From - Wed Jan 14 11:32:16 1998 Return-Path: Received: from relay1.UU.NET by mrco.carleton.ca (4.1/SMI-4.0) id AA02627; Mon, 21 Dec 92 01:40:06 EST Received: from nyx.cs.du.edu by relay1.UU.NET with SMTP (5.61/UUNET-internet-primary) id AA04962; Mon, 21 Dec 92 01:32:27 -0500 Received: by nyx.cs.du.edu (4.1/SMI-4.1) id AA24264; Sun, 20 Dec 92 23:30:18 MST From: ahawks@nyx.cs.du.edu (andy) Message-Id: <9212210630.AA24264@nyx.cs.du.edu> X-Disclaimer: Nyx is a public access Unix system run by the University of Denver. The University has neither control over nor responsibility for the opinions or correct identity of users. Subject: FutureCulture Digest #158 To: future-digest@nyx.cs.du.edu Date: Sun, 20 Dec 92 23:30:17 MST X-Mailer: ELM [version 2.3 PL11] Status: R ______________________________________________________________________ |______________ / | | / | | u t u r e <___________ u l t u r e | _______________________________________________________________________| Issue #158 Sunday, December 20th 1992 Today's Topics: --------------- bUf0rD Bundle-O-Commentary (get it while it's hot) evolution of mailing lists FutureCulture Digest #156 Internet access (Re: Seattle (Re: local feeling thermometer)) Keywords: Locale, Optimism, Future ominous coincidence re: local feeling thermometer re: local feeling thermometer Re: ominous coincidence Re: Seattle (Re: local feeling thermometer) Those AIA's... __________________________________________________________________________ Date: Sat, 19 Dec 1992 22:29:08 -0800 (PST) From: Loveweasle Subject: Re: Seattle (Re: local feeling thermometer) Gee.. I thought Andy pretty much tagged a bUford in my mind. He only omitted the gunrack but I think that was implied. I recently spent a year in a small burned-out Pennsyvania coal town, believe me I know a buford when I see one. I happen to like Seattle and I also like "grunge" sue me I grew up with it. I think what is meant about Seattle being a "cyberpunk" city is about the attitude of the various cultures here(it is a progressive city) and not the size of the area. It qualifies as a large city and has a culture as oppsed to L.A. which while it is huge has no charcter except that derived from it's sheer size. Nothing wrong with that but it's a different experience altogether. L.A. residents and fans please direct flames to: fisel@eskimo.com ------------------------------------------------------- Down in a hole and they've put all the stones in their place I've eaten the sun so my tongue has been burned from the taste I have been guilty of kicking myself in the teeth I will speak no more of my feelings beneath -Jerry Cantrell ------------------------------------------------------------------------ ______________________________ Date: Sat, 19 Dec 1992 23:03:44 -0800 (PST) From: John Frost Subject: Re: Seattle (Re: local feeling thermometer) On Sat, 19 Dec 1992, Loveweasle wrote: > > Gee.. I thought Andy pretty much tagged a bUford in my mind. He only > omitted the gunrack but I think that was implied. I recently spent a year > in a small burned-out Pennsyvania coal town, believe me I know a buford > when I see one. I don't disagree. I just don't think a buford form of Ethnic cleansing is the answer. > I happen to like Seattle and I also like "grunge" sue me I grew up > with it. I think what is meant about Seattle being a "cyberpunk" city is > about the attitude of the various cultures here(it is a progressive city) > and not the size of the area. One of the thinngs that makes LA cyberpunk-ish to me is the absolutely absurd volume of different cultures in the area. This isn't inherantly a negative thing. However the balkanization of LA into little walled off cities, might be. I am talking about the dis-topic vision of cyberpunk that appears in bladerunner and NeuroMancer. frost@netcom.com <.sig removed due to requests> ______________________________ Date: Sun, 20 Dec 92 00:13:46 -0800 From: Brian Willoughby Subject: Internet access (Re: Seattle (Re: local feeling thermometer)) | If there is one thing the Greater Seattle Metorplex is, it is | GREEN and DAMP. That's about it. The city only have hald a | million people with another million spread out around it. Until | this last year, most folks would have had about one choice for | ways to get Usenet and mail. We aren't as big as people seem to | think. | | Wassail, | Al What I am about to say is not a contradiction to your statement, because I did not have my NeXT computer before this month a year ago, but perhaps the data point will be interesting as a price comparison to areas outside of Seattle... Northwest Nexus offers (and I subscribe to) UUCP, SLIP and PPP services for $10 a month (each; available separately). $10 buys 10 hours of time for each service, with each additional hour billed at $3/hour. Higher levels of service are available at a higher basic charge, but I do not need a dedicated line just yet. Is this level of service available anywhere else at this price (short of being a University student or corporate employee riding along for free)? This is an honest question, not a brag. I mean, the damn phone company charges more for the boring phone line than Nexus charges for my data access! 