What's your sex?
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Electric Sheep One
Member # 3431
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written Friday, June 10 2005 08:12
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I have studied at, worked at, or visited quite a number of different institutions over the past twenty years. After a few too many years in post-doctoral research, this year I have been an adjunct lecturer at three different Boston-area colleges. In September I'll be a professor at a good but (to Americans) obscure university in Germany. At no point have I actually been affiliated with any institution calling itself 'Trinity'. The moniker is whimsical. [ Friday, June 10, 2005 08:14: Message edited by: Student of Trinity ] -------------------- It is not enough to discover how things seem to seem. We must discover how things really seem. Posts: 3335 | Registered: Thursday, September 4 2003 07:00 |
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Nuke and Pave
Member # 24
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written Friday, June 10 2005 09:20
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quote:That explains why Thuryl knows so many facts! He just reads them off his infinite tape. :) For those who don't know what Turing tape is, it's an infinite tape used to store data by a Turing machine. (Turing machine is a logical device that works like a computer. Or, rather, computer is one of the practical examples of a Turing machine-like device.) -------------------- Be careful with a word, as you would with a sword, For it too has the power to kill. However well placed word, unlike a well placed sword, Can also have the power to heal. Posts: 2649 | Registered: Wednesday, October 3 2001 07:00 |
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Shock Trooper
Member # 5585
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written Friday, June 10 2005 09:44
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Infinite? How do they store it all? -------------------- Important Information about Stuff Posts: 258 | Registered: Wednesday, March 9 2005 08:00 |
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By Committee
Member # 4233
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written Friday, June 10 2005 09:51
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In theory. :) [ Friday, June 10, 2005 10:01: Message edited by: Andrew Miller ] Posts: 2242 | Registered: Saturday, April 10 2004 07:00 |
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Nuke and Pave
Member # 24
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written Friday, June 10 2005 10:00
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quote:That's why you could never build a true Turing machine in reality. However, it's still useful to computer scientists to study how real computers work. [ Friday, June 10, 2005 10:00: Message edited by: Zeviz ] -------------------- Be careful with a word, as you would with a sword, For it too has the power to kill. However well placed word, unlike a well placed sword, Can also have the power to heal. Posts: 2649 | Registered: Wednesday, October 3 2001 07:00 |
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Electric Sheep One
Member # 3431
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written Friday, June 10 2005 10:42
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I swear this rotten computer I'm using right now must be a Turing machine, and a Turing machine with a sticky tape at that. Either that, or the grinding sounds it constantly makes are from beads sliding around inside. -------------------- It is not enough to discover how things seem to seem. We must discover how things really seem. Posts: 3335 | Registered: Thursday, September 4 2003 07:00 |
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By Committee
Member # 4233
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written Friday, June 10 2005 11:08
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It's probably just the hamster trying to gnaw his way out, having become fed up with powering the device on his wheel. Posts: 2242 | Registered: Saturday, April 10 2004 07:00 |
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Electric Sheep One
Member # 3431
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written Friday, June 10 2005 11:32
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Ah, shees, I bet you're right. I really should have asked something when the sales guy seemed to snicker about the mouse, but no, I figured, It's Built on NT Technology, so it must be okay. Guess I just have to wait until the coming surge of Indian computer technology puts little boxes with urdu keyboards and terahertz clock speeds on all our desks for the price of a dozen chai lattes. -------------------- It is not enough to discover how things seem to seem. We must discover how things really seem. Posts: 3335 | Registered: Thursday, September 4 2003 07:00 |
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Law Bringer
Member # 335
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written Friday, June 10 2005 11:50
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Before that it's likely that your computer will simply be a fast modem connection and a screen. All actual processing will be outsourced to hamsters and wheels in foreign countries where PETA's controls are weak and hamsters can be forced to run 18 hours a day for food barely sufficient to sustain life. —Alorael, who feels more educated after reading the last few posts in this thread. Now the ture has transferred from occult to common culture. The question now is what severs the oc. Was it perhaps commandeered by a certain television series? Posts: 14579 | Registered: Saturday, December 1 2001 08:00 |
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By Committee
Member # 4233
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written Friday, June 10 2005 11:54
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At least those hamsters will have food. Think about all those jobless Indian hamsters that have to try scratching out a living in the fields. Dire indeed. Posts: 2242 | Registered: Saturday, April 10 2004 07:00 |
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Master
Member # 4614
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written Friday, June 10 2005 15:25
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quote:Random binary data getting written onto the tape. I doubt the binary digits themselves have any meaning, except the implication that they represent raw data crammed tightly into his mind. I did wonder what his title meant, though, at an rate. EDIT: Oof, yikes, missed a page. quote:Sure you can. You can make one that's infinitely writable but does not have infinite storage. It simply overwrites what was on that particualar spot on the tape beforehand with the new data, while another device on the other side of the wheels reads the data as it comes around and writes them on more sohisticated SATA RAID 0 hard drives that can store pretty much anything you want. [ Friday, June 10, 2005 15:33: Message edited by: BF7 ] -------------------- -ben4808 For those who love to spam: CSM Forums RIFQ Posts: 3360 | Registered: Friday, June 25 2004 07:00 |
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...b10010b...
