[ExI] Meat v. Machine

[spike]

On Behalf Of Samantha Atkins
Subject: Re: [ExI] Meat v. Machine

On Jan 6, 2011, at 2:10 AM, Eugen Leitl wrote:

> On Wed, Jan 05, 2011 at 04:33:41PM -0800, spike wrote:
> 
>>> Yes by all means, snip that.  Far too pessimistic methinks.  We should
be able to write a good simulation of builder-bots operating 
>>> 1.3 seconds away,
> 
>> You don't need to write anything, other than adding a delay in the 
>> control flow and the video feed in current virtual world simulators... It
would be possible to build local reflexes with avatar scripting.

>You mean in animation loops?  Scripting is just scripting AFAIK.  There is
no specific avatar brand of scripting outside of animation loops is SL and
OpenSim. - s

If we wanted to go to all the trouble, we could build the actual bots of
aluminum and operate them inside an altitude chamber at 0.01 atm.  Chambers
that run at that pressure are not expensive or difficult to find: there's
one sitting idle at China Lake NWC big enough to run our roomba vacuum
cleaner sized dump trucks and bulldozers that I envision will be the first
serious attempt at a meaningful lunar mission.  

That NWC chamber is big enough to handle a fighter jet, assuming the wings
are folded, so we could create a simulated moon building site in there.  We
can't sim the .2 G, but we could make a reasonable analog of lunar regolith,
temperature and atmosphere.  We can even imagine a lunar sandbox on wheels,
so that if the admiral wanted us to get our damn toys out of the way to make
room to test his latest (useless) ape-hauling fighter jet, we could roll the
whole mess out on a day's notice.  We could program in 2.6 seconds command
feedback delay.

That would be a fun project!

spike