Re:Except Animals are more likely to be right.
on
Good Bad Attitude
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· Score: 4, Interesting
I'm a hacker, and I'm a little idealistic and somewhat optimistic. But I'm also rather good at seeing structures, and getting a feel for emerging patterns. That's a large part of what hacking is about.
That's exactly the problem, though - humans are so good at detecting patterns that we often detect patterns when they don't exist. The need to rationalize the often irrational world around us is one of the reasons that I feel that a lot of otherwise intelligent people tend to gather at the conspiracy/tinfoil hat fringe - because to them it's better to have an explaination (even a scary one) than to feel that they can't understand all of the crazy stuff going on around them. Random sequences often don't look random, and with the sheer number of events happenning in the world every day, strange coincidences are to be expected. And hey, isn't it nice to have something/one ("the Man"/Ashcroft/whatever) to blame for the woes of society?
I'm not saying that there isn't trouble brewing or that hackers aren't necessarily better at seeing this than others, its just like all the hackers that predicted the death of the internet for the last few decades... They saw change and picked up a pattern that turned out not to be there.
I'm a little concerned by the attitude on slashdot that the sky is falling when in reality, we're dealing with the same kinds of political problems we've always had - presidents being elected without a popular majority and decided by someone other than the people (1824 election), our rights being eroded/Patriot act (Sedition Act, McCarthyism during Red Scare), and a general distrust of politicians (even our founding fathers distrusted politicians!) I really don't think any of this is new, or that we're doomed. This country has had our dark moments and our bright ones, but has survived many things and will continue to survive. Maybe it will not be the same, but this "slippery slope" falicy that so many people call upon when they look at the compramises that are made in our name will not be our end. As long as we're alive, there's hope that things will get better, and there is always something we can do, even if it's small, to make the world a better place.
Now, of course that might be just a bit optimistic on my part, but I feel that those who have power tend to want to keep things nice and stable so they can keep it, and part of that means keeping the masses happy, so we're probably OK.
I been re-reading the Zahn trilogy and I tell you, I would LOVE to see that turned into a film with someone else directing it.
I couldn't agree more. The books are fantastic (if you can fit all of the plot in the movie, its rather complex). It's got more flawed heros, better villains, and a plot that's not just the same old Star Wars B-movie plot.
I'd pay an absurd amount of money to see this well done in a movie. Maybe the copyright will expire someday?
By the way - his girlfriend is hot. Too bad they seem like a couple of religious nuts.
Mods: I don't know about you, but this seems a lot like flaimbait.
Seriously, I don't understand why this type of speech is moderated up on slashdot. Saying it's "too bad" that someone "seems to be a religious nut" because they have one frickin bible verse on their web site borders on bigotry. It's one thing to disagree with someone's views, but to pity someone because they have faith in a higher power... would this be modded up if it read "He seems really nice, it's a shame that he's gay"?
The poster has every right to say it, but should we really be promoting these kinds of things with our mod points?
Justin
P.S. I'm no big fan of political correctness but sometimes the anti-religious bias on this site drives me crazy.
My personal belief is that believing the Bible does not preclude belief in other life forms. Nowhere in the book of Genesis does it specifically say He didn't create life somewhere else.
Though I don't think many other Christians share my viewpoint...
Actually I don't think it's that unpopular... I've heard my rather fundamentalist (with a lower case f) pastor talk against many things, from evolution to homosexuality... but never against finding life elsewhere in the universe. I think that most of the christians that I know would consider aliens to simply be another amazing creation.
It disturbs me to hear people talk about how finding life elsewhere in the universe would be the "end of religion." Religion survives scientific discovery, because ultimately it's not based on what is possible to know, but what is possible to feel - something science cannot touch.
In short, there's a lot more of us out there than you think! Also, there's plenty of christians that are rather apathetic about doctrinal details like this, never underestimate the power of apathy.
Cheers,
Justin
P.S. I hope we do find some life out there in my lifetime!
I'm not convinced of the usefulness of humanoid robots, except for providing disabled humans with prothetic limbs and maybe organs eventually.It would seem more useful to build robots that are designed with the task they must perform in mind. Therefore, they could perform it far better than any human.
There are in fact *many* advantages to humanoid style robots. Thusly enumerated, they are:
Our world and its technologies are currently optimized for human usage. Doors, sidewalks, cars, sinks, tools, etc are all designed specifically to be used by a humanoid. That's not to say that we cannot design new things for use by robots, however it may simply be easier to get robots to adapt to our world rather than vice versa.
Most people do not like interacting with machines. Human interaction is what we have evolved to be optimized for. Our brain has special structures for face tracking/recognition that are far faster than similar generalized systems in the brain. Many people are uncomfortable with and intimidated by high technology, but would not be with friendly, humanlike robots.
