MetalPedaler

Good gobblety-goop! If someone from Mars...or a normal person were reading this thread, they'd conclude that riding a bicycle must be some highly complicated pursuit, only able to be enjoyed by supermen with highly analytic minds and slide-rules!

Maybe one day, the technology will exist to even enable children to participate in this complex technical sport!

atallen223

Well maybe one day. If they are able to fully comprehend the effect of the coefficient of drag on performance. It'll be a while before 5 year olds can fully understand that sort of stuff...

Campag4life

I am sure you think about where we are heading atallen as a young engineer. Computers one day will be designing other computers. 3D printers today...3D scanners...instant generation of math/solid modeling and FEA analysis...an unbelievable world in the next 100 years we won't even recognize.
The real question is...can we manage it without self destruction.

AdelaaR

Do realize that the last few generations have always anticipated technological evolution to go faster than it actually did.
Remember the completely self-conscious computer from "2001: A Space Odyssey?" ... wasn't HALL supposedly made in 1999?
You are probably doing exactly the same thing here.

My theory about this: "As much as we want things to evolve even faster ... a generation can only evolve that much..."

AdelaaR

Cycling does get more interesting as the intelligence of the viewer increases ... indeed.
That doesn't mean simple peasants can't enjoy it as well

flatlander_48

I want you to trade in you car for one with a carburetor, drum brakes, 6-volt ignition system, 2 speed automatic transmission and bias ply tires. I want you to trade in your refridgerator for an icebox. I want you to trade your LCD TV and cable for a round 9" that gets 3 channels.

By what you say, it seems only logical.

flatlander_48

I would hesitate to say better. I would, however, say comparable. That said, one EPS feature that I think is very important and one for which the Shimano is not in the same league is the Back Home feature. If you have a catastrophic electronic failure such that the rear derailleur will not shift, you can disengage it, move it to a different cog, re-engage it and continue riding. What I understand about Di2 is that if you have such a failure, you are stuck on whatever cog you were on before the failure. To me, this is big. Often when I've mentioned this here, people jump to battery discharge. However, Campagnolo uses the term "drivetrain malfunction" as it is much more broad and could mean computer failure, sheared wiring, etc. This decoupling feature also comes into play if you fall on it. It helps to prevent damage. It was inadvertently tested at that introduction event as one of the journalists did fall. The derailleur decoupled like it was supposed to. The guy recoupled it, reset the system and away he went. This was recounted by Leonard Zinn in VELO as I remember.

Brian Ratliff

Sufficiency is not complicated. Find something in your price range and ride it. Optimization is complicated.

This goes for pretty much everything in life.

Campag4life

Many scientistis...I am of this mind...project that technology will continue to grow exponentially. Just look where we have come in the last 100 years.
Theory goes and I subscribe to this is...humans are limited by evolution in terms of the advancement of IQ and thinking power. Computers have no such limitation. Once the brain is effectively reverse engineered and super memory is installed, now you on the way to super invention and IQ's far in excess of 200. This will promote inventions we have never seen. I believe it will not only solve our medical cost by genetic engineering to stamp out disease but also unravel our energy crisis through extracting energy from cells through sunlight on the nano level.

Consider computers and where they have come since their infancy a very short time ago...I build them as a hobby. It is just unfathomable where processing and memory have come in the last 10 years. The computer that beat two of the greatest modern Jeapardy champions...easily. Then there will be the melding of computers with the human brain to infinitely increase the finite cortex of the brain that limits memory retetion.
The next hundred years once computers really start to hit their stride with AI and reverse engineering the brain and unraveling dna and reverse aging...there are no limits to where we will go if the grab for technology isn't squelched by nuclear war.

https://www.businessweek.com/videos/2...er-singularity

MetalPedaler

Yeah, but you know, being a quite precocious and advanced child when I was a kid [The best time for being a child], I actually indulged in the pursuit of cycling- but of course, not being sufficiently established in the theories of physics, it wasn't long before I encountered a friction-reducing viscous substance atop the bituminous surface upon which I was conducting my experiments in human propulsion, causing me to lose traction and momentum simultaneously; resulting in unwanted contact with said surface, and skin failure.

