This isn't some new miracle pulled out of the hat by the Japanese. For example, an MIT Technology Review article on some American work on a methanol fuel cell is here. A whole bibliography on recent Direct Methanol Fuel Cell (DMFCs) work is here.
Well, while not going anywhere near the depth that you have gone, I'd say 2001 is about the evolution of intellegence IN THE UNIVERSE and humanity's part in this story is just what the two plus hours of the movie was able to focus on. The Monolith and to a lesser extent HAL were both intellegences that evolved independently of humanity, and the ignition of Jupiter and warnings in the sequel about Europa only strengthen the point that the Monolith was trying to develop intellegence anywhere it could and really had no stake in humanity except as just another experiment. Clark has dealt with this idea of humans being incidental in the grand scheme of things before, most notably in Childhood's End. But certainly I do agree with your main point, which is that 2001 wasn't at all about technological gizmos.
The Economist article outlines three distinct eras of AI research and concludes that none of them had any real hope of success because none mimiced the true nature of the human brain - billions of neurons, each making connections with 10,000 others, for a wiring complexity that is far beyond mere bulk transistors on a 2D spread like current microprocessors. But I wonder - with all the current research about qbits and quantum computing, where a handful of qbits could factor prime numbers of amazing complexity - perhaps the REAL source of artificial consciousness in the future won't be achieved by physical hardwiring of any complexity, but with some sort of "quantum ghost in the machine". Or maybe something even weirder - remember what Clarke said, the future is not only stranger than we imagine, it's stranger than we CAN imagine....
Then again, what's stranger than three pounds of meat reciting "twinkle, twinke little star..."?
As noted in this editorial over at O'Reilley, how can you pull the plug on something that is decentralized? This is why people went to Kazaa and other P2P solutions after overly-centralized plump target Napster got emasculated. Long live P2P!!! Elvis has left the building!!!
This creature is really an alien astronaut from the oceans of Europa....
Microsoft Passport vs. Liberty Alliance...
on
WinXP Security Flaw
·
· Score: 0, Offtopic
Also a major threat in XP is it's centralization of everybody's ID data via the obligatory Microsoft Passport, as detailed in this morning's USA TODAY...
Looks like the number of qbits available in a quantum computer is doubling every 18 months. The article notes the 2 qbit computer was built in 1998, the 4 qbit unit in August 2000 and now a 7 qbit computer in December 2001....they've still got another couple of months to get the 8th qbit....
Hey, I've never read LOTR and haven't got a clue what it's about except for taking a ring into the heart of bad-guy country to destroy it. Some geeks stuck with hard sci-fi and never moved into fantasy / D&D. I'm one of them. Spoiler free is appreciated.
Welcome to the new NASA. Dubya is dumping Golden (love him or hate him, he WAS an engineer) to bring in a guy that is 100% bean counter. From a recent newspaper article (I think Houston Chronicle):
""...No one really knows what a finished station would cost. NASA said earlier this year that it faces a $4.8 billion shortfall over the next five years. Sean O'Keefe, nominated by President George W. Bush to become NASA administrator, testified Friday that he had no confidence in that number or any other estimate he had heard so far.
At the close of the hearing Friday, Mr. O'Keefe was asked an open-ended question: "What is your vision?"
.
Mr. O'Keefe spoke for several minutes about "prudent management principles," reinvigorating "the entrepreneurial spirits" of NASA, the importance of collaboration with other elements of the federal government, the need to be mindful of safety and the possibility of taking advantage of this moment when NASA is at a crossroads.
.
He did not mention space."
All set up to go by an asteroid but can't spring for the required sliver of incremental funding? Welcome to the new NASA. From a recent newspaper article (I think Houston Chronicle):
""...No one really knows what a finished station would cost. NASA said earlier this year that it faces a $4.8 billion shortfall over the next five years. Sean O'Keefe, nominated by President George W. Bush to become NASA administrator, testified Friday that he had no confidence in that number or any other estimate he had heard so far.
At the close of the hearing Friday, Mr. O'Keefe was asked an open-ended question: "What is your vision?"
.