Many people are lonely. For the same reason that these people keep pets, having a humanoid robot would provide companionship. This is a bit dangerous however for elderly without relatives, or someone who's constantly travelling, this isn't such a bad idea.
Humanoid robots, given enough intelligence and physical strength, could stand in for humans for a variety of activities, as needed. For instance, a restaurant low on staff may off robotic waiting at a reduced price (plus no need to tip!) during busy times for those who don't mind it. Also, through telepresence, you could use a humanoid robot as an "avatar" representing you physically rather than virtually at a remote location. It may even have your face, or one somewhat similar that mimics your expressions in real time. A bit scary, but so was television when it came out (you can *SEE* people in other cities, in your own living room!)
Last but not least, there is the coolness factor. I think many people would find a humanoid robot to be much cooler than, say, a platform with some arms.
Yes, for industrial purposes, there's good reason to optimize the shape and form of a robot for specific tasks, however nature has provided us with an extremely adaptable physique, and we have so many reasons to emulate it.
Cheers,
Justin
Here at a JPL, a group that shares our workspace recently got AIBOs, and I was shocked to find myself treating it just like a real dog, and enjoying petting it. It's.... just a machine, I know, but it acts a lot like a dog.
Re:Heh, so Java's slow indeed
on
Photon Soup Update
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· Score: 2, Informative
Computers got 3000 times faster, but Java managed to compensate for 11 years of evolution.
If that's not flamebait, I'm not sure what is... Geez, how can you even say that?
Now we have:
Year: 2004
Computers: Unknown, supposedly 3000 times faster
Time: 2.5 months
Photons: 45.3 billions, 18 billion/month
If computers are indeed 3000 times faster, or heck, even 100, you should have got 72 billion just out of one of those computers running for the 2.5 months.
Blockquoth the old article:
Now computers are 3000 times faster and I am doing it again only much better, with a smaller aperature, in stereo, with 3 cameras, and with some errors fixed, and in Java.
I don't know about you, but that sounds like to me he is complicating things quite a bit. It's hard to blame his choice of Java language on the slow execution when he's making the problem considerably harder!
Not to mention the fact that his code may not be as efficient... I can write a slow C program too if I use the wrong data structures or a bad algorithm.
You're comparing apples to oranges here. Photon mapping is insanely complex in terms of the computational requirements, and doing 3 cameras with stereo, etc... Yeah.
I'm not much of a photographer, but I did happen to get into the VIP section, right in front of the actual takeoff. If you'd like to see some of my picts check out: http://www.lyle.org/~jwick/spaceshipone_jw/index.h tml
The launch was quite exciting! I've been working for NASA on MER but I feel very strongly that it is important to have a commercial/private interest in space (indeed, I intend to be a space tourist one day, if I get the chance).
One of the Scaled Composites guys gave myself and my friends a piece of the material they made part of the ship out of... it's incredibly light and strong.
Congrats to the team, and to all of those there to witness this history making event. We still have a long way to go before we can drive to a spaceport and pick up a ticket, but at least private spaceflight is now a very real thing.
Of course, we don't know that this is true. If nanoorganisms that self-reproduce in the wild by external construction using metal crystals are possible, then they might have evolved naturally. The fact that there are no such organisms may mean that nature hasn't "explored" that part of the solution space as you said, or it may mean that there are no solutions in that space--that power requirements etc. make such self-replicating machines unviable (in the wild).
We know for a fact that it is possible to create devices that are better at a given task than anything currently found in nature. For instance, there are no naturally occurring rocket ships or race cars or anything moving faster than the speed of sound, as one example. Nature doesn't grow crow bars or machine guns... It grows things that are good at surviving but... that's about it.
My argument is that I believe that one of the reasons that you don't find things like rocket-powered vehicles in nature is that they have such a huge inherent complexity that it is almost improbable that you will ever reach even the simplest version of the machine, let alone a final, usable product. As I said before, if the machine must replicate by making complete copies of itself, and it is using materials that are superior to organics but require a larger starting mass, more energy, and more complex and specific organization, abiogenesis is less likely to take place, because the starting conditions are much harder.
Explicit design allows one to focus the efforts of a system in the specific problem subspace where really good solutions are most likely to occur. Intentional design also allows one to "skip" the critical step of abiogenisis, which is a major bottleneck.
Great point. Also, consider that nature itself has, through millions of years of random experimentation, come as close as one can hope to self-replicating nano-machines: just look at any virus, bacterium, etc. I find it extremely unlikely that we will be able to do much better in terms of ability to replicate by harvesting external matter-- an ability closely related to deadliness to all sorts of life forms.
