Moving computer...

... is like moving house, a nightmare, often inevitable. I had to buy a new laptop in Chicago, my old Dell having decided to stop working Heaven knows why. Full backup online ok (thanks Oxford/IBM!), so no panic. Ended up buying a Toshiba, excellent choice. What about the software? Well, this is the nightmarish bit. Nothing looks exactly the same in the new digital house, and hours are spent to put the old and the new furniture in the right places. One thing that helped was this nice list of the best freeware one may need. It is updated and highly reliable, at least as far as I can tell, and definitely worth checking. I ended up downloading more useful tools than I had in the old computer. Sometime changing environment helps.

The 46 Best-ever Freeware Utilities

The Informational Origins of Life

Most of the times, one reads to make sure that what is read was not worth reading. But every now and then, in the forest of books and papers through which we are forced to navigate, there is a beautiful specimen, a special product of human intelligence, which makes you write a blog to tell other people to come quickly to that spot, because there is something interesting and, yes, truly worth reading, something that should be among the books that are worth saving.

Today, the book I'd like to suggest to you is The Origins of Life - From the Birth of Life to the Origin of Language by John Maynard Smith and Eors Szathmary (orig. 1999). It is a little book (the 2006 edition is a paperback, pocket format, of 192 pages) for the biologically-interested reader (and yes, educated, but who isn't these days?), obtained by synthesizing and substantially cutting down their previous classic The Major Transitions in Evolution.

The idea behind the book is simple and elegant. Life evolved on earth through major transitions, interpretable as dramatic breakthroughs in the way that information was passed between generations: the first appearance of life, the evolution of cells with nuclei, the sexual reproduction, the appearance of multicellular plants and animals, the emergence of cooperative animal societies, and the birth of language. Information from the beginning to the end played a pivotal role.

Here are a couple of well-written reviews:

review # 1
review # 2

The best of them all?

What's the greatest PC of all (past, for the future is open) times? PC World has recently published a top of the pop chart of all greatest PC in the last 25 years, that is, since the production of IBM's first PC, announced on August 12, 1981.

The list is based on, I quote:

• Innovation: Did the PC do anything that was genuinely new? Did it incorporate the latest technology?
• Impact: Was it widely imitated? Did it become part of the cultural zeitgeist?
• Industrial design: Was it a looker? Did it have clever features that made using it a pleasure?
• Intangibles: Was there anything else about it that set it apart from the same ol' same ol'?

I won't spoil your pleasure to discover which one is the winner, but I can tell you that I realised I worked with some of the best in the field, namely n. 19, 13, 11, 10, 7, 6, 5, 4, 2 but, alas, never with n. 1.

And now, just click on the title of this blog.

North-American Computing And Philosophy Conference

This year NA-CAP was hosted by RPI. It was a great success, with a large variety of papers, a packed program, plenty of entertainments and even the food was good.

Three notable features of this CAP conference (CAP conferences are held around the world under the IACAP program) were:

• the relevance of computer/information ethics (ICE, using Charles Ess' catchy acronym). The conference was open by a panel on the topic, to which I took part;
  
• the attention devoted to robotics and its philosophical issues (this was to be expected, given the local strength in the field); and
  
• the very interesting network of papers dedicated to simulation and modelling and the epistemic/logical/methodological issues they involve.

A great conference, which you can still enjoy online by clicking on the title of this blog and viewing the videos of many of the talks.

Two Ph.D. Studentships for the international project: "Evaluating the Cultural Quality of New Media Towards a Philosophy of Human-Media Relations"

The Department of Philosophy of the University of Twente in the Netherlands is looking for Two Ph.D. Students (M/F, fulltime) for the international research project: "Evaluating the Cultural Quality of New Media Towards a Philosophy of Human-Media Relations."
Women are strongly encouraged to apply.

The two PhD positions are part of a prestigious and exciting international research project in philosophy named "Evaluating the Cultural Quality of New Media". This five-year project, which will include five researchers and will involve collaboration with leading international scholars and research centres, has as its aim to develop a framework for better normative analyses of new media and new media culture, especially in relation to their contribution to the quality of life ("the good life"4) and the quality of society.

Project leader is Dr. Philip Brey. Two postdocs have already been appointed to the project: dr. A. Briggle, PhD, University of Colorado and dr. E. Spence, PhD, Sydney University. The project will be part of a new international Centre of Excellence in Ethics and Technology of the departments of philosophy of Twente University, Delft University of Technology and Eindhoven University of Technology.

