21–30 of 165 posts
I wonder if we got sent back to early modern period technology how much computing would be possible that didn't depend on access to semiconductors. Would glass-blowing and metallurgy be good enough to make thermionic valves (tubes) for example? Would water-wheels, animal power, and perhaps crude steam engines be enough to power them?
Note: This is fun and all, but beware of taking the “Post-apocalyptic” premise too seriously. Down that road lies only hard drive hoarding and becoming a prepper.
The threat most developers should be concerned about is what happens once a major solar flare (like the Carrington event in 1859) shows up. That is destined to happen at some point, and not unlikely within the next few decades. Hard to predict the fallout for the internet and other technical infastructure more broadly, but I'm guessing it won't be pretty.
https://hbr.org/2018/07/if-you-say-something-is-likely-how-l...
In the same way that we have standards for archival-grade books, it seems like we could benefit from some sort of standard archival-grade software stack designed for simplicity (and I mean real simplicity, I agree with the article that even C is too complicated and you want a Forth or something (or maybe a Scheme)). It's okay if the stack is as slow as molasses, as long as you have a functional reference implementation you can always produce a translation into whatever modern stack exists in your time period.
If we all would like to live in a world without war, the only path I see is if people learn to be strong as individuals, able to self govern, grow emotionally and take responsibility for their own actions. As long as we use collective thinking and externalization our power in organizations, believe in superstitions like money, government, “the greater good”, rather than recognizing what’s undeniably real, that we are all people, I don’t see a way forward.
If this resonates with anyone, hit me up!
Even aside from the apocalypse, I was wondering recently how someone might "pass down" some piece of software, like say a video game, to their descendants. If you want to leave a written record for future generations then it's easy enough to print out a book on some acid-free paper and reasonably expect that it will last for up to a millennium. But for robustly archiving a piece of software it's not enough to print o…
So, the question is not only about the preservation the actual software, but also about its correct interpretation.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
The threat most developers should be concerned about is what happens once a major solar flare (like the Carrington event in 1859) shows up. That is destined to happen at some point, and not unlikely within the next few decades. Hard to predict the fallout for the internet and other technical infastructure more broadly, but I'm guessing it won't be pretty.
I'm interested in where you feel the numerical value of "not unlikely" falls on a scale such as the one from Lesson 1 of this article. https://hbr.org/2018/07/if-you-say-something-is-likely-how-l...
This recent paper from Japan estimates the following likelihood for what it calls "extremely large solar flares":
> for 30-, 50-, and 100-year periods to be 0.70−0.76, 0.87−0.91, and 0.98−0.99, respectively
Earlier quoted context omitted.
It was literally called the WikiReader. But yes, it had some serious limitations. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/WikiReader
That was indeed the one. Worse than I (mis)remembered, LCD screen instead of e-paper.
Being eink would definitely have been nicer tho.
Even aside from the apocalypse, I was wondering recently how someone might "pass down" some piece of software, like say a video game, to their descendants. If you want to leave a written record for future generations then it's easy enough to print out a book on some acid-free paper and reasonably expect that it will last for up to a millennium. But for robustly archiving a piece of software it's not enough to print o…
Would a technical description in plain English (specification) and C code be sufficient to preserve a piece of software? The understanding of the specification may be different years later, but this applies even to the paintings and the works of fiction. So, the question is not only about the preservation the actual software, but also about its correct interpretation.
Note: This is fun and all, but beware of taking the “Post-apocalyptic” premise too seriously. Down that road lies only hard drive hoarding and becoming a prepper.
But those simple Chips are certainly easier to wrap your head around for programming. In the event of apocalypse the most abundant computing platform would be old Android phones however.