One of the issues people tend to overlook when making this argument is that nature has searched only a part of the available solution space - the part that basically must start as an autocatalytic set. What this means is that there are plenty of designs, for instance those that can make copies of themselves, but by external construction (how a nanobot would likely reproduce) that is not autocatalytic - it's extremely unlikely that such a design would naturally occur. Those designs are able to incorporate elements like elemental metal crystals which are not very compatable with proteins etc. The shear number of raw materials on earth, such as silicon, that cannot be used effectively by organic life is tremendous, and may lead to interesting possibilites for technology.
Nature's gone through many permutations but has barely scratched the surface in terms of the space of possible molecular machines. Don't estimate the power of intention to home in on the most useful/dangerous part of the space.
Cheers,
Justin
Disclaimer: I studied physics not biology so... someone correct me if I'm wrong:)
I leave it to the scientists to see this from their chair. They drove more than they expected, past the "warranty" of the rover, to get there. From now on, all is gravy. From their vantage points, they can figure out if there is anything even remotely around which would make it not worth the risk. You gotta die sometime. Might as well be doing something useful.
Don't worry, the scientists are well aware of the cost/benefit tradeoffs associated with this... They are all very excited about going into the crater etc, however the crater is very dangerous.
After much discussion with various individuals, it's my best guess that we will decend, after much remote sensing, into a shallow part of the crater, look at some outcrops, and then climb back out, rather than getting stuck in the bottom with nothing new to image.
But this is not yet official.
Cheers,
Justin Wick
Disclaimer: I'm a software engineer on the mission, I don't drive the rover or make any of the decisions about where it goes.
The rovers don't have a self-righting mechanism, but they might be able to do something with the instrument arm. NASA has done extensive testing of the rovers to determine the performance envelope.
I know the rover drivers etc, and am familiar with the hardware. The idea that the IDD could right the rover would get many a chuckle here at JPL, as the IDD is not load bearing, and has very slow motors.
The torques induced when spectrally imaging the magnets alone is enough to slow down the arm movements.
If the rover is flipped over, we lose all power but batteries, and probably break mechanical components in the process. Communications may become difficult or impossible. If/when that happens, it's over.
Would make one hell of a final pancam though, the ground a centimeter away from the PMA.
Cheers,
Justin Wick
Disclaimer: I do software engineering on the mission, I do not directly drive the rovers.
>Hi Justin, >How about we get the ball rolling by naming a rock >'Tux', after the Linux mascot penguin?
Congradulations. Not only did you get modded up much more than I thought anyone would in this little "contest" but I thought that Tux was suitably neutral. I talked to Merideth and I"m going to try and get something named Tux. Hopefully it will work out.
Congrats
Cheers, Justin
P.S. This is what public participation is all about! If anyone has more ideas about public participation in NASA missions, please feel free to respond:)
As mentioned in previous posts, I'm an intern at NASA but I absolutely love to see commerical ventures working at launching into orbit.
Commericialization of space is important in the sense that space will eventually no longer be monopolized by scientists and engineers, but be within the grasp of ordinary people of all kinds of backgrounds. I believe quite strongly that the only way to democratize space, and keep it accessible to the average person is to provide an economic incentive for businesses to exploit their various resources.
I look forward to the day where a father and son might build a spaceship together and, at very least, head towards the stratosphere. Perhaps saftety systems will be developed to make this a reality.
I wish XCor the best of luck. Perhaps they will develope things we have not yet imagined:)
All kidding aside, I really don't see why more people aren't using a fast, safe, low-level real-time capable language like Cyclone instead of C for many things.
Don't get me wrong, C is great for a certain set of specific things, but more often than not the power gets used in a suboptimal way (which wouldn't occur in a less expressive language).
For C compatability with safety and speed, why not try Cyclone
It's typesafe! No problems with null pointers, or out of bounds memory errors! Just say no to buffer over/underflows!
Tired of garbage collection slowing you down? Use its regional memory management - no dangling pointers guaranteed! Safe library wrappings, for her pleasure.
Need a little help with your "flow control"? You might check out its ML-baseed pattern matching. Shorter code, in less than 30 days, guaranteed!
And forget enums, what you really want is tagged unions - typesafe, and makes some algorithms oh so short and sweet to write. Makes recursive data types a snap - great for ASTs!
And of course there's parametric polymorphism, abstract structure types, and even subclassing of pointers! With all that done for you, you could even set up your own object system - just how you like it!
Last but not least, there's some decent type inference - stop writing down the damn type of every last thing you give to the compiler, this compiler knows better:)
Check out Cyclone today, it's sure to blow you away!
