[ExI] Did Hugo de Garis leave the field?

[Eugen Leitl]

On Thu, May 05, 2011 at 11:42:43PM -0600, Kelly Anderson wrote:

> I stand by personal computing as a paradigm shift. It's not about the

What would you call the invention of agriculture and harnessing of
animal power? Or shift from phytobiomass to fossil power and machine
use and industrialization? Or advent of life on the prebiotic
Earth?

> technology, but the access, and the uses they have been put to.
> Existing technology is not equivalent to a paradigm shift. Hero of
> Alexandria built steam driven toys in antiquity. That did not result
> in a paradigm shift, it was the work steam power was put to that
> resulted in the real paradigm shift 2000 years later.

As personal computers are wearable devices now surely that is
another paradigm shift? Touch screens, another paradigm shift?
Multi-touch, a yet another? Personal GPS navigation, check?
Hybrid cars, too? Hey, how about the FinFET Intel just launched
as part of their 22 nm node? Is that a paradigm shift, too?
 
> > The last fifty years appear in retrospect more similar to the developments
> > having taken place from 1750 to 1800.
> >
> > A lot of nifty new gadgets, yes. Radically game-changing discoveries? No.
> 
> By 1970, we had finished integrating all of the technology from the
> Roswell crash into our society. There won't be another paradigm shift
> until there is another crash. It's so simple, I am surprised that I

It is very simple indeed: we've slowed down the innovation rate, but 
for a few nifty but not that big of a deal areas. No, you can't
eat an iPad.

> would be the first to bring it up. Geez, and some of you call
> yourselves rocket scientists... Perhaps RK has a line on when the next
> craft will be recovered... ;-)

Aliens'r'us.