You Are Already Living Inside a Computer (theatlantic.com) 82
An anonymous reader shares a report: Think about the computing systems you use every day. All of them represent attempts to simulate something else. Like how Turing's original thinking machine (PDF) strived to pass as a man or woman, a computer tries to pass, in a way, as another thing. As a calculator, for example, or a ledger, or a typewriter, or a telephone, or a camera, or a storefront, or a cafe. After a while, successful simulated machines displace and overtake the machines they originally imitated. The word processor is no longer just a simulated typewriter or secretary, but a first-order tool for producing written materials of all kinds. Eventually, if they thrive, simulated machines become just machines. Today, computation overall is doing this. There's not much work and play left that computers don't handle. And so, the computer is splitting from its origins as a means of symbol manipulation for productive and creative ends, and becoming an activity in its own right. Today, people don't seek out computers in order to get things done; they do the things that let them use computers.
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O Rly? What about telling it to program two bilateral coordinates at the same time?
Well... (Score:4, Interesting)
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BS without meaning ... like the OP.
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Re: Well... (Score:2)
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Well, in my case, I've been living inside a computer since 1982. Don't know about the rest of you...
Computer cases in 1982 were ugly & cramped. How did you fit all your stuff inside it?
what!?! (Score:1, Insightful)
"There's not much work and play left that computers don't handle."
Are you kidding me? Go outside for once, pasty-skinned hipster. Ride a bike. Take a hike. Duh! Not everyone that reads /. is an "inside boy".
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Dude, my kid just tossed down his tablet and said, "Dad, do we have time to throw the ball before dinner?"
Oh yes we do little man. Best part of my day.
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"Go outside for once, pasty-skinned hipster. Ride a bike."
Hipsters do ride bikes. The hard part is getting them to do it without recording their path on a computer and broadcasting it to everyone they can.
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The data is useful. It's not useful to share with other people much, though. By repeating the same path every day its possible to see how weather (which other people track) has an effect on the activity. If wet, then I'll allow 2-5 minutes more. If freezing then 15 minutes more. Overall, though, from the tracking, I'd say the academic year has a greater effect though. The additional vehicle traffic congestion causes additional braking. As I've tracked it, spotted trends, I can adjust my day to compensate fo
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Not always. Sometimes in bad weather people stay home, so could be anyone's guess, or you can have a look at the data. It's also interesting when you measure heart rate too. When you know that the weather is to blame, you don't have to beat yourself up over it because you'd not done a PB for a while.
Shut up, Banksy. (Score:4, Insightful)
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None of what you said means anything. Go away.
Banksy!? I thought the picture was of Deadmaus.
Great news for the homeless! (Score:1)
They can just go to the public library and use the computers to build houses.
Thanks, The Atlantic!
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Heaven's Gate [wikipedia.org]!!
Re: Then we're all living inside Trump (Score:2)
Doorbells (Score:5, Insightful)
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Re:Doorbells (Score:4, Funny)
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solicitors and missionaries
That's a tad redundant. -PCP
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Don't think so. A lawyer and a priest aren't the same thing.
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This. I live in a small town. Never lock the door. Never answer a knock or a doorbell. People I know already know to simply walk in. All others are ignored.
I know other people who do just the same.
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In that way you never get to know new people.
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You must live in a very low crime area. But don't get too smug, I used to too, but still managed to come home to a ransacked house with everything of value taken in broad daylight. Every dealt with a loss-adjuster? They're worse than the criminals. But hey, stay smug.
Marijuana (Score:5, Funny)
We are surrounded by the computer (Score:2)
If you consider that the global telephone system and internet is the largest distributed computer system in the world. Then you have virtual private networks that connect your own virtual machine (VMware) of Linux or Windows to cloud servers (virtual machines running on a real server) and configured using applications like Docker. Depending on your ISP, they are called anything from Bubbles to Droplets. Then you can run old PC, game consoles, and mainframe emulators on those virtual machines. Even a smartph
Headline was so promising, but ... (Score:3, Insightful)
I was expecting some article to say that we're sims in a world that has people playing Sims ... maybe SimCity will also add features for *their* sims to play a game controlling a city too! Either that, or an article about how the entire internet is somehow a giant computer spanning the entire world, and hence we all live within it.
