From kanzure at gmail.com Tue Jul 1 02:34:40 2008 From: kanzure at gmail.com (Bryan Bishop) Date: Mon, 30 Jun 2008 21:34:40 -0500 Subject: [ExI] Oil will never run out In-Reply-To: <50F26855-0269-4874-B29C-8BC16B2964CB@mac.com> References: <4eaaa0d90806271134qa905ceem4a052b3092346f47@mail.gmail.com> <200806292157.00912.kanzure@gmail.com> <50F26855-0269-4874-B29C-8BC16B2964CB@mac.com> Message-ID: <200806302134.40675.kanzure@gmail.com> On Monday 30 June 2008, Samantha Atkins wrote: > On Jun 29, 2008, at 7:57 PM, Bryan Bishop wrote: > > On Sunday 29 June 2008, Bryan Bishop wrote: > >> On Sunday 29 June 2008, Kevin Freels wrote: > >>> I'm sorry. Do you not see the necessity of an economically stable > >>> and prospering civilization to have the resources available to > >>> develop the new technologies necessary to bring about > >>> singularity? > >> > >> Resource availability has little to do with finances at this time. > > > > Oops, please excuse me. I meant to say that resource availability > > in ? the > > context of finances that are necessitated for a singularity; in > > general, finances can be used to access resources, but that's > > assuming people will accept those finances and economics, etc. > > This is not a great improvement. ?Want to try again? I'm not sure if there is anything more that I can really add. I don't see how whether or not there happens to be a large moon in orbit (as there has been in our historical context) has anything to do with a stable civilization, for instance. Granted, we can talk about blowing up the moon because of an unstable civilization, but I doubt that this is what Kevin was getting at. - Bryan ________________________________________ http://heybryan.org/ From nanogirl at halcyon.com Tue Jul 1 02:23:49 2008 From: nanogirl at halcyon.com (Gina Miller) Date: Mon, 30 Jun 2008 19:23:49 -0700 Subject: [ExI] New animation - is it familiar to you? Message-ID: <4558B939C25840829CFC47D25EEA7674@GinaSony> Nanogirl here ~ I began work on this new animation project on the 22nd. This was something I have wanted to do for sometime, but I have a lot of ideas that I want to pursue and I set them aside because there are bigger projects that I am working on. I tried to ignore this just the same, but there is a painting hanging above the bed and every night I see it, until finally I could resist no longer. Now that I am finished with the animation, the painting will speak to me in a different way. I worked very hard on this animation every day (and night), and I am so happy to have it completed. You will be able to see the actual development of the animation itself, in this piece ~ I'm calling it a "work in process animation". Oh, and when you see the first credit, it's not the end it's the middle and it's an indicator that you will be going backwards... There is more information about this online, but I'm going to put it on a special separate page so that you (my extropy friends) can watch the movie without any information so that there is the element of surprise. I think and wish upon star that you will really like this one because you will most likely be familiar with part of it... turn up your volume. Here is the link: http://www.nanogirl.com/personal/newanimation.html (you'll want to read this page fully!). Best wishes Gina "Nanogirl" Miller Nanotechnology Industries http://www.nanoindustries.com Personal: http://www.nanogirl.com Animation Blog: http://maxanimation.blogspot.com/ Craft blog: http://nanogirlblog.blogspot.com/ Foresight Senior Associate http://www.foresight.org Nanotechnology Advisor Extropy Institute http://www.extropy.org Email: nanogirl at halcyon.com "Nanotechnology: Solutions for the future." -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From kanzure at gmail.com Tue Jul 1 02:42:18 2008 From: kanzure at gmail.com (Bryan Bishop) Date: Mon, 30 Jun 2008 21:42:18 -0500 Subject: [ExI] Oil will never run out In-Reply-To: <1214800600_578@s2.cableone.net> References: <4eaaa0d90806271134qa905ceem4a052b3092346f47@mail.gmail.com> <200806292239.06878.kanzure@gmail.com> <1214800600_578@s2.cableone.net> Message-ID: <200806302142.18254.kanzure@gmail.com> On Sunday 29 June 2008, hkhenson wrote: > At 08:39 PM 6/29/2008, Bryan wrote: > > On Sunday 29 June 2008, Kevin Freels wrote: > > > A cell phone without civilization is just a paper weight. > > > > That's not true ... just throw up some towers/antennaes, a few > > electrical generators and also some distribution equipment. you can > > make a rudimentary hydrodynamic power generator with wires (or less > > optimally other shapes) of magnetic materials wrapped around other > > conductive metals basically, etc. etc. > > I was going to just punt this one, but what the heck. ?Bryan, how > much do you know about what's involved in a cell tower? Although I am sure that there is a lot of proprietary electrical circuits that you can call me out on, I still don't see what's so difficult. Hell, I have a few friends that get their connectivity via tin cans and wraps of wire. Kind of like this except more technically competent: http://binarywolf.com/249/ Over the years I've been reading a lot about antennaes: http://www.ac6v.com/antprojects.htm http://fab.cba.mit.edu/classes/MIT/862.06/students/temi/ http://www.dxzone.com/catalog/Antennas/Theory/ http://web.telia.com/~u85920178/antennas/anten.htm http://www.cebik.com/trans/ant-design.html http://www.diylive.net/index.php/2006/01/19/diy-cell-phone-antenna/ http://www.turnpoint.net/wireless/has.html http://www.borg.com/~warrend/guru.html http://www.makezine.com/blog/archive/2006/06/beerquad_diy_wifi_antenna.html http://snulbug.mtview.ca.us/books/RadioAntennaEngineering/ http://www.rfcafe.com/references/design_data/antenna_design_data.htm http://openfm.adaptedconsulting.com/index.php/Main_Page http://www.ac6v.com/antprojects.htm http://www.dxzone.com/catalog/Antennas/Theory/ http://www.cebik.com/trans/ant-design.html http://www.rfcafe.com/references/design_data/antenna_design_data.htm http://www.usbwifi.orcon.net.nz/ http://www.freeantennas.com/ http://www.engadget.com/2006/03/28/how-to-add-your-own-external-gps-antenna/ http://www.diylife.com/2008/01/24/the-10-super-wireless-internet-antenna/ http://martybugs.net/wireless/biquad/ Haven't gotten around to building much yet. And when I investigate antenna theory, all that I see is that nobody knows what the EM fields actually are when it comes to quantified electrodynamics theories, and I have yet to see a theory of antenna EM field shape, and if you might happen to know of a predictive framework for that ... - Bryan ________________________________________ http://heybryan.org/ From kanzure at gmail.com Tue Jul 1 02:43:19 2008 From: kanzure at gmail.com (Bryan Bishop) Date: Mon, 30 Jun 2008 21:43:19 -0500 Subject: [ExI] Oil will never run out In-Reply-To: <6CA5B6E9-DD22-4D34-88EA-0262750A0E30@mac.com> References: <4eaaa0d90806271134qa905ceem4a052b3092346f47@mail.gmail.com> <200806292154.51391.kanzure@gmail.com> <6CA5B6E9-DD22-4D34-88EA-0262750A0E30@mac.com> Message-ID: <200806302143.19645.kanzure@gmail.com> On Monday 30 June 2008, Samantha Atkins wrote: > On Jun 29, 2008, at 7:54 PM, Bryan Bishop wrote: > > On Sunday 29 June 2008, Kevin Freels wrote: > >> I'm sorry. Do you not see the necessity of an economically stable > >> and prospering civilization to have the resources available to > >> develop the new technologies necessary to bring about singularity? > > > > Resource availability has little to do with finances at this time. > > ?Do you actually follow finances or economics at all? You are confused. The resources are /there/ already. Go get them. - Bryan ________________________________________ http://heybryan.org/ From kanzure at gmail.com Tue Jul 1 02:47:26 2008 From: kanzure at gmail.com (Bryan Bishop) Date: Mon, 30 Jun 2008 21:47:26 -0500 Subject: [ExI] Oil will never run out In-Reply-To: References: <4eaaa0d90806271134qa905ceem4a052b3092346f47@mail.gmail.com> <200806291559.32367.kanzure@gmail.com> Message-ID: <200806302147.26070.kanzure@gmail.com> On Monday 30 June 2008, Samantha Atkins wrote: > The idea that the Singularity is going to come real soon now (RSN) > and ? save us all before we get into too bad a pickle is far worse > than Wishful Thinking. ? IMHO of course. So, the way that I verbalize this is that it's somewhat of a 'blackswan'. It's not a good idea to base any of your plans, ever, on any strategy whatsoever that relies on a blackswan, since that instantly makes it ungrounded and completely impractical until some staggering innovation comes along that you just don't have the path to access to. I'm not saying that some marvelous technology will soon be invented out of the voids and depths of human society to save us all. I've given rather specific details before, so just hand waving it as a 'absurdly complex, impossible Singularity' is ridiculous. - Bryan ________________________________________ http://heybryan.org/ From lcorbin at rawbw.com Tue Jul 1 02:44:58 2008 From: lcorbin at rawbw.com (Lee Corbin) Date: Mon, 30 Jun 2008 19:44:58 -0700 Subject: [ExI] Prufrock References: <02d101c8d8fc$53caffb0$6401a8c0@homeef7b612677><02e001c8d8ff$e0f34ac0$6401a8c0@homeef7b612677><7.0.1.0.2.20080628114036.026764d0@satx.rr.com> Message-ID: <039201c8db24$f5325040$6401a8c0@homeef7b612677> Jeff writes > When Lee wrote: > >>>"The women come and go, >>>speaking of fellatio." > > I experienced a spasm of fussiness. The rhythm/meter is > unsatisfying,... not quite in correspondence to the original: > > ...speaking of Michaelangelo. Yeah, well, it still works---and it still makes the point about the cultural shift. Sorry my cynicism didn't appeal to you as much as it could have. > Lee, for his part, was no doubt faithfully reproducing the variant of > the phrase as he had encountered it. Sir! The substitution was my own invention I conceived of it several months back; actually when looking at a little of Eliot's poetry in response to an article by John C. Wright, who so beautifully expressed my own sentiments about moral decline. And decline in a lot of other things, for that matter. (Not that I'm damn glad to be living now rather than any time before, mind you.) > But I thought it sad, because it > was, to my way of thinking, an entirely unnecessary defect. For > instance, it could have employed the original "Mi" of Michaelangelo > and, preserved the meter with: > > "Speaking of my fellatio." > > A bit too personal, that first person? "A bit"??? Of course. This doesn't work at all. > Then it could have been: > > "Speaking of thy fellatio." You're getting somewhere now, it seems, though I'll quickly grant you have a better ear for this than I do. Actually, I was aware that the meter (or whatever) was a bit off---at least not matching the original. It hardly seemed to matter, because if a modern Eliot had wrecked the poetic artistry of the line so much the better. > Or, > > "Speaking of 'Cry fellatio!'" > > referring perhaps to a campaign of the anti-war activism where "Cry > 'Havoc!' and release the dogs of war" is countered with > "Cry 'Fellatio!' and release the bawds galore." You're back to stretching again. :-( > Or perhaps > > "...Try fellatio." A campaign to broaden sexual horizons. Or > > "Speaking of sly fellatio." Moving beyond the vanilla version, or > > "...High Fellatio." Enhanced, documented, and certified by the > F?d?ration Internationale pour le Sexualit?. Ah. Maybe the best so far! Very good. Yes. "The women come and go, speaking of high fellatio." Wait. Mic-al-ANG-i-o doesn't match Hi-fel-Lat-i-o. Hmm. Or does it. Isn't there something still ab it off? Can't put my finger on it, though. I wish I'd said "high fellatio". Thanks. In the future, I'll be sure to run my poetic fancies past you before posting. > "...fly fellatio.", if the women in question were nerdy collegiate > entomology majors. Puh-leeze! > At which point I concluded that I had way too much time on my hands Yeah, I guess maybe you do. Or---think of it this way (always works for me!)---you just needed a lighthearted break from your other efforts to create wealth or save the world. Lee From amara at amara.com Tue Jul 1 02:53:49 2008 From: amara at amara.com (Amara Graps) Date: Mon, 30 Jun 2008 20:53:49 -0600 Subject: [ExI] New animation - is it familiar to you? Message-ID: Oh Gina.... That is so lovely. How did you _know_ that Starry Night is my favorite Van Gogh painting! And painted to one of my favorite symphonic pieces too... :-) When your health gets better, I will _show you_ the exact place in Provence where Van Gogh painted "Starry Night over St. Remy". There is a marker at that place and you can imagine yourself there, transported back in time to when he painted it. "Everything is extraordinarily beautiful here! Everything and everywhere the color of the sky is an admirable blue, the sun shines like pale sulfur, it is sweet and charming like the combinations of blues and yellows in the skies of the Vermeer of Delft." ... "The subject of painting night scenes or night effects and night itself interests me tremendously. Night is more alive and more colorful than day." (Vincent Van Gogh writing to his brother Theo in 1888 and 1889) "Don't forget that little emotions are the great captains of our lives." (Vincent Van Gogh, Arles, 1888). Thank you again, Gina. Take care, Amara -- Amara Graps, PhD www.amara.com Research Scientist, Southwest Research Institute (SwRI), Boulder, Colorado From kevinfreels at insightbb.com Tue Jul 1 02:56:21 2008 From: kevinfreels at insightbb.com (Kevin Freels) Date: Mon, 30 Jun 2008 21:56:21 -0500 Subject: [ExI] Oil will never run out In-Reply-To: <1214799556_80@s8.cableone.net> References: <4eaaa0d90806271134qa905ceem4a052b3092346f47@mail.gmail.com> <200806271459.00630.kanzure@gmail.com> <1214641925_9520@S3.cableone.net> <1214688352_9942@s6.cableone.net> <1214799556_80@s8.cableone.net> Message-ID: > so > >many time I wonder why people continue to use that phrase. > > Unfortunately history has examples, Greenland Norse, Easter > Island, > and Mayans where things fairly well went down the drain.? I > happen to > be an engineer who is used to being given a problem and marching > orders to solve it.? But there are problems, backwards time > travel > and FTL travel that are probably in the "can't be done" > category.? Others such as diverting an asteroid collision > on short > notice can't be done if we don't have enough time. > OK. Granted I was getting a bit over the edge. I'm glad you saw my point through the rhetoric. > There may well be other ways, a vast scale up > of nuclear > power of a new design, the pebble bed reactors, might to it for > long > enough to reach some kind of singularity where we or our machine > offspring or some combination get smart enough to get more power > or > run on less. > I'm very impressed with the pebble bed reactors by the way. I wish I could build my own. :-) These reactors look to be an excellent way to go for the short term. > > It's impossible to get as much performance out of batteries as > you > can get out of hydrocarbons.? If you think of them in > battery terms, > 65% of the battery come out of the air and you don't have to > carry > it.? Trucks on batteries?? Not likely.? Trains > can be > electrified.? Aircraft are being taken out of service by > the > thousands because of high fuel cost. Which was my point. Thanks. >> I put my money on the > >ability > >to find solutions