Tuesday, May 08, 2007

Tech Nology

Readers with a background in the esoteric world of computers may be familiar with "logic gates." These are devices that apparently perform simple logical thought, in electronic form. For example, an "AND gate" produces an affirmative output only when both of its inputs are affirmative. Conversely, an "OR gate" produces an affirmative output when either of its inputs is affirmative. For many decades computer designers have been hobbled by a limited choice of gates: AND, OR, NOT, NOR, and a few other simple types.

For as long as computers have existed, debate has raged among fatuologists (those who study the future) over whether enormous numbers of the simple gates listed above, interconnected in some unknown pattern, will someday duplicate human thought.

Recently, however, researchers have been working to enlarge the 'vocabulary' beyond these simple gates. A group led by Professor Mandine Typhon at the University of Calabraxas reports successful implementation of SO, HOWEVER, BECAUSE, ALTHOUGH, WHATEVER and UH HUH gates in 0.1 micron BiCMOS technology.

9 Comments:

Blogger Pierre said...

I did not know that... I always thought fatuologists are people who either fart a lot or study people who do.

8:41 AM  
Blogger Project WANNABE said...

Yeah, several users have made the same comment. But that is the closely-related field of flatulology.

9:17 AM  
Blogger HA HA HA said...

"The year 2100 is only four generations away, keeping the same human lifespan. If we morph into robots in 2100, civilized humans will have lasted only 400 generations. That would be the shortest lifespan of a species in the history of life."

fuckign hel wahta retad! wwtff?! b. 'lifespabn' != 'legth of a genarnaretion'. cretan. a. were the same specis we wer're befoare we were civalizd. twit. c. nobodys sayign 'moraph into' robats. asclown.

1:01 PM  
Blogger Project WANNABE said...

Not assclown. Fatuologist.

2:09 PM  
Blogger Project WANNABE said...

Around 1998 or so, another fatuologist, George Gilder, was predicting that the number of bits that could be transmitted on an optical fiber would triple every year for twenty years. That's a factor of 10^10 in twenty years.

The problem was that within a few years that bandwidth would have taken us out of optical frequencies altogether, and rapidly into frequencies for which glass (e.g. fiber) is opaque. By the year 2018 we woulda had to use something like 4 MeV gamma rays from a particle accelerator or something, which would have a range of only centimeters in any kind of matter at all.

Maybe I should just say that the physics was clearly crazy, we were laughing about it at the time.

Well, that was 1998. By 2000, Gilder was a plenary speaker at the national flagship Optical Fiber Communication conference.

3:48 PM  
Blogger Project WANNABE said...

Did you like how he said in 2000 that the web was 2000 days (less than six years) old?

3:52 PM  
Blogger HA HA HA said...

By the year 2018 we woulda had to use something like 4 MeV gamma rays from a particle accelerator or something, which would have a range of only centimeters in any kind of matter at all.

a) ok! dont use matar!

b) so waht abuout teh range? just nead a lota ampliafiars.


i tnhnink he was datign teh web form when he first hared abuout it.

1:49 PM  
Blogger HA HA HA said...

mabe he said that an than sunk a lota dough inta partacle acelarator compnies. cuould be one a thease days hell be the one lauguguhign eh?

1:50 PM  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

Damn it, you're probably right! The slippery bastard!

12:46 PM  

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