Sandisk archival memory
Tuesday, February 27th, 02007 
As reported by Engaget, Sandisk is rumored to be developing 100 year archival memory cards… These may be just the thing for those family photos languishing on your ever detiorating CDRs.
Archive for February, 02007
Rosetta rounds Mars…
Tuesday, February 27th, 02007 
On February 24th the Rosetta spacecraft successfully completed its somewhat hairy slingshot around Mars with a copy of our Rosetta Disk on board. More here: http://www.esa.int/SPECIALS/Rosetta/
Here is agreat photo forwarded by Stewart Brand shot from Rosetta as it swung by Mars.
Three Predictions
Friday, February 23rd, 02007
It’s a bit rare that we see such clear and succinct predictions. These three by Ari Emanuel were published at the Huffington Post and were forwarded to me by Paul Saffo:
I have three predictions to make this morning: 1) John McCain will not be the Republican Party’s nominee. 2) Hillary Clinton will not be the Democratic Party’s nominee. 3) Before the end of Bush’s term, Condoleezza Rice will be Vice-President.
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/ari-emanuel/three-predictions_b_41851.html
Antikythera Redux
Friday, February 23rd, 02007
Nice piece by BBC on the latest work on the Antikythera Mechanism. This example of a 2000 year old astronomical computer being reconstructed out of relics from the bottom of the mediterranean is very encouraging for our Clock project…
Vernor Vinge - What if the Singularity Does NOT happen?
Friday, February 16th, 02007Write up by Stewart Brand of the recent Seminar About Long Term Thinking by Vernor Vinge.
Vinge began by declaring that he still believes that a Singularity event in the next few decades is the most likely outcome— meaning that self-accelerating technologies will speed up to the point of so profound a transformation that the other side of it is unknowable. And this transformation will be driven by Artifical Intelligences (AIs) that, once they become self-educating and self-empowering, soar beyond human capacity with shocking suddeness.
He added that he is not convinced by the fears of some that the AIs would exterminate humanity. He thinks they would be wise enough to keep us around as a fallback and backup— intelligences that can actually function without massive connectivity! (Later in the Q&A I asked him about the dangerous period when AI’s are smart enough to exterminate us but not yet wise enough to keep us around. How long would that period be? “About four hours,” said Vinge.)