Assuming that some day, we eventually develop human-like android robots, do you feel that individuals who are unkind/abusive to these robots (regardless of whether or not they actually have feelings) are going to start treating other humans this way? If so, does that mean that there should be rules against abuse/cruelty of human-like robots, as a preventative measure against it happening to a real person?
The existence of "disposable people" would have to cheapen human life in the eyes of some. Are there any other problems with this? Is there anything we can do to prevent this?
While I have certainly not visited all secondary education centers in the united states, having looked at various textbooks and talked to many of my peers in college has given me some insight into the scientific education process.
I must say that I am utterly disturbed by the conceptual poverty of pre-collegiate science education. The emphasis in many classrooms is on learning facts about the universe, rather than learning the methods which all us to obtain these facts, and understanding of what we see around us. Names of constellations, plant phyla, and obscure scientists help one "understand" science in the same way that memorizing the name of every Pope helps you "understand" history. In reality, science is about methodology and critical thinking moreso than anything else, and honestly it is that part of science education that truely benefits people in their everyday lives.
At my high school, we had a course called "reading" which was manditory for 7th and 8th graders (it was a junior/senior HS). My mother almost had me removed from the course because it was such an egregious waste of time... It was supposed to "encourage" people to read by forcing unimaginitve drivel down their throats rather than allowing them to explore books for themselves. Rather than spend 10% of my time at school on this nonsense, I owuld have much preferred a class for everyone in critical thinking.
Imagine how exciting such a class could be. Instead of spending time reading boring textbooks or doing busywork, the class would be given real-life problems to solve collaboratively. Also, it would be taught how to reason about arguments presented in scientific, political, and social arenas by disecting and debating current event topics. Throw in a dash of formal logic, and an emphesis on participation and thinking rather than getting points for giving teh answer the teacher wanted, and I think we'd have a real winner.
I believe that such a class would help science education more than spicing up material, or adding yet more pictures to the textbooks. More importantly, I believe that this kind of class would be much more generally useful to people in their everday lives. I believe that teaching people to make more rational decisions is good both socially and economically, and will allow people to be better citizens. Also it might cause people to take less of what the President/CNN/NY Times/Popular Science says as truth.
Maybe someone out there managed to take a class like this. If so, perhaps you could share your experience?
When I was in public schools, I had the benefit of being identified in the high-performer category because I had actually learned a lot from of math from watching PBS programs such as Square One Television, and my mother had taught me to read before my first day of kindergarden unlike any other member of my class.
Same here. It was perhaps the only redeeming thing about my pre-college education, that there was at least an "effort" to teach brighter kids. It seemed to be mostly directed at the gradeschoolers, the high school stuff just seemed to get worse as I got older. Maybe that was funding?
I wonder how many future whiz-kids we're losing to the fact that they're getting bored in too-dumb-for-them mainstream classes and therefore goofing off with their extra time instead of being given work that's at their actual mental level rather than their age's level.
I don't understand why people's aren't funding these programs out the wazoo! Smart people invent the stuff that the government can tax. Surely the government has to see this as an incredible investiment, especially considering that they have the chance to psychologically affect many of the brightest people of the next generation by giving them reason to be disciplined and respect authority, rather than breeding boredom, contempt, and troublemaking. How many script kiddies out there (yes, quite a few of them are bright even if they are not expert hackers like they think) would not be hacking into servers etc if they were given real, interesting, and productive mental challenges?
Giving people with mental disabilities a shot at a better life is an important obligation our society has, however it is in the interest of the society as a whole to fund efforts to fuel intellectual greatness in our country. We cannot afford to fall behind. Already intellectual labor is cheaper in places like India, etc, can we afford to also let it be better?
This is probably already redudant, however the article says
" Minato says that average efficiency on his motors is about 330 percent. "
That's definitely violating thermodynamics. I do not understand how this is "news for nerds", however at least the editors should please put some kind of disclaimer that he is in fact claiming to break conservation of energy.
and probably wouldn't hurt to be said again: The GPL is a DISTRIBUTION license, not a "usage" license. You are free to do whatever you want, just when you redistribute the binaries must you then also provide the source. There.
I'm not sure about this. IANAL but the liscense says:
4. You may not copy,
modify, sublicense, or distribute the Program except as expressly provided under this License. Any attempt otherwise to copy, modify, sublicense or distribute the Program is void, and will automatically terminate your rights under this License. However, parties who have received copies, or rights, from you under this License will not have their licenses terminated so long as such parties remain in full compliance.
IIRC, copywrite law does not allow you to create derivative works without permission from the author (other than fair use, which usually covers the use of part of a work, like a clip or thumbnail). Thus, I would maintain that the GPL *DOES* govern use, provided you consider modification of the original program to be "use".
wouldn't it make sense to initially plan the mission for as long as the rovers remain operational, however long that may be?
