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The Problem With Most Science Fiction
In our popular literature genre of Science Fiction, we love to experience space drama that involves extrapolations of our past social conflicts. Some of the most dramatic moments in our historical wartime conflicts have involved mighty ships and fast fighter craft. Based on this, our Sci-Fi presents us with great ships in space and dogfight […]
The Singularity is an Ascension
“The Singularity” is an event of expansion of intelligence that feeds back into itself creating a period of exponential growth. We find it difficult to imagine much less define a state of super intelligence, but we can postulate that it will offer solutions and provide opportunities. An Ascension is the process of moving to a […]
Variable Ethics
As we begin to embed ethical principles into machines and software that can make decisions, we need to examine the use cases involved. The ethical codes needed in a powerful and dangerous machine that can easily cause life threatening damage are quite different from those needed in a software agent that makes grocery purchasing choices […]
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 […]
Measuring “Well Being”
We often measure the success of processes with numbers that represent some state of the output or operation of the process. Financial organizations tend to use a “bottom line” number of profitability. But nation-states and some other groups have different purposes and need different measures. When the purpose of a group is to sustain or […]
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 […]
