Back in the 486/pentium days several makers were shipping machines with 2 cd-rom drives. Why? I still don't know. But 2 is better than 1!
Less CD swapping, and the ability to run two programs that both required a CD at the same time.
The Bugatti Veyron has 1000 horsepower, and can do 253mph while using over a gallon of fuel per minute. No one who buys that car will ever be able to get anywhere close to its performance envelope without getting arrested or killed, but they're still selling it.
Because there is a market for it. If you are uber-rich, and find fast cars thrilling, what would be more thrilling than the fastest production car in the world? No, short of renting out a five-mile airstrip, or test track, you would never actually take the car to it's top speed. But the engineering required to allow that also bring benefits to the cars handling and stability at lower speeds, not to forget the obvious fun factor of having tons of torque.
CCD specs are the photographic version of penis measurement. More is better, even if it makes no difference to the outcome of the activity.
That you can't see the advantages of something does not mean that there are no advantages.
wouldn't capturing more photons per pixel allow you to capture a larger range of brightness levels?
no, because the sensitivity of each physical pixel sensor is the same. It is that sensitivity that defines the range that your overall sensor can provide. You could do some post processing effects like multiplying the values of adjacent pixels, but the dynamic range is still limited by the sensitivity of the pixels themselves.
Lets say the actual intensity of light varies from 0 to 100, and your sensor is capable of measuring values between 10 and 90. At 10, the sensor considers the pixel completely black, and at 90, completely white.
Lets say the actual intensity of light varies from 0 to 100, and your sensor is capable of measuring values between 10 and 90. Below 10, the sensor considers the pixel completely black, and above 90, completely white.
if, say you were to have four pixels, and one of the four registers a value of 11, while the other three register a value of 10, then the average is 10.25. Likewise, on the other end of the spectrum, if 3 register 90, and one registers 89, the average is 89.75. So averaging didn't allow the sensor to read values above 90, or below 10
In photography, the dynamic range is the distance between the top and bottom of what the sensor can register. Your example doesn't extend the range. Instead, it just breaks the range up into smaller pieces.
We're both making assumptions about what resources the AI would have at it's disposal while en-route. I had assumed a relatively spartan craft (after all, the more mass you have, the more energy needed to get you to the next star) So with that, the AI would probably become bored, or simply not have anything to do. If it were traveling an a rich environment, as you suggest, then it might stay awake the entire time, or not, depending on it's own drives. As far a success goes, the AI would certainly have the ability to program the ship to wake it up if anything interesting is happening, but lets be honest, the space between stars is actually VERY empty. Going to sleep for most of the middle two thirds of the journey would be very low risk.
The problem is, we can't explain consciousness. We can explain how the brain is able to process information and make decisions and whatnot, but not why we actually have an apparently singular consciousness that arises from all of it. For all we know right now, the brain is just a front-end for some fifth dimensional process where our consciousness actually resides.
not to stir the pot, and I'm not saying I believe it... but what if not everyone is sentient? In the sense of actually having a consciousness living within. I've always thought that it is odd that we are sentient. Theoretically, our bodies/brains could work just fine without anyone inside looking out, so to speak. We could still run around, build houses, go to soccer practice, whatever, but not actually be sentient. We drones would/could still be very intelligent, and appear to be sentient in every currently measurable way, but nobody is actually home.
What if it were true, and we discovered a test to determine whether someone was a drone vs an actual sentient being... scary implications there.
Why not? You are comfortable going into a dreamless sleep. Maybe a better question would be why would an AI want to stay awake for a thousand year journey to another star?
but but almost entirely from the forward direction, so theoretically you could put a sufficiently thick shield on the front of the ship to protect you from EM radiation. A sufficiently strong magnetic field could probably deflect atomic gasses as well. The main problem would be dust particles or larger objects which would tend to rip through your shield like a hot knife through butter.
Maybe, but we would probably need to discover some new physics.
Physically, hard drives could theoretically store some amount of data based on the smallest possible magnetic domains on the platter. We have had technical limits in reducing the area that each bit uses on the hard drive platter, but I doubt that we are particularly close to hitting the physical minimum size limit.
