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Text Editor Created In Minecraft
jones_supa writes: The redstone mechanics in Minecraft can be pushed surprisingly far to create rather advanced digital circuits. Thanks to a user nicknamed Koala_Steamed, there now exists a text editor inside the game (YouTube demonstration). It comes with a 5 x 10 character matrix in which each character uses a starburst (16-segment) display. There are 7.357 x 10^92 different combinations the screen can show, all of which can be controlled from a single line. The scale of the workings used to make this piece of logic, using only redstone, is dauntingly huge.
Everyone needs a hobby.
The argument that anyone should be doing something better with their time is imo terrible, because if widely applied we would all be working towards cancer research or whatever thing society decided was most important. How can you just sit here reading slashdot when you could be out saving lives!
Think of what you could have done instead of reading slashdot. You could have arm-chair criticized someone else, for instance.
He serializes the data and sends it over a single redstone line... just like you would do in a real computer.
I used to have a sig, but I set it free and it never came back.
The really important question is whether or not at the Planck scale one finds that we are all one really, really big version of Minecraft, being played by beings that look strangely like turtles. All the way down.
Another really important question is just how much of the world's creative potential is devoted to creating meta-inventions on top of rulesets intended for something else entirely rather than, say, bringing about world peace, curing cancer, feeding the hungry, or just plain moving out of your mom's basement. Not that I am entirely without sin in this regard myself, but it is a sad commentary on the state of the world (virtual or not) that we appear to live in when solving vast and pointless artificial problems in a virtual reality is more appealing than tackling the real and serious problems that surround us.
rgb
Even when the experts all agree, they may well be mistaken. --- Bertrand Russell.
You think you're joking, but given that you can already play Tetris in Emacs, it's only a matter of time...
He serializes the data and sends it over a single redstone line... just like you would do in a real computer.
It's actually rather interesting. I think firstly the keyboard generates serial pulses directly, with the pulses encoded with redstone repeaters. This is a very nice solution to keyboard decoding. Secondly, minecraft is a lot slower than the real world so high speed problems crop up early. Routing 8 parallel wires would be a real pain and you'd start to get clock skew problems if you weren't really careful about keeping the path lengths the same.
SJW n. One who posts facts.
Another really important question is just how much of the world's creative potential is devoted to creating meta-inventions on top of rulesets intended for something else entirely
Or post on Slashdot. Umm... So let's go about changing this right now. To solve the world's problems, we need to find their roots.
rather than, say, bringing about world peace
So long as people speak different languages, worship the creator in different ways, and faraway governments attempt to impose laws that end up creating an environment hostile to a particular group's way of life, there will always be war. How should that be changed?
curing cancer
You can reduce the incidence of Cancer by forbidding penetrative sexual contact during Libra, but I don't see how people will accept that. Besides, two-thirds of malignant tumors are unavoidable. How should that be changed?
feeding the hungry
Long-term food insecurity is a distribution problem, especially when countries use hunger as a weapon against their own people. How should that be changed?
or just plain moving out of your mom's basement.
Why is living with parents considered shameful, especially in an era of telecommuting?
Obviously a talented individual, think of that useful software could have been written with the same amount of time and effort.
I've been asked this question all my life.
When I decided I'd like to fly to the moon everyone asked why. "You could have spent your time and effort making a ship to fly to Australia," they said.
The time that I decided I'd like to write a series of novels that spanned generations of characters and several hundred years they said asked why as well. "Your time is better spent writing non-fiction and and historic account of something that really happened."
I remember one time when I decided to ride my bike to the other side of town. My grandfather said "Why? The bus is faster and you'll be less tired."
Sometimes I take a break from work. My co-workers ask me why when work is so rewarding anyway.
The other day I spent a crazy amount of money buying ingredients to make a very tasty meal (well, I thought it was). I was asked why. It provided my body the same energy as something I could have made using much cheaper ingredients.
Related to the above item, many of my friends ask me why I cook my own meals at all. If you look hard enough you can get someone else to cook something kind of similar for about the same cost.
I once decided to make my own analogue clock. I made all the gears and built it from scratch. Took ages. Cost a lot more than an analogue clock I could have purchased (and certainly a lot more than a digital clock).
Sometimes I do crosswords or solve other puzzles.
Even more occasionally I listen to music.
I go bushwalking (I am not sure of the American term -- walking in National Parks along trails?) and camping.
