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Staring Down a Revolution: Questions for Sid Karin
Mark of THE CITY writes "Mark of THE
CITY writes
"Since helping to found the San Diego Supercomputer
Center in the 1980s, Sid Karin has distinguished
himself as a national expert on digital technology and
its possibilities for scientific research. Go here for the full interview."
I guess this gives a whole new meaning to the term "dupe".
Its the first time I see a dupe inside itself.
Posted by timothy Posted by timothy
I think we'll see fewer bells and whistles and more fundamental and substantive shifts in how the technology basically works and how and when we choose/bother to use it.
RS
Shoes for Industry. Shoes for the Dead.
A bicycle is technology.
KFG
He likens terabyte storage to the numerous technological revolutions of the past. His opinion is that at some point storage will become so plentiful in personal devices that the concept of "having it all" will be a reality. His first example is loading all recorded media onto a personal device. His second is storing photo-realistic images in car navigation systems. This is his revolution?
Having infinite storage is interesting, but if you consider the Internet to be the same type of thing, there are already limitations. First, you need to realize that 90% of everything is garbage. The other 10% may be useful, but to whom? The tiny fraction of a percent of all information that may be useful to you personally needs to be able to find its way to you. So we have tools like search engines to help us. They are slowly getting better, but the tide of information only comes in, so though the engines are getting better, the quality of results is increasingly getting worse.
What would I do with all recorded music? I couldn't possibly listen to it all in my lifetime. I'd need some sort of intelligent agent to find things that I'd like and play those so that I don't waste time listening to things I'm not interested in.
This isn't some future revolution. It's reality now, and for the most part it works okay.
What will we do with infinite storage? Probably just hoard more data, I think. There's only a small amount of data that is actually usable to any one person, expanding storage capacity isn't going to change that.
Jesus saved me from my past. He can save you as well.
"Mark of THE CITY writes "Mark of THE CITY writes "Mark of THE CITY writes "Mark of THE CITY writes "Mark of THE CITY writes ">>STACK OVERFLOW
mailto:mrkwscha@yahoo.com Who posts their email address in the main story summary on Slashdot? This guys must be nuts!
When did you first suspect that even scientists could use computers?
Mark of THE CITY writes "Mark of THE CITY writes "Since helping to found the San Diego Supercomputer Center in the 1980s, Sid Karin has distinguished himself as a national expert on digital technology and its possibilities for scientific research. Go here for the full interview."
PARSE ERROR. MISSING "
Factorization of the 1980s:
1980 = 2*2*3*3*5*11
1981 = 7*283
1982 = 2*991
1983 = 3*661
1984 = 2*2*2*2*2*2*31
1985 = 5*397
1986 = 2*3*331
1987 is prime
1988 = 2*2*7*71
1989 = 3*3*13*17
Seriously... Normally I don't comment on the editorial process here, but WTFF?
/~mikeg
I wonder if the slashdot effect occurs with mail clients. Seeing as everyone probably clicked the first link thinking it was a web page, only to have their mail app load up.
It's something I've found myself doing, and a few other english/techie friends of mine do as well. You will be reading, and your mind will automatically correct the small mistakes it makes. I call it "reading-out" the mistakes, for lack of a better term, but would gladly accept pointers on what it's called. As for the multiple bylines... newbie mistake. We all make them.
Windows has detected an undetectable error.
So, now that we have a terabyte of space in out GPS we can use that to scroll ahead to find out the current gas price. How does that work? Won't that require access to the Internet or some other source to get current images anyways..? So that terabyte of space would be wasted because you're not going to be able to get that much current information that quickly!
I'm also confused on his ideas on buying a license for all music... and then playing $.16 for each song... Don't those ideas contradict themselves..?
I'm sure most people will think "I don't want to listen to half the music out there" and once they are done with that I'm sure purchasing a license for all music is going to be rather expensive, especially when you don't want a whole lot of it.
I personally would prefer to carry my iPod from place to place instead of paying $.16 for each of the thousands of songs I have...
Assuming I just have 1000 songs that all cost $.16
$.16 * 1000 = $160.00
I'm not gonna pay $160.00 for a home copy, and another $160 for a copy at work or on my laptop or whatever! I have better things to spend my money on!
"(Use the Preview Button! Check those URLs!)"
"I don't think so. When cars first came along, there were places that said you had to have someone walking in front of the car ringing a bell."
I'm not sure I'm quite getting this reference. Does he mean that the bell would have to be rung so that people will stay clear of the vehicle? If so, why not affix the bell to the car?
I'm getting the point that there were people with silly ideas back then, but I was hoping somebody could clarify this point.
"Derp de derp."
i guess using the user check is not working since this has to be a bot i have seen it in other postings cmdrtaco better get of his ass and fix this and the moderation system or is this a cowboy neal problem.
Personal data storage into the terabyte, a vast global communications network, and the article is about the music industry's inability to deal with digital file sharing (?) I expected to look at the bottom and see it dated 1998. Seriously, in the '05, shouldn't a supercomputer guy be thinking about biological modeling (or something).
