From: Anders Sandberg (asa@nada.kth.se)
Date: Wed Dec 31 1997 - 18:47:22 MST
Forrest Bishop <forrestb@ix.netcom.com> writes:
> Uh oh. If Anders is overloading, we're all in trouble. :)
Maybe we should think of developing a tool of combatting future or now
chock? Some way of getting an overall feeling of what is
happening. History once served that purpose (and still work in many
areas) but when it comes to the technological changes we need
something new.
> Or because the country that built it no longer exists.
> Mir presents an interesting oppoertunity for privatization: its
> components will (stupidly!) not be used in the new International
> Space Station, though the Russians did propose and push for this. They
> are accustomed to reusing gear; some of Mir's equipment was salvaged
> from
> Salyut 7 (?), the previous station, and hence is older than Mir itself.
> Mir might be abandoned in place, a fully functioning, proven habitat
> only
> 11 years old. It would make a great construction shack.
"Only some DIY refurbishing needed". I think Bruce Sterling wrote a
short story about the last ageing russian cosmonaut on Mir, who eventually
got some new neighbors as people from the stratospheric colonies moved
in.
> Ned Seeman is making octohedral, dodecahedral, and other DNA these
> days, with stronger joints and "tabs" of single-strand DNA at the
> vertices for connecting units together.
Not to mention that one can show that there exists an isomorphism
between the different kinds of DNA and the regular languages of
computer science (things like that keeps hacker esthetes like me
happy).
> We will see hybrids of silicon/molecular machinery this year.
Yes, I think this will be the next big thing. The in-your-pocket
pathogen analyser using mini-PCR and DNA-chips I discussed on another
thread seems to be feasible, the biomedical researcher I talked with
tonight didn't see any problem, except that she didn't believe there
was a market for it :-)
What I would like is a molecular film that acts as a cellular
automaton. Maybe we could use the microtubule units?
-- ----------------------------------------------------------------------- Anders Sandberg Towards Ascension! asa@nada.kth.se http://www.nada.kth.se/~asa/ GCS/M/S/O d++ -p+ c++++ !l u+ e++ m++ s+/+ n--- h+/* f+ g+ w++ t+ r+ !y
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