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Where to get Avida by IdahoEv · 2003-05-08 07:34 · Score: 3, Informative · on Digital Darwin

For the record, I'm one of Dr. Adami's grad students in (The Digital Life Lab) at Caltech. Most of the programming is done at our sister lab in Michigan.

We recently released Avida version 2.0, with a new GUI and complete with god mode where you can inspect and edit the genome of any organism at any point.

We encourage you to play with Avida yourself. You can get information and a Mac OS X binary at:

Avida's Hompeage. Older versions for linux and windows are available there as well.

The intrepid can build the current version for OS X or Linux from source, please see Avida's Sourceforge Project. If you want the nice GUI, you'll need QT.

Other information about Avida, our lab's research, and artificial life in general can be found at:

The Digital Life Lab Homepage

Our sister lab at MSU, run by Professors Charles Ofria and Richard Lenski.

The Int'l Society For Artificial Life

Where to get Avida by IdahoEv · 2003-05-08 07:34 · Score: 3, Informative · on Digital Darwin

For the record, I'm one of Dr. Adami's grad students in (The Digital Life Lab) at Caltech. Most of the programming is done at our sister lab in Michigan.

We recently released Avida version 2.0, with a new GUI and complete with god mode where you can inspect and edit the genome of any organism at any point.

We encourage you to play with Avida yourself. You can get information and a Mac OS X binary at:

Avida's Hompeage. Older versions for linux and windows are available there as well.

The intrepid can build the current version for OS X or Linux from source, please see Avida's Sourceforge Project. If you want the nice GUI, you'll need QT.

Other information about Avida, our lab's research, and artificial life in general can be found at:

The Digital Life Lab Homepage

Our sister lab at MSU, run by Professors Charles Ofria and Richard Lenski.

The Int'l Society For Artificial Life

Re:Light-weight alright ;o) by NoTildeQuestionMark · 2003-05-02 23:22 · Score: 1 · on HTML Rendering Crashes IE

I instantly got to work making this a companion page to my JavaBomb (a JavaScript pop-up bomb that also works only in IE), and found that interestingly (to me), the bug does not work when couched between <BODY></BODY> tags, but that <TITLE></TITLE> tags are fine.

So this works:

<HTML>
<HEAD>
<TITLE>Crashing IE</TITLE>
</HEAD>
<FORM>
<INPUT TYPE CRASH>
</FORM>
</HTML>

But this one not so much:

<HTML>
<HEAD>
<TITLE>Crashing IE</TITLE>
</HEAD>
<BODY>
<FORM>
<INPUT TYPE CRASH>
</FORM>
</BODY>
</HTML>

Which as far as I'm concerned is odd.

~

Re:State law and product warranties by Phronesis · 2003-04-30 04:18 · Score: 1 · on AMD: No Grease For You!

OK. I think of libertarians as liberals and people like George W. Bush, Rick Santorum, and Trent Lott as conservatives. Now you've cleared up my misunderstanding. Historically, liberals were those, such as John Locke and Adam Smith, who embraced enlightenment thinking and wanted to base government and laws on liberty and rationality, where conservatives (Tories) wanted to retain God-given natural law, monarchy, hereditary station in life, etc. This translates today into liberals who want to get the government and laws out of our bedrooms and away from our liberties, and conservatives who want government and laws to enforce "traditional Judeo-Christian values."

As Jonathan Miller once said,

in the U.S. they have two parties, just as we [in England] have two parties. They have the Republican party, which is like our Conservative party. And they have the Democratic party, which is like our Conservative party.

But now that I understand where you're coming from, we don't need to split hairs over political labels.

I'm not sure what to make of your statement that you're concerned more with criminal than civil litigation. This whole thread was a about civil matters (California's laws on implied warranties). As to criminal matters, local judges and juries in the South in the 1960s accurately reflected racist community values and exonerated some awful murderers and terrorists, some of whom took advantage of the Constitutional protection against double jeopardy and sold the stories of their brutal acts to the press.