I own and have no problem with carburated vehicles; and I do not have cable. Although, I would not care to trade my DVD player for a VCR- but the differences are quite obvious there. The same can not be said for most cycling-related innovations.

Put it this way: If someone had cycling component which made even a fraction of the amount of difference as illustrated in your examples, I'm sure that it's owners would gladly provide hard data to corroborate that benefit- but since no such product which offers such massive benefits exists, marketers of cycling components must instead rely upon aesthetics; hear-say; old wives tales; sex-appeal; status; and association with famous athletes to hawk their more expensive wares. Not that there isn't benefit in much of the medium to higher quality stuff.....but rather that the benefits of one versus the other are rather subtle, and certainly not in the ice box vs. refrigerator category. More like: Hot Wheels vs. Matchbox cars! (I was always a Matchbox guy! Would it have mattered if someone subjected both toys to highly-calibrated scientific tests to see which brand had better aerodynamics and less rolling resistance?)

So, will you be passing up that '67 carbureted GTO for the fuel-injected 2013 Hyundai?

MetalPedaler

And Flatlander: I would gladly trade my current 42" TV [not connected to the outside world] for a black & white 9", if they were still making shows like The Honeymooners and The Twilight Zone. A good case-in-point of technology today far out-stripping the context for which it was intended [i.e. Today we have high-quality video transmission and high-fidelity sound.....but nothing worth watching or listening to, except that which was made when we didn't have those things!]

halfspeed

I'd take the Hyundai with no hesitation whatsoever.

wphamilton

I don't know about all that, but I'll take the 200-IQ computer implant. Depending on the real performance numbers.

flatlander_48

Can't afford to keep gas in the GTO and my 2009 factory JCW MINI Clubman has the Hyundai covered, completely...

lungdoc

I hate to break it to you but dramatic TV is better than ever. The long-form television series has surpassed movies as the premium form of dramatic storytelling. Shows like Boardwalk Empire, Mad Men, Sopranos, Downton Abbey, Breaking Bad, Sherlock, Dexter, Game of Thrones etc are fantastic, certainly better than anything on television in the 70's and 80's when I was growing up. I'll concede Twighlight Zone was indeed great!

MetalPedaler

I can't believe the things I'm reading here!

Hyundais? Sopranos?

I suppose you all prefer cats to dogs, too!

Oh, the horror!

halfspeed

Cats are self-cleaning.

AdelaaR

I agree.
But then again I want you to think about my little theory about it again.
Humans can only evolve that much in one generation.
We simply don't want to evolve more than is acceptable for us.
If the only factor was technology ... we'd all be flying spaceships by now.

Campag4life

You made the same point earlier and I still dismiss it.
You believe that evolution and generational IQ limits human intelligence and I say that is about to change through technology.
How? Genetics are going to be altered. Humanity will no longer be constrained by evolution. Evolution will be altered. You and many others may not like this but its coming. Genetic engineering. Maybe you have heard the phrase designer babies? But there is much more than just altering genes to create a healthier, stronger, faster and smarter human that will live for hundreds of years with the ability to reproduce replacement organs genetically in the laboratory. There is the exponential growth of computer technology. Basically your thesis which I believe is flawed is...computer tech which you conceed is growing exponentially which it is...will stay on the same trajectory. Oh no. Why? Because tech is currently limited by human IQ. Computer intelligence probably by 2050 with AI advances and availability of unlimited data through memory...like scanning all the information on the web...will far and away exceed human capability. But there is much more than that. There will be a fusion of human and computer technology to expand human intelligence. This fusion will create ideas that have never been considered. Albert Einstein's intellect which the average person can't conceive of...will be trivial. The future I believe in one hundred years...and we have an outside shot to be around to see it with advances in genetics in the next 20 years...will be something we won't recognize. I am hopeful about it, but I fear the worse because of man's inability to get along with others that don't share something as basic as the same religion. Robots with human intelligence with far greater physical skills than we possess will probably be available in the next 20-30 years.

