...the BBC also notes that the Enigma device now seems to be able to output DeCSS when certain keystrokes are pressed. It is also reported to have a Napster client. When told of the startling new additions to the venerable encoding device, museum directors replied, "What the hell, it's close enough. At least those damned jerries haven't got it anymore."
I love the US patent system. I thereby submit my own patent, which shall cover using a non-silicon method of processing and correlating information, based on a spongey substance commonly found between a human being's ears. Unfortunately, I won't be able to get royalties off most lawyers and dimwits out there who persue such patent issues...
People act like such babies over stuff like this. Imagine the human race, where we collectively grow up and make life better for everyone instead of squabbling. In my dreams...
That's a neat idea, that the brain does all of its 'heavy processing' at off times. I know I've had problems too complicated to solve in one sitting, ended up dreaming about a solution -- or if not remembering it, having a magical solution ready the next day.
So I guess it means our brains are too slow to operate consciously 24/7. We need to shut down all input/outputs daily and go into a sort of Green PC standby while our overtaxed collid-substance sponge does all the processor-intensive correlating.
That reminds me of another thing... BBS time was usually limited due to shared access (at least if you dealt with boards that didn't have a zillion nodes), usually around 30 minutes or an hour a day. You couldn't just sit on it all day long, clicking 'refresh,' waiting for people to reply to your email/posts. Your time was limited, and some people liked to spend more of it doing more creative things than random flaming. (Like playing Trade Wars 2000...)
Hmm, to me this is very interesting. It's a race between MEMS and bionanotech. I'm curious to see which will win first; Between this and the nano-diamond crystalline structures, it's going to be a damn interesting next twenty years. . .
I remember reading about a wide-scale laser inferometer that was being built in the 'late 90s' to help discover planets around other stars. Was this ever completed?
And for MAXIM, could this be used to get more information about suns with planets? So far, there's been a fair number of jovian-sized planet discoveries, but nothing in the terrestrials... Now that would be a breatkthrough!
Does this mean that if you have really good memory, you could break the law by watching digital TV?
Hmm. I remember reading a short short story once along these lines. The main character went to a live concert and beforehand had to take a pill that interrupted the STM->LTM storage process in the brain, effectively making him only live the moment and nothing more. And he was quite happy because he got a good deal on the concert tickets, and how live music was so much better than recorded -- if he just remember how... Quite creepy.
Always been a fan of this bizarre kitty. Glad to see they're bringing him back. Kinda makes up for the fact humanity hunted 'em out of existance.
Of course, now here comes the flip side: What if our killing off the Tasmanian tiger *WAS* a natural product of Darwinism -- acted through humanity as a whole? What if we start doing this to a bunch of other animals? What happens when we finally bring back wooly mammoths and sabre-tooth tigers or even dinosaurs? (Assuming viable DNA can be found.) What sort of kinks will be throwning into the evolutionary process? My 0.02$.
You know, to me what is scary isn't the idea that genetic engineering will result in 'gene discrimination' or people seeking 'perfect' children. It's the idea that by definition, genetic engineering is mucking around with a billion-year-old mechanism that we understand little about. We have no clue how a wonderfully complex human brain is stored in just a few hundred thousand sets of genetic pairs. It might not be a case of digital computer memory, where a single gene (or even a group) can be flipped on/off and a particular response is be given. We might end up causing more illness and deformation than curing it, by upsetting a very careful balance. Would you start messing with your OS's kernel, if you didn't even know what sort of language it was written in? Or even if you weren't sure how it was digitally represented?
On a side note, it's interesting how people are obsessing with the idea of perfect children. Is this really a useful thing to humanity as a whole? Evolution is about change, and change does not come with conformity. Hell, you could even use the old abortion arguement: What if you 'cure' the next Stephen Hawking and he turns out to be a normal person instead of revolutionizing physics?
It's food for thought. Likely, genetics will outstrip us and leave us wondering where we got all of these nifty but hideously dangerous new toys. ..
