I noticed your.sig, for kanjischool.com. I am in the process of learning kanji, and this looks to be exactly something I want. I don't have any windows boxes, only unix (X11) - was wondering if you'd be willing to trade code for a X11 port? Drop me an email if you are interested.
Yes, I know this is off-topic. No I don't want to post anonymously. Yes, feel free to waste your mod points.
Part of that may have to do with a questionable design of the interface. I bought an Ericsson T-68 and found it kind of annoying that all the ringer choices were 'melodies'. All I wanted was "beep beep" not the 1812 overture. It wasn't until I got to the end of the list that I found those.
I have an T68 too, same gripe about trying to find the volume to turn it down. I use custom-made ringers, a buddy is really good at making ringers for cell phones. Helps that way, because I know who I want to talk to and who I don't without even looking at the phone. Easy to hit the hangup button when you don't need to look, or answer it before looking at caller ID.
I want to know where all these people are that can't use a phone without pissing everybody off. I live in Portland, Oregon. You can't throw a rock here without hitting 3 people with a cell phone. So that was you, asshole! That rock hurt... I'm a cell phone user. I don't even have a land line.
So every time I hear these people getting upset, a big question mark appears over my head. Either people in Portland are far more polite with their phones than in some other areas (which is possible...) or the people posting all these anti-cell phone posts on Slashdot are exaggerating. I lived in the bay area for a while, and been living in PDX for about a year and a half and there isn't any difference. Some people are rude on their phones, other people aren't. The minority in my experience is rude.
The thing that bugs me more than anything are these stupid kids with their new cell phones that have to play through every damned ringer on their phone 3 times to be sure which one they want.
P.S. There are a few places in downtown that are "Cell Phone Free" zones. A cafe out on Belmont stands out, and I'm pretty sure there is a restaurant in Pearl that does that too.
In 2000, Manhattan had 2.3 million residents living on 23 square miles of land. That works out to 270.4 square feet per person -- only 1/4 of the put-everyone-in-Texas rate, and actually not bad considering the average building size in Manhattan has got to be AT LEAST 5 vertical floors...
That's why Tokyo is a great example, because the population density is higher than the Texas example.
It's all hypothetically great, like communism. Would never work in the real world, unless you tiered the living quarters (higher up = more money) and obliterated the necessity for cars, where they became a luxory item (racing, scenic driving as vacation packages and what not). I bet we kill ourselves before any system of this level of organization happens.
As you mentioned, Texas would house 1,184 people per square feet. The ironic thing in all of this, is Tokyo has a much higher density through the city. Now, Tokyo as a whole (each individual district) is not inhabited, per se. There are many office buildings, and unusable land through the area of Tokyo. Take into account the Emporers palace in the center, it's not all that bad. Yeah, living area is small but it's definitely livable.
Now, it's true that this is merely living area. Not supporting area. Some areas are very well suited for certain things, like cattle or growing fruits. If you had people that enjoyed that life doing this, that basically got a free ticket on a regulated "monopoly" (think of a contract, "You provide us beef at this rate, and we provide you with everything you need.) Then the entire population could live in a land area the size of texas, be supported by another set of areas much smaller than texas, and have the rest of the world to play on and let rebuild itself so we can expand and conquer that properly too;)
Bah. Backgammon, now -that- is a real game; a game in which, even with 'perfect' play, the uncertaintly of the dice still produces a possibility of losing.
Sarcasm.. please.. let this be sarcasm. Anybody who has to rely on chance to win at a game, shouldn't play chess.
This is correct to a degree, but also shows some misunderstanding on your part of the differences between these two games. I'm not slamming chess, and I know you're not slamming go, but go is fundamentally a harder problem than chess. Search space aside, we don't have an algorithm that will tell with certainty whether a particular group of stones is alive or not. Absolutely the algorithm for playing Go successfully against mid-grade players is more complex than that for chess. Go is more of a "water" game. Chess is a "stone" game. Water, changes, takes shape. Stones.. well, they're stones. They sit there, and you can bludgeon people with them.
The point about the numbers and search space is that even if we created some computing process that could brute-force chess, it would still barely be a drop in the bucket of the power needed to brute force go. So yes, I think the tic-tac-toe analogy is valid.
There is no perfect game of chess. There is no tree that will yield a victory that we know of, however a lot of masters/GMs state that perfect play should result in white victory -- a lot say perfect play should result in a draw. We just don't know. Tic-Tac-Toe will always result in a tie. The thing is, chess should not be brute forced -- we don't brute force and we still win so why is chess being computed as brute force? A good chess player doesn't see value in one piece, but all of them.
Do you honestly believe a little more time spent on the algorithms for playing Chess is the primary reason computers can dominate humans in Chess and not even touch a competent one in Go given such an unimaginable exponential difference in complexity?
I didn't realize that being tied was dominating.
The difference between chess and Go is apples and oranges. There has been no decent algorithm work in the way of automated Go play. Period. End of story.
