Well, it might sound like a cool idea, but this just wouldn't work. This kind of "memory" would be to slow to be useful, since it would involve long biological processes to decode the RNA (or DNA). It would be like storing a program's memory page on an external floppy disk.
Well first of all I meant the guy from the dumb pro-Putin posts above, not Putin himself.
But you raise a good point. No, it's not as dumb, it's much worse. You can't compare CIA to KGB. As much as CIA is disliked in the US (and people really love to hate CIA, it's so "in"...), they really don't deserve this treatment. The CIA's job, and this should be really trivial when you think about it, is to PROTECT american citizens, and this is what they do every day. Often while endangering their own lives. I really don't understand just how ungrateful people can be (btw, I'm not an american citizen, so I consider myself to have an unbiased view on this). I truely believe that most of the CIA staff are really good people who do they best to protect the citizens of US. How they keep doing this in such an ungrateful environment is a mistery to me.
The KGB's job, on the other hand, was to spy on and torture Soviet citizens. So no comparison here. To elect a president from KGB is really a kind of masochism.
Actually this might benefit Kasparov's cause. He's a respected person both in Russia and abroad, and a move like this could provoke a stronger protest against Putin.
I trust Kasparov has calculated this 6 moves ahead:)
If the researchers would be as sure about this as you are, this whole experiment would be nonsesnse. They are specifically looking for ill effects on people's health.
Why not test it on living human cells separated from living humans? That way no one would catch cancer as a result of this research, and it may even be easier to study (at least some of) the effects.
Cut the flame. If you think that these things were obvious in 1985, then you obviously don't remember it as well as I do.
Of course, computer networks existed since 1969. But they were either defense or university projects. The internet was only opened to the public in 1990's. Nobody could tell then what it would look like and how (if at all) it would be used by wide public. As to blogging, it only gained public awareness in this millenium.
And where the heck did you come up that he only thought the network would be text-based??
Anyway, you missed the whole point. It was concievable that the technology would be developed to the stage that we see now (although the amount of small details that turned out to be correct is surprising). It is much more difficult to predict how the technology will be used, to what extent it will be part of our lives, and its social impact. The technological "atmosphere" described really captures the essence of what we only begin to experience today.
I've re-read Ender's Game lately (written in 1985), and was amased by some of the predictions Orson made in just one book. The "network", online news and bloggers (Locke and Demosthenes), hand-held devices used for education (we only start seing them now). Damn, I think we shouldn't be surprised if we see the buggers real soon!:)
It's difficult to do on global scale, because there's no one to pay for it. And you can't force every internet user in the world to install the "sentinel program".
Another problem, it's difficult to automatically identify viruses.
But the antivirus companies do set honeypots, identify viruses and send updates to their users. So the idea is not new, it's just realized in a way that IS possible today.
Farnsworth: "Don't do anything that affects anything. Unless it turns out you were supposed to do it, in which case for the love of God. Don't not do it!"
At first glance, it looks like adding digits makes the factoring problem exponentially harder. The question is: what is the base of the exponent.
This is an interesting analysis, but unfortunately completely wrong. The thing is that the Number Field Sieve algorithm's complexity is sub-exponential in number length. (To be precise, it's O(exp(c*log(n)^(1/3)*loglog(n)^(2/3)+o(1))) ).
A naive analysis suggests that adding one binary digit makes the number twice as big and thus makes the factoring problem twice as hard.
Well... no. No one ever claimed that, at least nobody familiar with the subject. It is easily seen not to be the case both from basic complexity analysis and experimental data. Again, the algorithm's complexity is not exponential.
That said, it doesn't seem that the factoring problem will become any easier, at least not before Quantum computers are built. The factoring problem is considered "the holy grail" of cryptography for 3 decades now, and there were hardly any advances in the last 15 years, despite the huge interest in the problem.
He should definitely be on the list. It's hard for people to appreciate in year 2005, but Adams' understanding of where the computing world was heading, back in 1978, amazes me.
My favorite part of H2G2 is when Adams tells about the robots with "genuine people personalities". I.e. Marvin (the paranoid android), the doors that go "thank you" when you go through them and Eddie, the ship computer. What is amazing is that Adams not only visioned that computers will be user friendly (in 1978!), but also how annoying this will be!
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... when he initially cooperated? That's like saying that you wave your right for freedom of speech if you shut up for a moment.
I thought Google would be the ones undermining privacy in this case...
