Why Are the Smartest Guys Flying Fat Boy Scouts?

SAN JOSE, CA, Oct 1, 2009 - Does going to a really popular restaurant make you expect a good meal? But the waiter ignores you, the menu's in a different language and most of the entries are meat -- you've just turned vegetarian. All the other diners are having a great time, eating it up, and getting lots of attention. 

So it seemed at the sold out, standing room only GPU Technology Conference. I was curious how the GPU power very much in evidence was going to help CAD, CAM and CAE users. But I was feeling like the bastard child.

Stanford professor Pat Hanrahan tells us the hottest trends in visual computing are in movies and games. Are the smartest guys in the room using their brains to make sure the fat boy scout floats a house into the sky with a bunch of balloons? I'm hearing that was the funniest animated movie ever, but ---damn, shouldn't they be doing something important. I'm about to deliver yet another righteous rant about how really important design and engineering is in the scheme of things ...until it occurs to me that back at the office we are currently helping an inventor model a contraption that keeps piss from splashing on the walls of the bathroom. 

Or wait...maybe I can be righteously indignant after all. Piss on walls must be a real world problem -- unlike the house on  balloons. There must be thousands of maids cursing errant pissers in hotels. Or marraiges breaking up because the male of the house considers forceful urination his terrritory and the cleanup, someone else's.

The light bulb goes on: Instead of modeling water splashing trivially in a invisible cube, which is nothing but an excercise for the graphically gifted, why not model Pissing in Toilets. A splash resistant toilet is a worthy goal and could occupy the brighter minds among us. At least it would keep them out of the animation studios and game labs.

Comments

[R. Paul Waddington]

"why not model Pissing in Toilets" - I reckon if you asked them to do this, Roopinda, they probably would have a go.

Wouldn't that be something to sit and watch and, could it not be turned into a 'game' as well? ;-)