alexr_rwx: (looking home)
Alex R ([personal profile] alexr_rwx) wrote2006-10-12 05:06 pm

Why are you climbing that tree?

In light of my own feelings of doubt, unease, confusion, and general freaked-out'd-ness about life and the prospect of living it, I assume that other people probably have similar situations from time to time.

So I present to you: webcomics. That's right. Webcomics plugged straight into my LJ, unabashedly. They're from xkcd.

I hope these help. I don't know what's going on, either. I think we have to make it up.
ext_110843: (pace)

[identity profile] oniugnip.livejournal.com 2006-10-12 08:27 pm (UTC)(link)
Maybe there'll be nanobots :)

I certainly hope so, anyway.

[identity profile] gtv42.livejournal.com 2006-10-12 09:28 pm (UTC)(link)
Don't, um...don't hold your breath...

You can, however, look forward to the construction of the new nanotechnology building. It's a giant castle suspended in the sky using high-temperature superconductors, it has a rooftop parking lot for flying cars, and students and faculty will move around this adacemic utopia via Segways or cloned dinosaurs (wearing saddles). Most of the staffing is expected to be delayed, however, pending the Singularity and/or the Rapture, whichever comes first.
ext_110843: (lizard brain)

Dinosaurs, awesome!

[identity profile] oniugnip.livejournal.com 2006-10-12 09:38 pm (UTC)(link)
If there's anything I believe in, it's the impending Singularity.

My nanobots will be designed by sentient self-redesigning AIs, just you wait!

[identity profile] gtv42.livejournal.com 2006-10-12 09:55 pm (UTC)(link)
Uh, like, okay, but don't come crying to me when your nanobots are prohibitively expensive, plagued by low yield in both initial production and subsequent manufacturing, almost impossible to power, and able to be smudged out of existance the minute they run into a nanonewton of force, mmkay?

On a serious note, if it's nanobots you're wanting, genetically engineered bacteria and their ilk are the way to go. No need to re-invent the wheel; life.

(ps: You just reminded me to check today's Dinosaur Comics, and the results were JOVIAL IN NATURE.)
ext_110843: (coffee)

[identity profile] oniugnip.livejournal.com 2006-10-12 11:15 pm (UTC)(link)
The beauty of pushing design problems into the AI is ... that we can push design problems into the AI. Including the design of the AI itself...

So maybe it'll be like clever clouds of self-organizing bacteria-or-something that use energy from sunlight to magically build houses for the homeless out of dirt and stuff! (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Grey_goo)

I think everybody loves Dinosaur Comics :) Or should.

[identity profile] laurapatt.livejournal.com 2006-10-13 01:51 am (UTC)(link)
i hope that the nanobots are cute and fuzzy, and maybe rainbow colored?