On Thu, 2006-01-26 at 17:57, Thaths wrote: > On 1/25/06, A. M. Merritt <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: > > On 1/25/06, Thaths <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: > > 2. Character of he designer of the robot in the movie, "Short Circuit", > > which was made in the mid 80's. > > There is a Dr. Chandra in Asimov's 2001 Space Oddesy. He was the guy > that designed HAL.
It's Arthur C. Clarke. Asimov is that other, less famous SF writer. I believe the full name was Dr. Sivasubramanian Chandrasegarampillai, who's only vice was smoking cheroots, which he had imported from India. It was a contradiction bewteen HAL's primary function (the accurate dissemination of information), and his secret orders (not to tell the crew what awaited them at Jupiter), which placed him in a "Hofstadter-Moebius Loop", reducing him to paranoia. Dr. Chandra explains that Hofstadter-Moebius loops are common in computers with autonomous goal-seeking programs. Thus did Douglas Hofstadter make his way into 2010: Odyssey Two, obliquely mentioned by Dr. Chandra. --B -- Brian McNett: Forensic Spam Investigator Work: <http://consult.spamresource.com/> Play: <http://www.mycoinfo.com/> Online Store: <http://store.mycoinfo.com/>
