Book Finished

I finally finished When Things Start To Think by Neil Gershenfeld. I had begun to think i wouldn't, since it is one of those aggressive visionary books outstripped by the future. The middle chapters are hobbled by the fact that he spends time talking about virtual money and the 'New Economy'. Apparently Yahoo! was valued at more than GM and (some other large physical product company) combined. There are a couple of other gaffes like that in the middle of the book, but by the latter third, he is back into comfortably unknown territory .

Whether any of the ideas he discusses comes to fruition or not, this is a neat what-if book. The chapter on quantum computing at least finally helped me to understand how people (NSA folks especially) hope to perform computing using quantum effects. I'd have a hard time explaining it, but I grasp the general notions now. For a better explanation than I can give, I'll just point people to this book!