Brownian motion

If the future needs us — in a which way?..

… already for a long time humanity is the human-machine system, which only in this state can perform its functions. If we look at trends, we can see that part of this system’s information, which is being stored outside of human brain, is gradually increasing during thousands of years already — since the invention of cuneiform script — and we simply are closer and closer to that time, when this part of information in a human will become negligibly small.

But do not separate humans and computers — they, along with printed books, are parts of the single system, which can not work otherwise.

Yes, independent can be only that, what can reproduce itself. So, what reproduces itself now? Human? Not at all. Independently of the rest of humanity modern human will die in a few weeks. Reproduces itself the civilization — along with the necessary people, who are reproduced exactly as a machines. … Simply in a some step some elements of evolutionary system can become unneeded — how steams became unneeded some time before, — with the exception that those elements will become we, humans.

However, is it possible to stop progress? Definitely, total control over all planet is necessary for this.

(Translation from russian is mine, sorry for my english)

I would note, however, that i am more optimistic.

Everything will stop before robots will become humans and humans will become robots ;-)

However… we will see.

Peter Lothberg installed to his mom’s home 40Gb/s Internet connection — here is him report at RIPE 55 Session, and here — his mom finishes installation:

Here is more photos.

This new Cisco CRS-1 4-Slot Single-Shelf System they have installed over there.

I’m shocked :-)

Some technical details::

• FO length — ~412 km
• 3.5dB (unoptimized), DWDM
• EDFA amplifiers, dispersion compensators
• Ethernet/G.709
• 10^-15 BER
• ~1.56kW, ~300 euro/month

His report is interesting, really :-)

BTW, to have XHTML validated page, it was necessary to change the code provided by YouTube.

For Miniature Earth they provided:

<object width="425" height="344">
<param name="movie" value="http://www.youtube.com/v/kIUCTbi_XZs"></param>
<embed src="http://www.youtube.com/v/kIUCTbi_XZs"
   type="application/x-shockwave-flash" width="425" height="344"></embed>
</object>

Should be like this:

<object width="425" height="344" data="http://www.youtube.com/v/kIUCTbi_XZs"
    type="application/x-shockwave-flash">
<param name="movie" value="http://www.youtube.com/v/kIUCTbi_XZs"></param>
</object>

Here is the info — Flash Satay: Embedding Flash While Supporting Standards.

The very nice site for beginners — http://css.maxdesign.com.au/. A lot of information, examples, step-by-step solutions.

BTW, there i’ve found another good page, Floats, Margins and IE — examples and workarounds for MSIE’s problem related to rendering floats.

True Knowledge Ltd launched a test service — True Knowledge (registration required, free).
Surely, I wanted to take a look :-)

First, I asked «How many seas on Earth?». I have got a very good answer:

So, it seems this engine understood me quite correctly, but it does not know the answer yet.

Next I asked whether Bill Gates is clever (sorry):

The answer was very honest, I was surprised. And again — note the understanding of question, very, very nice.

Next question, as for me, was harder: «Who can produce milk?». Understanding of question, again, seems to be very correct:

But when I choosed one of proposed variants, I have got very strange short answer: «Yes«:

Next question I borrowed from their examples, but changed «how far» to «how better» (probably, an error: «better from»):

As an answer I was proposed to add a «knowledge» to a database.

Oops — is this «typical» error, don’t know — correctly-incorrect answer:

BTW, the engine can not answer to «How old was J. S. Bach?», but can answer to:

And right after that — why, how can i forget?! ;-) — this:

Next — relatively «stupid» question: «Who lives in London?». The engine started to work harder, it took more time to find an answer, and finally it gives back:

Exclusively correct answer. With explanations, list of facts. But probably nobody knows, however, how the system will behave, if there will be a lot more inhabitants in London :-)
(Yes, I have asked also who lives in USA, and also who lives in the world.)

Well, and I decided to ask something hard at last: «What is the maximun speed of «Cutty Sark» in knots?» :-)
The result was:

So, it is quite smart, I’d say. And, surely, it is very interesting, how it will understand questions in Ukrainian.
(You can see, that my English is quite poor though)