2007-02-09
Ah Pook
Also cool. The first time I thought it was just some surreal William S Burroughs candy then the second time I watched it, I realised, oh wow, its completely, deafeningly awfully lucid
Quantum Computing Demo Announcement
OK so just sent out a mass email. People may actually - oh no - visit this page. I better put something cool on it. Except all I have is incoherent scree.
Quick, link to something that really is cool. Check this out:
http://dwave.wordpress.com/2007/01/19/quantum-computing-demo-announcement
Also there's a video too - "a quantum computer is to a light bulb what a laser is to light" - sounds cool. I want one
http://www.researchchannel.org/prog/displayevent.aspx?rID=3816&fID=784
Quick, link to something that really is cool. Check this out:
http://dwave.wordpress.com/2007/01/19/quantum-computing-demo-announcement
Also there's a video too - "a quantum computer is to a light bulb what a laser is to light" - sounds cool. I want one
http://www.researchchannel.org/prog/displayevent.aspx?rID=3816&fID=784
2007-01-14
the medellin strategy
OK so here’s a theory – actually on further consideration its basically bunk but I'll lave it for you to consider… I'm still working on a new 'not crap' version...
So let’s start off with the fact that this recent ‘surge’ thing makes absolutely no sense. It stares you straight in the face that an extra 20,000 troops… not even returning force levels to where they were 2 years ago, is not really gonna make a big difference. So the next question. Why – from Bush’s perspective is this worth doing? Is it something really worth pushing things to the brink of constitutional crisis with the Dem’s over.
To my way of thinking, you have to work hard to keep imagining how evil the Bush team really is. So let’s dispense with some of the less imaginative theories first. According to one, Bush wants to leave a ‘legacy’ and not be the one that ‘lost the war’ in Iraq. If ‘he’ can just hold on till 2008 then his name may not be complete mud when he leaves office. OK, so this makes even less sense than the escalation strategy. First off, it assumes some actual input by George Bush himself into the Iraq strategy. Secondly, if it somehow part of some strategy to retain Republican control of the presidency, it ignores the strategic fact that even 150,000 troops just cannot hope to control Iraq by 2008 and surely even the Republicans know that.
Another theory holds that the Saudi’s are in some way insisting that the US stay in Iraq and effectively fight the proxy war on their and Shia behalf (or else they’ll triple the price of oil or something). And hey it’s a lot more believable than the last one. Problem is, if the Saudi’s love the US GI’s so much why did they kick them out of Saudi Arabia.
There is of course the mad delusion, can’t face up to the horrible reality of the situation he/they find themselves in, and that they are striking around for just anything. That to withdraw and give the war to others to fight would lead to major regional chaos so they have to do something. I guess that certainly has an appeal. It also has echos of Vietnam when – according to the standard narrative, the US administration simply failed to deal with defeat and kept hoping that somehow more troops would turn the tide. But the problem with that is that in many ways America actually achieved its strategic objectives in Vietnam – namely to turn the place into a hell hole and thereby very effectively dissuade any of the other non-aligned countries, or heaven forbid some of the aligned ones from truly contemplating the fun of having their own communist revolutions, aka Cuba or Nicaragua.
So, a bunch of good reasons, but how about this one for a lark. Maybe he cooked up as Jon Stewart says this “giant pot of ***” – namely the media circus of “double or nothing” and “putting it all on the line” (or should I say, “following the line”) at exactly the right time to hit us with some ‘budgetary end runs’ massive escalations in ‘halliburton expense reports’ that might manage to pump up that *other* 100,000 troops and ordinance, namely the contractors.
Lets’ not forget the Pentagon has completely failed to meet an audit for going on 5 years now. Keith Olbermann recently interviewed John Dean (of Watergate fame).
Keith Olbermann: If the troops are there, congress can’t very well call them back. And if the safe is locked the President can’t very well pay for [the troops] out of his own pocket.
John Dean: We don’t know about that. We know that that did happen during the Reagan administration where the was a tin cup handed around [during the Iran Contra scandal] …
Oh that’s right, the ‘tin cup’, namely ‘the cause’ as it was referred to by (our hero) Oliver North and that whole uber-corruption scandal involving Jeb Bush and (probably) Bush senior (in his roles as CIA director), and of course lets not forget the huge amounts of cocaine flowing into the country and being peddled by the CIA for black funds and ultimately benefitting people like the Harvard endowment whilst it further impoverished the urban poor.
Even the worst Junta’s know that when it comes to cooking the books to pay for arms, someone still has to pay the piper at the end of the day. And with by far the biggest heroin producing country in the world now nicely under the thumb of the CIA (or, I guess I should say ‘not quite’, and maybe ‘not quite them’) it may just be that looks like the US military machine is may be about to adopt the same funding strategy as the Medellín narco-terrorists.