Yep... Probably the technology was originally used in Kassam missiles.
Well, it might sound like a cool idea, but this just wouldn't work. This kind of "memory" would be to slow to be useful, since it would involve long biological processes to decode the RNA (or DNA). It would be like storing a program's memory page on an external floppy disk.
I really wish it would stop crashing every 15 minutes.
we are reading yesterday's news.
Well first of all I meant the guy from the dumb pro-Putin posts above, not Putin himself.
But you raise a good point. No, it's not as dumb, it's much worse. You can't compare CIA to KGB. As much as CIA is disliked in the US (and people really love to hate CIA, it's so "in"...), they really don't deserve this treatment. The CIA's job, and this should be really trivial when you think about it, is to PROTECT american citizens, and this is what they do every day. Often while endangering their own lives. I really don't understand just how ungrateful people can be (btw, I'm not an american citizen, so I consider myself to have an unbiased view on this). I truely believe that most of the CIA staff are really good people who do they best to protect the citizens of US. How they keep doing this in such an ungrateful environment is a mistery to me.
The KGB's job, on the other hand, was to spy on and torture Soviet citizens. So no comparison here. To elect a president from KGB is really a kind of masochism.
:S
Is this guy from the KGB? Or how they call it now... FSB?
Actually this might benefit Kasparov's cause. He's a respected person both in Russia and abroad, and a move like this could provoke a stronger protest against Putin. I trust Kasparov has calculated this 6 moves ahead :)
If the researchers would be as sure about this as you are, this whole experiment would be nonsesnse. They are specifically looking for ill effects on people's health.
Why not test it on living human cells separated from living humans? That way no one would catch cancer as a result of this research, and it may even be easier to study (at least some of) the effects.
Cut the flame. If you think that these things were obvious in 1985, then you obviously don't remember it as well as I do. Of course, computer networks existed since 1969. But they were either defense or university projects. The internet was only opened to the public in 1990's. Nobody could tell then what it would look like and how (if at all) it would be used by wide public. As to blogging, it only gained public awareness in this millenium.
And where the heck did you come up that he only thought the network would be text-based??
Anyway, you missed the whole point. It was concievable that the technology would be developed to the stage that we see now (although the amount of small details that turned out to be correct is surprising). It is much more difficult to predict how the technology will be used, to what extent it will be part of our lives, and its social impact. The technological "atmosphere" described really captures the essence of what we only begin to experience today.
I've re-read Ender's Game lately (written in 1985), and was amased by some of the predictions Orson made in just one book. The "network", online news and bloggers (Locke and Demosthenes), hand-held devices used for education (we only start seing them now). Damn, I think we shouldn't be surprised if we see the buggers real soon! :)
Rabbits, toads, wild cats and dogs, even wild camels! A list of human "improvements" to Australian fauna can be seen here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Invasive_species_in_A ustralia.
It's difficult to do on global scale, because there's no one to pay for it. And you can't force every internet user in the world to install the "sentinel program". Another problem, it's difficult to automatically identify viruses. But the antivirus companies do set honeypots, identify viruses and send updates to their users. So the idea is not new, it's just realized in a way that IS possible today.
That's not what the story is about. It's about a record baloon flight.
how is this Science?
But wait, what about those people who need artificial heart or they'll die?..
This would save quite a lot of $ in servers hardware for distributing windows updates.
Another solution would be to make less security holes, of course.
Speaking of which, I wonder how many of them will be in this little "innovation"...
I just can't wait to download MS Office 2006 with MS's own P2P program ;)
Well
That said, it doesn't seem that the factoring problem will become any easier, at least not before Quantum computers are built. The factoring problem is considered "the holy grail" of cryptography for 3 decades now, and there were hardly any advances in the last 15 years, despite the huge interest in the problem.
Great as a wiretapping device! ;)
Bottom line, Spielberg has done more PR for Science Fiction than anybody else. And that's what this hall of fame is about. PR for Science Fiction.
He should definitely be on the list. It's hard for people to appreciate in year 2005, but Adams' understanding of where the computing world was heading, back in 1978, amazes me.
My favorite part of H2G2 is when Adams tells about the robots with "genuine people personalities". I.e. Marvin (the paranoid android), the doors that go "thank you" when you go through them and Eddie, the ship computer. What is amazing is that Adams not only visioned that computers will be user friendly (in 1978!), but also how annoying this will be!