The HP Way

VME has historically been ugly.

The tall skinny front panel, usually paved with connectors, doesn't help. Most people then silkscreen the panel with easily-chipped black ink lettering in random fonts and locations. The overlay thing is about as much hassle as sending out panels to be anodized and screened, and looks cool.

John

I've looked at your pictures and I agree. I have a handful of VME boards laying around, along with a dual connector extender card, and maybe a backplane.

On Thu, 14 Sep 2006 08:10:37 -0700, John Larkin wrote: ...

Yes, but constrained by what? ;-)

Thanks, Rich

The short answer is "fear."

John

Fred shouldn't be anonymous to a lifer in s.e.d. AFAIK he lives in a particular eastern state, and under his real name has several patents, assigned to a branch of the US military. Perhaps he stays anonymous partly because of where he works.

Download a copy of fractint or something, and take a tour around the Mandelbrot set. You'll find it repeats itself all over. In fact, one of the interesting properties of fractals like this is their self-similarity - apart from trivial cases, given any snapshot from the set it is impossible to determine the scale. There are other types of fractal where the repetition is close but not exact - but even then they do not in any way go through all possible patterns despite being infinite and non-repeating.

No, you misunderstand. A bagel machine makes bagels, just as a glider factory makes gliders (with or without quotes). But the Game of Life does not make gliders or factories, just as the laws of physics, chemistry and biology do not make bagels or bagel machines.

As far as I can figure out, you are not aware of the concept of levels of abstraction. In the game of life, you don't make a distinction between things that happen within the game and its rules (such as a factory producing a glider), and things that happen outside the game (such as an intelligent designer clicking out a starting pattern with a mouse, or some sort of simulated evolution generating new starting patterns). Similarly, there is a difference between a bagel machine and a bagel machine machine, and an even bigger difference to a bagel machine designer.

These sorts of levels are distinct, and must be considered that way. But that does not mean they are independent, or don't interact - a bagel machine machine might well be the same thing as a bagel machine machine machine, and the techniques used to design a glider factory are probably very similar to those needed to design a glider factory factory. However, a lower level cannot directly affect a higher level - a bagel cannot change the shape of the bagel machine, while changes in the bagel machine will affect the bagels. Bagels can only influence the bagel machine through an even higher level - the designer of the bagel machine, or the bagel machine machine, can look at the bagels and see they are too small, and then change the bagel machine to suit.

Going back to the topic of real life, you must still look at these levels. Note that I am not advocating any sort of "intelligent designer" or other outside force (aliens, gods, or whatever) - although I can see why the thought appeals to people who can't figure out how such layering can work. At the lower levels, you have things like the DNA and its encoding mechanism. Above that, you having things like the copying and error correcting mechanisms. Above that, you have larger mechanisms such as sex. These different levels influence each other, but do so in different ways - copying errors will change the DNA, and the development of sex introduced new methods of copying and correcting DNA. But the DNA itself cannot invent new copying methods - although evolution can select for DNA that allows new copying methods. The principle of evolution through random mutation and selection is on a completely different level, well above the biological levels. It's a mathematical statistical law on a par with other statistical laws, and applicable to many different areas.

Of course, these few levels mentioned are a great simplification, and the reality is not the simple linear hierarchy I described (by the time you add genes, chromosomes, messenger RNA, viruses, and any other concept you want to include, you'll be writing books to explain it all - and that's without considering the levels that are not yet understood).

The marginally longer, but more accurate answer is "reality".

"Lifer"?! Bwahahaha

Best regards, Spehro Pefhany

I had "inmate" in there originally..... :)

In message , dated Fri, 15 Sep

'Denizen' has been used.

-- OOO - Own Opinions Only. Try

Are you sure. He denied having just recently received a patent. Our target in said eastern state did ;-)

...Jim Thompson

And really, really dumb nyms are for really, really dumb people.

John

That name was attributed to me by someone with a really, really dumb nym.

John

I figured that, I was just teasing you a little. I'm sure that you've been called worse, just like the rest of us. ;-)

As they say in Texas, call me anything you like but don't call me late for dinner.

John

They've said that just about every place that I've ever been. On the other hand Little Jimmy Dickens always says, "You can always tell a Texan. You just can't tell them very much." ;-)

Only if you leave your glasses off. No pattern is actually repeated. But my point was that even very simple algorithms can quickly produce astounding complexity and structure. Let those algorithms mellow over a few quadrillion copies, over a few billion years, and all sorts of non-simple things might emerge.

John

In other words, non-random evolution effects are a recent phenomenon, and only started after humand evolved, and pre-human evolution was incapable of creating any mechanisms but random mutation. Right?

John