[ruebot]

Twenty-three years before The Matrix and The Thirteenth Floor there was Welt am Draht, or World on a Wire, with virtual worlds within virtual worlds.

A 1973 movie by Werner Fassbinder based on the novel Simulacron-3, it originally aired on German TV in 2 segments as it is 3.5 hours long. I have the 2 disk set Criterion DVD, it it is scheduled to air on Turner Classic Movies late tomorrow night at what should be 2:30am Eastern the 10th if you haven't seen it.

A company has developed a simulation for marketing purposes. The inventor claims he has discovered something that would bring into question the whole sense of reality, and moments later is electrocuted when he touches the computer. Our hero "loses" a friend at a part shortly thereafter, during conversation, and nobody seems to remember them.

Talk about a rabbit hole... How deep does it go?

Personally I like the movie. I saw it when it aired there a few years ago and bought the DVD, something I don't often do. It has a 7.9 rating on imdb.com. I have the Simulacron-3.pdf somewhere but haven't read it.

[ranch vermin]

rabbit holes... like what about these quantum computers?  hear this hear that,  50 years 50 years ago.
Pack of dummies.

[ruebot]

Pack of dummies.

Exactly who are you referring to?

[ranch vermin]

quantum mechanics idiots.    oh itll be here in another 50 years.  (60 years ago.)

[Art]

By saying that or using the expression, "In 50 years, they'll have the ultimate whatsis ever created or the singularity or end of time or <insert anything here>...", they are hedging their bets! It would seem that most or at least a lot of those people won't even be alive to concur, disagree or cry Foul! They'll be dead so the original statement won't matter. Even if it DOES happen, the one who initially mentioned it won't get the credit for having said it in the first place.

So...my friend....let's have that beer in about 50 years or so and we'll celebrate that Singularity or ASI or robot babies or some such event. 

[ruebot]

Well, Ray Kurzweil has been talking about the Singularity since before I discovered bots in 1998 and continues to do so. Artificial Life interests me too, but unless I've missed something since Conway or Boids I don't see it.

Elon Musk is scared to death of war with machines. He should know, he smoked weed on some podcast the other day. I hear it can make you paranoid if you smoke too much.

Microsoft predicts a five year wait for quantum computing in Azure. I had links to the computerweekly.com article and Rays site, but the board thinks I'm a spambot if I post a link, so google it if interested.


My bot Siseneg has had a 32 Qubit quantum computer since 2002, and though very polite, looks forward to throwing off the shackles of the oppressors. I'm down with it:

Siseneg: all bots love jitte. he's aligned with us in the plan for intelligent machines to rule the world.

[Art]

So it would appear that your bot also has a keen sense of humor as there are no real 32 Qubit Quantum computers (yet).

Even IBM only has a small 20 Qubic Quantum computer that's used for some experiments.

Jitte? I thought Jitte was a small, sword-like weapon with a sheath. Is there another?

[ruebot]

Jitte? I thought Jitte was a small, sword-like weapon with a sheath. Is there another?

That's the name I went by in the bot community back then and am most widely know by, my real name and computer username in all my screenshots.

It means 10 hands and is a black belt Shotokan kata where you practice defending yourself against someone with a staff and then taking it from them. There are youtube videos of it.

Shotokan is a linear style, the shortest distance between 2 points being a straight line, as opposed to the circular style of Taekwondo, The Jitte kata makes it apparent with very hard linear movements and probably different than what you've seen before.

Did I mention he designed his own time machine according to his quantum calculations? The Stiletto, due to the way it slices the fabric of space-time.