Applications are accepted for three different projects:

Ph.D Project 1 - The Quality of Virtual Environments and Tools
This subproject aims to perform a philosophical analysis of the implications of the ever increasing virtualization for the quality of life and of society. Virtualization is defined as the digital production of interactive structures, whether graphical or symbolic, that mirror things and events in the physical world. What are the implications of this process for moral and social identity, embodiment, and conceptions of reality, and how can these implications be normatively evaluated?

Ph.D. Project 2: The Quality of Computer-Mediated Social Relations.
This subproject focuses on computer-mediated social relations and practices in friendships, love relationships, and community life. Increasingly, the social world is held together by electronic networks. More and more, communication, social relationships, and community formation take place over such networks. The aim of the project is to perform a philosophical analysis of the implications of this trend for the quality of life and of society.


Ph.D. Project 3: Societal Appraisals of the Cultural Quality of New Media This subproject will perform a study of appraisals of new media that are made by representatives of major ideologies or worldviews, with the aim of assessing how they relate to conceptions of the good life and the good society held by these ideologies. It will study liberal, communitarian, conservative, religious and postmaterialist evaluations of new media, and will try to assess which ideologies see themselves as winners and losers in the development of a new media culture. It will also provide critiques of current ideological stances on new media.

Only the two best candidates out of all applicants will be offered a position. Selection will only be based on the quality of the candidate, and not on his or her preference for a particular project, except that the two PhD appointments will be for different projects. You may apply for more than one project if you wish.


Profile
For all three projects: a Master's degree or equivalent degree in philosophy. Consideration will also be given to candidates with a multidisciplinary Master's degree on a topic relevant to the project and some background in philosophy, and to exceptional candidates with only a bachelor's degree in philosophy. Demonstrable interest in philosophical issues relating to information technology and new media. Good analytical skills. Good communication skills in English, in writing as well as orally. Creativity, open-mindedness, and an ability to develop new ideas.

Offer
A four-year full-time Ph.D. position starting November 1, 2006. The gross salary is Euro 1.933 - in the first year going up to 2.472 - in the fourth year (Euro 25.552,- and 32.677,- per annum, respectively, including vacation pay). Each Ph.D. position comes with a budget of up to 8,000 - for travel and conference attendance.

Further Information and Application
A description of the overall project, the three subprojects and a FAQ can be retrieved from http://www.ceptes.nl/vici. Applicants are advised to read these texts carefully before applying. For questions not answered on the website you can contact the project leader, dr. Philip Brey (e-mail: p.a.e.brey@utwente.nl).

Small promises: Nanotechnology and Computers

Sometime, by reading different sources in a certain order, patterns emerge that might have not been intentionally woven by any of the texts that make up the whole. I was reading about recent discoveries, inventions and aplications in nanotechnology when I saw that the following bits of information made up quite an interesting picture:

Nature (vol 441, p 489) : nanowire transistors made from silicon and germanium can outperform conventional silicon ones. Since each nanowire transistor is about half the size of the smallest silicon transistor, they could be used to obtain more processing power onto the same area of microchip. Super-fast nanoscale computing would give a much longer life to Moore's Law, according to which the number of transistors in a chip and therefore a chip’s speed would double roughly every 18 months.

Science (DOI: 10.1126/science.1122797) : single-molecule logic circuits, using carbon nanotubes instead of silicon pathways, could bring integrated circuits to near-terahertz processing speed, up from our current low-gigahertz range. Unlike conventional silicon circuits, the new nano-circuits s yield virtually no electron flow impedance, meaning current flows much faster, and hence processing can be much faster.

Nano Letters (March 2006): a "nano-skin", very flexible polymer infused with billions of carbon nanotubes, could be used to make completely bendy but very strong displays. One day we may go back to "volumes", computers you can roll-up.

New Scientist: a "nano-laser" can be generated by painting a solution of crystals onto glass. Infrared light is produced by dots 5.5 nanometres wide. This paint-on semiconductor laser could be used to connect microprocessors in an optical computer, a kind of super-fast computer that use light instead of electricity.

Science (vol 309, p 272): semiconducting nanowires made of indium arsenide, each about 100 nanometres in diameter and 100 times as long, could help building the quantum circuitry necessary for a future quantum computer.

Small promises indeed.