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Garry Kasparov: The Last Revolutionary Technology Was The Apple II

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111–120 of 128 posts

Re: Garry Kasparov: The Last Revolutionary Technology Was The Apple II

#111

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm not sure that being the best chess player in the world is evidence that Kasparov is very intelligent--any more than being the best poker player, the best piano player, or even the best marketer. Chess is a learned skill just like any of those. Put another way, looking at all of the world's very most intelligent people, the fraction that care enough about chess to become the world champion if they had the aptitude…

Kasparov has a 190 IQ. There are lots of people who play chess as much as Kasparov does. Few of them are even remotely near him in skill. I'm not sure who the best poker player would be, but I've met most of the names that would be thrown out there if you asked the top people, and they're all scary smart. Piano playing is a different type of intelligence than poker or chess, but whoever the world's best piano player…

Or maybe the IQ test that gave him a score of 190 had puzzles that engaged the same part of the mind as chess does, which he's already trained.

Re: Garry Kasparov: The Last Revolutionary Technology Was The Apple II

#112
post #82
post #51

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The first mobile phone network was done by NMT in Japan, but the first commercial mobile phone was invented by Martin Cooper of Motorola and the first call made on this phone was to the head of a competing program at Bell Labs.

In Japan? That's surprising, since NMT stands for Nordic Mobile Telephony.

Heh. The problem with mobile phone history is that all the companies have similar acronyms. You are correct, it was NTT in Japan that was first and NMT that was second in deploying "1G" networks.

Re: Garry Kasparov: The Last Revolutionary Technology Was The Apple II

#113
post #108

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Pity the poor artist who establishes their reputation in one medium, then sees the medium do a big shift. Willis probably could write books which fully encompass the cellphone-era worldview. But will they be Connie Willis books? Or will the loss of all those old tropes make her new style inevitably different from her best-selling old style? Think of PG Wodehouse, blithely writing novels set in early-twentieth-century…

On the other hand, I love both Wodehouse and Bach.

Of course! In fact, I just discovered that The Art of the Fugue, which I believe Bach wrote toward the end of his career, really does sound better to me than his earlier stuff. Good for him for plugging stubbornly on in the genre he had mastered and which he knew best.

Re: Garry Kasparov: The Last Revolutionary Technology Was The Apple II

#114
post #75

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm not sure that being the best chess player in the world is evidence that Kasparov is very intelligent--any more than being the best poker player, the best piano player, or even the best marketer. Chess is a learned skill just like any of those. Put another way, looking at all of the world's very most intelligent people, the fraction that care enough about chess to become the world champion if they had the aptitude…

Actually, computers have demonstrated over and over that you don't have to be intelligent to be a brilliant chess player.

However, computers have not demonstrated brilliant chess play is possible without intelligence, unless the programmers of deep blue were not intelligent.

Re: Garry Kasparov: The Last Revolutionary Technology Was The Apple II

#115
post #16
post #3

Well said! I agree with all of it. I'd only add that the U.S. isn't the only country that can innovate, and that innovation needs purpose beyond energy production. I feel that purpose should be: - Colonizing space. - Making better use of our land for sustainable agriculture to feed the hungry and the children of our future.

>- Making better use of our land for sustainable agriculture to feed the hungry and the children of our future. Comparative advantage dictates that some massive chunk of land is devoted to cotton; that way when one of our shirts gets a loose thread we can throw it away as fast as possible so that we aren't seen by others as a leper.

Also, the problem of hunger in the world is largely one of distribution, not production.

Re: Garry Kasparov: The Last Revolutionary Technology Was The Apple II

#116
post #100
post #94

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The obvious alternative is not to have several different cars, but to live closer to where you work, shop and play. Another alternative more obvious than keeping a garage full of differently-sized vehicles is to improve the fuel-per-passenger-mile ratio by banding together with other travellers who are going the same way. This is how buses and trains work.

>> one person driving a car with four seats is an insult to the nature.) > The obvious alternative is not to have several different cars, but to live closer to where you work, shop and play. Reread the complaint - driving less doesn't solve it. > but to live closer to where you work, shop and play. Those are three (or more) places. You may not be able to live close to all of them. For example, I work in Sunnyvale, my…

> Reread the complaint - driving less doesn't solve it. By "live closer", I mean "within 4 miles", so that you can walk. That does solve it (unless I've completely misunderstood)

> I work in Sunnyvale, my wife works in SF, and we play in Monterey

Yes, but you've chosen those places due to the prevailing social norm in your society to drive all the time. Looking at a map, were I you, I'd live in Sunnyvale/Santa Clara/Cupertino, so that one of you could walk to work, and you wouldn't have to do too much urban driving to get to Monterey.

> Buses and trains don't necessarily go where I want when I want.

How precise do you need to be? Unless I'm going somewhere obscure and far away, or travelling on Sunday, a train can normally get me to within 2 miles of where I want to be, within about half an hour of when I want to be there. That's plenty accurate enough, and certainly as accurate as urban driving.

OTOH I don't trust buses, because there are too many cars jamming up the road.

Re: Garry Kasparov: The Last Revolutionary Technology Was The Apple II

#117
post #108

Earlier quoted context omitted.

On the other hand, I love both Wodehouse and Bach.

Of course! In fact, I just discovered that The Art of the Fugue , which I believe Bach wrote toward the end of his career, really does sound better to me than his earlier stuff. Good for him for plugging stubbornly on in the genre he had mastered and which he knew best.

Wait, are you telling me that he was retro before retro was cool?

Re: Garry Kasparov: The Last Revolutionary Technology Was The Apple II

#118
post #72

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What am I looking at here? The Star Trek communicators are voice-only.

I seem to recall at least one episode where they showed the image of the person being communicated with in the communicator. Am I just imagining this? Or was it in one of the movie versions…?

They transmitted images from Georgie's vision thing once.

Re: Garry Kasparov: The Last Revolutionary Technology Was The Apple II

#119
post #7

Earlier quoted context omitted.

We have a long running series of phone ads in the UK which make fun of exactly this: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YlX9G7s2AnQ

The Orange ads are more about clueless producers ruining film ideas with rampant commercialism. I don't think there have been any Orange ads where a plot has been ruined due to the presence of a phone within the movie itself.

Watch the Orange A-Team ad

Re: Garry Kasparov: The Last Revolutionary Technology Was The Apple II

#120
post #78

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The Apple ][ had color, you insensitive clod.

Oh sorry, before my time. The general thrust of my point stands. You could always look back at the first breakthrough and call it revolutionary and every subsequent innovation derivative. Even when the "breakthrough" device was mostly useless in comparison. Evaluating innovation in this manner will always make the large advances appear to be in the past. Good current example would be sequencing the human genome. As o…

Sorry for the "insensitive clod". It's a slashdottism that's hard to leave behind.
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