October 2004

"In an attempt to show that computers are not even close to matching the kind of real intelligence used by humans in playing strategy games, we have created a new game called Arimaa. Here is a simple game that can be played using the same board and pieces provided in a standard Chess set. However the rules of the game are a bit different and suddenly the computers are left way behind. For humans the rules of Arimaa are very easy to understand and more intuitive than Chess, but to a computer the game is a thousand times more complex. To the best of our knowledge Arimaa is the first game that was designed intentionally to be difficult for computers to play."

"A Knight Ridder review of the administration's Iraq policy and decisions has found that it invaded Iraq without a comprehensive plan in place to secure and rebuild the country… [T]he president and many of his advisers ignored repeated warnings that rebuilding Iraq would be harder than ousting Saddam and tossed out years of planning about how to rebuild Iraq…" Does anybody still believe that Bush and his syncophants have the slightest idea what they're doing in Iraq?

Uniqueprojects.com provides "a wide variety of distinctly unique project plans", ranging from toys to furniture; costs range from pennies to hundreds of dollars.

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The mysterious workings of GnuCash are explained with a parable entitled A Day in the Life of Dave the Dollar.

Technovelgy.com lets you "explore the wide variety of inventions and ideas of science fiction writers – over 650 are available on-site. Use the Timeline of Science Fiction Invention or the alphabetic Glossary of Science Fiction Technology to see them all, see the category that interests you, or check Science Fiction in the News and watch sf come to life."

The oddly named got apex? site provides up-to-the-minute deals and discounts for a wide array of vendors, mostly of computers and electronic goodies.