Well, besides the fact that moving you there will be inconvenient for us, there won't be any such location because positronic would be a step backward from photonic in terms of performance, assuming your more interested in calculation power than explosive power.
CF cards at 64 GB are quite a bit further from 2TB than 2.5" SSDs are. CF is a really small physical format. Small enough that you can carry a bunch in your pocket, and swap them out each time you fill your 2TB with data. Which, if you're recording uncompressed 1080P video at 60fps and 32 bit color (500MB/sec) will still take you over an hour.
Funny, but really, you only need one line going into your house, and a junction box could easily accomodate hundreds of lines to choose from. Realistically given the expense, the likely count of lines to be laid is less than ten.
It is in no way a natural monopoly. It is completely artificial, created by legal restriction on who can build lines. There is nothing natural preventing the building of 3 or 5 or 10 competing lines to your home.
Well, that'd be great, but it only buys us another 30 years at most. And I don't believe it, it would seem to contradict our current knowledge of physics. (Still, can't rule it out).
Unless those uber conscious computers are somehow freed from reproduction or from needs, it seems unlikely they won't be subject to the same fate we are... competition for finite resources is a bitch to escape.
On A, I will be very impressed by the invention that gets us better than one transistor per atom.
For B, they will be as truly sentient as we are, there will be simulations of people so good there is no way to distinguish them from the real thing. This is an almost purely computationally constrained problem, we have pretty much all the tools we need to accurately map a brain now.
A is clearly not going to happen for much longer. We are fast approaching the point where even single atom transistors will occupy too much volume to compose a single computer. Once your personal computer, composed of individual atom transistors occupies a volume larger than your average apartment, it begins to be a stretch to see how you will double your capabilities in your next computer.
B is a certainty. We understand most of the physical function of brains down to the chemical level. We are not far from being able to accurately simulate brain function. If there is more to intelligence than chemical level brain functions I will be surprised. Still, that would probably only mean modeling down to the atomic level, which would be only marginally harder. If there is more than the atomic level of brain functions involved in intelligence I will sit down to dinner and eat a hat. Unless I'm eating hat, we'll have an accurate, real-time human brain model running in less than 40 years. It will be equally as sentient as we are.
C depends on what problems you really wind up needing to solve. If you need to solve TSP for a thousand cities, you may have a bit of a wait ahead of you. If you just need to cure every human disease, that may be a much shorter wait.
("The main functions of diplomats revolve around the representation and protection of the interests and nationals of the sending state, as well as the promotion of information and friendly relations.")
One might argue that the Canadian diplomat to France's job is to secure the best relations between your two countries, for example, perhaps promoting trade that results in more/better paying Canadian jobs.
What if that requires ass-kissing the French leadership?
Actually, i'd have to believe that the situation with Iran could only be better if we were all denouncing them in public and private. The existing plan has done nothing but embolden the regime by making them think they have more friends than they really do. Forcing more countries into a hard line public stance would be much more likely to foment a war or revolt that would end the iranian regime.
But how does that help? They still had the children. And actually, what they'll learn is that they got to enjoy the relationship longer, the children eventually grew up and they didn't have to deal with them anymore, so really, all in all a viable strategy. As long as you can find an immortal man who will still fall for it.
The rush is that if you don't have the children, someone else will. The genes of those who populate will outstrip those who don't. And when resources run out after the galaxy is fully populated, they will turn inward and eat you.
Living forever in a universe of finite resources is a really, really scary prospect.
But then the galaxy is completely packed with human meat after about 20K years. And remember, you're still alive, and now you're thinking about eating your (still living, obviously) descendants to continue to live.
Immortality that will last tens of thousands of years is really scary. If you can't stay ahead of the population wavefront, you eventually get eaten.
I think there are two fairly consequential issues here:
1. Most of us get not nearly enough time to do all the things we'd like to do in our lives. So any biology based extension with a good quality of life would be very welcome. 2. Any biology based immortality is really short term, not true immortality. You might make it to 10^27 years, but you'd have to be extraordinarily lucky. And somewhere in that range luck will be unable to save you from the proton decay.
Slashdot Mirror
Well, besides the fact that moving you there will be inconvenient for us, there won't be any such location because positronic would be a step backward from photonic in terms of performance, assuming your more interested in calculation power than explosive power.
His, I'm pretty sure. Exa flop scale computers (short: exascale) are a big area of research right now.