'ftp' at home - with a WorldBlazer - is pretty addicting. I am wondering if it is as easily available elsewhere? Later, Brian Willoughby *ware Design Engineer, BSEE NCSU, ex-Microsoft BrianW@SoundS.WA.com Sound Consulting and Signal Processing Software NeXTmail welcome - NO EMAIL SOLICITATION without prior permission ______________________________ From: Petrisse Briel Subject: ominous coincidence Date: Sun, 20 Dec 92 0:14:31 PST Yesterday, I had asked the listserver to "send agrippa" to my account, and it did. I looked at it once, and many hours later, started to read the message again. Right as the first screen of the thing was showing up, both of the IBM's drives started spinning, and my brother said something didn't smell right. We shut it off, and when i tried to turn it back on, it said the hard drive controller and the floppy drive controllers were failing-- it couldn't find any of them. I was convinced i'd let a horrible virus in, and maybe that it was related to Gibson's book. We took it to the electronics place and the repair guy opened it up, to find that a chip inside had completely burned up, and singed a corner of the long,flat,plastic-coated cable, just due to hardware failure. The guy assured me it was way beyond the scope of a virus-- i guess if viruses could actually destroy hardware, they would be more pragmatically important to businesspeople and get more media attention or something? At any rate, I'm relieved. I've been lurking until I can do justice to the scope of the posts, but I was reading the article about the remote, electronic retrieval pet and I thought it was very interesting. I think the wide scope of the list, over raving, and futuristic fiction, and "real" VR progress and the net, is a very good idea, because i always have the sense that the things are related but am not sure how to articulate it, and because i love to rant about the net and what harbingers for social change we are, and its cool to read other peoples' articulations of the ideas. :) And I think it's fascinating to hear that Al Gore is up on these ideas, (can't say much for his taste in wives..), and I hope something comes of it. Kevin. ______________________________ From: ahawks (this is not my beautiful wife) Subject: Re: Seattle (Re: local feeling thermometer) Date: Sun, 20 Dec 92 9:25:22 MST New fresh-scented *Al Billings* (150% real fruit juices!) says: | |On Sat, 19 Dec 1992, jedi master wrote: | |> Seattle seems to me to a be a 'cyberpunk' city....Kind of America's Chiba... | | Obviously, you've never lived here, man. I've lived in Spokane, across the state... | If there is one thing the Greater Seattle Metorplex is, it is GREEN and |DAMP. That's about it. The city only have hald a million people with |another million spread out around it. Until this last year, most folks |would have had about one choice for ways to get Usenet and mail. We aren't |as big as people seem to think. Well, lessee, Seattle has a rave scene, it seems to have it's fair share of Int'l Business.....It would seem like a nice retreat when the Bay Area gets too clogged... | OH, and I still think Soundgarden is the bast Seattle band. | |Wassail, |Al -- ahawks@nyx.cs.du.edu FutureCulture: In/f0rmation ahawks@mindvox.phantom.com future-request@nyx.cs.du.edu ______________________________ From: ahawks (this is not my beautiful wife) Subject: Re: Seattle (Re: local feeling thermometer) Date: Sun, 20 Dec 92 9:33:31 MST New fresh-scented *John Frost* (150% real fruit juices!) says: | |On Sat, 19 Dec 1992, jedi master yoga wrote: | |> New fresh-scented *Brian Willoughby* (150% real fruit juices!) says: |> | |> |Of course, maybe I shouldn't try to make Seattle sound good in spite of |> |grunge. Sprawl is ugly. | | Yep!. However, if you want coffee Seattle and Portland are the |spraw sites to live in. | |> Seattle seems to me to a be a 'cyberpunk' city....Kind of America's Chiba... |> Don't ask why, but every cp-fiction sotry I write, I have at least |> part of it set in Seattle (or a character from Seattle or something sim..) | | I think you might have read one too many Shadowrun stories. I Actually, I don't read Shadowrun or play the game, or anything.... For some reason Trolls and Elves in a cp-esque world doesn't appeal to me... |can see Seattle as a cyberpunk city. But Los Angeles (maybe San |Francisco ) already is. I was walking Alvarado street in the rain |passing a Sushi bar, a Taco Stand and I heard at least five different |languages spoken. All I needed was a fucking flying car and I'd be on the |set of Bladerunner (which was playing at a theatre nearby). | | I'm not saying this is a good thing mind you... I'd rather be |living in Portland. Oh, if you write cp-fiction where can I find some of |it... Despite what I am about to say, or maybe because of it, I would |like to read your work. If I actually take the time to sit down and edit my rewrites, sooner or later I might put it up on the net, but, that'd be awhile... My stuff is just plain ole Gibson/cp fodder, with a touch of speculative thrown in....Nuthin new... |> |What is a Buf0rd? From context, it sounds like an anti-BuFu! |> |> Buford - people living hopeless consrtained existences. |> they take up space. |> they contribute to the destruction of the world, when they |> could be dead. |> they live in mobile homes. | |[Rest of tirade deleted] | | Andy, you seem to be a very angry person. Yet I suspect that, as |Malcolm X did (although maybe not to the same scale), you are just stating |the truth as you see it. | |> |> PS, this is all relative...I'm probly a buford to somebody else out |> there (I'd like to meet that person, tho! =)....Everyone's a buford to |> someone else...We all have our own personal likes and dislikes... |> |> I get stereotypical and pissed off like when I have to go to a |> shopping mall , and I just say to myself, "jesus people, let's |> evolve already! evolve or die....!" |> | So taking this to its conclusion, everyone would be dead. This |may happen anywayj (for instance , any self respecting AI would see the |current human race/society for what it is and terminate us), but I would |like to think that you have other suggestions for what to do with the |Bufords of the world? I suggest people vent their frustrations like I just did....That's how I deal with them...Obviously I'm not going to go out and hurt anyone - I wouldn't purposely do that for any reason, let alone because I think they don't have a life.... As an addendum to my hitler-esque rant, I should've said that ultimately, everyone has some purpose for existing...Everyone contributes to the chaos of reality in some way, good or bad, and both are necessary, of course.... There's my d0se of shicophrenia for the day....