Instead, its just about people using computers to mimic older technologies and displace them; because the 'mimicking' version is actually better and offers features beyond those present in the original.
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Essentially the author is a moron and just threw a bunch of vocabulary vomit against the virtual wall to see what would stick so he could get paid for writing a shit article.
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The best argument for us not being in a SimCity is that there's lots of 'not fun' parts left in our 'game'.
eg. There's no NIMBYs or BANANAs in SimCity nor people who will protest when you demolish their ghetto and build clean and safe new houses because such bits aren't fun for most people.
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Except we don't use new technology to "mimic" the old technology. Not really.
Word processors NEVER mimicked typewriters. If they ever had mimicked typewriters no one would have used them. Anyone who think early word processors mimicked typewriters never really used either.
New-fangled doorbells with chips and cameras and song lists and all the rest do not mimic a simple push-button doorbell. If that were the case you could say the doorbell itself "mimics" a knock on the door by being a system that uses techn
Don't worry (Score:2)
A clickbait post to incite another "we're probably living in a simulation" circlejerk generally shows up on here every couple of months. We're about due for another one, so you shouldn't have to wait long.
Again? (Score:3)
How many times is Slashdot going to post about this topic? It's a question that can never be answered and even when answered has no value. This is like the sixth time I've seen this same damn topic here and it's boring me. Then again, maybe I'm in control of the computer and want you stop obsessing about this or I'll hit the reset button! ;)
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WAFLOR (Score:2)
WAFLOR. Pronounced like someone in the business of supplying little cakey things with square indentations.
Meaning: What A Fucking Load Of Rubbish.
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Waflor and Woftam sound like they'd be the cranky old twin Norse Gods of "I told you so, you stupid mortal". Sure, being Norse Gods I imagine they'd have big shiny weapons and a big mug of ale or mead at all times, but mostly I think they'd wander around cuffing fools and laugh at them when they fell on their mortal asses.
I'm not sure that portfolio's ever been assigned to a God before, but I like it.
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I like the image. For some reason I'm picturing them as being conjoined.
That means they're like what are commonly called "Siamese twins", for the benefit of any theatlantic.com, wired or verge staff who might be reading.
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I never waste my fucking time, I try to extend it as long as possible.
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Here is another explanation: things we don't know are unknown, and not knowing the answer doesn't prove it is something silly you can just daydream.
Still confused (Score:1)
Are you using the tool or is the tool using you? (Score:2)
If the tool is using you: then I pity you, you've lost too much of yourself along the way.
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I live in Soviet Russia, you insensitive clod!
Meaningless Drivel... (Score:3)
"...computing systems...represent attempts to simulate something else...like...a calculator...a ledger, or a typewriter, or a telephone, or a camera..."
That's meaningless attempts to simulate meaningful conversation and thought. A computer is a calculator, is a ledger, is a typewriter, is a telephone, is a camera. There is no meaningful need to continue to implement a function the way it was done the first time. With the writer's logic a film camera is an attempt to simulate a glass plate camera which is an attempt to simulate a photorealistic drawing which is an attempt to simulate a still life. No, the computer is a camera, is a ledger, is a typewriter, camera, etc. The physical manual or electric version is a mere implementation. The newer version, which includes a CCD and computer, is a far better implementation of a camera than the old glass plate or film versions ever were.
This is reality.
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Sigh (Score:4, Insightful)
Well, of course. (Score:2)
The Matrix has you.
hacking on humbug (Score:2)
As I read it, Turing's paper was entirely about hacking on humbug human attitudes: if flesh and metal both give the same answers (or similar enough that you can't tell the difference) isn't it a just distinction without a difference to describe one as alive and conscious and the other inanimate and unconscious?
This paper really had very little to do with computers at all.