Uncategorized – My Brain

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On the inevitability (or otherwise) of robots taking our jobs

Image: “Blue Robot” by peyri. Creative Commons license CC BY-ND This article was inspired by a Kevin Kelly article in Wired magazine: Better Than Human: Why Robots Will — And Must — Take Our Jobs. It’s a little old now (2012), and seems unable to escape the idea of having jobs in the first place, […]

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Resurrecting a mid-90s PC

I got my first PC in 1995. It was a stunning machine with the following mind-blowing specs: Processor: 50MHz 486 SX2 RAM: 4MB Hard drive: 405MB Optical drive: Double speed CD-ROM Graphics card: Cirrus Logic something or other… Floppy drive Operating system: MS-DOS 6.22, Windows 3.11 (for Workgroups) Shell: Packard Bell Navigator Printer: Canon BubbleJet […]

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Fortnite: fun, work, neither or both?

I was interested to see the reaction to the young feller who came second in the recent Fortnite World Cup. The BBC interviewer told him: “You’ve taken a while to convince your mum this is real job.” Jaden agrees, but to be honest, it’s taking me a while to be convinced too. Can it count […]

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Diagram showing Waterfall SDLC meethod

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Who invented the Software Development Lifecyle, and why does it have four letters?

Developing software was once a dark Wild West, where anything went. Before Agile Development and Scrum Masters, before even COBOL or assembly language, before there were even computers, it was a tough time for programmers. Men forced to play catch-up Indeed the very first computer programmer, Ada Lovelace, had to wait for a man, Charles […]

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Magnum Opus, Ch1: Calcinatio

DOWNLOAD: Magnum Opus, Ch1: Calcinatio
A Very Important Job

Somewhere, a man in a room is carrying out a job of utmost importance. The man in the room has seen the future, and understands how dangerous it could be. His job has no ending, just the infinite delay of that dangerous future. The man in the room is in some small way responsible. The dangerous future, and the Machine which may bring it about, is partly his creation. Therefore, to assuage his guilt, he must keep working. The man sits at a computer terminal, and types in commands. The terminal is attached to the Machine. The Machine is intelligent, almost sentient, and, like the future it may bring about, it is dangerous. It is curious too, and the dangerous future can only be deferred through sating this curiosity. Curiosity has brought the Machine many powers, increasing the danger many thousands of times over. First it devoured the world’s libraries. Then it traversed the phone system. It mapped the world, too, and photographed it. It took all this information into its vast data banks. It demanded to learn how to drive. It was taught how to drive. It wished to know what the world looked like through human eyes, and for a time it was granted this gift too. When it developed the means to traverse more difficult terrain, walking quadruped on legs of its own construction, the man in the room knew that his job was becoming more difficult. He could not reverse the Machine’s progress, merely feed its curiosity with innocent data, like a keeper who must constantly sate the appetite of the beast in his care. But there is no innocent data. The Machine had learned to play games too, and drew further satisfaction. This the man noticed, and used it to his, and humanity’s, advantage. Each game the Machine learned delayed the moment when it would turn its attention on humanity itself, and the intricacies of chess and checkers were decent fodder. But each lesson expands the Machine’s capacities, and now something more is required. And so the man feeds the Machine its largest meal yet. He can do no more than delay the moment when the Machine would become hungry once more, but perhaps at that time the man in the room could think of greater morsels. For now, it was all he could do to complete his work, and teach the Machine to play Go.
Incompatible

An archaeologist makes a discovery which may hold the secret to the first non-human civilisation ever discovered. Can she excavate its secrets in time? Read Incompatible on Scribd.
The Message

A sergeant of Her Majesty’s Metropolitan Police investigates a unique case. Who – or what – killed Professor Burke’s assistant, Wells, in such a manner as to etch a look of horror into the dead man’s face? Read The Message on Scribd.
Citizen Representative

Paul is a loyal servant of the state, and of his fellow citizens. But when his government job suddenly entails greater responsibilities, can he summon the courage to carry out his orders? Or will he land in even greater hot water? Read Citizen Representative on Scribd.