0269: "TCMP"

[Iluvatar]

http://xkcd.com/c269.html
Title Text: "A big obstacle in experimenting with the mind's dream-simulation-engine is holding onto the details as you wake up. With TCMP you can bring back any information you want."

That's pretty freakin' awesome.

Edit:
Gee Willikers! FIRST POST!!!!11!1!ONE11( 3 - Integer.parseInt( "2" ) )

[cmacis]

This comic made my 4:30 fire alarm worth it.

2nd post!!!!111!!![/irony]

[The LuigiManiac]

This comic wins. Think of the possibilities!

EDIT: Also... TH1RD P0ST!!!!1111!!!!shift+1!

[Iluvatar]

I feel that, as a denizen of the internet and a veteran of troll wars, it is my solemn duty to ask: What if you dream about Hitler?

[BobCat]

Sorry, I was awake, so I missed first posting.

EDIT: And I wasn't logged in, so I'm like the 2e-th post.

[saxmaniac1987]

Agh I wish I had dreams. (or, for those of you who insist that we dream no matter what, i wish that i remembered them)

This definitely reminds me of late nights writing papers where you kinda drift off at the desk and and up typing some craaaazy stuff as you're falling asleep...

[The LuigiManiac]

I feel that, as a denizen of the internet and a veteran of troll wars, it is my solemn duty to ask: What if you dream about Hitler?

Then your dream ends immediately, otherwise the quality of the dream would spiral downwards, with no possibility of recovering.

[Iluvatar]

Then your dream ends immediately, otherwise the quality of the dream would spiral downwards, with no possibility of recovering.

Hmmm... sound theory...

I should test this by rigging my laptop to play an mp3-converted copy of Mein Kampf(sp?) instead of my alarm, to test this.

EDIT:

I keep a pen and paper next to my bed; I've found that about 35% of what comes out of that is pretty inspired, while the rest sounds like something you'd get out of an inebriated monkey.

You know, maybe TCMP already exists, and explains the internet as a whole...


Don't doublepost plzkthxbai

-4d

Edit: myapologiesit'llneverhappenagainohgreatandpowerfulmod

[beinsane]

The problem with TCMP is that it is impossible to distinguish an actual connection to the outside from a hallucination thereof. This is why it has not yet had a successful non-hallucinatory implementation.

If there's ever a workaround to this, I'd love to read the RFC.

[muteKi]

I KNEW there was a reason that I always did this sort of internet stuff between midnight and 2 in the morning (my PC clock says 12:28).

EDIT: Smilies got in my way of typing the time. But if I had a faster connection I might have been able to post first, if my calculations are correct.

[cmacis]

According to google, I do most of my searches in the wee hours of the night.

You know that people often give hints about stuff they're working on, just so they can claim that it is theirs in case someone beats them.

[JoshuaZ]

The problem with TCMP is that it is impossible to distinguish an actual connection to the outside from a hallucination thereof. This is why it has not yet had a successful non-hallucinatory implementation.

This is only a problem until one wakes up so it isn't that big an issue. A more serious problem is that most dreaming occurs during the REM stage where one has normally functionally zero muscle control. So one has no way of using this state as a direct output. However, brain imaging with rats has allowed us to not only find evidence that they dream but also give us a good idea what they are dreaming about. See for example http://findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_m ... i_73537477 (can't track down the actual journal article at the moment so popular press will have to do). So there might be more hope using some form of very find brain imaging/scanning.

[voodooKobra]

Trans-reality trolling. Awesome!

[Barbie]

I keep a pen and paper next to my bed; I've found that about 35% of what comes out of that is pretty inspired, while the rest sounds like something you'd get out of an inebriated monkey.

You inspired me to track down the notebook I used to keep beside my bed. TCMP probably wouldn't be worth it for me as I am apparently insane when I am asleep:

'May 31/02; 4:30 am
Told parents about a dream I had (In the dream):
-Walking to waterfall wtih Kim/Kendra (identity flitted)
-Growing vegetables: carrots and 2 other types. Vegetables represented virtues.
Dream driving me crazy.
My parents feeding me vegetables & I couldn't eat them. I was crying desperately to my parents "But the dreams were so real!" They weren't taking me seriously. They said that the vegetables weren't part of the 3 [from the dream], but I said it could just as well be the pepper of truth or the asparaugus of something else.
Mom said "I think it's still Monday, and you're still dreaming." I considered it and thought "It's too real!"
By this time I'm having a mental breakdown. I said I wanted to be interviewed by the Senat. I didn't want to out and say psychiatrist.'

So do you think with TCMP you could carry your dream-keyboard through to a dream within a dream?

[mrguy753]

Ahhhhh, first post. It's like the internet version of King of the Hill. The game. Not the animated show.

[beinsane]

The problem with TCMP is that it is impossible to distinguish an actual connection to the outside from a hallucination thereof. This is why it has not yet had a successful non-hallucinatory implementation.

This is only a problem until one wakes up so it isn't that big an issue.

But waking up ends the dream, so you're right back where you started!

Please note that the author of this post is talking out of his ass at almost all times, so take this into account when trying to communicate with him, kthxbye.

To hell with you and your tiny letters -4d.

