Questions tagged [computers]
For questions regarding a device that can be programmed to carry out a set of certain set of tasks without external intervention.
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What would a society forbidding cryptography look like?
My world has a very peculiar low forbidding people from ciphering information. The penalty for such a thing is very very high. In this world everything should be seen and understood by anyone. It's a ...
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What would a society without cryptography look like?
In this world you have access to computers powerful enough to decipher messages as long as the method used to encrypt it has at least one theoretical weakness (those computers cannot defeat an ...
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Can people upload their consciousnesses to computers?
The idea of uploading one's personality and consciousness to a computer is a semi-common science fiction trope. It has been suggested as a way to essential immortality.
In a story I'm working on, an ...
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A Universal Time-Keeping Computer [closed]
According to case 166 of The Codeless Code:
It is interesting to note that current physics predicts the heat death of the Universe in no less than 10^100 years, with a subsequent Big Bang arising ...
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Ridiculously Fast Supercomputer
Let's say that somehow, Earth suddenly acquired a computer with ridiculous speed.
This computer can run a program described in a language of your choice, which can be described by a readme file that ...
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How would we compile our code if all our binaries disappeared?
How would we compile our code if all the binaries in the world disappeared and we had only the source code? At first you might think “It’s all okay: I have my Roslyn code here”, but wait! It’s in C#! ...
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Is Ternary an option for a tech future?
I have an idea for a story set in the near future, with a character who breaks onto the global scene with a breakthrough advance in technology that makes him billions.
My question is whether or not ...
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Is there a reason to believe that programming languages are going to converge?
On Earth today, even though most people speak some English, there is seemingly no reason to believe that future generation's main language will be the same in decades/centuries to come (i.e., we'll ...
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What planetary conditions would make computer and complex electronics useless, or at least difficult to maintain?
What planetary conditions would have to exist to make computers and other complex electronics useless or at least difficult to maintain?
Would ionised atmospheric conditions, constant solar flares, ...
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Computer resources needed to simulate our universe [closed]
Let's assume that the theory shown in this news is true: http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2015/04/150427101633.htm.
What would be the needed resources to simulate all the behaviour that our ...
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How To Eat the Moon
An ASI (Artificial Super Intelligence) has come to the conclusion that we humans should be put in a simulation. It has also decided that it would rather not turn the Earth into computronium. ...
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Personality Quirks of a Database
I'm currently working on a world where there are people that live in data bases (basically a computer with no internet connection). They link to a human for life and and can record everything the ...
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How to Create and Use a Black Hole Computer Drive?
I have been working on a futuristic story where information can be stored and used with a black hole. This is a highly advanced human society that has accomplished interstellar space travel via both ...
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P = NP goes public today. How will the world look like in a week?
Some autistic genius mathematician just published a solution to the long-standing problem of P-hard problems being equivalent to NP-hard. The solution just hit Reddit, Slashdot, math.stackexchange.com ...
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How would I relay information on a screen to echo-location utilizing sentients?
Since they don't use sight to relay information to their brains, how would information on a computer screen be displayed in a meaningful manner? Would this hinder the advance of my civilization?
EDIT:...
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What would be the impact of a modern programmer and laptop being dropped into World War II, possibly breaking Enigma?
I've always found the idea of intelligent every-man sent back in time using his knowledge of the future tech to realistically impact the past. The first time something like this came to my mind was ...
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How to fight the orwellian machines?
We are in a not too distant future. The current trends of computerizing and automating more and more decisions, including military decisions, of more and more surveillance (both state and private ...
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Internet without space
Suppose mankind never developed spaceflight, which precludes any form of space-based stations or satellites. How could a single global Internet be achievable as we know it today? What technologies ...
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What change in the laws of physics would prevent the function of conventional digital circuits without breaking everything else?
Premise
Imagine a slightly more advanced modern day world where space flight was starting to commercialize. Imagine that all of a sudden laws changed and the only thing different is that no computer ...
