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Fictional Town "Eureka" To Become Real?

Posted by ScuttleMonkey on from the next-terrorist-targets dept.

Zarath writes "The fictional town of Eureka (from the TV series by the same name) is going to potentially become a real life town as the University of Queensland, in Australia, plans to build a multibillion-dollar 'brain city' dedicated to science and research. The city, hoping to hold at least 10,000 people, is looking to attract 4,500 of the brightest scientists from around the world to live and work there. The city is planned to be built west of the city of Brisbane, in Queensland. While not funded by the Department of Defense (like the [city of the] TV series), the potential for such a community is very interesting and exciting."

22 of 337 comments (clear)

  1. We already have one... by trailerparkcassanova · · Score: 5, Insightful

    but we call ours Los Alamos...

    1. Re:We already have one... by mi · · Score: 3, Insightful

      but we call ours Los Alamos...

      I thought, we call it "Silicon Valley" — and it didn't need government sponsorship to come into being...

      --
      In Soviet Washington the swamp drains you.
    2. Re:We already have one... by CRCulver · · Score: 4, Insightful

      I thought, we call it "Silicon Valley" -- and it didn't need government sponsorship to come into being...

      Without DARPA taking the initiative with public funds, there would have been no basis for many of the private companies of Silicon Valley. Even the supposedly private companies that developed innovative solutions back at the beginning relied to some extend on government support, as the US recognized the need to stay ahead in the Cold War.

    3. Re:We already have one... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 3, Insightful

      Nah, just corporate welfare in the form of juicy defense contracts. Oh, did you think people just got together one day to build computers for which there was no commercial market from the goodness of their hearts? Oh, and what's this Internet thing all about? How did it start?
      Hmmm. I think you're an idiot. Go pave your own highway system to drive on too while you're at it.

    4. Re:We already have one... by mi · · Score: 3, Insightful

      Without DARPA taking the initiative with public funds, there would have been no basis for many of the private companies of Silicon Valley.

      DARPA's money helped some, but it didn't cause the creation of Oracle, Sybase, SGI, HP, or Sun — the companies, which were developing even before Internet.

      Also, DARPA stopped funding Internet funding Internet long before the emergence of giants like Google or Cisco in the valley. Much as Statists would like to attribute good things to the State's intervention, they don't have many legs to stand on.

      --
      In Soviet Washington the swamp drains you.
    5. Re:We already have one... by fuzzyfuzzyfungus · · Score: 2, Insightful

      In a perfect world, distributed networks might be a bit safer(though the odds of researchers being attacked have historically been very low, unless they've had the bad luck of pissing off the animal-rightists recently. Most other anti-science outfits tend either to be tiny in scale, like the unibomber, more interested in PR, like the creationists, er. "intelligent design theorists", or much more interested in things other than technology, like your standard islamic radicals.) The trouble is that the ability to collaborate closely with other smart people seems to be very valuable for scientists and researchers. Lots of informal hall chats and whatnot. Until we have telepresence so good that it can replace ordinary presence, proximity is the price that must be paid for the best working environment.

    6. Re:We already have one... by mi · · Score: 2, Insightful

      None of those companies would have gotten anywhere without some of the advances at Bell Labs, which was kept going by government contracts.

      That Government was/is a customer of some of those firms in no way supports the claim, they owe their existence to the it.

      Your choice of terminology suggests that you're a libertarian nutjob.

      Aye-aye-aye! Name-calling — how sad... Given the government's wonderful successes in education, highway upkeep, and pensions — wanting it to also expand into healthcare — whose mental faculties are we supposed to question?

      --
      In Soviet Washington the swamp drains you.
    7. Re:We already have one... by osu-neko · · Score: 5, Insightful

      Aye-aye-aye! Name-calling — how sad... Given the government's wonderful successes in education, highway upkeep, and pensions — wanting it to also expand into healthcare — whose mental faculties are we supposed to question?

      Anyone who has an "all-or-nothing" mentality. Anyone who points to a few government successes and concludes the government has a Midas touch for making things work is clearly an idiot. Anyone who points to a few government failures and concludes the government never does anything right is equally idiotic. Sane and rational people look at the specifics of a proposal and decide whether it's a good idea or not, rather than immediately conclude it's a good idea or a bad idea based on whether it involves government or not.

      --
      "Convictions are more dangerous enemies of truth than lies."
    8. Re:We already have one... by ultranova · · Score: 2, Insightful

      Nor was government support available when the first caveman lit a fire or the first nomad made a wheel or the first hunter made a bow and arrow.

      Actually, it was; "government" was simply known as Ogg the Chieftain back then.

      --

      Forget magic. Any technology distinguishable from divine power is insufficiently advanced.

  2. welcome to 50 years ago by bornyesterday · · Score: 5, Insightful

    the research triangle park

  3. Australia the perfect place by omfglearntoplay · · Score: 3, Insightful

    Because it is fairly isolated. If it gets blown up, space-time torn, or radiated, there is less chance of contamination to other continents.

  4. goodluckwiththat by owlnation · · Score: 5, Insightful

    So... you want intelligent people to move to Australia?

    This, being the same Australia that's introducing filtering and censorship to its entire Internet?

    Yeah, good luck with that... Oh, and enjoy your forthcoming Dark Age.

  5. Why is this a good idea? by Shaitan+Apistos · · Score: 5, Insightful

    I haven't seen the show, so forgive me if the writers have handled my objections in some clever fashion in one of the episodes, but..

    I don't see the upside to this, it's easier now than ever before for people to collaborate remotely, negating much of the need for being in the same physical location.

    I do see a downside to this, putting all our intellectual eggs in one basket makes a pretty attractive target for terrorists, whether they be Islamic, Luddite, or some other group in the future that isn't particularly keen on progress or reason as a means of dealing with reality.