.16 c a song is what's happening then 'the man can't stop our music', but still ...
IMHO, Ray Kurzweil, master book/snake oil salesman that he is, is at least addressing some of the changes implied by the (what are we calling it now?) Information Explosion. If a GPS screen in your car and
We need some futurists that aren't being outrun by the present. Links, anyone?
Physics is like sex: sure, it may give some practical results, but that's not why we do it.
He seems to have noticed the problems with the record industry's current business model, but he's not saying anything new. Next!
.. for someone else to dupe your post when you can dupe it while posting it. Duping just got alot smarter!
That is again one thing the music industry should take in account with their pricing: People do not like to buy garbage at $16-20 per CD, and discover that 90% on that thing is garbage. Digital storage is much better in discarding garbage. Also to have all the music of the world with you will give you such a serious playlist, that you will dump 90% again just to be able to find the songs you like.
The fun thing of the interview is though that it is mainly centered on music as example again. I would go as far to say that every invention done since the start of time has been done to be able to make better copies of music so everybody can enjoy it.
Examples: Cavemen "invents" fire: Ability to send smoke signals of the latest hit list to next tribe.
Cavemen invents the wheel: Ability to drive instruments on carts making it possible to carry bigger instruments to concerts with less effort
Cavemen invents clothing: Ability to stand in front of audience in less embarassing way.
Etc etc etc.
My wife's sketchblog Blob[p]: Gastrono-me
Maybe you cant follow me, but the mere fact that one can have all the books of a large library on your computer, fully indexed with the possibility to do boolean and regular searches is as much an revolution as thethe printing press, imho.
And just like that (the press), it will take decades to slowly get recognition to its worth.
There wont even the possiblilities of "Burning libraries" anymore if everybody can store the whole history and culture of his country/region/religion on his ipod mk9...
HI O WISE PRINCE. WHT TOOK U SO DAM LONG?
And who are we to say that fish don't need them?
Show me on the doll where his noodly appendage touched you.
Then depending on the situation, one could stream the data at varying levels of quality to the client.
music player
Say you just busted your last set of headphones. You want to get a new player and some people have a slick looking pair of headphones to come with a updated music player device.
Notice the steps:
Step 1. You buy the music player device.
Step 2. You plug in your headphones.
Step 3. You listen to your music.
You notice how there is no 'download songs' or 'copy files' step?
This is because the media player comes pre-installed with the music you like.
However it's not because of focus marketting or they tracked your records thru you by some GPS doo-dad you carry around.
It has the music you like, becuase it already has all the music anybody anywere likes. In fact it also has music that nobody likes.
This is becuase it comes pre-installed with ALL music. All music everywere.
The wifi may come into it becuase you downloaded your 'favorites' playlist, although potentionally they could have that pre-installed, too.
I mean, "Kid Sarin", that sounds like a band name or something.
recursion (n.)
See recursio(n-1).
Posted by timothy
on Wednesday August 10, @12:51AM
from the dept. of redundancy dept.
Is this a recursive story or something?
People really need to not worry about asking questions regarding the stuff that the marketplace and consumers like slashdot readers will work out for themeselves.
/ ) was all but ignored by the people inside of NSF who should have listened to it instead of following their personal agendas. They just lifted the term "Cyberinfrastructure" to create the appearance of following along.
Karin is in a position to answer some really tough questions.
The questions that need to be answered are things like, how can peer review be improved to eliminate the cronyism that goes on? When will the National Science Foundation understand that persistent IT infrastructure for supercomputing is as critical as things like telescopes in hawaii and needs more than a 5 year vision and support structure? When will Congress recognie that cyberinfrastructure is a buzzword that no one knows how to apply? Cyberinfrastructure is a word that had no vision behind it and is headed down the path of just being a pot of money that all the science areas will divide among themselves at the _expense_ of any real infrastructure. Teragrid isn't an example either. That project was once a great concept, but everyone involved is competing with each other to stay alive, which means no one is truely working together. Teragrid has long since been forced off the path because the major centers don't want to let it succeed and most certainly don't want it to be a project through which their "partners" can be viewed as successful.
Sid and the leaders of his generation had a hand in getting the NSF to see reality once and setting the path. Now, NSF is trying to control and set a path itself instead of letting the visionaries and the scientists do it. The content of the Atkins report (http://www.communitytechnology.org/nsf_ci_report
Supercomputing, advanced storage, grid computing and next generation networks all are lagging behind in this country because the NSF doesn't listen to vision and can't create and sustain one of its own. They are into the playing of politics t hat they won't set up the foundation for infrastructure that could last long enough to make a difference without falling into funding battles every 3rd year. Given there isn't a 10 or 20 year vision and foundation, is it any surprise that the supercomputing centers are so busy protecting themselves from each other that serious attempts at visionary projects don't happen?
