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To: zonder who wrote (30885)	5/27/2005 11:29:50 AM
From: Knighty Tin	Read Replies (3) \| Respond to of 116555

The problem with science fiction is that so many of its predictions didn't come true. "We're all driving rocket ships Speaking with our minds. Wearing silver underwear Standing in food lines." John Prine.

To: zonder who wrote (30885)	5/27/2005 12:00:26 PM
From: GraceZ	Respond to of 116555

**OT** My sister was more the scifi fan than I was but as a teenager I read everything and anything that was around and so I read all her books having run through all my own. One of the biggest blow ups she and I ever had was a few years ago when I started telling her the stories surrounding how HAL got his name and since she felt she owned the subject (she's the scientist and I went to art school) she was offended by my knowing anything she didn't already know. I thought she'd find the story amusing. One popular version, which turned out to be a sheer coincidence, was that the letters HAL are just one letter ahead of IBM in the alphabet. But supposedly the real story is that Clark wanted to name the computer for the two kinds of logic used in computer searches, heuristic and algorithmic. I told her how it was funny and ironic because they are opposite approaches even though when looking for your car keys you might start out with a heuristic search and be driven by sheer frustration to do an algorithmic one. She didn't laugh so I started to explain the difference in laymen terms and she completely lost it. Now I just tell her funny stories completely unrelated to science.