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How powerful of a computer do I need to simulate and emulate a human brain?
The title is pretty self-explanatory. How powerful does a computer have to be before it has the hardware capability to simulate and emulate a human mind in real-time?
I'm leaving the question of the ...
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Social implication of economics based on brain processing power
I'm working on a future cyberpunk setting in which I would like to explore posthumanism as a main theme. Among some of the ideas I have I want to use the very well explored "decking" trope.
The idea ...
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Building and powering a computer in a bronze age world
A character needs to build a computer out of raw materials in a bronze age.
He has a nano scale factory, so manufacturing chips and such from silicon is possible, but I'm not sure of the best way to ...
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Perfect logic implementation by computers
Those who have seen the movie, I Robot, will understand my question better.
Imagine we're in the future, where a quantum computer (read wikipedia for speeds of QCs) that uses 'perfect logic' controls ...
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how does one buffer a direct neural interface and still benefit from real time information flow? [closed]
For various reason it is not "safe' to "go" mind to mind (via headset ,nanotech...or both) with another even if the Tele- Operator has been trained to disarray the various signals the Tele-Operator is ...
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Word / phrase for a simulation that is in-sync with the real-world [closed]
If it starts raining in the real world, it will rain in the simulation as well. I've got as far as simultaneous-simulation / synchronous-simulation but is there something better?
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Post-singularity and software develpment
In a post-singularity future, is open-source the only feasible model for software development? Or maybe a completely new model?
And conversely, would the technological advancements be fast enough to ...
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How long can an abandoned, semi-sheltered computer remain bootable?
Simply put, what's the expiration date of a computer? The reason I ask is for the sake of a society recovering from some sort of cataclysm and trying to reclaim lost technology. However, I could also ...
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What would the world be like if computer software did not have any "undo" feature?
What would the world, and more specifically, productivity on modern computers, be like if Undo (a.k.a. Ctrl-Z) functionality has never been and will never be invented? To clarify: there is no ...
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The [Great Depression / Dark Ages / Iron Age], but with selfies
Humanity is facing some pretty scary possible futures. Income inequality could lead to a permanent state of poverty for the vast majority of people. Resource depletion, coupled with inadequate ...
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Minimum computational power for ad hoc navigating the solar system
Imagine a world (or rather a solar system) where in its history there has been a war with emergent AI's
There are very strict laws governing the speed and complexity of computer systems
However ...
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Would the knowledge of physics on a native aquatic planet be similar to our own?
This question was stimulated by the question How would an aquatic race develop computers?.
The answers obviously were based on the aquatic civilization being earth based, but what about a totally ...
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How would an aquatic race develop computers?
Following on from this question and assuming the race in question had developed the ability to create tools how would they approach the need for mass calculation.
Our early computers were used to ...
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Could knowing the state of the universe at time T allow to predict the state T+1?
Quantum physics today tells us that we may not predict outcomes with certainty. We perceive events as random.
So is this old philosophical fantasy of an all knowing computer possible? Meaning that ...
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Will computers be named differently in the future?
In a few science fiction settings, we can see computers being called differently. A terminal, a holosphere, a pad, anything techno-sounding.
But from when computers were invented up until now, they'...
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If our universe was a simulation, what could a bug look like?
Let's assume, without revoking any of today's science, that the world is a simulation.
What would a bug look like?
I'm assuming that "the eiffel tower suddenly being bent at 45°" is rather unlikely, ...
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Stone Age Circuitry?
As a tangent to How "advanced" can a stone age society get?, is there a way that simple electronics could be created by filling channels cut into rock with some form of conductive material? ...
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Could a computer take over an entire planet?
The inspiration for my question comes from The Great C by Philip K Dick. To summarize, the Great C is a computer that has taken over a large portion of the planet. It uses proxy agents to keep ...
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How would technological progress occur in a society that outlawed computerized technology?
Most technological progress today seems to be founded on the innovation that is happening in the realm of computers. If a society were to outlaw the use of computers, but the drive for scientific ...
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