...when robots decide not to go to war because they consider it unethical. Of course, that's still a while off, but it's a rather interesting concept to contemplate. If it leads to fewer wars of aggression and unjustified killing, all the better for it.
Probably nothing; it seems like it reverses the effects of Alzheimer's and age-related degeneration by restoring the cells rather than enhance the capabilities of existing neurons to offset the negative effects.
I think we'll have to find another route for our cognitive enhancement, although wearing a helmet for ten minutes a day is a pretty nice way to boost brainpower were it possible. Even so, I'd be glad just to know there's a way of preventing age-related mental decline...that's probably the worst thing that could happen to me.
I'm waiting for the Network Backbone and Virtual World myself; that way, I can pretty much beeline to Ascent to Transcendence without the penalties of a Cybernetic civilization and get the increased happiness bonus for my cities.
The last thing I need is to see the University exterminated just because we got impatient and nerve stapled our drones instead of mitigating their anger with technology.
Personally, I'm very excited by this because it will not only provide even more insights in to the human genome, but will also provide a way for researchers to lower the cost and resource intensity of genomic sequencing. This will accelerate falling costs for this sequencing and make it increasingly available as a medical technique. Overall, I think this study will be part of the tipping point for the era of genomics; once this has been performed, the doors will be open for huge advances at all levels across the board. It's especially remarkable considering we went from sequencing 1 genome in 2003 to sequencing over one thousand in a little more than four years.
It's hard to believe people actually opposed the Human Genome Project...if we had listened to them, I can only imagine how much progress in this essential field would have been disrupted.
Maybe we should just use those supercomputers to select our next president. Way I figure it, even HAL 9000 would make a better President than pretty much everybody running. Hell, even the Combine Overwatch would do a pretty decent job, so long as you like roasted headcrab and antlion stew for three meals per day.
I'm kind of hoping we'll get SAL instead of HAL.
I mean, HAL's probably a great guy and all, but I just don't think he's the kind of artificial intelligence I want to have running the show. Maybe for playing WarGames or something (I bet he's a bastard at Starcraft, too), but not for anything critical.
That's what I would think; it could be a better way of sending sensitive data.
Of course, I wonder if it would be possible to use teleportation in this wayw to circumvent the speed of light, enabling real-time communication over long distances. Given how little I personally know about the mechanisms behind teleportation (sadly, I'm studying accounting and not physics), I have no idea if this is workable or not.
I think in order to be 100% sure that this doesn't happen, there would have to be a 100% continuous conscious experience through the whole process. How this would work, I can't say; perhaps if the person were somehow teleported in bulk, or if it were possible to measure brain activity during the jaunt (in reference to the classic Stephen King short story)
Of course, in the meantime it would still be very, very useful for transporting things and information from point to point. The ability to effectively use real-time communication over considerable distances (presumably we're talking longer-term interplanetary or intersystem communication and trade) would be a massive asset and would resolve many of the main logistical challenges with large scale space colonization by itself, let alone its knock-on effects.
It's almost certain it will be used first for data transmission, then goods and equipment, and lastly conscious sentients (humans, robots, AIs, all of us). Anything else would likely be far too risky.
It really is shameful, especially when you consider the amount of time and investment you have to make to get a degree in the field. People that should be seen as dedicated, hardworking rolemodels are instead shafted.
Maybe it's time we folded the NIH in to the Department of Defense? Sadly,I'm only being half joking here, because honestly the military is the only route that is still pretty open to a lot of basic research projects; I can only wonder what militarization of civilian medical research will produce, but it's a pretty sad sign when the only arm of your government still capable of doing what it's supposed to do is the armed forces. Our politicians are so obsessed with trying to create some kind of illusion of government responsibility that they're gutting the very systems that have brought us to where we are.
I don't slight the military's work in the least (in fact I wholeheartedly support it), because a lot of it is very useful and very bold, and we would not have the kind of progress that we do without it, but we can't just rely on that as the main route to progress. America can't rest on its defense budget alone; that's the very mistake a lot of states have made in the past, and it did ultimately cost them a lot, sometimes their very existence.
...that I haven't even heard of 'In the Name of the King: A Dungeon Siege Tale'? It sounds kind of like a supplement for a d20 system book or something.
At least it looks like there is some progress being made in revitalizing government support for basic research, although we will still have to wait to see if the damages done to scientific research in key fields can be repaired by the next Administration.
