64 squares: RIP Bobby Fischer.

Bobby Fischer has died at the age of 64. One year lived for each square on a chessboard. (Was he thinking about that?) I wonder how he felt about machines taking over the game. Chess is now a "solved" problem in the sense that no human can win reliably against the machines anymore. Of course, it's not "solved" in the sense of there being a machine that can always at least draw given the advantageous color (assumed to be white, but that doesn't matter for these purposes). Probably Go will become machine-dominated within a few decades...
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Anecdotage.

If you haven’t read The Feud in this Tuesday’s New York Times “Science Times” section, do have a look. It’s

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Banjovial.

I like this photograph because the light and image somehow seem to capture the sound of the bluegrass jam at

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