Ask Slashdot: What Was The Greatest Era Of Innovation? (nytimes.com) 177
speedplane writes: The New York Times is running a story on innovation over the past 150 years. [The story starts at the end of the American Civil War with the newly completed transcontinental railway in the 1870s. Then it highlights the profoundly different lifestyle of the 1920s, the end of 'The Great War' and the beginning of the Great Depression. By the 1970s, many of the transportation and communication changes from the 20s became fundamental parts of daily life. The story ends in 2016, an era in which human life has changed the most in the last 46 years.]
We're in the golden age of innovation, an era in which digital technology is transforming the underpinnings of human existence. Or so a techno-optimist might argue. We're in a depressing era in which innovation has slowed and living standards are barely rising. That's what some skeptical economists believe. The truth is, this isn't a debate that can be settled objectively.
What do slashdotters think is the greatest era of innovation?
Era Of The Tower Of Babel (Score:2)
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that's an easy one! (Score:4, Funny)
Oh, oh, I know this one!
3500 BC was the greatest era of invention.
Why 3500 BC, you ask?
The (approximate, of course) invention of beer.
Go ahead, tell me of a greater one. Can't, can ya?
Re:that's an easy one! (Score:5, Interesting)
3500 BC was the greatest era of invention. Why 3500 BC, you ask? The (approximate, of course) invention of beer. Go ahead, tell me of a greater one. Can't, can ya?
People will no doubt laugh at this, but it's actually a good observation (though we should include wine in the list). The reason is simple: We humans need to ingest a fair amount of water each day to stay healthy. But historically, water itself has been rather dangerous stuff. Consider all the other people and animals upstream who have been using it for both bathing and disposing of waste of various sorts. Do you want to drink that water? Not if you want a long, healthy life.
Part of the year, our ancestors could get some of the needed water by consuming fruits, which are high in water. But they mostly don't keep very well, and they spoil. Fermented juices have their sugars partly converted to ethanol, which is toxic to most of the spoilage micro-organisms, so the resulting wine or beer is much less likely to spoil. (If it does, the result is often vinegar, which is another way of preserving the juice in a way that's safe for humans to consume).
It's pretty well understood among historians, anthropologists, etc., that fermentation processes were a significant part of our ancestors' development into a long-lived species that eventually dominated much of the planet. Yes, it's fun to get drunk, and to joke about getting drunk. And some other animals can get drunk, since ripe fruits often contain around 1% ethanol. (I've read some funny stories about groups of elephants getting a bit tipsy from the consumption of ripe fruit. Imagine a crowd of drunk elephants partying in your neighborhood. ;-) But the fact is that ethanol-laced liquids are historically an important part of our history, because ethanol provided a way to make those liquids safe to drink.
There was a fun study some time back, in which some researchers traveled around the world, stopping in various eateries, ordering food, and taking it back to their hotel room to feed to the lab equipment they'd brought along. They were testing it for safety (and ate the food that passed their tests ;-). Their main summary of their results was that, if you want a simple rule for ordering something safe to drink, no matter where you are, order beer. They didn't always like the beer everywhere, but their tests never found beer that was unsafe for human consumption. Wine was in second place, but they did find contaminated wine in a few places.
The explanation seems to be that, as anyone who has tried brewing beer knows, you have to be really careful about cleanliness during the brewing, or you get an awful-smelling glop that nobody will drink. With wine, the process seems easy, and you can get good-smelling wine by just letting the fruit juice (with perhaps added yeast) ferment, but sometimes the result has contaminants that aren't obvious. But with beer, this doesn't work; you have to boil it all to sterilize it, add a yeast culture, make sure that stuff floating in the air can't get into the containers, or everyone will know that you've failed the instant they sniff it. So beer probably is the most significant brewing achievement in human history.
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Plus, fish fuck in that water. That's why I stick to beer and brown liquor for my hydration needs.
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Just one comment/correction, for the most part people did not drink beer/wine as a substitute for water, they drank a heavily watered down version with the alcohol working as a disinfectant. I don't think even the small elite that could afford it drank the "real deal" all the time, because of the intoxicating and dehydrating effects. That would typically be for celebrations and ceremonies and other festive events. So having decent water to begin with was very important, whether it came from wells, rainwater
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Don't forget Pizza....
Personally, my vote is for the Internet age. Love it or hate it, it provides a bridge for interaction with far-off loved ones, different cultures, and has huge implications for education. Yes, there are negatives, much like there are negatives to beer (specifically consuming too much).
