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"Although we'd all like Moore's Law to continue forever, quantum mechanics imposes some fundamental limits on the computation rate and information capacity of any physical device. In particular, it has been shown that 1 kilogram of matter confined to 1 liter of space can perform at most 1051 operations per second on at most 1031 bits of information

Um, no, that's wrong.

Bremmermann's Limit is the maximum computational speed in the physical universe (as defined by relativity and quantum mechanical limitations) and is approximately 2 x 10^47 bits per second per gram (or, for those who prefer sexagesimal, one jezend, 60^11, bits per second per gram).

Bousso's covariant entropy bound also called the holographic bound is a theoretical refinement on the Bekenstein Bound that may define the limit of how compact information may be stored, based on current understanding of quantum mechanical limits, and is theorized to be equal to approximately one yezend (60^37, or ~10^66) bits of information contained in a space enclosed by a spherical surface of 1 sq. cm.

Given this, 1 kg of matter can perform approximately 2 x 10^50 bit operations per second per kilogram, in a space much smaller than 1 liter of space. Of course, other physical constraints (non-quantum related) probably limits us to a couple of orders of magnitude less computation, in a couple of orders of magnitude more space, but of course what those limits might be is very speculative

"Although we'd all like Moore's Law to continue forever, quantum mechanics imposes some fundamental limits on the computation rate and information capacity of any physical device. In particular, it has been shown that 1 kilogram of matter confined to 1 liter of space can perform at most 1051 operations per second on at most 1031 bits of information

Um, no, that's wrong.

Bremmermann's Limit is the maximum computational speed in the physical universe (as defined by relativity and quantum mechanical limitations) and is approximately 2 x 10^47 bits per second per gram (or, for those who prefer sexagesimal, one jezend, 60^11, bits per second per gram).

Bousso's covariant entropy bound also called the holographic bound is a theoretical refinement on the Bekenstein Bound that may define the limit of how compact information may be stored, based on current understanding of quantum mechanical limits, and is theorized to be equal to approximately one yezend (60^37, or ~10^66) bits of information contained in a space enclosed by a spherical surface of 1 sq. cm.

Given this, 1 kg of matter can perform approximately 2 x 10^50 bit operations per second per kilogram, in a space much smaller than 1 liter of space. Of course, other physical constraints (non-quantum related) probably limits us to a couple of orders of magnitude less computation, in a couple of orders of magnitude more space, but of course what those limits might be is very speculative

"Although we'd all like Moore's Law to continue forever, quantum mechanics imposes some fundamental limits on the computation rate and information capacity of any physical device. In particular, it has been shown that 1 kilogram of matter confined to 1 liter of space can perform at most 1051 operations per second on at most 1031 bits of information

Um, no, that's wrong.

Bremmermann's Limit is the maximum computational speed in the physical universe (as defined by relativity and quantum mechanical limitations) and is approximately 2 x 10^47 bits per second per gram (or, for those who prefer sexagesimal, one jezend, 60^11, bits per second per gram).

Bousso's covariant entropy bound also called the holographic bound is a theoretical refinement on the Bekenstein Bound that may define the limit of how compact information may be stored, based on current understanding of quantum mechanical limits, and is theorized to be equal to approximately one yezend (60^37, or ~10^66) bits of information contained in a space enclosed by a spherical surface of 1 sq. cm.

Given this, 1 kg of matter can perform approximately 2 x 10^50 bit operations per second per kilogram, in a space much smaller than 1 liter of space. Of course, other physical constraints (non-quantum related) probably limits us to a couple of orders of magnitude less computation, in a couple of orders of magnitude more space, but of course what those limits might be is very speculative

Logitech definitely isn't the first company to consider a keyboard which can be used for gaming. I'm really excited about: http://www.artlebedev.com/portfolio/optimus/

Now THAT looks cool! As someone who uses multiple languages (English, German, a bit of French) and has to keep a piece of paper with keycodes attached when entering numbers in sexagesimal truetype fonts in openoffice, this keyboard would be perfect. Please say there will be ways to program the layout AND key displays under GNU/Linux. The help when using sexagesimal would be worth it alone!

