You'd only be able to verify if the Universe we live in were a simulation, if you could witness/observe something _outside_ of that Universe / simulation.
Not necessarily. If I wanted to find out if I were living in a computer simulation, I would start looking for an exploit. Hack the universe!
Some years ago, when fantasizing about being a billionaire, I gave thought to how I would improve upon education.
The solution I came up with was to found my own network of private schools and colleges, which I could hold to a high standard due to them being under my control.
The private schools and colleges wouldn't be free to attend, per se, but I'd make it sort-of-trivially-easy for an ambitious student to gain admittance to the private high school without paying tuition (say, the student must participate in on-campus work, organized charity volunteer work, or extracurricular research work, or simply be gifted, etc).
Exceptional students at the private schools would be given scholarships to the colleges, and billionaire-money would attract top-tier professors and researchers. I fantasized about eventually running the top private research institution in the world.
In essence, you create a brand. Use the money to create top-tier colleges under a brand name, then 'franchise' private high schools under the brand, and funnel kids from those schools to the colleges.
Punctuate the concept with aggressive job placement assistance, complimentary career counseling and even therapy for all graduates that extends for for a lifetime beyond graduation. (I think this point is a huge idea in itself, to be honest, and is something that universities should do anyway).
Being a graduate doesn't just mean you got a degree there - it means you're part of a lifetime club, a member of a 'living network' (as opposed to 'social network') with high ideals in mind. Graduates would be encouraged to serve as mentors to students in their spare time in exchange for their lifelong benefits.
Above all, this all could exist without being exclusionary toward non-'members'. For instance, tuition credits could be earned for students who agree to tutor public school students in the community and 'take them under their wing'.
Basically, in the end, you have what a real society should be - a nurturing network of educators, counselors, mentors, and just plain *people* helping each other out for their entire lives. A community, you know? Rising tide, lifting boats.
I actually think this sort of thing could be profitable, and not an expense, in the long run. Once you are established as a top-tier educator, your 'product' will become desirable and those with money will gladly pay for their child's enrollment. Build a solid reputation for producing high-quality, well-rounded, well-adjusted, successful graduates, and marry that to the benefits of being part of this fantastic 'life support group', and you've got one hell of a desirable thing, here.
In short, if you want to do something right, do it yourself. Throwing money at a flawed system isn't going to fix anything. It's like trying to fix a leaky bucket by pouring more water in it.
Slashdot-reading billionaires, feel free to run away with my ideas and do something great with them. Also feel free to contact me if you need help in the implementation.:)
My friends and I have already switched to Dogecoin. Sorry. And when you start mining that, we'll move again, etc.
I'm not serious, I haven't invested in any virtual currency. But isn't this a sort of problem? When it looks like a Major Player moves in and starts dominating the generation of your pet virtual currency, why wouldn't you just jump ship to the next one, where you can stand a chance to make money in the early days of generation?
It's not like mining gold. Gold is gold and there's only so much of it, and it's there or it's not. These virtual currencies only have value due to consensus, and can be abandoned on a whim, especially when some guy comes in with his 1.4 million mining chips and upsets everything. I know there's a limited number of bitcoins available before computation is done, so in that sense it's 'limited' like gold and thus perceived to be a scarce valuable item, but unlike gold, the users can just up and quit Bitcoin forever, especially when they sense 'unfairness' in the operation.
Don't worry, it involved sound too. In fact, I came up with the idea the other day during a discussion with someone about the current missing plane crises - he asked why airplane black boxes (that end up in the ocean) can't transmit an underwater ping that could be heard for miles by listening stations. That would never be practical, of course, but it got me thinking about underwater signaling in general. I live in South Florida and am surrounded by boat and diver culture.
I was working on a personal design project with very similar features, for undersea divers - an electroluminescent (EL) panel or wire system for divers to use to signal each other underwater, even at distances where hand signaling would be an issue. Different colors for different situations, and the ability to 'flash' a sort of morse code communique to one another.
A diver's illumination would also light up or flash when air reserves reach low levels or the diver is otherwise in distress, so others could recognize the issue and come to aid.
Feel free to steal the idea and run away with it, if anyone reading this is in the industry. Like I said, it was just a personal design project that I was planning on giving away to improve the general state of things.
I am at such a loss of understanding what exactly quantum computers are and how they work (no matter how hard I try)... so it makes me feel like less of an idiot when I find out that it's so complicated that even Google engineers aren't even sure if what they have IS one.
`How you doing, Dixie?'
`I'm dead, Case. Got enough time in on this Hosaka to figure that one.'