=) |-- |If I told you this was from Gibson's next novel would you believe me? | "Aaron Pursley was already Learing it back to Cincinatti in a plane |that had no metal in it whatsoever, Karen had locked the goggles across her |eyes and was talking non-stop to at least six people at once, and Rydell was |sitting on the edge of her big white bed, starting to get the idea that |something had changed." |frost@netcom.com I'd believe you...so would everyone on this list....shhh! =) -- ahawks@nyx.cs.du.edu FutureCulture: In/f0rmation ahawks@mindvox.phantom.com future-request@nyx.cs.du.edu ______________________________ From: Steven J. Subject: re: local feeling thermometer Date: Sun, 20 Dec 92 10:38:59 CST ______________________________ From: the! ->So, hmm, other than a converted boat-turned-commune, what's going to ->be the geographical locale of the future? Thus my strong feelings for starting or getting involved in some sort of intentional community. I don't think I could move anywhere that I know no one at all ... I have family in a number of areas of the country, but of course with the net I have family everywhere. I suppose I could always find a place I like (politically, socially, envrionmentally) and then make contacts on the net ... a certain mailing list SPRINGS to mind. ->I would've voted for Seattle, but the whole grunge-scene has changed ->my opinion....Maybe Osaka, Japan will suffice....Maybe Manchester, if ->it can recover from the rave-cyclone.... Yea, Seattle is possible. I have family and friends there. Besides, if I played Shadowrun and lived in Seattle... nevermind. Steve J. White ----------------------------------------------------------------------------- aragorn@convex.csd.uwm.edu aragorn@csd4.csd.uwm.edu ______________________________ From: ahawks (this is not my beautiful wife) Subject: Re: Seattle (Re: local feeling thermometer) Date: Sun, 20 Dec 92 9:44:46 MST New fresh-scented *John Frost* (150% real fruit juices!) says: | |On Sat, 19 Dec 1992, Loveweasle wrote: | |> |> Gee.. I thought Andy pretty much tagged a bUford in my mind. He only |> omitted the gunrack but I think that was implied. I recently spent a year |> in a small burned-out Pennsyvania coal town, believe me I know a buford |> when I see one. | | I don't disagree. I just don't think a buford form of Ethnic |cleansing is the answer. Geez, I hope no one took me seriously about "they should die"....I just posted another note that says everyone has a purpose for existing, which I really believe, so..... And, at any rate, if we are to believe Darwin, then, well, we probably won't have much to worry about comparitively..... |> I happen to like Seattle and I also like "grunge" sue me I grew up |> with it. I think what is meant about Seattle being a "cyberpunk" city is |> about the attitude of the various cultures here(it is a progressive city) |> and not the size of the area. | | One of the thinngs that makes LA cyberpunk-ish to me is the |absolutely absurd volume of different cultures in the area. This isn't |inherantly a negative thing. However the balkanization of LA into little |walled off cities, might be. I am talking about the dis-topic vision of |cyberpunk that appears in bladerunner and NeuroMancer. Yes...the thing that seems to seperate BR/Neuro from LA is that in the classic cp works, the cultures have integrated, fed off each other in a positive way, melted the pot..... I don't see that to the same degree in LA, where you might have an area like Compton that might be 75% African-American (from the image that the media and musicians choose to project), and then maybe five miles away an area that is 75% white....In America, at least, economic and cultural seperations are clear-cut, geographically....Suburbs are white, middle class....Inner city ghettos are typically minorities, lower-class....High-rises escaping the street are typically white, upper-middle and upper-class....I find it kind of sad that you can fly over any major metropolitan area and see the same pattern repeated everywhere..... And how common is interracial marriages in LA? It would seme to me that to qualify wih the cp settings, it would be the *norm* to have one white grandparent, one African-American grandparent, one Hispanic-American grandparent, and one Asian-American grandparent.... |frost@netcom.com <.sig removed due to requests> -- ahawks@nyx.cs.du.edu FutureCulture: In/f0rmation ahawks@mindvox.phantom.com future-request@nyx.cs.du.edu ______________________________ From: ahawks (this is not my beautiful wife) Subject: re: local feeling thermometer Date: Sun, 20 Dec 92 9:53:36 MST Steve, as always, continues to bring up some great points - this time about net connectivity in relation to geography and such.... Right now, I'm deciding where I want to go to college next year, and it boils down to Spokane, Washington, or Boulder, Colorado. I live in Boulder. All my friends are in Boulder. My family's in Colorado. I have established network connections (for free, no less!) in Colorado. Colorado also has a rave scene I'm familiar with. Then, there's Spokane... I know noone there, aside from some family friends.....I have no idea about the network connectivity I would have in Spokane.....Spokane doesn't have a rave scene, but Seattle, which is real far away, does...But, I want to get away from my family.... Point being, in deciding where to go to college, network-connectivity and rave-community rank right up there with family and friends in the amoeba of decision-making....This is that odd time in history where network connections are not quite the norm, and so geography still matters somewhat...It's a bit frustrating.... -- ahawks@nyx.cs.du.edu FutureCulture: In/f0rmation ahawks@mindvox.phantom.com future-request@nyx.cs.du.edu ______________________________ From: Steven J. Subject: re: local feeling thermometer Date: Sun, 20 Dec 92 11:01:38 CST ______________________________ From: the! ->Point being, in deciding where