Mr. O'Keefe spoke for several minutes about "prudent management principles," reinvigorating "the entrepreneurial spirits" of NASA, the importance of collaboration with other elements of the federal government, the need to be mindful of safety and the possibility of taking advantage of this moment when NASA is at a crossroads.
.
He did not mention space."
We've got literally thousands of old planes mothballed out in Arizona - not just B52s but B47s and B36s as well. A lot were destroyed under the SALT treaties of the 1970s and START treaties of the 1990s, but a lot are still there. So what if they are supposed to be destroyed, Dubya's getting us out of the ABM treaty, ain't he? Yeeha!!! Given that a SINGLE B-2 comes in at sizable fraction of a BILLION dollars, how many of these puppies could we get back in the air for the cost of a single "modern" bomber? Check out here and here...
Something I've always wondered is if humans and some other primate species - chimps, gorillas, orangs - could cross breed with each other. (Go ahead, insert crude joke here - I'm serious). Horses and donkeys can mate to produce mules and there are other examples. How do we know unless we try? Who knows if somebody already hasn't tried this? And if it/he is a cross breed with a gorilla, would it be eligible for the NFL draft?
I'll pass on the misspelling...good catch. I agree the internet was never free and independent...but at least it should be (speech, not beer).
Re:'Ware the contradictions
on
Hacker U.
·
· Score: 2
Beware your assumptions. If you think somebody with a handle of "cybrpnk" is automatically a lamer living in a fantasy world modeled on the movie "HACKERS", then you're wrong. It's just a label, CmdrTaco was taken. I posted the link because the ideals of Slashdot and Cyberarmy are very similar, one is just trying to take a more proactive stance than the other, and the same type of people are likely to be interested in both. Attempting to organize individual users to speak up for their interests is ALWAYS a good thing, particularly in a time of Echelons and Carnivores and Magic Lanterns. Think of organizations like Cyberarmy in evolutionary terms: lots of things are tried, the strong flourish, but all were necessary for progress. And speaking of lame labels, a case could be made that Anonymous Coward is the lamest label of all...
Cyberarmy Is A Hacker Army Of One
on
Hacker U.
·
· Score: 4, Interesting
CyberArmy is a similar outfit for the training and promotion of hacking knowledge. From their homepage:
Welcome to CyberArmy - an independant army / union of over 50,000 Internet users, fighting for a free and independant internet. We need more recruits, so join the CyberArmy now! With our online promotional system you can gain officer status in the CyberArmy and take more part in mission proposals, missions, and division commands. Over the following months, we will be focussing our efforts against governmental controls over the net. To re-state the philosophy of the CyberArmy:
CyberArmy is a group of netizens who believe in a deregulated Internet, which is free from external control. We believe in providing tools to assist others who believe in a free Internet - we support Open Source. We campaign against those who abuse the free nature of the Internet. We believe that spammers, child pornographers, web based scammers, and malicious hackers are enemies of the Internet. We believe that the Internet can be self-regulated, and that we, as equipped and knowledgable netizens, can control and suppress abusers of the Internet, with legal methods, by consolidating together as a united CyberArmy.
Another idea along this line is the joint MIT / US Air Force project called Black Horse. The key idea behind the Black Horse is that it can be aerially `refueled' from a tanker such as the USAF KC-135. This has caused some people to describe it as `stage-and-a-half' rather than a true SSTO vehicle. It will take off and land horizontally from a runway, and will be piloted by human pilots. Two demonstration vehicles were planned as stepping stones to the Black Horse, called the Black Foal and the Black Colt. The Foal would demonstrate aspects of the technology and provide proof of concept. The Colt would fly to half orbital velocity and utilize an off-the-shelf `kick-stage' to put satellites in orbit.
True, but who wants to go to Mars using a solar sail? The thrust is so low the trip would take YEARS. Even with chemical rockets the best you can do on a Mars mission is 6 to 9 months. That's a long time in a tin can with your coworkers 24 hours per day...
Slashdot Mirror
This isn't some new miracle pulled out of the hat by the Japanese. For example, an MIT Technology Review article on some American work on a methanol fuel cell is here. A whole bibliography on recent Direct Methanol Fuel Cell (DMFCs) work is here.
