So... Miley Cyrus is a hologram. I guess that explains how she can pull off that 17-going-on-34 look.

I Technology.

Possibly. A.C. Clarke apparently did.

Yes, I was talking about Deep Blue, and every other rigged Chip vs. Human outing.

I have no problems if we are talking about a one-on-one match: Human sits at board, Chip "sits" at board, they go at it, and a couple of days later, again, etc.

That means Chip does not get worked over, tweaked, re-coded, etc. over the days off between games. If Chip can't handle the play on his own, then Chip isn't good enough.

Ugh. What's with perpetuating this nonsense? A computer did not beat the top ranked Western chess player. Rather, a group of people _reprogrammed the computer after each match_ to beat the top ranked Western chess player.

TFA, it is annoyingly vague on an important point: What is the rank of the Japanese player that lost?

And as others have pointed out, let see a computer take down a top ranked (10th Dan) player at Go. The best a machine has done (I think) is winning against a 5th Dan.

The Facebook environment really doesn't do much to encourage extended dialog or discussion, so LCD wins.

And quitters never win.

Are they trained to make vehicle stops using the Banana In The Tail Pipe Trick?

1) Air Gap

2) Sneaker Net

3) f28R^VD(*

4) Profit!

The Baroque Cycle could have easily been two books, instead of three. Personally, Neal's... expositional style can be quite engaging. In the case of the BC, the story, and everything else good about it was offset by a bunch of intellectual wanking.

If you are interested in the time period, and the subject matter, check out a _much_ shorter read that published before the BC: A Conspiracy of Paper, by David Liss. I would also recommend his Whiskey Rebels, which is a continuation (of sorts) with regards to the treatment of money.

AT&T is going on about things that impact the fundamental principles of the Internet. OK, the fundamental principle of the Internet (I'm going by those Department of Defense guys that invented it), is to have a robust electronic communication system that can function after a major nuclear attack. I say we nuke AT&T, then see if it still works.

I'll probably catch a Troll Rating for this, but, so be it: An intervention is needed. I have been a very big fan of Neal's work. I use the past tense because his last four books have been a disappointment (I gave up on Anathem after 100 pages), where they all suffer from the same thing: The apparent lack of an editor willing to stand up to the author, and take him out to the woodshed as needed.

Now that Neal is going to push the publishing envelope by going into the realm of something cutting edge (HyperText is going to be _huge_), he can sidestep the pesky editor link in the publishing chain all together.

Ugh. And Double-Ugh.

What do I get this time? Clippy with bolts in his neck?

Hopefully, I'm not duplicating someone's post... Being able to cut a tighter line is one thing. Being able to do it on a "making license plates" scale is something else. As you move increase the density of what is being packed on the chip, you have to be able to increasingly control for smaller and smaller particles. Each jump in Clean Room Technology is neither easy, nor inexpensive. For details, and a whole lot more related material:

http://www.lowtechmagazine.com/2009/06/embodied-energy-of-digital-technology.html