at the temporal coordinates: 2/6/02 9:23 AM, the entity known as
rminton_at_commscope.com at rminton_at_commscope.com conveyed the following:
>
>> And there was that unfortunate incident with the Furby a few years back,
>> so I guess the NSA considers a Palm to be less sophisticated than a Furby.
>
> OK, you know better than to do this without elaborating!
>
What? About the unfortunate incident? Well, for those who may not know
about Furbies... These are cute, fuzzy, robotic creatures. (If you've ever
seen the 'Gremlins' movies, they're kinda like the gremlins in their cute
form, before they get wet and transform.) They respond to their environment
(built in motion sensors, light sensors, etc.). The key property of concern
is the language. One thing that's supposed to happen is that the Furby
initially only speaks Furbish -- the child is supposed to puzzle out what
the Furby is saying and the Furby will, at the same time, try to learn
English. (Actually a really fascinating toy, although after a while it can
get darn annoying, especially if you have multiple of these and they begin
conversing to each other...)
The point is... in order to learn English, they have to be recording,
storing and somehow processing speech. Seems that, before this dawned on
folks, there were some at NSA that bought them for their kids and thought
they were so interesting that they brought them to work to show them off.
Then, at some point, the light bulb came on for someone in authority and the
Furbies were unceremoniously ejected from NSA.
- Eric.
--Eric Strobel (fyzycyst_at_NOSPAM^mailaps.org)
===================================================================== Bioweapons? HA! I laugh at them!! *I've* cleaned the coffee urns at work!!!! =====================================================================
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