to scaling up. > > A lot of them don't scale up.? That was the point of the > exposition > on converting trash to oil, there just isn't enough trash.? > There > isn't enough land do grow bio fuels.? No. And it wasn't my intention to put trash generation or grass clipping up as the sole method of making fuels. I probably should have more correctly said gasoline produced from "some oilless method as yet to be determined". The picture I had in my head was of various methods being around all producing the same product. One way may produce a bit and get rid of a lot of garbage at the same time with the mass production still being carried out by specialized facilities. The "open source" part was a beautiful mental picture that would probably never happen and I should have left it out. The overall point was producing regular gasoline, diesel and jet fuel out of raw materials cheaper than the cost of drilling and refining oil. I really don't care if it's little machines, or gen en bacteria (is there a difference?). If it can be made by nature, it can be made by us more efficiently. > From kevinfreels at insightbb.com Tue Jul 1 02:57:31 2008 From: kevinfreels at insightbb.com (Kevin Freels) Date: Mon, 30 Jun 2008 21:57:31 -0500 Subject: [ExI] Oil will never run out In-Reply-To: <1214803358_654@s2.cableone.net> References: <200806291557.27370.kanzure@gmail.com> <200806300443.m5U4hDpJ004206@andromeda.ziaspace.com> <1214803358_654@s2.cableone.net> Message-ID: > >Ja.? We have all those chemicals strongly associated with > reproductive harm, > >yet ethanol is so often a factor in reproductive success. > Ha! That's funny! From kevinfreels at insightbb.com Tue Jul 1 03:01:22 2008 From: kevinfreels at insightbb.com (Kevin Freels) Date: Mon, 30 Jun 2008 22:01:22 -0500 Subject: [ExI] Oil will never run out In-Reply-To: <4380BC59-1D3A-45BA-A085-F7924BB9DCA1@mac.com> References: <1214688352_9942@s6.cableone.net> <200806290550.m5T5oDL8028048@andromeda.ziaspace.com> <1214768699_668@s2.cableone.net> <4380BC59-1D3A-45BA-A085-F7924BB9DCA1@mac.com> Message-ID: ? There > are means to make? > starvation less likely including vertical farming in urban > areas, and? > algae and fish farming.? Part of starvation is wasting a > lot of grain? > feeding cattle and adding a lot of cost to transport food > large? > distances.? By going to a less cattle intensive diet and > finding means? > to produce much of what is consumed locally the problem could > be? > decreased in dire consequences. Let's not forget the meat manufacturing plants. The PETA prize is out there. :-) > > What we cannot and will not do is be sanguine about mass die- > offs.??? > Of course we (as a species, nothing personal)? usually are > as long as? > the dying is somewhere else.??? I have heard too > many educated and? > generally caring people banter the notion that the world would > be? > better off with around 90% less people.?? They > entertain this notion? > without admitting the horrors of getting there and while they > insist? > they are not promoting mass death. > I couldn't agree more Samantha....Thanks for bringing that up. From kanzure at gmail.com Tue Jul 1 03:11:08 2008 From: kanzure at gmail.com (Bryan Bishop) Date: Mon, 30 Jun 2008 22:11:08 -0500 Subject: [ExI] Bryan & Kevin's exchange on technology In-Reply-To: <958531.95774.qm@web27002.mail.ukl.yahoo.com> References: <958531.95774.qm@web27002.mail.ukl.yahoo.com> Message-ID: <200806302211.08408.kanzure@gmail.com> On Monday 30 June 2008, Tom Nowell wrote: > Apologies for the length of this, but I have to add my comments to > the discussion between two people, and I want to make sure I've > quoted accurately. Hey Tom. Let's see where this goes. > To quote Kevin Freels and Bryan: > On Sunday 29 June 2008, Kevin Freels wrote: The technology necessary > for singularity isn't going to be made by some guy in a cave. Bryan > replied: > Excuse me, but where do you think we started if not in a cave? So how > is everything else after that not by the same tech, to some extent > also manufactured from within a cave anyway? Okay, so we moved ten > meters outside the mouth of the cave, so what? You can walk that in a > couple of seconds. > > My response to this: the difference between us and the cavedwellers > is a succession of big changes in society and technology. We've What is the difference between a big change and a small change? Is this a degree of emotion that it stirs in you, or is there some real quantification that can be done to illustrate it? I don't need the actual quantification, just an idea of what we're talking about. > recently seen in the media pictures of an uncontacted tribe aiming > their bows at a plane flying overhead. They are unlikely to play a > part in causing the singularity, for reasons I shall outline. Just because they are thinking about the same problems in different ways doesn't mean that they aren't going to do it. I agree that it does seem unlikely considering the historical context, but just from the basis of "uncontacted tribe", that means little. What if they are passing on rituals of logic circuits and advanced mathematics, orally ? Or some such. > According to Toffler's wave theory (check wikipedia under "The Third > Wave" if you're not familiar with it), the first wave involves > adoption of agriculture and early states forming. This takes you away Sounds familiar, but I've never heard of Toffler or these wavethings. > from everybody gathering their own food, with a low population > density, to food being cultivated by a proportion of the community, > leading to much higher population densities and allowing some people > not to work in agriculture at all. These people can take up crafting Yes, but this can be done with technology anyway and it's becoming quite the interesting development (check the news), so there's no need to bring up arguments that "so therefore this specialization must still exist if we are to allow people to do anything but agricultural work". > The conditions most conducive to developing technologies for the > singularity are these: 1. Somebody gets funding for their new tech > idea, has the money to pay specialists to devote their working week > to it, and the facilities to develop it. Eventually this will be > taken to market, and the investors will either make money or have to > write the investment off. 2. A group of highly educated people devote > spare hours outside of their working week to an open source project, > and people donate excess money generated by their jobs if a > manufactured end-product is needed. 3. A government uses the tax > money from the economy to pay people to work on a project, and then > subsidises it to production. 1 & 2 are most likely in a society with > a market economy, with a widely educated workforce, and sufficient > economic freedom to let people do this. 1 probably requires decent > intellectual property laws. Even for 3, the more educated people > there are, the better the odds of finding the right team. As a > result, even if we were to take someone from a hunter-gatherer > society, teach them to read, give them a computer and tell them to > look everything up on wikipedia and search the net for things, they > would have a colossal difficulty adapting to way in which we produce That sounds more like the societal context in which the innovations are introduced. Everyone can create. Maybe you're just being subtle and telling me that I'm having colossal difficulties -- you've basically described my entire life. Taken from an isolated environment, taught to read, given a computer, and then I've been reading on the net ever since. Seems to work so far for me. ;-) > technological innovations. Many of the technologies transhumanists > are interested in require considerable education and/or > specialisation (as people complaining about lack of physics education > on this list know all too well). The existence of autodidactism might show otherwise. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Autodidactism > Autodidacticism (also autodidactism) is self-education or > self-directed learning. An autodidact, also known as an automath, is > a mostly self-taught person, as opposed to learning in a school > setting or from a tutor. > > A person may become an autodidact at nearly any point in his or her > life. While some may have been educated in a conventional manner in a > particular field, they may choose to educate themselves in other, > often unrelated areas. > > Self-teaching and self-directed learning are not necessarily lonely > processes. Some autodidacts spend a great deal of time in libraries > or on educative websites. Many, according to their plan for learning, > avail themselves of instruction from family members, friends, or > other associates (although strictly speaking this might not be > considered autodidactic). Indeed, the term "self-taught" is something > of a journalistic trope these days, and is often used to signify > "non-traditionally educated", which is entirely different. Back to the email: > To cover other points that Kevin and Bryan talked about: > Kevin> Technology requires industry. > > Bryan> Don't know what you mean by this. Arguably, biology is > technology. And biology came before human industry. I think what > Kevin meant was "you don't build an Intel chip at home, and backyard You certainly don't build an Intel chip at home, but you can build vacuum tubes, and then you can assemble the vacuum tubes in an organization that mimics an Intel microprocessor, although you'd be very stupid to do this :-) and should probably use a RISC architecture instead. > rockets don't compete with the Apollo programme." If you need Are you sure? I haven't heard of any backyard rockets even attempting to compete with Apollo, so it's not that it's impossible, just that nobody bothered to do that when the Apollo program was around. > high-tech manufactured goods, the odds of you having the knowledge to > design it, the knowledge to use it, the knowledge to build it and the > tools to build it all at once are small. You are likely to need to Yes, but we're fixing this, remember? http://heybryan.org/exp.html > get a lot of people to help you out, and for the manufacturing end > the straightforward solution is to pay people to make it. As for That's completely straightbackwards. The notes on exp.html mention the idea of the formal encapsulation of this knowledge and information so that it can be repeated on more than one occassion, and this is essentially much like the scientific method, except that the majority of scientific publications are still in natural language form instead of a computationally executable format -- but there are projects that are moving towards fixing this: http://expo.sf.net/ the "robot scientist" > non-manufactured goods - whether it's music or software or something The human brain manufactures music and software. > else rapidly copiable - in order to get these spread, you and all > your potential audience need to pay communications companies so you Haha. That's funny because a good number of my friends aren't paying communications companies. In my last email or so in reply to Keith I mentioned how many of them have tin can antenna setups to steal the access and do wireless meshes to hop from node to node. > can spread them. The bands on myspace rely on everyone paying > telecommunication companies for internet access, and collaborative > software development relies on email, file transfer, and people > communicating with each other lots. You need to look up the mesh projects. :-) These are pretty awesome. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wireless_mesh_network http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mesh_network http://cuwireless.net/ "The CUWiN Foundation develops decentralized, community-owned networks that foster democratic cultures and local content. Through advocacy and through our commitment to open source technology, we support organic networks that grow to meet the needs of their community." http://weblog.mrbill.net/archives/2005/07/31/mesh-network-completed/ http://bcwireless.net/moin.cgi/Mesh http://www.wi-fiplanet.com/tutorials/article.php/3520231 http://www.vdomck.org/blog/2005/07/22/how-to-build-a-mesh-network-with-wrt54gs/ http://csircoin.blogspot.com/2005/06/setting-up-olsr-mesh-on-linksys.html http://www.google.com/search?client=opera&rls=en&q=WRT54G+mesh+network&sourceid=opera&num=50&ie=utf-8&oe=utf-8 etc. There was this one open source mesh network that has been developing over the internet for a while now, and has something like a few ten thousand contributors that have their wireless networks intersecting each other. And you don't know how many of them are using proprietary networking equipment, or if they have built their own. Chances are that they are still using proprietary, but the system is designed to be robust so that they can go replace the modules with other modules that they build (or their friends build for them, or their machines in a garage somewhere). > Kevin> Industry requires economies. > > Bryan> Certainly, look at ecosystems, but it's not the same thing as > money. I think Kevin was trying to say that money-based economies > provide clear, obvious mechanisms to encourage industrial production > and reward innovation. Certainly, the beginnings of better production > and new products took a great leap in England after the > monetarisation of the economy in the thirteenth century, and the > invention of double-entry accounting in medieval Italy revolutionised > commerce and encouraged the spread of goods. There may be other ways > of encouraging industry and production, but none of them so far have > worked as well as money. I'd point to open source in general. It's worked very, very well. