Version

"The Grid:" Internet 10,000 times faster.

by Jonathan Leake

THE internet could soon be made obsolete. The scientists who pioneered it have now built a lightning-fast replacement capable of downloading entire feature films within seconds.

At speeds about 10,000 times faster than a typical broadband connection, “the grid” will be able to send the entire Rolling Stones back catalogue from Britain to Japan in less than two seconds.

The latest spin-off from Cern, the particle physics centre that created the web, the grid could also provide the kind of power needed to transmit holographic images; allow instant online gaming with hundreds of thousands of players; and offer high-definition video telephony for the price of a local call.

David Britton, professor of physics at Glasgow University and a leading figure in the grid project, believes grid technologies could “revolutionise” society. “With this kind of computing power, future generations will have the ability to collaborate and communicate in ways older people like me cannot even imagine,” he said.

Full article here 

Another one here

The World's Most Intelligent Animals

Sometime you get the feeling we are completely missing the boat with our relationship to the natural world.  We've isolated ourselves in our alpha numeric approach to understanding.  We have 98% of the same genome make up as Chimps.  

  

The most intelligent animals should hold special reverence in our world.

A world that is becoming increasingly non natural - or fetished natural.

Here's the article

The top animals in order are:

1. Chimpanzees

2. Dolphins

3. Elephants

4. Octopus

5. Crows

6. Squirrels

7. Dogs

8. Cats

9. Pigs

In the beginning... was the command line

from the "Complete Review"

Stephenson is very concerned about GUIs. Consumers like them -- but they come at a cost, one people might not be aware of. Stephenson makes a good argument here. He is a big fan of the written word -- "a digital medium that humans can, nonetheless, easily read and write". All other media are analog -- and digital has many clear advantages over analog. As he states: "the digital nature of the written word confers upon it exceptional stability", while analog is much more messy. By doing everything with GUIs rather than simply words Stephenson finds we are also limiting ourselves. GUIs are pervasive now in many technical products, but none more obviously so than in operating systems. And Stephenson believes that when we are buying a GUI-focussed operating system:

What we're really buying is a system of metaphors. And -- much more important -- what we're buying into is the underlying assumption that metaphors are a good way to deal with the world.

       Stephenson, of course, does not think they are. 
       Working at command line level -- working with words -- is completely different from working with GUIs, and Stephenson is concerned with what is lost in the transition. But it is not only a cultural argument (which he sets out nicely), but also a technical one. GUIs are now well-integrated into operating systems like Windows; indeed, they are inseparable from them. But operating systems become unwieldy and messy as new features are added with updated version, pieced on to what came before. This works for a while, but eventually gets out of hand (the incredibly complex behemoth that is Windows -- filled with every conceivable feature (which most people never have a reason to use) -- is only the most obvious example). Old programs are no longer supported -- particularly (and rightly) disconcerting to Stephenson -- and the operating systems themselves become slow, clunky, awkward to use. Eventually they are worthless, superseded by the next operating system. 
       Stephenson compares the differing approaches taken by those responsible for the four operating systems he focusses on. He believes, for example, that Microsoft has its priorities all wrong, and writes amusingly (and fairly convincingly) about this. Apple, too, has gone down several wrong roads. The cases that interest him most are the open and largely free Linux, as well as the innovative BeOS -- very different approaches to how operating systems work and reach the public. 

from Wikipedia

Stephenson explores the GUI as a metaphor in terms of the increasing interposition of abstractions between humans and the actual workings of devices (in a similar manner to Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance) and explains the beautyhackers feel in good-quality tools. He does this with a car analogy. He compares four operating systems, Mac OS by Apple Computer to a luxury European car, Windows by Microsoft to a station wagon, Linux to a free tank, and BeOS to abatmobile. Stephenson argues that people continue to buy the station wagon despite free tanks being given away, because people do not want to learn how to operate a tank; they know that the station wagon dealership has a machine shop that they can take their car to when it breaks down. Because of this attitude, Stephenson argues that Microsoft is not really a monopoly, as evidenced by the free availability of other choice OS's, but rather has simply accrued enough mindshareamong the people to have them coming back. He compares Microsoft to Disney, in that both are selling a vision to their customers, who in turn "want to believe" in that vision.

Virtual Nature

Children have lost touch with the natural world and are unable to identify common animals and plants, according to a survey.

Full article here.