Michio Kaku on Type 1, Type 2, Type 3 Civilizations

A fascinating talk about why humanity may not be able to recognize extraterrestrial life, even if it existed in the known galaxy.

“First we build the tools, then they build us.” — Marshall McLuhan

Blog Updates

When I originally devised this blog, I wanted it to become a nexus of sorts for information relating to the technological singularity, and more generally, ramblings about what I’m up to with technology.

A few updates are in order, I believe.

• I have abandoned Linux (opensuse) for Windows 7, I actually switched back in January, when the first beta build of Windows 7 was released to the public. I now fully believe that unless Linux can develop competitive applications that can mirror those in windows, it will not be an option that I will want to use.
• I was accepted to ASU, and this is one of the ‘projects’ required of me. Therefore, I will type up some information regarding what I can do, what I have done, and what I’d like to do in the future.

I have been able to look into various themes, but I have found this one to convey information in a way that is not distracting, and displays information in a fresh, original way. If I find a theme that I truly enjoy, I might consider switching, but at this juncture I am satisfied with this layout.

I would like additional space for storing images, but the additional costs do not necessarily support the amount of time I use this site, nor the number of visitors who frequent it.

I have looked into adding flickr feeds and so forth, but have not yet found the excuse to do so, if I do, then I shall make sure to do it in such a way that is professional, and flows well with the content that this blog is known for.

• I have embedded video, and have looked into changing font, adding music, pictures, links, etc.
• Editing posts, adding tags, and reorganizing tags to create a more organic flow in the blog.
• Future updates will be provided as I ramp up operations of this blog.

Arizona State University Computer Science

The Computer Science department at Arizona State University is, in my opinion, the most incredibly diverse, forward thinking department. Not only does the entire department engage in world-renowned academic research, the professors are engaged in ensuring the success of a new generation of computer science students who will pursue the next paradigm shift in computing, and usher in a new computing era that is radically different from what we are experiencing now.

By the year 2029, a computer you can purchase for $1000 will have the equivalent computing power of a human brain, according to projections made by Ray Kurzweil. In other words, by 2029, computing, artificial intelligence will out-pace biological intelligence.

Moore's Law

‘Still alive’

Portal – Still Alive typography from Trickster on Vimeo.

Neat video found on Vimeo (you can navigate to vimeo’s website for the full 720p video.

Nihilism — A philosophy on “nothingness”

From wikipedia.org:

Nihilism (from the Latin nihil, nothing) is a philosophical position which argues that existence is without objective meaning, purpose, or intrinsic value. Nihilists generally assert some or all of the following:

• Objective morality does not exist.
• No action is logically preferable to any other in regard to the moral value of one action over another.
• In the absence of objective morality, existence has no intrinsic higher meaning or goal.
• There is no reasonable proof or argument for the existence of a higher ruler or creator.
• Even if a higher ruler or creator exists, humanity has no moral obligation to worship them.

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Many do not want to register the fact that objective morality does not exist; most would claim that there is a set of “univeral laws” that exist for everyone — but I do not believe this to be true, because I am not under that set of “universal moral laws”, so I therefore break from that line, and logically if one person doesn’t follow “univeral moral code” than the entire claim must be false.

Nihilism is not reactionary; it is a movement that has been growing since the 19th century — it is simply that events in the 20th, and in the last 8 years of the 21st century, have assisted in the expansion of this type of thought — that life itself has no meaning. It is not existentialism, for it goes beyond simply admitting that there is “nothing”. This is an affirmation that not only does nothing exist, but that it is futile to make truth claims, and to make assumptions based on knowledge — for there is no universal, binding truth. In other words: Nothing matters.

It is not that nihilism is indifferent, or ambivalent — it is, rather, that there is a sense that what we perceive in the world has no absolutes, and that truth is a human construct — humanity creates truth because we want to see it, not because it exists inherently.

openSUSE 11.0 — The reason I switched from Vista x64 to Linux x86_64

To be honest, I have always been a “Windows geek” — always have enjoyed a Microsoft OS, ever since I first started using Win 95 — and subsequently with Win 98, (still a favourite OS of mine, though it has been 8 years since I’ve used it).

I have never considered using Linux “full time”, that is, replacing Vista completely — 2 summers ago, I tried dual booting Ubuntu (then 7.10 beta) and Fedora 8, and even openSUSE 10.3. To be honest, I was not impressed by any of them, when compared with XP x64 (and subsequenty Vista).

This has changed, recently, due to the fact that I have found that Vista had begun to become very laggy, and my 92.2GB hard-drive (yes, I’m on a laptop) was reduced to a 5 GB one.

I decided that instead of simply reinstalling Windows, which would requier buying an new edition (or acquiring a new key) — Linux would be my best option. But then a simple question came to mind: which distro?

The Linux distribution choice is probably the most important choice, in front of other choices such as the Desktop Environment, and the Windows Manager. There are so many new, improved options since 2 summers ago, and most of them were released this last summer/spring. Ubuntu/Kubuntu 8.04, Fedora 9, and openSUSE 11.0 have all released, and all of them are strong Linux distros that are easy to use, and generally user friendly (some would argue moreso with Ubuntu/Kubuntu).

I decided to back up all my files, and switch over to Linux completely. Sure, Office 2007 operates quite nice, but I realised that Open Office.org (OOo) version 3.0 will be released this October, and binaries will be available for the major distributions then, in the mean time, I could use OOo 2.4.1, which is a stable, useful relase, and still has many features needed for school work.

I tried Kubuntu 8.04 for a few hours, messing around with it — but in the end, an error with the apt-get function caused me to evaluate my choices, and I decided I’d try Fedora 9, a strong Linux distro. Fedora 9 did not impress me as I thought it would, and I felt that perhaps openSUSE 11.0 would be the diamond, especially after reading positive reveiws from very critical sources for Linux.

I have to say that openSUSE 11.0 (with KDE 4.1) is the most stable OS I’ve used for Linux to date, and I would argue is far more stable than Vista’s OS. This alone makes it imperative for others to hear this — sure, my hardware configuration is going to be different from others, but the staple of my experience remains: flawless. The one-click installation from opensuse.org is a great attribute that has made using this distro absolutely amazing — I will not be switching back to Windows, (at least until Windows 7, if at all) — and I will be seriously considering making openSUSE my distro of choice in the future — especially considering the fact that 11.1 is coming out December 18th, and new features are promised for that release.

I’ll write more about my experiences with openSUSE, for now, I’ll link back to their website, so you can figure out the distro on a very helpful website.

official openSUSE logo

Conflict in Georgia – ‘Very dangerous situation’

Lunar X Prize — Moon 2.0

This is a short “advert” type video I created for the Google Lunar X Prize just using various pictures from their website, and of the moon and other relevent images.

Lunar X Prize, Moon 2.0 from Spencer Prost on Vimeo.