What if the viruses made use of something like Freenet to anonymously communicate with humans, who could "help out" their evolution. For example, if a new vulnerability is discovered a malicious could put together some exploit code and stick it on Freenet. The virus could then locate such code fragments on freenet, and produce mutated offspring which incorporates those code fragments.
Hypothetically, such a virus could remain active as long as unpatched exploits exist.
I guess one nice thing about open source software is that even those who disagree with you can help you.:)
From the article:
When the Avida team published their first results on the evolution of complexity in 2003, they were inundated with e-mails from creationists. Their work hit a nerve in the antievolution movement and hit it hard. A popular claim of creationists is that life shows signs of intelligent design, especially in its complexity. They argue that complex things could never have evolved, because they don't work unless all their parts are in place. But as Adami points out, if creationists were right, then Avida wouldn't be able to produce complex digital organisms. A digital organism may use 19 or more simple routines in order to carry out the equals operation. If you delete any of the routines, it can't do the job. "What we show is that there are irreducibly complex things and they can evolve," says Adami.
The Avida team makes their software freely available on the Internet, and creationists have downloaded it over and over again in hopes of finding a fatal flaw. While they've uncovered a few minor glitches, Ofria says they have yet to find anything serious. "We literally have an army of thousands of unpaid bug testers," he says. "What more could you want?"
Basically some guy put together an executable which makes a few (mutated) copies of itself when it runs, then executes those copies after a short delay. The idea is that executables might evolve which show interesting behaviors.
Because I like doing strange things, I made a variant of the program which mutates the source code and recompiles it (mutating until it gets something compilable), rather than mutating the executable directly:
Unfortunately, it's stuck in a pretty steep local minima -- it makes some trivial mutations, but nothing major. One interesting possibility would be to have it search your hard drive for other executables and source files, and try to "mate" with those.
Another scary possibility would be to have viruses/worms with non-trivial evolution capabilities. That'd be a pretty nasty outbreak to try to control.
Finally, a rather neat-looking project is AI.Planet, which is trying to create an 3D evolving ecosystem/world of intelligent "organisms." Framsticks, a 3D life simulation project, is also pretty cool.
I've linked to physorg in some of my submissions, but I don't work for them or anything. It's just that there aren't that many general science news sites which actually go into the details. Physorg and newscientist are probably the only ones I can think of off-hand.
(1) Anyone who seriously studies history will recognize that giving all the military power to the government is a bad thing. Out weapons stance gaurantees we will never be invaded. It also empowers each American to defend tiher life, liberty and property.
You left out another, arguably the most important: Having an armed populace helps ensure that a tyrannical government can be overthrown by the people, and help discourage such a government from becoming tyrannical in the first place.
I repeat yet again: NASA currently has no plans for terraforming Mars. The previous story only discussed a concept study, which was researching what it would take to do such a thing.
You're forgetting about folks in the private sector who wish to pursue space activities for philanthropic reasons, like Elon Musk's plans to put an experimental greenhouse on Mars.
Granted, he's decided to focus instead on reducing launch costs for the time being via SpaceX, but once those launch costs are reduced, I predict we'll see philanthropic space ventures like that appear much more often.
The problem with servicing the Hubble is that Congress is fucking retarded--they'll get rid of Hubble, saving a tiny bit of money, and then 5 years down the road they'll build another one, for 100x the cost it would've been to just service the Hubble in the first place.
The problem is a brand-new one actually costs less than a repair, and has greater capabilities:
Actually, I think the only ban is on them being sold in California. It looks like they're available for order online, and they'll ship them to you. This place sells 6 of them for $30:
Of course, it's quite possible your submission had new information not in that. Do you happen to still have your submission text around? You could post it here.
This is probably more art than practicality, but The Venus Project has some very cool renditions of automated construction. Check out the "Automated Construction" link on the following gallery:
The thing is, I see no evidence that the Kliper has gotten any farther than the failed US launch vehicles I mentioned. As far as I can tell, all that exists right now are some paper studies and a mock-up of the frame.