If you think this is all ancient history, look at what local judge Edward Self did in Tulia Texas. When rogue cop Tom Coleman framed about 15% of the black population of Tulia Texas for selling cocaine in 1999 (one 57 year old hog farmer was sentenced to 99 years), Judge Self refused to admit evidence introduced by defense lawyers that demonstrated a pattern of deceit and shoddy police work by Detective Coleman. Later Judge Self lied about his refusal to admit this evidence and despite being caught lying and forced to recuse himself from appeals of the Tulia cases, Judge Self was re-elected. This spring, the cases were re-opened by higher authorities who don't have to stand for election in Tulia. Detective Coleman has been charged with three counts of aggravated perjury and all the convictions are being vacated. The State of Texas is preparing to pay the victims up to $3000 for each year they wrongfully spent in prison.

Before you get too enamored of direct local democracy, I would recommend re-reading Federalist X on the danger of faction and the tyranny of the majority. This spring, people farther removed from the local level got involved and

Re:The title reminds me of an article in AIR by KingJoshi · 2003-04-29 08:31 · Score: 2, Informative · on Recent Advances in Cognitive Systems

I think you slight the progress made, the difficulty of the task and overgeneralize on the AI community (on purposes and approaches of various people). You also have a clarity on "intelligence" which tends not to be so clear.

But I'd like to bring to your attention a research project going on at my school (Michigan State University) which I think is different from other "AI". I didn't see it mentioned from glancing the article.

The attempt to is create a robot that learns and develops as a baby would. A key point is that it develops its own representation of the world. I disagree on some issues with the professor, but I think he has the right general idea.

Here's a link to slides explaining the approach and another link to the main research page.

Re:The title reminds me of an article in AIR by KingJoshi · 2003-04-29 08:31 · Score: 2, Informative · on Recent Advances in Cognitive Systems

I think you slight the progress made, the difficulty of the task and overgeneralize on the AI community (on purposes and approaches of various people). You also have a clarity on "intelligence" which tends not to be so clear.

But I'd like to bring to your attention a research project going on at my school (Michigan State University) which I think is different from other "AI". I didn't see it mentioned from glancing the article.

The attempt to is create a robot that learns and develops as a baby would. A key point is that it develops its own representation of the world. I disagree on some issues with the professor, but I think he has the right general idea.

Here's a link to slides explaining the approach and another link to the main research page.

Re:Great, but... by lamber45 · 2003-04-26 14:01 · Score: 1 · on Jeff Bezos' Shot At Space

it also might give more opportunity for censorship. After all, Lunar society is likely to be a small population in day-to-day fear of terrorism for some time. For an example of censorship today on Earth, first do a search at Chinese Yahoo for "al quaida is cooler than linux" here. Do you connect? Good. Now see what happens when you search for falun gong. Strange attitude toward something that isn't any deeper than the first day of a Tae Kwon Do class...

Military Industrial Complex by Stargoat · 2003-04-18 04:19 · Score: 5, Insightful · on Secret Empire

Eisenhower's presidency was always marked by contrasts. He really did build up the military to avoid war. He spied on the Soviets in order to prevent misunderstandings. The Soviets knew this. When the U2 with Gary Powers was shot down, Krushev initially wanted to allow Eisenhower to save face, as he knew Ike's motives.

The interesting thing of all is, even though Eisenhower built the military industrial complex that we have today, his last act of president was to condemn it, and warn Americans of its future activities.

Click here to read Ike's farewell speech

It is this same military industrial complex that gave rise to so many of the technologies that we use today, such as e-mail. Something for the /. community to think about.

Re:Bright Side by Anonymous Coward · 2003-04-15 04:05 · Score: 0 · on "Super-DMCA" Outlaws Ph.D. Thesis

Amusingly enough, Michigan State University's current email system runs an open relay only a couple miles from the state capitol building.

Re:Bright Side by Anonymous Coward · 2003-04-15 04:05 · Score: 0 · on "Super-DMCA" Outlaws Ph.D. Thesis

Amusingly enough, Michigan State University's current email system runs an open relay only a couple miles from the state capitol building.

Re:I thought so. by Otter · 2003-04-13 15:14 · Score: 1 · on Genome Surprise

We have 23 pairs of chromosomes, no more, no fewer. That's been known for ages now.

