Tag Archive for 'chess'

This Day In Awesome History! February 10th, 1996 – Deep Blue Beats Kasparov!

jackson published on February 10, 2010 in celebrity and technology. 9 Comments Tags: , , , , .

screen-shot-2010-02-10-at-32644-pm(image via archive.computerhistory.org)

Good Morning SuperForest!

Today, 14 years ago, the Earth’s best chess player (Kasparov) lost a match to Earth’s best chess playing computer (Deep Blue).

Kasparov declared that the machine was being too intelligent and creative for his liking, and accused IBM (Deep Blue’s mommy) of cheating by means of human intervention! IBM denied the claims and refused Kasparov’s request for a rematch, instead dismantling Deep Blue.

Poor Kasparov!

It’s incredible to think that we are capable of producing machines that are smarter, faster, stronger, and more robust than we ourselves are. A bit of a hit to the ego when Junior is so much more able than Daddy, no? I think we’ll see this behavior repeated over and over again as humans and machines are forced to compete for jobs. Sadly, no human could possible hope to match a machine in terms of reliability, speed, and precision.

Happily, that means a great deal more free time for all! Hooray! Free time!

Time to study up on the ol’ chess game, I guess.

The Art of Chess

jackson published on September 26, 2008 in Uncategorized. 2 Comments Tags: , , , , .

We SuperForesters absolutely adore the game of chess. Strategy, order, gamesmanship. All are represented in “the game of kings.”

So we were very excited to read this on notcot:

“DUBLIN—In 2001, the RS&A, a London-based art commissioning company, initiated the ongoing touring exhibition, “The Art of Chess,” featuring work by top international artists using the chess set as inspiration. The show’s latest outing is at Dublin’s Sebastian Guinness Gallery, where all ten sets, plus a newly commissioned 20-minute film by Gavin Turk, are on view through October 9.”

London SuperForesters go and see this show! And perhaps be so kind as to snap a few pickies and send them along to: superforestnyc@gmail.com
Awesome.

Check out the rest of the chess boards here.

p.s. For anyone who’s into word etymology, the term “Check Mate” comes from the ancient Persian “Shah Mat” which means: “the king is dead.” Interesting, no?