I think the author's observations are valid, but his conclusion is not. While the overall impact of inventions on our daily lives has declined, the rate of technical innovation continues to increase. The reason is that we've tackled all the things which make a huge impact on the overall standard of living. We've plucked the low-lying fruit, so to speak. To further increase the standard of living, we must work on harder problems, which have less of an impact, but require more innovations to achieve.
I think proponents of the singularity and the author of this article are looking at two sides of the same coin. One the one hand, we have Moore's Law, which is driving innovation at an exponential rate, while on the other hand we have the law of diminishing returns, which is exponentially decreasing the overall impact of each subsequent innovation. If you look at the overall picture in terms of utility and disruptive changes, like the author of this article does, the rate of technical progress may seem static or even declining. But if you look "underneath the hood," you see that even common and "boring" things now a days are highly complex, almost to the point of magic. Overall, I think the singularity will be a lot quieter than it is hyped to be. It will arrive, but we will not notice and it will bring with it no disruptive changes. Instead, things will simply work better and be much *less* visible as new technology. The era of disruptive change is indeed behind us, what lies ahead is the era of continual refinement.
The singularity myth, I think, is that such new technologies will bring about great increases in the standard of living. Take, for example, the highly hyped arrival of intelligent machines. Will it really radically change and improve our lives? I think it will not, after all we are already surrounded by intelligent machines, namely, ourselves. The creation of dumb machines (i.e. the industrial revolution) is far more significant than the creation of intelligent machines will ever be. In fact, the first intelligent machine will probably be somewhat of a step backwards, since now we will have a machine which may not always agree with us, may not want to blindly take our orders, and which occasionally may suffer from human-like mental illnesses. These machines will certainly be an incredible technical achievement, a testament to Moore Laws, but they won't really change our lives that much, which is something the author of this article would have foreseen.
I'm gonna call myself and play all my CDs through Skype. That way the RIAA will unleash their pack of lawyers on the scammer who illegally downloads all those songs as MP3s off my computer.
Someone once said that tech visionaries often overestimate what can be accomplished in the short-term, but underestimate what can be accomplished in the long-term, I believe this is what will happen here. Not in five years, but in ten years to twenty years, we might see improvements exceeding this estimate.
Did you see the size of that cardboard insert? It's already annoying enough having to tear out those small subscription cards that are bound into the magazine.
Don't get me wrong, the tech is cool, and I probably wouldn't tear *this* one out, but in a few years, when *every* magazine has this, it'll be a different story.
I use one of those powerline Ethernet bridges and I decided to get out my old SW radio to see if I was generating any interference. Well, all I get when I set my radio to SW is a buzzsaw sound on all bands, whether or not my powerline adapter is connected. So, is it safe to assume that someone else in my condominium unit is also using powerline Ethernet?
That figures, as the reason I started to use powerline Ethernet in the first place was that WiFi interference around here was so bad it was virtually unusable.
I like it how the projected image comes out of the lens you ordinarily take pictures with. This makes this camera a great practical joke: get everyone to pose for a photo, have them say "cheese" and when they do so, blind them with the projector.
Rather than having a manually operated lever, they should add some antannae to the glasses which are mechanically coupled to the focusing mechanism. So, as you get in closer to an object, the antanna on the glasses touch it and brings in the focus automatically.
Our eyes are very sensitive to green, hence green lasers appear to be a *lot* brighter than red or blue ones. With green lasers, the beam itself is often visible (due to dust particles in the air), giving it that old-school sci-fi laser effect you don't get with the red ones. If you actually were to compare a red and green laser, you would know why green was by far the most popular. I've never actually seen a blue laser, but I guess it would be even dimmer than the red.
Although with these pesky SMD components, hand soldering is all but impossible (unless you're one of those people who can sign your name on a grain of rice).
Windows user here, and I bought my copy. I love adventure games, and the best one I ever played was something called Realms of the Haunting (1997) which combined a creepy story, challenging puzzles, with just enough Doom-style first person action to keep you on the edge of your seat. I'ld like to see how Penumbra stacks up. Thanks for sharing this!
Now if only someone can convince Gremlin to open source ROTH, that would be great!
To get the portal effect, this guy must have used some sort of ray-casting techniques in 2D. Plus the landscape rotation likely requires a matrix operation or two and some fancy rasterization algorithms. That's so odd, that he's using such advanced graphics techniques for "just" ASCII text. Next thing you'll know he'll find a way to offload the work onto the GPU, making the first ASCII game that requires a GPU!
Slashdot Mirror
I think the author's observations are valid, but his conclusion is not. While the overall impact of inventions on our daily lives has declined, the rate of technical innovation continues to increase. The reason is that we've tackled all the things which make a huge impact on the overall standard of living. We've plucked the low-lying fruit, so to speak. To further increase the standard of living, we must work on harder problems, which have less of an impact, but require more innovations to achieve.
