Man racing to outsmart the machine -- with nothing less than the fate of the world at stake -- is a classic movie storyline. In WarGames, Matthew Broderick convinces the W.O.P.R. computer that thermonuclear war is futile; matinee idol Keir Dullea outsmarts the wily HAL 9000 of 2001: A Space Odyssey by sneaking into the Logic Memory Center; and Linda Hamilton is always one step ahead of Skynet in The Terminator trilogy. Movie computers, for all their power, speed and single-mindedness, still can't hold a candle to real live people when it comes to creative problem-solving. And it's not just on screen.

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