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Jeri Ellsworth and the Robot Uprising of 2038
- skrebbel 8y agoWow that was... Extremely weird. Is this supposed to be some kind of tribute?
- joe_the_user 8y agoI think the idea is to use the idea of future robot dictatorship as a spurn to learning DIY transistor manufacture. Didn't read the whole thing but definitely cyberpunk
- fit2rule 8y agoI've met Jeri. I'm pretty sure this guy is onto something. I only wish she'd get the clone machine working ASAP.
- Animats 8y agoWeird article. Author isn't technical enough to get how Jeri thinks. I've met her. She sees the physical world in terms of first principles, like Feynman. She built a short range radar from a satellite downlink dish by turning one of the transistors around. I would never have thought you could use a transistor from a low-noise amp to produce enough power to emit a usable signal. I'd be thinking "small-signal transistor" vs "power transistor". But it's an amp, it's got gain, it's fast enough, and she made it work.
- dmoy 8y agoIf you like learning about low power or messy signal stuff, there's some research at UW several years back about using e.g. a combination of em interference from human bodies and normal house electrical wiring/lightbulbs as motion detectors. That sort of stuff is really cool, and I'm very impressed by people like Jeri who can actually make it work.
- whatshisface 8y ago>Author isn't technical enough to get how Jeri thinks. You know, the author could be telling... a joke.
- sebringj 8y agoCrazy genius. This is an example of someone born to do something.
- tw1010 8y agoI know that's just supposed to be a complement, but sometimes that kind of a comment contributes to people thinking there's such a thing as a "math person" (or a "non math person"). Having comments like that thrown around in the aether makes it seem like technical subjects have "you either have it or you don't" characteristics, which I think most people on HN know is BS. I prefer to emphasize hard work over any kind of genetic advantage.
- kyberias 8y agoYet there is a difference in people whether they start creative something or not. Whether you prefer something or not, doesn't make genetic differences in mental stuff less real.
- njharman 8y agoThat is how people are. We are not identical, interchangeable cogs. Most people can be trained to do simple things in most any field. But brilliance is innate. Its not learnt and can't be made through hard work. Some people have analytical minds some don't.
- tw1010 8y agoI'm pretty good at what I do, and when people tell me they're jealous of my talent, and kind of hint that it's innate, I get a bit insulted. I had to work a shitton to get where I am, and comments like that makes it sound like I had it easy.
- whatshisface 8y agoThe reality is probably a mix of both.
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- thesimp 8y agoI have a bit more positive look on the future: Jan-2038 is just before my retirement. I can make some money with old computer knowledge while the post-post millennial generation does not even know what the inside of an old operating system looks like.
- platz 8y agoYour old computer knowledge will be about the same worth as what income that can be generated today having extensive knowledge of Multi-User Dungeon forum software.
- jjoonathan 8y agoThe world does not run on MUDs. The world does run on 30 year old OSes.
- ben_w 8y agoPerhaps, perhaps not. I’ve seen things go both ways. On the one hand, circa 2005 I made an audio recording at 16-bit/44k samples per second, of my graphics lecturer saying “40 joints, 24 samples per second, 16 bits per sample is a huge amount of data. A megabyte after only five minutes!” (My hard drive being 40 gig back then). On the other hand, when I graduated I ended up seeing several of the algorithms he taught us in use in workplace that did a lot of highly optimised graphics processing.
- jonathankoren 8y agoSo... incredibly lucrative if Ready Player One is to be believed.
- edoo 8y agoMUDs were advanced data processing systems. As a kid I wrapped my head around one with a 100k line code base. That has led to quite a successful career and I still use a lot of the same techniques I learned.
- platz 8y ago
- deleted 8y ago[deleted]
- agumonkey 8y agostarts with a typo
- M_Bakhtiari 8y agoI like Ellsworth. Very antithetical to what you expect of women in technology.
- dang 8y agoIf you troll HN like this again we will ban you.
- platz 8y agoWhat makes core memory resistant to EMP? Wouldn't the pulse change the polarizations stored in the iron cores? > The highly irradiated port-war landscape will be unable to make use of standard silicon computer memory for centuries to come. So we really couldn't use any silicon that was hit to make new semiconductors?
- Dangeranger 8y agoThe author’s argument is that a highly irradiated landscape would be too energetic for silicon based memory to work as it’s now designed. I’m not an EE but I’ve spoken with some engineers of early silicon systems which had to account for high energy cosmic rays flipping the bits within RAM in a random fashion. My guess is that using a solution like Hamming codes would not work when retrieving arbitrary data at a large scale.
- FPGAhacker 8y agoEcc does work for radiation hardening of storage. You can still get logic upsets in transit, between storage elements. You can either design your cells around it (high power ) or you can use a variety of redundant logic and monitors.
- amaterasu 8y agoOff topic, but with smaller lithography, ANY subatomic particle of sufficient energy becomes a problem: https://www.xilinx.com/support/documentation/white_papers/wp208.pdf https://www.xilinx.com/support/documentation/white_papers/wp... I've spent months chasing random crashes on another vendor's device which turned out to be solder ball alpha emission issues.
- dustfinger 8y agoI have not read the article, but I find the choice of date interesting. 2038 is unix rollover time [1]. It does not appear to be mentioned in the article so it might be a coincidence. [1]: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Year_2038_problem https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Year_2038_problem ---Edit--- > but the meek will inherit the earth when judgement day begins on the 19th of January 2038 at 03:14:07 UTC. I stand corrected, Unix rollover time is exactly why this date was chosen. It must have broken AI safety protocols in the robots which turned them into killing machines. Cool, I will read this article tonight.