Jefferson apparently talked about using the purse to ‘control the dogs of war’. But it may be that we can just about forget the battles over line item vetoes, the president (or should I say ‘not quite’) may be about to build his own personal army.
Like Jon Stewart says – in this excellent clip - you know what this needs? A pinch of salt.
So let’s start off with the fact that this recent ‘surge’ thing makes absolutely no sense. It stares you straight in the face that an extra 20,000 troops… not even returning force levels to where they were 2 years ago, is not really gonna make a big difference. So the next question. Why – from Bush’s perspective is this worth doing? Is it something really worth pushing things to the brink of constitutional crisis with the Dem’s over.
To my way of thinking, you have to work hard to keep imagining how evil the Bush team really is. So let’s dispense with some of the less imaginative theories first. According to one, Bush wants to leave a ‘legacy’ and not be the one that ‘lost the war’ in Iraq. If ‘he’ can just hold on till 2008 then his name may not be complete mud when he leaves office. OK, so this makes even less sense than the escalation strategy. First off, it assumes some actual input by George Bush himself into the Iraq strategy. Secondly, if it somehow part of some strategy to retain Republican control of the presidency, it ignores the strategic fact that even 150,000 troops just cannot hope to control Iraq by 2008 and surely even the Republicans know that.
Another theory holds that the Saudi’s are in some way insisting that the US stay in Iraq and effectively fight the proxy war on their and Shia behalf (or else they’ll triple the price of oil or something). And hey it’s a lot more believable than the last one. Problem is, if the Saudi’s love the US GI’s so much why did they kick them out of Saudi Arabia.
There is of course the mad delusion, can’t face up to the horrible reality of the situation he/they find themselves in, and that they are striking around for just anything. That to withdraw and give the war to others to fight would lead to major regional chaos so they have to do something. I guess that certainly has an appeal. It also has echos of Vietnam when – according to the standard narrative, the US administration simply failed to deal with defeat and kept hoping that somehow more troops would turn the tide. But the problem with that is that in many ways America actually achieved its strategic objectives in Vietnam – namely to turn the place into a hell hole and thereby very effectively dissuade any of the other non-aligned countries, or heaven forbid some of the aligned ones from truly contemplating the fun of having their own communist revolutions, aka Cuba or Nicaragua.
So, a bunch of good reasons, but how about this one for a lark. Maybe he cooked up as Jon Stewart says this “giant pot of ***” – namely the media circus of “double or nothing” and “putting it all on the line” (or should I say, “following the line”) at exactly the right time to hit us with some ‘budgetary end runs’ massive escalations in ‘halliburton expense reports’ that might manage to pump up that *other* 100,000 troops and ordinance, namely the contractors.
Lets’ not forget the Pentagon has completely failed to meet an audit for going on 5 years now. Keith Olbermann recently interviewed John Dean (of Watergate fame).
Keith Olbermann: If the troops are there, congress can’t very well call them back. And if the safe is locked the President can’t very well pay for [the troops] out of his own pocket.
John Dean: We don’t know about that. We know that that did happen during the Reagan administration where the was a tin cup handed around [during the Iran Contra scandal] …
Oh that’s right, the ‘tin cup’, namely ‘the cause’ as it was referred to by (our hero) Oliver North and that whole uber-corruption scandal involving Jeb Bush and (probably) Bush senior (in his roles as CIA director), and of course lets not forget the huge amounts of cocaine flowing into the country and being peddled by the CIA for black funds and ultimately benefitting people like the Harvard endowment whilst it further impoverished the urban poor.
Even the worst Junta’s know that when it comes to cooking the books to pay for arms, someone still has to pay the piper at the end of the day. And with by far the biggest heroin producing country in the world now nicely under the thumb of the CIA (or, I guess I should say ‘not quite’, and maybe ‘not quite them’) it may just be that looks like the US military machine is may be about to adopt the same funding strategy as the Medellín narco-terrorists.
Jefferson apparently talked about using the purse to ‘control the dogs of war’. But it may be that we can just about forget the battles over line item vetoes, the president (or should I say ‘not quite’) may be about to build his own personal army.
Like Jon Stewart says – in this excellent clip - you know what this needs? A pinch of salt.
2006-12-15
Cutting Edge Technology
ha ha.. look he's written a CMS with, well, its probably best if I just let him say it..
"META NAME="GENERATOR" CONTENT="eNetwizard Matrix Server v0.0.2"
containing..
"
Cutting Edge Technology
*
God is built right into the system. Also known as the $Core class. Never before has a content management system been designed around the concept of a universal point of contact for all requests. This server knows all, and delivers all.
