3 Message 3: From exi@panix.com Wed Jul 28 08:43:17 1993 Return-Path: Received: from usc.edu by chaph.usc.edu (4.1/SMI-4.1+ucs-3.0) id AA21530; Wed, 28 Jul 93 08:43:09 PDT Errors-To: Extropians-Request@gnu.ai.mit.edu Received: from panix.com by usc.edu (4.1/SMI-3.0DEV3-USC+3.1) id AA27462; Wed, 28 Jul 93 08:42:51 PDT Errors-To: Extropians-Request@gnu.ai.mit.edu Received: by panix.com id AA24059 (5.65c/IDA-1.4.4 for more@usc.edu); Wed, 28 Jul 1993 11:37:04 -0400 Date: Wed, 28 Jul 1993 11:37:04 -0400 Message-Id: <199307281537.AA24059@panix.com> To: Exi@panix.com From: Exi@panix.com Subject: Extropians Digest X-Extropian-Date: July 28, 373 P.N.O. [15:36:52 UTC] Reply-To: extropians@gnu.ai.mit.edu Errors-To: Extropians-Request@gnu.ai.mit.edu Status: RO Extropians Digest Wed, 28 Jul 93 Volume 93 : Issue 208 Today's Topics: [2 msgs] CONF: Nanotech & Computers, Palo Alto, California, Oct 14-16, 1993[1 msgs] FSF: Some Useful Software, No Useful Politics [1 msgs] Intellectual Property, ppl, etc. [1 msgs] MEDIA: Slamming of FSF; more on software & video rental [2 msgs] MEDIA: Slamming of FSF; more on software & video rental [1 msgs] POLI: William Gibson - a statist! :-( [1 msgs] Who is signed up for cryonics [1 msgs] techno-unemployment (yet again and forevermore) [1 msgs] Administrivia: No admin msg. Approximate Size: 52371 bytes. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Date: Wed, 28 Jul 93 1:29:40 WET DST From: rjc@gnu.ai.mit.edu (Ray) Subject: FSF: Some Useful Software, No Useful Politics Tony Hamilton - FES ERG~ () writes: > > > Summing it up: Information markets will not disappear and they will protect > > themselves by blacklisting those who violate their rules. This same > > kind of technique can be used to stop insider trading or con-artistry without > > requiring government intervention. Parasite techniques of leaving one > > community you are blacklisted from and preying on another won't work so > > well in a supernetworked world. Sure, once in a while, you'll find > > a sucker, but you won't be able to secure a lasting relationship > > with anyone nor will you be able to get timely updates or support. > > But again, (and thank you for the summary, it makes it easier to respond), > you seem to be assuming many things. First, the big assumption seems to be > that everyone is motivitated to participate in this ostracization. If they No, I do not assume everyone must participate. If the only people who participate in the plan are those who wish to protect their software then it will work. Programmers will be motivated in the same way some people are motivated to buy a gun to protect their homes. > classes". If they are not capable of surviving by contributing, they would > resort to thievery, whether its theft of CPU cycles, information, or whatever. > Today, this group of individuals is no small group. When you are talking > software alone, most of the international market seems to be comprised > primarily of illegal transactions. Of course there will be people like this, there always will be. But this group of people will not have the average access and freedom of those who pay for software. Even within the pirate world, there are classes of haves and have nots. There are "elite" pirate bbses which only deal with software that has been cracked the same day it was released. "Luzers" (the pirate culture word for them) often wait _months_ for cracked software to trickle down to their local pirate bbses because snooty egotistic "elites" won't upload the software there. Whether it's the newest gossip, cracked software, or prerelease book, many people are always willing to withhold information just for the sake of saying "I've got it, and you don't. I'm priveleged." What's my point? Having access to the newest information is power, stealing it will tend to choke off your access. > Also, there is an assumptions that criminals (using the term for lack of a > better one) would be caught. Today's criminals seem quite adept at avoiding > detection (ones of any talent, anyway). Why would that trend change? Because selling software leaves behind traces. A bit of applied stegnography and you can identify who was the source of the leak. (consider hiding 32-bits of information on a 500mb CD-ROM which has lots of random information on each disk. Very low probability that someone could find it.) Offer rewards for turning in pirate bbses, etc. > And what about organized crime? You seem to keep dancing around the possbility > of networks devoted entirely to the covert distribution of information. So > what if a single person gets caught? It only takes one to cause a great deal > of damage. By identifying uniquely who the original leak was (with stegnography) you could limit the amount of pirating. I'm not saying you can stop it, but I doubt piracy will grow bigger than it is now. Networking, the size of software (it's growing), new distribution mediums like CD-ROM, all of these will add checks on piracy. > Like I say, too many assumptions. Take also the example you gave of FTPing > (and I understand this particular example was designed to put things in a > perspective we can all understand) and being locked out. This implies a > global method of "black-listing". How is this maintained? And again, what > if you are not caught? And if you are, what if someone else with a clean > record takes your place? It doesn't have to be global, but I guess it would work just like the independent credit info companies work. Some companies might even refuse to hire people with a bad "pirate record" > Explain the logic behind the assumptions, please. Actually, the credit rating agencies are a good model of what it might be like. There is no coercion