(no subject)

I finished Nancy Kress' Beggars Ride (Damn good book, despite a certain unconnectedness with the two before it... more on that later). What I noticed, though, is the notion of software agents, simple AIs, who can do information searches. This isn't such a new concept. What grabbed me was the fact that at one point, a character asked one of the AIs for three-sentence definitions of a two terms - and got back good, useful basic definitions, with some historical detail. I need that. In the last hour, about four different concepts have passed across my mind, none of which I know much about, three of which I have forgotten already, and none of which I had time to stop and google for a bit more information about. And all of them would have been useful, for work and for game materials. One of these items, however, is "Children's Crusade". You can guess which it applies to, work or game. Any historians out there able to give me a quick (three, or five, or seven) sentence summary of what that was all about?

(no subject)

Bloomsbury and Eason, Hanna's Bookshop (1, Dawson Street) present a reading & signing by Neil Gaiman from his new novel 'Coraline' on Monday 19th August at 7 pm. All welcome.

I am so there.