On Saturday, June 14, 2014 12:19:16 PM UTC+1, ghi...@gmail.com wrote: > > > > On Saturday, June 14, 2014 4:41:45 AM UTC+1, Brent wrote: >> >> On 6/13/2014 6:52 PM, LizR wrote: >> >> On 13 June 2014 23:35, Russell Standish <li...@hpcoders.com.au> wrote: >> >>> On Fri, Jun 13, 2014 at 01:44:25AM -0700, Pierz wrote: >>> > Yes. But I have to wonder what we're doing wrong, because any >>> sophisticated >>> > piece of modern software such as a modern OS or even this humble >>> mailing >>> > list/forum software we are using is already "hugely mind-bogglingly >>> > incremental". It has evolved over decades of incremental improvement >>> > involving thousands upon thousands of workers building up layers of >>> > increasing abstraction from the unfriendly silicon goings-on down >>> below. >>> > And yet Siri, far from being a virtual Scarlett Johannson, is still >>> pretty >>> > much dumb as dog-shit (though she has some neat bits of crystallised >>> > intelligence built in. Inspired by "She" I asked her what she was >>> wearing, >>> > and she said, "I can't tell you but it doesn't come off."). Well, I'm >>> still >>> > agnostic on "comp", so I don't have to decide whether this conspicuous >>> > failure represents evidence against computationalism. I do however >>> consider >>> > the bullish predictions of the likes of Deutsch (and even our own dear >>> > Bruno) that we shall be uploading our brains or something by the end >>> of the >>> > century or sooner to be deluded. Deutsch wrote once (BoI?) that the >>> > computational power required for human intelligence is already present >>> in a >>> > modern laptop; we just haven't had the programming breakthrough yet. I >>> > think that is preposterous and can hardly credit he actually believes >>> it. >>> > >>> >>> It overstates the facts somewhat - a modern laptop is probably still >>> about 3 orders of magnitude less powerful than a human brain, but with >>> Moore's law, that gap will be closed in about 15 years. >>> >> >> Moore's law appears to have stopped working about 10 years ago, going >> by a comparison of modern home computers with old ones. That is, the >> processors haven't increased much in speed, but they have gained more >> "cores", i.e. they've been parallelised, and more memory and more storage. >> But the density of the components on the chips hasn't increased by the >> predicted amount (or so I'm told). >> >> I have a theory that no matter how fast they make the processors >> Microsoft will devise an operating system to slow them down. >> >> Brent >> "The first time Microsoft makes a product that doesn't suck will be when >> they build vacuum cleaners." >> --- Anon- >> > Yeah it seems so...very funny strap line as well. Another funny from > memory - an event actually - Bill Gates remarked if the automobile > industry had advanced on a par with computing we'd be commuting > London-->Oxford in half a second. A whole stream of funny retorts came in > its wake about crashes. Bill seems to have got the joke since that's the > last he had to say on that score. y >
p.s. just as someone else says they'll stick with Linux anyway, I'll probably stick with Microsoft even though I know Apple make a better box these days. Possibly silly reasons. I think MS made a lot of mistakes in their heyday....and paid the price too because for a long while they had the power to 'make it so'. Be a monopoly if they wanted to be. But they - he - in doing so fooled himself into thinking economic laws are only about delivering a price service to the consumer. When they are just as relevant for the internals of an enterprise. So he paid the price and still is and won't re-coupe. But what gets lost is that Bill Gates was the first internet revolution. Just before the internet - essentially a set of standards - emerged. But it only came along because Bill had created a networks and user-points revolution on the ground. Also I with the Bill and Melinda foundation....hooking up with the other good-guy of the billionaire set, forget his name temporarily, they are a role model for the rest of them. Which even if ignored as currently...at lest they have tried. -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "Everything List" group. To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to everything-list+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com. To post to this group, send email to everything-list@googlegroups.com. Visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list. For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/d/optout.