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Open_source http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Free_software > Kevin> A cell phone without civilization is just a paper weight. > > Bryan> That's not true ... just throw up some towers/antennaes, a few > electrical generators and also some distribution equipment. you can > make a rudimentary hydrodynamic power generator with wires (or less > optimally other shapes) of magnetic materials wrapped around other > conductive metals basically, etc. etc. > > Well, in Burma the cyclone took the telecoms network down. Telecoms > Sans Frontieres offered to send in telecoms engineers to put up a > temporary network and offer every refugee a phone call to someone, so > they could let relatives know what was happening. The temporary > network would also allow aid agencies on the ground to co-ordinate > better. The Burmese government rejected this, and kept aid agencies > out. In Burma, your cell phone IS just a paper weight. As to Bryan's > point - a cellular network requires a fair amount of technology, > you're not likely to knock this up in your backyard. Without a > certain degree of civilisation, it's hard to rebuild a downed > network. Go read some of the antenna documents I linked to Keith. It is not impossible to do communications in your backyard. In the case of wired communication, go get a string and place it between two cups and whisper in one cup, listen through the other, over a suitable distance that I sadly forget the mathematical definition of. - Bryan ________________________________________ http://heybryan.org/ From kevinfreels at insightbb.com Tue Jul 1 03:09:57 2008 From: kevinfreels at insightbb.com (Kevin Freels) Date: Mon, 30 Jun 2008 22:09:57 -0500 Subject: [ExI] Bryan & Kevin's exchange on technology In-Reply-To: <958531.95774.qm@web27002.mail.ukl.yahoo.com> References: <958531.95774.qm@web27002.mail.ukl.yahoo.com> Message-ID: ----- Original Message ----- From: Tom Nowell Date: Monday, June 30, 2008 15:36 Subject: Re: [ExI] Bryan & Kevin's exchange on technology To: extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org > Apologies for the length of this, but I have to add my comments > to the discussion between two people, and I want to make sure > I've quoted accurately. > > To quote Kevin Freels and Bryan: > On Sunday 29 June 2008, Kevin Freels wrote: The technology > necessary for singularity isn't going to be made by some guy in > a cave. > Bryan replied: > Excuse me, but where do you think we started if not in a cave? > So how is > everything else after that not by the same tech, to some extent > also > manufactured from within a cave anyway? Okay, so we moved ten > meters > outside the mouth of the cave, so what? You can walk that in a > couple > of seconds. > > My response to this: the difference between us and the > cavedwellers is a succession of big changes in society and > technology. We've recently seen in the media pictures of an > uncontacted tribe aiming their bows at a plane flying overhead. > They are unlikely to play a part in causing the singularity, for > reasons I shall outline. > ?According to Toffler's wave theory (check wikipedia under > "The Third Wave" if you're not familiar with it), the first wave > involves adoption of agriculture and early states forming. This > takes you away from everybody gathering their own food, with a > low population density, to food being cultivated by a proportion > of the community, leading to much higher population densities > and allowing some people not to work in agriculture at all. > These people can take up crafting professions, leading to a > higher quality of manufactured goods, and professions involving > thinking and learning (your early priests and scribes). This > division of labour allowing people to specialise is why > metalworking and writing come after the development of agriculture. > ?The second wave involves the adoption of mechanical > technology to factories, changing economies to allow > corporations, and mass education. Mass everything allows much > higher levels of production of material goods, more educated > societies, and more heavily urbanised societies. > ?The third wave is more loosely defined, but is more > broadly comparable to the concept of "the information age" - as > information technology and advanced communications take hold, > the economy becomes more knowledge based, and knowledge and > creativity are at least as important as manufacturing in the economy. > ?The conditions most conducive to developing technologies > for the singularity are these: > 1. Somebody gets funding for their new tech idea, has the money > to pay specialists to devote their working week to it, and the > facilities to develop it. Eventually this will be taken to > market, and the investors will either make money or have to > write the investment off. > 2. A group of highly educated people devote spare hours outside > of their working week to an open source project, and people > donate excess money generated by their jobs if a manufactured > end-product is needed. > 3. A government uses the tax money from the economy to pay > people to work on a project, and then subsidises it to production. > ?1 & 2 are most likely in a society with a market economy, > with a widely educated workforce, and sufficient economic > freedom to let people do this. 1 probably requires decent > intellectual property laws. Even for 3, the more educated people > there are, the better the odds of finding the right team. > ?As a result, even if we were to take someone from a hunter- > gatherer society, teach them to read, give them a computer and > tell them to look everything up on wikipedia and search the net > for things, they would have a colossal difficulty adapting to > way in which we produce technological innovations. Many of the > technologies transhumanists are interested in require > considerable education and/or specialisation (as people > complaining about lack of physics education on this list know > all too well). > > ?To cover other points that Kevin and Bryan talked about: > Kevin> Technology requires industry. > > Bryan> Don't know what you mean by this. Arguably, biology is > technology. And biology came before human industry. > ?I think what Kevin meant was "you don't build an Intel > chip at home, and backyard rockets don't compete with the Apollo > programme." If you need high-tech manufactured goods, the odds > of you having the knowledge to design it, the knowledge to use > it, the knowledge to build it and the tools to build it all at > once are small. You are likely to need to get a lot of people to > help you out, and for the manufacturing end the straightforward > solution is to pay people to make it. > ?As for non-manufactured goods - whether it's music or > software or something else rapidly copiable - in order to get > these spread, you and all your potential audience need to pay > communications companies so you can spread them. The bands on > myspace rely on everyone paying telecommunication companies for > internet access, and collaborative software development relies > on email, file transfer, and people communicating with each > other lots. > > Kevin> Industry requires economies. > > Bryan> Certainly, look at ecosystems, but it's not the same > thing as money. > ?I think Kevin was trying to say that money-based economies > provide clear, obvious mechanisms to encourage industrial > production and reward innovation. Certainly, the beginnings of > better production and new products took a great leap in England > after the monetarisation of the economy in the thirteenth > century, and the invention of double-entry accounting in > medieval Italy revolutionised commerce and encouraged the spread > of goods. There may be other ways of encouraging industry and > production, but none of them so far have worked as well as money. > > Kevin> Economies require stability. > > Bryan>Stability is good stuff, yes. > ?I just need to use the examples of Robert Mugabe's > Zimbabwe, Idi Amin's Uganda, and the comparative fates of North > and South Korea to show what instability and poor governance can do. > > Kevin> Without stable growing economies you get no advancing > industry and no advancing technology. > > This isn't strictly true - despite the terrible economy and the > starving people, North Korea still detonated what looked like a > nuke, and has some military technology. It's not a patch on what > the South can do (says the man with a Samsung phone in his > pocket and an LG TV in the house). > > Kevin> A cell phone without civilization is just a paper > weight.? > > Bryan> That's not true ... just throw up some towers/antennaes, > a few > electrical generators and also some distribution equipment. you > can > make a rudimentary hydrodynamic power generator with wires (or > less > optimally other shapes) of magnetic materials wrapped around > other > conductive metals basically, etc. etc. > > Well, in Burma the cyclone took the telecoms network down. > Telecoms Sans Frontieres offered to send in telecoms engineers > to put up a temporary network and offer every refugee a phone > call to someone, so they could let relatives know what was > happening. The temporary network would also allow aid agencies > on the ground to co-ordinate better. The Burmese government > rejected this, and kept aid agencies out. In Burma, your cell > phone IS just a paper weight. As to Bryan's point - a cellular > network requires a fair amount of technology, you're not likely > to knock this up in your backyard. Without a certain degree of > civilisation, it's hard to rebuild a downed network. > > Tom > > > Thanks Tom. I didn't think I needed to spell it out but I guess I was wrong. I did want to add one small point to one of your comments: > Kevin> Without stable growing economies you get no advancing > industry and no advancing technology. > > This isn't strictly true - despite the terrible economy and the > starving people, North Korea still detonated what looked like a > nuke, and has some military technology. It's not a patch on what > the South can do (says the man with a Samsung phone in his > pocket and an LG TV in the house). That technology was bought, borrowed, or stolen from stable economies that developed the technologies in the first place. From kevinfreels at insightbb.com Tue Jul 1 03:27:08 2008 From: kevinfreels at insightbb.com (Kevin Freels) Date: Mon, 30 Jun 2008 22:27:08 -0500 Subject: [ExI] Bryan & Kevin's exchange on technology In-Reply-To: <200806302211.08408.kanzure@gmail.com> References: <958531.95774.qm@web27002.mail.ukl.yahoo.com> <200806302211.08408.kanzure@gmail.com> Message-ID: I never intended for this thread to go this far. I just wanted it to be known that I was revising my previous position in other posts that the oil would one day run out. I'm not entirely sure where you stand but it seems to me that you see oilless gasoline as impossible but you think the singularity can happen in the midst of world economic collapse and devolution of society. Never mind the fact that any AI that can bridge human death can probably find a way to make gasoline cheaper than drilling oil. Regardless of where you stand, I'm done with this thread. Its gone on far too long for what I wanted to accomplish and it's just adding noise to the list at this point. One thing I do want to give you Bryan is a small piece of advice. You are an extremely intelligent and knowledgeable person. Widen your focus a bit and learn some more about people. History, sociology, psychology, and anthropology would all do you some good. You have to understand that as a single human being you can't even manufacture the metal and glass needed to make a light bulb by yourself. No man is an island. Take care. From kanzure at gmail.com Tue Jul 1 03:39:00 2008 From: kanzure at gmail.com (Bryan Bishop) Date: Mon, 30 Jun 2008 22:39:00 -0500 Subject: [ExI] Bryan & Kevin's exchange on technology In-Reply-To: References: <958531.95774.qm@web27002.mail.ukl.yahoo.com> <200806302211.08408.kanzure@gmail.com> Message-ID: <200806302239.00942.kanzure@gmail.com> On Monday 30 June 2008, Kevin Freels wrote: > I never intended for this thread to go this far. I just wanted it to > be known that I was revising my previous position in other posts that > the oil would one day run out. I'm not entirely sure where you stand > but it seems to me that you see oilless gasoline as impossible but I don't think I've implied this. > you think the singularity can happen in the midst of world economic > collapse and devolution of society. Never mind the fact that any AI Yes, but that's not the scenario I'm hoping for. > that can bridge human death can probably find a way to make gasoline > cheaper than drilling oil. Sure. > Regardless of where you stand, I'm done with this thread. Its gone on > far too long for what I wanted to accomplish and it's just adding > noise to the list at this point. I thought it was an interesting discussion. I guess we'll stop. > One thing I do want to give you Bryan is a small piece of advice. You > are an extremely intelligent and knowledgeable person. Widen your > focus a bit and learn some more about people. History, sociology, > psychology, and anthropology would all do you some good. You have to > understand that as a single human being you can't even manufacture > the metal and glass needed to make a light bulb by yourself. No man > is an island. I guess now would be a bad time to pull out my references on glass blowing. - Bryan ________________________________________ http://heybryan.org/ From kevinfreels at insightbb.com Tue Jul 1 03:36:44 2008 From: kevinfreels at insightbb.com (Kevin Freels) Date: Mon, 30 Jun 2008 22:36:44 -0500 Subject: [ExI] New animation - is it familiar to you? In-Reply-To: <4558B939C25840829CFC47D25EEA7674@GinaSony> References: <4558B939C25840829CFC47D25EEA7674@GinaSony> Message-ID: It's interesting that you picked van Gogh. "Thatched Cottages at Cordeville" was mentioned in Chapterhouse: Dune. It's one of the few remaining things of the original Earth. Very fitting. Lovely work. From nanogirl at halcyon.com Tue Jul 1 03:46:48 2008 From: nanogirl at halcyon.com (Gina Miller) Date: Mon, 30 Jun 2008 20:46:48 -0700 Subject: [ExI] New animation - is it familiar to you? In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <0195736A70AA48D3863528F5F830B071@GinaSony> Thank you so much Amara, I must confess after I finish my animations my very favorite thing is to hear feedback about them. It's sort of the reward after all the work. I'm so glad that you appreciate both selections, the painting and the music! It sounds so incredible to be there, I can only imagine! I appreciate your sharing that with me - it's a beautiful email Amara. Warm regards, Gina "Nanogirl" Miller Nanotechnology Industries http://www.nanoindustries.com Personal: http://www.nanogirl.com Animation Blog: http://maxanimation.blogspot.com/ Craft blog: http://nanogirlblog.blogspot.com/ Foresight Senior Associate http://www.foresight.org Nanotechnology Advisor Extropy Institute http://www.extropy.org Email: nanogirl at halcyon.com "Nanotechnology: Solutions for the future." ----- Original Message ----- From: Amara Graps To: extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org Sent: Monday, June 30, 2008 7:53 PM Subject: [ExI] New animation - is it familiar to you? Oh Gina.... That is so lovely. How did you _know_ that Starry Night is my favorite Van Gogh painting! And painted to one of my favorite symphonic pieces too... :-) When your health gets better, I will _show you_ the exact place in Provence where Van Gogh painted "Starry Night over St. Remy". There is a marker at that place and you can imagine yourself there, transported back in time to when he painted it. "Everything is extraordinarily beautiful here! Everything and everywhere the color of the sky is an admirable blue, the sun shines like pale sulfur, it is sweet and charming like the combinations of blues and yellows in the skies of the Vermeer of Delft." ... "The subject of painting night scenes or night effects and night itself interests me tremendously. Night is more alive and more colorful than day." (Vincent Van Gogh writing to his brother Theo in 1888 and 1889) "Don't forget that little emotions are the great captains of our lives." (Vincent Van Gogh, Arles, 1888). Thank you again, Gina. Take care, Amara -- Amara Graps, PhD www.amara.com Research Scientist, Southwest Research Institute (SwRI), Boulder, Colorado _______________________________________________ extropy-chat mailing list extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org http://lists.extropy.org/mailman/listinfo.cgi/extropy-chat -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From nanogirl at halcyon.com Tue Jul 1 03:47:47 2008 From: nanogirl at halcyon.com (Gina Miller) Date: Mon, 30 Jun 2008 20:47:47 -0700 Subject: [ExI] New animation - is it familiar to you? In-Reply-To: References: <4558B939C25840829CFC47D25EEA7674@GinaSony> Message-ID: <53D9432A64DC47D19005DF2CB06ED59C@GinaSony> Ah, very