From: | "Logan Graves <Fenris>" <logan1@*****.INTERCOM.NET> |
---|---|
Subject: | RealLife SOTA Tech (was:Re: Today's state of the art... |
Date: | Sun, 9 Nov 1997 23:11:25 -0500 |
>
> There's a trend recently, and also in the SR books themselves, that
> technology options which *TODAY* is state of the art, is also 'design
> improvement options' in SR.
<much snip>
> How much has technology advanced the last 60 years? Quite a lot.
> Completely new things is nukes, computers, space travel, television,
> jet engines, velcro, teflon, and so on. Sciences that has gone through
> multiple paradigm advances in chemsitry, metallurgy, medicine,
> sociology, physics, economy.
<more snippage>
On that note, I thought I'd relate a relevant RL technological advance:
Lockheed-Martin has recently completed field-testing an airport
chem-sniffer, much like the ones described in the NAGtRL Sourcebook. It
looks much like the old stand-up metal detectors, that one walks
through, only a little deeper, but with circular air vents all over the
inner surface. The detector blows air around the traveller, then
collects & measures the blow-by for traces of (pre-programmed)
explosives. Currently, they have it down to a twelve-second sweeping
pattern, during which time the 'subject' must stand within the
detector. But the goal (as defined by the airline customers) is a
ten-second delay. L-M says that this is do-able.
During the several weeks of field-testing in a New Mexico Airport,
their only "positive trace" was the detection explosive residue on the
person of a chemical plant worker, who'd not been in contact with the
detected substance for over four days, prior to entering the airport.
Strangely, I *do* feel safer.
--Fenris
_______________________________________________logan1@*****.intercom.net
(>) Toeing the Company Line, are we Fenris?
(>) --Ricochet Rita, Razorgal
(>) <*Shrug*>
(>) -F