Hopefully, people are starting to realize that the US doesn't exist in a magical opportunity bubble and unless we remain competitive at all levels of innovation, from basic research to patenting to bringing those developments to market, we are not going to hold on to our competitive edge. America is not immune to the global economy..it's that simple: the United States, like every other economically developed nation has to preserve its comparative advantage by ensuring that it retains a technological lead over its competitors. If we lose that lead, we slide in to economic stagnation and eventually outright decline.
At the very least, maybe we'll get some leaders who actually listen to their experts.
The real question is why a creationist museum would use a tool of the devil, meant solely to lure people in to rejecting the idea that the Earth was created around the same time as the Predynastic period in Egypt as its centerpiece.
I'd ask Kent Hovind but he's going to be in jail for tax evaison until 2015 or so.
Actually, the clock speed one is interesting because it shows how technology can adapt to overcome roadblocks; had we not found other ways to circumvent the very real problems with further increases in clock speed, it would have presented a considerable slowdown in performance growth (the fastest I've seen today are 4.0 Ghz, about double the amount from four years ago), but due to changes in other aspects of processing these issues were by and large overcome. There are, of course, still many challenges regarding the transition to this new paradigm (for lack of a better term) in performance growth, but it is working and is making up for stagnation in clock speeds.
In fact, it's highly likely that these new ways of increasing performance will surpass what would have been possible were clock speeds increasing, and it's also highly likely that these technologies would not have come to market were clock speeds still able to increase at projected rates.
I guess it just goes to show how performance metrics themselves can become irrelevant when the means by which performance is generated change, as well as how technological barriers create more beneficial changes than they do problems.
Developing the ability to produce these technologies is an important advance, because it shows that it is possible to bring it to market, and I'm pretty sure the sheer demand for improvements in battery life will ensure this technology makes it in the near future. The thing is, the main reason why flying cars and fusion power didn't take off is because they're either very difficult, very expensive, or impractical under current conditions. It has nothing to do with the failure of technology to advance quickly, it has to do with the fact that flying cars were an all-around terrible idea and fusion power was far more difficult and far more expensive to achieve than originally estimated.
I mean, if you look beyond flying cars and see all of the other, far more important and world-changing predictions that came right, you'll see that "It's going to happen" is far, far more common than "It's not going to happen"...the optimists have won every single time because the pessimists were inherently unwilling to accept that new disruptive technologies emerge on to the market all the time. The death of many companies hinged on the fact that their leadership did not move to take advantage of new technology. I'd rather be on the side that says "it can happen" and be wrong than the side that says "it can't happen" and be wrong, because the forward-looking model can always bounce back and look for the next potential innovation while the latter will either fall behind and become obsolete or be forced to adopt the technology...except they won't be the ones selling it, they'll be the ones buying it from the company whose foresight allowed them to take over the market.
And look at it this way: all things equal, we'll have our cheap multi-petabyte devices in 2020. And that's assuming doubling time doesn't speed up, which is pretty unlikely given the amount of money being poured in to it to deal with ever-increasing volumes of data.
I really might want to amend this, because in all honesty I sound like a real, real asshole:
I don't believe that fairness should be an inherent goal of society if it means foregoing the benefits of things that might increase inequality. There's a difference between the creation of an unmeritocratic elite and the creation of an "elite" based upon skill and ability; the former almost always reaps all of the benefits for itself since it gives little back, while the second often invests huge amounts of resources back in to the rest of society because it is capable of realizing the benefits of that investment as well as its own origins.
You can also grow your business threefold without additional labor. Really, this kind of productivity enhancement is optimal for labor intensive industries, especially in countries with low unemployment rates; $2000 for such a huge boost in productivity is a stunningly good investment no matter what way you look at it. I have no doubt this technology will be used not just in agriculture but in other labor intensive industries where the workers could benefit from these enhancements.
It will be interesting to see how much this reduces job-related injuries, especially with the aforementioned aging workforce. This would cut down on healthcare costs and lost working days due to injury as well as enhance quality of life for the employees.
Actually, I'm going to speculate here:
If it exists, there is a fetish for it. If it does not exist, not only is there a fetish for it but someone will make it exist solely for the purpose of indulging said fetish.
Slashdot Mirror
...when robots decide not to go to war because they consider it unethical. Of course, that's still a while off, but it's a rather interesting concept to contemplate. If it leads to fewer wars of aggression and unjustified killing, all the better for it.