involved in the blacklisting that goes on when you apply for a loan. > One final concern: I am always concerned when I hear of such things as > "black-listing" and so forth. Justice as dealt by the hand of many is no > less arbitrary than justice dealt by a single individual. That's why the > concept of Democracy is a faled one, and why "Majority Rule" is invalid. > What happens when someone is black-listed unjustly? What keeps someone from > unjustly accusing another? Network logs? Who maintains these logs? Who > set them up? It almost sounds like Big Brother to me, except it isn't your > brother, its your species which is watching. What happens to privacy? Where > does the automated tracking end and the privacy begin? Who decides? Where is > the appeal, and how is it managed? None of this sounds very anarchist to me. There are two opposing forces here. The definate need of companies and individuals to gather information (to protect themselves) and the need of individuals and companies for privacy. For the longest time, there was no real way to fight privacy violations. Now we have computers powerful enough to run cryptography individually. This battle will go on, but the playing field will be more level. Don't expect absolute privacy. Even under cryptographic security, people will tend to trade based on digital reputation. > In a truly anarchist, or Extropian, (or whatever other similar concept) > society, wherever one concept is questioned, competition will spring up. If > people don't like the black lists of one network, networks without black > lists will be formed. Hell, if Extropians really _are_ posessing of this And these competiting nets won't have any software companies located on them. If they do, those companies will soon go bankrupt or they will look like FSFs. (the FSF is near financial trouble too) > In summary, Ray (I owe you a summary, you gave me one): I see your views as > being highly idealistic. And I know it isn't just you. If I seem overly > pessimistic, than I will accept that characterization. It's just my nature > to question rather than accept. We both have our place, I suppose. I just > happen to believe that by questioning these ideas, I'll be better prepared > no matter which is more correct. I simply believe that it is possible to enforce effective copyright without physical force. I believe there are utilitarian reasons for creating intellectual property. If America wants to maintain its status as the #1 software producer, it had better keep intellectual copyright. You don't need to be an idealist, just look at reality. The vast majority of individual piracy goes unpunished. The software industry does fine because the big players, retailers and corporations, are punished for piracy. -- Ray Cromwell | Engineering is the implementation of science; -- -- EE/Math Student | politics is the implementation of faith. -- -- rjc@gnu.ai.mit.edu | - Zetetic Commentaries -- ------------------------------ Date: Tue, 27 Jul 1993 23:32:48 -0600 (MDT) From: Stanton McCandlish Subject: Who is signed up for cryonics Quoth Perry E. Metzger, verily I say unto thee: -=>As long as we are asking, Stanton, are *YOU* signed up for cryonics? -=> -=>Cryonics is cheap. Even a student can easily afford it. There is -=>little or no excuse for anyone who feels that it can work and who -=>desires the service not to try to sign up. Not yet, but will be before the year is out. I know it doesn't cost that much, but almost ALL of my $ is going into hardware at this point. After I have the 2 tape drives, the LAN, the CD-ROM, the 4th 600+MB HD, and the read-write 1GB removable media optical drive, all of which I should have by winter, THEN I'll sign up for cryonics (part of the reason I am waiting is I'm doing some research on the organizations involved. If you [that's the rhetorical you, meaning anyone reading this] don't have Alcor's latest journal, you might wish to get it; it has a full financial analysis, performed by an independent firm, of Alcor's operation. Wish the other one would do the same.) By then I should have firmly decided which of them I trust more (I'm leaning very much toward Alcor currently, anyway.) -=>Alcor's phone number is 1-800-367-2228. Reach for that phone right now -=>and ask for an information packet, or, better yet, just start the -=>signup process. They take credit cards. I don't USE credit cards, for reasons I stated pretty plainly my first week on the list, so I won't go into it again. But I'll give them a call anyway. Last info I got from them was quite some time ago. -- Stanton McCandlish * Space Migration * Networking * ChaOrder * NO GOV'T. * anton@hydra.unm.edu * Intelligence Increase * Nano * Crypto * NO RELIGION * FidoNet: 1:301/2 * Life Extension * Ethics * VR * Now! * NO MORE LIES! * Noise in the Void BBS * +1-505-246-8515 (24hr, 1200-14400, v32bis, N-8-1) * ------------------------------ Date: Tue, 27 Jul 1993 23:47:23 -0600 (MDT) From: Stanton McCandlish Subject: MEDIA: Slamming of FSF; more on software & video rental Quoth Elias Israel - SunSelect Engineering, verily I say unto thee: -=>value-maximizing for society. If it were profit maximizing to establish -=>a rental market, and to incur the costs of lost license fees caused by -=>increased expsosure to software piracy that the rental market entails, -=>the big software vendors would rush to do it. I don't think it ought to The flaw I see in this argument, which is likely one cherished like a holy relic by the SPA, is that since they lobbied to get software rental illegalized in the "early days" (e.g. a few years ago), they'd look like buffoons to ask for that law to be eliminated now. It's basically a matter of corporate 