One down, many to go.

[silveradept]

The padded rugby team was victorious today, one of hopefully many victories this season. (At least we're worried now about making sure the offense makes things work. The defense looked very solid today.) And so everything's in order, and tomorrow, I'll probably be in Windsor for much of the day - the first time I've been out of the country in my life. Took me long enough.

Anyway, only one link tonight.

Applying good computer principles to humanity - some groups are trying to figure out the logistics of making a backup on the moon of the human race. It sounds like an interesting idea. Although, one would have to figure out how to trigger the backup if we eliminated ourselves.

Going to bed now, as things are likely to be getting very awake very early in the morning. But I hope they're lots of fun, too.

Comments

[sharpsight.livejournal.com]

M) Probably a 'dead man's switch' of some sort: if a signal (hopefully of a sort that can't just be sent over and over by an automated machine while humanity dies out, though if you're willing to wait for it to break down that wouldn't matter) isn't received every day, week, month, year, decade or some such, it would take that as its trigger. Another possibility would be for it to regularly send a signal to be responded to, but then you run into problems of reception, location, nationality/language etc.

There would have to be a set window within which to repond to it, to allow for the Earth's turns... should work, as long as there's some feedback mechanism to allow for warning of time-window-slippage.

Actually, that's a problem: if you're waiting for a possible automated signal-sender to break down, then why wouldn't the backup system break down in the same timeframe? It has to be built to be very, very, very long-lasting.

Heh. The 'depends who you ask' line: the asker should have replied 'Well, I'm asking you.'.

Infinitely adaptable software system? Ridiculous, at least without some new physics involved--or maybe far more advanced technology than we currently have.

*gets to the end* Hm. They don't actually seem to be proposing something which could be triggered... just something for any humans still alive to use. You can have humans living on Luna, but if you want the vault to start raising new humans from scratch, it's going to be a great deal harder.

[silveradept]

It did sound more like a Luna archive of Terra, which begged the further question, though, if one is going to create an archive of Terra, one should figure out how to make it engage into recovery mode if the entirety of Terra should be destroyed.

[sharpsight.livejournal.com]

M) Automated systems have this habit of failing. If you want it to be self-sustaining in the event of Terra's surface being completely turned into a wasteland unable to support life (which it would have to be for there to be no more humans alive down there), you might as well have it up, running, and with concious humans at the helm. There's the problem of stopping them from destroying themselves with their on stupidity, but you'll have that problem pretty much whatever you do in the imagined timeframe.

Also, in advance, welcome to England. *peers southwards*

[silveradept]

Right, I think I understand - so we're more likely to create Terminus and the various Foundations rather than Universal AC.

And why do you direct the "Welcome to England" comment at me?

[sharpsight.livejournal.com]

M) *nods* Or, at least, it would probably be a great deal easier. ('Universal AC'--source?')

*blinks* Back up. Is there more than one Windsor now?

[silveradept]

Universal AC is from an Asimov short story - "The Last Question", I believe, about a question flippantly asked of a supercomputer, which nonetheless continues to work on a solution to it until the end of the universe.

And yes, there are several Windsors now. The one in question was Windsor, Ontario, Canada.

[sharpsight.livejournal.com]

M) Ahh. *nods* I can remember that, though the name was forgotten--and then at the end, the 'Let there be light' line.

Augh. This is getting ridiculous... and do they have their own Windsor royal family and Windsor castle?

[annaonthemoon.livejournal.com]

In 1794, after the American Revolution, the settlement of Sandwich was founded. It was later renamed to Windsor, after the town in Berkshire, England.

Does that help at all? Also intersting/important to note is that many places in both the States and Canada are named after British people & places simply because both countries were/are British territories. For example, I grew up in East Windsor, NJ (named after the Royal family). My mom lives in Lancaster (the red rose city) and grew up in York, PA (the white rose city) so named for the House of York/House of Lancaster/War of the Roses.