This has to do with funding issues and political issues. Both are exteremely complex, and you'll just have to take my word for it.
That being said, it was unlikely taht'd we'd be denied funding at the levels we've requested. We took great pains to reduce the cost in many many ways.
Also it was hihgly uncertain whether or not the rovers would even survive impact, much less 90 sols of interaction with Mars.
Cheers,
Justin
P.S. See my previous post about distributed operations, that explains a lot of the budget cut.
Justin, who names the rocks? You guys are clearly having too much fun in that department.
Actually, my friend Merideth considers herself to be the feature-naming goddess for Spirit, so if/.ers will reply to this post with possible names, I'll put in one of the highest moderated ones for consideration.
Slashdot Mirror
I'm a hacker, and I'm a little idealistic and somewhat optimistic. But I'm also rather good at seeing structures, and getting a feel for emerging patterns. That's a large part of what hacking is about.
That's exactly the problem, though - humans are so good at detecting patterns that we often detect patterns when they don't exist. The need to rationalize the often irrational world around us is one of the reasons that I feel that a lot of otherwise intelligent people tend to gather at the conspiracy/tinfoil hat fringe - because to them it's better to have an explaination (even a scary one) than to feel that they can't understand all of the crazy stuff going on around them. Random sequences often don't look random, and with the sheer number of events happenning in the world every day, strange coincidences are to be expected. And hey, isn't it nice to have something/one ("the Man"/Ashcroft/whatever) to blame for the woes of society?
I'm not saying that there isn't trouble brewing or that hackers aren't necessarily better at seeing this than others, its just like all the hackers that predicted the death of the internet for the last few decades... They saw change and picked up a pattern that turned out not to be there.
I'm a little concerned by the attitude on slashdot that the sky is falling when in reality, we're dealing with the same kinds of political problems we've always had - presidents being elected without a popular majority and decided by someone other than the people (1824 election), our rights being eroded/Patriot act (Sedition Act, McCarthyism during Red Scare), and a general distrust of politicians (even our founding fathers distrusted politicians!) I really don't think any of this is new, or that we're doomed. This country has had our dark moments and our bright ones, but has survived many things and will continue to survive. Maybe it will not be the same, but this "slippery slope" falicy that so many people call upon when they look at the compramises that are made in our name will not be our end. As long as we're alive, there's hope that things will get better, and there is always something we can do, even if it's small, to make the world a better place.
Now, of course that might be just a bit optimistic on my part, but I feel that those who have power tend to want to keep things nice and stable so they can keep it, and part of that means keeping the masses happy, so we're probably OK.
Cheers,
Justin
I been re-reading the Zahn trilogy and I tell you, I would LOVE to see that turned into a film with someone else directing it.
I couldn't agree more. The books are fantastic (if you can fit all of the plot in the movie, its rather complex). It's got more flawed heros, better villains, and a plot that's not just the same old Star Wars B-movie plot.
I'd pay an absurd amount of money to see this well done in a movie. Maybe the copyright will expire someday?
Nah, must be dreaming...
By the way - his girlfriend is hot. Too bad they seem like a couple of religious nuts.
Mods: I don't know about you, but this seems a lot like flaimbait.
Seriously, I don't understand why this type of speech is moderated up on slashdot. Saying it's "too bad" that someone "seems to be a religious nut" because they have one frickin bible verse on their web site borders on bigotry. It's one thing to disagree with someone's views, but to pity someone because they have faith in a higher power... would this be modded up if it read "He seems really nice, it's a shame that he's gay"?
The poster has every right to say it, but should we really be promoting these kinds of things with our mod points?
Justin
P.S. I'm no big fan of political correctness but sometimes the anti-religious bias on this site drives me crazy.
My personal belief is that believing the Bible does not preclude belief in other life forms. Nowhere in the book of Genesis does it specifically say He didn't create life somewhere else. Though I don't think many other Christians share my viewpoint...
Actually I don't think it's that unpopular... I've heard my rather fundamentalist (with a lower case f) pastor talk against many things, from evolution to homosexuality... but never against finding life elsewhere in the universe. I think that most of the christians that I know would consider aliens to simply be another amazing creation.
It disturbs me to hear people talk about how finding life elsewhere in the universe would be the "end of religion." Religion survives scientific discovery, because ultimately it's not based on what is possible to know, but what is possible to feel - something science cannot touch.
In short, there's a lot more of us out there than you think! Also, there's plenty of christians that are rather apathetic about doctrinal details like this, never underestimate the power of apathy.
Cheers,
Justin
P.S. I hope we do find some life out there in my lifetime!
