I was recently in the market for a new laptop and went to see the new MacBook Pro 16". I had the idea that the touch bar was just a gimmick, but seeing it in action made me reconsider, But I absolutely hated the so-called improved keyboard, which has minimal key travel and tactile feedback. So I ordered another ThinkPad, my third in a row.

Yes, I thought the Chiang story was quite good. Ian McEwan's 2019 novel Machines Like Me considers similar questions in an alternate reality of 1980s England. Argentina won the Falklands War, but Turing did not commit suicide. Most current technology was available. Intelligent robots were first made available as personal companions. Since this is McEwan, it doesn't turn out very well--most of them commit suicide.

So is it like Bill Clinton said, "depends on what the meaning of "is" is? I suppose it's all way over my head, but I have to say that I was always quite happy with Johnson's refutation of Berkeley.

I don't understand this. Doesn't ontology ask "what is?" not "what is possible?"

Reading mammograms is a real problem, and AI is doing somewhat better than most radiologists now. IBM was largely responsible for this development, I believe.

I think you're missing the point of the exercise. We don't need artificial debaters. But debating requires better understanding of natural language than ordering pizza. To successfully rebut an argument, you need to understand its logic. I don't doubt that there's room for improvement, but it's a non-trivial step.

If Google's so smart, why does it end every sentence with an exclamation point? I guess it learned style on Twitter.

The example shown in the linked article doesn't hold up under scrutiny. Look at the blue-green books on the center-right--the convergence of the shelves is wrong and the corner is not rendered correctly. Assuming this was a one-step edit, it's probably better than Photoshop's current content aware fill, but it still requires additional work to escape detection.

Seems to work, then.

Big speed improvement for me, too (Win7 64bit). I was a bit pissed that it broke a couple of extensions (Back to Top, Fxif) without warning me first and giving me a choice. I did find replacements, though the Back to Top one is not as good. I'm not quite used to the new tab look, but I suppose that shouldn't take much longer. The speed makes up for the rest. Haven't seen any bugs yet, but it's only been a day. FWIW.

Yes, the T61 keyboard was excellent, and I suppose that applies to earlier ThinkPads as well. I'm now using a W530. While I eventually got used to the feel of the newer keyboard, I still find myself hitting the CapsLock key instead of the a. Otherwise, it's OK. I wish someone would put the home and end keys down with the arrow and page up/down keys, which would make page navigation easier.

I agree. My previous favorite was Mona Lisa Overdrive, but the early ones seem a little dated now. The Peripheral combines Gibson's energetic writing with the benefit of 30 more years of tech progress to draw on. Nice social constructs like the aunties and the jackpot.

I'm posting this from a four year old W530. My previous T61 lasted seven years. I had a few problems with the T61, most importantly a melted NVIDIA coprocessor, which Lenovo fixed quickly and for free. I used to use Dell Latitudes, but Thinkpads have a far better build. They're not sexy, just rock solid. I don't know how long my current machine will last, but I have a strong suspicion that the next one will be another Thinkpad. FWIW.

What could possible go wrong?

Spain moved to Central European time to facilitate coordination with Germany during WWII. I believe it was in 1940. It is an hour later than what it was previously. When I say that clock time is arbitrary, I mean just that. There is nothing natural about sunrise being at 6:00, 7:00 or 8:00--it's just what we have agreed on. We could just have easily agreed that sunrise would be at 15:00, and if we had, that would seem "natural."

You are correct that the rest of the post had nothing to do with yours, but rather was connected with the original post. I live in Spain (and since I'm retired, I do take siestas), and I find it annoying that two separate issues--Spain's geographically inappropriate timezone, and Spain's inconvenient commercial hours--tend to be conflated. It's the siesta schedule that truly affects people, not the odd timezone.

What a peculiar idea. Clock time is entirely arbitrary, as are customary meal times. Spain's odd timezone was a political decision made during the Franco years, but the siesta/business hours custom is much older. The siesta is entirely inappropriate for almost everyone in modern, urban Spain, and will almost certainly disappear within a generation. It has nothing whatsoever to do with Catalan independence/separatism.