Wirt writes:

> Yesterday, Claude Shannon, perhaps the only graduate student in history to
> change the world twice while he was still in school, died at the age of
84.

Ouch.  That hurts. :(

> He was an extraordinary person who simply did extraordinary
> things and thought extraordinary thoughts and made them simple.

I had the good fortune to meet Mr. Shannon in the late 70's,
though I did not then -- and, regretfully, still do not --
understand the full significance of his work.

The reason for writing this note, though, is to share that
Mr. Shannon was also a very funny, humble, and mischievous
gentleman, at least in my experience.

He related a story where he "taught" a computer to play the
board game "Go" against a human opponent.  However, there was
one subtle change:  he added an extra row to the board.  Whenever
the person made a move, the machine would flash a bunch of lights
for a bit to show it was "thinking," then just mirror the move. :)

Thank you for sharing, Wirt!

--Glenn