interesting point Kevin! Thank you and I'm so glad you like it! Gina "Nanogirl" Miller Nanotechnology Industries http://www.nanoindustries.com Personal: http://www.nanogirl.com Animation Blog: http://maxanimation.blogspot.com/ Craft blog: http://nanogirlblog.blogspot.com/ Foresight Senior Associate http://www.foresight.org Nanotechnology Advisor Extropy Institute http://www.extropy.org Email: nanogirl at halcyon.com "Nanotechnology: Solutions for the future." ----- Original Message ----- From: Kevin Freels To: ExI chat list Sent: Monday, June 30, 2008 8:36 PM Subject: Re: [ExI] New animation - is it familiar to you? It's interesting that you picked van Gogh. "Thatched Cottages at Cordeville" was mentioned in Chapterhouse: Dune. It's one of the few remaining things of the original Earth. Very fitting. Lovely work. _______________________________________________ extropy-chat mailing list extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org http://lists.extropy.org/mailman/listinfo.cgi/extropy-chat -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From robotact at gmail.com Tue Jul 1 04:08:29 2008 From: robotact at gmail.com (Vladimir Nesov) Date: Tue, 1 Jul 2008 08:08:29 +0400 Subject: [ExI] Savants and user-interfaces [was Re: [agi] WHAT SORT OF HARDWARE $33K AND $850K BUYS TODAY FOR USE IN AGI In-Reply-To: <3ae3aa420806302043v10873921mb6b19fa836a44285@mail.gmail.com> References: <3ae3aa420806302043v10873921mb6b19fa836a44285@mail.gmail.com> Message-ID: Interesting: is it possible to train yourself to run a specially designed nontrivial inference circuit based on low-base transformations (e.g. binary)? You start by assigning unique symbols to its nodes, train yourself to stably perform associations implementing its junctions, and then assemble it all together by training yourself to generate a problem as a temporal sequence (request), so that it can be handled by the overall circuit, and training to read out the answer and convert it to sequence of e.g. base-10 digits or base-100 words keying pairs of digits (like in mnemonic)? Has anyone heard of this attempted? At least the initial steps look straightforward enough, what kind of obstacles this kind of experiment can run into? On Tue, Jul 1, 2008 at 7:43 AM, Linas Vepstas wrote: > 2008/6/30 Terren Suydam : >> >> savant > > I've always theorized that savants can do what they do because > they've been able to get direct access to, and train, a fairly > small number of neurons in their brain, to accomplish highly > specialized (and thus rather unusual) calculations. > > I'm thinking specifically of Ramanujan, the Hindi mathematician. > He appears to have had access to a "multiply-add" type circuit > in his brain, and could do symbolic long division and > multiplication as a result -- I base this on studying some of > the things he came up with -- after a while, it seems to be > clear how he came up with it (even if the feat is clearly not > reproducible). > > In a sense, similar feats are possible by using a modern > computer with a good algebra system. Simon Plouffe seems > to be a modern-day example of this: he noodles around with > his systems, and finds various interesting relationships that > would otherwise be obscure/unknown. He does this without > any particularly deep or expansive training in math (whence > some of his friction with "real academics"). If Simon could > get a computer-algebra chip implanted in his brain, (i.e. > with a very, very user-freindly user-interface) so that he > could work the algebra system just by thinking about it, > I bet his output would resemble that of Ramanujan a whole > lot more than it already does -- as it were, he's hobbled by > a crappy user interface. > > Thus, let me theorize: by studying savants with MRI and > what-not, we may find a way of getting a much better > man-machine interface. That is, currently, electrodes > are always implanted in motor neurons (or visual cortex, etc) > i.e. in places of the brain with very low levels of abstraction > from the "real word". It would be interesting to move up the > level of abstraction, and I think that studying how savants > access the "magic circuits" in thier brain will open up a > method for high-level interfaces to external computing > machinery. > > --linas > > > ------------------------------------------- > agi > Archives: http://www.listbox.com/member/archive/303/=now > RSS Feed: http://www.listbox.com/member/archive/rss/303/ > Modify Your Subscription: http://www.listbox.com/member/?member_id=8550374&id_secret=106510213-004feb > Powered by Listbox: http://www.listbox.com > -- Vladimir Nesov robotact at gmail.com http://causalityrelay.wordpress.com/ From robotact at gmail.com Tue Jul 1 04:42:17 2008 From: robotact at gmail.com (Vladimir Nesov) Date: Tue, 1 Jul 2008 08:42:17 +0400 Subject: [ExI] Savants and user-interfaces [was Re: [agi] WHAT SORT OF HARDWARE $33K AND $850K BUYS TODAY FOR USE IN AGI In-Reply-To: <3ae3aa420806302131x4896a50bge795ffcdab8125eb@mail.gmail.com> References: <3ae3aa420806302043v10873921mb6b19fa836a44285@mail.gmail.com> <3ae3aa420806302131x4896a50bge795ffcdab8125eb@mail.gmail.com> Message-ID: On Tue, Jul 1, 2008 at 8:31 AM, Linas Vepstas wrote: > > Why binary? > > I once skimmed a biography of Ramanujan, he started > multiplying numbers in his head as a pre-teen. I suspect > it was grindingly boring, but given the surroundings, might > have been the most fun thing he could think of. If you're > autistic, then focusing obsessively on some task might > be a great way to pass the time, but if you're more or less > normal, I doubt you'll get very far with obsessive-compulsive > self-training -- and that's the problem, isn't it? > If the signals have properties of their own, I'm afraid they will start interfering with each other, which won't allow the circuit to execute in real time. Binary signals, on the other hand, can be encoded by the activation of nodes of the circuit, active/inactive. If you have an AND gate that leads from symbols S1 and S2 to S3, you learn to remember S3 only when you see both S1 and S2 (probably you'll still need complementary symbol to develop negative, so you'll also need -S1, -S2 and -S3, so that -S3 is activated (recalled) when you see S1 and -S2, whole table. You'll also need separate symbols for each node in each gate. Probably randomly generated hieroglyph-like symbols are a good way to create new categories in the mind for new nodes in the circuit, and also to train yourself to recall the right answers on the gates, by drawing them together. -- Vladimir Nesov robotact at gmail.com http://causalityrelay.wordpress.com/ From spike66 at att.net Tue Jul 1 04:21:08 2008 From: spike66 at att.net (spike) Date: Mon, 30 Jun 2008 21:21:08 -0700 Subject: [ExI] Bryan & Kevin's exchange on technology In-Reply-To: Message-ID: <200807010448.m614lpoe021415@andromeda.ziaspace.com> > Kevin Freels ... > > > Apologies for the length of this, but I have to add my... > > That technology was bought, borrowed, or stolen from stable > economies that developed the technologies in the first place. Kevin and others if applicable, please trim when you reply. Otherwise it makes the archives junky, repetitive and unusable for the sight impaired, thanks. spike From spike66 at att.net Tue Jul 1 05:20:50 2008 From: spike66 at att.net (spike) Date: Mon, 30 Jun 2008 22:20:50 -0700 Subject: [ExI] ants again Message-ID: <200807010521.m615Krlj008953@andromeda.ziaspace.com> OK here's a kick in the pants. Please someone check my line of reasoning. My fruit trees were infested with aphid-farmer ants, so I put a sticky barrier ring around the base. A few ants ventured into the goo, became... gooed, but the others apparently saw and did not follow, so the ants on the ground were stuck on the ground and the ants in the tree were stranded in the tree. The tree was heavily infested, with perhaps ten thousand ants, and even more aphids. So yesterday I noticed that the ants were milling about on the tree, but that they appeared to have forgotten their aphid flocks. Most of the aphids appeared untended. Today I noticed something even more curious. Most of the ants were gone! Still skerjillions of them on the ground milling about, but the trees had only perhaps 10 to 20 percent of the original number. So all I can figure is that ants apparently fall out of their trees. I don't know where else or how else they would be going? Ideas? If they routinely fall out of the trees upon which they farm, and just go around and climb back up, and if now they cannot get back up, and 80 to 90 percent are gone after two days, then it is close enough first order estimate that any given ant falls from the tree about once a day on average or slightly more often. Did anyone here know, or did you ever observe ants falling from trees? Perhaps we just weren't setting up the experiment correctly, or it is too difficult to see ants falling from trees. If an ant falls an average of about once a day, and I set up a piece of white cardboard under the tree on a platform that disallows ants from coming up from below, I should be able to observe an ant falling upon the cardboard at a rate of a couple per minute, ja? I always assumed that the ants protect the aphids. So what if now the ants fall out of the tree, but the aphids don't? Would I expect to see big mean ladybugs show up and begin to devour the unprotected aphids? Or would the ladybugs just assume the presence of ants and go elsewhere? Any ideas? Granted the extropic angle of this particular topic is tenuous at best, so feel free to reply offlist if this interests you, or post here until the drones start to complain. spike -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From robotact at gmail.com Tue Jul 1 07:27:17 2008 From: robotact at gmail.com (Vladimir Nesov) Date: Tue, 1 Jul 2008 11:27:17 +0400 Subject: [ExI] Savants and user-interfaces [was Re: [agi] WHAT SORT OF HARDWARE $33K AND $850K BUYS TODAY FOR USE IN AGI In-Reply-To: <3ae3aa420806302302s246fccd0ycd42b87fa3239471@mail.gmail.com> References: <3ae3aa420806302043v10873921mb6b19fa836a44285@mail.gmail.com> <3ae3aa420806302131x4896a50bge795ffcdab8125eb@mail.gmail.com> <3ae3aa420806302302s246fccd0ycd42b87fa3239471@mail.gmail.com> Message-ID: On Tue, Jul 1, 2008 at 10:02 AM, Linas Vepstas wrote: > > What are you trying to accomplish here? I don't see where > you are trying to go with this. > > I don't think a human can consciously train one or two neurons > to do something, we train millions at a time. -- I'm guessing > savants only employ a few tens of million neurons (give or take a > few orders of magnitude) -- to do their stuff. > > Still, an array of 1K by 1K electrodes is well within current > technology, we just don't know where to hook this up to, > with the exception of simple motor areas, retina, and bit > of the auditory circuits. > Certainly nothing to do with individual neurons. Basically, it's possible to train a finite state automaton in the mind through association. You see a certain combination of properties, you think the symbol that describes this combination. If such automaton is trained not just to handle natural data (such as language), but to a specifically designed circuit plan, it'll probably be possible to use it as a directly accessible 'add-on' to the brain that implements specific simple function efficiently, such as some operation with numbers using a clever algorithm in a way alien to normal deliberative learning. You don't learn to perform a task, but to execute individual steps of an algorithm that performs a task. -- Vladimir Nesov robotact at gmail.com http://causalityrelay.wordpress.com/ From avantguardian2020 at yahoo.com Tue Jul 1 08:42:40 2008 From: avantguardian2020 at yahoo.com (The Avantguardian) Date: Tue, 1 Jul 2008 01:42:40 -0700 (PDT) Subject: [ExI] ants again In-Reply-To: <200807010521.m615Krlj008953@andromeda.ziaspace.com> Message-ID: <294728.61635.qm@web65414.mail.ac4.yahoo.com> --- spike wrote: > Today I noticed something even more curious. Most of the ants were gone! > Still skerjillions of them on the ground milling about, but the trees had > only perhaps 10 to 20 percent of the original number. So all I can figure > is that ants apparently fall out of their trees. I don't know where else or > how else they would be going? Ideas? Keen observation, Spike. Unfortunatly these guys beat you to it by a few years: http://berkeley.edu/news/media/releases/2005/02/09_ants.shtml > > If they routinely fall out of the trees upon which they farm, and just go > around and climb back up, and if now they cannot get back up, and 80 to 90 > percent are gone after two days, then it is close enough first order > estimate that any given ant falls from the tree about once a day on average > or slightly more often. According to the article, they fall off at will to avoid predators for example. The Peruvian species mentioned in the article apparently even glide to some degree, making 180 turns in midair to land on the same tree further down. > Did anyone here know, or did you ever observe ants falling from trees? > Perhaps we just weren't setting up the experiment correctly, or it is too > difficult to see ants falling from trees. If an ant falls an average of > about once a day, and I set up a piece of white cardboard under the tree on > a platform that disallows ants from coming up from below, I should be able > to observe an ant falling upon the cardboard at a rate of a couple per > minute, ja? Perhaps the wind is a factor? It would be interesting to see whether they are falling off by accident or purposely jumping. It would be cool if the species you are watching can glide like Cephalotes atratus. It does make a lot of sense to me too. Ants are essentially eusocial wingless wasps. The queens and drones in fact do have wings until they mate. So even without wings, a worker ant probably has most of the other "flight instrumentation" so to speak. > I always assumed that the ants protect the aphids. So what if now the ants > fall out of the tree, but the aphids don't? Would I expect to see big mean > ladybugs show up and begin to devour the unprotected aphids? Yes. Or the green lacewing whose larvae are called "aphid lions". Ladybug larvae are sometimes called "aphid alligators" because the kind of do look like little black alligators with orange markings. Lions and alligators, oh my. :-) > Or would the > ladybugs just assume the presence of ants and go elsewhere? Any ideas? Advertising? I am just kidding but it will probably take some time. Adult ladybugs would probably have to mate and lay eggs on your trees for a few generations to really make a dent in a formerly well-tended herd of aphids. Also the larvae of both ladybugs and lacewings are more voracious than the adults. I wouldn't leave it to chance. Army ants in the Amazon Rainforest build bridges out of their own bodies to cross piranha-filled rivers so I wouldn't put it past your ants to eventually figure out a way around your "ring o' sticky doom". If want to take advantage of the window of opportunity, you can buy ladybugs and green lacewings here for about $15. http://www.gardensalive.com/search.asp?ss=green+lacewings&eid=092706GA&sid=143369&gclid=CLmShr2UnpQCFR0ZagodMUsvtg&bhcd2=1214897007 http://www.gardensalive.com/product.asp?pn=5065&ss=ladybugs > Granted the extropic angle of this particular topic is tenuous at best, so > feel free to reply offlist if this interests you, or post here until the > drones start to complain. Considering that drones only live long enough to mate with the queen, why give them any say in this? ;-) Actually I could make a case for aphids being appropriate for the list but I will leave that as an exercise for the reader. Hint: it has to do with the females. Stuart LaForge alt email: stuart"AT"ucla.edu "In ancient times they had no statistics so that they had to fall back on lies."