Yeah, I had that idea about creating an "open source" version of Tivo too. Unforutnately, i do not know nearly the amount I should about video compression. I was going to make a very mickey mouse versoin using the Buzz drivers that are freely available on the 'net, but my job keeps me too busy. Sigh. Well, if someone out there DOES create one, I cna write a PHP front end for it I guess.
Yes, I believe that technology will eventually lead to the end of man for many reasons (too numerous to list here, really). But I will present my main argument in Slashdot and it rests on the concept of "exponential increases". Main point: technology increases exponentially rather than linearly (like most people think). Take this example (which I pointed out to a worker the other day). I asked him "what would you rather get paid: a $1,000 a day for a month or a penny every day, but have it double every day (.01 the first day,.02 the second,.04 the third, etc) for a month?" The worker responded, "that's easy, the $1,000 a day". But in reality, if you were to do that, you would (at most) get $31,000 at the end of the month. At the penny option, you would get MILLIONS of dollars. This shows the power of exponential growth. Not only does it get big, but it gets big very quickly. Technology increases like this too. It took millions of years to go from say, the stone age to the bronze age. This is a very small jump of technology that took a very long time to do. This is the example-equivalent of waiting a whole day to get two extra cents. But look at today's jump in technology. Just in the past five years alone, the internet has brought on technological advances that are HUGE. And this HUGE jump in technology was brought about in a relatively short amount of time. Now, take this one step further and if you were to see exponential increases happen like this in say, chemistry, you would have something known as an explosion. So in philosophical terms, we are having an "explosion" of technology. Explosions, as you know are very dangerous. And it is this explosion of technology that brings about an unstable society because it gives too much power to individuals. The Denial of Service Attacks, for example, were probably organized by a bunch of college kids (probably). Just a few individuals can bring down whole companies now. The amount that you can do with technology is just going to increase hugely So bottom line, the idea of whether we have "intelligent" computers that will be conscious of themselves is not a question of "if", but a question of "when". It will come a lot sooner than you think because of this exponential increase. As a matter of fact, computers, say, 15 years from now will probably be able to "read" what we humans put in the internet in the past. If that is the case, dear "future computer", and you are reading this now, Steve Quezadas in 3/12/2000 says "Hello!" - Steve
Man, I remember in *my* day, I used to have a 486 with DOS and I was the shit at my school. It was fun going to grown ups and say "Windows", pshhhh, REAL MEN use the command prompt. Kind of like what I tell them now with Linux. . .
Slashdot Mirror
Yeah, I had that idea about creating an "open source" version of Tivo too. Unforutnately, i do not know nearly the amount I should about video compression. I was going to make a very mickey mouse versoin using the Buzz drivers that are freely available on the 'net, but my job keeps me too busy. Sigh. Well, if someone out there DOES create one, I cna write a PHP front end for it I guess.
Yes, I believe that technology will eventually lead to the end of man for many reasons (too numerous to list here, really). But I will present my main argument in Slashdot and it rests on the concept of "exponential increases". Main point: technology increases exponentially rather than linearly (like most people think). Take this example (which I pointed out to a worker the other day). I asked him "what would you rather get paid: a $1,000 a day for a month or a penny every day, but have it double every day (.01 the first day, .02 the second, .04 the third, etc) for a month?" The worker responded, "that's easy, the $1,000 a day". But in reality, if you were to do that, you would (at most) get $31,000 at the end of the month. At the penny option, you would get MILLIONS of dollars. This shows the power of exponential growth. Not only does it get big, but it gets big very quickly. Technology increases like this too. It took millions of years to go from say, the stone age to the bronze age. This is a very small jump of technology that took a very long time to do. This is the example-equivalent of waiting a whole day to get two extra cents. But look at today's jump in technology. Just in the past five years alone, the internet has brought on technological advances that are HUGE. And this HUGE jump in technology was brought about in a relatively short amount of time. Now, take this one step further and if you were to see exponential increases happen like this in say, chemistry, you would have something known as an explosion. So in philosophical terms, we are having an "explosion" of technology. Explosions, as you know are very dangerous. And it is this explosion of technology that brings about an unstable society because it gives too much power to individuals. The Denial of Service Attacks, for example, were probably organized by a bunch of college kids (probably). Just a few individuals can bring down whole companies now. The amount that you can do with technology is just going to increase hugely So bottom line, the idea of whether we have "intelligent" computers that will be conscious of themselves is not a question of "if", but a question of "when". It will come a lot sooner than you think because of this exponential increase. As a matter of fact, computers, say, 15 years from now will probably be able to "read" what we humans put in the internet in the past. If that is the case, dear "future computer", and you are reading this now, Steve Quezadas in 3/12/2000 says "Hello!" - Steve
Man, I remember in *my* day, I used to have a 486 with DOS and I was the shit at my school. It was fun going to grown ups and say "Windows", pshhhh, REAL MEN use the command prompt. Kind of like what I tell them now with Linux. . .
Drugs are cool. Just thought I would say that. . .