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Man do I wish I had something like this to play when I was in high school. That quote at the beginning of the video is fascinating to me too. With all that is
by shostack 12y ago
Man do I wish I had something like this to play when I was in high school.
That quote at the beginning of the video is fascinating to me too. With all that is happening around wearable devices, the internet of things, etc., we're not too far away from a future of people gesturing and incanting various things and having their environment respond to them.
Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic (and of course the corollary).
Reminds me of a (somewhat cheesy but fun) fantasy book called The Wiz Biz[1] I read once.
[1] http://www.amazon.com/The-Wiz-Biz-Rick-Cook/dp/0671878468/ref=pd_sim_b_6?ie=UTF8&refRID=1W3HNY2A9P2WJNABX89R http://www.amazon.com/The-Wiz-Biz-Rick-Cook/dp/0671878468/re...
- arethuza 12y agoThe idea that magic is a branch of maths (mixed with heavy doses of Lovecraftian horror and dour cold-war spy thrillers) is the basis for the splendid Laundry series of novels from Charlie Stross: http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Literature/TheLaundrySeries http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Literature/TheLaundryS...
- seanmcdirmid 12y agoI really liked the magic system of the Eragon trilogy, which was based on being able to say a phrase in some ancient language that didn't allow for lying. Ok, so that is more natural language, but if you take programming as more speaking in an artificial language than doing math (as I do), then its a more apt analogy.
- arethuza 12y agoI forget the name of the language that the Laundry uses to program its zombies^M^M^M^M^M^M^M "Residual Human Resources".
- shostack 12y agoThanks for the suggestion, will have to look into it!
- codespells 12y agoWe totally agree!! Funny side note about the quote - We asked Gabe Newell (founder of Steam) if we could quote him at the beginning of our video, and he replied "Sure!" That guy must get hundreds of e-mails a day. I don't know how he finds the time to reply to them all! I'm going to have to check out this book.