I could go on forever and for ever.
I don't need to do any of these things. I enjoy doing these things. I want to do these things. Most of them serve no practical purpose at all, apart from making me happy. That's not entirely true, though. If I set myself a goal that has no practical or useful purpose and achieve it I do get a reward. I even get a reward if I fail.
There is no purpose to life apart from being happy (IMO). And if doing something meaningless makes you happy then... then, well it's not meaningless is it?
I meant to add...
When I am laying on my death bed and someone says "you did all these useless things -- you could have directed your talent towards really useful stuff and made lots of money", I will honestly be able to say "They were not useless; they made me happy. And that is what gave my life meaning."
I agree entirely with the sentiment, but there is a massive psychological difference between virtual problems and real ones.
With virtual problems, the rules are known and consistent, and the only potential barrier to success is the limitations of the user's abilities. If the user can accurately assess their own skill level, they can know if the problem is solvable, and possibly the time frame in which this can be done.
Big, real problems are awash in variables far beyond the control of any one person. They may not be solvable given current restraints. Many of the "best" governments in the world, led by the most educated and intelligent people, and backed with enormous budgets are undercut by the chaos of global economics, damaged by misinformation and false intelligence, aggravated by the stupidity of other actors, and in turn conduct their own activities that damage the prospects of peace, or health and security for all.
I might commit my life to a cure for cancer or world peace, and thus squander the next 60 years away because the world, as a majority, is not ready for those things. The Sudoku puzzle, on the other hand, I can solve before I finish breakfast.
The really important question is whether or not at the Planck scale one finds that we are all one really, really big version of Minecraft, being played by beings that look strangely like turtles. All the way down.
Another really important question is just how much of the world's creative potential is devoted to creating meta-inventions on top of rulesets intended for something else entirely rather than, say, bringing about world peace, curing cancer, feeding the hungry, or just plain moving out of your mom's basement. Not that I am entirely without sin in this regard myself, but it is a sad commentary on the state of the world (virtual or not) that we appear to live in when solving vast and pointless artificial problems in a virtual reality is more appealing than tackling the real and serious problems that surround us.
rgb
The problem with things like feeding the hungry is all of the political opposition you would run into. Since the Industrial Revolution of the late 1800s we've had the capability of feeding, clothing, sheltering, and educating the entire world's population several times over. What we don't have is the political will to do it. Too many ruling elite would have to give up power for it to actually happen. That's the real obstacle.
Most armed conflict is also to the benefit of this ruling elite, who use such phrases as "ordo ab chao" (order out of chaos) to describe their interest in it. Wars are very profitable if you're a well-positioned sociopath, and playing two sides against each other is a great way to increase your power over each. It's the same military-industrial-complex that Eisenhower tried to warn us about, not that we listened.
The financial incentive related to cancer is that sick people are much more profitable than healthy people. A cheap, easy, one-time cancer cure (if there were such a thing) would absolutely devastate the multibillion dollar "cancer industry". The companies profiting from that would be just as eager to embrace such a cure as the RIAA/MPAA middlemen have been eager to adapt to an Information Age where the cost of copying and distributing a work is nearly zero.
Getting out of Mom's basement was easier in the past when good jobs that led to good careers with good pensions were available to anyone willing to work hard, which was when the USA valued and protected its manufacturing base, recognizing it as the real wealth and independence from foreign nations that it was. Additionally, it's not generally young women who are staying at home with Mama. They're showing the drive and ingenuity that young men used to also have. I'd recommend reading Boys Adrift by Dr. Leonard Sax for an in-depth explanation as to why this is happening, from grade schools that try to force boys into developmentally inappropriate roles (and then brand them ADHD when it fails), to chemicals in the food supply that have a feminizing effect on animals and humans, to reduced testosterone levels and sperm counts, etc.
These are all problems that we could do a much better job of addressing, with some of them being completely solvable. But for that to really get started, we'd first have to stop allowing psychotic sociopaths to have power and make all of the important decisions. It wouldn't hurt to also have a mass media that didn't use so many recognizable propaganda techniques, and/or a population trained in logic, reasoning, and introspection, considering these skills as basic as literacy. Until then, every starving person on the planet is basically a monument to how psychotic and fucked-up this civilization has really become.
It is a miracle that curiosity survives formal education. - Einstein