Probably nothing; it seems like it reverses the effects of Alzheimer's and age-related degeneration by restoring the cells rather than enhance the capabilities of existing neurons to offset the negative effects. I think we'll have to find another route for our cognitive enhancement, although wearing a helmet for ten minutes a day is a pretty nice way to boost brainpower were it possible. Even so, I'd be glad just to know there's a way of preventing age-related mental decline...that's probably the worst thing that could happen to me.
Sounds like somebody's got a case of the Mondays.
I'm just waiting for the Weather Channel to start learning at a geometric rate.
I'm waiting for the Network Backbone and Virtual World myself; that way, I can pretty much beeline to Ascent to Transcendence without the penalties of a Cybernetic civilization and get the increased happiness bonus for my cities.
The last thing I need is to see the University exterminated just because we got impatient and nerve stapled our drones instead of mitigating their anger with technology.
Personally, I'm very excited by this because it will not only provide even more insights in to the human genome, but will also provide a way for researchers to lower the cost and resource intensity of genomic sequencing. This will accelerate falling costs for this sequencing and make it increasingly available as a medical technique. Overall, I think this study will be part of the tipping point for the era of genomics; once this has been performed, the doors will be open for huge advances at all levels across the board. It's especially remarkable considering we went from sequencing 1 genome in 2003 to sequencing over one thousand in a little more than four years.
It's hard to believe people actually opposed the Human Genome Project...if we had listened to them, I can only imagine how much progress in this essential field would have been disrupted.
Maybe we should just use those supercomputers to select our next president. Way I figure it, even HAL 9000 would make a better President than pretty much everybody running. Hell, even the Combine Overwatch would do a pretty decent job, so long as you like roasted headcrab and antlion stew for three meals per day.
Yeah, well don't kill everybody because you just happen to have a case of the Mondays.
I'm kind of hoping we'll get SAL instead of HAL. I mean, HAL's probably a great guy and all, but I just don't think he's the kind of artificial intelligence I want to have running the show. Maybe for playing WarGames or something (I bet he's a bastard at Starcraft, too), but not for anything critical.
Just be glad that there isn't a lip-reading Firehose.
That's what I would think; it could be a better way of sending sensitive data.
Of course, I wonder if it would be possible to use teleportation in this wayw to circumvent the speed of light, enabling real-time communication over long distances. Given how little I personally know about the mechanisms behind teleportation (sadly, I'm studying accounting and not physics), I have no idea if this is workable or not.
I think in order to be 100% sure that this doesn't happen, there would have to be a 100% continuous conscious experience through the whole process. How this would work, I can't say; perhaps if the person were somehow teleported in bulk, or if it were possible to measure brain activity during the jaunt (in reference to the classic Stephen King short story)
Of course, in the meantime it would still be very, very useful for transporting things and information from point to point. The ability to effectively use real-time communication over considerable distances (presumably we're talking longer-term interplanetary or intersystem communication and trade) would be a massive asset and would resolve many of the main logistical challenges with large scale space colonization by itself, let alone its knock-on effects.
It's almost certain it will be used first for data transmission, then goods and equipment, and lastly conscious sentients (humans, robots, AIs, all of us). Anything else would likely be far too risky.
It really is shameful, especially when you consider the amount of time and investment you have to make to get a degree in the field. People that should be seen as dedicated, hardworking rolemodels are instead shafted.
Maybe it's time we folded the NIH in to the Department of Defense? Sadly,I'm only being half joking here, because honestly the military is the only route that is still pretty open to a lot of basic research projects; I can only wonder what militarization of civilian medical research will produce, but it's a pretty sad sign when the only arm of your government still capable of doing what it's supposed to do is the armed forces. Our politicians are so obsessed with trying to create some kind of illusion of government responsibility that they're gutting the very systems that have brought us to where we are.
I don't slight the military's work in the least (in fact I wholeheartedly support it), because a lot of it is very useful and very bold, and we would not have the kind of progress that we do without it, but we can't just rely on that as the main route to progress. America can't rest on its defense budget alone; that's the very mistake a lot of states have made in the past, and it did ultimately cost them a lot, sometimes their very existence.
...that I haven't even heard of 'In the Name of the King: A Dungeon Siege Tale'? It sounds kind of like a supplement for a d20 system book or something.