Logitech definitely isn't the first company to consider a keyboard which can be used for gaming. I'm really excited about: http://www.artlebedev.com/portfolio/optimus/

Now THAT looks cool! As someone who uses multiple languages (English, German, a bit of French) and has to keep a piece of paper with keycodes attached when entering numbers in sexagesimal truetype fonts in openoffice, this keyboard would be perfect. Please say there will be ways to program the layout AND key displays under GNU/Linux. The help when using sexagesimal would be worth it alone!

Open Office Version 1.9.122 (2.0-beta) is quite good for this.

Load Micro$oft Word file.

Export to HTML/PDF/whatever format you like. I've used it for my novel, and use both export-as-pdf and save-as-html, and with the exception of multi-columned text, saving as HTML works perfectly. Saving as PDF works perfectly for everything (including multicolumned entries and embedded fonts), as this example shows.

Open Office Version 1.9.122 (2.0-beta) is quite good for this.

Load Micro$oft Word file.

Export to HTML/PDF/whatever format you like. I've used it for my novel, and use both export-as-pdf and save-as-html, and with the exception of multi-columned text, saving as HTML works perfectly. Saving as PDF works perfectly for everything (including multicolumned entries and embedded fonts), as this example shows.

Don't push for getting rid of base 60 time, push to change our number system to base 12.

How about base-60 instead>

And while on the topic... who thought up this crazy 60 seconds in a minute, 60 minutes in an hour, and 24 hours in a day.
We need metric time damn it!

Metric-60 is the answer my friend. :-)

We Just need to switch from base-10 to sexagesimal (base-60). Degrees, minutes, seconds (angle) and minutes/seconds (time) will already be set. Just start using 60 hours in a day instead of the archaic 24-hours we're used to, and switch all the other units to base-60 as well, and everything will be hunkydory.

Oh, and dump daylight savings time too. It's even more annoying than base-10. Of course, some people will need to grow an extra fifty fingers to keep count in base-60, but I look at that as more of a challenge in bio and genetic engineering than a "problem" per se. :-)

And while on the topic... who thought up this crazy 60 seconds in a minute, 60 minutes in an hour, and 24 hours in a day.
We need metric time damn it!

Metric-60 is the answer my friend. :-)

We Just need to switch from base-10 to sexagesimal (base-60). Degrees, minutes, seconds (angle) and minutes/seconds (time) will already be set. Just start using 60 hours in a day instead of the archaic 24-hours we're used to, and switch all the other units to base-60 as well, and everything will be hunkydory.

Oh, and dump daylight savings time too. It's even more annoying than base-10. Of course, some people will need to grow an extra fifty fingers to keep count in base-60, but I look at that as more of a challenge in bio and genetic engineering than a "problem" per se. :-)

I agree!

Please, whatever you do, don't click on any links to my novel. Whatever you do, dont read it online! Oh, the humanity! (and I say this as one who has been published, and is well on the way toward doing so again).

Has no one considered that Google will be allowing word and phrase searches in books, but won't necessarilly be providing the full text online? I suspect that is the case (I really can't see google wrecking their business by engaging in wholesale, deliberate copyright infringement), and that will drive more sales, not less.

I agree!

Please, whatever you do, don't click on any links to my novel. Whatever you do, dont read it online! Oh, the humanity! (and I say this as one who has been published, and is well on the way toward doing so again).

Has no one considered that Google will be allowing word and phrase searches in books, but won't necessarilly be providing the full text online? I suspect that is the case (I really can't see google wrecking their business by engaging in wholesale, deliberate copyright infringement), and that will drive more sales, not less.

I agree!

Please, whatever you do, don't click on any links to my novel. Whatever you do, dont read it online! Oh, the humanity! (and I say this as one who has been published, and is well on the way toward doing so again).

Has no one considered that Google will be allowing word and phrase searches in books, but won't necessarilly be providing the full text online? I suspect that is the case (I really can't see google wrecking their business by engaging in wholesale, deliberate copyright infringement), and that will drive more sales, not less.

Read this story. It's called Autonomy. It describes a world where this exact situation has occurred. It takes place about 50 years in the future and everything has a patent. All scientific and technological progress has stopped because it's too bloody expensive to legally acquire the rights to anything. But, fortunately, the underground have come up with solutions.

https://jean.nu/Projects/Autonomy/Episode-01/Book/ Draft-03/Autonomy-Freedom-of-Thought-Draft-3-CC.ht ml

I believe in Open Source, and I will not allow any government to keep me from using it and contributing to it.

