Back in the Apollo Era and since then, Astronauts that go into space, and see the planet from a distance, as a blue, white, brown and green orb, hanging in a velvet black sky, with it's Earth Phases (similar to the phases of the Moon) are awe struck and have a paradigm shift in World View or consciousness; this changed there way of thinking about their place in the human family, and their view of the place that we as a group have in relationship to our planet, the Fragile Nest Syndrome;

So what does this have to do with the statement above

     WELL, pretty much everything; what the person who said it is suggesting, is that everyone on the planet Earth, needs to see the world, their place in it, and our collective place, on the Planet, and in the Universe, as an astronaut had;

      Just as when Galleio turned his telescope from looking at distant objects on the planet, to distant objects in the sky, and forever changed Man’s place in the Solar System and the Cosmos, then when Hubble discovered that his Nebula were actually Islands of Stars in a Universe filled with such Islands, we have been expanding our view of our place in that Universe, or Universes, becoming less and less The Centre of Creation, that our Religions had once placed us at; making those that look up, realize how small and yet remarkable we are in this Universe, while we look outward;

      But getting outside our planet and having a look back is all the more astounding, as it is unexpected after all the mind bending, conscious raising experiences of education here on Earth, because it is so profoundly life changing; people who come back, (and there have been over 500 since the dawn of the Space Age when Yuri Gagarin first flew) that it has become a noticeable reaction to Space Travel; and as more and more people, who are simply tourists, travel into Space, the number of voices will be raised and the effects on our societies will be more noticeable, as they tell people of the experience, and get them to go;

       If a large enough number, a tipping force, could be translated into Space to view the world in REAL time, and not just through the eye of a camera, the effect on our planet would be unstoppable; the future would be forever changed, and us with it; as a Space Faring Species we would be able to look out from our home, with one view, and in a hoped for harmony; to cherish the home, while searching out, or building Deep Space place for us to live in our Solar System, and eventually other star systems; we would truly become the Intelligence that is unstoppable in it’s search for The Ultimate
Questions of Life and The Universe;

Is there any urgency to creating a self-sustaining off-Earth presence

In 1962 I was 14, and I remember the Cuban Missile Crisis as if it were yesterday; that night, waiting for the bomb, my brother and I lost our innocence; Mom and Dad could not protect us from everything;

Leap forward to Y2K, and “the end of the world”, it was less frightening to me, as I knew from IT people that I worked with that it would not happen to the extent that was predicted; if at all; but others didn’t have access to that knowledge, and I was on suicide call that night; no one I know, died that night; but the terror was real;

As a species we have only crawled up out of our caves and huts, given up our hunter gatherer ways, to embrace “civilization” and “farming” 9,000 years ago, just after the end of the last Ice Age; we are in an intermediate phase; and have just about used up the easily available resources on this planet; if it were not for our advance technological society, the resources that we need to exist, would be beyond our reach and we would have drifted back into the Stone Age, hundreds of years ago;

Regardless of what ‘Might’ happen in the way of a catastrophic event, we are coming to the limits of Earth’s ability to sustain our species; “The Bank Account” that we have been drawing on, is coming close to being empty, unless we find a fundamentally new source of energy, new resources and ways to feed and cloth the 9 Billion people that will inhabit this planet in 39 years;

Climate change is real, and has always been around; it happened 10,000 years ago with the last Ice Age and has been fluctuating ever since; regardless of who is to blame, it is happening now; and we are able to monitor it for the first time; Social and Cultural Upheaval is inevitable, and will be uncontrollable if we don’t have alternatives in place before the middle of this century; while there are many people working on those alternatives here on the planet, and a few far sighted ones working on Space alternatives, we need a “Manhatten” style project to kick start real change; bits and pieces randomly scattered about, competing against each other may leave us no time;

How urgent is it; Extremely Urgent; the Tsunami of 2004 and the earth quakes on the Pacific Rim last year are a small taste of what can happen; they didn’t matter when the human population of this planet was only a few million; but now that we are concentrated in some of the deadliest volcanic areas on this planet, the threat is huge; we have seen how Minor Volcanic Events, such as in Iceland, can affect whole regions, and how Solar Flares can knock out our Electrical Grid as it did in Canada's province of Quebec; do we really need a Tunguska or Meteor Crater Event to prove that we are an endangered and vulnerable species; 

Believe it or not, since the middle of the 20^th Century, humanity has experience the most profoundly peaceful times in the last 2000 years; the danger of dieing from wars has decreased with every decade, regardless of what some politicians and generals will tell you; the amount of co-operation amongst developed and developing nations has been phenomenal; for those, and for all the reasons I have given above, now is the time to push forward to become a Space Faring Species; I don’t say multi-planetary, as I feel that is too limiting; in some ways, it would be easier to build Space Stations, rather than try to live on inhospitable planets; but I don’t think we should ignore either;

To answer the last question, how long do we have to build a half-sustaining off world presence? I am not sure a half-sustaining presence would survive; it most certainly would be a finger nail clinging to the rock face of the cliff existence; much like the bottle neck that some think existed in South Africa when the rest of Africa became a desert and uninhabitable for thousands of years; not that that was the only time; it is only the most profound;

I would prefer a fully self sustainable presence, based on Space Resource Utilization, not dependent on Earth; whether it is 100 on an outpost or 10,000 persons scattered in groups through the solar system; so long as they were able to be Space Faring, and had a sustainable economic infrastructure, that is all that would matter; 