*
The Universe is built right into the system. Also known as the matrix folder. Never before has a content management system been designed to render and manage the content of an unlimited number of domains and websites for an unlimited number of businesses and organizations. Expect nothing less from our server.
"
"META NAME="GENERATOR" CONTENT="eNetwizard Matrix Server v0.0.2"
containing..
"
Cutting Edge Technology
*
God is built right into the system. Also known as the $Core class. Never before has a content management system been designed around the concept of a universal point of contact for all requests. This server knows all, and delivers all.
*
The Universe is built right into the system. Also known as the matrix folder. Never before has a content management system been designed to render and manage the content of an unlimited number of domains and websites for an unlimited number of businesses and organizations. Expect nothing less from our server.
"
2006-11-09
Known Unknowns
Rummy.. is taking on Bush (and Bush senior over the war).
He's saying. I'm sure that the people are behind me. I know they are absolutely behind us, we can "stay" the course for at least another year or three.
Bush (sorry, I mean Condi) is like "how can you honestly believe that? your self delusions are getting the better of you" and Rummys like.. "I'll prove it to you". You watch.. call off the whole voting thing for the mid-terms, you'll see..
and of course such a plan has a certain beautiful attraction to it... so, many in the Junta would've been willing to consider it.
Then.. they basically lose the election, and Bush is even genuinely suprised that they took "such a thumpin" - he really believed in Rummy.. and he also really wanted to keep believing in never doing the unthinkable and casting *anybody* out of the circle (Bush doesn't gotta do a lot, 'xcept believe in some few basic precepts).
But with this .. well you know the rest.
;-)
Ha ha> OK I'm insane I admit
He's saying. I'm sure that the people are behind me. I know they are absolutely behind us, we can "stay" the course for at least another year or three.
Bush (sorry, I mean Condi) is like "how can you honestly believe that? your self delusions are getting the better of you" and Rummys like.. "I'll prove it to you". You watch.. call off the whole voting thing for the mid-terms, you'll see..
and of course such a plan has a certain beautiful attraction to it... so, many in the Junta would've been willing to consider it.
Then.. they basically lose the election, and Bush is even genuinely suprised that they took "such a thumpin" - he really believed in Rummy.. and he also really wanted to keep believing in never doing the unthinkable and casting *anybody* out of the circle (Bush doesn't gotta do a lot, 'xcept believe in some few basic precepts).
But with this .. well you know the rest.
;-)
Ha ha> OK I'm insane I admit
2006-10-18
High tech or lo fi future?
A friend points to aadvarks recent commentary about the future of computing and asks "So any opinions on whether we will see new technology based computers soon, or not for quite some time?"
This set off the following scree. Bit incoherent but noone reads this blog anyway so whats the harm..
Really fascinating stuff. I'm sure its a good 10 years out before we even start to see this kind of thing and at first it won't be much, but over time this stuff could become really significant - given time.
Way I look at it, there is a bit of a race here between the high-tech and lo-fi solutions to our worlds problems. Within the time frame we're talking about here (decades) I'm pretty sure that people/corporations/governments will eventually start to focus money and resources on the kind of things we need to do to avoid the myriad of "uncomfortable truth" type problems (and many others) that this world is really facing. (That is, apart from all those descent-into-fascism problems we are bringing on ourselves)
**WOAH*** wild free-ranging-pointless-speculation alert. Looks like I'm getting a bit out of control here.. you may want to stop reading
Anyway, its always seemed to me with these 'new technology' things some of them (just one of them) are just so fabulous that maybe they really could provide true solutions to some of this worlds problems: fusion reactors for energy that helps the environment; Quantum computers to, I dunno, design or control fusion reactors that actually work; or to predict the weather or to design nano-bots that can make a new generation effectively immortal (like trees) thereby changing everybodies focus to a much more long term view etc etc.
It all seems like outrageous science fiction and of course on a shorter time frame it is, but on a lnoger time frame, well I think it *could*, potentially all become real. However, if the switch in focus comes too early - before these things have been fully developed - then it will seem, at first, like its "just not enough of a priority right now" and then, as the size of the overall pie shrinks and shrinks further, the high tech solution(s) recede further and further into the realm of the outraegeously expensive and impossible to contemplate. Kind of like how we once went to the moon...
So.. a bit of a race I guess.
My money is on Quantum computing being pretty significant in the next twenty years (at least) anyway. That is some seriously cool stuff.
