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Heads=0, Tails=1
The "Ballmer Peak"
http://xkcd.com/323/
How alcohol consumption affects programming ability [hippo, Jan 04 2008]
Genetic algorithm
http://en.wikipedia...i/Genetic_algorithm
this idea is half a genetic algorithm [xaviergisz, May 12 2008]
Microsoft's "Clippy"
http://www.thehumor...kest_side_of_clippy
I saw a reference to Mircosoft's clippy in here somewhere... [MikeD, May 12 2008]
[link]
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Yes, any act of creativity can be replaced by a random generator and 2^{bits in the artefact} acts of filtering. Often these acts of filtering are just as complex as the eliminated creativity. |
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Your Schrödinger idea got me thinking about signals and information theory. lol |
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The strange thing is that the highest
information content is found in completely
random numbers. The information
content of the Encyclopaedia Brittanica is
much lower than that of 26 volumes of
white noise. |
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// Often these acts of filtering are just as complex as the eliminated creativity. // |
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Mandelbrot, wherefore art thou ? Quo vadis ? |
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n, {n- 1}, blah blah ......... |
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There is already such a filter to eliminate creativity, and it mostly manifests itself as that inexorably cheeful bloody paperclip....... "Hey ! It looks like you're trying to write a letter..... would you like to screw up the formatting and punctuation for you, and change all the spelling to some sort of Mid-Atlantic consensus gibberish ..... ?" |
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Many computer viruses are built this way. If you get enough computer viruses and put them together randomly, then you will eventually get Microsoft. |
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//Many computer viruses are built this way// |
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//If you get enough computer viruses and put them together randomly, that you will eventually get Microsoft// |
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Sounds highly unlikely. More than likely a string of random code that doesn't do anything at all. |
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Random gibberish always crashes a computer! (Rapidly shake a magnet near you CPU, you'll get the idea.) |
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By "randomly" I mean, 'let the monkeys decide how to put the CPU viruses together based on which ones are functional and which ones serve no function'. |
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// let the monkeys decide // |
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Oh nooooo, not the Marketing department ... |
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//Rapidly shake a magnet near you CPU,
you'll get the idea.// Ummm, all this will
do is to demonstrate that you believe
gibberish. Otherwise, I don't think it's
going to do very much. |
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I think that changes in the magnetic flux is enough to mess up the square wave signal that is traversing through your CPU (1024 bits in parallel or whatever it is) at Gigahertz speeds. I suppose it might not (speculation here, so don't try it) do anything when there isn't a signal being processed and you wave the magnet, but when the signal is going through that short of a distance on your microchip, well, then I think a magnet would probably mess up the signal. |
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Also, there is another more pressing reason not to shake a magnet near you computer, and that is because it will mess up your hard drive, which has a soft magnetic disk on it....This will mess up the 1's and 0's stored in your hard drive memory which will crash your computer next time you go to run that program. (it's called a 'corrupted file') |
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//I suppose it might not// No, trust
me, it won't. For this to have any effect,
you'd have to have such a ludicrously
large magnet that you wouldn't be able
to wave it around. What you are talking
about is inducing a significant current
in the conductors on the chip, by means
of a changing magnetic field. Given the
length of the conductors (and the fact
that they are not coils), this isn't going
to be significant. Honestly, truly, it
isn't. |
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//and that is because it will mess up
your hard drive// Again, this is sort of
urban myth. Your hard drive has some
of the most powerful rare-earth
magnets in it that you are likely to find
anywhere. Wiggling any portable
magnet around is not going to have any
effect, unless you dismantle the drive
and bring the magnet to within a gnat's
penis of the surface itself. |
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Seriously, you can do what you like with
your magnets and they won't have any
effect except on your credit cards. I
work with some fairly hefty magnets,
and they seem to obey the laws of
physics. |
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Oh, sorry. I didn't realize that was an urban myth. |
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I believe it may be a rural one as well.
They do say you should never wave a
lodestone near the head of a well-trained
sheepdog. |
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I think thats what happened to my Sheltie. |
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All he does is bark and run in circles. |
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A few paperclips would help to complete the circuits on the CPU (attach 1 end to input node and 1 end to the output node)....then you could screw up the signal by changing the magnetic flux. |
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Use a stronger magnet to screw up the hard drive....an electromagnet. |
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I'm against my own idea! Grrrr!
and yet, I love it to death, so much that I can't even find a place in my heart to delete it!
This is the legendary myth about how Microsoft was made.
Okay I'll admit, however, that this idea does stink like fishbones. |
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Everybody knows it was the poo flinging monkeys, not the coin tossing monkeys or the typing monkeys, that developed Microsoft. |
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Damn! [CF] is back on deck. Hello! |
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I thought it was the poo-flinging monkeys, too. They were present at the fall of Carthage, weren't they? |
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Indeed. It wasn't called the Poonic Wars for nothing. |
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<[CF] dives back below decks, narrowly avoiding storm of monkey poo> |
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//If you get enough computer viruses and put them together randomly, that you will eventually get Microsoft// |
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Not really. Many virus programmers are pretty talented. Soemthing Micro$oft knows nothing about. |
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//Not really. Many virus programmers are pretty talented. Soemthing Micro$oft knows nothing about.// |
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You know, I'm not exactly a slavering disciple to Microsoft but they didn't get to 92% of the world market by accident. Their products are pretty bloody good, when you get down to the nitty-gritty of how you would approach the problems their software addresses. |
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Heads I win, tails you lose. Microsoft. |
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I believe there is an actual program
where they created virtual monkeys on
a computer to spew out random
characters and then compare the results
to the complete works of Shakespeare.
So far they have about three words that
match up. |
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Interestingly though if they ever get a
quantum computer up and running it
will simultaneously create every piece of
software that could ever exist - or
maybe it won't. |
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//Interestingly though if they ever get a quantum computer up and running it will simultaneously create every piece of software that could ever exist - or maybe it won't.// |
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I would be happy to answer that question for you. |
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