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Mark Ellis wrote:Myth: Climo could beat you with a trash can lid.
Truth: Climo could beat you with a trash can lid left-handed.
keltik wrote:yeah etcetera is rarely written out but he probably only did because he is a non native speaker of English....
JHern wrote:<rant>
It is astonishing to see how many new disc designs have entered the market. All of these people are still working by the seat of their pants, based on cockamamy conjectures about how a disc flies, and there has been very little accomplished in the technical aspects of making better disc designs, or in the process engineering aspects that would lead to consistency and quality control.
In mathematical modeling there is a method called "Monte Carlo" in which you generate a random selection (say, disc design) and run it through the gambit (make a mold), try it out (throw it), and then measure it's outcome (see if it has a good flight pattern). Over time, by the attrition of brute numbers alone, the desired solution begins to emerge very slowly. The anomaly in any approximate solution (proto design) relative to the ideal solution (desired design) decays as 1/sqrt(N), where N is the number of random trials.
The thing about Monte Carlo is that it can be used for the most difficult problems imaginable, where there are few known ways for a more straightforward solution procedure, and it works quite generally (we can even solve the full Schrödinger equation for any element using this approach...something impossible otherwise). On the other hand, a convergence of 1/sqrt(N) is terribly inefficient (a given mold costs $10K-$20K to produce). To produce a factor of 10 improvement in the residual error requires 100 random trials!
There are much better ways to do things, using scientific and engineering concepts, which would make far superior products than anything we've ever seen on the market, period. But nobody seems to be willing to do things the right way, we have a army of half-ass disc companies with no clear direction, no idea of how to do things better than previously, and just way too excited to just turn out more varieties of discs. But if we want to see a big forward step, we still have to wait for somebody who wants to do things better than before, disc golf has all the skills and talents necessary to make it happen, there is just no willingness to harness it and exploit it.
Nevertheless, there are some good things that can come out of the present situation:
-Almost everybody is going to be making discs, effectively democratizing disc design and manufacture, taking it out of the hands of the few and putting it into the hands of the many.
-For many of us it is still great fun to try all the molds. Variety is the spice of life, and as a result of the present random processes we get to try an enormous variety of discs that we would not otherwise be able to throw.
-Disc manufacture has not yet been relegated to China, it is still a small business, with strong domestic roots.
Production will eventually shift to China, they have better raw materials (plastic) available in China than we have in the US, because the global supply lines all run to China (a gradual shift that takes decades to accomplish, but it is now in place). They already have the manufacturing and process engineering skills in place. But China is very much lacking in disc expertise, to get the most of this opportunity, you'd actually have to go to China and oversee the operation, to get it up and running, and the quality of the product would be limited by your own expertise (so you'd be wise to hire real experts and make them an intrinsic part of the operation). But once you did that, you could produce the very highest quality and consistency discs for an exceedingly small price, and flood the market. Can you imagine being able to buy superb quality plastic (better than KC Pro 11X pearly) with scientifically designed and optimized molds, for as little as $5 apiece?
The emergence of a strong China-based disc manufacturer is going to wipe out most of the other disc makers, they won't be able to compete in that kind of market. But it will be partly a consequence of them going into the business without really striving to be better and more knowledgable about disc design than previous manufacturers, instead just doing the same old same old, re-inventing the wheel, making the same mistakes, and in the end making no real progress toward the goal of better products for less cost.
</rant>keltik wrote:yeah etcetera is rarely written out but he probably only did because he is a non native speaker of English....
It is Latin, not English. It is used in the same way in many other languages, often (but not always) abbreviated as "etc.."
JHern wrote:It is Latin, not English. It is used in the same way in many other languages, often (but not always) abbreviated as "etc.."
JHern wrote:If your putter isn't your favorite disc, get a new putter.
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