'face'. That, and to do it, they'll have to have conferences and agreements, and many of these companies are not in the mood for that right now. Hell most of the time they can't even hammer out simple technical standars without legal fights and 'boycotting' of sorts. Things will have to get a LOT more organized it they wish to pull this off, but it did not have to be this way. The software companies did this to themselves, and to us, no one else did. There's a definate trend going on: hardware is getting cheaper, and software prices are skyrocketting, when BOTH should be falling, especially condsidering how much competition there is in the software market. It's just a mess. -=>be against the law, but even if it weren't I'd not expect to see it -=>happen. Video games can be rented (even over initial vendor objections) -=>specifically because copying the games is expensive and rarely done. -=>(Video rentals probably suffer from little copying because so few movies -=>are worth their initial viewings, let alone repeat viewings. ;-) Even noting the smiley I must comment that that argument does not hold water. People pirate videos like mad, even though they generally have to buy 2 VCRs to do it, or rent a second one every time they want to copy something. One of my friends has over TWO HUNDRED videotapes, averaging 2 or 3 movies per tape, and most of it is pirated (some of it is taped off of TV, which is probably legally piracy anyway, though I am not sure of that point.) Granted this is heavily excessive, but it happens, and as the tech gets cheaper will happen MORE not less. That intelligent people find most movies being made these days to be garbage is largely irrelevant. We're talking about J. Random Viewer. -- Stanton McCandlish * Space Migration * Networking * ChaOrder * NO GOV'T. * anton@hydra.unm.edu * Intelligence Increase * Nano * Crypto * NO RELIGION * FidoNet: 1:301/2 * Life Extension * Ethics * VR * Now! * NO MORE LIES! * Noise in the Void BBS * +1-505-246-8515 (24hr, 1200-14400, v32bis, N-8-1) * ------------------------------ Date: Tue, 27 Jul 1993 23:58:21 -0600 (MDT) From: Stanton McCandlish Subject: MEDIA: Slamming of FSF; more on software & video rental Quoth Elias Israel - SunSelect Engineering, verily I say unto thee: -=>Stanton McCandlish writes: -=>> [...] I find this to be -=>> almost incredibly obvious. Like I say, shift the focus to rental, selling -=>> techsupport/texts/tutorials/upgrades, and it would be whole new picture. -=>> Probably 500+ times more people could afford any given software -=>> application, and if it cost 10% of what it used to, guess what? Insert -=>> Software Company Here just made 50 times more money, and 500 times more -=>> people are empowered to do stuff with this new software. -=> -=>If you can write a convincing business plan to this effect, you can make -=>youself a very wealthy man. In the mean time, it's an unsupported assertion. -=>Pardon me for being so blunt, by I have difficulty believing that the -=>entire software industry has so completely misjudged their own business. As I think I already explained, if they COULD do it easily they would. But the US corporate world is notoriously short sighted. No one's willing to take the risk of trying to reverse the laws and be the first, even though I'd bet my bottom dollar that every CEO and boardmember of every one of these corporations is well aware of the mistake they made in illegalizing software rental. It's a bit like the cold war. Everyone knows its stupid, but barring something really major, nothing will change it; they've painted themselves into a corner. All I'm saying is that it IS possible to fix the situation, just like it WAS possible for the cold war to end. I do not mean to seem to be bringing some revelation that no one has thought of before. Like I said, to me at least, all of this is so incredibly obvious it almost hurts. I know a lot of people who agree with me, too. Doesn't PROVE anything, but until someone shows me some sort of believable evidence that I am incorrect, I stand by my position firmly. I think the economic principles are clear, and I've SEEN it work, in the video industry (and video is in fact software, just of another variety.) I don't consider "Well them corporation guys know what they are doing" to be "believable evidence". There's a lot more going on. -- Stanton McCandlish * Space Migration * Networking * ChaOrder * NO GOV'T. * anton@hydra.unm.edu * Intelligence Increase * Nano * Crypto * NO RELIGION * FidoNet: 1:301/2 * Life Extension * Ethics * VR * Now! * NO MORE LIES! * Noise in the Void BBS * +1-505-246-8515 (24hr, 1200-14400, v32bis, N-8-1) * ------------------------------ Date: Wed, 28 Jul 93 2:51:10 WET DST From: rjc@gnu.ai.mit.edu (Ray) Subject: Intellectual Property, ppl, etc. Inigo Montoya () writes: > Second, copyrights etc. I am amused to note that Dean Tribble intends > to go for an even looser version of copyright that copylefting. > *applause* The fact that GNU exists, and that people like Dean > are looking to go them one better leads me to believe that while > the future may contain AMEX like markets, and mechanisms for > catching people distributing software they were only supposed to > use, it will also contain groups of people willing to let their > work be used freely, so long as acknowledgment is made of who > produced it. An anarchocapitalist society would almost certainly > see groups of both, and they would very likely subscribe to > different ppl agencies. Or at the least, have different policies. > Why should I pay to have someone monitor use of my software and > track down thiefs, when I'm giving it away free? Ok, let's see if you will grant me a few datapoints, and I will argue what conclusions can be made: 1) Software development tools and new techniques will continually push the amount of bugs in software towards zero 2) Software will contually get more user friendly (like the Mac) so anyone can use it 3) Updates to software can be pirated and there are diminishing returns to successive updates. Only major rewrites will be interesting and they take quite an amount of capitalization and labor. 