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Gaming the Future: The Book!

Month: July 2000

Help with IF Claims on Protein Synthesis

from the would-you-know-it-if-you-saw-it? dept.
Two Idea Future claims on the Foresight server were created that concerned developments in building computational elements using "protein synthesis techniques". Please help us clarify the claims and ensure that they mean what was intended. Read More for details.

VC John Doerr names "next big thing": atoms

from the yup-here-comes-the-money-for-sure dept.
Senior Associate Luke Nosek, VP Strategy at X.com, points out this item from The Standard on venture capitalist John Doerr at the Internet Summit: Still, in a sign that the revolution is changing, Doerr, an investor credited with being one of the early Internet visionaries, admits that his interests are shifting. When asked what the next big thing is, Doerr didn't answer by describing some new Internet technology. "I'm getting interested in making things again — atoms," he says. The largest global markets to come, he added, will be in providing clean water, clean power and transportation.

UCLA wants $300 million for Calif. Nanosystems Institute

from the sooner-or-later-it-will-happen dept.
Three Univ. of Calif. Institutes for Science and Innovation will be selected from proposals made by UC campuses, according to a report in the San Jose Mercury News: "California Nanosystems Institute would focus on the science, engineering and manufacturing of molecular-based structures. Lead campus is UCLA." It's unclear from the article whether this proposal is one of six semi-finalists for the $300 million each new institute will get from combined state and industry matching funds–but if not this time, then soon, somewhere.

Vastmind: Distributed Computing

from the but-how-do-I-know-what's-going-on-in-there dept.
Senior Associate Eliezer Yudkowsky forwards from Transdot: Aaron Davidson writes: "About 8 months or so ago, David Gobel & I formed a new company called Vastmind, as a result of discussions on the Extropians list and on Eliezer's Singularitarians list. It is our pleasure to debut the early beta version of Vastmind. What is Vastmind? It is a general purpose distributed computing service. With our system, people will be able to sell or donate spare computing resources to those that need it for large projects. If you are unfamiliar with the concept, read Egan's 'Permutation City', which discusses the potential of a planetary computing market."

Proposed model for group-authored Foresight book

from the many-hands-make-lots-of-work dept.
Senior Associate TomMcKendree writes "I understand the intent of "Engines of Creation 2000" project is to produce an up-to-date version of Engines of Creation by integrating the work of many contributors. An excellent model for such an integration is the Fifth Discipline Fieldbook (Senge, Kleiner, Roberts, Ross, Smith (eds), 1994). It combines the work of 63 contributors, many providing just a single section of a few pages. The book is organized into chapters by topic, with individual sections identified by type (solo exercise, team exercise, guiding idea, resource, etc). It is intended to be highly browsable–readable in any direction." In addition, the book has its own website under construction.

Perpetual motion machine in Phys. Rev. Lett.

from the let's-get-a-2nd/3rd/4th-opinion-on-this-one dept.
Senior Associate ChrisPhoenix brings weird news: "I wouldn't have believed it, but it's reported in the American Institute of Physics Physics News Update number 494. A team in Europe has done some new thermodynamics work. They say that heat engines may be made more efficient than previously thought, by putting the hot and cold baths in direct contact for brief periods of time–this may even lead to new engine designs. Even more surprising is their second paper, which claims that a quantum particle strongly interacting (entangled) with a "quantum thermal bath" may violate the Clausius inequality. The particle may gain heat from a colder bath. They term this "appalling behavior", but come right out and say that this could constitute a perpetual motion machine of the second kind."

Freenet: is it "the end of copyright"?

from the DaveK-says-"info-wants-to-be-frictionless" dept.
Paul Hughes writes "For those of you who don't already know, FreeNet is a peer-to-peer network designed to allow the distribution of information over the Internet in an efficient manner, without fear of censorship. Freenet is completely decentralized, meaning that there is no person, computer, or organization in control of Freenet or essential to its operation. This means that Freenet cannot be attacked like centralized peer-to-peer systems such as Napster. Freenet also employs intelligent routing and caching, meaning that it learns to route requests more efficiently, automatically mirrors popular data, makes network flooding almost impossible, and moves data to where it is in greatest demand.

Brian Atkins (posting to the Extropians List) has pointed out a new article about FreeNet. It appears to be spreading across the net at lighting speed, with many believing it spells the end of copyright as we know it. What do you think?"

Nanomedicine in prestigious "The Sciences"

from the enough-pain-&-suffering-already dept.
Senior Associate Robert Freitas Jr., author of the partially-Foresight-funded book Nanomedicine Vol. 1, has published an article on nanotechnology in the prestigious magazine The Sciences published by the New York Academy of Sciences. He concludes: "The hope and dream is that, sometime in the not-too-distant future, those devices will be able to eliminate virtually all the common diseases of the twentieth century, and virtually all bodily pain and suffering as well." Oddly, the magazine is not online at all; Read More for order info.

Merkle to ACM: why "relinquishment" can't work

from the why-the-good-guys-have-to-work-work-work dept.
Foresight advisor Ralph Merkle responds to Bill Joy's concerns in an interview for ACM's Ubiquity: "…if we attempt to block the development of new technology, if we collectively try and say, 'These technologies are technologies that are not meant for humans to understand,' and we try to back away from them, what we effectively have done is not to block the technologies, we have simply ensured that the most responsible parties will not develop them…In other words, a relinquishment of the new technology, unless it is absolutely 100 percent effective, is not effective at all. If it's 99.99 percent effective, then you simply ensure that the .01 percent who pays no attention to such calls for relinquishment is the group that will develop it."

Idea Futures Activity at the 2000 Senior Associates Gathering

from the never-too-late dept.
At the Foresight Senior Associates gathering in 1999, an Idea Futures market was set up for attendees to "put their money where their mouths were" on a variety of questions related to Foresight's goals. The market is now available on an ongoing basis for those who've opened accounts. This article reports on events at this year's gathering: Two new claims were added concerning how and when AI will appear. The most contentious claims during the gathering were those related to the date that the Feynman Grand Prize will be awarded. The odds on those claims have see-sawed back and forth as people with different viewpoints have weighed in on the question. Senior Associates can join by sending money to the Foresight office.

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