Well, while not going anywhere near the depth that you have gone, I'd say 2001 is about the evolution of intellegence IN THE UNIVERSE and humanity's part in this story is just what the two plus hours of the movie was able to focus on. The Monolith and to a lesser extent HAL were both intellegences that evolved independently of humanity, and the ignition of Jupiter and warnings in the sequel about Europa only strengthen the point that the Monolith was trying to develop intellegence anywhere it could and really had no stake in humanity except as just another experiment. Clark has dealt with this idea of humans being incidental in the grand scheme of things before, most notably in Childhood's End. But certainly I do agree with your main point, which is that 2001 wasn't at all about technological gizmos.
The Economist article outlines three distinct eras of AI research and concludes that none of them had any real hope of success because none mimiced the true nature of the human brain - billions of neurons, each making connections with 10,000 others, for a wiring complexity that is far beyond mere bulk transistors on a 2D spread like current microprocessors. But I wonder - with all the current research about qbits and quantum computing, where a handful of qbits could factor prime numbers of amazing complexity - perhaps the REAL source of artificial consciousness in the future won't be achieved by physical hardwiring of any complexity, but with some sort of "quantum ghost in the machine". Or maybe something even weirder - remember what Clarke said, the future is not only stranger than we imagine, it's stranger than we CAN imagine....
Then again, what's stranger than three pounds of meat reciting "twinkle, twinke little star..."?
Hey...forget space aliens, why can't I find my "LT SLASH A GT"?
Seth has also written a series of articles on SETI, the most interesting of which to me was the one on the Fermi Paradox. If they're out there, theyve been out there for a LONG time...so why don't we see the astronomical equivalent of jet contrails from their warp drives? Any spacefaring civilization should be all over the Galaxy ... not just come by Earth. So where are they?
As noted in this editorial over at O'Reilley, how can you pull the plug on something that is decentralized? This is why people went to Kazaa and other P2P solutions after overly-centralized plump target Napster got emasculated. Long live P2P!!! Elvis has left the building!!!
This isn't a squid...it's an alien astronaut from the oceans of Europa...
This creature is really an alien astronaut from the oceans of Europa....
Also a major threat in XP is it's centralization of everybody's ID data via the obligatory Microsoft Passport, as detailed in this morning's USA TODAY...
Looks like the number of qbits available in a quantum computer is doubling every 18 months. The article notes the 2 qbit computer was built in 1998, the 4 qbit unit in August 2000 and now a 7 qbit computer in December 2001....they've still got another couple of months to get the 8th qbit....
Here's some alternative choices for Best Sci-Fi book ever written; add your vote!
Hey, I've never read LOTR and haven't got a clue what it's about except for taking a ring into the heart of bad-guy country to destroy it. Some geeks stuck with hard sci-fi and never moved into fantasy / D&D. I'm one of them. Spoiler free is appreciated.
Welcome to the new NASA. Dubya is dumping Golden (love him or hate him, he WAS an engineer) to bring in a guy that is 100% bean counter. From a recent newspaper article (I think Houston Chronicle):
""...No one really knows what a finished station would cost. NASA said earlier this year that it faces a $4.8 billion shortfall over the next five years. Sean O'Keefe, nominated by President George W. Bush to become NASA administrator, testified Friday that he had no confidence in that number or any other estimate he had heard so far.
At the close of the hearing Friday, Mr. O'Keefe was asked an open-ended question: "What is your vision?"
.
Mr. O'Keefe spoke for several minutes about "prudent management principles," reinvigorating "the entrepreneurial spirits" of NASA, the importance of collaboration with other elements of the federal government, the need to be mindful of safety and the possibility of taking advantage of this moment when NASA is at a crossroads.
.
He did not mention space."
Can you imagine a Beowulf cluster of Rings?
Interesting - the inventory list at this web site is "temporarily unavailable". Wonder if it's been pulled because of 9/11?
All set up to go by an asteroid but can't spring for the required sliver of incremental funding? Welcome to the new NASA. From a recent newspaper article (I think Houston Chronicle):
""...No one really knows what a finished station would cost. NASA said earlier this year that it faces a $4.8 billion shortfall over the next five years. Sean O'Keefe, nominated by President George W. Bush to become NASA administrator, testified Friday that he had no confidence in that number or any other estimate he had heard so far.