Plus, it was built largely on Beer and Pizza, so you know that it HAS to be important... (grin)
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because ethanol provided a way to make those liquids safe to drink
Same for tea, being made with boiling water.
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Except it doesn't protect against chemical contaminants like lead or arsenic, but keep up the boiling!
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Everything since beer is just an incremental improvement.
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But beer tastes better than Mead, Sake, and Wine mixed together.
1870s to 1970s (Score:4, Interesting)
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Wood and cloth airplanes to moon landing. (Score:2)
It's not fair to compare a 100 year period to a 46 year period.
No problem, we can compare a 50 year period. My grandfather would express a similar sentiment but he would use a starting point of the WW1 era airplanes he saw as a child that were little more than "kites with engines", made of wood and cloth, to the Apollo 11 moon landing as an endpoint. So if you want 46 years then we can go to a little past WW1, 1923. I think the aircraft nearly all people would see in the sky would still be the wood and cloth type, although I think a metal skinned monoplane first flew n
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There's far too much profit [wbur.org] in poverty [theguardian.com] for that to happen.
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None of which would be possible without the discovery of electricity and the invention of electricity generation and transmission. If you disregard any innovations built upon previous ones, then I guess 10000 BC wins by your criteria.
If you've ever had to hand wash, or live without refrigeration/freezing for a few weeks, you would have noticed how mind-bendingly central these two items are for maintaining a modern life.
These technologies primarily just enable two earner households, not maintaining modern life. Washing machines, refrigerators, microwaves, and vacuums have collectively made adequate housekeeping a part time job for the average household. They also enable parents to spend far mo
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Other than driverless cars
Go back a handful of years, and you wouldn't even write that.
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what have we done since then?
Eradicated smallpox. Not as sexy as landing on the moon but certainly as difficult, more practical, and probably more dangerous.
Trivia: I will never forget the moon landing, mum let me have the day off school to watch it at home, I was so enthralled by the broadcast that I accidently sat on a plate of spaghetti.
Re:1870s to 1970s (Score:5, Funny)
One small sitting for the boy, one giant mess for the mom.
Re:1870s to 1970s (Score:5, Interesting)
Maybe not sexy but certainly recognized by the whole world. I just read the story of Edward Jenner [1749-1823] - the father of vaccination, in the excellent "Book of the dead" from the QI guys. When the world started using his approach and saw the results this humble, great human, who disliked the fame and never tried to capitalize on it, who kept on working quietly to the rest of his days was hailed, respected and adored perhaps more than any other human in history [apart from religious figures, I guess].
British MP said that every foreigner - commoner, diplomat or dignitary he meets first asks him how is Jenner doing...Jefferson was ecstatic and highly complimentary...Jenner was presented to and awarded honors by the most powerful rulers in the world from US to Russia and more or less everyone else...even Napoleon released two captured Brits because Edward wrote him a letter [one of the captives was a relative of him]; Napoleon exclaimed "Ah, Jenner, I can refuse him nothing"
The day that we should always remember is 14th May 1796 [hey, today is the 220 anniversary, that's great!!!] - on this day he took discharge from the hand of a milkmaid who had cowpox and used it to immunize 8 year old boy who acquired then complete immunity to smallpox. No-one knows what happened to the milkmaid [Sarah Nelmes] but the hide of her cow Blossom is still in St George hospital...
Edward Jenner - what a man!
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Not to denigrate Jenner -- who deserves loads of credit. But innoculation with cowpox or a mild form of smallpox was commonly practiced in the American colonies in the 1770s. In point of fact after an early period where the practice of innoculation was forbidden by George Washington, recruits to the Continental army were deliberately infected with a mild strain of smallpox upon enlistment. http://www.mountvernon.org/dig... [mountvernon.org]
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We used a rocket crane to land a nuclear-powered robot the size of a Buick on the surface of Mars.
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You're talking about technological greatness, in a discussion about Innovation. Yeah landing on a moon and getting a horseless cart is a great achievement, but in terms of innovation I don't think it comes close to the invention of electricity in the preceding generation, or the invention of the train.
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I was walking through a fleamarket with my son (he would have been 6) and there was a stand with vinyl records and various decks - old wind up jobs to 80's audiophile stuff.
I asked him if he knew what they were. "Are they CDs?" was the reply.