- Stephen Leacock From amara at amara.com Tue Jul 1 14:05:20 2008 From: amara at amara.com (Amara Graps) Date: Tue, 1 Jul 2008 08:05:20 -0600 Subject: [ExI] ants again Message-ID: Dear Spike, Is it possible that the male ants could be of the flying variety? If so, that's trouble for you.. they could carry off some of the aphids to another tree. I would make an all-out assault on the ants-aphids, if I were you, and unleash an army of ladybugs to deal with the problem. And show Isaac what happens when humans wish to modify their corner of an elaborate ecosystem. Could be educational for both of you! Last April, I gave my 7 year old nephew an ant farm for his birthday.. I should have just sent him to your fruit trees! ;-) Ciao, Amara -- Amara Graps, PhD www.amara.com Research Scientist, Southwest Research Institute (SwRI), Boulder, Colorado From kevinfreels at insightbb.com Tue Jul 1 14:21:47 2008 From: kevinfreels at insightbb.com (Kevin Freels) Date: Tue, 01 Jul 2008 09:21:47 -0500 Subject: [ExI] Bryan & Kevin's exchange on technology In-Reply-To: <200807010448.m614lpoe021415@andromeda.ziaspace.com> References: <200807010448.m614lpoe021415@andromeda.ziaspace.com> Message-ID: > > > Kevin and others if applicable, please trim when you > reply. Otherwise it > makes the archives junky, repetitive and unusable for the sight > impaired,thanks. > > spike > > Yeah, that's my fault. I was using a clunky webmail interface at the time and couldn't figure out how to trim it. It wouldn't let me for some reason....... I do usually try to trim where applicable. :-) From lcorbin at rawbw.com Tue Jul 1 15:10:09 2008 From: lcorbin at rawbw.com (Lee Corbin) Date: Tue, 1 Jul 2008 08:10:09 -0700 Subject: [ExI] Wondering if we'd be Better Off with Fewer People References: <1214688352_9942@s6.cableone.net><200806290550.m5T5oDL8028048@andromeda.ziaspace.com><1214768699_668@s2.cableone.net> <4380BC59-1D3A-45BA-A085-F7924BB9DCA1@mac.com> Message-ID: <040601c8db8c$b5bbd770$6401a8c0@homeef7b612677> Samantha writes > Of course we (as a species, nothing personal) usually are [sanguine] as long as > the dying is somewhere else. I have heard too many educated and > generally caring people banter the notion that the world would be > better off with around 90% less people. I posit that in their imaginings they're not in the 90%. > They entertain this notion without admitting the horrors of getting > there and while they insist they are not promoting mass death. You have to break a few eggs to get an omelet, as they've been saying for well over a century. I'm with those who think the world is vastly underpopulated, and hope that various breakthoughs in coming years make it really obvious to everyone that many, many more people can be sustained than at present. Before colonizing space, humans could colonize the ocean bottoms, and before doing that, colonize antarctica and the deserts, and before that, the swamps. The only problem is that living in these places is just not as much fun, and that's why in the U.S. many of the middle states are losing population. Lee From hkhenson at rogers.com Tue Jul 1 16:43:33 2008 From: hkhenson at rogers.com (hkhenson) Date: Tue, 01 Jul 2008 09:43:33 -0700 Subject: [ExI] antennas and cell phones In-Reply-To: <200806302211.08408.kanzure@gmail.com> References: <958531.95774.qm@web27002.mail.ukl.yahoo.com> <200806302211.08408.kanzure@gmail.com> Message-ID: <1214930797_873@S4.cableone.net> At 08:11 PM 6/30/2008, Bryan wrote: >On Monday 30 June 2008, Tom Nowell wrote: snip > > Well, in Burma the cyclone took the telecoms network down. Telecoms > > Sans Frontieres offered to send in telecoms engineers to put up a > > temporary network and offer every refugee a phone call to someone, so > > they could let relatives know what was happening. The temporary > > network would also allow aid agencies on the ground to co-ordinate > > better. The Burmese government rejected this, and kept aid agencies > > out. In Burma, your cell phone IS just a paper weight. As to Bryan's > > point - a cellular network requires a fair amount of technology, > > you're not likely to knock this up in your backyard. Without a > > certain degree of civilisation, it's hard to rebuild a downed > > network. > >Go read some of the antenna documents I linked to Keith. I have a story related to antennas I tell that I have meant to write up for a long time. In the summer of 1961, between freshman and sophomore years, I could not find a summer job so I studied up for a first class commercial radio telephone licence, something that doesn't even exist any more, but in those days was needed to operate a transmitter. I took the test, got it and moved to Tucson where I had been going to school. Went to work for KVOA-TV which was that summer building a new transmitter on top of the Catalina mountains north of Tucson. The building construction was mostly finished. What we were doing was to put in the transmitter, the controls, the microwave link up from the studio and such. There were 5 or 6 of us and we worked both at the studio and on the mountain depending on what needed to be done. Among other things I picked up the skill of brazing 4 inch wide grounding strips that were placed in all the cable troughs. One of my co-workers was from Turkey. His family was well off. He was bright enough to have a MS degree from MIT and was 6-8 years older than me. He showed me photographs of his master's project, a high gain Yagi antenna. From the dimensions of it, it was up in the current 2.4 GHz cell phone band. His family's intent was for him to go back to Turkey and eventually become the head of the national telephone company. He was working this physical level job to gain experience. Man did he need it. I have never run into a person so inept at the kind of skills I took for granted. A 6-32 tap isn't that sturdy. I have broken a few of them tapping holes, but this guy managed to break 6 of them in a day. One of the days we were working out of the studio I went into the shop area and found him tangled up like a kitten with a ball of string. He had been given the task of making a cable that ran from the transmitter to the control console. The cable was to be (as I recall) 30 wires each 30 feet long with lugs soldered on the ends. I found him trying to measure out these cables with a one foot ruler. He had about 6 cut and when the wires were made into the cable, the wires randomly varied by a few feet. I showed him the obvious way of turning over a chair and putting a pipe through the cable spool then marking off a distance on the floor by counting the one foot floor tiles. Then it was a matter of pulling a wire out and cutting it to length. This obvious stratagem did not occur to him. I was fascinated and spent some time when we were making the hour and a half drive up the mountain drawing him out about his childhood. He had never touched at tool nor even watched someone working on a car, this simply being below the social place of his family. >It is not >impossible to do communications in your backyard. In the case of wired >communication, go get a string and place it between two cups and >whisper in one cup, listen through the other, over a suitable distance >that I sadly forget the mathematical definition of. Ah, yes, the string telephone length function. Without new cell phones, how long would the cell network be useful? Keith From kanzure at gmail.com Tue Jul 1 17:49:47 2008 From: kanzure at gmail.com (Bryan Bishop) Date: Tue, 1 Jul 2008 12:49:47 -0500 Subject: [ExI] antennas and cell phones In-Reply-To: <1214930797_873@S4.cableone.net> References: <958531.95774.qm@web27002.mail.ukl.yahoo.com> <200806302211.08408.kanzure@gmail.com> <1214930797_873@S4.cableone.net> Message-ID: <200807011249.48009.kanzure@gmail.com> On Tuesday 01 July 2008, hkhenson wrote: > Without new cell phones, how long would the cell network be useful? Alright, fine, we'll go with traditional radios from hand-made vacuum tubes. But remember the original discussion was more about the possibility of making these things and how economics doesn't make all of this 'magical' -- i.e., inaccessible to us. It just looks that way. As for cell phones, then radios, then just bit transmission with smoke stacks, we can go all the way down the line of technology, but that's missing the point. Here's an interesting kit I just found: http://blog.makezine.com/archive/2008/03/vacuum_tube_radio_kit.html There was a guy in France who recently got some fame for making his own vacuum tubes. I don't know why. Something about robotics, maybe. http://hardware.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=08/01/08/239209 Other vacuum tube links: http://www.pmillett.com/technical_books_online.htm http://www.tubeworld.com/tubes.html http://www.vacuumtubesinc.com/ http://www.repairfaq.org/ELE/F_Tubes.html#TUBES_024 http://www.vacuumtubes.net/How_Vacuum_Tubes_Work.htm I also read a lot on vacuum chambers, but some good that does us for radios, eh? - Bryan ________________________________________ http://heybryan.org/ From stefano.vaj at gmail.com Tue Jul 1 21:52:59 2008 From: stefano.vaj at gmail.com (Stefano Vaj) Date: Tue, 1 Jul 2008 23:52:59 +0200 Subject: [ExI] Wondering if we'd be Better Off with Fewer People In-Reply-To: <040601c8db8c$b5bbd770$6401a8c0@homeef7b612677> References: <1214688352_9942@s6.cableone.net> <200806290550.m5T5oDL8028048@andromeda.ziaspace.com> <1214768699_668@s2.cableone.net> <4380BC59-1D3A-45BA-A085-F7924BB9DCA1@mac.com> <040601c8db8c$b5bbd770$6401a8c0@homeef7b612677> Message-ID: <580930c20807011452j6fbcc380l1893d8edee87bb29@mail.gmail.com> On Tue, Jul 1, 2008 at 5:10 PM, Lee Corbin wrote: > I'm with those who think the world is vastly underpopulated, > and hope that various breakthoughs in coming years make > it really obvious to everyone that many, many more people > can be sustained than at present. Before colonizing space, > humans could colonize the ocean bottoms, and before doing > that, colonize antarctica and the deserts, and before that, > the swamps. The only problem is that living in these places > is just not as much fun, and that's why in the U.S. many of > the middle states are losing population. I am inclined to agree. My main concern, however, is what produces and is produced by the lowering of demographic pressure. A longevist society should not, and hopefully need not, be a society of the old. Stefano Va From hkhenson at rogers.com Wed Jul 2 00:18:17 2008 From: hkhenson at rogers.com (hkhenson) Date: Tue, 01 Jul 2008 17:18:17 -0700 Subject: [ExI] Wondering if we'd be Better Off with Fewer People In-Reply-To: <580930c20807011452j6fbcc380l1893d8edee87bb29@mail.gmail.co m> References: <1214688352_9942@s6.cableone.net> <200806290550.m5T5oDL8028048@andromeda.ziaspace.com> <1214768699_668@s2.cableone.net> <4380BC59-1D3A-45BA-A085-F7924BB9DCA1@mac.com> <040601c8db8c$b5bbd770$6401a8c0@homeef7b612677> <580930c20807011452j6fbcc380l1893d8edee87bb29@mail.gmail.com> Message-ID: <1214959304_2918@s2.cableone.net> At 02:52 PM 7/1/2008, you wrote: >On Tue, Jul 1, 2008 at 5:10 PM, Lee Corbin wrote: > > I'm with those who think the world is vastly underpopulated, > > and hope that various breakthoughs in coming years make > > it really obvious to everyone that many, many more people > > can be sustained than at present. Before colonizing space, > > humans could colonize the ocean bottoms, and before doing > > that, colonize antarctica and the deserts, and before that, > > the swamps. The only problem is that living in these places > > is just not as much fun, and that's why in the U.S. many of > > the middle states are losing population. > >I am inclined to agree. My main concern, however, is what produces and >is produced by the lowering of demographic pressure. A longevist >society should not, and hopefully need not, be a society of the old. You can't avoid it. Exponential growth, even linear growth, will fill any finite carrying capacity. At that point the birth rate and the longevity become mathematically coupled. The math is in the Gregory Clark paper I have posted pointers to a number of times. Keith From brent.allsop at comcast.net Wed Jul 2 01:18:49 2008 From: brent.allsop at comcast.net (Brent Allsop) Date: Tue, 01 Jul 2008 19:18:49 -0600 Subject: [ExI] New animation - is it familiar to you? In-Reply-To: <4558B939C25840829CFC47D25EEA7674@GinaSony> References: <4558B939C25840829CFC47D25EEA7674@GinaSony> Message-ID: <486AD779.1010100@comcast.net> Gina, As usual, was fun to watch. Brent Gina Miller wrote: > Nanogirl here ~ > I began work on this new animation project on the 22nd. This was > something I have wanted to do for sometime, but I have a lot of ideas > that I want to pursue and I set them aside because there are bigger > projects that I am working on. I tried to ignore this just the same, > but there is a painting hanging above the bed and every night I see > it, until finally I could resist no longer. Now that I am finished > with the animation, the painting will speak to me in a different way. > I worked very hard on this animation every day (and night), and I am > so happy to have it completed. You will be able to see the actual > development of the animation itself, in this piece ~ I'm calling it a > "work in process animation". Oh, and when you see the first credit, > it's not the end it's the middle and it's an indicator that you will > be going backwards... There is more information about this online, but > I'm going to put it on a special separate page so that you (my extropy > friends) can watch the movie without any information so that there is > the element of surprise. I think and wish upon star that you will > really like this one because you will most likely be familiar with > part of it... turn up your volume. Here is the link: > http://www.nanogirl.com/personal/newanimation.html (you'll want to > read this page fully!). > > Best wishes > > Gina "Nanogirl" Miller > Nanotechnology Industries > http://www.nanoindustries.com > Personal: http://www.nanogirl.com > Animation Blog: http://maxanimation.blogspot.com/ > Craft blog: http://nanogirlblog.blogspot.com/ > Foresight Senior Associate http://www.foresight.org > Nanotechnology Advisor Extropy Institute http://www.extropy.org > Email: nanogirl at halcyon.com > "Nanotechnology: Solutions for the future." > ------------------------------------------------------------------------ > > _______________________________________________ > extropy-chat mailing list > extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org > http://lists.extropy.org/mailman/listinfo.cgi/extropy-chat > -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From nanogirl at halcyon.com Wed Jul 2 01:32:52 2008 From: nanogirl at halcyon.com (Gina Miller) Date: Tue, 1 Jul 2008 18:32:52 -0700 Subject: [ExI] New animation - is it familiar to you? In-Reply-To: <486AD779.1010100@comcast.net> References: <4558B939C25840829CFC47D25EEA7674@GinaSony> <486AD779.1010100@comcast.net> Message-ID: <787105D24DCE4670A220FF32419509C0@GinaSony> Thanks Brent! Gina ----- Original Message ----- From: Brent Allsop To: ExI chat list Sent: Tuesday, July 01, 2008 6:18 PM Subject: Re: [ExI] New animation - is it familiar to you? Gina, As usual, was fun to watch. Brent Gina Miller wrote: Nanogirl here ~ I began work on this new animation project on the 22nd. This was something I have wanted to do for sometime, but I have a lot of ideas that I want to pursue and I set them aside because there are bigger projects that I am working on. I tried to ignore this just the same, but there is a painting hanging above the bed and every night I see it, until finally I could resist no longer. Now that I am finished with the animation, the painting will speak to me in a different way. I worked very hard on this animation every day (and night), and I am so happy to have it completed. You will be able to see the actual development of the animation itself, in this piece ~ I'm calling it a "work in process animation". Oh, and when you see the first credit, it's not the end it's the middle and it's an indicator that you will be going backwards... There is more information about this online, but I'm going to put it on a special separate page so that you (my extropy friends) can watch the movie without any information so that there is the element of surprise. I think and wish upon star that you will really like this one because you will most likely be familiar with part of it... turn up your volume. Here is the link: http://www.nanogirl.com/personal/newanimation.html (you'll want to read this page fully!). Best wishes Gina "Nanogirl" Miller Nanotechnology Industries http://www.nanoindustries.com Personal: http://www.nanogirl.com Animation Blog: http://maxanimation.blogspot.com/ Craft blog: http://nanogirlblog.blogspot.com/ Foresight Senior Associate http://www.foresight.org Nanotechnology Advisor Extropy Institute http://www.extropy.org Email: nanogirl at halcyon.com "Nanotechnology: Solutions for the future." ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- _______________________________________________ extropy-chat mailing list extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org http://lists.extropy.org/mailman/listinfo.cgi/extropy-chat ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ _______________________________________________ extropy-chat mailing list extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org http://lists.extropy.org/mailman/listinfo.cgi/extropy-chat -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From spike66 at att.net Wed Jul 2 01:52:55 2008 From: spike66 at att.net (spike) Date: Tue, 1 Jul 2008 18:52:55 -0700 Subject: [ExI] wicked cool astronomy video + 150th birthday for evolution Message-ID: <200807020219.m622JcuV019762@andromeda.ziaspace.com> Check out this my friends: http://articles.mercola.com/sites/articles/archive/2008/06/21/the-hubble-dee p-field-the-most-important-image-ever-taken.aspx?source=nl Is this cool or what? And the trib to Sagan was just the thing. Happy 150th birthday, theory of evolution! http://www.wired.com/science/discoveries/news/2008/06/dayintech_0701?current Page=all# spike -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avantguardian2020 at yahoo.com Wed Jul 2 01:55:45 2008 From: avantguardian2020 at yahoo.com (The Avantguardian) Date: Tue, 1 Jul 2008 18:55:45 -0700 (PDT) Subject: [ExI] ants again In-Reply-To: Message-ID: <220232.85755.qm@web65416.mail.ac4.yahoo.com> --- Amara Graps wrote: > I would make an all-out assault on the ants-aphids, if I were you, > and unleash an army of ladybugs to deal with the problem. And show > Isaac what happens when humans wish to modify their corner of an > elaborate ecosystem. Could be educational for both of you! Indeed. A lesson in environmental engineering and a study of the benefits of a well executed strategy of "divide and conquer" rolled into one. Bueno! Stuart LaForge alt email: stuart"AT"ucla.edu "In ancient times they had no statistics so that they had to fall back on lies."- Stephen Leacock From femmechakra at yahoo.ca Wed Jul 2 03:50:45 2008 From: femmechakra at yahoo.ca (Anna Taylor) Date: Tue, 1 Jul 2008 20:50:45 -0700 (PDT) Subject: [ExI] New animation - is it familiar to you? Message-ID: <932279.90506.qm@web30404.mail.mud.yahoo.com> It's funny how people can interpret a piece of artwork in so many different ways. I watched the clip and the first thing that I remembered was the music. I remembered how many times I danced to it as a young child and how many times my teacher or parents had taken me to see the ballet. They where very fond memories so thank you for the recall. I'm not much of connaisseur of painters or paintings so that too was great education. In all, I would put it in the lot of best performances:) Hope you are doing well. Anna Nanogirl here ~ I began work on this new animation project on the 22nd. This was something I have wanted to do for sometime, but I have a lot of ideas that I want to pursue and I set them aside because there are bigger projects that I am working on. I tried to ignore this just the same, but there is a painting hanging above the bed and every night I see it, until finally I could resist no longer. Now that I am finished with the animation, the painting will speak to me in a different way. I worked very hard on this animation every day (and night), and I am so happy to have it completed. You will be able to see the actual development of the animation itself, in this piece ~ I'm calling it a "work in process animation". Oh, and when you see the first credit, it's not the end it's the middle and it's an indicator that you will be going backwards... There is more information about this online, but I'm going to put it on a special separate page so that you (my extropy friends) can watch the movie without any information so that there is the element of surprise. I think and wish upon star that you will really like this one because you will most likely be familiar with part of it... turn up your volume. Here is the link: http://www.nanogirl.com/personal/newanimation.html (you'll want to read this page fully!). Best wishes Gina "Nanogirl" Miller Nanotechnology Industries http://www.nanoindustries.com Personal: http://www.nanogirl.com Animation Blog: http://maxanimation.blogspot.com/ Craft blog: http://nanogirlblog.blogspot.com/ Foresight Senior Associate http://www.foresight.org Nanotechnology Advisor Extropy Institute http://www.extropy.org Email: nanogirl at halcyon.com "Nanotechnology: Solutions for the future." __________________________________________________________________ Yahoo! Canada Toolbar: Search from anywhere on the web, and bookmark your favourite sites. Download it now at http://ca.toolbar.yahoo.com. From lcorbin at rawbw.com Wed Jul 2 04:20:06 2008 From: lcorbin at rawbw.com (Lee Corbin) Date: Tue, 1 Jul 2008 21:20:06 -0700 Subject: [ExI] Wondering if we'd be Better Off with Fewer People References: <1214688352_9942@s6.cableone.net><200806290550.m5T5oDL8028048@andromeda.ziaspace.com><1214768699_668@s2.cableone.net><4380BC59-1D3A-45BA-A085-F7924BB9DCA1@mac.com><040601c8db8c$b5bbd770$6401a8c0@homeef7b612677><580930c20807011452j6fbcc380l1893d8edee87bb29@mail.gmail.com> <1214959304_2918@s2.cableone.net> Message-ID: <044101c8dbfb$82ba49a0$6401a8c0@homeef7b612677> Keith writes > Stefano writes >> [Lee wrote] >> > I'm with those who think the world is vastly underpopulated, >> > and hope that various breakthoughs in coming years make >> > it really obvious to everyone that many, many more people >> > can be sustained than at present. Before colonizing space, >> > humans could colonize the ocean bottoms, and before doing >> > that, colonize antarctica and the deserts, and before that, >> > the swamps. The only problem is that living in these places >> > is just not as much fun, and that's why in the U.S. many of >> > the middle states are losing population. >> >>I am inclined to agree. My main concern, however, is what produces and >>is produced by the lowering of demographic pressure. A longevist >>society should not, and hopefully need not, be a society of the old. I would look forward to population growth the traditional way (at least at first). Of course it would be great if it became fashionable to take eugenic concerns into account. > You can't avoid it. Exponential growth, even linear growth, will > fill any finite carrying capacity. Malthus himself made this point, of course, and was entirely correct, but *only*, ironically, up to the very time in which he lived. Ever since, human standard of living has easily outpaced population growth, except in some places suffering from an inequality of capitalism and freedom. It's "merely" a matter of energy. Even forgetting a singularity, people won't need to be uploaded or become physically smaller for still a very long time. If we got to Trantor's population density (which I'd put at around 10,000 people per square mile - less that San Francisco's), then since the surface of the Earth is around 200,000,000 square miles (counting the oceans), we could get to 10^4 * 2*10^8, or around a couple of trillion before some people would have to be living on the surface of the oceans and some on the floors, and before we'd have to pack 'em in Manhatten style. Lee > At that point the birth rate and the longevity become mathematically > coupled. The math is in the Gregory Clark paper I have posted > pointers to a number of times. > > Keith From nanogirl at halcyon.com Wed Jul 2 04:37:17 2008 From: nanogirl at halcyon.com (Gina Miller) Date: Tue, 1 Jul 2008 21:37:17 -0700 Subject: [ExI] New animation - is it familiar to you? In-Reply-To: <932279.90506.qm@web30404.mail.mud.yahoo.com> References: <932279.90506.qm@web30404.mail.mud.yahoo.com> Message-ID: It's very nice to hear that it brought some nostalgia to you, when I was a child we also saw the Nutcracker a few times so it has meaning for me as well. Thank you kindly for the compliment. I think it's wonderful that you feel it informed you in some way too : ) Yes, I am doing well (newest updates: http://ginamiller.blogspot.com/). Kind regards, Gina "Nanogirl" Miller Nanotechnology Industries http://www.nanoindustries.com Personal: http://www.nanogirl.com Animation Blog: http://maxanimation.blogspot.com/ Craft blog: http://nanogirlblog.blogspot.com/ Foresight Senior Associate http://www.foresight.org Nanotechnology Advisor Extropy Institute http://www.extropy.org Email: nanogirl at halcyon.com "Nanotechnology: Solutions for the future." ----- Original Message ----- From: Anna Taylor To: extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org Sent: Tuesday, July 01, 2008 8:50 PM Subject: [ExI] New animation - is it familiar to you? It's funny how people can interpret a piece of artwork in so many different ways. I watched the clip and the first thing that I remembered was the music. I remembered how many times I danced to it as a young child and how many times my teacher or parents had taken me to see the ballet. They where very fond memories so thank you for the recall. I'm not much of connaisseur of painters or paintings so that too was great education. In all, I would put it in the lot of best performances:) Hope you are doing well. Anna Nanogirl here ~ I began work on this new animation project on the 22nd. This was something I have wanted to do for sometime, but I have a lot of ideas that I want to pursue and I set them aside because there are bigger projects that I am working on. I tried to ignore this just the same, but there is a painting hanging above the bed and every night I see it, until finally I could resist no longer. Now that I am finished with the animation, the painting will speak to me in a different way. I worked very hard on this animation every day (and night), and I am so happy to have it completed. You will be able to see the actual development of the animation itself, in this piece ~ I'm calling it a "work in process animation". Oh, and when you see the first credit, it's not the end it's the middle and it's an indicator that you will be going backwards... There is more information about this online, but I'm going to put it on a special separate page so that you (my extropy friends) can watch the movie without any information so that there is the element of surprise. I think and wish upon star that you will really like this one because you will most likely be familiar with part of it... turn up your volume. Here is the link: http://www.nanogirl.com/personal/newanimation.html (you'll want to read this page fully!). Best wishes Gina "Nanogirl" Miller Nanotechnology Industries http://www.nanoindustries.com Personal: http://www.nanogirl.com Animation Blog: http://maxanimation.blogspot.com/ Craft blog: http://nanogirlblog.blogspot.com/ Foresight Senior Associate http://www.foresight.org Nanotechnology Advisor Extropy Institute http://www.extropy.org Email: nanogirl at halcyon.com "Nanotechnology: Solutions for the future." __________________________________________________________________ Yahoo! Canada Toolbar: Search from anywhere on the web, and bookmark your favourite sites. Download it now at http://ca.toolbar.yahoo.com. _______________________________________________ extropy-chat mailing list extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org http://lists.extropy.org/mailman/listinfo.cgi/extropy-chat -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From thespike at satx.rr.com Wed Jul 2 07:36:06 2008 From: thespike at satx.rr.com (Damien Broderick) Date: Wed, 02 Jul 2008 02:36:06 -0500 Subject: [ExI] the vortices of Jupiter Message-ID: <7.0.1.0.2.20080702023000.023481c0@satx.rr.com> This looks really quite remarkable; I've done a bit of googling on the history of telescopic observation of Jupiter, and as far as I tell (am I right, though?) nothing could possibly have seen this well 80 years ago--indeed, perhaps until the 1970s: http://www.scifi.com/sfw/interviews/sfw19051.html Damien Broderick From jnh at vt11.net Wed Jul 2 09:08:54 2008 From: jnh at vt11.net (Jordan Hazen) Date: Wed, 2 Jul 2008 05:08:54 -0400 Subject: [ExI] Oil will never run out In-Reply-To: <200806302142.18254.kanzure@gmail.com> References: <4eaaa0d90806271134qa905ceem4a052b3092346f47@mail.gmail.com> <200806292239.06878.kanzure@gmail.com> <1214800600_578@s2.cableone.net> <200806302142.18254.kanzure@gmail.com> Message-ID: <20080702090844.GQ42544@vt11.net> On Mon, Jun 30, 2008 at 09:42:18PM -0500, Bryan Bishop wrote: > On Sunday 29 June 2008, hkhenson wrote: > > At 08:39 PM 6/29/2008, Bryan wrote: > > > On Sunday 29 June 2008, Kevin Freels wrote: > > > > A cell phone without civilization is just a paper weight. > > > > > > That's not true ... just throw up some towers/antennaes, a few > > > electrical generators and also some distribution equipment. you can > > > make a rudimentary hydrodynamic power generator with wires (or less > > > optimally other shapes) of magnetic materials wrapped around other > > > conductive metals basically, etc. etc. > > > > I was going to just punt this one, but what the heck. ?Bryan, how > > much do you know about what's involved in a cell tower? > > Although I am sure that there is a lot of proprietary electrical > circuits that you can call me out on, I still don't see what's so > difficult. Hell, I have a few friends that get their connectivity via > tin cans and wraps of wire. Kind of like this except