Sayonara

In the UK we just put them up and don't tell anyone. They fight crime.

No, I am saying the internet is not alive according to the given definition because it fulfills none of the specified criteria that would allow it to do so. The discussion about sense is only considering one such criterion and does not represent a complete argument. I am proposing that sensory processes in a living system are considered a part of the system in the sense that they contribute to it, regulate it in some way, or exercise directed influences, each action of which is a function of the top-level entity and not of the enactor or responder sub-units. I am not proposing that sensory processes and their consequences must be commonly inherent to all parts of the living system. Whether or not the definition is "wrong" is not related to whether or not the system under consideration meets the criteria of the definition.

As you rightly perceive, sensory information and subsequent enaction is not simply a matter of stimulus and response. The context required for the life definition is one in which a coherent system is acting on feedback in a fashion that regulates or provokes inherent processes, which the internet does not do. To put it another way, the stimuli and responses we see acting on the internet do not form part of any process that belongs to the "organism" as a whole. They are triggers and actions that act selfishly, usually at the behest and benefit (or not) of only two of the "cells" in the system. This would not be considered controlled sensory feedback in any other organism. The nearest thing is cell signalling, but that too is usually part of a much wider scheme, in a histological context that has been developed in response to the larger needs of the organism.

I know; my post is meant to add to yours rather than dispute it

Furthermore, I would put "movement" as nope because it is not self-actuated. I would put "sense" as nope because the internet only transports information between the stimulator and the receiver - there is no realisation and no contained neural circuit. I would put "grow" as nope because, again, there is no self-actuation. We add servers to the network as an external process. Existing servers do not multiply, or build new nodes. I would put "excrete" as nope simply because any way of justifying "check" is a semantic ploy. "Require nutrition" does not need to be considered, because none of the functions that such nutrition would power contribute to a definition of life. Most frameworks for theoretical non-cellular life include self-actuation or some system of awareness, and the internet - being a transport medium - has neither. I would say that the internet comprises the actual transport hardware (whether it's cables or EM signals), and the gateways whose sole function is to route TCP/IP information. The vast majority of servers are external data/resource nodes and are as much a part of the internet as the local library's books and the contents of my nearest supermarket are a part of my material belongings. I might be able to use them as data/resources, but they don't contribute towards my qualification as a living thing. One could argue that processes running on those servers and the related requests that are sent from them are as much a part of the internet as the technical infrastructure, but only by anthropomorphising the whole thing into a metaphor that can only accurately represent a living thing, or the internet as realistic observers would define it.

I am brimming with excitement. Quivering. Release me Amod. Release me!

Decombobulate: http://www.grc.com/dcom/

I'm glad you got the word "mental" in there.

This thread serves no discussion purposes. Closed.

http://www.arachnoboards.com/ab/forumdisplay.php?f=12

Dear god. Yes we should.

"I have not seen them all and therefore can't decide"

That's up to the discretion of the user. It's not "google's fault".

lol It's a perpetual motion machine for your car. How marvellous.

Fixed. No, that would be the same basic plot structure every week with a twist that you can see a mile off

Are you asking whether nanotechnology will allow us to "break" Moore's Law?

Swansont is asking how you are differentiating nanotechnology from "Moore's Law technology", since there is a large degree of overlap.

Although this would save time and resources, there is a risk involved. If someone only has "one thing to say", and can post it on a forum instead of staying in a meeting, they may make their statement and then stop participating. Which means nobody can feed back comments to them. Based on the experiences I have had with the kinds of people who know they are going to go to an hour long meeting yet can't imagine saying anything other than the fixed lines in their head, I'd suggest this is going to be a likely scenario. When they are required to make their point in front of other people, they can then be asked for more information or have problems highlighted to them.

Also we can reasonably expect a derivative of Moore's Law to apply to nanotechnology.

Depends what is meant by "relevant".

For many people it's a way to get adequate information quickly. It also is more likely to return resources that everyone can access, rather than only those members who have academic library access. I find that whether they are general or academic, search engines are only as good as the keywords you use.

Something tells me the sort of people who start those threads aren't going to use the internal search feature no matter how big the box is. Not that that makes it a bad idea.

We'll be discussing the SFN front page (or "portal", as the kids are calling it these days) at the staff meeting next week, so if you have any suggestions now is the time to make them. Is there anything that should be on there and isn't? Anything that could stand to be removed? If any of you have access to the vBulletin members' areas, and can recommend specific plug-ins or modules, so much the better (It would help if you could keep your suggestions within the realm of the possible. From past experience, we've often been given ideas that would take fifteen coders a month and a tonne of chinese takeaway to complete.)

Stop duplicating this thread.

Remember that XP allows accounts to be made "Private", which will protect the personal content. Callipygous's idea seems like the most sensible one. You should probably do a full and deep malware scan with a variety of products, since some software (especially P2P) can create its own "user" accounts.