4) Points 1,2,3 continually lessen the need for SOFTWARE SUPPORT, and SUPPORT will soon become largely automated (expert systems) which decreases the need for standing armies of support staff. (see IBM and their downfall) 5) With points 1,2,3,4 there will be little to no money to be made in software. Large companies like Microsoft able to finance decade long projects will disappear, only small hobbiests will remain. 6) People need to work to survive and prosper 7) Moravec's "retire at birth" robot worker industry won't be here for a while. 8) Big software projects are good, but they take millions of many hours to develop. Apple, AT&T, IBM, and Microsoft are able to develop extremely large and complex OSes fast because they can afford to pay highly skilled people many tens thousands of dollars a year to spend all of their time working. On the other hand, GNU has been working for 10 years on their software and they still haven't produced the level of quality and complexity manu commercial projects have. Furthermore, GNU workers are poor (payed minimum wage or nothing) Even Unix has taken 20 years to evolve because it has largely been used by academia and hackers. (also, X11 isn't as good as commericial GUI's either) 9) People are not altruistic, programmers will be reduced to net.panhandlers (see CollegeWare, BegWare, and other frequent "please send money!" readme file) Conclusions: 1) Since large amounts of capital will not be available via software sales, large complex pieces of software will not be developed -- or they will be developed but since the average programmer will also have to work a second job, the state of software development will bog down just as if socialism were in place. The only hope for big software development will come from academia which is financed by TAXES, the nemesis of anarchocapitalism. 2) Programmer's second jobs will consist of McDonalds or blue collar factory jobs. (until the robots come along to lift that burden. Unfortunately, the robots will be quite slow in developing since AI tools can not be sold!) 3) The great advances we've been making in software will be curtailed because only hackers will have time for solo-part-time development. 4) You will become poor because the next generation of compilers will be easy to use and bug-free. No more income via bug support. Alternative: For utilitarian reasons, we intellecual property rights in place to make sure software is well financed and competitive. gedanken experiment: PPL #1: Intellectual property rights exist. Lots of people lead cushy programming jobs, trade software on the market, and software evolves very quickly thanks to high capitalization. PPL #2: Intellectual property rights don't exist. Lots of people work blue collar jobs or service sector jobs because programming is a poor man's job. Software doesn't get capitalized well. Development is slow because people can only afford to devote part time work towards it. PPL #1 quickly develops complex software, modern conveinences are taken care of. AI software is competitive and diverse. It rapidly develops to help people in their lives (and also to develop more software and new chips) PPL #2 bogs down in a quagmire of socialist freebie software PPL #2 members get jealous and steal software from PPL #1 PPL #1 declares war on PPL #2 refusing to arbitrate or do business. PPL #1 quickly evolves faster than PPL #2 leaving them in the dust like the non-property rights neanderthals they are. PPL #1 folks reach the singularity first [your strawman deleted, mine added] How's that? -Ray -- Ray Cromwell | Engineering is the implementation of science; -- -- EE/Math Student | politics is the implementation of faith. -- -- rjc@gnu.ai.mit.edu | - Zetetic Commentaries -- ------------------------------ Date: Wed, 28 Jul 93 00:51:38 GMT From: whitaker@eternity.demon.co.uk (Russell Earl Whitaker) Subject: CONF: Nanotech & Computers, Palo Alto, California, Oct 14-16, 1993 This article was forwarded to you by whitaker@eternity.demon.co.uk (Russell Earl Whitaker): --------------------------------- cut here ----------------------------- Path: eternity.demon.co.uk!demon!news!uunet!ogicse!netnews.nwnet.net! news.u.washington.edu!stein.u.washington.edu!scivw From: merkle@parc.xerox.com (Ralph Merkle) Newsgroups: sci.virtual-worlds Subject: CONF: Nanotech & Computers, Palo Alto, California, Oct 14-16, 1993 Message-ID: <232hge$ci@news.u.washington.edu> Date: 26 Jul 93 21:09:05 GMT Article-I.D.: news.232hge$ci Organization: Xerox PARC Lines: 268 Approved: scivw@u.washington.edu NNTP-Posting-Host: stein.u.washington.edu Originator: scivw@stein.u.washington.edu SUMMARY: The first nanotechnology conference specifically for the computer community will be held in Palo Alto on October 14-16. It is designed for those interested in what nanotechnology will do for the computer field and in how to steer their careers toward nanotechnology today. The meeting is also of interest to those in other fields who want to learn more about molecular nanotechnology, that is, about thorough three-dimensional structural control of materials and devices at the molecular level. For further information, contact foresight@cup.portal.com. ANNOUNCEMENT: Third Foresight Conference on Molecular Nanotechnology: