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Someday, when we win the final battle against Moore's Law, computers will stop evolving. Software will become as stable as medieval architecture. Maybe not in o

by beat 8y ago

Someday, when we win the final battle against Moore's Law, computers will stop evolving. Software will become as stable as medieval architecture. Maybe not in our lifetimes, but it'll happen. I'm currently reading a science fiction novel that has a scene of someone who just woke up from nearly 200 years of hibernation getting attacked by all sorts of futuristic machinery, due to a 200 year old assassination virus that was still running. It could find him using the inevitable everywhere surveillance (retina scans everywhere), and then use whatever to attack - automated flying cars, a robot waiter, even a couch massage unit.

qzw 8y ago
The Dark Forest by Cixin Liu. Just finished it; great read.
- beat 8y ago
  Yep, that's it! I'm just blown away by this book (and The Three Body Problem), and really looking forward to the next one in the trilogy. Along the same technical lines, have you read A Deepness in the Sky, by Vernor Vinge? I love the idea of "programmer-archeologist" on a 5000 year old spaceship.
  - qzw 8y ago
    No, I haven't, but will definitely check it out. I did finally read Neal Stephenson's Seveneves before I started the Trisolaris Trilogy. I find them excellent at conveying the sense of vastness of space and time and how truly fragile human civilization is. In a way, this Notre Dame tragedy calls up the some of the same helpless (but not hopeless) feeling as reading about the existential dangers faced by humanity in these books.
  - deleted 8y ago
    [deleted]
asdff 8y ago
>Software will become as stable as medieval architecture No chance. Software gets abandoned all the time, and mostly for economic reasons.
- beat 8y ago
  Not all software. Linux is over 25 years old and shows no signs of abandonment. I think the odds are very good that it'll still be in use a century from now. Apache is almost as old, if you count its NCSA roots. Microsoft SQL Server is basically 1990s Sybase with a new GUI. Etc. I think the odds are much higher that we'll see the end of significant advancement in computing power than the odds that we'll see Linux pass into memory. In Vernor Vinge's marvelous novel A Deepness in the Sky, programmer-archeologists dig through millennia of software on a 5000 year old spaceship, but it's still running Unix underneath, because no one ever came up with anything better.
  - mrmuagi 8y ago
    > it's still running Unix underneath, because no one ever came up with anything better. That gave a good chuckle. I'm delighted to give that book a go.
philwelch 8y ago
The Wright Flyer first flew at Kitty Hawk in 1903. The Lockheed A-12 first flew in 1963, and was developed into the SR-71 Blackbird the next year. Moore’s Law was coined almost 60 years ago. I think we are close to the wall of exponential growth in transistor density. Moore’s Law is what happens when a new field emerges and there is still low-hanging fruit to be plucked. If it takes about 60 years to run out of that, time is almost up.

by beat 8y ago

qzw 8y ago

The Dark Forest by Cixin Liu. Just finished it; great read.

beat 8y ago
Yep, that's it! I'm just blown away by this book (and The Three Body Problem), and really looking forward to the next one in the trilogy. Along the same technical lines, have you read A Deepness in the Sky, by Vernor Vinge? I love the idea of "programmer-archeologist" on a 5000 year old spaceship.
- qzw 8y ago
  No, I haven't, but will definitely check it out. I did finally read Neal Stephenson's Seveneves before I started the Trisolaris Trilogy. I find them excellent at conveying the sense of vastness of space and time and how truly fragile human civilization is. In a way, this Notre Dame tragedy calls up the some of the same helpless (but not hopeless) feeling as reading about the existential dangers faced by humanity in these books.
- deleted 8y ago
  [deleted]

asdff 8y ago

>Software will become as stable as medieval architecture No chance. Software gets abandoned all the time, and mostly for economic reasons.

beat 8y ago
Not all software. Linux is over 25 years old and shows no signs of abandonment. I think the odds are very good that it'll still be in use a century from now. Apache is almost as old, if you count its NCSA roots. Microsoft SQL Server is basically 1990s Sybase with a new GUI. Etc. I think the odds are much higher that we'll see the end of significant advancement in computing power than the odds that we'll see Linux pass into memory. In Vernor Vinge's marvelous novel A Deepness in the Sky, programmer-archeologists dig through millennia of software on a 5000 year old spaceship, but it's still running Unix underneath, because no one ever came up with anything better.
- mrmuagi 8y ago
  > it's still running Unix underneath, because no one ever came up with anything better. That gave a good chuckle. I'm delighted to give that book a go.

philwelch 8y ago

The Wright Flyer first flew at Kitty Hawk in 1903. The Lockheed A-12 first flew in 1963, and was developed into the SR-71 Blackbird the next year. Moore’s Law was coined almost 60 years ago. I think we are close to the wall of exponential growth in transistor density. Moore’s Law is what happens when a new field emerges and there is still low-hanging fruit to be plucked. If it takes about 60 years to run out of that, time is almost up.