Not much could turn me into a revolutionary, but something like this just might.

I am generally quite content, living a comfortable lifestyle in a reasonably comfortable country, with a decent paying job, my toys, a nice home in a nice city, a woman I love, and just about anything else contentment requires (including that one important prerequisite, a measure of freedom). Any anger or annoyance I feel toward the world is easilly vented here or elsewhere online and purged from my system, after which I continue on just as reasonably content as before.

However, banning free software could seriously make me reconsider that (scratch the job, and with it likely the home and the plane. Take away the freedom and no amount of toys or perks will bring contentment again). Whether I would become a true scorched-earth revolutionary I doubt, but I would certainly sell the condo and the airplane, emigrate from this country, renounce my citizenship, and use my talents to enrich a nation more deserving than the United State's will have become if our leaders even seriously consider doing something like this.

And I mean it.

In 1960s the french actually tried decimal time :)

It was a good idea, unfortunately it never caught on (of course, here in the US the entire metric system 'never caught on' despite being our official standard for decades now).

I wrote an amusing java applet which is viewable on my homepage, which impliments a kind of "metric time."

10 hours / day, 100 minutes /hour, 100 seconds /minute, e.g. 5:00:00 is 12:00 noon

Actually, it would make more sense in terms of nomenclature to have 1000 seconds / minute, such
that one has hours (decirotations), minutes (millirotations), and seconds (microrotations), e.g. 7:50:000 would be 6:00 PM.

• Security
  
  • Peer review of code yields more pro-active identification of problems
  • Source availability allows users to create fixes to identified critical security bugs in a more timely manner -- hours rather than days or weeks.
  • A security paradigm which accounts for multiple users and a network connection from the ground up, rather than a kludge tacked on later as an afterthought
  • Well behaved user applications which do not open themselves up to trivial attack by default a la' MS Exchange.
  • User permissions, preventing a user from doing damange to anyone other than themselves should they launch a destructive trojan, or simply run amok deleting everything they can.
    
  • Kerberos implimentation which doesn't suffer from deliberate attempts to limit interoperability with other systems
  • etc.
    
• Robustness (uptimes measurable in years, as opposed to days)
• Memory management - when programs write to memory which doesn't belong to them they receive faults and are killed, they do not take the entire OS down. This is not true of windows 95 or 98, or NT when running in compatability mode.
• etc. etc. etc.
  

I've been using checkfree for about six years now, originally as a Compuserve-based add on to Quicken, now as a software-agnostic web interface. The cost is $10/month, and I only use the basic bill-paying features, but I have been very pleased with their product.

I have changed banks twice, with no difficulties, and migrated from the Quicken/MS centric dialup interface (compuserve) to the web interface, also with no difficulties.

If a payment goes astray, they will track it down for you (every time this has happened it has been an accounting error on the creditor's side - Ameritech and Commonwealth Eddison (typical old-school monopoly utility companies) were notorious for this, but the folks of checkfree did the legwork in getting the issues resolved.

The web login insists that you be 128-bit capable, which is reassuring (as there were a couple of times I would have unknowingly connected using 40-bit encryption).

All in all very nice, especially when you are travelling for seven months strait (as I used to do), or have decided to take a month off and go on safari with no possible contact to the western world. Even just residing in the States, one gets very used to the convenience of having those recurring payments (loan and mortgage, for example) queued up automatically each month.

I've been using checkfree for about six years now, originally as a Compuserve-based add on to Quicken, now as a software-agnostic web interface. The cost is $10/month, and I only use the basic bill-paying features, but I have been very pleased with their product.

I have changed banks twice, with no difficulties, and migrated from the Quicken/MS centric dialup interface (compuserve) to the web interface, also with no difficulties.

If a payment goes astray, they will track it down for you (every time this has happened it has been an accounting error on the creditor's side - Ameritech and Commonwealth Eddison (typical old-school monopoly utility companies) were notorious for this, but the folks of checkfree did the legwork in getting the issues resolved.

The web login insists that you be 128-bit capable, which is reassuring (as there were a couple of times I would have unknowingly connected using 40-bit encryption).

All in all very nice, especially when you are travelling for seven months strait (as I used to do), or have decided to take a month off and go on safari with no possible contact to the western world. Even just residing in the States, one gets very used to the convenience of having those recurring payments (loan and mortgage, for example) queued up automatically each month.