CF cards at 64 GB are quite a bit further from 2TB than 2.5" SSDs are. CF is a really small physical format. Small enough that you can carry a bunch in your pocket, and swap them out each time you fill your 2TB with data. Which, if you're recording uncompressed 1080P video at 60fps and 32 bit color (500MB/sec) will still take you over an hour.
Funny, but really, you only need one line going into your house, and a junction box could easily accomodate hundreds of lines to choose from. Realistically given the expense, the likely count of lines to be laid is less than ten.
It is in no way a natural monopoly. It is completely artificial, created by legal restriction on who can build lines. There is nothing natural preventing the building of 3 or 5 or 10 competing lines to your home.
They are completely artificial duopolies in most locations. Enforced only by law preventing additional cable runs.
On the other hand, how long would it take them to block the website once they notice netflix doing this?
But of course they'd only maintain one page. Lazer is just a word now, it's not short for anything any more.
Again, I invite you to go fix wikipedia.
Well, that'd be great, but it only buys us another 30 years at most. And I don't believe it, it would seem to contradict our current knowledge of physics. (Still, can't rule it out).
Tell that to wikipedia, which finds it to be a perfectly valid substitute.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lazer
Legally, probably not for a long time. We'll exploit them as slaves for generations, I imagine.
It's the second law of thermodynamics that's the killer in the case of our using up resources.
Unless those uber conscious computers are somehow freed from reproduction or from needs, it seems unlikely they won't be subject to the same fate we are ... competition for finite resources is a bitch to escape.
On A, I will be very impressed by the invention that gets us better than one transistor per atom.
For B, they will be as truly sentient as we are, there will be simulations of people so good there is no way to distinguish them from the real thing. This is an almost purely computationally constrained problem, we have pretty much all the tools we need to accurately map a brain now.
A is clearly not going to happen for much longer. We are fast approaching the point where even single atom transistors will occupy too much volume to compose a single computer. Once your personal computer, composed of individual atom transistors occupies a volume larger than your average apartment, it begins to be a stretch to see how you will double your capabilities in your next computer.
B is a certainty. We understand most of the physical function of brains down to the chemical level. We are not far from being able to accurately simulate brain function. If there is more to intelligence than chemical level brain functions I will be surprised. Still, that would probably only mean modeling down to the atomic level, which would be only marginally harder. If there is more than the atomic level of brain functions involved in intelligence I will sit down to dinner and eat a hat. Unless I'm eating hat, we'll have an accurate, real-time human brain model running in less than 40 years. It will be equally as sentient as we are.
C depends on what problems you really wind up needing to solve. If you need to solve TSP for a thousand cities, you may have a bit of a wait ahead of you. If you just need to cure every human disease, that may be a much shorter wait.
Go argue with wikipedia.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Diplomat
("The main functions of diplomats revolve around the representation and protection of the interests and nationals of the sending state, as well as the promotion of information and friendly relations.")
One might argue that the Canadian diplomat to France's job is to secure the best relations between your two countries, for example, perhaps promoting trade that results in more/better paying Canadian jobs.
What if that requires ass-kissing the French leadership?
ob sig:
No doubt the leaks were because of terrible microsoft security.
Actually, i'd have to believe that the situation with Iran could only be better if we were all denouncing them in public and private. The existing plan has done nothing but embolden the regime by making them think they have more friends than they really do. Forcing more countries into a hard line public stance would be much more likely to foment a war or revolt that would end the iranian regime.
But how does that help? They still had the children. And actually, what they'll learn is that they got to enjoy the relationship longer, the children eventually grew up and they didn't have to deal with them anymore, so really, all in all a viable strategy. As long as you can find an immortal man who will still fall for it.
The rush is that if you don't have the children, someone else will. The genes of those who populate will outstrip those who don't. And when resources run out after the galaxy is fully populated, they will turn inward and eat you.
Living forever in a universe of finite resources is a really, really scary prospect.
But then the galaxy is completely packed with human meat after about 20K years. And remember, you're still alive, and now you're thinking about eating your (still living, obviously) descendants to continue to live.
Immortality that will last tens of thousands of years is really scary. If you can't stay ahead of the population wavefront, you eventually get eaten.
I think there are two fairly consequential issues here:
1. Most of us get not nearly enough time to do all the things we'd like to do in our lives. So any biology based extension with a good quality of life would be very welcome.
2. Any biology based immortality is really short term, not true immortality. You might make it to 10^27 years, but you'd have to be extraordinarily lucky. And somewhere in that range luck will be unable to save you from the proton decay.
Meh. I'm over 40, and I'd seriously prefer not to die in the next decade, at least so far.