Computer-Aided Design of Molecular Systems October 14-16, 1993 Palo Alto, California Sponsor: Foresight Institute Cosponsors: Stanford University Department of Materials Science and Engineering, Molecular Graphics Society (USA), Institute for Molecular Manufacturing Support for nanotechnology has always been strong -- perhaps strongest -- within the computer community. The first nanotechnology course was taught in a computer science department, the first conference was sponsored by the same (along with Foresight Institute), the first Ph.D. was granted by a computer-oriented department (MIT's Media Lab), and the first text won the publishing industry's "best computer science book" award. A high proportion of those interested in nanotechnology are computer professionals of one flavor or another, and for years they have asked with increasing vigor "What can I do to further nanotechnology?" In response to these demands, Foresight's third research conference is especially designed to enable members of the computer community -- programmers, software engineers, hardware designers, and computer scientists in general -- to move their knowledge base and, ideally, their careers toward nanotechnology. All those with a computer background are urged to attend. The Third Foresight Conference on Molecular Nanotechnology: Computer-Aided Design of Molecular Systems will be held in Palo Alto on October 14-16, 1993. The meeting includes speakers who have made or are making the transition from computer science to nanotechnology. According to conference co-chair Ralph Merkle, "The main emphasis of this conference will be on computational approaches to the development of molecular manufacturing, in particular the use of molecular modeling and the development of molecular computer-aided design (CAD) tools. The conference will be valuable both for people who work professionally in computational chemistry and also for people who have a background in computer science and are interested in finding out what they can do to contribute to the development of molecular manufacturing. "There will also be a tutorial the day before the conference, so that people who have a background in computer science and wish to come up to speed in computational chemistry can get an introduction to the methodologies and techniques that are commonly used." The conference will feature fifteen or more speakers giving presentations on topics relevant to the pursuit of molecular control. We can only sketch a few of these here: Joel Orr, Autodesk Fellow, past president of the National Computer Graphics Association, and president of the Virtual Worlds Society, will address CAD industry professionals, potential nanotech designers, and others interested in hearing about the special needs of nanotechnology with respect to CAD. In the macro and micro worlds, computer-aided design is optional: design can be done by hand. But in the nano world, CAD is essential. He will discuss: * Is standard CAD good enough for nanotech? * What are the characteristics of the ideal system? * Who is working on such systems? * When will results be available? * Nano a mano: What can be done by hand, without CAD? Virtual Reality for Nanotechnology Russell Taylor, a researcher at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, will be speaking on a subject of particular interest to two groups of people: (1) surface scientists who are interested in better interfaces to their instruments, and (2) builders of virtual worlds, since the system is an example of a virtual world applied to a scientific problem. The system under discussion, the Nanomanipulator, is an immersive virtual-environment interface to a Scanning Tunneling Microscope (STM). A head-mounted display presents a scaled image of the surface being scanned by the STM in front of the user while a force-feedback Argone-III Remote Manipulator (ARM) allows the user to feel contours on the surface. Computer-controlled instrumentation allows the user to make bias pulses at specified locations, thus modifying the surface. Ted Kaehler, a computer scientist at Apple Computer, points out that we do not know how the first assembler will be built or what exact research is needed to get there. A person who is not a professional chemist or materials scientist, and yet wants to be involved in this effort, has to think about how his/her skills match the problem. In this talk, entitled "What Can a Programmer Do to Help Create Nanotechnology?", he discusses three efforts he has been involved in. The first is a program to discover voids inside large molecules. Programs that search for the proper design of a large molecule need to know where the empty spaces are. The second is a project to build the "relaxation server" on the Internet. This server accepts proposed molecules (via email messages) and computes the coordinates of the atoms. The results are sent back by email. The third project is a "program" of a different sort -- a meeting group. The "Assembler Multitude," a subgroup of the local Computer Professionals for Social Responsibility chapter -- meets every other Monday night in Palo Alto and covers a wide variety of nanotechnology-related topics. Charles Musgrave, a doctoral candidate at the California Institute of Technology, will talk about ab initio calculations for mechanosynthetic construction of diamondoid structures. Accurate transition state barriers for a positionally controlled reaction are necessary to both the design of the tool and the design of the synthetic process. If either of these designs is not practical, then an alternate structure is required. High level ab initio calculations are required to obtain accurate transition state structures and