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Unless he grows up to be a hipster (in which case I'll disown him) he's pretty unlikely to ever hear a vinyl record, let alone own one.
It's more about obsolescence than ignorance. Would you have recognised an Edison cylinder at that age?
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Heck, that's nothing, he also landed on an ice planet in another galaxy!
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Specifically, I would say that social innovation took the front seat at that point.
Solving for X... (Score:3)
Let's see...
What is, THE FUTURE, Alex?
I'm thinking innovation scales with population, available tools, recorded experience, and accessible resources - all of which are still increasing.
In fact, almost every measurable aspect of human life is actually improving over time so far.
Combine the increasing effects of the Flynn effect, drastically reduced violence over time, automation, increased health standards, and I can't see how the immediate future won't continue the increase in innovation over time.
Not that this is news of course. It's so not news, that you barely even hear of it - and why it's actually so hard for many folks who don't pay attention to science and statistics to even believe. To most folks, the only science news they hear about the future is climate change and extiction rates - both of which are true, but are NOWHERE near a complete picture that science shows us. We've got a lot to fix, but compared to vast stretches of planetary history where single populations explode and take over the biological landscape, we're doing amazing.
Which is also why the future of innovation is important.
Ryan Fenton
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Why bother keeping sheep around if they can't grow wool anymore?
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Solar charged flying death robots are actually pretty easy to defeat with 99-to-1 odds in your favor. How? Throw crap at them. Or mud. And if there's one thing that us descendants of
Start of WWI to end of WWII (Score:4, Insightful)
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Pah. Horseless schmoreseless. Compare that to the last 30.
We've:
Taken things that already exist and done them with a computer.
Taken things that already exist and done them over the internet.
Taken things that already exist and done them on a phone.
WWI and WWII (Score:4, Interesting)
Sad but I think true. The burst in technological, medical and scientific discovery during huge conflicts has been pretty remarkable. Humans, we are a strange beast.
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Sad but I think true. The burst in technological, medical and scientific discovery during huge conflicts has been pretty remarkable. Humans, we are a strange beast.
Don't forget the Cold War. Its why we had a space program.
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obvious reply (Score:2)
Ask Slashdot: What Was The Greatest Era Of Innovation?
Whatever obscure era anyone is unlikely to suggest so I can appear smarter than everyone else.
The biggest improvements involve the past sucking (Score:5, Insightful)
Sorry, but you could live quite okay in 1980 without the PC, Internet, cell phones and whatnot. Go back and consider what life was like before you had phones, TV, cars, electricity and so on and you'll find many aspects of life sucked or was incredibly inconvenient. If I compare computer games made in 1985, 1995, 2005 and 2015 what will be the biggest difference? The first decade, of course. Cassette/LP to CD was a much bigger leap than CD to MP3/AAC, VHS to DVD was bigger than DVD to BluRay and so on. No internet to dial-up was bigger than dial-up to fiber. It's nice that we make things even better and more efficient and convenient, but there's a diminishing return. Which is not to say I feel we're done and won't make much more progress, but for the most part we're swapping out something that worked quite okay already for something better.
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Oh Kjella, how I disagree with you!
The leap from LP -> Cassette -> CD -> Music DVD -> Music BlueRay/whatever are much smaller than the leap from [Physical media] -> [small convenient files]
You can argue that the CD was digital and didn't require special ripping, you could just read the bits of'em and then play them from a computer. Except most computers didn't have 600MB drives in the 80s when the CDs started appearing. Those weren't common until around the mid 90s. And who would want to u
You have to name times AND places (Score:4, Insightful)
A surge of innovation occurs when sociopolitical conditions, infrastructure, education and sources of wealth mesh in just the right way. Victorian Europe was one such time, when Britain, French and Germany blasted into the industrial age by feeding on each other's inventions. The US from 1865 to 1914 and 1942 to 1970 is another example. In these cases, war pushed technological development which nourished a generation of peace and civilian development to follow. Right now, it's China. Will India be next?
Communications (Score:2)
Of course everything builds on everything else but I have to think the biggest period of innovation has to be the mid 1800s when we started learning how to harness electricity and develop higher speed communications (telegraph, telephone, radio) up to around the 1950's when transistors and digital computers were developed.
The 1970s... (Score:2)
Specifically, Intel and the invention and development of the microprocessor. Pretty much our entire world is now built upon that keystone.
The invention of the iceless refridgerator (Score:2)
It changed how people bought, stored and prepared food.