Member # 869
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written Friday, June 10 2005 16:15
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Eventually you'll run out of hard drives. There's only so much matter in the universe. -------------------- My BoE Page Bandwagons are fun! Roots Hunted! Posts: 9973 | Registered: Saturday, March 30 2002 08:00 |
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By Committee
Member # 4233
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written Friday, June 10 2005 16:57
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w00t! [ Friday, June 10, 2005 17:02: Message edited by: Andrew Miller ] Posts: 2242 | Registered: Saturday, April 10 2004 07:00 |
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Agent
Member # 3364
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written Friday, June 10 2005 19:09
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If that were true, I would argue that there is only a finite amount of data in a universe with a finite amount of matter, and that one would run out of information to write onto harddrives before one would run out of matter to make harddrives. If you went the other route with an infinate universe, there will always be more data but there will always be more matter because of the very nature of infinity. -------------------- "Even the worst Terror from Hell can be transformed to a testimony from Heaven!" - Rev. David Wood 6\23\05 "Do all the good you can, by all the means you can, in all the ways you can, in all the places you can, at all the times you can, to all the people you can, as long as you ever can." - John Wesley Posts: 1001 | Registered: Tuesday, August 19 2003 07:00 |
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Shaper
Member # 247
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written Friday, June 10 2005 19:18
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The universe is a sphere so is not infinite. -------------------- I stop rubber at 160km/h, five times a week. CANUCKS RESPEK! My Style The Knight Between Posts. Posts: 2395 | Registered: Friday, November 2 2001 08:00 |
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...b10010b...
Member # 869
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written Friday, June 10 2005 19:40
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quote:Not at all. Write a program to calculate the digits of pi. Store its output. Eventually you run out of places to store it, so you can't store the answer to an unlimited degree of precision even if there are no limits on your program's ability to keep on calculating. -------------------- My BoE Page Bandwagons are fun! Roots Hunted! Posts: 9973 | Registered: Saturday, March 30 2002 08:00 |
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Post Navel Trauma ^_^
Member # 67
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written Friday, June 10 2005 23:27
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quote:You could compress the data quite well, though :P -------------------- Barcoorah: I even did it to a big dorset ram. desperance.net - Don't follow this link Posts: 1798 | Registered: Thursday, October 4 2001 07:00 |
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Agent
Member # 3364
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written Saturday, June 11 2005 05:56
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I suppose if in all it's infinity it never starts to repeat... Knowing how mathmatical divisions start to repeat, I would expect it to, though since pi has been calculated out past it's trillionth number and has not been reported to repeat as of yet I have some doubt that it ever would. Then again, one trillion in the scope of infinity is barely a drop in the bucket, even a google is only a drop in comparison. So who is to say that it will never repeat? It has an 'infinate' number of chances to. -------------------- "Even the worst Terror from Hell can be transformed to a testimony from Heaven!" - Rev. David Wood 6\23\05 "Do all the good you can, by all the means you can, in all the ways you can, in all the places you can, at all the times you can, to all the people you can, as long as you ever can." - John Wesley Posts: 1001 | Registered: Tuesday, August 19 2003 07:00 |
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By Committee
Member # 4233
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written Saturday, June 11 2005 06:11
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In fact, a google or a trillion for all intents and purposes are infinitely small drops in the bucket of infinity. :) Don't tell the Indian hamsters that, though. Posts: 2242 | Registered: Saturday, April 10 2004 07:00 |
