Fantastic! Thanks Tiger!

also *salutes* As a young'un, I have always wanted to try punch cards! There's something compelling about an analogue system I can feel with my hands, having now gone through uni without even leaning machine code or anything similarly fundamental, and binary was always just theory and maths - never actually used in practice etc. I know it's simply a nostalgia/novelty thing (and worth being on the receiving end of a bit of a chuckle from 'those who know') but I have read so many books on computing over the years and it would be great to have a taste of the frustration and history! Is there anywhere in Australia, (or the world?) where you can use a punch-card system? Any working computer museums out there to let us know how good we've got it now? Cheers, Estherino

Err, it said he shows that the cable is connected to the monitor at the start to prove it's the real deal... "including the connections in the back to the monitor to show that it's legit)" -Es

The only heartening thing is the number of people who have withdrawn their membership from the ruling CCP (Chinese communist party) as atrocities become known through publications such as The Epoch Times http://www.theepochtimes.com/ [link was timing out when i tested it, sorry]. I love china, my family doesn't hail from there but my mum has always had a love for the culture & country, and I have grown up in a house with much Chinese art and literature. She recently came back from a 5 week stint teaching English. I also have a wonderful chinese sister-in-law. I know a lot of other people don't have this kind of up-bringing, but it shows that we all need to support each other no matter where we come from. Australia should have more of a conscience when trading with China. It should think carefully before deciding to support and deal with an oppressive regime, without supporting the people upon which the regime imposes. Peace! :-D -Estheral

So does that mean a complex enough computer / artificial intelligence system will be as self aware and 'real' as ourselves? This is why I find AI so fascinating. Cheers, Estherino

Really? I'm undecided myself (and not religious), but it's interesting to think about where our energy/soul/life comes from. When you are conceived, where does that spark of life come from? Just the chemical reaction? A chemical reaction that just grows into a self-aware human being? If there really is a 'spark', perhaps passed on by our parent's own heartbeat, that starts our hearts beating and makes us a life form, where does it go when one dies? I don't really believe a ghost could be a fully articulate person you can talk to, or who wants to scare you, but I do believe we can maybe feel that energy for some time after a person dies, we feel cold, or our brains pick it up. Or the spark could just disperse unnoticed into the cosmos, or maybe life is just one random base eat-reproduce machine-like cycle and none of us really have self awareness. Something to muse upon Estherino