this post was submitted on 19 Jun 2024
1103 points (96.3% liked)

xkcd

8822 readers
114 users here now

A community for a webcomic of romance, sarcasm, math, and language.

founded 1 year ago
MODERATORS
 

Alt text:

An idling gas engine may be annoyingly loud, but that's the price you pay for having WAY less torque available at a standstill.

you are viewing a single comment's thread
view the rest of the comments
[–] [email protected] 10 points 4 months ago* (last edited 4 months ago)

It advanced at a glacier pace because there was no massive driving force. It only kicked off a bit with cell phones and then in any substantial way with laptops. (Yes, batteries existed before that for different things, but there was no massive driving force.) Now imagine what would have happened if we funded it starting in the 1970s.