With these lasers, the amount of energy crammed into a unit of volume is getting so high that the photons are condensing into matter when they collide with the photons of another laser beam. A single beam, twice as intense would do the same thing, but without having to collide with anything. That would pretty much be the limit of intensity. Even long before that the beam would start to become unstable, as stray ambient photons would start to cause particle cascades in the beam.
As an aside... I wonder what would happen to the laser itself when the particle cascades start to occur. Electrons and positrons are produced, so presumably the positrons would collide with the hardware of the laser and start annihilating electrons. Seems like that would tend to cause the molecular bonds within the laser to be disrupted. Maybe the free electrons would fill the gaps just as quickly, preventing damage, but even if that is the case, there would still be a lot of heat generated, which can't be good.
It IS childish. We could make a lot of items a cheaply if we allowed them to be contaminated with lead. But we don't, because we know the consequences. Though it took a long time to realize the harmful effects of lead, since the effects are delayed. Here we have a similar situation, where we are all dumping gigatons of CO2 into the atmosphere. There is wide consensus of the effects of this dumping, but nobody wants to make the first move. Its a giant game of "chicken" played between the worlds economies, except that in this case the cars accrue damage during the approach. And all just for money. It IS childish.
The difference is that:
- One is able to come up with ideas and actually executes them. Rapidly and relatively efficiently.
- The other comes up with lots of ideas, is able to execute almost none of them, and what is executed is almost always done inefficiently because so many parties need to be satisfied.
There are certainly advantages to the former, if you are trying to get things done. Particularly things that are necessary, but not popular.
- Why should I stop putting high phosphorus fertilizer on my lawn? My neighbor still does it!
- Why should I stop pouring my used motor oil on the ground behind the garage? My neighbor still does it!
- Why should I avoid watering my lawn when there a water shortage? I see my neighbor watering his.
- Why should I....
Because you (we) are contributing to the problem! No, we can't stop them from doing whatever they are doing, but we can stop doing it ourselves. Might they be able to take advantage of that? Maybe, but walking around yelling I'm not stopping till you stop is childish, and wont fix a damn thing.
The Bush tax cuts are different, because it is a repealing. The law was originally written to expire, so all the talk you hear is about extending the tax cuts instead of just letting them go away. Many politicians like to frame it as repealing the tax cuts, or as a tax increase, but that's really a bit misleading.
We're one of their main export consumers... their economy depends on us as much as ours does on theirs. However much they hate us, they need us more than that. And we, them.
If they wanted to destroy us financially, they would have to do it slowly, over many years, as not to do excessive damage to themselves.
The US may currently lead in "value of goods produced", but that doesn't mean that the US has higher industrial capacity. China has had a greater industrial capacity for a long time.
Besides, how often do you actually see "Made in the USA" on products you buy at the store these days. Yes, they are there, but you have to look for them, and they are almost always more expensive.
This has less to do with image, and more to do with the fact that their growth is outpacing their energy supply. They have to put up a new power plant something like every week in order to keep their economic machine moving. It just ends up costing less to remodel/replace factories that are big energy pigs with more efficient ones.
The implication is that we are wasting money on a war that achieves almost nothing. If we put that trillion+ dollars into improving infrastructure, then we would save many more people. Or better yet, put it toward cardiovascular disease research. That would probably end up saving orders of magnitude more people.
The wars in the middle east have been little more than a huge waste of life and resources.
We could set up colonies on Mars, and the Jovian or Saturnian moons with current technology, if we decided to put the resources into it. We could even build a ship to seed another solar system with earthly life (just send many thousands of frozen embryos, and culture them on arrival,...50000 years later. The latter would take some advancements of tech, to be sure, but nothing that relativity says we can't do.
Really? I mean, I'm an american, and I know we americans are known for our wastefulness and whatnot, but my 75 gallon saltwater reef aquarium uses about 4200 kWh per year on it's own. (most of that is for heat and lighting)
Wow, you can't change the aperture of a modern digital camera? And here I was thinking about buying one. Bummer. Can you change shutter speed? If not, these cameras REALLY suck.
Of course you can, but you may need to read the manual in order to figure out how.
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Back in the 486/pentium days several makers were shipping machines with 2 cd-rom drives. Why? I still don't know. But 2 is better than 1!
Less CD swapping, and the ability to run two programs that both required a CD at the same time.
