Where is our Master of Orion?

Last summer we discussed twin announcements from Intel and IBM/AMD about a new chip manufacturing technology dubbed high-k/metal gate. Intel is using the tech to improve speed and power consumption in its 45-nm chips. IBM, along with its manufacturing partners, just demonstrated chips it says show that high-k/metal gate technology at 32 nm can result in performance gains up to 30% and power savings up to 50%, compared to 45-nm process. IBM plans to be manufacturing 32 nm parts by the end of 2009. (AMD is not using high-k/metal gate yet, but it has access to the technology by virtue of its agreements with IBM.)

I read that article summary from Slashdot and one thing stuck out to me:

AMD is not using high-k/metal gate yet, but it has access to the technology by virtue of its agreements with IBM.

Holy smokes. Did anyone else get Master of Orion flashbacks? Regular articles are considering technologies as commodities. Something to be traded between races companies. I realize that companies have been trading "technologies" for a very long time. But this particular "high-k/metal gate" technology, is an actual technology in the true sense of the word. Developed independently by two different companies.

Imagine what would have happened if they had been working on different aspects rather than competing to the same technology. Looking at it from a Master of Orion viewpoint when we bump up our electronics research we get no more research points because they're all researching the same thing.

When you play Masters of Orion you get the sense that the whole race is working together to expand knowledge, and explore space. That there are teams of scientists inventing because that's what they're good at and what they produce is useful, to everyone. You probably didn't even imagine an internal currency for the planets you controlled. If the scientists wanted food the farmers would give it to them. If the factory workers needed ore the miners would get it for them. Not because they were paying internally but because they were working together as a whole. As a single race.

I have heard theories that the human race won't band together until it faces an outside threat. Perhaps any extraterrestrial societies are merely waiting for us to destroy ourselves. It seems rather likely, because we don't have our own... Master of Earth.

As I posit the position that the human race needs a leader, I'm not sure what that leader would be like. Enough humans don't want to be led, or wouldn't like the direction of leadership, that I might say it was impossible. But without it I think we will limp along slowly, and might destroy ourselves before we find something to band together about.

I thought robotics was stalled

How naive it turns out I was. I thought because robotics wasn't there, in my face, advancing all products, that robotics was dead. It turns out all the problems are being secretly solved. Oh it's no conspiracy, but you have to specifically look for them to see anything more than the Roombas around.

That may just be because of my country, it seems huge leaps in robotics are occurring in Japan. As they say necessity is the mother of invention, it turns out Japan is suffering from too few children being born and so there will not be enough people in the workforce to support the retiring population (they call the problem the graying of Japan). And so they hope to replace a large portion of those retiring individuals with robots.

I also thought robotics was still in the individual hobbyist phase. Programming started out that way as well. With most of the new development occurring as individuals figured out what these crazy "computers" could do. But it turns out I'm behind the times... behold:

The Microsoft Robotics Platform

While I have had no experience with the robotics platform. Nor can I state for certain Microsoft is of any help, I can suggest this parable.

A young monk and an old monk approach a swift-flowing river. The young monk spies the river and begins picking up some hefty rocks to make a bridge. The old monk carries nothing but searches the riverbank as they approach. The young monk tosses his large rocks at intervals in the river, but just as swiftly as he tosses them they begin to be rolled downstream.
"Ahh, wise master how shall we cross the river," he cries. The old monk moves downstream a ways and begins to try to heave a heavy boulder into the river.
"Master, though I trust your wisdom, that boulder will do us no good, we cannot cross on just one boulder and we cannot lift enough of them to make a path. That is why I only chose large stones," the young monk sighs. Dutifully he helps the elder monk lift the rock and heave it into the river. Then the old monk sits, tired from is effort.
The young monk remains standing and says, "Master what shall we do now?"
"Wait," suggests the old monk, a twinkle in his eye.
Hours pass and the young monk begins to notice that some of the rocks, rolling down from farther upstream, are lodging against the boulder. Into the next day they observe a growing outwelling of rocks. Until the old monk deemed it safe to cross.
As they left the far riverbank the old monk began lecturing.
"You see, all the work tossing large rocks could not solve the problem. Individually they were not strong enough to hold the tide, and they could not work together. But one large effort on the boulder, though as you stated it would be impossible for us to use the boulder to cross, left a space for other rocks to cling. To work together and form the bridge, until even the boulder platform was unnecessary."

Universal Documentation

Wikipedia is amazing as it grows it is becoming something of my concept of a set of Universal Documentation.

Did you know there is documentation on building a FTL spaceship? If you dig in you'll see the reason they haven't built it is they need exotic matter, but if you dig further than that you'll see that matter can be shown to be exotic matter. Holy Crap!?! But I digress.

There is a fundamental problem with wikipedia. The problem is people don't know everything. And wikipedia doesn't take them all the way back to something they know so they can hang the information somewhere.

The problem illustrates itself best in mathematics. Regardless of what level of mathematics you are comfortable with, there are certain portions you don't know. It's made even more tricky because of the symbols they use. Did you look at the wikipedia article on exotic matter? Did you notice Forward's Analysis? And the equations used there:

P(sys) = (v x m) + (v x (-m))

Do you know what v and m are for? I happen to know that P(sys) is talking about potential energy (but that's because I remember something from my physics classes).

The trouble is wikipedia doesn't provide links for you to learn. It's a dead end, you can't understand what they're talking about so you quickly lose the knowledge. You might contend here that I could whip out my physics book and learn the requisite knowledge.

Ever tried searching a physics book for a specific type of instruction? It's not easy, and I certainly wouldn't recommend it on a more regular basis than once a week. That combined with the fact that you may not even be able to learn from the textbook, leaves this a dead end.

Imagine wikipedia articles where hovering over the variables in an equation tells you what they are describing and clicking on them takes you to documentation of what that thing is. Imagine being able to dig far enough down to find something you do understand and work your way up until you understand the math and physics they are describing.

That is perfect Universal Documentation.

The troubles I see with this are the same problems I have with physics books. They're not written by people who are good at getting their point across, they are written by people who are good at physics.

I wonder if I could start at the bottom and work up. If I started with mathematics, branching for different types of mathematics, branching further for physics.

What an insane idea, but just imagine if anyone in the world could contribute to scientific discussions.