I think proponents of the singularity and the author of this article are looking at two sides of the same coin. One the one hand, we have Moore's Law, which is driving innovation at an exponential rate, while on the other hand we have the law of diminishing returns, which is exponentially decreasing the overall impact of each subsequent innovation. If you look at the overall picture in terms of utility and disruptive changes, like the author of this article does, the rate of technical progress may seem static or even declining. But if you look "underneath the hood," you see that even common and "boring" things now a days are highly complex, almost to the point of magic. Overall, I think the singularity will be a lot quieter than it is hyped to be. It will arrive, but we will not notice and it will bring with it no disruptive changes. Instead, things will simply work better and be much *less* visible as new technology. The era of disruptive change is indeed behind us, what lies ahead is the era of continual refinement.
The singularity myth, I think, is that such new technologies will bring about great increases in the standard of living. Take, for example, the highly hyped arrival of intelligent machines. Will it really radically change and improve our lives? I think it will not, after all we are already surrounded by intelligent machines, namely, ourselves. The creation of dumb machines (i.e. the industrial revolution) is far more significant than the creation of intelligent machines will ever be. In fact, the first intelligent machine will probably be somewhat of a step backwards, since now we will have a machine which may not always agree with us, may not want to blindly take our orders, and which occasionally may suffer from human-like mental illnesses. These machines will certainly be an incredible technical achievement, a testament to Moore Laws, but they won't really change our lives that much, which is something the author of this article would have foreseen.
I'm gonna call myself and play all my CDs through Skype. That way the RIAA will unleash their pack of lawyers on the scammer who illegally downloads all those songs as MP3s off my computer.
He is leaving NASA to become a scientologist? This is a sad loss for science.
Someone once said that tech visionaries often overestimate what can be accomplished in the short-term, but underestimate what can be accomplished in the long-term, I believe this is what will happen here. Not in five years, but in ten years to twenty years, we might see improvements exceeding this estimate.
...must be of the exploding kind.
Seriously? A *standalone* machine? You mean I shouldn't check my bank accounts from my kids' Windows ME computer?
Just joking, I've already mastered the first skill of safe computer use ... not having kids, or Windows ME.
Next up they plan to launch a line of Oracle sunscreen.
...and said it wants its Smurfs back.
Did you see the size of that cardboard insert? It's already annoying enough having to tear out those small subscription cards that are bound into the magazine.
Don't get me wrong, the tech is cool, and I probably wouldn't tear *this* one out, but in a few years, when *every* magazine has this, it'll be a different story.
I use one of those powerline Ethernet bridges and I decided to get out my old SW radio to see if I was generating any interference. Well, all I get when I set my radio to SW is a buzzsaw sound on all bands, whether or not my powerline adapter is connected. So, is it safe to assume that someone else in my condominium unit is also using powerline Ethernet?
That figures, as the reason I started to use powerline Ethernet in the first place was that WiFi interference around here was so bad it was virtually unusable.
Pervs who sit on scanners/photocopiers to get a picture of their naked butt-cheeks are going to be in for a surprise.
I expected an article on artificial weather modification. I was disappointed.
Q: What do you call a Linux workstation on a network with other Linux workstations?
A: A Beowulf cluster
Q: What do you can a Windows machine on a network with other Windows machines?
A: A botnet.
I always thought it looked like fish bones.
I nEEd to leArN to TyPE wiTH moRe coNSistENT preSsurE.
Didn't VRML die already? Like in the 90s? Things that die should stay that way.
I like it how the projected image comes out of the lens you ordinarily take pictures with. This makes this camera a great practical joke: get everyone to pose for a photo, have them say "cheese" and when they do so, blind them with the projector.
Rather than having a manually operated lever, they should add some antannae to the glasses which are mechanically coupled to the focusing mechanism. So, as you get in closer to an object, the antanna on the glasses touch it and brings in the focus automatically.
Our eyes are very sensitive to green, hence green lasers appear to be a *lot* brighter than red or blue ones. With green lasers, the beam itself is often visible (due to dust particles in the air), giving it that old-school sci-fi laser effect you don't get with the red ones. If you actually were to compare a red and green laser, you would know why green was by far the most popular. I've never actually seen a blue laser, but I guess it would be even dimmer than the red.
> Even so, outside the realm of small laser pointers, there are such a thing as gas lasers and they can produce a true green emission.
Yeah, but you'ld look like a total dork showing up to do your PowerPoint presentation lugging around something that looked like this:
http://www.walshcomptech.com/repairfaq/sam/sghi3ph1.jpg
Plus, they'ld throw you in jail for being a terrorist.
Although with these pesky SMD components, hand soldering is all but impossible (unless you're one of those people who can sign your name on a grain of rice).
Windows user here, and I bought my copy. I love adventure games, and the best one I ever played was something called Realms of the Haunting (1997) which combined a creepy story, challenging puzzles, with just enough Doom-style first person action to keep you on the edge of your seat. I'ld like to see how Penumbra stacks up. Thanks for sharing this!
Now if only someone can convince Gremlin to open source ROTH, that would be great!
To get the portal effect, this guy must have used some sort of ray-casting techniques in 2D. Plus the landscape rotation likely requires a matrix operation or two and some fancy rasterization algorithms. That's so odd, that he's using such advanced graphics techniques for "just" ASCII text. Next thing you'll know he'll find a way to offload the work onto the GPU, making the first ASCII game that requires a GPU!
A tin-foil hat is a cheaper anti-brain-hacking device.
My sysadmining triumvirate is Bash, Expect and Awk. Muahahah!