When there has been, yes, computers will be Go players like it is in chess. Keep in mind most good chess players (not great, just actual players) can beat chess computers purely because they play like a computer. Algorithms can be beaten. Kasparov lost because the computer was geared specifically to play against him, and he was playing a blind opponent.
For such a big tree size, about mid-game in chess I always feel like I'm in a freakin' straight jacket, my options become so limited. It's at about that point I begin wondering if there was something fun I could be doing in the meantime.
I can honestly say if you feel that way, not only chess isn't for you, but it's because you just aren't good at it. Seldom do I find myself in a position forced to do something, if I am, it's usually time to resign because I'm being forced into a mate.
Go interests me more because it offers much more freedom when it comes to what constitutes a good move.
Great, go play Go. We'll continue to play chess and code better computers. Go spend your time focusing on Go algorithms if that's what pleases you, but please leave chess players alone with the constant "Chess is a computationally easy problem" because it's not. If it was, Kramnik would be 0-7.
You can only (try to) evaluate Go sucessfully if you really really really play great Go. And that is a problem for a computer, that makes moves based on the evaluation function (ie: 1 pawn x 1 rook = good after 10 moves, I'd do that). In Go that doesn't work:)
Again, it's algorithm design. The reason why chess algorithms are brute force mixed with heuristics is because that's how humans play. The algorithms in chess still need to be worked out, as the pinnacle is still struggling against the world champion. Once Go gets more popular, I'm certain algorithms will be geared towards playing it. Until then, it doesn't have exposure and you won't be seeing any high level AI systems.
Maybe that's why many people do not like computer chess. Because we can have state of art inteligence but a simple computer can kick our ass. Then something must be wrong.
Most chess players don't like computer chess because they are predictable, and you can use anti-computer (computer crusher) techniques to beat them.
And I've only met a few good Counterstrike players that are able to beat me at Street Fighter. What's your point? Rhetoric is lost, apparently. Next up to die: Irony.
My point is that they are different games. While a Go player can spout about how easy chess is, he won't beat me. Period. Unless he's been playing chess for a few years, he won't come close. They are different games, chess is not an easy game. Chess is as easy as your opponent, and so is Go.
So, to reiterate my point: Saying Chess is an easy/boring game while you are not a Chess player is like saying Apples are better than Oranges when you've only seen an Orange on the tree.
Arguing about whether go or chess is better is bloody stupid. By any reasonable measure, go and chess are two of the best games that humans have invented. Different people like different games, and these two are no exception. I prefer go, so keep that bias in mind, but I started playing chess at 5 and still play.
Agreed, I wasn't stating that Chess was better than Go at any point.
No one's yet found perfect play in go. There's no reason to think it's not possible, but it's a staggering challenge given that there are still many openings (called fuseki on a larger scale, and joseki for primarily corner plays) that haven't been fully explored. The most comprehensive book of joseki available lists over 60,000. Joseki are roughly equivalent in complexity and importance to opening libraries in chess. Again, you caught my point. There is no way to say it's a perfect Go game, nor is there in Chess.
I hope that after you hit "post" on this you realized how ignorant that sounds. Are you saying that go masters and chess masters should be able to play competitively against each other? That there's one omni "board-playing" skill that transfers easily between games? That's like a poker player dissing a bridge player for not beating him, or a 100-yard sprinter ragging on a marathoner - pointless. No, it wasn't ignorant. It was merely saying that the games are so different that they actually have to learn the game. I get sick of people saying, "Chess is so easy compared to Go" -- if it's so easy, then why can't you just understand chess and beat me? That's the ignorant part. It was a rhetorical question, meant to deliver thoughtfulness as to why they can't beat me (Because they are different freaking games, that's why)
Some people are more blind about their game loyalties, and make silly comparisons. No reasonable person would say that chess is "easy." Chess is as easy as your opponent, just like go. From a game theory and programming perspective, however, chess is much easier than go. The world champion is in a serious match with a computer. Many people don't think that will happen for go this century.
Again, it's algorithm work. More work has gone into chess algorithms and "thinking" than has gone into Go. Chess is more popular than Go, hence a much more attractive target for most people to try to write algorithms for.
That's a great page to read, by the way. You're free to prefer any game you want, and I agree that there are snobs on both sides. But there's no question that, for computers, go makes chess look like tic-tac-toe. Except that the sun will burn out by the time a computer can calculate a full move tree. I'm not sure how that's like tic-tac-toe.
I believe there has not been a single case of a serious Go player converting to Chess. Chess is the third largest sporting body. FIDE consists of 173 Nations, trailing Soccer and the Olympics. I think the chess camp has plenty of people converting and playing.
The other direction however has shown plenty making that switch. It really ends up being like creationism versus evolution, the Go proponents having by far better arguments much like the evolution proponents. No, this ends up being anecdotal at best. There are plenty of people who go from Go to chess and chess to go. It's called personal preference, I personally don't like Go. I think it's a rather silly game. Some people think chess is a rather silly game. There are no arguments between Go and Chess even in the same league as Evolution vs. Creationism. One is a game, the other is a game. They both are played on a board. That is the end of their similarities.
