I'm waiting for someone to fix something so that I can get on with some work. This is the way of things: reboots take time, systems run out of space, then they go down, then they have to reconfigure themselves while they wake up and we all wonder whether everything will come on-line again. It's basically Jurassic Park.
Well, without the velociraptors, anyway.
So, I've been chatting to Winners via Skype about how to make a cup of tea. He's just asked me whether I would use a teacosy. I've gone on about not stirring the pot. He's sent me a picture of himself clutching a teapot in one hand and doing a cheesy thumbs up with the other. It's that kind of day.
Do you think there'll ever be a day when systems like these can reboot in nanoseconds, rather than the time it takes to have a whole conversation about teapots? I mean, I remember when I was a kid, you had to wait ages for a computer to boot up. These days, it is faster, I agree - but it still takes ages. Even Smartphones take seconds - and they don't have an obvious way to failover when they run out of battery. Surely technology should have moved on a little faster by now?
Come to think of it, why didn't Jurassic Park have an immediate backup system? It seems crazy for Nedry to be the single point of failure - and tropical storms must have featured somewhere in their initial disaster recovery plan... even in the 90s?
I think one day, things like this should be controlled by artificial intelligence. Once we've worked out how to stop them taking over the world, robots can start calculating the probablity of failures and use their massive intellects to avoid or mitigate disastrous events. Sure, it'd be a bit like asking Gary Kasparov to a game of Snap, but it might eventually mean people like me can get on with stuff.
I think part of the problem is that we tend to expand the possibility of something whenever it gets more complex. I mean if your widgeridoo is suddenly able to defumbulate twice as many bimblebops, then why would you keep it running at half its capacity? Especially if you can sell a whole load more bimblebops... Ever since the Industrial Revolution, this has been the Capitalist Way aboard the Enterprise - sell more bimblebops.
The engines cannae take it, Cap'n.
Hmm.
Winners knows someone who makes tea with hot water from the tap.
Bring on the velociraptors.
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