At the close of the hearing Friday, Mr. O'Keefe was asked an open-ended question: "What is your vision?"
.
Mr. O'Keefe spoke for several minutes about "prudent management principles," reinvigorating "the entrepreneurial spirits" of NASA, the importance of collaboration with other elements of the federal government, the need to be mindful of safety and the possibility of taking advantage of this moment when NASA is at a crossroads.
.
He did not mention space."
We've got literally thousands of old planes mothballed out in Arizona - not just B52s but B47s and B36s as well. A lot were destroyed under the SALT treaties of the 1970s and START treaties of the 1990s, but a lot are still there. So what if they are supposed to be destroyed, Dubya's getting us out of the ABM treaty, ain't he? Yeeha!!! Given that a SINGLE B-2 comes in at sizable fraction of a BILLION dollars, how many of these puppies could we get back in the air for the cost of a single "modern" bomber? Check out here and here...
Better stock up on this collector's item:
Z80 assembly language subroutines
by Lance A. Leventhal
Availability: Seller usually ships in 1-2 business days
ASIN: 0931988918
Something I've always wondered is if humans and some other primate species - chimps, gorillas, orangs - could cross breed with each other. (Go ahead, insert crude joke here - I'm serious). Horses and donkeys can mate to produce mules and there are other examples. How do we know unless we try? Who knows if somebody already hasn't tried this? And if it/he is a cross breed with a gorilla, would it be eligible for the NFL draft?
I'll pass on the misspelling...good catch. I agree the internet was never free and independent...but at least it should be (speech, not beer).
Beware your assumptions. If you think somebody with a handle of "cybrpnk" is automatically a lamer living in a fantasy world modeled on the movie "HACKERS", then you're wrong. It's just a label, CmdrTaco was taken. I posted the link because the ideals of Slashdot and Cyberarmy are very similar, one is just trying to take a more proactive stance than the other, and the same type of people are likely to be interested in both. Attempting to organize individual users to speak up for their interests is ALWAYS a good thing, particularly in a time of Echelons and Carnivores and Magic Lanterns. Think of organizations like Cyberarmy in evolutionary terms: lots of things are tried, the strong flourish, but all were necessary for progress. And speaking of lame labels, a case could be made that Anonymous Coward is the lamest label of all...
CyberArmy is a similar outfit for the training and promotion of hacking knowledge. From their homepage:
Welcome to CyberArmy - an independant army / union of over 50,000 Internet users, fighting for a free and independant internet. We need more recruits, so join the CyberArmy now! With our online promotional system you can gain officer status in the CyberArmy and take more part in mission proposals, missions, and division commands. Over the following months, we will be focussing our efforts against governmental controls over the net. To re-state the philosophy of the CyberArmy:
CyberArmy is a group of netizens who believe in a deregulated Internet, which is free from external control. We believe in providing tools to assist others who believe in a free Internet - we support Open Source. We campaign against those who abuse the free nature of the Internet. We believe that spammers, child pornographers, web based scammers, and malicious hackers are enemies of the Internet. We believe that the Internet can be self-regulated, and that we, as equipped and knowledgable netizens, can control and suppress abusers of the Internet, with legal methods, by consolidating together as a united CyberArmy.
Another idea along this line is the joint MIT / US Air Force project called Black Horse. The key idea behind the Black Horse is that it can be aerially `refueled' from a tanker such as the USAF KC-135. This has caused some people to describe it as `stage-and-a-half' rather than a true SSTO vehicle. It will take off and land horizontally from a runway, and will be piloted by human pilots. Two demonstration vehicles were planned as stepping stones to the Black Horse, called the Black Foal and the Black Colt. The Foal would demonstrate aspects of the technology and provide proof of concept. The Colt would fly to half orbital velocity and utilize an off-the-shelf `kick-stage' to put satellites in orbit.
True, but who wants to go to Mars using a solar sail? The thrust is so low the trip would take YEARS. Even with chemical rockets the best you can do on a Mars mission is 6 to 9 months. That's a long time in a tin can with your coworkers 24 hours per day...
Your Wired article is dated November 4, 1998. Diamond Age is copyrighted in 1995....