Remy le Moan
Some old pre-Blogspot.com posts, recycled.
Wednesday, December 31, 2003
Out of memory Errol
Here's a thought for you (be careful though!):
Medical professionals told us that we only ever really utilised a tenth of our brain's capacity. None of them can tell you what would happen if we used *all* of it. I mean, are they talking computing power or memory capacity here?
If they meant processing power well then we're probably safe - after all, it takes the same amount of specialised knowledge to be a woodcutter as it does to be a system administrator, just in slightly different areas. We may have to process a bit more than our woodsman ancestor, but I doubt the difference would add much to that 10% load average...
On the other hand, we have so much more information flowing through that processing power, and since it's believed that we never truly lose any memories, that could be a problem for our brains. (We might forget *where* a particular memory is in our brains, but unless the braincells die, the memory will be there, just forgotten...)
We are reading a LOT more information than our ancestors ever got out of tracking game or sitting at their local inn, we are required to process a LOT more data than they ever were, and this information overload is a recognised condition nowadays. And it's growing exponentially, meaning the first real information overload should be happening anytime in the new year...
In fact, this could be a good way to can spammers once and for all, if it can be shown that their actions constitute reckless endangerment of people's mental faculties...
So - at what point will a person's brain throw an 'out of memory' error, and what form would it take? Would you forget older or weaker memories by overwriting (which seems not to happen, given the view expressed above) or would you just start being unable to add any new memories?
...what point will a person's brain throw an 'out of memory' error, and what form would it take? Would you forget older or weaker memories by overwriting (which seems not to happen, given the view expressed above) or would you just start being unable to add any...
...will a person's brain throw an 'out of memory' error, and what form would it take? Would you forget older or weaker memories by overwriting (which seems not to happen, given the view expressed above) or would you just start being...
...'s brain throw an 'out of memory' error, and what form would it take? Would you forget older or weaker memories by overwriting (which seems not to happen, given the view expressed above...
...'out of memory' error, and what form would it take? Would you forget older or weaker memories by overwriting (which seems not to happen, given...
...take? Would you forget older or weaker memories by overwriting...
...forget older or...
OUT OF MEMORY ERROR HAS OCCURRED. PLEASE ADVISE - ... SOMEONE... ABOUT... UMMMMMmmm....
Sorry - couldn't resist that one... Back to the show...
Luckily, we can sort of deal with this sort of amnesia already, (or watch the movie 'Memento' for a great insight into anterograde amnesia) so we'll just carry on until someone invents a Compact Flash card for our brains, and then start adding a whole new personality or skillset... hehehe yeh right. Since when have we ever had enough CPU or memory?
But be more selective about what you put in your brain from now on, you hear?
These are random blog posts I recently rescued from a text dump of my earliest recorded blog posts from Ye Good Ole Days of writing stuff in Notepad and using some weird software that basically uploaded your entire blog every time you added a new article or edited an old one.
I'm shamelessly adding that little mini-banner graphic with links for you to donate, check my newsletter site, and generally get more entangled in my weird world.
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