Well, it was believed to be 24 pairs until 1956. Admittedly, in molecular biology that may well qualify as "ages".

Re:Poll: How many of us have tried? by Neuronerd · 2003-03-29 12:07 · Score: 1 · on The Museum of Unworkable Devices

Well ... the the second law of thermodynamics seems to imply that even such micromachines are not possible because entropy would then be changed into the wrong direction.

As said on lectureonline.cl.msu.edu:(You can browse through the book changing the url. "These machine then violate the second law of thermodynamics, as we will see in the following, and are thus impossible to work. This is much harder to see, because the concepts are rather delicate. The book proceeds to introduce the concept of Entropy".

Other works discuss if the second law of thermodynamics (which forbids your machines) can be derived from quantum mechanics : Such quantum mechanical systems would be adequate to describe your micromachines.

I tried to design such micromachines too some day and I even think that scientific american had an article about it that I unfortunately cant find

My favorite by Biffer4810 · 2003-03-17 08:50 · Score: 2, Interesting · on Family Tech Support

This was probably my favorite:

Family member: "Why isn't my friend getting this email"
Me: "Oh, well it looks like you typed a '1' instead of an 'l' in her email address"
Family member: "Oh. Well, how does the internet know the difference?"

It took me 15 seconds or so to even think of how to respond, I was so suprised by the question.

Here in the dorms, I get quite a few questions, but I don't mind. I like working with computers enough that taking a few minutes to solve a problem is a nice study break. For bigger problems I just say that I'd be happy to do it when I have some free time.

Strangest computer problem at school? That would have to be when my floor's janitor brought his computer into my room unannounced and asked me why the RAM he installed wasn't working. To this day I wonder how he knew that I'd be able to help him out. [It was the wrong kind of RAM for his mobo btw]

Lamber45: Mormon Kook? by Anonymous Coward · 2003-03-14 01:45 · Score: 0 · on Texas Court Blocks Screen-Scraper

His website is chock full of interesting little tidbits, like this one.

Re:It's free information, for a price. by lamber45 · 2003-03-13 14:34 · Score: 1 · on Texas Court Blocks Screen-Scraper

I like writing screenscrapers and running 'ping' with the rest of them, but I'd probably say AA is in the right on this one. I get the idea reading the brief that they played fair for a while and had a fun old time trying to outsmart the outsmarter, but finally gave up and called their lawyer when real harm was done. Hey, I've bought tickets from AA and had to struggle with their slow servers; could I sue Farechaser for unjust enrichment against me, an AA customer?

Incidentally, I did a search on Lexis-Nexis for "screen AND scraper OR automatic AND database". Notes from one interesting hit I came up with are on my website, but I didn't find any case law on the subject at hand.

MSU Salvage by Pathwalker · 2003-03-12 17:26 · Score: 2, Interesting · on Great Surplus Stores?

When I was in college, I hit the MSU Salvage Yard (Located here) every couple of weeks.

I've seen everything from (lots of ) lab equipment, to a PDP-11, to the old clock from the campus belltower, to whole pallets of workstations for sale there over the years.

I still try to swing by there a couple of times a year, to see if there is anything really really cool lying around.

While it may be a long trip for many people, check with large schools near you to see if they have public sales of stuff that was lying around.

New mormon connections as well? by dlleigh · 2003-03-01 03:27 · Score: 5, Interesting · on Battlestar Galactica to Return

The real question is, will the new version have all of the thinly disguised mormon doctrine like the original did?

See http://www.proaxis.com/~sherlockfam/art5.html or http://home.earthlink.net/~billotto/Mormon_N_BSG.h tml or http://www.lib.msu.edu/lorenze1/bg.htm
or anywhere else you can google up from "battlestar galactica" and "mormon".

Re:That's Washington University, moron by mmol_6453 · 2003-02-28 05:48 · Score: 1 · on Collecting Stardust

I dare you to mix up "Michigan State University" and "University of Michigan" around my family.

