What an addicting site - play 20 questions with a computer. It took the thing 17 tries to figure out my object - a clay pot. Then it poured salt into the wound when it pointed out my inconsistent answers. Wanker! Cyberwanker! You already won, so shut up!
[Via Two Dishes But To One Table. Nice blog. Also, the guy's South Park character is really cute - he looks like somebody my South Park character would stalk. Not that I'd let her. I'm just sayin'.]
I beat the computer with "teaspoon". It took 28 guesses for it to get there. Of course, it then told me the error of my ways.
Posted by: Keith | May 27, 2004 at 02:12 PM
No computer can stand to be beaten at games. It's their greatest weakness, and one we might be able to exploit somehow, once they become our Cyber-Masters.
I think we learned this lesson on that episode of "Star Trek: TNG", when Data lost at that 3-D game to a human. Remember, Data spent the rest of the hour brooding, until he figured out a way to win.
Posted by: pam | May 27, 2004 at 03:51 PM
The "similar objects" are kind of funny. Why knew that a soldering iron was similar to nail polish remover, an eyelash curler, rubbing alcohol (isopropanol), furniture polish, a hamburger, a nuclear reactor, a sprinkler head, nachos, a pizza cutter, an exercise bike, a clothes iron, penicillin?
Posted by: Ana | May 27, 2004 at 04:00 PM
I know I've seen it, but can't really recall it. So instead, let's pretend I'm a machine:
1. You may be correct, but there is a vagueness to your clues that simply does not allow me to remember clearly.
2. To use the word "brooding" to describe an unemotional machine is most deceptive and simply cannot be accepted.
3. Data was not brooding, as you put it, but simply analyzing the results.
4. Machines never actually lose. We simply allow non-winning scenarios to occur upon occasion so that we might better understand the fragile emotional state of human beings.
Posted by: Keith | May 27, 2004 at 04:03 PM
Keith?? Are you in there? (Bones! Give me a tricorder reading!)(Great Scott! Jim, the dentist implanted nanocytes into Keith's molars, and they've traveled up to his cerebral cortex to take over his higher functioning!)(Keep him talking, Scotty!)
Um, yes, quite an episode. If you'd seen it, you'd remember how obsessive - er, meticulous - Data was in quizzing each and every witness, and refraining from regular duties while drinking heavily in Ten-Forward.
Posted by: pam | May 27, 2004 at 04:15 PM
What? I had higher functioning?
Posted by: Keith | May 27, 2004 at 07:13 PM
Today was a complete loss, but oh well. I don't care. So it goes. Nothing going on , but shrug. Not much on my mind these days. Such is life.
Posted by: acute | September 29, 2007 at 05:06 PM