That multi-threaded code was more what I was expecting, and I suppose that makes the most sense. I wonder if sonification of parallel code could offer insight or help with debugging what are traditionally some of the hardest programs with which to work.

I appreciate the challenges. I know a couple of musicians into the noise scene, I wonder if any of them would be interested in helping produce more musical samples? Clearly there are some conversations I need to strike up.

Thanks for the additional links for further reading. The more I learn about this space, the more interesting it gets.

The major challenges are 1) keeping realtime synchronization between instructions executed and sounds played, 2) how to “compress” the CPU speed into a meaningful rhythm, that is how to going from 2GHz to 44kHz.
Of course, getting good audio samples is a hard work, and would well require a musician

Finally, let me signal you the following links, I hope you’ll enjoy them:
- data sonification is used at NASA as well, when analyzing space data: http://spdf.gsfc.nasa.gov/research/sonification/sonification.html
- the “Institute for Algorhythmics” (http://www.algorhythmics.net/en/?p=427) sets a conceptual framework for these experiments

Depending on carrier, the Galaxy S line is good, and the upcoming HTC EVO-but-not on VZW looks really sharp, too. I just think the Streak, much like the MessagePad all those years ago, crosses the line from Big to Too Big.

All the same, I will borrow the book from the library and read the suggested chapter so I can at least have a better understanding of his argument, in the absence of anything other than a mere citation on your part. I doubt very much he’ll persuade me especially if it is any variation on his part arguments. I have read him argue for being able to perform very detailed scans, often destructive, of an existing brain and I am skeptical that the resulting information leads any more easily to a workable simulation of a human brain by 2030.

I think this is exactly what he says in his book.

“and lacking that, I doubt there is any shortcut past simulating from protein expression all the way up through cellular processes and neuronal development and interaction. That is a ton more computation than just simulating the end result.”

When I read “The Singularity Is Near” I never saw Kuzweil say that we need to simulate the brain atom by atom, protein by protein. I also would reject the how and when if it was brassed on simulating protein folding but its not in the book.

I would recommend Chapter 4: Achieving The software of Human Intelligence: How to Reverse Engineer the Human Brain

This is where Myers’ discussion of proteomics is relevant as that is what a DNA program does when executed. It produces proteins that then fold in non-trivially complex ways as they are synthesized. To get from proteins and how they fold to organs requires simulating layers on layers of complexity. We haven’t even fully mapped out the full set of proteins and necessary folding, let alone getting to the next layer up that depends on them. Simply put, there isn’t a 1:1 mapping between DNA and the neurons in a living brain and lacking that, I doubt there is any shortcut past simulating from protein expression all the way up through cellular processes and neuronal development and interaction. That is a ton more computation than just simulating the end result.

In algorithmic terms, Kurzweil wants to assume that the order of complexity for simulating a brain is a constant or lower order (linear, log-linear or logarithmic) of the assumed input, DNA. I doubt that is anywhere near correct, I would say we don’t even have a good first order approximation on the inherent complexity in producing a brain from DNA, computationally for the reasons I stated above.

Granted, once you have that result, reproducing a digital copy is trivial in theory though the practicalities at that scale of information density may be prohibitive. Bear in mind that the best general purpose lossless compression averages about 2:1. If a living brain requires yottabytes of storage, cutting that in half doesn’t make the problem of copying it any more tractable.

I would also argue that the brain is dependent on the body in which it is embedded. So I think there is a basis to reject Kurzweil’s argument even earlier on, that you could somehow separate out the portion of DNA that ultimately results in the development of a brain and have that fragment even work in any meaningful fashion.

I am not trying to say that we may never achieve machine based intelligence (either wholly synthetic or simulating existing minds), rather I reject Kurzweil’s naive predictions about how and when it will happen. In my opinion I think that Kurzweil’s folly lately is just an all too common fear of mortality leading to willfully taking on many flawed assumptions as long as they might lead to his personal wish fulfillment of practical immortality.