Re:it's all lies by smoondog · 2003-01-17 13:11 · Score: 1 · on Racing Dinosaurs with Spoilers

All the evidence I've seen and found(and I've looked, please show me any you think is compelling), falls into two categories. DNA that looks like it has evolved over a short time within species, or junk DNA we don't yet know the purpose of and we assume similarities in this junk DNA between species is evidence of common descent.

All of your points are well taken. As to the one above, the rate at which sequences change is a PhD in itself, and looking for a good molecular clock (sequences that change on the order of time that you are trying to look) is a challenging problem. I think the work by Gary Olson and Carl Woese (at UIllinois many years ago) on ribosomal RNA sequences is the most interesting. There are databases of these sequences available here and here and many many papers discussing their implications. Including the prediction of a third cell type based on rna sequences, the archaens....

Cheers,

-Sean

Re:Opensourced banana by Kaz+Riprock · 2003-01-16 12:34 · Score: 1 · on Banana to be Sequenced

Open-sourced banana on the web.

There is no mention as to whether it is GPL or BSD.

Not to nitpick... by Cutriss · 2003-01-09 08:42 · Score: 2 · on Japanese Language Tutoring Software For Lab Environments?

from the konishi-wa-ogenki-desu-ka dept.

That should be konnichi, not konishi.

Anyway, some friends of mine at Michigan State developed this game, a useful Kanji flashcard game. Something like this with a larger vocabulary and a better-rounded dictionary (some characters only have the on-reading or the kun-reading, but not both) would be an excellent tool to work with in a student lab.

In other other other other other news by js7a · 2002-12-29 13:39 · Score: 2 · on NOAA Identifies Mystery Noise as Minke Whale

Historians have found that the last invasion of the U.S. was in 1812, and except for an unsucsessful attack against Pearl Harbor, none have been attempted since. Nevertheless, fear mongering of such invasions have allowed the U.S. military to grow beyond reason against the best advice, taxing the freedoms of the Constitution away from citizens. The Department of Defense hopes that these facts will become unknown, and is covertly working toward that goal, months after renouncing it. Such military propaganda artists have long confounded peace- and freedom-loving citizens, although they often hear their noises, especially during the recent surfacing of the Bush-Bin Laden connection.

Michigan State University FOIA officer by Animats · 2002-12-24 11:02 · Score: 5, Informative · on Colleges Signing Secret MS License Agreements

Here's who you make a FOIA request to and here's MSU's FOIA price list. Here's a summary of Michigan's Public Records Act. There's no exemption that would cover a signed contract. Somebody in Michigan should ask.

Michigan State University FOIA officer by Animats · 2002-12-24 11:02 · Score: 5, Informative · on Colleges Signing Secret MS License Agreements

Here's who you make a FOIA request to and here's MSU's FOIA price list. Here's a summary of Michigan's Public Records Act. There's no exemption that would cover a signed contract. Somebody in Michigan should ask.

GPL is Free enough by ChaosDiscord · 2002-12-22 08:46 · Score: 4, Interesting · on FSF Launches Associated Membership Program

I see alot of people complaining that the GPL isn't absolutely free, and therefore it's deceptive to call it Free Software. Perhaps, if you're willing to similarly argue that there are no free nations and no free people.

Freedom is not an absolute that you have or don't have. It's a sliding scale. On one end is "Absolute Freedom". Absolute Freedom is only interesting in the sense that Absolute Zero is interesting: useful in theory, but unattaintainable in practice. Absolute Freedom would give me the freedom to, say, murder, rob, and defraud. Relatively few people people would desire that much freedom. By accepting restrictions on themselves, they know that others who might harm them are similarly restricted. In fact, Absolute Freedom probably isn't attainable for a population of any size, someone will take that freedom to use force to remove the freedom from others.

On the other end you have an Absolute Lack of Freedom. This really requires that we all be robots or otherwise completely controlled. If you're into predestination or the absolute computability of the universe, then you might believe that we fundamentally have an Absolute Lack of Freedom. Most people don't.

