Archive for Knowledge Engineering
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Time is Persistence
Understanding time is important because it’s a fundamental building block of the Universe. Most think the Universe is composed of matter, energy, space, and time. It also seems somewhat obvious that energy and matter are directly related, with matter seeming like slow energy or vice versa, energy is fast matter. String theory proposes that rolled […]
Blockchains are the Foundation for Cyber Currencies
Most have heard of Bitcoin but don’t really understand it. Most have not heard of blockchains and yet, they are the underlying foundation of Bitcoin and other cyber coins. Cyber coins are virtual money tokens and intuitively seem unreliable because they are not backed up by anything similar to the gold standard. The gold standard […]
Cyber Currency – part 5/5 – Summary
SUMMARY A Market example: (our friendly neighborhood farmers market) Barter – direct exchange of goods works well at a small scale, but has limits Limited to a specific time and place No means for deferred payments Dividing some items is difficult or impossible No means for storing value Market example: we decide to create our […]
Cyber Currency – part 4/5 – Mining and Coins
MINING The purpose of mining Production of a cryptographic journal Time delay and proof of work that serves to prevent counterfeiting Currency expansion by creating new coin as mining rewards Process A request for a new block is issued There is a block calculation competition by miners After a competition has been won, the new […]
Cyber Currency – part 3/5 – Blockchain
BLOCKCHAIN A digital ledger or journal of transactions (database) Cryptographic in nature (encrypted) A shared database with write permissions for everybody Validity of transactions is determined cryptographically instead of by a central authority Cryptographic nature Each transaction is combined with the hash value from the previous transaction and a new hash value is calculated Tamper […]
Cyber Currency – part 2/5 – Hashing Algorithms
HASHING ALGORITHMS Hash = one way encryption Uses a mathematical formula (or algorithm) Maps data of variable size to a unique fixed length string Outputs a string called the “hash” or “digest” The same input always produces the same output It cannot be reversed (cryptographic) There are no collisions (no duplicates from different inputs) Hashing […]
Cyber Currency – part 1/5 – Currency Basics
CURRENCY BASICS Barter systems: Involve direct exchange of goods and services Have no intermediate token like money There are some difficulties: The barter process needs a coincidence of two exchange partners (same time, same place) Some trading goods cannot be easily divided into small parts Deferred payments are problematic Storing wealth is not practical Establishing […]
Transformable 4D Printing
3D printing that produces components that can self assembly, are programmable and transformable is called 4D printing. SEE ALSO: Morphable Robotic Furniture Malleable Morphing Materials Complex Order From Simple Interactions Software That Creates Hardware SW Without HW
Education in the Future
In the early days of human history, education was the process of passing on knowledge from one individual to another in an informal and usually ad hoc arrangement. Then we learned to document knowledge and it became possible to distribute the learning of knowledge and formalize the process into the teacher and school paradigm. Over […]
AR Foursome
An Augmented Reality (AR) filter could be used to change the appearance of our sex partner to any form we desire. This is real sex with a virtual skin. It won’t be long before we find two lovers having sex, with each wearing AR goggles to fantasize about somebody else. This could be considered a […]
