vilhelm_s

107 ms·

1. 1021.▲
   by vilhelm_s 16y ago

   In fact, here's a more down-to-earth idea of a high density storage: use a diamond crystal, with C-12 atoms for 'zero' bits and C-13 atoms for 'one' bits. (I learned about this idea from Charles Stross' blog). While it's not obvious how to
2. 1022.▲
   by vilhelm_s 16y ago

   I'm not sure that the computation is completely to the point -- he starts out asking "what is the _smallest_ storage unit that could fit this many bytes", and then goes on to consider how much energy it would take to do so. But if we are p
3. 1023.▲
   by vilhelm_s 16y ago

   Conversely, you may _want_ interdependence for exactly this reason. If two countries are dependent on each other for basic needs, they will not be able to go to war. This kind of reasoning was the seed for the European Union: by joining the
4. 1024.▲
   by vilhelm_s 16y ago

   "I wondered whether, as a technical matter, an airliner could actually produce enough power to keep a planeful of laptop users plugged in through a whole flight. [...] Short answer: No, you probably couldn't make this work." Given that the
5. 1025.▲
   by vilhelm_s 16y ago

   No. Intuitionistic logic has the pleasing property that whenever G |- P \/ Q is provable, then either G |- P is provable or G |- Q is provable. I think this gets to the heart of what is confusing about this example: (London ->
6. 1026.▲
   by vilhelm_s 16y ago

   See also: http://www.paulgraham.com/submarine.html