So we have a sliding scale between these two points. To take a situation I'm familiar with, let's look at the United States. The vast majority of citizens of the United States feel that they are free people. Yet, we accept a large number of restrictions on our behavior. There are laws limiting use of violence; which chemical compounds we're allowed to sell and purchase; when we're allowed to vote, drink, smoke, and run for political office; electromagnetic emissions our computers are allowed to emit; pollution allowed from our cars; what we're allowed to say and where (no "Fire!" in a crowded theatre). Yet with these restrictions, and thousands more, we basically feel that we're a free people, a free society. We're nowhere near Absolute Freedom, but we're free enough. There is naturally a continuous struggle to define what is free enough. Some argue to increase freedom in some areas, others argue to reduce freedom in some areas. Yet we're free enough.

So, back to software. In much of the world, the status quo is that you cannot distribute copies of other people's software. This is implemented through local copyright laws. Most software licenses start with the restrictions of copyright law, then add additional restrictions. Clearly most software licenses are less free than the default. The GPL starts with copyright law, then offers you a deal: you can have more freedom than copyright law grants, but there are some restrictions. You have a choice with software under the GPL: you can accept copyright law, or you can accept the GPL and gain certain freedoms. Yes, the GPL restricts how you can distribute copies of the GPLed software, but it's still better than the copyright default of zero copy distribution allowed. Clearly, the GPL is more free than copyright.

Now, the GPL isn't quite as free as the BSD / MIT / X licenses, sure. But you cannot claim that those licenses acheive Absolute Freedom. Clearly not, since there is something more free than the BSD license: the public domain. In the public domain software just barely reaches Absolute Freedom. Of course, Absolute Freedom is unstable, and naturally any software of value is copied out of the public domain and incorporated into less free works. While works in the public domain cannot effectively be removed from that freedom, their mere existance supports the creation of much less free works.

If we're going to debate the meaning of Free, we need to draw a line in the continuum of Freedom and Lack of Freedom. Would you draw it at Absolute Freedom? If we're talking about Freedom in general, you'll never achieve it. In the case of software, you there is an Absolute Freedom at public domain. Very nearby is the BSD style licenses. That certainly is a very free location on the continuum. It's so free that other people take the free thing and create something non-free. While that's very free, it seems a bit unfair to some people who want spread freedom more widely. If I create something and I want to make it free, why should my work support less free works? So I'm willing to move the line up to the GPL. Clearly less free than the BSD license, it helps to ensure that my donations to things on the Free side of the line cannot be used to support things on the Non-Free side of the line.

Perhaps you feel that the GPL isn't free enough. But for many people it is free enough, and as such can legitimately be called Free software. (To be fair, some people probably feel that proprietary software is free enough. I suspect relatively few people who have ever tried to get additional legal copies of software that was no longer published, or support for out of lifespan software, or wanted to use software no longer supported on modern system, or subjected to a BSA audit feel that the software in question is particularlly Free.)

Re:MODERATORS PLEEEEEZE HELP!!!!!!! by Anonymous Coward · 2002-12-08 12:30 · Score: 0 · on Because Only Terrorists Use 802.11

Is that you and your girlfriend on the page?

http://www.msu.edu/~troyerco/

Re:The correct measuring scale by belroth · 2002-12-03 08:17 · Score: 2 · on New Book Says The Meter Is all Wrong

0 degrees - the energy at which a hydrogen atom is at rest. 1 degree would be the energy at which hydrogen is one quantum state higher than rest.

Not gonna work, you can't get a hydrogen atom at rest.
I'm talking zero point energy here. Not the latest craze for free energy but the energy remaining at absolute zero - it's less than a quantum and so can't be emitted. You can't get an atom at rest. See this from google

1 length - the distance across 1 hydrogen atom

How are you going to define that distance? What value of the wave equation for a positron do you want to choose as your boundary?

Re:Lacks any ability to glide by AB3A · 2002-11-20 07:03 · Score: 2 · on Fanwing Planes?

Uh, no. The birds would suffer a similar fate no matter what kind of aircraft they hit.

The Fanwing is a new name on an old concept: It's called an autogyro. And yes, there are many folks reexaming the autogyro as a less expensive and more reliable alternative to the helicopter. Unfortunately, many don't realize why the autogyro isn't more popular until they look more closely at the performance envelope.

