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</o:shapelayout></xml><![endif]--></head><body lang=EN-US link=blue vlink=purple><div class=WordSection1><p class=MsoNormal><span style='font-size:11.0pt;font-family:"Calibri","sans-serif";color:#1F497D'><o:p> </o:p></span></p><p class=MsoNormal><span style='font-size:11.0pt;font-family:"Calibri","sans-serif";color:#1F497D'><o:p> </o:p></span></p><p class=MsoNormal><b><span style='font-size:10.0pt;font-family:"Tahoma","sans-serif"'>From:</span></b><span style='font-size:10.0pt;font-family:"Tahoma","sans-serif"'> extropy-chat-bounces@lists.extropy.org [mailto:extropy-chat-bounces@lists.extropy.org] <b>On Behalf Of </b>William Flynn Wallace<br><b>Sent:</b> Saturday, May 03, 2014 11:50 AM<br><b>To:</b> ExI chat list<br><b>Subject:</b> Re: [ExI] cool! locals create circuit board modeled on the human brain<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class=MsoNormal><o:p> </o:p></p><div><div><p class=MsoNormal style='mso-margin-top-alt:auto;mso-margin-bottom-alt:auto'><span style='font-size:11.0pt;font-family:"Calibri","sans-serif";color:#1F497D'>>>…</span><span style='font-size:11.0pt;font-family:"Calibri","sans-serif";color:#1F497D'>Indeed. We want the computer to do far more than our brain is doing.</span><span style='color:#0B5394'><o:p></o:p></span></p><p class=MsoNormal style='mso-margin-top-alt:auto;mso-margin-bottom-alt:auto'><span style='color:#0B5394'><o:p> </o:p></span></p><p class=MsoNormal style='mso-margin-top-alt:auto;mso-margin-bottom-alt:auto'><span style='font-size:11.0pt;font-family:"Calibri","sans-serif";color:#1F497D'>>…</span><span style='font-size:11.0pt;font-family:"Calibri","sans-serif";color:#1F497D'>How is it better to have one computer do thousands of things at one time versus several computers dedicated to doing one thing well?</span><span style='font-size:11.0pt;font-family:"Calibri","sans-serif";color:#1F497D'><o:p></o:p></span></p><p class=MsoNormal style='mso-margin-top-alt:auto;mso-margin-bottom-alt:auto'><span style='font-size:11.0pt;font-family:"Calibri","sans-serif";color:#1F497D'>No need to choose. Have one computer that does thousands of things at one time and does them all well.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class=MsoNormal style='mso-margin-top-alt:auto;mso-margin-bottom-alt:auto'><span style='font-size:11.0pt;font-family:"Calibri","sans-serif";color:#1F497D'><o:p> </o:p></span></p><p class=MsoNormal style='mso-margin-top-alt:auto;mso-margin-bottom-alt:auto'><span style='font-size:11.0pt;font-family:"Calibri","sans-serif";color:#1F497D'> </span><span style='font-size:11.0pt;font-family:"Calibri","sans-serif";color:#1F497D'>>…</span><span style='font-size:11.0pt;font-family:"Calibri","sans-serif";color:#1F497D'>Seems you'd have a nightmare to debug one doing so many things?</span><span style='font-size:11.0pt;font-family:"Calibri","sans-serif";color:#1F497D'><o:p></o:p></span></p><p class=MsoNormal style='mso-margin-top-alt:auto;mso-margin-bottom-alt:auto'><span style='font-size:11.0pt;font-family:"Calibri","sans-serif";color:#1F497D'>Each routine is debugged individually. Computers multitask very effectively.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class=MsoNormal style='mso-margin-top-alt:auto;mso-margin-bottom-alt:auto'><span style='font-size:11.0pt;font-family:"Calibri","sans-serif";color:#1F497D'><o:p> </o:p></span></p><p class=MsoNormal style='mso-margin-top-alt:auto;mso-margin-bottom-alt:auto'><span style='font-size:11.0pt;font-family:"Calibri","sans-serif";color:#1F497D'>>…</span><span style='font-size:11.0pt;font-family:"Calibri","sans-serif";color:#1F497D'> (no one yet has answered my question about a computer programming itself) bill w</span><span style='font-size:11.0pt;font-family:"Calibri","sans-serif";color:#1F497D'><o:p></o:p></span></p><p class=MsoNormal style='mso-margin-top-alt:auto;mso-margin-bottom-alt:auto'><span style='font-size:11.0pt;font-family:"Calibri","sans-serif";color:#1F497D'>BillW, the very first version of Excel macros by Microsloth (from 1993) allowed recursive algorithms and self-modifying code. One could accidently write a virus; I did.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class=MsoNormal style='mso-margin-top-alt:auto;mso-margin-bottom-alt:auto'><span style='font-size:11.0pt;font-family:"Calibri","sans-serif";color:#1F497D'>Over the years, Microsloth has intentionally defeated the features that allowed self-modifying macro code, since plenty of people got themselves in trouble with that early version; it had no guardrails. You could generate files automatically, which could fill your hard disk quickly for instance.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class=MsoNormal style='mso-margin-top-alt:auto;mso-margin-bottom-alt:auto'><span style='font-size:11.0pt;font-family:"Calibri","sans-serif";color:#1F497D'>I have the notion that to have software program itself requires removal of those guardrails. We might use something like Excel version 5 to do something like that. Have we any Excel 5 gurus left among us? Has anyone here tried to run that on a modern platform?<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class=MsoNormal style='mso-margin-top-alt:auto;mso-margin-bottom-alt:auto'><span style='font-size:11.0pt;font-family:"Calibri","sans-serif";color:#1F497D'>We have script-gurus here who can tell us what are the modern capabilities of self-modifying code.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class=MsoNormal style='mso-margin-top-alt:auto;mso-margin-bottom-alt:auto'><span style='font-size:11.0pt;font-family:"Calibri","sans-serif";color:#1F497D'>spike<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class=MsoNormal style='mso-margin-top-alt:auto;mso-margin-bottom-alt:auto'><span style='font-size:11.0pt;font-family:"Calibri","sans-serif";color:#1F497D'> <o:p></o:p></span></p><p class=MsoNormal style='mso-margin-top-alt:auto;mso-margin-bottom-alt:auto'><span style='font-size:11.0pt;font-family:"Calibri","sans-serif";color:#1F497D'><o:p> </o:p></span></p><p class=MsoNormal><span style='font-size:11.0pt;font-family:"Calibri","sans-serif";color:#1F497D'> </span><span style='font-size:18.0pt;font-family:"Comic Sans MS";color:#0B5394'><o:p></o:p></span></p></div></div><div><p class=MsoNormal style='margin-bottom:12.0pt'><o:p> </o:p></p></div></div></body></html>