Archive for May, 2007

New iMac Upgrade

Published on May 24, 2007 in Computar. Closed

My employer just got me a new 20″ iMac to replace my old “flowerpot” (aka Pedestal) iMac. I have to say, I’m impressed with Apple’s migration tool.

All I had to do was turn on the new machine, turn off the old one, connect a firewire cable—luckily I had one of these laying around, if you don’t have one you’re out a good chunk of change—and turn on the old machine while holding down ‘t’ (for transfer, I assume). The new machine then took control of my old mac, searched through its guts, and pulled over all my files, settings, and applications. It took maybe 2 hours to copy over the whole 60 Gb or so (kinda slow..), but it worked!

When the new Mac was finished, I was presented with my old desktop, everything exactly like it was on my old Mac (except with a higher resolution). The whole process was so painless, in fact, that I felt the tinkerer in me let down, having expected to wrestle with configurations and the like. Really they should add some option in to let the geeks fight at least for a little while with some operating system facade, I needed more of a sense of reward.

Now with my new machine, I know it’s at least twice as fast and significantly more capable, but to me it feels just like the old Mac. I do get Front Row now, though, which is pretty neat. Joost will work now too, as they don’t release binaries for PowerPC chips.

I don’t think I’d ever expect myself to be upset with something being too easy, but there you go. Yay Apple? :)

The Singularity Summit at Stanford, Part 1

Published on May 21, 2007 in Memes, Moving Pictures, Science, Technology, Tha Intarweb and The Future. Closed

I’ve been watching and enjoying the talks given at the Singularity Summit at Stanford. The talks are given by a group of very smart people who’ve been doing a lot of thinking about The Singularity. They’re really quite thoughtful and often insightful.

Wait, what’s The Singularity? From Wikipedia:

The Technological Singularity is the hypothesized creation, usually via AI or brain-computer interfaces, of smarter-than-human entities that rapidly accelerate technological progress.

Most speakers assume the Singularity to include Strong AI (as developed as human intelligence), Nanotechnology (the ability to manipulate atoms and build atomic-scale machines), and often some form of brain-computer interface, allowing regular humans to upload their consciousness into digital (and non-degrading) form. All in all, it’s a major event and one that will change humanity forever. As such it deserves a good deal of thought, and that’s what these people were there to talk about.

For those of you who don’t have the time to watch the talks (and you should, most are only 20 minutes), here’s my (lighthearted) summary of a few:

The Singularity: A Hard or Soft Takeoff?
Ray: Hey there, my book is great! Have you read my book? It’s really awesome. My book talks about all these really cool things. It’s quite convincing. See here I’ll show you some illustrations from my book. Oh by the way, I made a handheld device that reads text for blind people; wanna hear it? here it goes:

Reader: RAY KURZWEIL IS AWESOME. HIS BOOK IS GREAT. HAVE YOU READ IT? HERE’S SOME TEXT.

Ray: Yeah so read my book, not like you really need to because I’ve just presented all the major points. Did I mention my book is cool?

Trying to Muse Rationally about the Singularity Scenario
Doug: Hi, I’m Douglas R. Hofstadter. My name has a middle initial, so I’m more important than everyone else. In fact, I’m so important, I’m the one who organized this whole thing. I’m going to now bitch for 20 minutes about the fact that I organized everything and people screwed it all up last year. I really hope people don’t screw it up again this year, even though I’ve changed the name and everything. I’ve even made blood sacrifices upon the altar of Ray Kurzweil.

Ray’s Reader: ALL HAIL THE MIGHTY AND POWERFUL KURZWEIL.

Doug: So anyway, thinking about this new world of powerful AI and nanotechnology and stuff is really hard. Nobody, even Kurzweil himself can really know what’s going to happen. I even think Ray’s quite off his rocker on some of these things. In any case, I’ve assembled some really smart people to come here and talk about what’s going to happen to us. Listen to them because they’re great. I’m still the greatest though and I get to have my picture at the top of the page.

Book update

Published on May 17, 2007 in Books. Closed

I just wanted to share with everyone this great book I’m reading. It’s Kings of Infinite Space by James Hynes. It’s sort of Office Space meets Stephen King.

Filled with a dark humor, this book effectively satirizes the modern office while at the same time introducing a strong element of the bizarre. English geeks will have a field day with all the literary references. Not that you have to be a lit freak to enjoy the book—I’m certainly not one ;). How could you not win with an opening line like this?

One brutally hot Summer’s morning, Paul Trilby—ex-husband, temp typist, cat murderer—slouched sweating in his t-shirt on his way to work, waiting behind the wheel of his car for the longest red light in central Texas.

It’s a quick read, and a welcome break from my more-regular diet of New Yorkers and Funny Times.