There are in fact *many* advantages to humanoid style robots. Thusly enumerated, they are:
Yes, for industrial purposes, there's good reason to optimize the shape and form of a robot for specific tasks, however nature has provided us with an extremely adaptable physique, and we have so many reasons to emulate it.
Cheers,
Justin
Here at a JPL, a group that shares our workspace recently got AIBOs, and I was shocked to find myself treating it just like a real dog, and enjoying petting it. It's.... just a machine, I know, but it acts a lot like a dog.
If that's not flamebait, I'm not sure what is... Geez, how can you even say that?
The previous article says: Year: 1994 Computers: 100 SparcStation 1 Time: 1 month Photons: 29 billion, 29 billion/month
Now we have: Year: 2004 Computers: Unknown, supposedly 3000 times faster Time: 2.5 months Photons: 45.3 billions, 18 billion/month
If computers are indeed 3000 times faster, or heck, even 100, you should have got 72 billion just out of one of those computers running for the 2.5 months.
Blockquoth the old article:
I don't know about you, but that sounds like to me he is complicating things quite a bit. It's hard to blame his choice of Java language on the slow execution when he's making the problem considerably harder!
Not to mention the fact that his code may not be as efficient... I can write a slow C program too if I use the wrong data structures or a bad algorithm.
You're comparing apples to oranges here. Photon mapping is insanely complex in terms of the computational requirements, and doing 3 cameras with stereo, etc... Yeah.
I'm not much of a photographer, but I did happen to get into the VIP section, right in front of the actual takeoff. If you'd like to see some of my picts check out:h tml
http://www.lyle.org/~jwick/spaceshipone_jw/index.
The launch was quite exciting! I've been working for NASA on MER but I feel very strongly that it is important to have a commercial/private interest in space (indeed, I intend to be a space tourist one day, if I get the chance).
One of the Scaled Composites guys gave myself and my friends a piece of the material they made part of the ship out of... it's incredibly light and strong.
Congrats to the team, and to all of those there to witness this history making event. We still have a long way to go before we can drive to a spaceport and pick up a ticket, but at least private spaceflight is now a very real thing.
Cheers,
Justin
Of course, we don't know that this is true. If nanoorganisms that self-reproduce in the wild by external construction using metal crystals are possible, then they might have evolved naturally. The fact that there are no such organisms may mean that nature hasn't "explored" that part of the solution space as you said, or it may mean that there are no solutions in that space--that power requirements etc. make such self-replicating machines unviable (in the wild).
We know for a fact that it is possible to create devices that are better at a given task than anything currently found in nature. For instance, there are no naturally occurring rocket ships or race cars or anything moving faster than the speed of sound, as one example. Nature doesn't grow crow bars or machine guns... It grows things that are good at surviving but... that's about it.
My argument is that I believe that one of the reasons that you don't find things like rocket-powered vehicles in nature is that they have such a huge inherent complexity that it is almost improbable that you will ever reach even the simplest version of the machine, let alone a final, usable product. As I said before, if the machine must replicate by making complete copies of itself, and it is using materials that are superior to organics but require a larger starting mass, more energy, and more complex and specific organization, abiogenesis is less likely to take place, because the starting conditions are much harder.
Explicit design allows one to focus the efforts of a system in the specific problem subspace where really good solutions are most likely to occur. Intentional design also allows one to "skip" the critical step of abiogenisis, which is a major bottleneck.
Cheers,
Justin
Great point. Also, consider that nature itself has, through millions of years of random experimentation, come as close as one can hope to self-replicating nano-machines: just look at any virus, bacterium, etc. I find it extremely unlikely that we will be able to do much better in terms of ability to replicate by harvesting external matter-- an ability closely related to deadliness to all sorts of life forms.
:)
One of the issues people tend to overlook when making this argument is that nature has searched only a part of the available solution space - the part that basically must start as an autocatalytic set. What this means is that there are plenty of designs, for instance those that can make copies of themselves, but by external construction (how a nanobot would likely reproduce) that is not autocatalytic - it's extremely unlikely that such a design would naturally occur. Those designs are able to incorporate elements like elemental metal crystals which are not very compatable with proteins etc. The shear number of raw materials on earth, such as silicon, that cannot be used effectively by organic life is tremendous, and may lead to interesting possibilites for technology.
Nature's gone through many permutations but has barely scratched the surface in terms of the space of possible molecular machines. Don't estimate the power of intention to home in on the most useful/dangerous part of the space.
