Far, far removed, thankfully, from the topic of 'should, or should not FRIAMers be encouraged to ramble enthusiastically about [pick your topic] in the never ending goal of advancing science'. Topic du Jour, for those who have lost count: emergence, and should we (or not) expect anything of substance to (pardon me) emerge from discussions thereunto.
Ok, the different topic: Today I was, with mixed anticipation, looking forward to watching the 2009 remake of "The Day The Earth Stood Still". The mixed nature of my anticipations were rooted in a} the movie got shitty reviews, b) it would be the first actual 1080p movie that I would stream from my fileserver to my new Linux home entertainment center, and c) I like good science fiction. Imagine my surprise to discover that a) the movie was a shitty remake of the wonderful 1951 classic which starred Michael Rennie. Keaneu Reeves was but a pale imitator in the role of Klaatu. b) I did not have enough bandwith to stream the movie from my file server, and c) the science fiction was pretty pathetic, compared to the original. The BluRay 1080p movie is 8.8 GB, which translates to about 1.9 - 2.2 GB/sec streaming rate necessary to watch it. I was unpleasantly surprised to discover that my supposedly 300 Mbps (37.5 MB/s) 801.11N wireless network capped out at around 2 MB/s. The movie would go for bit, then get all choppy, then lose sound, then stick. As it turns out, life is all about the bottlenecks, and working around them... Is it flawed Linux drivers for my 801.11n USB wireless internet hardware that is the problem, or is it the hardware? Or, perhaps, is it the massive flux of pscitticene* *brainwave activity from the Parrot Farm that is creating emergent GHz interference patterns with the 801.11n TCP stack? Rigorous investigation is indicated. Later, we will return to the current raging *emergence* controversy, at which time we will vigorously engage in the discussion about whether or not the history of "chaos science" is a basis upon which we should wish to build a platform of "emergence science". --Doug -
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