The Bugatti Veyron has 1000 horsepower, and can do 253mph while using over a gallon of fuel per minute. No one who buys that car will ever be able to get anywhere close to its performance envelope without getting arrested or killed, but they're still selling it.
Because there is a market for it. If you are uber-rich, and find fast cars thrilling, what would be more thrilling than the fastest production car in the world? No, short of renting out a five-mile airstrip, or test track, you would never actually take the car to it's top speed. But the engineering required to allow that also bring benefits to the cars handling and stability at lower speeds, not to forget the obvious fun factor of having tons of torque.
CCD specs are the photographic version of penis measurement. More is better, even if it makes no difference to the outcome of the activity.
That you can't see the advantages of something does not mean that there are no advantages.
wouldn't capturing more photons per pixel allow you to capture a larger range of brightness levels?
no, because the sensitivity of each physical pixel sensor is the same. It is that sensitivity that defines the range that your overall sensor can provide. You could do some post processing effects like multiplying the values of adjacent pixels, but the dynamic range is still limited by the sensitivity of the pixels themselves.
Lets say the actual intensity of light varies from 0 to 100, and your sensor is capable of measuring values between 10 and 90. At 10, the sensor considers the pixel completely black, and at 90, completely white.
Lets say the actual intensity of light varies from 0 to 100, and your sensor is capable of measuring values between 10 and 90. Below 10, the sensor considers the pixel completely black, and above 90, completely white.
if, say you were to have four pixels, and one of the four registers a value of 11, while the other three register a value of 10, then the average is 10.25. Likewise, on the other end of the spectrum, if 3 register 90, and one registers 89, the average is 89.75. So averaging didn't allow the sensor to read values above 90, or below 10
In photography, the dynamic range is the distance between the top and bottom of what the sensor can register. Your example doesn't extend the range. Instead, it just breaks the range up into smaller pieces.
Do you see what we are getting at now?
We're both making assumptions about what resources the AI would have at it's disposal while en-route. I had assumed a relatively spartan craft (after all, the more mass you have, the more energy needed to get you to the next star) So with that, the AI would probably become bored, or simply not have anything to do. If it were traveling an a rich environment, as you suggest, then it might stay awake the entire time, or not, depending on it's own drives. As far a success goes, the AI would certainly have the ability to program the ship to wake it up if anything interesting is happening, but lets be honest, the space between stars is actually VERY empty. Going to sleep for most of the middle two thirds of the journey would be very low risk.
No, one of the drones I'm talking about would pass the Turing test with flying colors.
The problem is, we can't explain consciousness. We can explain how the brain is able to process information and make decisions and whatnot, but not why we actually have an apparently singular consciousness that arises from all of it. For all we know right now, the brain is just a front-end for some fifth dimensional process where our consciousness actually resides.
not to stir the pot, and I'm not saying I believe it... but what if not everyone is sentient? In the sense of actually having a consciousness living within. I've always thought that it is odd that we are sentient. Theoretically, our bodies/brains could work just fine without anyone inside looking out, so to speak. We could still run around, build houses, go to soccer practice, whatever, but not actually be sentient. We drones would/could still be very intelligent, and appear to be sentient in every currently measurable way, but nobody is actually home.
What if it were true, and we discovered a test to determine whether someone was a drone vs an actual sentient being... scary implications there.
Why not? You are comfortable going into a dreamless sleep. Maybe a better question would be why would an AI want to stay awake for a thousand year journey to another star?
but but almost entirely from the forward direction, so theoretically you could put a sufficiently thick shield on the front of the ship to protect you from EM radiation. A sufficiently strong magnetic field could probably deflect atomic gasses as well. The main problem would be dust particles or larger objects which would tend to rip through your shield like a hot knife through butter.
Maybe, but we would probably need to discover some new physics.
Physically, hard drives could theoretically store some amount of data based on the smallest possible magnetic domains on the platter. We have had technical limits in reducing the area that each bit uses on the hard drive platter, but I doubt that we are particularly close to hitting the physical minimum size limit.
With these lasers, the amount of energy crammed into a unit of volume is getting so high that the photons are condensing into matter when they collide with the photons of another laser beam. A single beam, twice as intense would do the same thing, but without having to collide with anything. That would pretty much be the limit of intensity. Even long before that the beam would start to become unstable, as stray ambient photons would start to cause particle cascades in the beam.