Cheers,
Justin
Disclaimer: I studied physics not biology so... someone correct me if I'm wrong
I leave it to the scientists to see this from their chair. They drove more than they expected, past the "warranty" of the rover, to get there. From now on, all is gravy. From their vantage points, they can figure out if there is anything even remotely around which would make it not worth the risk. You gotta die sometime. Might as well be doing something useful.
Don't worry, the scientists are well aware of the cost/benefit tradeoffs associated with this... They are all very excited about going into the crater etc, however the crater is very dangerous.
After much discussion with various individuals, it's my best guess that we will decend, after much remote sensing, into a shallow part of the crater, look at some outcrops, and then climb back out, rather than getting stuck in the bottom with nothing new to image.
But this is not yet official.
Cheers,
Justin Wick
Disclaimer: I'm a software engineer on the mission, I don't drive the rover or make any of the decisions about where it goes.
The rovers don't have a self-righting mechanism, but they might be able to do something with the instrument arm. NASA has done extensive testing of the rovers to determine the performance envelope.
I know the rover drivers etc, and am familiar with the hardware. The idea that the IDD could right the rover would get many a chuckle here at JPL, as the IDD is not load bearing, and has very slow motors.
The torques induced when spectrally imaging the magnets alone is enough to slow down the arm movements.
If the rover is flipped over, we lose all power but batteries, and probably break mechanical components in the process. Communications may become difficult or impossible. If/when that happens, it's over.
Would make one hell of a final pancam though, the ground a centimeter away from the PMA.
Cheers,
Justin Wick
Disclaimer: I do software engineering on the mission, I do not directly drive the rovers.
This patent is on long button presses on "limited power computing devices". Are you saying your Mac qualifies?
:)
Well it's certainly not "unlimited power". That'd be AMD.
Well, if you mean power consumption
I thought the title said "Algorithms to Resemble Ancient Maps of Rome".
I thought someone had peeked at my perl code!
*ducks*
>Hi Justin,
:)
>How about we get the ball rolling by naming a rock >'Tux', after the Linux mascot penguin?
Congradulations. Not only did you get modded up much more than I thought anyone would in this little "contest" but I thought that Tux was suitably neutral. I talked to Merideth and I"m going to try and get something named Tux. Hopefully it will work out.
Congrats
Cheers,
Justin
P.S. This is what public participation is all about! If anyone has more ideas about public participation in NASA missions, please feel free to respond
As mentioned in previous posts, I'm an intern at NASA but I absolutely love to see commerical ventures working at launching into orbit.
:)
Commericialization of space is important in the sense that space will eventually no longer be monopolized by scientists and engineers, but be within the grasp of ordinary people of all kinds of backgrounds. I believe quite strongly that the only way to democratize space, and keep it accessible to the average person is to provide an economic incentive for businesses to exploit their various resources.
I look forward to the day where a father and son might build a spaceship together and, at very least, head towards the stratosphere. Perhaps saftety systems will be developed to make this a reality.
I wish XCor the best of luck. Perhaps they will develope things we have not yet imagined
Heh, forgot to include a link to Cyclone.
All kidding aside, I really don't see why more people aren't using a fast, safe, low-level real-time capable language like Cyclone instead of C for many things.
Don't get me wrong, C is great for a certain set of specific things, but more often than not the power gets used in a suboptimal way (which wouldn't occur in a less expressive language).
Cheers,
Justin
For C compatability with safety and speed, why not try Cyclone
:)
It's typesafe! No problems with null pointers, or out of bounds memory errors! Just say no to buffer over/underflows!
Tired of garbage collection slowing you down? Use its regional memory management - no dangling pointers guaranteed! Safe library wrappings, for her pleasure.
Need a little help with your "flow control"? You might check out its ML-baseed pattern matching. Shorter code, in less than 30 days, guaranteed!
And forget enums, what you really want is tagged unions - typesafe, and makes some algorithms oh so short and sweet to write. Makes recursive data types a snap - great for ASTs!
And of course there's parametric polymorphism, abstract structure types, and even subclassing of pointers! With all that done for you, you could even set up your own object system - just how you like it!
Last but not least, there's some decent type inference - stop writing down the damn type of every last thing you give to the compiler, this compiler knows better
Check out Cyclone today, it's sure to blow you away!
Cheers,
Justin
Assuming that some day, we eventually develop human-like android robots, do you feel that individuals who are unkind/abusive to these robots (regardless of whether or not they actually have feelings) are going to start treating other humans this way? If so, does that mean that there should be rules against abuse/cruelty of human-like robots, as a preventative measure against it happening to a real person?
The existence of "disposable people" would have to cheapen human life in the eyes of some. Are there any other problems with this? Is there anything we can do to prevent this?
Cheers,
Justin
While I have certainly not visited all secondary education centers in the united states, having looked at various textbooks and talked to many of my peers in college has given me some insight into the scientific education process.