more technically > competent: http://binarywolf.com/249/ Sure, building antennas is well within the range of individual endeavor. That would be the easy part. Antennas can be quite simple compared to all the microelectronics, UHF radios, GSM or CDMA encoders and decoders, precision filters, etc. required at a modern cell site. The real complexity is in indoor equipment racks, often housed in a small "hut" down at the tower's base. Consider that while many ham radio operators still custom-build antennas, very few try to construct their own radios any more, particularly for the UHF and microwave bands. Without some vestige of modern civilization, or access to advanced nanotech, how would you hope to fabricate even the simplest integrated circuit (or discrete transistor, for that matter) ? btw, cellular sites usually don't have any local autonomy for handling calls if they're cut off from their central-office switching system (MTSO; basically a specialized computer; one per carrier in each city controls many towers). So, with a conventional design one must add that, and the fiber-optic lines, muxes, etc. in between to the list of necessary infrastructure, which is more fragile than most people realize. -- Jordan. From jnh at vt11.net Wed Jul 2 09:22:40 2008 From: jnh at vt11.net (Jordan Hazen) Date: Wed, 2 Jul 2008 05:22:40 -0400 Subject: [ExI] Oil will never run out In-Reply-To: References: <4eaaa0d90806271134qa905ceem4a052b3092346f47@mail.gmail.com> <200806271459.00630.kanzure@gmail.com> <1214641925_9520@S3.cableone.net> <1214688352_9942@s6.cableone.net> <1214799556_80@s8.cableone.net> Message-ID: <20080702092240.GR42544@vt11.net> On Mon, Jun 30, 2008 at 09:56:21PM -0500, Kevin Freels wrote: > I'm very impressed with the pebble bed reactors by the way. I wish I > could build my own. :-) These reactors look to be an excellent way > to go for the short term. They're a bit wasteful, though, in making it very difficult to reprocess spent fuel within the SiC kernels (though one could see that as an anti-proliferation benefit), while also increasing the mass & volume of waste by throwing away graphite moderator with the spent fuel pebbles. Burnup ratios can be higher than for LWRs, partly offsetting this. My favorite is still the Molten Salt Reactor design out of Oak Ridge, which can run on a wide variety of fuels, with the ability to consume transuranic waste from LWRs and/or operate as a breeder (just barely) without the need for liquid sodium. It allows for an online fueling and reprocessing system that never yields any separated Pu to be diverted. For some reason, the MSR has never gained much of a following, though... perhaps tainted by its early associated with the "atomic powered airplane" project for which is was first developed. -- Jordan. From kanzure at gmail.com Wed Jul 2 10:09:26 2008 From: kanzure at gmail.com (Bryan Bishop) Date: Wed, 2 Jul 2008 05:09:26 -0500 Subject: [ExI] Oil will never run out In-Reply-To: <20080702090844.GQ42544@vt11.net> References: <4eaaa0d90806271134qa905ceem4a052b3092346f47@mail.gmail.com> <200806302142.18254.kanzure@gmail.com> <20080702090844.GQ42544@vt11.net> Message-ID: <200807020509.26955.kanzure@gmail.com> On Wednesday 02 July 2008, Jordan Hazen wrote: > Without some vestige of modern civilization, or access to advanced > nanotech, how would you hope to fabricate even the simplest > integrated circuit (or discrete transistor, for that matter) ? http://heybryan.org/alternate_transistors.html http://heybryan.org/graphene.html http://heybryan.org/instrumentation/instru.html There's a few options worth exploring: * vacuum tubes * graphene nanotransistors via AFM setups * LiquiFETs * Pneumatic/hydrolic systems * and a few others that I am forgetting > btw, cellular sites usually don't have any local autonomy for > handling calls if they're cut off from their central-office switching > system (MTSO; basically a specialized computer; one per carrier in > each city controls many towers). So, with a conventional design one > must add that, and the fiber-optic lines, muxes, etc. in between to > the list of necessary infrastructure, which is more fragile than most > people realize. I'm pretty sure that I remember hearing of analog switching stations. As for the fiber optic lines, just last night I was reading about the synthesis of GI POF fiber optics that does near 20 Gb/sec. It's basically synthesized via a polymerization reaction in a centrifuge running at 3k rpm @ 90 deg C for 7h. Not bad, in comparison to building glasseous fiber optics. But this is getting way, way too specific. Let's get a little bit more extropic. - Bryan ________________________________________ http://heybryan.org/ From amara at amara.com Wed Jul 2 12:10:18 2008 From: amara at amara.com (Amara Graps) Date: Wed, 2 Jul 2008 06:10:18 -0600 Subject: [ExI] the vortices of Jupiter Message-ID: I don't know if it is that amazing. An 8 in telescope can do a good job to display the cloud bands and even some variation within the bands. I don't see why a larger telescope 80 years ago could not have resolved some of the bands into eddies and smaller storms. Here, for example is a 2.6 meter telescope image of Jupiter from the Nordic Optical Telescope, located at La Palma Canary Islands): http://www.solarviews.com/cap/jup/jupiter3.htm Eddies are clearly visible. Even in this brief overview of Jupiter: http://www.solarviews.com/eng/jupiter.htm there is a description of the white oval cloud systems that formed in the 1930s, so the telescopes were resolving the white ovals back then. What Voyager contributed was an extremely high resolution (about 150 km) to the eddies and storms. I'm guessing that you are not finding Jupiter images from 80 years ago is more due to the fact that those old images are not digitized and online, than due to the fact that they don't exist. One check might be to find 80 year old scientific papers about Jupiter's storms, eddies, 'white storms (ovals)' and details of the atmosphere that describe changes over fraction of days. I.e. where these old weather patterns are described in words instead of images. Amara -- Amara Graps, PhD www.amara.com Research Scientist, Southwest Research Institute (SwRI), Boulder, Colorado From hkhenson at rogers.com Wed Jul 2 14:53:41 2008 From: hkhenson at rogers.com (hkhenson) Date: Wed, 02 Jul 2008 07:53:41 -0700 Subject: [ExI] Relays was Oil will never run out In-Reply-To: <200807020509.26955.kanzure@gmail.com> References: <4eaaa0d90806271134qa905ceem4a052b3092346f47@mail.gmail.com> <200806302142.18254.kanzure@gmail.com> <20080702090844.GQ42544@vt11.net> <200807020509.26955.kanzure@gmail.com> Message-ID: <1215010605_6076@s7.cableone.net> At 03:09 AM 7/2/2008, Bryan wrote: >On Wednesday 02 July 2008, Jordan Hazen wrote: > > Without some vestige of modern civilization, or access to advanced > > nanotech, how would you hope to fabricate even the simplest > > integrated circuit (or discrete transistor, for that matter) ? > >http://heybryan.org/alternate_transistors.html >http://heybryan.org/graphene.html >http://heybryan.org/instrumentation/instru.html > >There's a few options worth exploring: >* vacuum tubes >* graphene nanotransistors via AFM setups >* LiquiFETs >* Pneumatic/hydrolic systems >* and a few others that I am forgetting Bryan, have you ever rebuilt a gasoline engine? Put a roof on a house? Poured concrete? Wound a transformer? Run a milling machine or a lathe? Used a drill press? Arc welded? Built circuit boards with surface mounted parts? I am not trying to make fun of you, just trying to get a feel of how much you know about actually making real world things. Part of the reason I ask is this: "Really, for digital logic, all we need is a relay (switch). But the problem is that if you have 20 relays connected in sequence, you get voltage drop-off eventually (obviously) and the circuit just fails completely." Relays have problems, particularly they are slow, but this demonstrates a complete misunderstanding of how you hook up a relay. If you have one relay switching the power for the next one, you can put 20 (or any number) in logical sequence and the final one closes just as solidly as the first. I went to a junior/senior high school. When I was in the 7th grade (about 1955) one of the seniors built a telephone relay setup for the science fair. It played Nim, slowly and with much clicking of the relays. His primitive special purpose computer won first place. I wish I could remember his name because I am sure he did well. Keith From thespike at satx.rr.com Wed Jul 2 16:59:55 2008 From: thespike at satx.rr.com (Damien Broderick) Date: Wed, 02 Jul 2008 11:59:55 -0500 Subject: [ExI] the vortices of Jupiter In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <7.0.1.0.2.20080702114722.02548738@satx.rr.com> At 06:10 AM 7/2/2008 -0600, Amara wrote: >I don't see why a larger telescope 80 years ago could not have resolved >some of the bands into eddies and smaller storms. Here, for example is a >2.6 meter telescope image of Jupiter from the Nordic Optical Telescope, >located at La Palma Canary Islands): >http://www.solarviews.com/cap/jup/jupiter3.htm Okay, Mt. Wilson's 100in Hooker telescope had been seeing for nearly a decade years by then, so maybe. But the Nordic is described in pretty glowing terms, and I wonder what advances are incorporated into it (adaptive optics, say) that would have been unthinkable in 1928? Damien Broderick From kanzure at gmail.com Wed Jul 2 18:14:41 2008 From: kanzure at gmail.com (Bryan Bishop) Date: Wed, 2 Jul 2008 13:14:41 -0500 Subject: [ExI] Relays was Oil will never run out In-Reply-To: <1215010605_6076@s7.cableone.net> References: <4eaaa0d90806271134qa905ceem4a052b3092346f47@mail.gmail.com> <200807020509.26955.kanzure@gmail.com> <1215010605_6076@s7.cableone.net> Message-ID: <200807021314.42391.kanzure@gmail.com> On Wednesday 02 July 2008, hkhenson wrote: > Bryan, have you ever rebuilt a gasoline engine? No. > Put a roof on a house? No. > Poured concrete? Yes. > Wound a transformer? No. > Run a milling machine or a lathe? Yes. > Used a drill press? No. > Arc welded? No. > Built circuit boards with surface mounted parts? Maybe? > Part of the reason I ask is this: > > "Really, for digital logic, all we need is a relay (switch). But the > problem is that if you have 20 relays connected in sequence, you get > voltage drop-off eventually (obviously) and the circuit just fails > completely." > > Relays have problems, particularly they are slow, but this > demonstrates a complete misunderstanding of how you hook up a > relay. If you have one relay switching the power for the next one, > you can put 20 (or any number) in logical sequence and the final one > closes just as solidly as the first. That's good news. - Bryan ________________________________________ http://heybryan.org/ From thespike at satx.rr.com Wed Jul 2 18:42:20 2008 From: thespike at satx.rr.com (Damien Broderick) Date: Wed, 02 Jul 2008 13:42:20 -0500 Subject: [ExI] Relays was Oil will never run out In-Reply-To: <200807021314.42391.kanzure@gmail.com> References: <4eaaa0d90806271134qa905ceem4a052b3092346f47@mail.gmail.com> <200807020509.26955.kanzure@gmail.com> <1215010605_6076@s7.cableone.net> <200807021314.42391.kanzure@gmail.com> Message-ID: <7.0.1.0.2.20080702134025.02634318@satx.rr.com> At 01:14 PM 7/2/2008 -0500, Bryan wrote: > > Built circuit boards with surface mounted parts? > >Maybe? I don't think this is the sort of thing you can do inadvertently and then not be sure it happened. (But then I haven't built one.) Damien Broderick From kanzure at gmail.com Wed Jul 2 18:51:03 2008 From: kanzure at gmail.com (Bryan Bishop) Date: Wed, 2 Jul 2008 13:51:03 -0500 Subject: [ExI] Relays was Oil will never run out In-Reply-To: <7.0.1.0.2.20080702134025.02634318@satx.rr.com> References: <4eaaa0d90806271134qa905ceem4a052b3092346f47@mail.gmail.com> <200807021314.42391.kanzure@gmail.com> <7.0.1.0.2.20080702134025.02634318@satx.rr.com> Message-ID: <200807021351.03540.kanzure@gmail.com> On Wednesday 02 July 2008, Damien Broderick wrote: > At 01:14 PM 7/2/2008 -0500, Bryan wrote: > > > Built circuit boards with surface mounted parts? > > > >Maybe? > > I don't think this is the sort of thing you can do inadvertently and > then not be sure it happened. (But then I haven't built one.) I'm not sure if it's the same thing as breadboarding, or if it's the same thing as wiring stuff up on a surface, etc. I tend to have this terminological gap problem. - Bryan ________________________________________ http://heybryan.org/ From pharos at gmail.com Wed Jul 2 19:29:26 2008 From: pharos at gmail.com (BillK) Date: Wed, 2 Jul 2008 19:29:26 +0000 Subject: [ExI] Relays was Oil will never run out In-Reply-To: <200807021351.03540.kanzure@gmail.com> References: <4eaaa0d90806271134qa905ceem4a052b3092346f47@mail.gmail.com> <200807021314.42391.kanzure@gmail.com> <7.0.1.0.2.20080702134025.02634318@satx.rr.com> <200807021351.03540.kanzure@gmail.com> Message-ID: On Wed, Jul 2, 2008 at 6:51 PM, Bryan Bishop wrote: > I'm not sure if it's the same thing as breadboarding, or if it's the > same thing as wiring stuff up on a surface, etc. I tend to have this > terminological gap problem. > I think Keith is hinting that there is a big difference between reading a book on brain surgery and thinking 'I could do that. It doesn't look that difficult' and actually doing it on your kitchen table. At least that's what I found out when I tried it.. ;) BillK From thespike at satx.rr.com Wed Jul 2 19:37:35 2008 From: thespike at satx.rr.com (Damien Broderick) Date: Wed, 02 Jul 2008 14:37:35 -0500 Subject: [ExI] home neurosurgery In-Reply-To: References: <4eaaa0d90806271134qa905ceem4a052b3092346f47@mail.gmail.com> <200807021314.42391.kanzure@gmail.com> <7.0.1.0.2.20080702134025.02634318@satx.rr.com> <200807021351.03540.kanzure@gmail.com> Message-ID: <7.0.1.0.2.20080702143621.0245bcd0@satx.rr.com> At 07:29 PM 7/2/2008 +0000, BillK wrote: >there is a big difference between >reading a book on brain surgery and thinking 'I could do that. It >doesn't look that difficult' and actually doing it on your kitchen >table. > >At least that's what I found out when I tried it.. ;) No, the trick is to try it first on *someone else*. From kanzure at gmail.com Wed Jul 2 19:56:45 2008 From: kanzure at gmail.com (Bryan Bishop) Date: Wed, 2 Jul 2008 14:56:45 -0500 Subject: [ExI] home neurosurgery In-Reply-To: <7.0.1.0.2.20080702143621.0245bcd0@satx.rr.com> References: <4eaaa0d90806271134qa905ceem4a052b3092346f47@mail.gmail.com> <7.0.1.0.2.20080702143621.0245bcd0@satx.rr.com> Message-ID: <200807021456.46002.kanzure@gmail.com> On Wednesday 02 July 2008, Damien Broderick wrote: > At 07:29 PM 7/2/2008 +0000, BillK wrote: > >there is a big difference between > >reading a book on brain surgery and thinking 'I could do that. It > >doesn't look that difficult' and actually doing it on your kitchen > >table. > > > >At least that's what I found out when I tried it.. ? ;) > > No, the trick is to try it first on *someone else*. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Trepanation I wouldn't recommend it. There are many neurosurgeons and they do, in fact, train people. - Bryan ________________________________________ http://heybryan.org/ From thespike at satx.rr.com Wed Jul 2 20:16:26 2008 From: thespike at satx.rr.com (Damien Broderick) Date: Wed, 02 Jul 2008 15:16:26 -0500 Subject: [ExI] the vortices of Jupiter In-Reply-To: <7.0.1.0.2.20080702114722.02548738@satx.rr.com> References: <7.0.1.0.2.20080702114722.02548738@satx.rr.com> Message-ID: <7.0.1.0.2.20080702151040.023f30d0@satx.rr.com> I looked for comparable pix of Mars; this classic Map of Mars by Eugene Michael Antoniadi (1925) [ at http://www.planetary.org/explore/topics/timelines/mars_1700-1959.html ] isn't too hot, and makes me wonder whether one of Jupiter from that period would be any better. Damien Broderick From hkhenson at rogers.com Wed Jul 2 20:54:50 2008 From: hkhenson at rogers.com (hkhenson) Date: Wed, 02 Jul 2008 13:54:50 -0700 Subject: [ExI] Relays was Oil will never run out In-Reply-To: <200807021351.03540.kanzure@gmail.com> References: <4eaaa0d90806271134qa905ceem4a052b3092346f47@mail.gmail.com> <200807021314.42391.kanzure@gmail.com> <7.0.1.0.2.20080702134025.02634318@satx.rr.com> <200807021351.03540.kanzure@gmail.com> Message-ID: <1215032274_897@S3.cableone.net> At 11:51 AM 7/2/2008, Bryan Bishop wrote: >On Wednesday 02 July 2008, Damien Broderick wrote: > > At 01:14 PM 7/2/2008 -0500, Bryan wrote: > > > > Built circuit boards with surface mounted parts? > > > > > >Maybe? > > > > I don't think this is the sort of thing you can do inadvertently and > > then not be sure it happened. (But then I haven't built one.) > >I'm not sure if it's the same thing as breadboarding, or if it's the >same thing as wiring stuff up on a surface, etc. I tend to have this >terminological gap problem. Most PC boards these days are multi layer and covered with passive parts about the size of a millet seed and active parts with fine spacing (20 mills or less) on the leads. Normally they are built by machines that stick the parts into tiny lumps of solder paste then the whole board is run though an oven to melt the solder. But people sometimes build a few prototype boards with tweezers and a very steady hand. That's become very close to impossible when the board has been designed with ball grid array parts. I have done built boards in the last few years--under a microscope of course. Was surprised at Bryan having run a lathe or mill and not a drill press. The latter is much more common. I don't know what the minimum labor force might be to build modern day electronics. It's not hard for a small company to do it, but they have to depend on parts and services that employ hundreds to make PC boards and companies with tens of thousands or maybe millions for the people who build the integrated circuits. And this is the most heavily automated industry there is. I have done just about every task there is in the industry outside of semiconductor manufacturing, and I know what's involved there. The day may come when the processes are amiable to a home workshop, but at the present it takes the full capacity of an advanced industrial civilization. Keith Keith From hkhenson at rogers.com Wed Jul 2 21:15:37 2008 From: hkhenson at rogers.com (hkhenson) Date: Wed, 02 Jul 2008 14:15:37 -0700 Subject: [ExI] Relays was Oil will never run out In-Reply-To: References: <4eaaa0d90806271134qa905ceem4a052b3092346f47@mail.gmail.com> <200807021314.42391.kanzure@gmail.com> <7.0.1.0.2.20080702134025.02634318@satx.rr.com> <200807021351.03540.kanzure@gmail.com> Message-ID: <1215033521_1016@S3.cableone.net> At 12:29 PM 7/2/2008, BillK wrote: snip >I think Keith is hinting that there is a big difference between >reading a book on brain surgery and thinking 'I could do that. It >doesn't look that difficult' and actually doing it on your kitchen >table. I learned just enough surgery for Alcor to have an appreciation of how hard it is. http://www.cryonet.org/cgi-bin/dsp.cgi?msg=1621 >At least that's what I found out when I tried it.. ;) Heh. Some of these skulls recovered from Peru look like Wiffle Balls Keith From kanzure at gmail.com Wed Jul 2 21:33:09 2008 From: kanzure at gmail.com (Bryan Bishop) Date: Wed, 2 Jul 2008 16:33:09 -0500 Subject: [ExI] Relays was Oil will never run out In-Reply-To: <1215032274_897@S3.cableone.net> References: <4eaaa0d90806271134qa905ceem4a052b3092346f47@mail.gmail.com> <200807021351.03540.kanzure@gmail.com> <1215032274_897@S3.cableone.net> Message-ID: <200807021633.09223.kanzure@gmail.com> On Wednesday 02 July 2008, hkhenson wrote: > At 11:51 AM 7/2/2008, Bryan Bishop wrote: > >On Wednesday 02 July 2008, Damien Broderick wrote: > > > At 01:14 PM 7/2/2008 -0500, Bryan wrote: > > > > > Built circuit boards with surface mounted parts? > > > > > > > > Maybe? > > > > > > I don't think this is the sort of thing you can do inadvertently > > > and then not be sure it happened. (But then I haven't built one.) > > > >I'm not sure if it's the same thing as breadboarding, or if it's the > >same thing as wiring stuff up on a surface, etc. I tend to have this > >terminological gap problem. > > Most PC boards these days are multi layer and covered with passive > parts about the size of a millet seed and active parts with fine > spacing (20 mills or less) on the leads. Normally they are built by > machines that stick the parts into tiny lumps of solder paste then > the whole board is run though an oven to melt the solder. I've certainly done my fair share of PCB boards. > I have done built boards in the last few years--under a microscope of > course. I used to use some clamps to steady boards. Seemed to help. > I don't know what the minimum labor force might be to build modern > day electronics. It's not hard for a small company to do it, but > they have to depend on parts and services that employ hundreds to > make PC boards and companies with tens of thousands or maybe millions > for the people who build the integrated circuits. And this is the > most heavily automated industry there is. In the likely case it's not going to look precisely the same as modern electronics. For instance, semiconductor manufacturing in the home is difficult unless you have very carefully calibrations on vacuum chambers and the CVD chambers and so on, and very carefully produced chemicals for the etching process etc. Easy alternatives might have to be explored. By easy I mean something that doesn't require a few ten thouand amps to purify silicon. > I have done just about every task there is in the industry outside of > semiconductor manufacturing, and I know what's involved there. The > day may come when the processes are amiable to a home workshop, but > at the present it takes the full capacity of an advanced industrial > civilization. Arguably I'd point to the beginnings of the industry. The semiconductor manufacturing technology consisted of some UV lamps and giant lenses taken from photography equipment bought at local shops. There's a good reason why Canon still sells semiconductor fabrication equipment, I specifically recall some photolithography lenses that they manufacture. This is for the 1 micrometer to 50 nm range (or less now, but there were some limits to optical methods). I'd be happy getting 1 mm. - Bryan ________________________________________ http://heybryan.org/ From pharos at gmail.com Wed Jul 2 21:46:44 2008 From: pharos at gmail.com (BillK) Date: Wed, 2 Jul 2008 21:46:44 +0000 Subject: [ExI] the vortices of Jupiter In-Reply-To: <7.0.1.0.2.20080702151040.023f30d0@satx.rr.com> References: <7.0.1.0.2.20080702114722.02548738@satx.rr.com> <7.0.1.0.2.20080702151040.023f30d0@satx.rr.com> Message-ID: On Wed, Jul 2, 2008 at 8:16 PM, Damien Broderick wrote: > I looked for comparable pix of Mars; this classic Map of Mars by Eugene > Michael Antoniadi (1925) [ at > http://www.planetary.org/explore/topics/timelines/mars_1700-1959.html ] > isn't too hot, and makes me wonder whether one of Jupiter from that period > would be any better. > Yes. The artist copied (and artistically enhanced) drawings or early photographs from astronomical telescopes. He has painted the Great Red Spot in the top hemisphere as astronomical telescopes reverse the image. The NASA spacecraft photos have the spot in the bottom hemisphere. Wikipedia says that astronomers had drawn the Great Red Spot and the bands since the 1800s, or even earlier. They knew all about how the spots changed and saw the new spots that appeared in the 1920s. Huge URL for looking inside a book There is a tendency for people to say that if it cannot be found on the web, then it doesn't exist (or never happened). You probably need to go to a big library that has old astronomy books from before 1930 to see drawings and photos from that time. BillK From stefano.vaj at gmail.com Wed Jul 2 22:08:23 2008 From: stefano.vaj at gmail.com (Stefano Vaj) Date: Thu, 3 Jul 2008 00:08:23 +0200 Subject: [ExI] Wondering if we'd be Better Off with Fewer People In-Reply-To: <1214959304_2918@s2.cableone.net> References: <1214688352_9942@s6.cableone.net> <200806290550.m5T5oDL8028048@andromeda.ziaspace.com> <1214768699_668@s2.cableone.net> <4380BC59-1D3A-45BA-A085-F7924BB9DCA1@mac.com> <040601c8db8c$b5bbd770$6401a8c0@homeef7b612677> <580930c20807011452j6fbcc380l1893d8edee87bb29@mail.gmail.com> <1214959304_2918@s2.cableone.net> Message-ID: <580930c20807021508ge45d70dpc4a8b1ab740d373@mail.gmail.com> On Wed, Jul 2, 2008 at 2:18 AM, hkhenson wrote: > You can't avoid it. Exponential growth, even linear growth, will fill any > finite carrying capacity. Obviously, as would do equally well, with time, a linear growth. Only, whatever the demographic pressure of a given population, it never grows forever within the limits of its existing environment. It seeks new environmental niches into which to evolve, and is subject to external limiting factors. This applies both to one-day life span species and one-century life-span species, so that I do not see that an increase in human longevity would change much to it, but for the fact that some components of our species may deliberately opt for their progressive extinction in favour of others. Stefano Vaj From kevinfreels at insightbb.com Wed Jul 2 22:35:01 2008 From: kevinfreels at insightbb.com (Kevin Freels) Date: Wed, 02 Jul 2008 17:35:01 -0500 Subject: [ExI] home neurosurgery In-Reply-To: <7.0.1.0.2.20080702143621.0245bcd0@satx.rr.com> References: <4eaaa0d90806271134qa905ceem4a052b3092346f47@mail.gmail.com> <200807021314.42391.kanzure@gmail.com> <7.0.1.0.2.20080702134025.02634318@satx.rr.com> <200807021351.03540.kanzure@gmail.com> <7.0.1.0.2.20080702143621.0245bcd0@satx.rr.com> Message-ID: > >At least that's what I found out when I tried it.. ? ;) > > No, the trick is to try it first on *someone else*. > Ja. The mirror method produced some negative results. Fortunately the reversal in the mirror was offset by the opposite side of the brain.? -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From kevinfreels at insightbb.com Wed Jul 2 22:37:04 2008 From: kevinfreels at insightbb.com (Kevin Freels) Date: Wed, 02 Jul 2008 17:37:04 -0500 Subject: [ExI] Relays was Oil will never run out In-Reply-To: <1215032274_897@S3.cableone.net> References: <4eaaa0d90806271134qa905ceem4a052b3092346f47@mail.gmail.com> <200807021314.42391.kanzure@gmail.com> <7.0.1.0.2.20080702134025.02634318@satx.rr.com> <200807021351.03540.kanzure@gmail.com> <1215032274_897@S3.cableone.net> Message-ID: ? > ?The > day may come when the processes are amiable to a home workshop, > but > at the present it takes the full capacity of an advanced > industrial > civilization. > > Keith Gathering the raw materials and refining the metal alone would be a significant accomplishment for one person. -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From thespike at satx.rr.com Wed Jul 2 22:40:59 2008 From: thespike at satx.rr.com (Damien Broderick) Date: Wed, 02 Jul 2008 17:40:59 -0500 Subject: [ExI] the vortices of Jupiter In-Reply-To: References: <7.0.1.0.2.20080702114722.02548738@satx.rr.com> <7.0.1.0.2.20080702151040.023f30d0@satx.rr.com> Message-ID: <7.0.1.0.2.20080702173504.0245bff0@satx.rr.com> At 09:46 PM 7/2/2008 +0000, BillK wrote: >You probably need >to go to a big library that has old astronomy books from before 1930 >to see drawings and photos from that time. A consummation devoutly to be wished, but unlikely of occurrence. Thanks for the urls, Bill. I agree about the N/S inversion, but considered it perhaps a conceit of the artist, who knew that such perspectives are entirely arbitrary. I'd be more confident of this interpretation if the Red Spot had been shown headed up or down the page, say, or diagonally; there are certainly covers with the rings of Saturn displayed vertically. It is surprising, though, that Clarke--who was a lad at the time keenly interested in the topic--would not have know all this. Perhaps, though, in his dotage he'd simply forgotten what he knew then. What was I saying? Damien Broderick From kanzure at gmail.com Thu Jul 3 01:43:58 2008 From: kanzure at gmail.com (Bryan Bishop) Date: Wed, 2 Jul 2008 20:43:58 -0500 Subject: [ExI] Kevin Kelly and Dave Gingery (was: Relays (was: Oil)) In-Reply-To: References: <4eaaa0d90806271134qa905ceem4a052b3092346f47@mail.gmail.com> <1215032274_897@S3.cableone.net> Message-ID: <200807022043.58565.kanzure@gmail.com> On Wednesday 02 July 2008, Kevin Freels wrote: > ?Gathering the raw materials and refining the metal alone would be a > significant accomplishment for one person. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/David_J._Gingery > Gingery is most famous for his Build Your Own Metal Working Shop From > Scrap series, which details how to build a reasonably complete > machine shop at low cost, often from scrap metal and other items. The > hobbyist starts by constructing a small foundry capable of melting > silicon-aluminum and zinc alloys from recycled automotive parts. Then > green sand castings are used to make a metal lathe. The lathe is the > first machine built since it can be used to help build itself. The > lathe and foundry are then used to make more complicated machine > tools. > > There is another book by Gingery, not usually counted as part of the > series, entitled "Building a Gas Fired Crucible Furnace", which can > be substituted for that describing the charcoal foundry. > > The dominant themes of the series are recycling, using inexpensive > and free materials, and bootstrapping the shop's capabilities. > Gingery is noted for using basic methods, seldom used today, in order > to make it possible for a skilled hobbyist to build the machines in > the book series, usually without the aid of power tools or other > expensive instruments. > > In addition to the Build Your Own Metal Working Shop From Scrap > series, Dave Gingery and his son Vincent have published a large > number of booklets on shop practices, engine construction and > mechanical miscellanea. And from our favorite editor, Kevin Kelly: http://www.kk.org/thetechnium/archives/2007/03/bootstrapping_t.php > A favorite fantasy game for engineers is to imagine how they might > re-invent essential technology from scratch. If you were stranded on > an island, or left behind after Armageddon, and you needed to make > your own blade, say, or a book, maybe a pair of working radios, what > would it take to forge iron, make paper, or create electricity? > > Occasionally tinkerers get to engage their fantasy. In February 1942, > R. Bradley, a British Officer in the Royal artillery in World War II > was captured and then held prisoner by Japanese in Singapore. Their > camp was remote, supplies were almost non-existent, and they were > treated roughly as POWs; when they rebelled they were locked in a > confinement shed without food. But they were tin