`How's it feel?'
`It doesn't.'
`Bother you?'
`What bothers me is, nothin'~ does.'
`How's that?'
`Had me this buddy in the Russian camp, Siberia, his thumb was frostbit. Medics came by and they cut it off. Month later he's tossin'~ all night. Elroy, I said, what's eatin'~ you? Goddam thumb's itchin'~, he says. So I told him, scratch it. McCoy, he says, it's the _other_ goddam thumb.' When the construct laughed, it came through as something else, not laughter, but a stab of cold down Case's spine. `Do me a favor, boy.'
`What's that, Dix?'
`This scam of yours, when it's over, you erase this goddam thing.'
You'll never find this reply because you're posting as AC, but...
- Laser pointers are cheap, and the spotting scope was purchased for the endeavor and then returned to get the money back (yes, lame, but there you go)
- FRS/GMRS radios are cheap and have a range of several miles, and when I say we were 'poor', I don't mean 'destitute', but in 2003 it wasn't common for lower-middle-class 20-year olds to have mobile phones
- Almost all the equipment used came from the company we worked for (a tech company - and not in secret, our boss knew what we were doing and didn't object), and it indeed had its facility at the foot of a mountain ridge. Yes, we ran power and backhaul up the mountainside, but keep in mind we only had to go a hundred feet up the hill or so, being a mile away - it's not like the stuff was at the crest of the ridge.
And it wasn't 'all by its lonesome'. Hills and mountains aren't exclusive to the remote corners of the globe. This took place in Knoxville, TN, which has a population roughly the size of Fort Lauderdale, and is bisected by several mountainous ridgelines. Take a look on a topo map sometime.
"In 1821 he completed his independent creation of a Cherokee syllabary, making reading and writing in Cherokee possible. This was the only time in recorded history that a member of a non-literate people independently created an effective writing system.[1][4] After seeing its worth, the people of the Cherokee Nation rapidly began to use his syllabary and officially adopted it in 1825. Their literacy rate quickly surpassed that of surrounding European-American settlers.[1]"
So, yes, it's remotely plausible, in the sense that it's absolutely happened (at least) once.
Did this once! 2003 or so. Had a workplace with a bitchin' high-speed internet backbone situated at the bottom of a mountain ridge about a mile away from where I lived. My roommate and I we were poor 20-year-olds and wanted fast internet without the cost. We climbed the foothills of the mountain and affixed an antenna on the mountainside using highly directional antennas to give us free high-speed internet at home. We used fancy stuff like spotting scopes and lasers to help us align the two antennas. The antenna on the house was lashed to the fireplace with aluminum bands.
It was a lot of fun to set up, but it didn't work very well. No matter how we tried to stabilize the setup, weather fucked with us. High winds caused things to wobble, which meant packet loss, and slowdowns. And when it would go down completely, one of us would have to - with an exasperated sigh - get in the car and drive a mile away and climb a hillside and check out the setup while the other person climbed on the roof... while communicating to each other with walkie-talkies because it was 2003 and we were poor. We eventually ended up springing for some DSL provider, I don't even remember which.
I went on a vacation to the UK a few months ago. After two weeks I was real tired of always having a pound of coins (pound as in weight, not pounds sterling) sloshing around loudly in my left pocket.
Coins everywhere. There's a one pound coin, a two pound coin, a fifty pence, a twenty pence, a ten pence, a five pence, a two pence, and a penny. Whenever I'd buy anything I'd thrust my hand into my pocket and pull out a massive fistful of coins, and it was a pain in the ass to try to sort out the best combination among the 8 coins available to hit the total (I'd always try to get rid of as many coins as possible in one transaction).
I'd MUCH rather stick with our (US) paper and 4 coins.
Heh. Gotta ask... have you looked into putting CM on it? Because I'd wager that 80% of people that use Cyanogen are those who can't wait for official updates.
Slashdot Mirror
You'd only be able to verify if the Universe we live in were a simulation, if you could witness/observe something _outside_ of that Universe / simulation.
Not necessarily. If I wanted to find out if I were living in a computer simulation, I would start looking for an exploit. Hack the universe!
How would you address that?
Thanks for posting this. I'd love to know where this takes place, but I'll understand if you don't want to say.
Some years ago, when fantasizing about being a billionaire, I gave thought to how I would improve upon education.
The solution I came up with was to found my own network of private schools and colleges, which I could hold to a high standard due to them being under my control.
