Silicon-based intelligence, Getting carried away on vacation

Good week for:

Silicon-based intelligence, after a computer system called Polaris beat several of the world’s top poker players in a match in Las Vegas. To prep for its confrontation with humans, the system first played 8 billion games with itself.

Chinese dogs, after Beijing ordered restaurants to remove dog meat from their menus during the Olympics so as not to offend Western sensibilities.

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Consistency, after the federal government announced that Southwest Airlines Flight 2709 from Houston to San Diego was the most delayed flight in the country, arriving late 100 percent of the time.

Bad week for:

Scott Listemann of upstate New York, who lost his artificial leg while skydiving. Listemann, 47, has posted a reward for the $12,000 limb, and his jump instructor is optimistic. “I lost my helmet once,” said the instructor. “Someone found it two weeks later, a mile and a half from where I jumped.”

Trying something a little bit different, after a council of elders from the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints excommunicated a 31-year-old Mormon entrepreneur for creating a calendar of 12 shirtless and hunky Mormon missionaries. “Men on a Mission” sold 10,000 copies, and Chad Hardy insists he thought it was flattering to his church. “This project is about stepping outside the stereotypes,’’ he said.

Getting carried away on vacation, when nine British women were charged with prostitution after allegedly taking part in an oral-sex competition on the Greek island of Zakynthos. A dozen men were also arrested.