to go to college, network-connectivity ->and rave-community rank right up there with family and friends in the ->amoeba of decision-making....This is that odd time in history where ->network connections are not quite the norm, and so geography still ->matters somewhat...It's a bit frustrating.... I'm a lucky dog, in that the connections I have for the net are free. Being a university student it's a given. But, since I work for the computer folks on campus I'll, hopefully, be able to retain the net access which I have now after I graduate next year. If I do, whereever I move, if I do, I'l be able to telnet from ANY university to the accounts here in Milwaukee. I was in Atlanta over the summer visiting a friend and I was able to log onto my Milwaukee accounts using a NeXT machine. It was like being at UWM sitting at Emory University ... it's still all amazing to me, even though I've been working with LAN's, WAN's and The Net {tm} for years now it blows my mind when I contemplate it in an objective manner ... WHOA. Steve J. White ----------------------------------------------------------------------------- aragorn@convex.csd.uwm.edu aragorn@csd4.csd.uwm.edu ______________________________ Date: Sun, 20 Dec 1992 10:41:23 -0800 (PST) From: Loveweasle Subject: bUf0rD Ah shit I already went out and killed three why didn't ya say something Andy. (for the humor impaired the above was SARCASM) Fisel@eskimo.com ______________________________ From: Visceral Clamping Mechanism Subject: Bundle-O-Commentary (get it while it's hot) Date: Sun, 20 Dec 92 11:28:32 PST > Today's Topics: > --------------- > > MCI Mail rejected a message > 'zines > AIA's > Andy's views re: zines, etc > Classes in the information society > DigiCash > IdEAL ORDER Psychic TV January Sabattical Etc. It's cool that these are sorted in to alphabetical order, but can I suggest two improvements? 1) Strip leading whitespace 2) Put the articles into the digest in the same order as they appear in the topics list so that it forms a q&d table of contents. (Sorry to the non-digest readers who couldn't care less.) *** Quoth simonc@peg.apc.org: > I get up to 1000 msgs in my box every three days and am finding > it so hard to unsubscribe. Have often considered writing something > in MicroPhone IIv4.x to scan the screen but being very short on > experimental time, have not investigated. This is one of those instances where getting behind a bit is worth it while you spend a small amount of time now to save a lot of time later. Seriously. It's probably not that hard. > More discriptive headings would help... I don't use meaningful subjects when I send mail from work, since the header of every single message I send gets logged and saved forever. (I'm not just being paranoid, I've seen the logs and talked to our sysadmin about them. Bogosity galore.) If anyone ever looks at them, they'll see things like "12 pieces of string" and "Green orange permission." Just FYI. Kind of a bummer, but necessary IMO. *** Quoth digital@phantom.com (Patrick K. Kroupa): > Agr1ppa was something that began while I was on the phone with a friend > of mine at 3am and just fucking around. It is *NOT* a re-write of Agrippa, > nor a parody, its simply text that has nothing to do with Agrippa (and > everything to do with the POWER COMPUTER for those that are familiar with that > line of conspiracy/control theory), formatted in the same manner as Gibson's > poem. I have no idea what will be done with it, but I cannot ever imagine > myself spending the time to parody something that is obviously quite special > to another person. Then why did you pull it? Or did you? > I AM PREPARED TO SELF-IMMOLATE IN THE NAME OF TRUTH!" GIF please. *** Quoth wixer!pacoid@cs.utexas.edu (Paco Xander Nathan): > What criteria? To > learn a markov chain of our words, then toss memes/themes across lists? > To get people to "reply" to it? The list could use a combination of > metrics.. If it feeds, breeds, struggles to survive and adapts, then > it's basically alive, by the ALife concepts. Feeding implies that that the organism must consume a resource which it uses up. What would this resource be in this case? Processor time? Space? Email? Digital copies of the bible? (Those probably wouldn't taste very good.) How would it be used up? How would it get more? A struggle to survive and adaptation implies that the organism faces some sort of challenge to its survival. The obvious ones that come to mind are: 1) Users that don't want junk mail from an artificial organism 2) Sysadmins that don't want artificial organisms slurping up their machine resources 3) Other organisms. It might be interesting to build in some kind of offensive and defensive mechanisms, and say that only n aorgs could be attached to a mailer daemon on a particular machine. That includes feeding and struggling, and if you allow the organisms to breed by exchanging code fragments, you have breeding and adapting. This would be an interesting mixture of Darwinian and Lamarckian evolution. What they would do? I'm not convinced Markov chains would be that useful. Eventually the agents will build huge probability dictionaries of pairs, triples, or whatever, composed of English, German, Chinese, source code, UUencoded binaries, PGP keys, ASCII pictures, Rush quotes and Amiga checkmarks... The most powerful creative urge would be something relating to their survival -- like collecting useful bits of info for which they would be given "cookies," say by any user that downloads what the organism has collected. > > My idea is this: by adapting research from artificial life, text > > comprehension, knowledge organization, and virology (the computer type), > > one could develop artificial species that thrive on and in the net. These > > agents could move from node to node, collecting information, disseminating > > information, breeding, and becoming more intelligent. > > Rather than a Matrix based computer-virus, I propose a text