PZ Myers doesn’t understand that Kuzweil is not talking about compressing “the process” but that the DNA information can be compressed then uncompressed. As I said before this is only for biological brains.

Biological development is inherently complex and non-linear. DNA is a bootstrapping network where each stage of the biological systems it governs provide feedback. Read anything that discusses how fetal development progresses. You cannot just start with DNA and skip to the end of an infant organism. Each intermediate step is contingent on the effects in the womb and within the fetus itself wrought by preceding developmental steps. The environment of the womb and the prenatal organism are the media through which DNA and living matter communicate with each other . That communication is critical to how DNA works and life develops, it cannot be omitted as far as we know to get from DNA to life.

As I said, the blueprint is more for the process, not the end result. Big difference. And blueprint is a pretty poor choice of term as the process it governs is highly contingent and emergently complex. A blueprint is static, DNA is made up of both regulatory genes that active and suppress depending on circumstance and those genes which encode for phenotypic expression, that is observable traits.

I cannot recommend PZ Myers’ take on this highly enough. He has a strong background in the relevant field and makes a much more detailed but still coherent and accessible argument.

Is design not equatable to blueprint in your opinion? Is the reason you disagree with Kuzeweil because of your different use of terminology? I would agree that Kuzweil is wrong if he said: A.I. can be developed using the human genome, but he said brain not A.I.

My interest was more in the human side of the story, of a young man’s shift in interest and motivation from the usual things that occupy members of his generation and gender towards my socially aware pursuits. I am also pleased to see a more mainstream outlet pay attention to this particular kind of story given how often hackers are portrayed as socially and politically inept at best and downright selfish at worst.

I’ve been selfishly watching your progress on the ffado front as we have the same mixer and I haven’t taken the time to try it with Linux. Very sorry to see it isn’t yet working.

I was thinking along the lines of Jonathan above, however I think that the VM abstraction will bring too many additional variables to help much. You could, however, carve off a couple gigabytes from your Linux drive and simply install another instance on it. Make that your experimental partition and leave your “stable” Linux partition alone until you have a solution you are comfortable with.

WRT the portable media players, I revived my wife’s iPod video (30GB I think) with an installation of Rockbox, whiich is very Linux Friendly. When I did so I inherited her old iRiver H10 (6GB) player, which I now use, also with Rockbox, although almost exclusively for podcasts. It does support FLSAC though, which is nice for the occasionaly time when I do want to do some serious music listening. It works great with gPodder on my Ubuntu desktop box.

It may be worth having a look at Rockbox, I believe they’ve added support for a few more iPods in recent times.

In fact, I’m so happy that I won’t upgrade until a significant change in technology comes around (not even the mighty DROID X is going to make me switch). Also, I won’t upgrade to a phone until it’s been rooted due to the increasing amount of bloatware coming onto these devices (http://www.wired.com/gadgetlab/2010/07/bloatware-android-phones/). I see a minimal amount of this on my girlfriend’s DROID X and it makes me want to vomit.

The wireless tether is a great feature and it should be free. I’m paying for ‘unlimited’ data, who cares how I use it? Heaven forbid Verizon gives us a killer reason to brag to iPhone users and compel them to switch. Let us have it free! I think Motorola was given a massive break when Apple and Verizon couldn’t get their acts together and offer an iPhone before Android was a serious competitor. But I’m not on the inside of those deals, so what do I know.

All of this said, I understand why Moto holds back these features from original DROID owners – because the environment is less and less about hardware and more and more about the Market (or app store for those types). Aside from a front-facing camera (which I have issues with) and 4G speeds, I don’t see anything coming out in the next year that would make me want to move away from my precious DROID 1.

Makes sense.

I’m still rocking the original T-Mobile G1 and am running a custom ROM (T-Mobile has left the G1 at version 1.6 aka Cupcake). I have installed a preview build of Froyo which worked well (once I turned on a mod to compress RAM). Via custom ROMs with all versions of Android I have been able to tether with a usb cable, via wifi or bluetooth with no problems whatsoever – and this is the oldest/slowest hardware that runs Android!