- tomrod 8y agoI found a new person to follow! From this blogpost and her wikipedia page I'm impressed. I wonder though -- is the fear of the Robot Uprising of 2038 founded, to her, or is that applied drama by the blog author?
- zrobotics 8y agoI don't know her personally, but I've followed her for a while and I've never heard her mention anything of the sort. Also, the author didn't mention anything about her work with augmented reality, I guess it didn't fit the narrative. To be fair though, I only read the first 1/4 and skimmed the rest b/c I couldn't stand the robot uprising slant. Can't she just like cool old tech without being a cyberpunk pepper? If you're interested, she has done some excellent interviews on the amp hour podcast. The episode referencing her semiconductor making experiments: https://theamphour.com/the-amp-hour-52-carnassial-chip-chemicals/ https://theamphour.com/the-amp-hour-52-carnassial-chip-chemi... All episodes: https://theamphour.com/?s=jeri https://theamphour.com/?s=jeri (edit: copy/paste error)
- edoo 8y agoCatch 22. The killer robots will be quite proficient in tracking electromagnetic radiation.
- MegaDeKay 8y ago"My dad had bought me a 101 electronics kit from radio shack..." Proud to say I had the same kit. Santa is the man.
- KaoruAoiShiho 8y agoBut now that she's on the internet the robots will know to find her after the uprising.
- Mountain_Skies 8y agoJeri likely would find a way to defeat the robots by building a machine gun that shoots pinballs and is controlled by a brainwave interface to a SID chip.
- cbennett 8y ago"Well, magnetic core memory is the only data storage format that is robust enough to withstand high-radiation environments. Jeri is clearly interested in magnetic logic and memory because it is the only computing platform that will be able to survive the first wave of nuclear blasts that will unavoidably come from the beginning of the third great world war. " Erm, this premise is factually untrue though. A lot of next generation resistive RAM devices, especially OxRAMs, have been demonstrated to be rather rad hard, making them good candidates for future space electronics platforms or.. all the other attendant apocalyptic scenarios.
- sitkack 8y agoRadiation hardness is different than sensitivity to EMP. It is the eddy currents from an EMPT that build up in and burn out small traces in micro electronics.
- std_throwawayay 8y agoBut magnetic cores are resistant to the M in EMP?
- platz 8y agoI'll offer a wild guess - perhaps they are only temporarily affected (i.e. mem-wiped) and function as normal after device reset, being made of iron, in contrast to semiconductor doping materials being hard-killed by the emp.
- msl 8y agoDrum memory [1] and hard disks [2] have been used in nuclear tipped missiles, which are supposed to operate in an environment where EMPs are expected. Both types use magnetism for storing data. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ASC-15 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ASC-15 (Titan II) [2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/D-17B https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/D-17B (Minuteman I) (note that the hard drive was used as RAM)
- falcor84 8y agoI for one really liked that Blade Runner reference with the repetition of "interlinked". My initial vision of the post's future was of The Terminator, but that reference made me consider a more interesting future with different kinds of artificial beings.
- vbuwivbiu 8y agoHighly recommend Jeri's youtube channel
- platz 8y ago> Jeri Ellsworth hates this article probably used in jest - but playing along - probably because premise of article is heavy on summoning up ethos & pathos to generate interest whereas, from what I can tell of Jeri's style, she is more centered on direct logos. in a way, the way OP uses ethos/pathos method is somewhat deceptive/dishonest, because it's trying to get you interested in source material for reasons that are entirely make-believe.
- lifeisstillgood 8y agoFYI: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jeri_Ellsworth https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jeri_Ellsworth There is a youtube talk linked in the articles references which is ... just watch it. I am always amazed by these stories - especially as I tried the opening a store in mid nineties flogging computers and internet cafes.
- skysports 8y agohttps://qiita.com/passgam/items/3dc49921b47dabe6172a https://qiita.com/passgam/items/3dc49921b47dabe6172a http://qiita.com/passgam/items/3dc49921b47dabe6172a http://qiita.com/passgam/items/3dc49921b47dabe6172a https://qiita.com/passgam/items/3dc49921b47dabe6172a https://qiita.com/passgam/items/3dc49921b47dabe6172a http://qiita.com/passgam/items/3dc49921b47dabe6172a http://qiita.com/passgam/items/3dc49921b47dabe6172a https://qiita.com/passgam/items/3dc49921b47dabe6172a https://qiita.com/passgam/items/3dc49921b47dabe6172a http://qiita.com/passgam/items/3dc49921b47dabe6172a http://qiita.com/passgam/items/3dc49921b47dabe6172a
- thedrbrian 8y ago>"I ended up dropping out of high school when I was racing cars because I was making so much money."[3] "I started seeing how far I could push the rules. One of the things I built was a traction control system for my race car. I built a single-board 6502 computer (wire-wrap) and I measured the front-wheel spin by putting a hall sensor on it, and I measured the engine RPM." "I had a rev limiter in the car and it would just tell the rev limiter you're over-revving if the back tires were spinning more than the front tires." "Then, I started dominating, just completely dominating. Sounds a lot like cheating......disruption
- jperras 8y agoFinding loopholes or under-specified gray areas in rules to gain an advantage is the secondary activity, besides actually racing, in almost all motorsports.
- plasticchris 8y agoThe robot uprising will begin and I predict the battle turns at 12am Jan 1st, UTC, as the 32 bit system clocks overflow in many of the small micros controlling subsystems.
- DoctorOetker 8y agobrilliant, but for >Triboluminescence with household chemicals - Keep your eye on what happens when the battery falls over in this video. I watched it over a couple of times, but never actually catch the battery fall over, the subject matter is constantlly grabbing my attention. at what time does it fall over?