Technology, Books and Other Neat Stuff

An interesting BBC news piece on ILM's new data centre.

I'm one of those people who find data centres fascinating. In the past I've run my own (at one point squeezing some of my kit into a couple of racks at UCL's Gower Street site), worked with client's hardware in a myriad of hosting centres around London and Leeds, and with my journalist hat on had tours of some rather complex sites. CERN's is the largest I've been in, while Azul's packed the most compute power into the smallest space. I suspect UCSD's CAL-IT2 system was the most advanced, with its Lambda grid connections. I didn't get to go into Weta's but I've talked to them about how they run their render farm. Google's remains on my list of places to go...

Nice to see ILM have a Roomba.

The Onion lampoons the three laws of Roombotics.

The laws of Roombotics, published on iRobot's website, are basic ethical rules governing Roomba conduct. The first law states that the device "must not suck up jewelry or other valuables, or through inaction, allow valuables to be sucked up." The second law prescribes that Roomba "must obey vacuuming orders given to it by humans except when such orders would conflict with the first law." The third and final law authorizes a Roomba to "protect its own ability to suction dust and debris as long as such protection does not conflict with the first or second law."

[...]

"This is just the beginning," said MIT researcher Harrison Lowell, a leading Roombotics ethicist. "In 50 years humans will be prisoners in their own homes, living in constant fear of tracking mud through the dining room or scuffing the kitchen floor."

Ours have yet to rebel, but we live in fear...

Where's Susan Calvin when you need her? Or Will Smith with a big gun?