The private schools and colleges wouldn't be free to attend, per se, but I'd make it sort-of-trivially-easy for an ambitious student to gain admittance to the private high school without paying tuition (say, the student must participate in on-campus work, organized charity volunteer work, or extracurricular research work, or simply be gifted, etc).
Exceptional students at the private schools would be given scholarships to the colleges, and billionaire-money would attract top-tier professors and researchers. I fantasized about eventually running the top private research institution in the world.
In essence, you create a brand. Use the money to create top-tier colleges under a brand name, then 'franchise' private high schools under the brand, and funnel kids from those schools to the colleges.
Punctuate the concept with aggressive job placement assistance, complimentary career counseling and even therapy for all graduates that extends for for a lifetime beyond graduation. (I think this point is a huge idea in itself, to be honest, and is something that universities should do anyway).
Being a graduate doesn't just mean you got a degree there - it means you're part of a lifetime club, a member of a 'living network' (as opposed to 'social network') with high ideals in mind. Graduates would be encouraged to serve as mentors to students in their spare time in exchange for their lifelong benefits.
Above all, this all could exist without being exclusionary toward non-'members'. For instance, tuition credits could be earned for students who agree to tutor public school students in the community and 'take them under their wing'.
Basically, in the end, you have what a real society should be - a nurturing network of educators, counselors, mentors, and just plain *people* helping each other out for their entire lives. A community, you know? Rising tide, lifting boats.
I actually think this sort of thing could be profitable, and not an expense, in the long run. Once you are established as a top-tier educator, your 'product' will become desirable and those with money will gladly pay for their child's enrollment. Build a solid reputation for producing high-quality, well-rounded, well-adjusted, successful graduates, and marry that to the benefits of being part of this fantastic 'life support group', and you've got one hell of a desirable thing, here.
In short, if you want to do something right, do it yourself. Throwing money at a flawed system isn't going to fix anything. It's like trying to fix a leaky bucket by pouring more water in it.
Slashdot-reading billionaires, feel free to run away with my ideas and do something great with them. Also feel free to contact me if you need help in the implementation. :)
It also sounds great for windy roads where you'd have to brake for corners often.
The world had one tenth of its current population sometime around the early 1800's, and gold was very much valued long before then.
My friends and I have already switched to Dogecoin. Sorry. And when you start mining that, we'll move again, etc.
I'm not serious, I haven't invested in any virtual currency. But isn't this a sort of problem? When it looks like a Major Player moves in and starts dominating the generation of your pet virtual currency, why wouldn't you just jump ship to the next one, where you can stand a chance to make money in the early days of generation?
It's not like mining gold. Gold is gold and there's only so much of it, and it's there or it's not. These virtual currencies only have value due to consensus, and can be abandoned on a whim, especially when some guy comes in with his 1.4 million mining chips and upsets everything. I know there's a limited number of bitcoins available before computation is done, so in that sense it's 'limited' like gold and thus perceived to be a scarce valuable item, but unlike gold, the users can just up and quit Bitcoin forever, especially when they sense 'unfairness' in the operation.
Don't worry, it involved sound too. In fact, I came up with the idea the other day during a discussion with someone about the current missing plane crises - he asked why airplane black boxes (that end up in the ocean) can't transmit an underwater ping that could be heard for miles by listening stations. That would never be practical, of course, but it got me thinking about underwater signaling in general. I live in South Florida and am surrounded by boat and diver culture.
I was working on a personal design project with very similar features, for undersea divers - an electroluminescent (EL) panel or wire system for divers to use to signal each other underwater, even at distances where hand signaling would be an issue. Different colors for different situations, and the ability to 'flash' a sort of morse code communique to one another.
A diver's illumination would also light up or flash when air reserves reach low levels or the diver is otherwise in distress, so others could recognize the issue and come to aid.
Feel free to steal the idea and run away with it, if anyone reading this is in the industry. Like I said, it was just a personal design project that I was planning on giving away to improve the general state of things.
Someone's obviously never seen a James Bond film in their life.
I am at such a loss of understanding what exactly quantum computers are and how they work (no matter how hard I try)... so it makes me feel like less of an idiot when I find out that it's so complicated that even Google engineers aren't even sure if what they have IS one.
`How you doing, Dixie?'
`I'm dead, Case. Got enough time in on this Hosaka to
figure that one.'
`How's it feel?'
`It doesn't.'
`Bother you?'
`What bothers me is, nothin'~ does.'
`How's that?'