    1. Re:Why is this a good idea? by Lord+Ender · · Score: 2, Insightful

      To your first point: Science stagnates if all meetings are via webex. You need scientists of different disciplines meeting at the bar to really advance human knowledge.

      To your second point: it saddens me that everything is viewed through the lens of terrorism these days. Give it up. Terrorism will happen no matter what; we shouldn't design our lives around it.

      --
      A slashdotter who didn't build his own computer is like a Jedi who didn't build his own lightsaber.
  6. Not entirely true by Weaselmancer · · Score: 4, Insightful

    I thought nerds preferred the cold dark of their parents basements or garages, to any kind of socialization?

    Not entirely true. Geeks love to be around geeks, and only get awkward in the general population. We nerds are highly gregarious whenever we're in friendly company.

    As an example go check out a gaming convention.

    BTW, I think this town sounds like a lot of fun. I'm probably not bright/geeky enough to be invited to live there, but it would be cool to visit. I'm betting it would be worth it just for all the little inside jokes you'd see around. I'll bet the graffiti alone would be worth it.

    --
    Weaselmancer
    rediculous.
  7. you won't get a town full of smart people by circletimessquare · · Score: 5, Insightful

    you'll get a town full of people who have a desperate and ego-driven need to be seen as smart

    kind of like joining mensa. anyone who needs that sort of attention and reinforcement is not exactly niels bohr

    the smart guys in any room are always low key and in the back, not attention whores

    --
    intellectual property law is philosophically incoherent. it is your moral duty to ignore it or sabotage it
    1. Re:you won't get a town full of smart people by RustinHWright · · Score: 2, Insightful

      the smart guys in any room are always low key and in the back, not attention whores

      Citation needed.

      Or I could just start talking about the "low key" personalities of Franz Liszt, Amadeus Mozart, Richard Feynman, Esther Dyson, F. Scott Fitzgerald . . .

      --
      It's all about the information. And what we do with it.
    2. Re:you won't get a town full of smart people by ITEric · · Score: 2, Insightful

      I rather think you would get a mix of personalities the same as anywhere. Sure, you would get some people with the need to be seen as smart, but many with that desire would avoid it for the same reason. After all, you'd probably also have some jerks making fun of the "moron" with the IQ of 130. On the other hand, there are plenty of smart people who sincerely enjoy the intellectual stimulation of interaction with other smart people. Where else would you find so many intellectual superiors to challenge you to improve your understanding of life, the universe, and everything? (well, besides /.)

      --
      The most exciting phrase to hear in science, the one that heralds new discoveries, is not 'Eureka!' but 'That's funny...
  8. Isn't this what the internet was suppose to do? by east+coast · · Score: 2, Insightful

    Why is it that years into this concept we still have people with such a fixation on the geographic side of things?

    Los Alamos made sense in the day where even simple telephones were unreliable and getting large amounts of documentation from team to team would take hours if not days and there would be no real accounting for the integrity of them once they got there. But today this kind of thing is sadly out of touch with technology. Not to mention that there is a presumption that a great number of high end scientists will get along under one roof. This is doubtful, at best.

    --
    Dedicated Cthulhu Cultist since 4523 BC.
  9. Would they need that many "filler" people? by RustinHWright · · Score: 2, Insightful

    Seems to me that the *really* smart thing to do would be to recruit more kinds of smart people than just scientists. Out here in Portland some of the smartest people I know doing some of the most innovative work are working at cafes and creating new vegan food that actually tastes good, doing funky little magazines, and otherwise finding ways to make all sorts of work intellectually challenging and fun.

    I've been in some of the most famous concentrations of smart people in the world and I see no reasons to believe that a "city of smart people" would also need to have some sizable population of dimwits. If anything, if living expenses were cheap, healthcare provided, and "low status" jobs were normally flextime and twenty hours a week or less, plenty of smart folks would flock there for a chance to live in a way that they could pay their bills and still be able to pursue their other projects. Not only could you fill all of your janitor jobs with smart people who would respect the job and be able to talk to the other people there, you would have to bloody near barricade the walls to keep too many people for applying.

    --
    It's all about the information. And what we do with it.
  10. Re:"Carefully regulated" by rtb61 · · Score: 2, Insightful

    Corporation can often be the worst researchers, everyone knows treating the symptoms is far more profitable than curing the disease. There are many areas of research where the results end up in the the public domain for the greater good. Examples are treating vermin species by introducing predators to reduce their numbers, this takes a considerable amount of research to be done successfully, generates absolutely no profit but can save billions.

    Consider the rate of research that was achieved by government during two world wars, far faster than during any other periods, consider the internet the device you are using for to put out wrong headed comments or even the space race.

    There seems to be this real crazy attitude that somehow citizens are not part of the government, or truly weird stuff like, you can't trust the government because it just just run by corporations for the benefit of corporations but you can quite illogically trust those corrupt corporations who are using their greed driven values to corrupt government.

    --
    Chaos - everything, everywhere, everywhen
  11. Re:IQ not always additive by TheoMurpse · · Score: 2, Insightful

    Then you should be aware that IQ tests don't really mean anything (other than that you are good at taking IQ tests). Especially not for someone over the age of 20.

    For example, if you're 35 (just a guess based on the fact that you have five kids), an IQ of 180 means (stated simply) you're "as smart as someone who is 63." What the hell does that even mean? Clearly it's a bullshit metric.

    I mean, if we define intelligence as

    1. the ability to acquire information;
    2. the ability to apply knowledge; and
    3. the ability to engage in abstract reasoning,

    most IQ tests (nearly all?) test only the third prong.

    However, your point that IQ doesn't mean shit for shit is well said.