I don’t know about you, but the OS’s that live inside my Virtual PC feel like little pets to me. I just love to take care of them, update them, install software on them. Sometimes I give them treats (more RAM) or a bigger hard drive. They are fun to take care of and they are helpful tools too. I use them to test software out before running it on my “real” PC. I can also use it to load images of CDs without actually having to burn a CD first. Of course, I can load real CDs too.
I loaded the same Virtual PC on two of my computers. And like two twins separated at birth, each one has changed looks over time, but they both contain the same DNA at heart. Just like a good dog, they don’t complain, they just love to be played with. They can be good workers too. I’m sure as time goes on I’ll find new uses for my virtual machines and there will be new ways for them to be used. Companies are already using virtualization technology with thin clients to reduce hardware overhead. I wonder where virtualization will head next.
I wondered if VMware could be installed on a virtual machine being ran inside Virtual PC 2007 and the answer is yes. The program itself runs, but I haven’t tested whether another virtual machine would run inside a virtual machine. What do you think would happen? Do you think we’re in a virtual machine now?
The Simulation Argument says that (1) the human species is very likely to go extinct before reaching a “posthuman” stage; (2) any posthuman civilization is extremely unlikely to run a significant number of simulations of their evolutionary history (or variations thereof); (3) we are almost certainly living in a computer simulation. It follows that the belief that there is a significant chance that we will one day become posthumans who run ancestor-simulations is false, unless we are currently living in a simulation.
Regardless of whether or not we are living in a simulation (like The Matrix or The Thirteenth Floor), we do enjoy manipulating simulations in both games like The Sims and in movies. On a side note, check out the similarities between these two movie covers:
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