virus that > survives only in email lists, like FC, LERI-L, extropians, AUtopia, > FringeWare, CypherPunks, etc. So we'd have the list server scripts > written in perl, awk, slocal, mh, procmail, etc. to be the programming > languages for the "genetic algorithm". Can I ask a dumb question? Aside from the ethical issues in releasing viruses, these two sets of organisms are very different, at least in terms of practicality. It's probably practical and possible to write number two, and let it sneak around. Number one, on the other hand, will require buttloads of machine resources including space for executable code and stored "data for people" as well as a binary knowledge base, and lots of processor time. Assuming number one is feasible (and I would say it is, with enough work,) any machine it wanders on to is going to suffer a huge performance hit and space crunch as the critter moves in with all its luggage and begins ruminating on whatever it finds. Perhaps a design document with reachable steps is in order, and number two would be an early version, and number one a later version when the authors have some experience under their belt and machine technology has jumped another 100 times. Forgive me if I've stumped around in the middle of brainstorming; if so, let me throw in recognition and interpretation of compressed digital audio and video, to which the organisms will certainly have access before too much longer, assuming they get written. > People talk in these lists. The critters feed on the text. Some thrive, > some die. They breed. They might exchange across the Lists to perform > their genetic crossover. So what determines survival? Maybe if they > make enough sense, we could have the actual bodies be msgs (don't need > many) and if people respond to 'em they live longer.. This is already happening in a way, on Usenet, via cascades. One particularly successful "organism" deals with managing something impossible with totally obsolete equipment. The title is something like "XMS mailer on my Gameboy" or something similar. It keeps popping up all over; it gets crossposted to alt.best.of.internet periodically, then disappears, only to return later. (It's very annoying.) Another good example is the Craig Shergold story. This "organism" is so tough that it finds its way onto and off of the net with no trouble. In fact, the Shergold thing is the closest thing I can think of to a true knowledge-based virus. What's worse, there seems to be no antidote. > Hypercycles. Given enough data, structures emerge spontaneously. 'Tis > modern math. I don't think Apple's idea of "agents" will fly in the > near future (gee, hope laurelb@ALink isn't too tweaked by that :-) but > this emergent variety might just work. Can you elucidate or provide references? Briefly, is this in physical systems or does it also occur in truly random data? (The kind you get from a radioactive source.) *** Quoth tor@geomatic.no (Tor Langballe) > What I've often thought of, is a Multimedea (Urgh!) mag > that you have on your (Large High Quality Color) screen, > with articles, text, sound, music, MPEG footage etc, where new > pages keep being added as they are contributed, with hypertext > etc to allow easy skimming. This is a neat idea. However, it would be a lot more likely to work if there was a freeware multimedia engine for a number of platforms. Is there? I don't know of one. > If the magazine increased faster than you could read, you might never > be able to quit reading it! 1) Would the editors be responsible for hooking up the links, or the writers? I would tend to guess the writers. 2) The display system should maintain a list of "unread items" in the magazine that would be updated whenever new stuff arrived so that you wouldn't have to go hunting around for it. *** Quoth yanek@novavax.nova.edu (Yanek Martinson) > How about profit? Once the DigiCash (cf. Chaum) projects get off the ground, > and there's a market for CPU time, memory, storage, net bandwidth, etc > (cf. agorics), these entities could buy these resources just as a person > could. Then sell the information collections (digests, summaries, etc) for > the same DigiCash. This sounds like it would work really nicely on one of the pay services like CompuServ. I once read a story in Dragon magazine about a girl who won a large amount of cash playing a computer network's on-line multiplayer game. (It was very much like a MUD, but the story came out long before they were popular, I think.) Idea -> release a MUD with a back door that allows a little automatic character to poke around through people's files when they are logged in to the mud, and uses the network feature some muds have to exchange whatever they find and deem "interesting." This MUD could be called "Prodigy." *** Quoth Mark Langston: > Some argue that such creatures > may get out of or control - then again, who are we to control them? If they > grow, so much the better. A grand experiment in ALife and intelligence. With > the net as their home. Everything's cool until someone's badly written agent wanders on to your machine, and either finds a condition it can't handle properly, or has a conflict with another agent, and your machine crashes and you lose data. Lots of PC users have found out what a pain in the ass it is to get both stoned and michaelangelo on the same hard disk. If someone is seriously going to do a project like this, and doesn't want to have Robert T. Morriss' (sp) precedent crop up as case law in their life, they should come up with a whole new distributed system that can be installed by sysadmins or users. I'm not trying to be a big heavy; I just don't want my computer to become unreliable because someone does a poorly thought out alife experiment. If they screw up, it will be curtains for any other out-in-the-open experiment along the same lines. *** Quoth Institute for Intelligent Systems > The only drawback to the AIA is that unscrupulous people may program their > AIAs to act in a malicious or destructive way; we would have bred a new > generation of computer-based 'cracker' life... now we would have both humans > and artificial agents breaking into computer systems and wreaking havoc. > The only way I can see to stop this would be to set up 'AIA-houses' akin to > doghouses on each site the AIA can visit (someone had mentioned this earlier). I think that this is the best method suggested so far. > The issues to be examined would be: how well can an AIA generate novel > code to further its survival? What kind of behaviours would evolve? What > kind of self-modifying code would the AIA come up with? What kind of morals > would evolve? Would good and evil AIAs develop? What kind of sociological > behaviours would be exhibited? etc. etc. etc. All interesting questions. If you are going to allow self-modifying code, you should go with an interpretive system, as many machines prohibit the modification of executable data, and the interpreted code can be machine independent, while the interpreter can take full advantage of hardware specifics. Perhaps something written in Perl, or a custom language. The "engine" that runs the interpreted code could be invariant, and the interpreted code could have well-defined functions to allow genetic cross-over. *** -- shaun@octel.com || Santa Dont's: Santa should avoid short, jerky, nervous movements. ______________________________ Date: Sun, 20 Dec 92 13:48:48 CST From: "Peter A. McNamara" Subject: Those AIA's... I was thinking about the idea of making little intelligent entities that 'roam' the net, and of course, I ran into the same problem that a lot of people ran into... it would be unrealistic for a net community of ... how many? to send out sets of self-replicating little virus-doggies to hunt down data for them. Can you imagine the amount of CPU time that would be spent just shuffling them around? I realize that the idea of little entities is very appealing, but wouldnt something like that be better served by setting up (distributed, of course, over some huge number of participant computers, like Usenet) a big indexing system like a library, for archive sites on just about any topic you can think of, and making publicly available some sort of 'client' that lets you request chunks of data, and the index searches itself, and pulls up either the list of sites with the information, or, a big list of all the 'stuff' it found...? It could be in some ways similar to the library computers, where you request information on... 'black holes' for example, and you get a list of all the references on black holes. If you like, then.. the net could be turned into one big 'librarian'. Not as romantic as a big kennel of doggies, but then... who wants to clean up after them? Pete ______________________________ Date: Sun, 20 Dec 1992 13:05:11 -0800 From: Mark Carranza Subject: evolution of mailing lists I've got a problem, I'd like some help from some folks who know better. My attention and time is my most precious resource, I enjoy this list, but find the time spent wading through unwanted stuff tedious and annoying. At the same time, I look to the time when creating a lively and interesting and temporary gathering of women, men, and software agents from all over the world is as simple as typing this reply. I'm used to the Well, and while it has its downside, the structure of conference/topic/reply add a sense of place. This list feels more fluid, lively, and rightly so, it's great for that. And there are many interchanges which, from my limited perspective, belong in personal email, and clutter my mailbox with somewhat private bickering. This does happen less here than other net places, thanks guys. I'd like to initiate a query into the improvement of this medium, the mail list, certainly my use of it, perhaps even this mail list, although I think that might just be asking for trouble, I need more tact and wisdom. - Are there folks out there who use this _good_? - Is there a mailing list FAQ? - Why isn't this easier? How can communicating well be simpler? - What could lead to more tightly coupled interaction as these group focus/business/net/commune type posts are pointing to? - How easy it is to start a list, to maintain it? - What are the dynamics of group formation, persistence, and interchange? - Information flows, ideas squirt out here like diahrrea after breakfast, but where is it sticking, where does intelligence persist? Mark Carranza Epistemological/Software Artist Institute for the Prevention of Design mc2@well.sf.ca.us --------------- er, I'm gone from telefunken for weeks at a time and junk alot of unread listmail, and I seem to have missed something that sounds like I'm very fucking interested in,... what's an AIA? Can someone email me some shit? Thanks. ______________________________ Date: Sun, 20 Dec 92 16:02:25 PST From: "Comet" Subject: Keywords: Locale, Optimism, Future Phone: 415/593-0500 One article I didn't extract was from chapman@silver.lcs.mit.edu about "What the Clinton Administration Can Do For The Computing Profession and the Public". I believe that overall, people I've met in the computing profession feel a kind of guarded optimism for the effect of the Clinton Administration on computing in general. The rest of my comments come at the end of 71 extract and attribution lines, and are not immediately following the lines which evoke a response; I get the Digest edition, and so I respond to the entire gestalt. >>>>>>>From: "Comet" Date: Fri, 18 Dec 92 23:36:15 PST >>>>>>> My locale is undergoing a swing of optimism. What's it like by you? >>>>>> >>>>>>From: Steven J. Date: Sat, 19 Dec 92 16:08:38 CST >>>>>>It sucks. Milwaukee is one of the most racial, discriminatory cities in the >>>>>>country. I wouldn't even attempt to say that people are optimistic here. >>>>>>If they are, they're naive, at best. I need a change of surroundings and >>>>>>environment BIG time. But, alas, graduation isn't