[JoshuaZ]

The problem with TCMP is that it is impossible to distinguish an actual connection to the outside from a hallucination thereof. This is why it has not yet had a successful non-hallucinatory implementation.

This is only a problem until one wakes up so it isn't that big an issue.

But waking up ends the dream, so you're right back where you started!

Right, but this just means that while in the dreamstate you can't tell if you succesfully communicated or not. But this won't alter one's rate of succesful communication nor our ability in the real world to determine if you communicated succesfully or not. So functionally all it is a delay until one gets ones experimental results back.

[mh]

Googled TCMP

First hit:

http://www.corecoded.com/

Microsoft going open source?!!!

And I voted!

[mh]

Googled TCMP again...

Even better hit at #8,

Theoretical Condensed Matter Physics. TCMP HOME

http://www.ph.unimelb.edu.au/tcmp/

[Peshmerga]

21rst post!! wooo0000111!tttt

Great strip, I love it.

[Aglet]

This is actually a really good idea. It faces a few major problems, though.

1. What if the keyboard fails during sleep? I could only fall asleep comfortably with a wireless keyboard, and those are notoriously unreliable. The rare occasion where you have the presence of mind to type in a dream could be killed by bad hardware.

2. This would basically require lucid dreaming, which is hard to do. Furthermore, there's no functional difference between lucid dreaming and being awake.

[ShadowLurker]

Googled TCMP again...

Even better hit at #8,

Theoretical Condensed Matter Physics. TCMP HOME

http://www.ph.unimelb.edu.au/tcmp/

12th hit: The Christian Market Place

owns yours

http://www.tcmp.biz

[Vaniver]

I'm a fan of "What hath God wrought."

[mh]

Googled TCMP again...

Even better hit at #8,

Theoretical Condensed Matter Physics. TCMP HOME

http://www.ph.unimelb.edu.au/tcmp/

12th hit: The Christian Market Place

owns yours

http://www.tcmp.biz

Well, yours is older...

[Gelsamel]

nth post

[LE4dGOLEM]

Aha! "xkcd" is just a substitution cipher for "tcmp"!

EDIT:

nth post

+5 LE4dPOINTS. Win.

[You, sir, name?]

n+2:TH P0ST! (a.k.a. m:th P0ST)

Great comic.

[AdisH]

Last night I dreamt that i became the Antichrist (the dajjal to be exact). I really wouldn't like having a TCMP in a dream like that.

[bbctol]

This explains most of my blog entries.

TH1RDY F1F7H P0ST L0L

[EradicateIV]

OMGz! If this was mastered, WoW could be free, everyone would just sleep all the time. All their muscles would become mush and the world economy would just collapse.

DO YOU UNDERSTAND THE RAMIFICATIONS OF THIS?!? >=-o

[smithman89]

Well, this reminds me of something that actually happened to me (though it may sound brave new world-ish). One night i was sleeping, then my alarm clock went off. It was set to radio alarm. When it went off, i didnt wake up, yet i started to dream what i heard from the radio show that was playing. It was weird, i guess that would be like TCMP input?

[mh]

EradicateIV said,

"OMGz! If this was mastered, WoW could be free, everyone would just sleep all the time. All their muscles would become mush and the world economy would just collapse.

DO YOU UNDERSTAND THE RAMIFICATIONS OF THIS?!? >=-o"

Sleep Club?

[Shii]

If anyone is looking for experimental results of this, here's the sort of thing that actually gets written from the dream world:

http://archives.somethingawful.com/show ... id=1239957

[Ttwitchh]

Then there's the problem of the whole time-lapse thing. I've had hour long dreams that, upon waking, only ended up being a few minutes. You could be the first man to type 1500 wpm. o.O

And i once did write a text message in my pseudo sleep. I had just taken Ambien, which I've since discovered makes me sleepwalk and hallucinate. It was rambling, but made some sort of sense... But then i wasn't in control of what i was typing, so i guess that doesn't really count.

[Iluvatar]

Now, what if one could make this work with not just a keyboard, but also a Wackamole(sp?) Tablet? Hypothetically, one could author an entire webcomic while asleep...

On an unrelated note... anyone know why the updates are always at midnight EST?

[arcticfox.sq]

I feel that, as a denizen of the internet and a veteran of troll wars, it is my solemn duty to ask: What if you dream about Hitler?

GODWIN's LAW

You lose

[Kithplana]

On an unrelated note... anyone know why the updates are always at midnight EST?

The comic is Randall's big dream.

If that sounds lame for some reason I might be asleep right now.

[airtank]

On an unrelated note... anyone know why the updates are always at midnight EST?

Is there a better time than the first few minutes of the new day?!

[Iluvatar]

If that sounds lame for some reason I might be asleep right now.

I believe Shakespeare said something almost exactly like that at the end of "A Midsummer Night's Dream".

Is there a better time than the first few minutes of the new day?!

True that. It's quite nice, when I'm up late coding, to suddenly look at the clock and realize that there's a new XKCD up. I was, however, insinuating that Randall posted comic while asleep.

[Belial]

On an unrelated note... anyone know why the updates are always at midnight EST?

Because the comics are entered into a queue, and updated automatically at midnight on the appropriate days?

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