AdelaaR

When I say "Humans can only evolve that much in a generation" ...
I don't mean that as genetic evolution through IQ or whatever and I also don't mean it in a sense that humans are limited to a certain possible evolution.
I mean it in a sense that humans don't WANT to change more than that.
Simply because we like things to remain the same.
That seems like only a minor problem, but I believe it is the main cause of why technology and lifestyle HASN'T evolved as quickly as people in the fifties had anticipated.

atallen223

https://velonews.competitor.com/2012/...sited_256023/3

^ surprisingly helpful and very interesting. They talk about simple lab tests, but also test rider feel.

flatlander_48

Revised test methods and scoring are in the May 2013 issue...

Campag4life

Ridiculous. I will tell you why there is little chance for agreement and maybe limited hope for civilization...because we are so radically different.
For example. Take MetalPedaler's ridiculous comments conflating a GTO with a Hyundai. I grew up in the 60's building muscle cars...among them that very car...tri power 389 GTO's. Guess what? 50% of all SUV's sold today, will out accelerate, out handle and out brake a muscle car of the 60's with 2-3 x's the fuel economy...and most of them have less cylinders either 6 or forced air 4 cyl and much smaller displacement. It isn't even the same stratosphere today and yet a guy like MP will believe a GTO is a better car. A GTO is a 'covered wagon' compared to modern cars.

As to your assertion about desire to keep the status quo...I guess you never heard of Dr. Frankenstein. For every guy like you and MP there are 100 guys who want to create something unique or different and change society for the good or evil.

wphamilton

That in particular when combined with nanotech and genetic engineering is where I see the potential for an evolutionary leap. I confess I didn't watch your video because of the title - I have seen prophesied "singularities" come and go already without incident.

I don't anticipate the advances to be that straightforward however. There are a lot of sticking points between here and there, any one of them delaying that leap perhaps indefinitely. Development of medical nanotech has been excruciatingly slow, genetic engineering has unforeseeable consequences, and AI has been more about hardware and incremental enhancements of algorithms than leaps forward. On top of that we - our high priests of knowledge in the soft sciences - don't truly know what the goal is, what makes people "smarter". Perfect recall of anything stored in the network, ok. Instant calculation of any equation, ok. I can see both of those within our grasp. But that's not what it takes - I've known people with incredible recall who didn't seem all that bright. There's still something missing. Just an example. *

Adding another layer of hurdles, it may become far cheaper and effective to enhance the purely technological side than to deal with human-computer synthesis at all. I don't know, no one does at this point, but historically we have tended to create a device for a given purpose rather than enhance a human. If there is no particular economic incentive to synthesising super-Einsteins, even if there is the capability it may not happen at all.

The social and political reactionaries to which AdelaaR refers are the final level of hurdles. Genetic manipulation even of basic grain is controversial, cloning practically illegal and stem cell research of any kind opposed by vast masses. Let alone muddling directly with the human genome. It shouldn't be understated. Even with all of the other challenges surmounted this alone could stop everything.

edit: * I know that this paragraph gored an ox for a lot of people. mea culpa. Nothing personal intended. If anyone feels compelled to lash out I'm not going to fight about it.

Campag4life

You make many good points and further exploration of the challenges you outline obviously exceed the scope of the 41. Nice to hear from somebody who has given the future a bit of thought.
Just a point. Implanting a computer interface with the optic nerve isn't much of a stretch. Artificial eyes are here. Its simply taking Google glasses to the next level. An exciting technology merging computer aka micro processors and human's pertains to a physical exo-skelton (robot suit) directly interfaced with the nervous system that allows those with severed spinal cords to walk. No airplane controls...just thought. That technology is here and a remarkable technology. Reverse engineering the brain on a mechanical level will be done I believe and your point about what really is intelligence is a good one....there are many kinds for example.
And yes there is real distinction between memory and IQ. The real question is the trajectory of technology moving forward. I agree with the futurist from MIT in the video I linked.
Cheers.