Autogyros can be more efficient than helicopters, but inevitably they are less efficient than fixed wing airplanes. They also suffer from the same problems as other rotary wing aircraft.

As the forward speed of the main rotor wing tip approaches the speed of sound, they lose lift. Rotorcraft are speed limited in ways that fixed wing aircraft are not. The Cartercopter is one of the best attempts at reaching efficent speeds and cruise that I've seen.

For examples of other autogyros see Gyrobee and The Popular Rotorcraft Association

It's not revolutionary, it's merely evolutionary. Beware of those who claim otherwise. (Note: Moller has been working on these designs for decades and not one has been sold commercially as a working aircraft in any capacity --even experimental)

Re:My main complaint about suits... by pablo.cl · 2002-10-28 03:51 · Score: 1 · on Suit Up Or Ship Out?

Isn't 72 degrees F the most comfortable temperature? At 60 F you need a coat!

MS also built on Aha! Inkwriter by GlenRaphael · 2002-10-27 19:48 · Score: 2 · on Windows XP Tablet PC Edition

don't get it. The Newton was a piece of crud that failed because the technology was crap. Doonesbury and Scott Adams were not being unfair in their cartoons,

Gary Trudeau had never used a Newton before doing the comic which he intended to make fun of PDAs in general rather than specifically the Newton. Trudeau was so favorably impressed with the Newton MP120 once he got a chance to use one that he drew this panel to be used as an easter egg in the Newton 2.0 ROMs.

The 2.0 Newton had awesome technology, but it was ahead of its time - nobody really knew what a PDA was for at the time. The MessagePad 2000 was great but cost over $1000 and was the size and weight of a small brick.

Most engineering is incremental development rather than a paradigm shift.

This is true. Microsoft has done some excellent work incrementally improving the Aha! InkWriter technology they bought a decade ago and moving some of its features into the OS. And I hope they keep at it, because there's a lot of improvement still to be made.

Here's a brief review of Bill's talk at Comdex 2000 the last time he made a big deal of Tablet PCs.

Re:Gnarly error messages by plumby · 2002-10-19 20:28 · Score: 2 · on Gnarly Error Messages

If you go to here you'll get a whole page of MPW error messages including

"type in (cast) must be scalar; ANSI 3.3.4; page 39, lines 10-11 (I know you don't care, I'm just trying to annoy you)

and the ever helpful

huh?

Re:mirror by jerde · 2002-10-19 12:38 · Score: 1 · on Fun with Fog Generators

How hard is it to make it a link?

http://www.msu.edu/~brownd41/mirror/gotfog/index.h tml

- Peter

Re:It's sad really by dogfart · 2002-10-16 07:09 · Score: 3, Interesting · on Email Over High-Frequency Radio in West Africa

Not true. According to the CIA factbook ,

Guinea possesses major mineral, hydropower, and agricultural resources, yet remains an underdeveloped nation. Let's ignore the mineral part, and note that agriculture is probably to mainstay of most of the population. Internet access, by supporting better agricultural management, will help improve productivity in this area. For example:

Market and commodity information to assist in export

Botany, the science of plants including pest control, plant breeding, etc.

Etc.

Maybe they don't wire to find out what a Big Mac tastes like, but they may ask about financing export, funds for development projects, scientific information on crop cultivation, etc.

There is more to the Internet than games and pr0n.

Re:And this nugget is 'juicy' in what way exactly? by Anonymous Coward · 2002-10-12 17:50 · Score: 0 · on Rosen, Valenti Warn Colleges About P2P

Sounds like what's happening at Michigan State. Apparently just starting this semester the whole campus is maintaining about 500Mb/s outbound, about twice what was going on last year. And it's all coming from housing. They don't know what they're going to do about it, but the school certainly can't afford to buy a bigger pipe so Johnny Freshman can download a song by the next shitty band.

Re:Don't worry... by st.+augustine · 2002-10-11 05:15 · Score: 3, Insightful · on Reflecting Fires

I did a little digging into what would be needed to get one's works published.

What would be needed is to write good books.