The most exciting thing about it, for me, is the idea as put forth by Penrose (for example) in "The Emporer's New Mind" that digital computers are *fundamentally* incapable of being 'intelligent' in the conscious, dinner-party-conversation way that we really want. He believes that there must be some sort of mechanism to this effect (or maybe, I should say 'affect') that occurs in the wetware of our mind but not in digital computers or any kind of Turing computing device (ie something that can compute only the mathematically 'computable'). You see, within any 'computable' system of truth, there are always mathematical theorems - Godel theorems - that are 'provable' in the sense that an argument can be constructed that eventually makes it 'absolutely self evident' to an intelligent being that this "must be so" even though, at the same time, by any classic definition of 'computability' (ie any set of assumptions that build on each other to create theorem after theorem) they are possible to prove computably, ie by derivation from the assumptions. So, in this sense he shows that there are 'truths' out there that we are able to to perceive but that are not computable. (Or something like that). And, since the human mind, evidently is capable of perceiving these truths, it means that the human mind must not be a computer (or a computable device). And, therefore, by inference, true intelligence, can never be simulated on a computer, no matter how powerful.
So.. what does that mean to me you ask? Well, just maybe one of these new fangled technologies won't just be tremendously powerful and fast, it will be qualitatively different... and maybe, it will bridge this gap into the truly intelligent device. And, if that is so then I'm sure 'they' can help us (ie human civilization) extend our upward growth curve and continue to produce ever younger boy bands for a few more centuries (that is, until we all get enslaved by the AI "computers", which, by that time will seem only fair given all the terrible music we will've subjected them to in the meantime) ;)
This set off the following scree. Bit incoherent but noone reads this blog anyway so whats the harm..
Really fascinating stuff. I'm sure its a good 10 years out before we even start to see this kind of thing and at first it won't be much, but over time this stuff could become really significant - given time.
Way I look at it, there is a bit of a race here between the high-tech and lo-fi solutions to our worlds problems. Within the time frame we're talking about here (decades) I'm pretty sure that people/corporations/governments will eventually start to focus money and resources on the kind of things we need to do to avoid the myriad of "uncomfortable truth" type problems (and many others) that this world is really facing. (That is, apart from all those descent-into-fascism problems we are bringing on ourselves)
**WOAH*** wild free-ranging-pointless-speculation alert. Looks like I'm getting a bit out of control here.. you may want to stop reading
Anyway, its always seemed to me with these 'new technology' things some of them (just one of them) are just so fabulous that maybe they really could provide true solutions to some of this worlds problems: fusion reactors for energy that helps the environment; Quantum computers to, I dunno, design or control fusion reactors that actually work; or to predict the weather or to design nano-bots that can make a new generation effectively immortal (like trees) thereby changing everybodies focus to a much more long term view etc etc.
It all seems like outrageous science fiction and of course on a shorter time frame it is, but on a lnoger time frame, well I think it *could*, potentially all become real. However, if the switch in focus comes too early - before these things have been fully developed - then it will seem, at first, like its "just not enough of a priority right now" and then, as the size of the overall pie shrinks and shrinks further, the high tech solution(s) recede further and further into the realm of the outraegeously expensive and impossible to contemplate. Kind of like how we once went to the moon...
So.. a bit of a race I guess.
My money is on Quantum computing being pretty significant in the next twenty years (at least) anyway. That is some seriously cool stuff.
The most exciting thing about it, for me, is the idea as put forth by Penrose (for example) in "The Emporer's New Mind" that digital computers are *fundamentally* incapable of being 'intelligent' in the conscious, dinner-party-conversation way that we really want. He believes that there must be some sort of mechanism to this effect (or maybe, I should say 'affect') that occurs in the wetware of our mind but not in digital computers or any kind of Turing computing device (ie something that can compute only the mathematically 'computable'). You see, within any 'computable' system of truth, there are always mathematical theorems - Godel theorems - that are 'provable' in the sense that an argument can be constructed that eventually makes it 'absolutely self evident' to an intelligent being that this "must be so" even though, at the same time, by any classic definition of 'computability' (ie any set of assumptions that build on each other to create theorem after theorem) they are possible to prove computably, ie by derivation from the assumptions. So, in this sense he shows that there are 'truths' out there that we are able to to perceive but that are not computable. (Or something like that). And, since the human mind, evidently is capable of perceiving these truths, it means that the human mind must not be a computer (or a computable device). And, therefore, by inference, true intelligence, can never be simulated on a computer, no matter how powerful.
So.. what does that mean to me you ask? Well, just maybe one of these new fangled technologies won't just be tremendously powerful and fast, it will be qualitatively different... and maybe, it will bridge this gap into the truly intelligent device. And, if that is so then I'm sure 'they' can help us (ie human civilization) extend our upward growth curve and continue to produce ever younger boy bands for a few more centuries (that is, until we all get enslaved by the AI "computers", which, by that time will seem only fair given all the terrible music we will've subjected them to in the meantime) ;)
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