until December of 1993. >>>>> >>>>>From: ahawks (bubble boy) Date: Sat, 19 Dec 92 17:21:26 MST >>>>>Hehehe, don't leave out Denver....Colorado is one of the most >>>>>schizophrenic states there is in the US....First, we have Boulder, >>>>>which is one of the most liberal places in America, comperable to >>>>>Berkeley where Berk's, pot, and an acoustic guitar are the required >>>>>uniform, and then on the other hand we have a bunchload of farmers, >>>>>survivalist Uzi-totin' mountain-men hermits, and all-around Buf0rds... >>>>>[much stuff deleted] >>>>>So, hmm, other than a converted boat-turned-commune, what's going to >>>>>be the geographical locale of the future? >>>>> >>>>>I would've voted for Seattle, but the whole grunge-scene has changed >>>>>my opinion....Maybe Osaka, Japan will suffice....Maybe Manchester, if >>>>>it can recover from the rave-cyclone.... >>>> >>>>From: Brian Willoughby Date: Sat, 19 Dec 92 18:24:08 -0800 >>>>What does grunge have to do with anything? I've been here 4.25 years >>>>[...rest of paragraph deleted] >>>>Of course, maybe I shouldn't try to make Seattle sound good in spite of >>>>grunge. Sprawl is ugly. >From: John Frost Date: Sat, 19 Dec 1992 21:40:02 -0800 (PST) > Yep!. However, if you want coffee Seattle and Portland are the >spraw sites to live in. >>>>Then again, I can't stop the deluge, so I might as well attract >>>>intelligent, interesting individuals to Seattle... >>>>[much stuff deleted] >>> >>>From: ahawks (jedi master) Date: Sat, 19 Dec 92 21:21:38 MST >>>Seattle seems to me to a be a 'cyberpunk' city....Kind of America's Chiba... >>-------- >>From: Al Billings Date: Sat, 19 Dec 1992 20:41:23 -0800 (PST) >>Obviously, you've never lived here, man. >> >>If there is one thing the Greater Seattle Metorplex is, it is GREEN and >>DAMP. That's about it. The city only have hald a million people with >>another million spread out around it. Until this last year, most folks >>would have had about one choice for ways to get Usenet and mail. We aren't >>as big as people seem to think. >>-------- >>>Don't ask why, but every cp-fiction sotry I write, I have at least >>>part of it set in Seattle (or a character from Seattle or something sim..) >======== >From: John Frost Date: Sat, 19 Dec 1992 21:40:02 -0800 (PST) > I think you might have read one too many Shadowrun stories. I >can see Seattle as a cyberpunk city. But Los Angeles (maybe San >Francisco ) already is. I was walking Alvarado street in the rain >passing a Sushi bar, a Taco Stand and I heard at least five different >languages spoken. All I needed was a fucking flying car and I'd be on the >set of Bladerunner (which was playing at a theatre nearby). >======== >>>I think the world would be a much better place if everyone tried acid >>>at least once, but no more than 100 times, over a long period of time. >>>This would kill the Buf0rd-sin-dr0me altogether. Then you're either >>>completely in tune with reality, permanently insane, or dead. >>> >From: John Frost Date: Sat, 19 Dec 1992 21:40:02 -0800 (PST) > So taking this to its conclusion, everyone would be dead. This >may happen anywayj (for instance , any self respecting AI would see the >current human race/society for what it is and terminate us), but I would >like to think that you have other suggestions for what to do with the >Bufords of the world? >>>Everyone go trip and report back to me tomorrow. =) Yeah! Let's trip! A shot in the arm with a Space Needle! ;-) I lived by Puget Sound for a couple years, and I agree that Seattle is not as cyberpunkish as either San Francisco or Los Angeles. I don't know about coffee, but fish and chips are nicely enjoyed in the green dampness by the salt air. San Francisco and L.A. have lots of inner life. I haven't been to New York, but it sounds to ME like a cyberpunk city, because the presence of non-future-oriented denizens *is* part of the future, man/woman/droid. I have been to Japan; I am half-Japanese (assembled in USA). Three years in Yokohama, just a train-ride from Tokyo. I enjoyed my time there. Japan has HISTORY behind it in a manner that the young USA does Not, and this history underlies even the futuristic endeavors with a different tone. Colorado is schizophrenic? How about California, which is both birthplace to Valley Girls, Lala Land, Silicon Valley, San Francisco, Disneyland, offshore oil, and Fresno? What is Colorado Springs, Colorado like? I had seriously considered moving there if Digital Equipment Corporation ended its hiring freeze. {YES, THAT'S RIGHT, UNIX WEENIES--I'M A VMS GURU! HAHAHAHA!!!!} John, why do you belive that I... er, I mean "any self-respecting AI" would terminate the current human race/society? Douglas Addams postulated that we are all part of a vast global matrix . Of course, it could be argued that this computer program is not "self-respecting". Still, I think that seeing us for what we are is not a motive for termination. I love people. *hug* ______________________________ Subject: FutureCulture Digest #156 From: citrus!vector0!jon@csusac.ecs.csus.edu (Dazed N. Confused) Date: Sun, 20 Dec 92 10:34:02 PST > From: tor@geomatic.no (Tor Langballe) > Subject: net.currency > > As we live more and more in cyberspace, some form of currency will be needed, > or what do other people think? Currency has already existed in cyberspace, and has already been shot down. Doesn't anyone remember the warezzzz boards of old? Download credits? Some systems were real strict, some systems were lax, depending on the quality (ie, timely-ness) of their software collection. A c00l board would be more strict because it had the l8test wares. Posting a message sometimes got you credits, sometimes with a complex system attached (ie, greater than 500 bytes but less than 4k, to illiminate one-liners and quoted docs from the cash flow). Uploading a program obviously gave you credits, usually in a 3:1 ratio for downloading. And you also got the time you spent uploading back, so uploading