very true.
it does a lot of learning about your input this way. other ways don't give Hal that level of knowledge about the conversation.
it's also important to understand that Hal was built on the idea that it is trying to have a conversation with you. so, in other words, just inputing one fact after another would teach Hal that it is a good conversation. yeah right: try having a conversation with wikipedia

but throwing in some facts about things along the way will teach Hal a lot.
after using Hal for a while you will understand better how it learns, and then you can teach it other ways. it can be tricky to get it right....i didn't the first couple of times.
