Checkers, Senate Broadband Bills… and the Soul? July 20, 2007
Posted by ianmartinez in : What's New?, Networking, Policy , trackbackVia Farhad Manjoo’s Machinist blog:
Scientists at the University of Alberta report that they’ve built an unbeatable checkers-playing computer. Their machine, Chinook, has solved checkers: It proves that if two players play perfectly, making no mistakes, the game of checkers will result in a draw.
The proof required analyzing 500 billion billion checkers positions — 5 x 1020 — a computational process that began in 1989 and has been running on hundreds of processors almost continuously since. Chinook now knows everything about checkers, the perfect response to any move, and the best that any human can do is drive Chinook to a draw. You can never win.
I’ll spare you my usual romantic gushing about how the current tech and communications revolution is changing the way we understand life itself — but they’ve figured out checkers!!
All joking aside, it’s worth noting that this connects very profoundly to some of the biggest questions facing the ICT industry now. With all the information-processing power now available, it may be that we can resolve major policy debates with hard facts about how specific solutions affect all citizens, not just the vocal or geographically privileged ones. And this is the sentiment, at least, behind S-1492, the broadband data mapping bill passed unanimously yesterday by the Senate Commerce Committee.
TIA has strongly supported the bill since its introduction in late May despite the now obviously-unfounded buzz that it couldn’t gain bipartisan support. Why? Well, for one, it finally gets us down the road to a better understanding of our broadband penetration numbers.
For all the data and figures thrown around at policy luncheons or in FCC filings, the U.S. lacks any comprehensive, coherent understanding of its broadband penetration numbers: How many houses are passed in rural Michigan, and by how many providers? How costly will it be to get 1 Mbps to Appalachia? Etc.
If this legislation allows us to do the computations, to gather, and then process, the data in a way that helps us “beat broadband” the way those U. Alberta scientists “beat broadband,” think what a great victory that would be for U.S. competitiveness!
This bill is just a start. But we all need to let Congress know that we can’t finish the game if we don’t start it. And unlike checkers, apparently, we can win.
Save This Page
Google
Yahoo MyWeb
Comments»
no comments yet - be the first?