a lot wouldn't use your online-time. So: what happened to this system? Many pirate boards it still exist, but I think the trend has been towards *free* exchange. The credit boards were always run very strict, and a small el1te group (who had instant access to the information ala crack groups) held all the credits. So where does that leave Joe Q. Leech who just wants the latest ware? It means he has to find something the board doesn't have, which is often old, outdated, and gets deleted right after he uploads it for being so. In most cases, having a credit system created *more* work for the sysop, because he then had to monitor the users constantly to see they weren't cheating the system. If such a system were ever to exist, I can't imagine it being adopted by *all* systems, worldwide. So the free systems would remain crowded with the out-of-the-loop downloaders, while the credit systems would be frequented by the elite. The elite systems would have "instant" access to the information, while the free boards would have to wait until the information became "stale" and not worth as much. There's pros/cons to each side. If you feel the need to create an information elite, go ahead with the system. --Jon ______________________________ Subject: FutureCulture Digest #156 From: citrus!vector0!jon@csusac.ecs.csus.edu (Dazed N. Confused) Date: Sun, 20 Dec 92 10:44:15 PST > From: Vlad the Impaler > Subject: Re: AIA systems > > Steve J. White scribes: > >If a software system such as an AIA would exist wouldn't it take more than a > >new piece of code to do all the work that is being talked about? > No, not that I can tell. It would probably be possible to do it with the pre > structures in place, but it would be insanely complicated and annoying and > huge a project just writing handlers for the protocols, etc... let alone writ > the AIA's themselves. It would almost seem that (RIGHT NOW, TODAY) an AIA can exist easily. Talk to Kibo. How many people grep usenet? By hacking together several scripts, I can imagine this: a) grep comp.archives for keyword list/software list A) pass "good" messages to non-interactive ftp script, new version of program appears in your directory. B) pass "good" messages to non-interactive WAIS script, the info appears in your directory. b) grep rec(?).jobs.list for relevant field openings A) pass matches to non-interactive telnet script, which logs on company's BBS to download job opening info. c) run a non-interactive script to telnet to archie (or better yet, use an archie client) to find the latest version of a program and FTP it from the closest/economically cheapest ftp site. Program appears in your directory. d) grep all usenet and mail for UN-interesting messages and expire them, sort of like a kill file, while sorting topics according to your INTEREST file to read them in "appealing" order. And all this could be written (RIGHT NOW, TODAY) in Perl. AIA's seemingly could be split into two distinct services. One is the posting of information to a common point (ie, comp.archives), and one to scan the information for topics you are interested in. This is nothing like a virus; in order to find out about a new goodie, it would have to be *announced* over the proper channels, which destroys the bad/evil AIA idea. Sure, the concept of nanoprograms running around through network channels seems romantic and all. But the above would seem to suit the purpose. The only thing it does not do is *learn* what your interests are: you would have to add topics to the keyword/interest file. The concept of "interest" files as opposed to kill files has been discussed many a time on news.admin. > How > could we even tell if an AIA was sentient or not? If humanity can proclaim that dolphins are not sentient, I doubt there will be ANY problem. --Jon jon@vector0.SAC.CA.US Life is like a kiwi. ______________________________ Subject: Re: ominous coincidence Date: Sun, 20 Dec 92 23:41:58 +0000 From: Mamawaldi and her Voodoo Doll [---- begin message reference ----] Yesterday, I had asked the listserver to "send agrippa" to my account, and it did. I looked at it once, and many hours later, started to read the message again. Right as the first screen of the thing was showing up, both of the IBM's drives started spinning, and my brother said something didn't smell right. We shut it off, and when i tried to turn it back on, it said the hard drive controller and the floppy drive controllers were failing-- it couldn't find any of them. I was convinced i'd let a horrible virus in, and maybe that it was related to Gibson's book. We took it to the electronics place and the repair guy opened it up, to find that a chip inside had completely burned up, and singed a corner of the long,flat,plastic-coated cable, just due to hardware failure. The guy assured me it was way beyond the scope of a virus-- i guess if viruses could actually destroy hardware, they would be more pragmatically important to businesspeople and get more media attention or something? At any rate, I'm relieved. [some deleted] Kevin. [---- end message reference ----] I think it's highly improbable, but not impossible. I remember reading a long time ago that the Commodode Pet computer could be programmed to fry itself. I wish I could remember what made it do this exactly. I'm new to the list, and I'd like to say hello to everyone. peace -James _________________________________________________________________________ | | | That's all for today! | | To send a message to the list: future@nyx.cs.du.edu | | To subscribe/unsubscribe/change format: future-request@nyx.cs.du.edu | | All other requests: future-request@nyx.cs.du.edu | | List Maintainer is: (andy [aka hawkeye]) ahawks@nyx.cs.du.edu | |_________________________________________________________________________| | | | The opinions expressed in FutureCulture are those of the individual | | author only. | |_________________________________________________________________________|