Researchers at the University of Washington area looking into the existence of black holes in cyberspace. They suggest that information is disappearing into a black hole when a browser doesn't go to the intended website. Most people dismiss it as a wireless or some other glitch when in reality, the information is getting lost in a "black hole".
So, are there black holes in SL?
http://www.livescience.com/technology/080411-cyber-black-holes.html
This is starting to sound way too much "Ghost in the Machinama" for me. I think the idea is whether or not information, digitally is considered energy or matter - neither of which are technically destroyed, just changed into another form. It does not appear to be tangible matter, but energy, I would argue that. If the information is being transmitted wirelessly (or wired for that matter)and is comprised of energy (it is, right?) then yes, that "lost" energy has to go somewhere, into another form, or to another location. Maybe, this lost energy collects and causes the malfunctions which seem to occur to my electronics when only I am watching... hmmm...
ReplyDeleteI don't see why it must be a blackhole that absorbs the energy, however. I don't need some new phenomonon to explain to me why millions of miles of cable, or why certain atmospheric disturbances would have problems every so often. It also doesn't take any great leap of faith for me to believe that the same wire problem, or climate/atomosphere interferrence would occur multiple times.
When I was a HAM Radio Operator, on night when the clouds were at just the right height, I could make my signal bounce from Virginia to England. On nights where there were no clouds, or the clouds were too low, I'd be lucky to talk to someone in New England on my wide 10 meter band. Some places, no matter how hard I tried I just could never reach. Alaska for instance was actually pretty easy for me to get through too, during certain times of year. Hawaii, however, had so much humidity around it, that getting a signal to pass through unmolested was asking entirely too much from my little station.
It always amazes me that people so easily forget that these signals are either traveling through miles of cable, or they are being transmitted wirelessly. Just as growing up out in the swamps of Southern Virginia we have 2 "dead spots" for cell phones. It's not really a tower issue, it's a atmospheric/tree cover/methane in the air issue. Those spots will allow cell phone use once in a great while, but about 90% of the time, you're going to drop the call around that spot. Sometimes, the transmission is fine, but the reception is held up. Sometimes it's the other way. This is not a "black hole" or any other new phenomon that is taking the energy away - it is a case of waves of energy being scatter, redirected, etc. by the conditions. And yes, they will tend to occur in the same places often.
Anyway, there's my 2 cents on the subject. Now if the authors has suggested that the energy was being siphoned off for use in government schemes... well... :)
It is interesting that this topic was brought in. I was just commenting about this topic saying that this would lay a new foundation for new business that would help people gather such missing packets and allow for users to search through that to find their missing info :-) The internet lost and found center.
ReplyDelete