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Although to be honest, the one thing I can't figure out how to do without in case of the fall of civilization, are toenail clippers. I don't think people used knives to clip them.
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... the one thing I can't figure out how to do without in case of the fall of civilization, are toenail clippers. I don't think people used knives to clip them.
Actually, if you have a good whetstone (and know how to use it), you'll find that a small knife works just fine for trimming nails, both finger and toe. I've used my Swiss Army knife's small blade for just that purpose a few times while on vacation without a nail clipper. The small knife blade actually works better than the small scissors that are part of the package. You do need to be a bit careful, of course.
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What's wrong with your teeth?
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I use these little metal clippers that'll work just fine after the fall of civilization.
That works fine until they rust or get dull and you can't use them anymore, or you didn't pack them with you when you were fleeing from the rabid monkeys of diaspora. Let's be honest, there are plenty of reasons you wouldn't have toenail clippers with you.
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I use wire cutters. Better than nail clippers.
Hmmm, that might actually work better than nail clippers.
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I use a scalpel with a no. 15 blade. I guess those won't exactly be plentiful come Mad Max time. Then again it'll probably the same for shoes, and IIRC going barefoot tends to keep them worn down anyway.
Innovation for what? (Score:2)
The innovation during industrial revolution changed workers' lives, from agricultural work to industrial work. That was not more pleasant job, but since it produced a lot, workers got access to new goods and life standard. Further innovation reduced industrial work and increased less harsh office jobs.
Now innovation is killing jobs while concentrating wealth. We still innovate, but innovation is less able to improve people's lives.
1900 to 1946 (Score:2)
1900 to 1946:
Radio
Television
telephone
antibiotics
Women suffrage
domestic refrigerators
automobile
air travel
electricity distribution networks
What we got in the 1970 to 2016 period is really cool, but it's just toys compared to the changes the first half of the 20th century brought us.
I would have a hard time but (Score:4, Interesting)
The transistor changed everything. It also allowed the device on which I'm posting to come about. A device admittedly a bit dated already but still enough to allow me to multi-task, listening to music, watching video, etc. And to continue the line of thoughts - the computer has invaded every aspect of life itself. All because of the invention of the transistor.
BANG! (Score:2)
13.7 Billion years ago.
Right.. (Score:2)
..now.
I'm an optimist - It is still to come (Score:2)
First, ignore patent counts (Score:2)
I would measure innovation as something where a previous generation of maintenance people would not understand the new technology. A car mechanic from 1950 would have little problem working on a modern day ga
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Obviously relativity would blow the mind of a physist of 1950.
Aside from the fact that the expression didn't come into common use until about 20 years later, it sure would--he'd think you were a generation behind.
(The concept of "relativity" as used in modern physics dates from 1906.)
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Right Now (Score:2)
Late 1700s (Score:2)
That's when the innovation that allowed humanity to make a 5,000 year leap in progress in just around 200 years occurred.
When the idea that the people granted limited power/permission to their government instead of the reverse became a founding principle of a nation. After that occurred humanity went from sails, horses, and carriages to jets, computers, and moon landings in just over 200 years.
Strat
2020 to 2020 + a few months (Score:2)
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This guy makes a very good argument why that won't happen by 2020 [timdettmers.com].
There are always clever people to teach us what we cannot do. Fortunately some even more clever and intuitive people find innovative and revolutionary ways to achieve what we were told is impossible to do.
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That's not a very sophisticated argument
Agreed.
You probably didn't even read my link.
Read it quickly, and did it again just now. Interesting and documented article, thank you. However sticking to the brain structure, understanding what we don't understand off of it, evaluating its complexity (keeping CS complexity in mind), and, in brief, summarizing why the brain is way above nowadays computers / algorithms (which structure depends deeply upon what the hardware is capable of doing/being programmed) capacities is saying - besides being a valuable observation - "we cannot copy the bra
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But in a way this article proves my point: to achieve human IQ, some people will be interested in copying/mimicking the brain functioning - which is considered impossible today - and say: can't do. Some other people will be interested in achieving a high IQ through completely new different/innovative/revolutionary methods.
None of which has anything to do with your 2020 projection, and that is the point.
Sure it may happen in 2020, or 2120 or 2220. There is no reason whatsoever to pick one of those dates over any other.
Slow Rise, Sudden Collapse (Score:2)
500k BCE: 1st hominid catches on fire while dancing.
