Solo5 is a new library for building operating systems or “#unikernels” that run on bare metal; it’s part of the #Mirage project, and it allows you, for the first time, to build Mirage "unikernels" that will run on KVM or QEMU. Previously they relied on “Mini-OS”, which requires Xen #paravirtualization.
copying the #Java API in #Android is #fair-use under #copyright law, according to the Oracle v. Google trial.
I didn’t realize that that self-reproducing loop thing in xscreensaver was actually a member of a famous family of universal von-Neumann #self-replicating #cellular-automata, discovered by E.F. Codd, the guy who invented relational databases a few years later.
This Hao Wang guy invented Wang tiles, which are pretty much the simplest computational model, and also a four-instruction Turing-complete machine called the “Wang B-machine”. #computability #history
the 1980 conference proceedings in which Freitas described how to make #self-replicating lunar robots.
“A Self-Reproducing Interstellar Probe”, Freitas’s 1980 proposal for a #self-replicating thing. Its generation time is 10³ years, about 50 human generations, which makes it seem likely that more advanced replicators would out-reproduce it quickly; but then, my generation time is 260 000× that of E. coli, and yet my species accounts for more biomass than E. coli does.
The Freitas and Merkle #ebook “Kinematic Self-Replicating Machines” ("KSRM"), their 2004 review of the state of #self-replicating possibilities.
A surprisingly good #introduction to #self-replicating machinery.