thus reliable mechanochemical modeling. J. Storrs Hall, Rutgers University, will be speaking on nanocomputing; particularly the expected developments in computer architecture that make use of reversibility to reduce heat dissipation. The techniques will be critical for nanocomputers, but are on the verge of becoming useful in VLSI, so the talk will be of interest to anyone in computer architecture as well as those studying molecular computers per se. Markus Krummenacker, an Institute for Molecular Manufacturing researcher, will be presenting a "cavity stuffer" program which should enable the design of macromolecules the size of proteins. These macromolecules should then be easily synthesizable and should also have specifiable interface surfaces so that they can self assemble. Additional talks include: * Introduction to the Design of Molecular Systems, by Eric Drexler, IMM * Computational Nanotechnology, by Ralph Merkle, Xerox PARC * Design of Macromolecular Objects, by Manfred Mutter, Institut de Chimie Organique * Molecular Modeling, by William Goddard, Caltech * Crystal-Based Molecular CAD, by Geoff Leach, Royal Melbourne Institute of Technology * Visualization with Molecular Graphics, by Michael Pique, Scripps Research Institute * Modeling Diamond CVD with Density Functional Theory, by Warren Pickett, NRL * Ab Initio Methods and Software, by Charles Bauschlicher, NASA Ames * Atom Manipulation by Proximal Probes: Experiment and Theory, by Makoto Sawamura, Aono Atomcraft Project The first Nanotechnology Award (and accompanying cash prize) will be presented at the meeting. Nomination information will be available from Foresight Institute. DEMONSTRATIONS Leading vendors will demonstrate products useful in the pursuit of molecular control, including molecular modeling software and hardware, and proximal probe systems (e.g. STM). CALL FOR PAPERS Contributions on relevant topics are solicited for presentation in lecture or poster format. Potential contributors are asked to submit an abstract (200-400 words), including names, addresses, telephone and fax numbers of the author(s), and an indication of whether oral or poster presentation is preferred. Papers of both kinds will be reviewed for publication. In choosing papers, priority will be given to (1) cogent descriptions of the state of the art in techniques relevant to the construction of complex molecular systems, (2) well-grounded proposals for interdisciplinary efforts which, if funded and pursued, could substantially advance the state of the art, and (3) reports of recent relevant research. JOURNAL & BOOK PUBLICATION OF PROCEEDINGS Proceedings of the conference will be refereed and published in a special issue of the international journal Nanotechnology, and later in book form. Abstracts due August 15, 1993 Notification of acceptance September 1, 1993 Manuscripts due October 14, 1993 Abstracts should be directed to the Foresight Institute, Box 61058, Palo Alto, CA 94306, USA. PRE-CONFERENCE TUTORIAL A full-day tutorial on molecular modeling and computational chemistry will be held on October 13. This tutorial is designed for computer scientists and programmers interested in using their computer skills to become active in the field of nanotechnology. The workshop will be taught by Bill Goddard, Ralph Merkle, Eric Drexler and others. More detailed information, including registration materials, will be sent to all conference registrants. SITE AND ACCOMMODATIONS Conference sessions will be held at the Hyatt Rickeys Hotel in Palo Alto. Accommodation arrangements should be made directly with the hotel. Reservations should be made by September 29; when making reservations, mention that you are attending the "Foresight Nanotechnology Conference" to obtain the lower conference room rate. Deposits in the amount of the first night's stay plus tax are required to guarantee reservations; these are refundable up to 6 PM on the date of arrival. Room rate: $89, single or double occupancy, plus 10% local tax. Hyatt Rickeys 4219 El Camino Real Palo Alto, CA 94306 (415) 493-8000 tel (415) 424-0836 fax TRANSPORTATION The conference site is easily reached from San Francisco International Airport and San Jose International Airport. Information on ground transportation services will be mailed to registrants. REGISTRATION FORM (please print and mail or fax) Name: Title: Dr. Prof. Ms. Mr. Address: Tel.: Fax: Email: Position (programmer, professor, director, etc.): Organizational affiliation (for your badge): The registration fee includes the scientific program, Wednesday evening reception, Thursday and Friday luncheons, and a copy of the proceedings journal issue. (Student and one-day rates do not include proceedings.) postmarked: by Sept. 1 after Sept. 1 Regular $350 $400 Academic, nonprofit, governmental $275 $325 Student $100 $125 One day (specify day) $135 $160 Add $200 for Pre-conference Tutorial registration. Total amount: $ Payment may be made by VISA, MasterCard, check, or international money order valid in the U.S. Make checks payable to "Foresight Conferences"; checks and bank drafts must be in U.S. dollars drawn on a U.S. bank. Refunds of registration fees can only be made on receipt of a written request which must be postmarked no later than September 15, and are subject to a $50 administrative fee. Credit card registrations may be faxed; please do not send credit card information over the Internet. Card #: Exp. date: Signature (required for credit card registrations): Mail or fax registration to: Foresight Institute Box 61058, Palo Alto CA 94306 USA Tel. 415-324-2490 Fax 415-324-2497 Internet: foresight@cup.portal.com PLEASE FORWARD TO APPROPRIATE NEWSGROUPS AND ELECTRONIC MAILING