Fortunately, the Department of Energy appears to be taking up the slack for now. More power to DoE for recognizing and filling the gap, but its a sad state for NSF to be in.
Herein lies the danger...
Your view of the world is (obviously) a function of your information feeds. In the old days, that meant what you saw, heard, and felt. Slightly more recently it began to include newspapers, radio, and TV. In both "past eras" you couldn't do too much to select your feeds, and you got a pretty mixed view.
Today we have infoglut, and it has become necessary to manage our feeds. Unfortunately many will not have discipline to diversify their information input, and will only take in that which is slanted their way. IMHO this is part of the problem behind today's vaunted polarization - the various left and right wings no longer share information input. It used to be that they had common input, and came to different conclusions based on their culture and beliefs. Now their input has been preselected, then their culture and beliefs operate on that, so the conclusions differentiate even further.
The living have better things to do than to continue hating the dead.
I used to own a 20MB drive, in 1985-86 that was huge.
Along with the local storage to each PC (4+15+15+40+80GB) I own a 160GB and I recently had to clear come files off of it.
I am thinking of installing a NAS with a 1TB drive from LaCie.
That shows me the amount of storage required in a 'digital home' can't be predicted with any certainty. As storage grows to encompass everything we used to store, we store something else which takes up a lot more space.
MSBPodcast.com The opinions expressed here are my own. If you don't like 'em... Think up your own stuff.
So is this guy's evil alter ego known as Kid Sarin?
I'll turn into a supernova and burn up everything. Well I'll turn into a black little hole and you'll turn into string.
Yeah, technically. Technology is a tool we use to get a job done and a bicycle definitely counts.
OTOH, using the time honored, "was it created before I was born" rule of thumb, a bicycle was only technology to my great grandparents (or older as I am too lazy to look up when bicycles were invented).
They'll be technology to me when you mount lasers on 'em.
That would be pretty cool actually because then when some car doesn't respect your rights on the road you could blow out their tire (or vaporize them depending on if you upgrade to the "EVIL GENIUS" laser).
What on earth does Sid Karin have to do with Nintendo?
A better question would be is how did he get information about the Revolution?? This guy must have some great contacts!
I love how "Mark of THE CITY" occurs twice in the "Related Links" box to the right of the story.
This sig rocks the casbah.
This guy seems like one smart cookie but I agree with alot of the other people in here this guys name is wierd. But this was a great article would like to meet the guy and pick his brain for a couple hours!
using the time honored, "was it created before I was born" rule of thumb. . .
.1806. Liquid fuel wont save you. That's still pre WWI.
That is the rule of thumb for tradition, not technology.
They'll be technology to me when you mount lasers on 'em.
Invented in 1958. By your rule of thumb not technology, unless you are older than myself, and I'm turning grey.
Same year the integrated circuit was first actually produced, although the invention goes back some years, to the same year the first nuclear power plant went critical.
Ahhhh, but what about that modern icon of technology, rocket science and space exploration?
The multistage rocket dates from 1650 and the first animal launched into space and successfully recovered by parachute. .
On the other hand bicycle chainwheels are now so sophisticated that they can only be designed and cut by computer analysis and CAM, each individual tooth having a slightly different profile depending on where it lies in relation to the power stroke, other teeth and the size of the gear.
Be careful about your rules of thumb, or all your lights might go out. First city to city transmission of three phase AC current; 1891.
KFG
Nah, he's just trying out his terabyte storage. Who says it's not a revolution when you can post your email in the main story summary on Slashdot and still have 0.9 TB left in your Inbox?!
Hmmm, 50% funny, 50% overrated. Was that one too subtle or too inflammatory for Slashdot?
Show me on the doll where his noodly appendage touched you.
ALthough Energy Prices are linked directly with oil prices, they aren't 100% dependant. Since it does not preclude you have to use gasoline to ship electrons over a wire from a Nuclear Power Plant to you home (Yes, there is always gas used for the mining and refining of uranium and you have to drive the fuel and the waste around and you still have to have oil for the moving parts in the station, but you know what I mean).
But you don't have to have a truck to haul electrons directly to the consumer.
If technologies enable the consumer to do more without traveling like say download movies to his house so he doesn't have to drive to the store and visit relatives online instead of buying planeticets (which are quite expensive now because of fuel prices) with video confrencing then it will be more efficient and time saving.
Technologies that do not directly result in burning of gasoline will increase and those who cause more gasoline usage will decrease. (like the SUV)
"I am the king of the Romans, and am superior to rules of grammar!"
-Sigismund, Holy Roman Emperor (1368-1437)
of the recorded music.
Uh?
Uncompressed, terabyte is about 1500 to 2000 CDs (roughly). With compression, say, 1:10, it is still only up to 20,000 CDs. A lot but hardly 'all of the recorded music'.
Only women don't need them ... no, wait ... that's us. Sorry.
What a long, strange trip it's been.
But when was the first laser armed bicycle invented?
I'm gonna be so upset if someone already came up with that and I missed it.