I do have to admit though, that if they do get the funding they need this could turn out very well. The Russians have a lot of experience with building craft like these from the Buran -- this basically seems like a downsized Buran with a lifting body.
And what exactly do you propose the US do about North Korea? Just about any military solution would result in millions of people in Seoul dying in a matter minutes.
The rocket fuel is still expensive though. Maybe $50/kg of payload if you use hydrocarbon fuel. So you probably need to triple that- giving a ticket price of maybe $15,000. Looking expensive.
In the year 2000, a round-trip ticket for a hop across the Atlantic on the Concorde cost $8,148.
THE MEMBERSHIP REWARDS PROGRAM FROM AMERICAN EXPRESS LETS CARDMEMBERS ROCKET INTO ORBIT THROUGH SPACE ADVENTURES LTD.
NEW YORK, March 03, 2004 -- American Express today announced that cardmembers enrolled in its Membership Rewards program can now redeem points with Space Adventures Ltd., the world's leading space flight experiences and space tourism company. For the first time, cardmembers can touch the edge of space and revel in the weightlessness of Earth's orbit by using points to get there, adding to the universe of already abundant experiences Membership Rewards enrollees can enjoy.
"Space Adventures is the latest of many unique experiences we offer to fuel our enrollees' imaginations and prompt our cardmembers to ask not just what they can do with points, but how far they can go with them," said Chris Lynch, vice president, Rewards Management at American Express. "Without dipping into their wallets, cardmembers can redeem for an almost limitless number of things -- like a journey to the cusp of space or a rejuvenating day at a luxurious spa -- and use points to cover the costs."
American Express is offering three Space Adventures packages to enrollees who wish to experience the sights and sensations of space travel:
* Zero-Gravity Flight (1,000,000 points): Experience weightlessness by traveling in a specially outfitted jet aircraft that is used to train astronauts to work and test equipment in a weightless environment.
* Edge of Space Flight (3,000,000 points): Fly in a MiG-25 supersonic jet at up to two-and-one-half times the speed of sound (Mach 2.5) and above 80,000 feet, where one can see the curvature of the Earth and the blackness of space.
* Sub-Orbital Space Flight (20,000,000 points): Reserve your seat now for a ride aboard a sub-orbital spacecraft that will climb to an altitude of 62 miles, expose you to experience several minutes of weightlessness and treat you to Earth views from space.
I think you're basically thinking of what NASA's Centennial Challenges Program is planning on doing. I remember reading that the 2006 NASA budget is dedicating $100-$200 million to the Centennial Challenges, which will hopefully increase in coming years.
Slashdot Mirror
Here's another scary idea:
What if the viruses made use of something like Freenet to anonymously communicate with humans, who could "help out" their evolution. For example, if a new vulnerability is discovered a malicious could put together some exploit code and stick it on Freenet. The virus could then locate such code fragments on freenet, and produce mutated offspring which incorporates those code fragments.
Hypothetically, such a virus could remain active as long as unpatched exploits exist.
Jordan Pollack's DEMO (Dynamical & Evolutionary Machine Organization) Lab at Brandeis also has a bunch of other really cool projects using evolutionary algorithms:
* Evolution of robot designs
* Evolution of walking gaits for an AIBO
* Evolving LEGO designs, like cranes, bridges, and tables
* Evolution of neural controllers
I guess one nice thing about open source software is that even those who disagree with you can help you. :)
From the article:
When the Avida team published their first results on the evolution of complexity in 2003, they were inundated with e-mails from creationists. Their work hit a nerve in the antievolution movement and hit it hard. A popular claim of creationists is that life shows signs of intelligent design, especially in its complexity. They argue that complex things could never have evolved, because they don't work unless all their parts are in place. But as Adami points out, if creationists were right, then Avida wouldn't be able to produce complex digital organisms. A digital organism may use 19 or more simple routines in order to carry out the equals operation. If you delete any of the routines, it can't do the job. "What we show is that there are irreducibly complex things and they can evolve," says Adami.