LISTS --------------------------------- cut here ----------------------------- ------------------------------ Date: Wed, 28 Jul 93 3:40:06 WET DST From: rjc@gnu.ai.mit.edu (Ray) Subject: MEDIA: Slamming of FSF; more on software & video rental Stanton McCandlish () writes: > > I do not mean to seem to be bringing some revelation that no one has > thought of before. Like I said, to me at least, all of this is so > incredibly obvious it almost hurts. I know a lot of people who agree > with me, too. Doesn't PROVE anything, but until someone shows me some > sort of believable evidence that I am incorrect, I stand by my position > firmly. I think the economic principles are clear, and I've SEEN it work, > in the video industry (and video is in fact software, just of another > variety.) I don't consider "Well them corporation guys know what they are > doing" to be "believable evidence". There's a lot more going on. Ok, I'll bite. The reason video rental works is because VCRs are analog and each successive recording gets worse. Thus, there is value in purchasing an original. Secondly, there is no easy distribution method for video tapes. There are no bbses to upload and download video tapes from. Thirdly, because VCR's are not random access and because they are slow, there are no "copy parties" like software pirates have and copying actually takes a large investment of time. The reason Laserdisc rental, Nitendo Cartridge rental, and Compact Discs are purchased is because there is no easy way to copy them. (although there are now 'backup systems' out there to copy and play disk images of, nitendo/sega games. however, these systems can not reproduce cartridges which have special blitters or graphis vector processors on them) I submit to you that if VCR's were digital, high quality, and recording was fast and easy (no need for two VCRs) that the video rental industry would be in trouble. The same thing would happen to Nintendo if games were easy to copy. In fact, I cite the opposition to DAT as evidence for my point. If there were a video DAT, the same principles would apply. -Ray -- Ray Cromwell | Engineering is the implementation of science; -- -- EE/Math Student | politics is the implementation of faith. -- -- rjc@gnu.ai.mit.edu | - Zetetic Commentaries -- ------------------------------ Date: Tuesday, 27 July 1993 23:34:43 PST8 From: "James A. Donald" Subject: POLI: William Gibson - a statist! :-( In <9307260641.AA34441@frc060>, thamilto@pcocd2.intel.com (Tony Hamilton - FES ERG~) wrote: > All we _need_ is > for software companies to recognize the great commercial potential in the > education market, as well as the immense buying power our children will have > in the future. It's a _BIG_ potential market! I used to be in the software developement business (I still am, but now I work for other people.) Schools refuse to pay real money for software, so we do not write software for schools. It is that simple. The only way to make money from educational software is to market it directly to parents, as for example "Where in the world is Carmen Sandiego." > As a software company, why _not_ give away a lot of free software to the > schools, especially high schools, where kids are about to become consumers? > If you're a kid, and all you've been working with at school is Microsoft > software (donated by Microsoft) and you go buy your first computer, won't > your decision on computer and software be influenced by your experience in > school? You'll probably by Microsoft software, assuming your experience with > it in school was positive. > > Hell, look at Apple - they've been doing this for years with their mega > educational discounts, and it works! They've been fighting the PC-clones > for years, and yet they've been steadily building and maintaining a market > for their own computers, because they are smart enough to invest in the > students who will be the corporate buyers in decades to come. > > The company I work for, Intel, donates a large amount of products to schools, > and you can't tell me its out of altruistic motivations they do this! No, > they give stuff away, give money in the form of scholarships and so forth, > not to be nice, but in hopes that it will seed the future market, or that > these people may even work here someday. And from what I see, it works. > > In an capitalist, anarchist society, education will thrive because such > a society will recognize the great market potential in both education and > children who will grow to become adults. > > That's my point. Now, here's something else to think about. In the future, > when we're all living forever, what happens if we don't procreate quite as > much as before? I don't know that we wouldn't, but what happens if having > children becomes a low priority? In that case, the adults, living forever, > may eventually grow in such numbers that children might become a rarity. > What then of them? Does being a child then become an anti-survival trait > in itself? As a business, what would be the incentive to supply services > (such as early education) catered to a relatively small market? > > Surely not a worry if in fact procreation is still popular, or even > automated in some way. Whatd'ya think? > > Tony Hamilton > thamilto@pcocd2.intel.com > (HAM on HeX - get it while its cheap! :-) --------------------------------------------------------------------- | We have the right to defend ourselves and our James A. Donald | property, because of the kind of animals that we | are. True law derives from this right, not from jamesdon@infoserv.com | the arbitrary power of the omnipotent state. ------------------------------ Date: Tuesday, 27 July 1993 23:46:52 PST8 From: "James