I must say that I am utterly disturbed by the conceptual poverty of pre-collegiate science education. The emphasis in many classrooms is on learning facts about the universe, rather than learning the methods which all us to obtain these facts, and understanding of what we see around us. Names of constellations, plant phyla, and obscure scientists help one "understand" science in the same way that memorizing the name of every Pope helps you "understand" history. In reality, science is about methodology and critical thinking moreso than anything else, and honestly it is that part of science education that truely benefits people in their everyday lives.
At my high school, we had a course called "reading" which was manditory for 7th and 8th graders (it was a junior/senior HS). My mother almost had me removed from the course because it was such an egregious waste of time... It was supposed to "encourage" people to read by forcing unimaginitve drivel down their throats rather than allowing them to explore books for themselves. Rather than spend 10% of my time at school on this nonsense, I owuld have much preferred a class for everyone in critical thinking.
Imagine how exciting such a class could be. Instead of spending time reading boring textbooks or doing busywork, the class would be given real-life problems to solve collaboratively. Also, it would be taught how to reason about arguments presented in scientific, political, and social arenas by disecting and debating current event topics. Throw in a dash of formal logic, and an emphesis on participation and thinking rather than getting points for giving teh answer the teacher wanted, and I think we'd have a real winner.
I believe that such a class would help science education more than spicing up material, or adding yet more pictures to the textbooks. More importantly, I believe that this kind of class would be much more generally useful to people in their everday lives. I believe that teaching people to make more rational decisions is good both socially and economically, and will allow people to be better citizens. Also it might cause people to take less of what the President/CNN/NY Times/Popular Science says as truth.
Maybe someone out there managed to take a class like this. If so, perhaps you could share your experience?
Cheers,
Justin Wick
When I was in public schools, I had the benefit of being identified in the high-performer category because I had actually learned a lot from of math from watching PBS programs such as Square One Television, and my mother had taught me to read before my first day of kindergarden unlike any other member of my class.
Same here. It was perhaps the only redeeming thing about my pre-college education, that there was at least an "effort" to teach brighter kids. It seemed to be mostly directed at the gradeschoolers, the high school stuff just seemed to get worse as I got older. Maybe that was funding?
I wonder how many future whiz-kids we're losing to the fact that they're getting bored in too-dumb-for-them mainstream classes and therefore goofing off with their extra time instead of being given work that's at their actual mental level rather than their age's level.
I don't understand why people's aren't funding these programs out the wazoo! Smart people invent the stuff that the government can tax. Surely the government has to see this as an incredible investiment, especially considering that they have the chance to psychologically affect many of the brightest people of the next generation by giving them reason to be disciplined and respect authority, rather than breeding boredom, contempt, and troublemaking. How many script kiddies out there (yes, quite a few of them are bright even if they are not expert hackers like they think) would not be hacking into servers etc if they were given real, interesting, and productive mental challenges?
Giving people with mental disabilities a shot at a better life is an important obligation our society has, however it is in the interest of the society as a whole to fund efforts to fuel intellectual greatness in our country. We cannot afford to fall behind. Already intellectual labor is cheaper in places like India, etc, can we afford to also let it be better?
Cheers,
Justin
It's not violating any laws of thermodynamics, it's violating the law of conservation of energy.
If you attended college, I'd ask for a refund. The first law of thermodynamics *IS* conservation of energy. Check out this.
That being said, this device definitately violates it.
Cheers,
Justin
Cheers,
Justin
I'm not sure about this. IANAL but the liscense says:
IIRC, copywrite law does not allow you to create derivative works without permission from the author (other than fair use, which usually covers the use of part of a work, like a clip or thumbnail). Thus, I would maintain that the GPL *DOES* govern use, provided you consider modification of the original program to be "use".
Any FSFers or lawyers feel free to correct me.
Cheers,
Justin
wouldn't it make sense to initially plan the mission for as long as the rovers remain operational, however long that may be?
This has to do with funding issues and political issues. Both are exteremely complex, and you'll just have to take my word for it.
That being said, it was unlikely taht'd we'd be denied funding at the levels we've requested. We took great pains to reduce the cost in many many ways.
Also it was hihgly uncertain whether or not the rovers would even survive impact, much less 90 sols of interaction with Mars.
Cheers,
Justin
P.S. See my previous post about distributed operations, that explains a lot of the budget cut.
Justin, who names the rocks? You guys are clearly having too much fun in that department.
/.ers will reply to this post with possible names, I'll put in one of the highest moderated ones for consideration.
:)
Actually, my friend Merideth considers herself to be the feature-naming goddess for Spirit, so if
No promises though
Cheers,
Justin