That's very interesting news. I used to run a BBS in the early ninties with TradeWars 2000 as one of our major doors. Had TW2000 tourneys and all, and I even crufted together some TW utilities. *sniff* MAJOR nostalgia rush here.
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...the BBC also notes that the Enigma device now seems to be able to output DeCSS when certain keystrokes are pressed. It is also reported to have a Napster client. When told of the startling new additions to the venerable encoding device, museum directors replied, "What the hell, it's close enough. At least those damned jerries haven't got it anymore."
People act like such babies over stuff like this. Imagine the human race, where we collectively grow up and make life better for everyone instead of squabbling. In my dreams...
So I guess it means our brains are too slow to operate consciously 24/7. We need to shut down all input/outputs daily and go into a sort of Green PC standby while our overtaxed collid-substance sponge does all the processor-intensive correlating.
That reminds me of another thing... BBS time was usually limited due to shared access (at least if you dealt with boards that didn't have a zillion nodes), usually around 30 minutes or an hour a day. You couldn't just sit on it all day long, clicking 'refresh,' waiting for people to reply to your email/posts. Your time was limited, and some people liked to spend more of it doing more creative things than random flaming. (Like playing Trade Wars 2000...)
I'm having trouble fitting the kernel into 32k RAM, though. . .
Now I can print all the multicolor Legos I want!
Hmm, to me this is very interesting. It's a race between MEMS and bionanotech. I'm curious to see which will win first; Between this and the nano-diamond crystalline structures, it's going to be a damn interesting next twenty years. . .
And for MAXIM, could this be used to get more information about suns with planets? So far, there's been a fair number of jovian-sized planet discoveries, but nothing in the terrestrials... Now that would be a breatkthrough!
Your average joe from a nation where %80 of the population does not know what happens when you flip a light switch.
It would be highly amusing; Unfortunately, Mir would be trashed in the process.
Hmm. I remember reading a short short story once along these lines. The main character went to a live concert and beforehand had to take a pill that interrupted the STM->LTM storage process in the brain, effectively making him only live the moment and nothing more. And he was quite happy because he got a good deal on the concert tickets, and how live music was so much better than recorded -- if he just remember how... Quite creepy.
Always been a fan of this bizarre kitty. Glad to see they're bringing him back. Kinda makes up for the fact humanity hunted 'em out of existance. Of course, now here comes the flip side: What if our killing off the Tasmanian tiger *WAS* a natural product of Darwinism -- acted through humanity as a whole? What if we start doing this to a bunch of other animals? What happens when we finally bring back wooly mammoths and sabre-tooth tigers or even dinosaurs? (Assuming viable DNA can be found.) What sort of kinks will be throwning into the evolutionary process? My 0.02$.
You know, to me what is scary isn't the idea that genetic engineering will result in 'gene discrimination' or people seeking 'perfect' children. It's the idea that by definition, genetic engineering is mucking around with a billion-year-old mechanism that we understand little about. We have no clue how a wonderfully complex human brain is stored in just a few hundred thousand sets of genetic pairs. It might not be a case of digital computer memory, where a single gene (or even a group) can be flipped on/off and a particular response is be given. We might end up causing more illness and deformation than curing it, by upsetting a very careful balance. Would you start messing with your OS's kernel, if you didn't even know what sort of language it was written in? Or even if you weren't sure how it was digitally represented?
.
On a side note, it's interesting how people are obsessing with the idea of perfect children. Is this really a useful thing to humanity as a whole? Evolution is about change, and change does not come with conformity. Hell, you could even use the old abortion arguement: What if you 'cure' the next Stephen Hawking and he turns out to be a normal person instead of revolutionizing physics?
It's food for thought. Likely, genetics will outstrip us and leave us wondering where we got all of these nifty but hideously dangerous new toys. .
That's very interesting news. I used to run a BBS in the early ninties with TradeWars 2000 as one of our major doors. Had TW2000 tourneys and all, and I even crufted together some TW utilities. *sniff* MAJOR nostalgia rush here.