At least it looks like there is some progress being made in revitalizing government support for basic research, although we will still have to wait to see if the damages done to scientific research in key fields can be repaired by the next Administration. Hopefully, people are starting to realize that the US doesn't exist in a magical opportunity bubble and unless we remain competitive at all levels of innovation, from basic research to patenting to bringing those developments to market, we are not going to hold on to our competitive edge. America is not immune to the global economy..it's that simple: the United States, like every other economically developed nation has to preserve its comparative advantage by ensuring that it retains a technological lead over its competitors. If we lose that lead, we slide in to economic stagnation and eventually outright decline. At the very least, maybe we'll get some leaders who actually listen to their experts.
Revolving? If we really want to be Biblically literate, the Earth is flat. Their planetarium would just be a map with a lightbulb hanging over it.
The real question is why a creationist museum would use a tool of the devil, meant solely to lure people in to rejecting the idea that the Earth was created around the same time as the Predynastic period in Egypt as its centerpiece. I'd ask Kent Hovind but he's going to be in jail for tax evaison until 2015 or so.
More like that's the most badass form of alchemy. The Uruk-hai would've taken over most of Rohan if Sauruman hadn't pissed off the ents.
I'm on it.
Actually, the clock speed one is interesting because it shows how technology can adapt to overcome roadblocks; had we not found other ways to circumvent the very real problems with further increases in clock speed, it would have presented a considerable slowdown in performance growth (the fastest I've seen today are 4.0 Ghz, about double the amount from four years ago), but due to changes in other aspects of processing these issues were by and large overcome. There are, of course, still many challenges regarding the transition to this new paradigm (for lack of a better term) in performance growth, but it is working and is making up for stagnation in clock speeds. In fact, it's highly likely that these new ways of increasing performance will surpass what would have been possible were clock speeds increasing, and it's also highly likely that these technologies would not have come to market were clock speeds still able to increase at projected rates. I guess it just goes to show how performance metrics themselves can become irrelevant when the means by which performance is generated change, as well as how technological barriers create more beneficial changes than they do problems.
Developing the ability to produce these technologies is an important advance, because it shows that it is possible to bring it to market, and I'm pretty sure the sheer demand for improvements in battery life will ensure this technology makes it in the near future. The thing is, the main reason why flying cars and fusion power didn't take off is because they're either very difficult, very expensive, or impractical under current conditions. It has nothing to do with the failure of technology to advance quickly, it has to do with the fact that flying cars were an all-around terrible idea and fusion power was far more difficult and far more expensive to achieve than originally estimated. I mean, if you look beyond flying cars and see all of the other, far more important and world-changing predictions that came right, you'll see that "It's going to happen" is far, far more common than "It's not going to happen"...the optimists have won every single time because the pessimists were inherently unwilling to accept that new disruptive technologies emerge on to the market all the time. The death of many companies hinged on the fact that their leadership did not move to take advantage of new technology. I'd rather be on the side that says "it can happen" and be wrong than the side that says "it can't happen" and be wrong, because the forward-looking model can always bounce back and look for the next potential innovation while the latter will either fall behind and become obsolete or be forced to adopt the technology...except they won't be the ones selling it, they'll be the ones buying it from the company whose foresight allowed them to take over the market. And look at it this way: all things equal, we'll have our cheap multi-petabyte devices in 2020. And that's assuming doubling time doesn't speed up, which is pretty unlikely given the amount of money being poured in to it to deal with ever-increasing volumes of data.
I really might want to amend this, because in all honesty I sound like a real, real asshole: I don't believe that fairness should be an inherent goal of society if it means foregoing the benefits of things that might increase inequality. There's a difference between the creation of an unmeritocratic elite and the creation of an "elite" based upon skill and ability; the former almost always reaps all of the benefits for itself since it gives little back, while the second often invests huge amounts of resources back in to the rest of society because it is capable of realizing the benefits of that investment as well as its own origins.
That's fine. I'd rather take an F and hold on to my dignity than lower myself to be in line with someone else's opinion.
You can also grow your business threefold without additional labor. Really, this kind of productivity enhancement is optimal for labor intensive industries, especially in countries with low unemployment rates; $2000 for such a huge boost in productivity is a stunningly good investment no matter what way you look at it. I have no doubt this technology will be used not just in agriculture but in other labor intensive industries where the workers could benefit from these enhancements. It will be interesting to see how much this reduces job-related injuries, especially with the aforementioned aging workforce. This would cut down on healthcare costs and lost working days due to injury as well as enhance quality of life for the employees.
Actually, I'm going to speculate here: If it exists, there is a fetish for it. If it does not exist, not only is there a fetish for it but someone will make it exist solely for the purpose of indulging said fetish.