Steven Kyffin, a senior researcher at Philips, a consumer-electronics giant based in Eindhoven in the Netherlands, concedes that computer programmers and engineers, himself included, are often guilty of designing complicated systems packed with too many features.
After watching Texas, then ranked No. 2 in one of the human polls, self-destruct against Oklahoma on Oct. 12, a Dallas columnist conceded that maybe the Times computer was correct in placing the Longhorns in the lower half of its top 25.
But last week, when the Taiwanese-born American scientist pleaded guilty only to downloading sensitive information onto an insecure computer and prosecutors conceded they had no further case to make against him in open court, the quick association of Mr. Lee's ethnic origins with suspicions about his loyalty seemed mostly an embarrassment for the government.
Thursday, after the markets closed, Round Rock, Texas, computer maker Dell conceded it had missed its fourth-quarter goals.
Maybe it's because they do not want to concede that the computers may be right about Notre Dame or that the Fighting Irish, like the Yankees, are just too ingrained in popular culture to embrace.
And even as they say they have little to fear, Mr. Wallace and many of his colleagues concede that pocket computers, faster downloads, better screens and other innovations could change the balance.
A computer expert testifying for Microsoft conceded that it would be possible to remove features from the company's Windows operating system even if technically difficult.
At the technology-heavy Nasdaq exchange, stocks fought back the markets decline amid strong buyer interest in computer-related issues but eventually conceded to the minus column.
A play about a chess match between a man and a computer, as its author Matt Charman, had conceded beforehand, sounded almost terrifyingly dull.
He said he used computers to study and analyze games but did not play against them, and he readily conceded that people were no longer worthy competitors for computers.
