On Jan 14, 6:57 pm, mcv <mcv...@[EMAIL PROTECTED]
> wrote:
> bernardZ<Berna...@[EMAIL PROTECTED]
> wrote:
> > In article <47892d13$0$85785$e4fe5...@[EMAIL PROTECTED]
>,
mcv...@[EMAIL PROTECTED]
> > says...
> >> bealoid <sig...@[EMAIL PROTECTED]
> wrote:
>
> >> > Any storage media in movies looks a bit odd to me - floppy disks
look
> >> > really old, but even standard optical media (which could be some
form of
> >> > 'super DVD') look old fa****oned. Using a smaller size optical
media
> >> > doesn't help either.
>
> >> I thought they usually used some sort of crystal as storage medium.
> >> The problem is that it's usually a small, ****d crystal with no
> >> obvious place to stick a label.
>
> >> While reading Asimov's _Second Foundation_, the book proudly
described
> >> a really clever system that made it really easy for relatively
untrained
> >> people to figure out exactly where in the galaxy they are. Before the
> >> invention of that item, figuring out your location took days or
weeks,
> >> but all I was thinking was: if this process is this simple, why the
> >> hell isn't it automated in the first place?
>
> >> Science fiction almost always falls short when it comes to computers
> >> and automation.
>
> > Why?
>
> > In the days of sailing ****ps to navigate you used dead reckoning. It
was
> > accurate. However it took much work. Always you needed to have skilled
> > people on-the-job recording your speed and direction. Then the figures
> > had to be tabulated. It was simple but complex to do. Then Harrison
came
> > up with a clock.
>
> Exactly. The invention of accurate clocks and, more relevantly,
computers
> makes time-consuming navigation by hand obsolete. Nowadays nobody uses
> Harrison's clock; it's GPS now. If you've got a big database of spectral
> signatures of all major stars and a good way to match them with actual
> stars you see (as is the case in Second Foundation), it's silly to still
> have to match them up by hand. Have a computer do that.
>
> But like I said, SF tends to fall short when it comes to computers and
> automation. Unless AIs are involved, ofcourse.
>
The difficulty in making AI is something that the science fiction
writers completely missed. In Robert A. Heinlein's book "The Moon Is a
Harsh Mistress" just make a big enough computer and it will become an
AI.
It is something till Penrose that generally no one expected.
> mcv.
> --
> Science is not the be-all and end-all of human existence. It's a tool.
> A very powerful tool, but not the only tool. And if only that which
> could be verified scientifically was considered real, then nearly all
> of human experience would be not-real. -- Zachriel
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