As an aside... I wonder what would happen to the laser itself when the particle cascades start to occur. Electrons and positrons are produced, so presumably the positrons would collide with the hardware of the laser and start annihilating electrons. Seems like that would tend to cause the molecular bonds within the laser to be disrupted. Maybe the free electrons would fill the gaps just as quickly, preventing damage, but even if that is the case, there would still be a lot of heat generated, which can't be good.
It IS childish. We could make a lot of items a cheaply if we allowed them to be contaminated with lead. But we don't, because we know the consequences. Though it took a long time to realize the harmful effects of lead, since the effects are delayed. Here we have a similar situation, where we are all dumping gigatons of CO2 into the atmosphere. There is wide consensus of the effects of this dumping, but nobody wants to make the first move. Its a giant game of "chicken" played between the worlds economies, except that in this case the cars accrue damage during the approach. And all just for money. It IS childish.
The Bush tax cuts are different, because it isn't a repealing.
Doh!
The difference is that:
- One is able to come up with ideas and actually executes them. Rapidly and relatively efficiently.
- The other comes up with lots of ideas, is able to execute almost none of them, and what is executed is almost always done inefficiently because so many parties need to be satisfied.
There are certainly advantages to the former, if you are trying to get things done. Particularly things that are necessary, but not popular.
Iran actually descended from Persia, so it has existed for almost 5 thousand years. That's pretty long if you ask me.
Rephrased:
....
- Why should I stop putting high phosphorus fertilizer on my lawn? My neighbor still does it!
- Why should I stop pouring my used motor oil on the ground behind the garage? My neighbor still does it!
- Why should I avoid watering my lawn when there a water shortage? I see my neighbor watering his.
- Why should I
Because you (we) are contributing to the problem! No, we can't stop them from doing whatever they are doing, but we can stop doing it ourselves. Might they be able to take advantage of that? Maybe, but walking around yelling I'm not stopping till you stop is childish, and wont fix a damn thing.
The Bush tax cuts are different, because it is a repealing. The law was originally written to expire, so all the talk you hear is about extending the tax cuts instead of just letting them go away. Many politicians like to frame it as repealing the tax cuts, or as a tax increase, but that's really a bit misleading.
We're one of their main export consumers... their economy depends on us as much as ours does on theirs. However much they hate us, they need us more than that. And we, them.
If they wanted to destroy us financially, they would have to do it slowly, over many years, as not to do excessive damage to themselves.
The US may currently lead in "value of goods produced", but that doesn't mean that the US has higher industrial capacity. China has had a greater industrial capacity for a long time.
Besides, how often do you actually see "Made in the USA" on products you buy at the store these days. Yes, they are there, but you have to look for them, and they are almost always more expensive.
This has less to do with image, and more to do with the fact that their growth is outpacing their energy supply. They have to put up a new power plant something like every week in order to keep their economic machine moving. It just ends up costing less to remodel/replace factories that are big energy pigs with more efficient ones.
The implication is that we are wasting money on a war that achieves almost nothing. If we put that trillion+ dollars into improving infrastructure, then we would save many more people. Or better yet, put it toward cardiovascular disease research. That would probably end up saving orders of magnitude more people.
The wars in the middle east have been little more than a huge waste of life and resources.
We could set up colonies on Mars, and the Jovian or Saturnian moons with current technology, if we decided to put the resources into it. We could even build a ship to seed another solar system with earthly life (just send many thousands of frozen embryos, and culture them on arrival, ...50000 years later. The latter would take some advancements of tech, to be sure, but nothing that relativity says we can't do.
Really? I mean, I'm an american, and I know we americans are known for our wastefulness and whatnot, but my 75 gallon saltwater reef aquarium uses about 4200 kWh per year on it's own. (most of that is for heat and lighting)
Your car tops out at 100? Must be rather boring to drive. 0-60 in what... 15 seconds?
Wow, you can't change the aperture of a modern digital camera? And here I was thinking about buying one. Bummer. Can you change shutter speed? If not, these cameras REALLY suck.
Of course you can, but you may need to read the manual in order to figure out how.