Seriously. It's not rocket science. There is no conspiracy. Publishers are always looking for good new writers. You don't need an agent (until you have a contract in hand), you don't need an editor or a book doctor or a ghost writer, you don't need to self-publish. (In fact, self-publishing can hurt your chances of having a commercial career as a writer.) You just need to write well.

This is a good thing, because it's the only part of the process that's under your control.

The publishing industry is not the music industry. By and large, writers do get paid.

If you're serious about writing and you want to write science fiction or fantasy, I highly recommend applying to one of the major SF/F writing workshops -- Clarion, Clarion West, Viable Paradise, Odyssey. You'll have a chance to improve your writing, make friends and contacts, and get the straight dope on the industry from working professionals.

Last, any aspiring writer should keep in mind Yog's Law: Money Flows Toward The Writer. If you see an "opportunity" that violates that law, you should look at it with extreme skepticism.

Re:ok but by pokeyburro · 2002-10-09 01:41 · Score: 2 · on Space Elevators: Low Cost Ticket to GEO?

That's why the carbon nanotubes are such a big deal. In fact, they're THE deal. According to the Science News article, a nanotube strand half the width of a pencil can suspend 40,000 kg. The question, then, is how much such a strand would weigh, per km. If 100,000 km of it (that's how long it needs to be) weighs 40,000 kg or more, you're shot.

According to "Physical Properties of Carbon Nanotubes", the tubes can have varying densities (makes sense, when you understand what they look like). Let's pick the largest density listed on the page: 1.40 g/cm^3.

Assume a pencil is 0.50 cm wide. So our nanotube strand is 0.25 cm wide. Cross sectional area is 0.053 cm^2. So the total volume of one strand is 10^8 * 0.053 cm^3, or 5.3x10^6 cm^3. Its mass would be about 7.4x10^3 kg, then. Or in English, 7400 kg. Significantly less than 40,000 kg. This single strand could hold up three more strands just like it, AND bear another 10,000 kg of strains.

And of course, a space elevator would consist of thousands of these strands. Kim Stanley Robinson was right; this thing would be ridiculously stronger than needed.

Developmental Computing by Jerf · 2002-09-06 12:21 · Score: 2 · on Awari Solved

I'm currently taking a grad-level AI course from a major advocate (Dr. J. Weng) of what he calls the Developmental approach. He does not attempt to simulate a human brain, but instead tries to base his programming off of the development process of the human being. For instance, one of his claims is that true intelligence will require a body to interact with the world, as we have one. (This looks like a good introduction to the idea, along with some demos of it in action.)

Interesting stuff. While the jury is still most definately out, he has made some very real progress in some areas many other approaches are finding very difficult. For instance, he has a robot that can navigate the Engineering building with only two or three walkthroughs of the place. Sounds mundane, except that no other technique can come close in such a real-world environment.

I think you'd enjoy reading his stuff. It is being done by a few people; time will tell whether more will pick it up.

Developmental Computing by Jerf · 2002-09-06 12:21 · Score: 2 · on Awari Solved

I'm currently taking a grad-level AI course from a major advocate (Dr. J. Weng) of what he calls the Developmental approach. He does not attempt to simulate a human brain, but instead tries to base his programming off of the development process of the human being. For instance, one of his claims is that true intelligence will require a body to interact with the world, as we have one. (This looks like a good introduction to the idea, along with some demos of it in action.)

Interesting stuff. While the jury is still most definately out, he has made some very real progress in some areas many other approaches are finding very difficult. For instance, he has a robot that can navigate the Engineering building with only two or three walkthroughs of the place. Sounds mundane, except that no other technique can come close in such a real-world environment.

I think you'd enjoy reading his stuff. It is being done by a few people; time will tell whether more will pick it up.

Re:Deusberg by Ian+Peon · 2002-08-30 07:50 · Score: 2 · on Chimps, AIDS, And Immunity

" Duesberg's theory that HIV is not the cause of AIDS has been disproved to the satisfaction of every scientist but him."

Oh, you mean like Dr. Gordon Stewart (the former WHO advisor on AIDS),
or Dr. Robert Root-Bernstein (who made a thorough study of the AIDS and could not find any evidence to back up the claim that HIV is the cause of AIDS, that AIDS is a new disease, or that it is contagious)
or how about the Perth Group (a group of medical researchers from Perth Australia) who has an excellent set of links on their home page.

