Slashdot Mirror
You Are Already Living Inside a Computer (theatlantic.com)
An anonymous reader shares a report: Think about the computing systems you use every day. All of them represent attempts to simulate something else. Like how Turing's original thinking machine (PDF) strived to pass as a man or woman, a computer tries to pass, in a way, as another thing. As a calculator, for example, or a ledger, or a typewriter, or a telephone, or a camera, or a storefront, or a cafe. After a while, successful simulated machines displace and overtake the machines they originally imitated. The word processor is no longer just a simulated typewriter or secretary, but a first-order tool for producing written materials of all kinds. Eventually, if they thrive, simulated machines become just machines. Today, computation overall is doing this. There's not much work and play left that computers don't handle. And so, the computer is splitting from its origins as a means of symbol manipulation for productive and creative ends, and becoming an activity in its own right. Today, people don't seek out computers in order to get things done; they do the things that let them use computers.
Well, in my case, I've been living inside a computer since 1982. Don't know about the rest of you...
Proud neuron in the Slashdot hivemind since 2002.
"There's not much work and play left that computers don't handle."
Are you kidding me? Go outside for once, pasty-skinned hipster. Ride a bike. Take a hike. Duh! Not everyone that reads /. is an "inside boy".
None of what you said means anything. Go away.
They can just go to the public library and use the computers to build houses.
Thanks, The Atlantic!
The article is a little bit hung up on doorbells, old doorbells versus "smart" doorbells. But to me, the doorbell has been obsoleted in a completely different way. If someone is coming over, they text me ahead of time and I can leave the door unlocked for them. The only people who ring the doorbell are solicitors or missionaries, both of which are ignored.
This is what happens when you legalize it.
If you consider that the global telephone system and internet is the largest distributed computer system in the world. Then you have virtual private networks that connect your own virtual machine (VMware) of Linux or Windows to cloud servers (virtual machines running on a real server) and configured using applications like Docker. Depending on your ISP, they are called anything from Bubbles to Droplets. Then you can run old PC, game consoles, and mainframe emulators on those virtual machines. Even a smartphone can emulate something like the Ultra 64.
Vintage computer adverts: http://www.vintageadbrowser.com/computers-and-software-ads
I was expecting some article to say that we're sims in a world that has people playing Sims ... maybe SimCity will also add features for *their* sims to play a game controlling a city too! Either that, or an article about how the entire internet is somehow a giant computer spanning the entire world, and hence we all live within it.
Instead, its just about people using computers to mimic older technologies and displace them; because the 'mimicking' version is actually better and offers features beyond those present in the original.
How many times is Slashdot going to post about this topic? It's a question that can never be answered and even when answered has no value. This is like the sixth time I've seen this same damn topic here and it's boring me. Then again, maybe I'm in control of the computer and want you stop obsessing about this or I'll hit the reset button! ;)
Anons need not reply. Questions end with a question mark.
WAFLOR. Pronounced like someone in the business of supplying little cakey things with square indentations.
Meaning: What A Fucking Load Of Rubbish.
Confucius say, "Find worm in apple - bad. Find half a worm - worse."
The other theory is that all of us are walking around under a constant state of hypnosis, and our conscious mind only thinks it's in control - but in fact our conscious mind is only a hallucination of our subconscious mind that is doing everything that we do on auto-pilot.
I mean, you don't think about the details of breathing or having your heart beat... unless you focus upon it consciously. Those things go on in autopilot.
READY.
PRINT ""+-0
To save others the pain of reading TFA, I think I was just warned about the dangers of spending too much time sitting in front of a computer by somebody who sounds like he's spent too much time sitting in front of a computer. Life imitates art ... and so it goes ... 10 minutes I'll
never be able to get back.
Heaven's Gate!!
O Rly? What about telling it to program two bilateral coordinates at the same time?
Confucius say, "Find worm in apple - bad. Find half a worm - worse."
That's what this article sounds like.
If the tool is using you: then I pity you, you've lost too much of yourself along the way.
I live in Soviet Russia, you insensitive clod!
Confucius say, "Find worm in apple - bad. Find half a worm - worse."
"...computing systems...represent attempts to simulate something else...like...a calculator...a ledger, or a typewriter, or a telephone, or a camera..."
That's meaningless attempts to simulate meaningful conversation and thought. A computer is a calculator, is a ledger, is a typewriter, is a telephone, is a camera. There is no meaningful need to continue to implement a function the way it was done the first time. With the writer's logic a film camera is an attempt to simulate a glass plate camera which is an attempt to simulate a photorealistic drawing which is an attempt to simulate a still life. No, the computer is a camera, is a ledger, is a typewriter, camera, etc. The physical manual or electric version is a mere implementation. The newer version, which includes a CCD and computer, is a far better implementation of a camera than the old glass plate or film versions ever were.
This is reality.
So your solution to having a president who doesn't do a few of the things you want is to elect a president who is going to completely wreck the country for everybody. Hate to tell you this, but that's not something to be proud of.
Sigh, the reason they slap computers into everything is that it has become more cost effective to do so. It's cheaper to take a generic 8 bit CPU and program it to be a calculator, a memory stick, a microwave or dishwasher than it is to build custom circuits for each. It's that fucken simple. It's not going to go away, in fact it's going to get a lot "worse", if you consider that a bad thing. What's annoying me about it is the whole IOT part which is getting shoved down our throats, whether we want it or not. I don't mind the general concept of IOT, I have an issue with proprietary devices circumventing my firewall to "phone home" and how inherently insecure they are proving to be, on top of the lack of updates (blueborne is but a recent example). Hence my not so newfound hobby - electronics! Will roll my own IOT devices, thank you very much.
There are three kinds of falsehood: the first is a 'fib,' the second is a downright lie, and the third is statistics.
A clickbait post to incite another "we're probably living in a simulation" circlejerk generally shows up on here every couple of months. We're about due for another one, so you shouldn't have to wait long.
The Matrix has you.
As I read it, Turing's paper was entirely about hacking on humbug human attitudes: if flesh and metal both give the same answers (or similar enough that you can't tell the difference) isn't it a just distinction without a difference to describe one as alive and conscious and the other inanimate and unconscious?
This paper really had very little to do with computers at all.