Don't forget -- almost everybody that posted here, *even the religious zealots*, would be subject to raids, enormous fines, and probably imprisonment if they lived in The Land of Ire and they decided to start enforcing that anti-speech BS. I certainly have no intention of ever visiting such a place (and yes, I'm aware of worse situations in seemingly harmless countries).
By the way, note that falling into a black hole "curls up" one spatial dimension. Since passing an event horizon has no immediate discernable effect (other than tidal effects sufficiently near the singularity), could it be the case that we are already falling into 6 black holes (explaining 6 out of 10 dimensions already being curled up)?
From the 2001 Prior Art contest page, they claim this as a prerequisite for applicability:
3. (a) a computer for use in constructing and transmitting said messages, said computer having a central processor that executes instructions, a memory for storing the instructions to be executed, and non-volatile storage for storing the database and the messages; and
Since all it seems they've done is take an existing common business process and add "...on the internet" to it, it should be pretty straightforward to argue that running it on a computer with *multiple* central processors is a completely different scope. They can't have it both ways.
More likely than not grey goo would evolve even more slowly than biological life, even if genetic algorithms and genetic programming are involved. That's just a fundamental premise of intentional digital design -- sufficiently small changes should have zero effect on a system. That's how electronic amplifiers (tubes, transistors) enabled computers. I recently read a presentation about Google (sorry, no link, I think it was from 2002) that described their regular encounters with undetected hardware bit errors (memory, disk, network) and how insanely difficult it is to deal with them.
Anyhow, note that the color of this planet as seen from space has already been irreversibly altered by biological nanobots. Call it green goo (mostly plankton I believe).
Yes, we could disturb ecologies, but no, I doubt that we could *destroy* the vast majority of life on this planet, even if we really tried -- and I'm sure there are plenty of religions that would embrace such "research". After all, a recurring theme in pretty much all religions is that all the rest are bullshit, which leads me to believe that religion is actually right about one thing after all!
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Don't forget -- almost everybody that posted here, *even the religious zealots*, would be subject to raids, enormous fines, and probably imprisonment if they lived in The Land of Ire and they decided to start enforcing that anti-speech BS. I certainly have no intention of ever visiting such a place (and yes, I'm aware of worse situations in seemingly harmless countries).
Let me rephrase that. If you had a pony it wouldn't be free *any more*.
Um, if you had a pony it wouldn't be free.
By the way, note that falling into a black hole "curls up" one spatial dimension. Since passing an event horizon has no immediate discernable effect (other than tidal effects sufficiently near the singularity), could it be the case that we are already falling into 6 black holes (explaining 6 out of 10 dimensions already being curled up)?
From the 2001 Prior Art contest page, they claim this as a prerequisite for applicability:
3. (a) a computer for use in constructing and transmitting said messages, said computer having a central processor that executes instructions, a memory for storing the instructions to be executed, and non-volatile storage for storing the database and the messages; and
Since all it seems they've done is take an existing common business process and add "...on the internet" to it, it should be pretty straightforward to argue that running it on a computer with *multiple* central processors is a completely different scope. They can't have it both ways.
More likely than not grey goo would evolve even more slowly than biological life, even if genetic algorithms and genetic programming are involved. That's just a fundamental premise of intentional digital design -- sufficiently small changes should have zero effect on a system. That's how electronic amplifiers (tubes, transistors) enabled computers. I recently read a presentation about Google (sorry, no link, I think it was from 2002) that described their regular encounters with undetected hardware bit errors (memory, disk, network) and how insanely difficult it is to deal with them.
Anyhow, note that the color of this planet as seen from space has already been irreversibly altered by biological nanobots. Call it green goo (mostly plankton I believe).
Yes, we could disturb ecologies, but no, I doubt that we could *destroy* the vast majority of life on this planet, even if we really tried -- and I'm sure there are plenty of religions that would embrace such "research". After all, a recurring theme in pretty much all religions is that all the rest are bullshit, which leads me to believe that religion is actually right about one thing after all!
...or sue SCO for IBM not paying us...
Sure, I never get spam phone calls ("You've won a free trip to...").