`Had me this buddy in the Russian camp, Siberia, his thumb
was frostbit. Medics came by and they cut it off. Month later
he's tossin'~ all night. Elroy, I said, what's eatin'~ you? Goddam
thumb's itchin'~, he says. So I told him, scratch it. McCoy, he
says, it's the _other_ goddam thumb.' When the construct laughed,
it came through as something else, not laughter, but a stab of
cold down Case's spine. `Do me a favor, boy.'
`What's that, Dix?'
`This scam of yours, when it's over, you erase this goddam
thing.'
-Neuromancer
Yes, voice commands are mostly useless, and the the AMOLED notifications were first implemented by the trusty old Nokia N9 years ago.
It means the state of gaming on Linux will improve.
You'll never find this reply because you're posting as AC, but...
- Laser pointers are cheap, and the spotting scope was purchased for the endeavor and then returned to get the money back (yes, lame, but there you go)
- FRS/GMRS radios are cheap and have a range of several miles, and when I say we were 'poor', I don't mean 'destitute', but in 2003 it wasn't common for lower-middle-class 20-year olds to have mobile phones
- Almost all the equipment used came from the company we worked for (a tech company - and not in secret, our boss knew what we were doing and didn't object), and it indeed had its facility at the foot of a mountain ridge. Yes, we ran power and backhaul up the mountainside, but keep in mind we only had to go a hundred feet up the hill or so, being a mile away - it's not like the stuff was at the crest of the ridge.
And it wasn't 'all by its lonesome'. Hills and mountains aren't exclusive to the remote corners of the globe. This took place in Knoxville, TN, which has a population roughly the size of Fort Lauderdale, and is bisected by several mountainous ridgelines. Take a look on a topo map sometime.
That's not even remotely plausible. You can't develop a writing system overnight.
Sequoyah.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/...
"In 1821 he completed his independent creation of a Cherokee syllabary, making reading and writing in Cherokee possible. This was the only time in recorded history that a member of a non-literate people independently created an effective writing system.[1][4] After seeing its worth, the people of the Cherokee Nation rapidly began to use his syllabary and officially adopted it in 1825. Their literacy rate quickly surpassed that of surrounding European-American settlers.[1]"
So, yes, it's remotely plausible, in the sense that it's absolutely happened (at least) once.
LTE-Advanced will save us.
Did this once! 2003 or so. Had a workplace with a bitchin' high-speed internet backbone situated at the bottom of a mountain ridge about a mile away from where I lived. My roommate and I we were poor 20-year-olds and wanted fast internet without the cost. We climbed the foothills of the mountain and affixed an antenna on the mountainside using highly directional antennas to give us free high-speed internet at home. We used fancy stuff like spotting scopes and lasers to help us align the two antennas. The antenna on the house was lashed to the fireplace with aluminum bands.
It was a lot of fun to set up, but it didn't work very well. No matter how we tried to stabilize the setup, weather fucked with us. High winds caused things to wobble, which meant packet loss, and slowdowns. And when it would go down completely, one of us would have to - with an exasperated sigh - get in the car and drive a mile away and climb a hillside and check out the setup while the other person climbed on the roof... while communicating to each other with walkie-talkies because it was 2003 and we were poor. We eventually ended up springing for some DSL provider, I don't even remember which.
All that said... I cherish the memories.
Do you think *he* is jealous too?
Nah. His house is 6,000 square feet.
From what I can tell, this works by syncing with a mobile phone. It appears to be an optional package when buying the car, too.
Just don't get the optional sync/navigation system, and put in your own head unit for navi, etc instead.
Why not a small fireproof safe in your own home, with the key kept on your key ring?
A little fireproof safe with a key that you keep on your key ring should suffice.
Get amnesia, don't know your passwords. Hey, what's in this box? Lemme see if one of my keys will open it.
Hey presto! A book with my usernames and passwords! Thanks, past-me!
I went on a vacation to the UK a few months ago. After two weeks I was real tired of always having a pound of coins (pound as in weight, not pounds sterling) sloshing around loudly in my left pocket.
Coins everywhere. There's a one pound coin, a two pound coin, a fifty pence, a twenty pence, a ten pence, a five pence, a two pence, and a penny. Whenever I'd buy anything I'd thrust my hand into my pocket and pull out a massive fistful of coins, and it was a pain in the ass to try to sort out the best combination among the 8 coins available to hit the total (I'd always try to get rid of as many coins as possible in one transaction).
I'd MUCH rather stick with our (US) paper and 4 coins.
The average IQ is 100, after all...
Heh. Gotta ask... have you looked into putting CM on it? Because I'd wager that 80% of people that use Cyanogen are those who can't wait for official updates.