DVD Format Wars
September 13th, 2007
Maybe it’s time to treat digital media formats in the same way as radio spectrum bandwidth: We don’t have any problem with regulating the radio spectrum because it’s clearly a limited resource that everybody needs to use. Leaving it completely open would obviously make the spectrum useless.
The same applies to digital formats, it’s just not as immediately obvious. For example, a situation in which four or five different high-definition DVD formats coexist would effectively be as chaotic and useless as an unregulated radio spectrum.
Are we living in a computer simulation?
September 13th, 2007
There has been quite a lot of discussion lately about whether we might be living in a computer simulation. The current discussion is being fueled by a serious paper by Nick Bostrom and it is also being discussed in many blogs.
In terms of quantum mechanics the question as to whether our reality is a simulation or not is actually quite moot. To begin with, it is now as certain as science can be that matter as we subjectively perceive it does not exist — the huge majority of what we experience as matter is actually empty space and the rest is tiny areas of energy events popping in and out of “existence” (at least from our point of view) like whack-a-rats jumping in and out of their holes. Most people still miss this because physicists continue to use the comforting and misleading word “particles” for something that is actually about as particulate as an advertising popup on a website.
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