Starting now, with something between what we have now and a full blown “Manhatten” project, we could be out there in a generation, (80 years) living, breeding, settling and exploring the Solar System out to the Oort Cloud, with the rest of Space Beckoning;

What is the most amazing fact about the Universe

for me, the most interesting thing about Our universe, is that it is perfectly balanced for life; just as our planet's place is in the perfect spot for life, the Goldilocks Zone, so is our Universe; not too much gravity, and not to little gravity, just the right amount for stars to evolve, that can create the stuff of life, which we are made of; now how amazing is that; and you don't need to postulate a Supreme Being to know this, it is knowable through the study of physics;

which is even more amazing, as it shows that intelligent life is capable of evolving in this Universe, able to answer the deepest questions of it's existence, without needing to rely on a first cause for the answers; and this intelligent life, which we are, is only 2 million years old, less than a billionth of a second, on the cosmic 24 hour clock; yet smaller than the smallest known part of an atom, in relation to the vastness of the Universe; who needs religion to feel the humility of our existence;

Why is Space now Inspiring the Future

Well, my forum name Cro-Magnon Gramps, marks me out as someone who has been around a long, long time, and I am not ashamed to say I turn 65 this coming January; to me it is astronishing that I made it past 30; but I digress

  Back in 1958, when I was 10, watching B/W tv, and forced to listen to the news, as at 6 pm whatever else was happening, Dad got the TV and switched it over; politics and history were a steady diet in our house; and the daily news, and the news paper boys delivery was a part of it; it seemed that from that early age, advances were being made monthly; something new was happening and we were on top of the world, except for one fly in the ointment: THE COLD WAR

  We didn't get the in school lessons on surviving a nuclear attack, but we knew, oh, how we knew; at 15 when I finally got out of grade 8, we asked, "What are you going to be, IF you grow up?"
but the Space Race and the advances in science and technology that were flooding the news back then, were more than a cup of Kool-aid, they sustained us, gave us a bit of hope that things could be better; then the Viet-nam war was transferred to USA shoulders from France; and life became bleak again; I was old enough to make the comparison with the Spanish Civil War of the 30s;

  Dec 1968, that Christmas, we had a Colour TV and we could see with the Apollo 8 astronauts, the Earth as they came around the Lunar Rim, and they read the words of Genesis; I wasn't and still am not terribly religious, but as a human being, it struck a deep emotional chord; this is what HUMANS OF GOOD WILL COULD DO! War was not the only answer;

June 1969, I cheered with my siblings and parents, with the launch of Apollo 11 and the First Steps on another rock circling our Sun; in the intervening years, I had learned how small our little world was in comparison to the Milky Way Galaxy, but I still had no idea how small our Galaxy was in comparison to the vastness of space and time; it only served to accentuate the pointlessness of war and violence against others;

  The end of Apollo was an end of Innocence; the intervening years, while science seemed to take a back burner to wars, politics and economic upheavals in the news, people became less and less informed about the future; the dreams of 1999, and a brave new world, forged in the 60s were gone; while some things changed, for the 70s to the mid 90s it was a wasteland of broken dreams;

  Then along came affordable computers, powerful enough not to be considered toys; and then the Internet; and hope began to bloom again; the Space Shuttle was a dream come true; albeit a flawed dream; however taken all together, we could dream again; I had had computers since 1986, but it was in September 1998, that I bought my first real computer, and got e-mail; and got my first really decent job, via an e-mail sent to a magazine website, working on it's mailing list, using a "high end" computer;


The WOW factor in life had been restored; I remember the day, it was St Patrick's Day 1999, when the IT department sent out an e-mail with links to sites in Ireland and said, go at it and "surf" the net; and for the first time, in the space of half an hour, I flew around the world from Ireland to Australia, South Africa and I can't remember where else; it was mind boggling;

  Along the way, the realization of all the information that was out there; learning was free, the public library was no longer on the other side of town, but right there in my living room; yes it has grown, but that first realization, and opening of my senses, was like a blind man seeing; I began following my inclinations to where ever they would take me; and ultimately they led me to NASA, and NSF; it has been a long journey from a 10 year old kid to a 64 year old man, but I feel privileged to be here, to share in a dream that took root, almost died, but is still there: War is not the only answer, and The World can pull together to be a better place for all;

  SpaceX, Direct, Constellation, and all the other things that are happening in Science/Exploration are hidden away; where in the 60s they were trumpeted on front pages, and the 6 and 11 pm news programs; given full time coverage on Network Television; now they are hidden away; the excuse: People are not interested; the truth be told, people are not interested, because they don't know any better; the old lie, "we got to get our act together down here, before going out there" "we have better uses to spend all that money on" just don't wash anymore; they were the same lies that were used in 69-73, to kill the Apollo program; and where has the past 50 years got us; have those nay-sayers made good use of the intervening years to answer those statements; no, there is more poverty, there are still wars; our infrastructure and economies are still on the edge of collapse; what has been changed or accomplished by canceling the Apollo program: nothing, not a sodden thing;

  The space agencies are still struggling along, with fewer and fewer resources; but now they have partners that are not part of the MIC, and who are willing to dream the big dreams again; who have taken up that quest of the Star Trek generation, to boldly go where no man has gone before; and that is where they inspire and drive us to dream again; Nu-Space companies who are willing to be different, and not say, "Well, if I don't get my Government Contract, I'm not going to build that Space Craft to Mars!!!"; and while they talk big, and take their time, they will inspire a new generation of entrepreneurs and investors to build "the new cathedrals" for mankind, as memorials to themselves and to the dreamers of the past and future Earth;