Earlier than that.

The Mac IIfx had a pair of chips each of which effectively had such a creature. One ran the serial/network ports, and I forget the other.

Had apple sold that chip, combined with the network that ran on the second (unused) pair of standard home wiring, they could have *owned* home automation years ahead . . .

hawk

>Wow, you don't come across people who've even heard of
>Ohio Scientific that often, much less actually used one.

*sigh*

get off my lawn, I suppose. (I just reseeded it anyway)

hawk, suddenly feeling old

Prodos?

PRODOS????

damned newbies . . .

hawk

And I'm kicking myself for not buying the used Apple ][ in a wooden case at the surplus store around the corner, which I've come to realize wasn't a ][ at all . . . :(

hawk, who still has his 128k mac and 1802 wirewrap systems

for hires, rather than reading the same 40 bytes eight times in a row, and feeding to a character generator,eight different sets of 40 bytes were read (of which six set bits, and two danced around the colorburst signal. the pixel rate was just at the colorburst signal, so shifting half a bit tickled it and gave a different set of colors. Not just clever,but fiendeshly clever)

hawk

Russian analyst urges nuclear attack on Yellowstone National Park and San Andreas fault line

A Russian geopolitical analyst says the best way to attack the United States is to detonate nuclear weapons to trigger a supervolcano at Yellowstone National Park or along the San Andreas fault line on California's coast.

The president of the Academy of Geopolitical Problems based in Moscow, Konstantin Sivkov said in an article for a Russian trade newspaper on Wednesday, VPK News, that Russia needed to increase its military weapons and strategies against the "West" which was "moving to the borders or Russia".

He has a conspiracy theory that NATO - a political and military alliance which counts the US, UK, Canada and many countries in western Europe as members - was amassing strength against Russia and the only way to combat that problem was to attack America's vulnerabilities to ensure a "complete destruction of the enemy".

"Geologists believe that the Yellowstone supervolcano could explode at any moment. There are signs of growing activity there. Therefore it suffices to push the relatively small, for example the impact of the munition megaton class to initiate an eruption. The consequences will be catastrophic for the United States - a country just disappears," he said.

"Another vulnerable area of the United States from the geophysical point of view, is the San Andreas fault - 1300 kilometers between the Pacific and North American plates ... a detonation of a nuclear weapon there can trigger catastrophic events like a coast-scale tsunami which can completely destroy the infrastructure of the United States."

Full story

Calling out the government for violations of the US Constitution is not illegal, regardless of what laws are passed. The US Constitution is the highest law in the land; bar none. No mere law passed by Congress nor order issued by the President nor opinion handed down by the Supreme Court can supersede it. The only thing that matters in this case are the facts. If the facts demonstrate that the government has been violating our rights and that Snowden was left with no legal avenue but the one afforded by the US Constitution due to a lack of whistleblower protections or other oversight failure, then a jury of his peers must - necessarily - find him not guilty.

There's a common misconception that the Supreme Court is the final arbiter of the Constitution's true meaning. The fact is that the people of the United States have that distinction. The SCOTUS is merely the government's final arbiter. They can't get a conviction against Snowden without stacking the jury thanks to nullification.

Are you suggesting that the Famicom was based on a system that wasn't released until two years after its own release (1983 for the Famicom, 1985 for the VS. System)?

Or are you suggesting that Nintendo abandoned the home market after making the VS. System, despite having released not one but three arcade systems after it, (the Playchoice-10, the Super System, and the Triforce board)?

Err . . . how would this make it any different than Star Trek???

hawk

Are you suggesting that Microsoft named its new browser after its R&D department?

Considering that nuclear power is the safest form of power the world has ever known, I'd say it's worthy of recognition for offsetting carbon more than anything else. To borrow a phrase, "It's the energy density, stupid."

There's a reason why China has 30 nuclear plants under construction, while the US just approved its first new plant in 30 years.

...but they get our shit to space.

I'd argue that the process you're talking about is more like the standard "uploading" process, minus the usual caveat about destroying the original. I agree with you that the process you describe process creates a copy that thinks it's the original. I also agree that destroying the original as part of the process seems arbitrary: why would copying someone's mind necessitate destroying the original?

But what I describe is a different process. Instead of copying the subject's mind into a machine, the user gradually learns to use the machine to supplement, or even outright replace, parts of his brain. There is only one mind, which works "across" both the brain and the machine simultaneously, rather than being cleanly "in" either location. Another poster mentions a prosthesis for specific brain functions; this is a good metaphor.

Transferring, then, becomes the process of working "across" both the brain and the machine, and increasing the machine usage to the point that the brain can be taken out of the loop. Assuming for the moment that this ever becomes possible, would that be a true transference, or still just a duplicate that thinks it's the original?

That holds if the preferred method of transfer is "uploading", yes. But what about a more gradual method?

Suppose that rather than wholesale uploading your brain, the process were to start with an implantable (or even wearable) computer that interfaces directly with the brain, perhaps providing extra sensory data or storage space. Over time, the mind learns to make this integration seamless, partly integrating with the device.

At this point, a second device is added to the mix, providing some additional functionality, and the person learns to integrate with this as well. The cycle repeats, adding more and more devices, and the person learns to integrate with them more deeply.

Eventually, one might learn to "inhabit" these devices: integrating so deeply that the brain itself becomes unnecessary, like a vestigial organ. The person might go back and forth on several occasions, to build confidence both in the procedure and to build confidence that no matter what "side" of the brain/computer divide you happen to be on at the time, you are still you. Depending on how the technology works, you might even be able to learn how to "transfer" from one set of devices to another, likely starting from similar principles, though the process could be accelerated.

At that point, the last step is simple: inhabit the devices and do not go back. Once your body is disconnected from the system, you're "in" for good.

I'm afraid I don't recall the story where this concept originated, but I thought it was intriguing as a description of an "uploading" process that did not involve making a copy. Does anyone know what it might be?

I think the proper use of capital punishment should be defined as certain massive crimes (like murder, defined by the society as a whole) where we simply have drawn the line as the crime being too terrible (in essence, where we - as a society - have decided that those who do it are inherently beyond redemption) and those cases where rehabilitation (within a system - and we don't have this today in the US - where rehabilitation is available and generally effective) is impossible.

Oh that's alright, anyone who's that broken should be first in line for execution. They don't need to set children on fire twice to convince me of that.

Perhaps there is some circumstance in which lighting children on fire wouldn't automatically qualify someone for execution, but I don't care to explore all the different circumstances we'd have to in order to find such a case. Suffice it to say that - as a general rule - things like murder and setting children on fire ought to be automatic.

I'm not sure I understand what you're saying here. I consider it a proper use of the state's authority to execute convicted criminals when they execute a convicted murderer. When I'm talking about this, I don't mean an angry father who walks in on his child's molester and beats him to death, nor do I mean someone who falls asleep at the wheel and strikes and kills a pedestrian. I mean someone who knowingly, consciously, willfully makes an effort to maliciously kill another human being without some major mitigating circumstances present. What else are we to do with such a person? A person who robs a liquor store is making a poor choice and hopefully can be rehabilitated such that they won't make similarly poor choices in the future. Someone who has no difficulty taking human life is fundamentally broken in a way we can't comprehend and should simply be removed from society. Prisons are still a part of society inasmuch as members of our society live and worth there.