1931: Electric guitar invented.
1997: Zenith: https://www.youtube.com/watch?... [youtube.com]
2016: The End: Clinton, Trump, Radiohead.
The Italian Renaissance (Score:2)
Early 20th C (Score:5, Insightful)
My grandfather didn't see a car until he was full grown, and before he died we had transistors, nuclear weapons, antibiotics, and had landed a man on the moon. It's not even close. People in the 1950s and 1960s thought we'd have ray guns and FTL ships by now because they were projecting from the state of innovation in their time.
We're jaded (Score:5, Insightful)
Obviously we're jaded; were we not, we'd recognize that since the advent of the internet, our ability to share data has revolutionized the world and our own capabilities. There is no real end to this in sight.
Our greatest days are in front of us, not behind, as people truly begin to leverage the communication capabilities of the internet.
That depends... (Score:2)
The development from mass starvation to beinga ble to feed the polulation is obviously more important to most people than the iPhone.
So the question cannot really be answered, as each era haas had its innovations which were really important at the time, while may seem trivial now.
It is also important to note that most innovations depend on previous innovations, so you rate one innovation without knowing what it is based on.
I would have divided 00s, 50s, etc (Score:2)
How do you define era? (Score:2)
The REAL History of Silicon Valley (Score:2)
Everyone knows the history of the US is obscenely distorted by racist spin on the contributions of disadvantaged minorities such as George Washington Carver. But no one, till now, has revealed the truth behind the real founders of Silicon Valley and why all those Spoiled American Boomer Engineers who are flying their planes into IRS buildings and the like have only themselves to blame for the great need for more immigration to save the US economy.
Read on for the revised history of Silicon Valley
FAIRCHILD 5
I say 1850 to 1910 (Score:2)
Look at what happened in this period:
1. The rapid expansion of railroads worldwide.
2. The development of electricity (both DC and AC).
3. The development of the automobile.
4. The development of the telegraph and eventually telephone.
5. The development of radio.
Re: Certainly not recent history (Score:2)
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On the contrary I would say the last 20 years has seen the most innovation of any other 20 year period, and the next 20 years will beat out the last 20. And this will continue probably forever, or until a global extinction event takes us out.
New ideas may not be as transformative, although that is a product of technology solving all the low hanging fruit over the past 200 years. But new ideas are researched, sent to market, and iterated on at a faster rate today than any other time. The agricultural revolut
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"The innovations of today just feel like trinkets..."
Yes and no. Cell phones and to some extent GPS really are changing the way people interact and live. But I agree that much modern "innovation" is pointless when it isn't actively annoying. And some of it seems to act as a stupidity amplifier -- something the world does not remotely need. But I expect when todays young adults look back at the world from the perspective of old age you will see transformative innovations. Just not necessarily the ones w
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80 years? Your UID says you must be less than 40 years old. Get off my lawn! ;)
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I guess you must be right as no technology stopped you making stuff up.
Re: Paleolithic era (Score:2)
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Bang!
13.7 billion years ago.
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I watched that last night. Not sure the kids got it though. I wouldn't have thought time travel paradoxes would be too difficult for a 7 year old, but he probably takes after his mother.
That aside, couldn't Kirk have proved somehow that he's from the future and convinced her to *not* head up the anti-war movement?
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I would go to 1870 (Score:2)
That was an amazing era, life changed quickly, and in fundamental ways.
> radio, turntables, automobiles, aircraft, and home refrigerators
Also x-ray machines, movies, phonographs. And how could you forget: the tabulating machine.
Go back to 1870, and you have telephone, and ticker tape.
Electricity in homes also became practical during that era.
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In 1896, transport was horse drawn. There were no cars or aeroplanes, no radio, and few people had even seen a phone.
For those who can't remember, in 1996, few people had seen a computer (yes, I saw
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But the things I learned on my little 8 bit computer got me more software and engineering jobs than did my electrical degree and also a patent on a sprite concept on some advanced graphics hardware. None of the other engineers were aware of sprites....
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OK, it is standard to argue on slashdot, but it is more interesting to learn and build better ideas. You have interesting points, but are missing the big picture. If you want to be technical I did say 'economic growth rate' which is the exponential rate constant, so steady exponential growth would have zero first derivative of the economic growth rate.
Modern electronics is dominated by classical E&M. Quantum mechanics is important. But the idea of electronic computers was clear and they were bein
Multiple industrial revolutions (Score:2)