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Electric Sheep One
Member # 3431
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written Saturday, June 11 2005 06:11
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There is a proof that the digits of pi will never repeat, really never. I do not know the proof, but I believe it. The universe is not a sphere. There is a chance that it is spatially a three-sphere, but if I remember rightly, this can be merely a matter of how you look at it. (That is, current evidence supports an open universe, which is roughly like de Sitter space, which I think can be represented as spatially open or closed depending on co-ordinate choice.) Seth Lloyd, a professor at MIT, wrote a paper a few years ago (which I think was published in Nature) on the ultimate physical limits to computing. Anyone who is interested could probably dig it up on the physics e-print archive. -------------------- It is not enough to discover how things seem to seem. We must discover how things really seem. Posts: 3335 | Registered: Thursday, September 4 2003 07:00 |
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Master
Member # 4614
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written Saturday, June 11 2005 11:32
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quote:Google is the best search engine made. A "googol" is a term for the number 10 raised to the 100th power. Just though I'd point that out. ;) My point, though, was there is more than enough ways to store any and all the data humans could hope to create at the present point. Well, meaningful data, anyway. -------------------- -ben4808 For those who love to spam: CSM Forums RIFQ Posts: 3360 | Registered: Friday, June 25 2004 07:00 |
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...b10010b...
Member # 869
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written Saturday, June 11 2005 14:34
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quote:Only rational numbers can be expressed as a repeating decimal. I should imagine proving pi is irrational is dead easy (much easier than proving it's transcendental, which, as you know, means that besides being inexpressible as a fraction with integer numerator and denominator, it also can't be expressed as the root of an integer polynomial (e.g. a square root, a cube root, etc.) That pi is transcendental has also been proven, but it's harder and not necessary in this case.) There are many pretty simple proofs for the irrationality of pi, but they mostly involve calculus. Here's one. I can't vouch for it on account of not having had the time to take it apart, but here it is: http://www.lrz-muenchen.de/~hr/numb/pi-irr.html quote:Think I read something vaguely like that in New Scientist. Essentially there are limits to what's computable given a computer that it's actually physically possible to build in this universe. The upshot is that we're never going to be able to solve the protein folding problem by looking at every possible conformation that a protein can fall into and finding the most stable. -------------------- My BoE Page Bandwagons are fun! Roots Hunted! Posts: 9973 | Registered: Saturday, March 30 2002 08:00 |
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By Committee
Member # 4233
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written Monday, June 13 2005 05:56
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quote:Wow, I guess you sure showed me on my spelling error there. Way to go. quote:That's great, but it isn't infinite, which was the original point. Posts: 2242 | Registered: Saturday, April 10 2004 07:00 |
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Law Bringer
Member # 2984
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written Monday, June 13 2005 06:41
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quote:Pi. Compression into 2 letters! :D -------------------- The Encyclopaedia Ermariana <-- Now a Wiki! "Polaris leers down from the black vault, winking hideously like an insane watching eye which strives to convey some strange message, yet recalls nothing save that it once had a message to convey." --- HP Lovecraft. "I single Aran out due to his nasty temperament, and his superior intellect." --- SupaNik Posts: 8752 | Registered: Wednesday, May 14 2003 07:00 |
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Law Bringer
Member # 335
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written Monday, June 13 2005 09:37
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? Compression into one. —Alorael, who doesn't care if you don't have the proper decompression material. Posts: 14579 | Registered: Saturday, December 1 2001 08:00 |