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Comment by livepreview | Hacker News Reader

It's easy to knock Mr. Kurzweil, given his supranormal convictions about the relatively near-term future of our society. However, check out some of the names on this list: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Grace_Murray_Hopper_Award

   ...it looks more like he is invited
   to play the clown and amuse the assistance,
   [rather] than to lead [to] anything concrete.

It may be a bit preemptive to discount him so readily.

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That looks like a very bad list.

Some great scientists, some ho-hum and some that are there mostly for political or other reasons. I mean Wozniak in 1979? What had he done at that point to be in the same list with Knuth or even Bill Joy?

Since you invoke the list, are we to expect the same great stuff from Kurzweil in Google, as we got from Wozniak post 1979, Richard Stallman past 1990 and Stroustrup past 1993?

> I mean Wozniak in 1979? What had he done at that point to be in the same list with Knuth or even Bill Joy?

Woz was largely responsible for designing the Apple I & Apple II, both of which played a pretty significant part in starting the entire PC industry. Seems like a pretty spectacular achievement to me.

... and those hardware designs are generally very well respected. He didn't just kludge those boards together.

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