A. Donald" Subject: Is there a Nanotech mailing list? In <199307202133.AA03401@jido.b30.ingr.com>, extr@jido.b30.ingr.com (Craig Presson) wrote: > > In <01H0RTI0U21E94DO74@delphi.com>, "Allen Carson - Chicago, IL" writes: > |> Is ther a mailing list specifically for nanotechnology issues? If > |> so what is it? > > You can get the moderated USENET newsgroup sci.nanotech via email as > well. Try nanotech-request@cs.rutgers.edu, or josh@cs.rutgers.edu. Correction: The correct address is simply nanotech@cs.rutgers.edu Send a "subscribe" message to nanotech@cs.rutgers.edu Most of the stuff on the nanotech is about what is actually being done, rather than what might be done in the future. Plans are afoot for interfacing large scale molecular stuff to small scale lithography stuff, but so far a large gap remains. --------------------------------------------------------------------- | We have the right to defend ourselves and our James A. Donald | property, because of the kind of animals that we | are. True law derives from this right, not from jamesdon@infoserv.com | the arbitrary power of the omnipotent state. ------------------------------ Date: Tuesday, 27 July 1993 23:59:16 PST8 From: "James A. Donald" Subject: techno-unemployment (yet again and forevermore) In <9307261840.AA00546@snark.shearson.com>, pmetzger@lehman.com (Perry E. Metzger) wrote: > > >Hal Finney asks: > >> . . . Will each person always > >> be able to find a job he can do better than a machine? It seems obvious > >> that as the range of things that machines can do increases, this will > >> eventually stop being true. . . . In <9307261840.AA00546@snark.shearson.com>, pmetzger@lehman.com (Perry E. Metzger) wrote: > I've mentioned about three times now that all that matters is > comparative advantage and not actual productivity -- it makes no > difference if the machine can out pace you provided you and the > machine have different relative rates of production. Is no one > listening? About 40000 years ago the dingo - kind of like a small wolf, entered Australia. At that time the chief predators were the marsupial "wolf" and the marsupial "tiger" Within a very short time the marsupial wolf was extinct on the mainland. The dingo was a better predator, probably because dingos cooperate more effectively and are very good at anticipating the actions of their prey. The dingo had a comparative advantage over the marsupial wolf. Soon there were no more marsupial wolves. --------------------------------------------------------------------- | We have the right to defend ourselves and our James A. Donald | property, because of the kind of animals that we | are. True law derives from this right, not from jamesdon@infoserv.com | the arbitrary power of the omnipotent state. ------------------------------ Date: Wed, 28 Jul 93 9:41:20 GMT From: starr@genie.slhs.udel.edu Subject: AI: Searle's Chinese Torture Chamber Searle's critics still don't seem to be getting his point. Maybe it has something to do with the fact that most of them seem to have learned all they know about it from a secondary source, Douglas Hofstadter, rather than from reading Searle himself. I'm not arguing from authority, but trying to point out that the description of Searle's argument I've read from those who've gotten it secondhand from Hofstadter is barely similar at all to what Searle says in his book "Minds, Brains, and Science," which I have read - except for part of the end chapter. All this stuff about billions of people simulating chinese women as gotten me all confused, as it has nothing to do with the Chinese Room argument as I read it. Let's try a different example: Imagine you're an intelligence agent that has been given instructions on how to communicate with a field operative. All you know is that if he tells you X, you're to tell him A; if he tells you Y, you're to tell him B. You get a message from the operative: Y. You reply: B. What did you just say? What did you tell him? What do A, B, X, and Y mean? He knows this, but you didn't need to know, so you weren't told. >From your field operative's perspective, you seem to know what you're communicating. But you don't. Searle's argument is that computers can seem like they know what they're communicating in the same way, but they don't. His argument is designed so that people trained to approach subjects from one point of view only, the third-person, external point of view, have to approach it from another point of view, the first-person, internal one. It may be objected that this first-person perspective is unverifiable. On the contrary, it is - in principle, at least. If you were hooked up to my sensory and nervous system so that you got the same sensory input I did, presumably you'd "sense" the same things, and share this part of my point of view. If you were hooked up to me at a higher level, a sort of mechanical telepathy, then you'd be able to observe my point of view at the level of what I think, intend, mean, and understand. Then, if I were the intelligence agent in the above scenario, you'd be able to observe that I'd have no awareness whatsoever of what A, B, X, and Y mean. You'd be able to observe for yourself that I had no understanding of what I was communicating, even though the field operative wouldn't be able to tell this about me. Tim Starr - Renaissance Now! Assistant Editor: Freedom Network News, the newsletter of ISIL, The International Society for Individual Liberty, 1800 Market St., San Francisco, CA 94102 (415) 864-0952; FAX: (415) 864-7506; 71034.2711@compuserve.com Think Universally, Act Selfishly - starr@genie.slhs.udel.edu ------------------------------ End of Extropians Digest V93 #208 ********************************* &