The Avida team makes their software freely available on the Internet, and creationists have downloaded it over and over again in hopes of finding a fatal flaw. While they've uncovered a few minor glitches, Ofria says they have yet to find anything serious. "We literally have an army of thousands of unpaid bug testers," he says. "What more could you want?"
http://www.darwinathome.org/
This reminds me of the "Progranisms" project I saw over on the Gentoo Linux forums:
i ght-progranism.html
r anism-neilh.c r anism-neilh-condensed.c
http://forums.gentoo.org/viewtopic-t-255505-highl
http://www.progranism.com/
Basically some guy put together an executable which makes a few (mutated) copies of itself when it runs, then executes those copies after a short delay. The idea is that executables might evolve which show interesting behaviors.
You can download his source code here:
http://www.progranism.com/junk/progranism-2.3.1.c
Because I like doing strange things, I made a variant of the program which mutates the source code and recompiles it (mutating until it gets something compilable), rather than mutating the executable directly:
http://www.its.caltech.edu/~neilh/progranism/prog
http://www.its.caltech.edu/~neilh/progranism/prog
http://www.its.caltech.edu/~neilh/progranism/ (some cleanup and maintenance scripts)
Unfortunately, it's stuck in a pretty steep local minima -- it makes some trivial mutations, but nothing major. One interesting possibility would be to have it search your hard drive for other executables and source files, and try to "mate" with those.
Another scary possibility would be to have viruses/worms with non-trivial evolution capabilities. That'd be a pretty nasty outbreak to try to control.
Finally, a rather neat-looking project is AI.Planet, which is trying to create an 3D evolving ecosystem/world of intelligent "organisms." Framsticks, a 3D life simulation project, is also pretty cool.
I've linked to physorg in some of my submissions, but I don't work for them or anything. It's just that there aren't that many general science news sites which actually go into the details. Physorg and newscientist are probably the only ones I can think of off-hand.
(1) Anyone who seriously studies history will recognize that giving all the military power to the government is a bad thing. Out weapons stance gaurantees we will never be invaded. It also empowers each American to defend tiher life, liberty and property.
You left out another, arguably the most important: Having an armed populace helps ensure that a tyrannical government can be overthrown by the people, and help discourage such a government from becoming tyrannical in the first place.
I'm not sure if that's so much a matter of "banning" as simple logistics.
I repeat yet again: NASA currently has no plans for terraforming Mars. The previous story only discussed a concept study, which was researching what it would take to do such a thing.
You're forgetting about folks in the private sector who wish to pursue space activities for philanthropic reasons, like Elon Musk's plans to put an experimental greenhouse on Mars.
Granted, he's decided to focus instead on reducing launch costs for the time being via SpaceX, but once those launch costs are reduced, I predict we'll see philanthropic space ventures like that appear much more often.
The problem with servicing the Hubble is that Congress is fucking retarded--they'll get rid of Hubble, saving a tiny bit of money, and then 5 years down the road they'll build another one, for 100x the cost it would've been to just service the Hubble in the first place.
0 5/2210251
The problem is a brand-new one actually costs less than a repair, and has greater capabilities:
http://science.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=05/02/
Actually, I think the only ban is on them being sold in California. It looks like they're available for order online, and they'll ship them to you. This place sells 6 of them for $30:
7 9
http://www.theaquariumonline.com/detail.aspx?ID=7
I submitted the Kliper article when it came out a few days ago and it was rejected. It is real news versus this fluff piece.
0 1/1633248&tid=160&tid=99&tid=1
Kliper is a pretty cool idea and all, but FYI there was an article on it a couple of months ago: http://science.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=04/12/
Of course, it's quite possible your submission had new information not in that. Do you happen to still have your submission text around? You could post it here.