Many many more... just don't have time to post them.

Re:Read it... by PlanetJIM · 2002-08-15 02:12 · Score: 1 · on Hacking as Scholarship

bad link

matrix

Re:Deep, man. by bowronch · 2002-08-08 00:34 · Score: 1 · on Men vs. Machines

What's with the "Deep" designation? Are the programmers for the chess projects all aging hippies?

Think Douglas Adams...

Deep Thought was a computer chess machine built at Carnegie-Mellon University in the 1980's. It was a predecessor to Deep Blue, the chess machine that defeated Garry Kasparov in a match. Neither machine exists at this time.

BTW anybody interested in computer chess might be interested in my program BACE which should have the ability to learn to play better as it goes along... unfortunately the learning process is not working right now, but it does play a decent game of chess (rated ~1900 blitz on FICS)

Re:Words, words, just words (and what else?) by guisar · 2002-07-30 13:39 · Score: 1 · on GUIs for Everyone

Have you ever used a Newton Message pad? The introductory screen was designed to take advantge of people's familiarity with "applcation" but you soon left those deas behind.

The message pad was pleasureable, shortly after beginning to use it, the interface disappeared and allowed you to at least partially forget the notion of applications. There was information, links and a few ways to reorganize it's appearance.

Granted it never transitioned to the wireless internet but both the user interface and the ability of the hardware to communicate with other hardware was as big an advance as the MacIntosh and X11 were in their day. I don't know how the interface would scale to a large screen but it does prove there ARE funadmentally different ideas. The question is who will be the first to conceive of them and whether or not those ideas will be captured within a proprietary intellectual property framework. Justin

Re:Astroturfing by Anonymous Coward · 2002-07-01 14:01 · Score: 0 · on Free as in Books?

How long before this is hijacked by publishers to promote novels in a fake "grass roots" caompaign? Maybe they'd just release a teaser version missing the last 10 pages or something.

That's already been done. Check out (read, d**n you, read!!) If On a Winter's Night a Traveller by Italo Calvino. Check out excerpts here, here; find the book at isbn.nu (at least two other editions in print, check your favorite bookseller).

Crystal Blue Paranoia by elocutio · 2002-06-20 03:37 · Score: 1 · on Memoirs Found in a Bathtub

Perhaps some would argue that this is not necessarily "News for Nerds," but it's certainly stuff that matters.

When one thinks of the ways that the world has changed since World War II, how many of the changes that occurred came about through reasons of war and political machinery, it is staggering to realize that we really are in a "new world," where the new military-industrial complex is cloaked by bureaucracy and the old, corrupt political machines are replaced by the new, corrupt rhetoricians and wordsmiths. If Politicians, Priests, and Poets are the only real leaders, then the paradigm that separates them has changed.

Remembering Kafka's writings from college was really disturbing and revealing--nearly illuminating. Franz Kafka was one of the few brave souls of his period to declare through his writings that humankind had lost its rightful place in the world, and as a result, humans would become increasingly isolated, alienated, and cynical. I believe that the world is increasingly cynical and apathetic, and in many ways, our own private and public attitudes feed the modern conspiracy theorists and doomsayers. I don't think that the world is "All Doom and Gloom," but I shudder to think of being conquered by ideas rather than by guns. That's real bondage.

Theatre Majors. by Wombat · 2002-05-29 09:18 · Score: 2, Insightful · on Subversive Gifts for New College Students?

I'm sorry, but I'm going to have to differ with your statement that "Theatre Majors are the epitome of laziness." I think, as in any major, you get those who are dedicated and those who are slackers. Granted, perhaps a few more slackers end up in the theatre area because it's more subjective and there are fewer rigorous homework deadlines than in, say, Astrophysics.

From personal experience I and many of my friends have worked our asses off in our university's Theatre department. And that's what one has to be willing to do if one has a strong desire to be an artist professionally. The ones who slacked off will inevitably be waiting tables, while the hard workers at least have a fighting chance.