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Just stick a human brain in a bucket. It's small, quiet, cool and just feed it a Cheeto every once in a while to keep it running.

And since the human brain has a computational power of 100 petaflops at 20 watts, it'd well exceed DARPA's requirements.

NASA didn't invent Tang. They just drank it. In fact the space program didn't invent any of the things people think it did. There is however a long list of things it has has done for us.

Yeah, and most of these "spinoffs" are urban legends, including the smoke detector, which was not developed by NASA. And the "13 dollars for every 1" "fact" is just as much horseshit as your history of the smoke detector.

That's just what they want you to think! http://tim.movementarian.com/archives/computer_bomb.jpg

"Considering that the very computer you're using is an END RESULT of the last space race that went to the moon"

Please stop perpetuating urban myths. The integrated circuit was developed long before Apollo.

http://movementarian.com/2006/09/11/urban-legends-of-nasa-what-they-did-not-invent/

Yes! Matrioshka brain's FTW! :D :P

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Matrioshka_brain
http://movementarian.com/2006/08/25/megascale-engineering-matrioshka-brain-edition/

It's not that silly. (Although whether it's an appropriate use of taxpayer resources is another matter). Yes, today computers have neither the hardware nor software for decent AI. But it's virtually certain that the hardware will reach and surpass the raw computational power of the human brain in the next few decades. Human brain: roughly 100 petaflops. Blue Gene: "only" 300 teraflops (0.3 petaflops), but apply Moore's Law and things start to get interesting around 2020. Software is harder, but some recent developments in AI are promising.

It won't happen tomorrow, but I expect it will happen sooner than many people think.

I've always been curious of solutions to the space junk problem. This was one proposed solution. Another that I thought of is to drag a giant curtain around with you in orbit, capturing, if not deflecting stuff. Sort of like dragging a big net through the ocean. Then, when done, just empty it (not sure how yet) at the atmosphere, and everything burns up. Unless you catch a satellite in the process :)

Hackers Can Turn Your Home Computer Into a Bomb and Blow Your Family To Smithereens!

First they came for the spammers, and I did not speak out--
because I was not a 419er;
Then they came for linking to the DeCSS, and I did not speak out--
because I was not 2600;
Then they came for reverse engineering, and I did not speak out--
because I was not Dmitry Sklyarov;
Then they came for the file traders, and I did not speak out--
because I was not a K-Lite user;
Then they came for me--
and there was no one left to Slashdot for me.

- tim.movementarian.com