This reminds me of GloFish, genetically engineered zebrafish which fluoresce light. Does anyone know if those are actually selling well?
I want one, but they're banned in California. Gah!
This is probably more art than practicality, but The Venus Project has some very cool renditions of automated construction. Check out the "Automated Construction" link on the following gallery:
http://www.thevenusproject.com/vp_gallery.htm
This is crazy. Do we have a Newton day when we sing together and celebrate gravitation?
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Newtonmas
Plus, I think you're also forgetting things like Pi Day. Back when I was at Carnegie Mellon, it was a pretty hard-core holiday.
Could you point out where this is happening? I'm sure there's plenty of people who would like to know so they can fix the problem.
I'm sorry, but what on earth does this have to do with capitalism specifically?
The thing is, I see no evidence that the Kliper has gotten any farther than the failed US launch vehicles I mentioned. As far as I can tell, all that exists right now are some paper studies and a mock-up of the frame.
I do have to admit though, that if they do get the funding they need this could turn out very well. The Russians have a lot of experience with building craft like these from the Buran -- this basically seems like a downsized Buran with a lifting body.
Not only that, but I recall reports that support for the Democrats has fallen around 10-15% since the election.
Pre-emptive strikes on a country with nukes? Wouldn't that have made sense over one that did not?
It might make sense if it didn't have thousands of artillery weapons aimed at Seoul, a city with a population of around 11 million.
And what exactly do you propose the US do about North Korea? Just about any military solution would result in millions of people in Seoul dying in a matter minutes.
The rocket fuel is still expensive though. Maybe $50/kg of payload if you use hydrocarbon fuel. So you probably need to triple that- giving a ticket price of maybe $15,000. Looking expensive.
In the year 2000, a round-trip ticket for a hop across the Atlantic on the Concorde cost $8,148.
Already been done. From Here:
THE MEMBERSHIP REWARDS PROGRAM FROM AMERICAN EXPRESS LETS CARDMEMBERS ROCKET INTO ORBIT THROUGH SPACE ADVENTURES LTD.
NEW YORK, March 03, 2004 -- American Express today announced that cardmembers enrolled in its Membership Rewards program can now redeem points with Space Adventures Ltd., the world's leading space flight experiences and space tourism company. For the first time, cardmembers can touch the edge of space and revel in the weightlessness of Earth's orbit by using points to get there, adding to the universe of already abundant experiences Membership Rewards enrollees can enjoy.
"Space Adventures is the latest of many unique experiences we offer to fuel our enrollees' imaginations and prompt our cardmembers to ask not just what they can do with points, but how far they can go with them," said Chris Lynch, vice president, Rewards Management at American Express. "Without dipping into their wallets, cardmembers can redeem for an almost limitless number of things -- like a journey to the cusp of space or a rejuvenating day at a luxurious spa -- and use points to cover the costs."
American Express is offering three Space Adventures packages to enrollees who wish to experience the sights and sensations of space travel:
* Zero-Gravity Flight (1,000,000 points): Experience weightlessness by traveling in a specially outfitted jet aircraft that is used to train astronauts to work and test equipment in a weightless environment.
* Edge of Space Flight (3,000,000 points): Fly in a MiG-25 supersonic jet at up to two-and-one-half times the speed of sound (Mach 2.5) and above 80,000 feet, where one can see the curvature of the Earth and the blackness of space.
* Sub-Orbital Space Flight (20,000,000 points): Reserve your seat now for a ride aboard a sub-orbital spacecraft that will climb to an altitude of 62 miles, expose you to experience several minutes of weightlessness and treat you to Earth views from space.
I think you're basically thinking of what NASA's Centennial Challenges Program is planning on doing. I remember reading that the 2006 NASA budget is dedicating $100-$200 million to the Centennial Challenges, which will hopefully increase in coming years.