fortunate to hear this morning. The way Dave wove the news snippets with the music makes for a pretty powerful listening experience. I also enjoyed the IBM computer singing "Bicycle Built for Two." Since 2001 was also done in 1968, and features the computer HAL (IBM, shifted one letter of the alphabet), could it be a coincidence?
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/HAL_9000
Although it is often conjectured that the name HAL was based on a one letter shift from the name IBM, this has been denied by both Clarke and 2001 director Stanley Kubrick. In 2010: Odyssey Two, Clarke even goes so far as to have a reporter pose the question to Dr. Chandra, who replies, "Utter nonsense! [...] I thought that by now every intelligent person knew that H-A-L is derived from Heuristic ALgorithmic".[2][3]
Well, I know this may seem silly, but I don't necessarily believe Clarke and Kubrick!
