The Machine That Won The War

[Subdeacon Joe]

https://niannicc.wordpress.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/11/the-machine-that-won-the-war-asimov.pdf

 

 

[Subdeacon Joe]

Some nonfiction

 

 

https://www.americanmachinist.com/archive/features/article/21893860/machining-for-freedom

 

https://americanprecision.org/wp-content/uploads/2021/12/How-They-Built-the-Bridgeport-r21.pdf

[Linn Keller, SASS 27332, BOLD 103]

Thank you for the Asimov!

I'd read that (more years ago than I want to admit!) and 'twas delightful to read it again!

[Cactus Jack Calder]

Not sure who the author was. I once read a SiFi story that had an international agency, similar to what the UN was intended to be, decide things using a giant coin. The coin was spun using a large electro magnet controlled by a computer. The computer was supposed to allow the fall of the coin to be completely random. Again, I am not sure of entire plot, but I think there were concerns as to the “randomness” of the drop.
 

Of course we now understand that despite honest efforts to make computer programs such as lottery # selection random, there is always some unintended bias inherent in the program. Humans are not random and they write the programs. GIGO is the old saying, long before the millennials discovered LOL and the like.😉

 

CJ

 

 

[Subdeacon Joe]

46 minutes ago, Linn Keller, SASS 27332, BOLD 103 said:

Thank you for the Asimov!

I'd read that (more years ago than I want to admit!) and 'twas delightful to read it again!

 

 

I think I first read it in '69 when Nightfall and Other Stories came out.  Lovely anthology of his short stories.  Another anthology of his works is Asimov's Mysteries. Just what it sounds like - his science fiction crime/mystery shorts. Examples:
https://mcguich.weebly.com/uploads/5/8/0/8/580861/lointofpaw.pdf

https://www.scribd.com/document/484278375/The-Billiard-Ball

[Subdeacon Joe]

6 minutes ago, Cactus Jack Calder said:

Not sure who the author was. I once read a SiFi story that had an international agency, similar to what the UN was intended to be, decide things using a giant coin. The coin was spun using a large electro magnet controlled by a computer. The computer was supposed to allow the fall of the coin to be completely random. Again, I am not sure of entire plot, but I think there were concerns as to the “randomness” of the drop.
 

Of course we now understand that despite honest efforts to make computer programs such as lottery # selection random, there is always some unintended bias inherent in the program. Humans are not random and they write the programs. GIGO is the old saying, long before the millennials discovered LOL and the like.😉

 

CJ

 

 

 

That sounds vaguely familiar.  Early 1970s?  

[Subdeacon Joe]

8 minutes ago, Cactus Jack Calder said:

there is always some unintended bias inherent in the program. 

 

Why am I having a Monty Python Moment? 
"Come and see the bias inherent in the program! "

[Cactus Jack Calder]

2 minutes ago, Subdeacon Joe said:

 

That sounds vaguely familiar.  Early 1970s?  

Most likely the late 1950’s, I was probably in the 9th grade. I had discovered reading stories was greatly entertaining and spent almost all of the school day in the library “studying”. What I read had little to do with what was being taught in the classroom where I should have been. Graduated High School 1962 and I am sure I read it in my public school period. So it is unlikely to have been in the 70’s.

 

CJ

[Cheyenne Ranger, 48747L]

Tails!

[Subdeacon Joe]

6 hours ago, Cactus Jack Calder said:

Most likely the late 1950’s, I was probably in the 9th grade. I had discovered reading stories was greatly entertaining and spent almost all of the school day in the library “studying”. What I read had little to do with what was being taught in the classroom where I should have been. Graduated High School 1962 and I am sure I read it in my public school period. So it is unlikely to have been in the 70’s.

 

CJ

 

Thanks.  I'm a bit younger than you,  graduated from HS in '75.  It was in the early '70s or late '60s that I read it. 

[Subdeacon Joe]

If you like Asimov short stories:

https://epdf.pub/asimov-isaac-nightfall-and-other-stories-isaac-asimov-pdf-5eccdbf182ea2.html

 

https://fennetic.net/irc/Isaac Asimov - The Complete Stories Volume 1.pdf