Short Tech Stuff #3.5
The .5 is because I think I might have done one of these without labeling it.
This is another in an irregular series of posts built on short but pithy comments about current (or maybe future) tech. Or whatever else comes to my mind. Sometimes, I'm easily amused.
My clothes washer is still broken. Still waiting for a repair person to show up and tell me how hideously expensive it's going to be to replace the broken electronics. It's funny. One of the advantages of electronic technology was supposed to be how easy it was to replace. But no one replaces 1 chip. They replace an entire board with many chips on it. For the person doing the replacement it might still be really easy. But for the person who has to wait for weeks while the parts are shipped and then pay an arm and a leg for the "service" ... But I'm getting ahead of it, aren't I? Just because I've been down this road before doesn't mean I'm going down it again, y'know? Maybe I only think I see a pattern. That's how the best conspiracy theories are born!
Anyway, on to our tech items.
1) We'll start with an article in Time of all places, about surgeons using augmented reality goggles in the operating room. Why Surgeons Are Wearing The Apple Vision Pro In Operating Rooms. It's a report on a very small test of basically a heads-up display in the operating room, during "minimally invasive surgery."
The thing that struck me about it, aside from the really cool use of modern tech to help get a complicated job done with fewer problems - what? You mean that's enough? Okay. Let me back up a little bit and talk about the tech. It's a system that projects things like patient imaging directly in front of the surgeon’s eyes, so they don’t have to turn around and ask someone to hold it up or something. It means the surgery can just keep going instead of having to stop and hunt around for information.
Hey! I thought doctors were supposed to be smart? Why didn't they memorize this info before the surgery?
The answer is that the human brain doesn't work that way. Human memory is not a precision instrument. Trust me on this! If you try to memorize the same kind of information, with slight variances, ten times, or worse, a hundred or a thousand, you know what will happen? The doctor will get half way through the surgery and think, "Wait! Was the lesion on the left side, or the right side?" And, get this! The doctor will have clear memories of imaging showing both possibilities but won't be able to remember which one is correct.
That’s how memory works. After you've done a bunch of the same thing, they all kind of blur together in your mind. You might think chess players are different. They remember whole games move for move. But mostly that only applies to the interesting games. Not the ordinary ones. That's another thing to remember about the brain. It's designed to key on anomalies. When something becomes routine, the brain stops noticing it.
There’s a comment that I started to make above but then changed my mind because I'm about as organized as a writer as your average chimpanzee is as a baker. Just picture it. Anyway, the benefit the article called out wasn't for the patients. Apparently, turning around and looking at imaging multiple times during a surgery causes "discomfort" and even risk of injury for the surgeon. I'm guessing neck pain is a common occupational hazard. Who knew?
2) Sling shot to orbit! Well, not exactly. But the idea is interesting. Giant catapult defies gravity by launching satellites into orbit without the need of rocket fuel.
Just for openers, I find this talk of defying gravity annoying. You can't defy gravity. It's the most basic force of the universe. You can try to overcome it with brute force but that's a different thing entirely. But then, I'm not sure that whoever wrote this article actually understood the technology. It's basically a high tech catapult. Not a trebuchet, which uses a counterweight to throw things a long way. Or is it the other way around?
That's the basic idea that's being developed by a space launch company. Rather than ignite this super powerful and super dangerous rocket underneath your payload, why not just wind up and fling it up there? The advantage is that you don't have to mess around with rocket fuel. The disadvantage - and the article doesn't mention this - is that the acceleration has to be every bit as huge as you get from a rocket. Otherwise, the Earth's gravity will just pull it back down.
Another downside is that you'd better not miss. With a rocket, if you don't quite hit your orbital slot, maybe you can do a short burn to get you closer to where you need to be. But if your whole technique is to just throw real hard, that's not in the program. I mean, I guess it could be. But, just like with fueled rockets, every gram1 of fuel you add to the thing is a gram of something else you can't include2. Not to mention, you're back to all the complications and dangers of dealing with some of the most explosive stuff ever invented.
The article goes on to mention a bunch of other space companies and their technologies. It's interesting stuff if you're not already super-knowledgeable about the industry. But, alas, they leave out my favorite space launch tech: The Space Elevator. Yes, elevator. The idea is to run a cable from the ground to orbit. Then slowly drag stuff up the cable until it's up there where you want it. You don't need rockets or anything like that. It's almost like riding a cable car to space. Much lower stress on passengers than rockets or catapults.
Many years ago, Arthur C. Clarke wrote a book about a space elevator called The Fountains of Paradise. I'm pretty sure I read it and I think I might have even liked it. I generally enjoy Clarke's writing. But I can't remember a single thing about the book! When you've read enough of them, they kind of blur together. At least, I've heard something like that about memory recently. Not sure where.
Sometimes people think I'm a little off when I say that the human race is all but guaranteed to have a permanent presence in outer space. But just look at the dozens and dozens of companies that are working out new ways to make a buck off of it! They can't all be wrong, right?
Well, that's it for now. This is my first issue of Technoscreed since dialing back to a mere weekly schedule. It feels a little weird but I'll get used to it. See you next week when I have no idea what I'm going to write about!
Here's that prompt: "A bright, festive scene with a giant slingshot launching a satellite into space. In the foreground, a group of people dressed as surgeons wearing augmented reality goggles are observing the launch excitedly. The sky is clear and sunny, with bright blue skies and a cheerful atmosphere. The surgeons wear traditional scrubs with augmented reality goggles, showing high-tech visuals reflecting from the lenses. The satellite is mid-launch, with dramatic tension in the slingshot bands, and the surrounding crowd is excited, capturing a vibrant mix of science fiction and celebration."
The rocket-science type people measure things with the metric system. If you're interested in space tech, you kind of just have to learn to deal with it.
No matter what your launch system is, the math is the same. You have to push hard enough to overcome the mass of whatever you’re trying to put up into orbit. If you add mass, you have to push harder. Period.