End of story. There are no comparisons that can be validly made. Anyone trying to say Chess is better than Go is stupid. Anyone trying to say Go is better than Chess is stupid. See my point?
Go argue about apples and oranges, you'll get further in life.. it's a shame that both are pawned off as intellectual games yet "proponents" are too dense to understand this.
Apparently there's a Japanese Go player who had begun playing chess as an aside and had quickly started climbing the ranks, as it were.
He is/was a Shogi player, I forgot his name now. He started playing chess and within 3 years achieved a master ranking.
For those not familiar, Shogi is very similar to chess with the capability to drop pieces.
Actually, there was a link from an earlier Slashdot Chess article-that-turned-into-a-chess-vs-Go discussion. People that compare chess to go should have a digit removed each time. They are two seperate games, both intellectual at base. Which is better, VI or emacs? At least both of those are text editors. It'd be nice to see a thread about chess pop up on slashdot that doesn't have someone say Go is better, and visa versa.
Must suck to not actually play chess, just criticize it.
The difference between chess and Go is phenominal. Weights of pieces, sacrifices, all towards a common goal. What's the point of Go? All the same, building "fences" and occupying territory.
Who wins at 9Dan perfect play with Go?
Go is a two-dimensional game, X + Y, many configurations yes, but depth? Hell no. I'm growing so tired of this new wave of Go fanactics boasting about how much better it is than chess.
I've never met one decent Go player who could come close to beating me at chess (I'm well under a Master) -- if chess is so easy, why can't you beat me? If it's so boring, why are their over 10^80 possible moves to be made? Lets see you brute force that, considering chess can result in victories by purposeful imperfect play.
Please go and read about chess computers, and about how they don't brute force (At least not the decent ones) -- they do heuristics based upon other games, cross referencing libraries and doing simple depth traversal on position.
Why are most computers so easy to beat? They rely on material/mate rather than position. You can bait a computer to be into a poor position by targeting "easy" mates that have a catastrophic counter move....therefore I concider that more of a challenge for AI. Since you seem to be an expert on AI, could you define it please? Could you define what, exactly, it would take for you to concider[sic] a chess computer as AI? You need to go read up on common algorithms for chess computers.
I submitted the idea for this one. It comes from a story a few years back (1996, I believe). Here is the original story that I sent in to him: I was working tech support for this unfriendly piece of hardware that refused to work properly with most standard shipped-on-Windows-CD video card drivers. The common support call was just telling them to upgrade the video card drivers.
A friend who sat behind me (who is now the mother of my niece) gets a call that I took earlier in the day instructing the lady to download the new drivers and call us back for installation instructions.
I wasn't on a call so I was paying attention to her call (easy job) and it went (from my end): Tech: Ok, so now that you have uncompressed the driver, right click on the desktop and on the popup menu that shows up, select Properties. <moment of silence> Ok, well move the mouse cursor away from any icons, and try it again. <another moment, she glances at me with the "Stupid Caller" look> Alright, are you sure you are pressing the right mouse button? <another moment, a bit longer. In a strained voice: > Mam, I need to put you on hold real quickly, please hold.
She flicks the hold switch, than just dies laughing.
The caller had wrote the world click on her desk 3 times in pen.
Yes, this is a true story. It's probably the most clueless, but not the most amusing one I've encountered.
Yes it is. 335.5 people per square kilometer is over capacity. But it makes up for it by the fact that much of the REST of the world is under capacity, which was my whole point. The reason 335.5 people per square mile can live in Japan is because much of their food production (including fishing) occurs elsewhere, outside the country's political boundry.
Have you ever been to Japan? I'd be really surprised if you have and think it's over capacity. Outside of Tokyo, it is not crowded. If you haven't been to Japan, you are talking out of your ass.
And please provide proof that "much of their food production occurs elsewhere, outside the country's political boundry."
What a load of crap. First, lets get one thing straight. You can be no more "semi-pro" than you can be "kind of pregnant". You either are or aren't.
Actually, I have to argue with the point you make here. It's important to the context of the article.
You see, they have any entire group of cameras named for these people. Prosumer, maybe you have heard of it. I don't know. I know a guy who can paint works that make Dali look horrible, but he isn't a painter. Nope, he makes coffee. He'll sell some of his work (for a rather large sum) only if he knows the person and knows they understand the meaning, and what it took for him to do it. He's a semi-pro painter. He paints, could easily support himself on it (If he sold his collection of his own work he'd probably make well over 6 figures) but he chooses not to, or at least only when he desires. That's where the "semi-" comes in.
It also comes in when someone does it as a part time job. It is not the profession, only a segment of it.
For a photographer to be semi-professional, it just means they do not do it as their primary source of income.
Understand the difference between 41.3 and 335.5? It's a rather large one.
Yep, and you know what? Japan isn't even close to being filled to capacity. The point stands: Earth is no where near carrying capacity.
The reason I provided the numbers and the data is purely for this sentence:...but each year the human population increases closer to (or perhaps beyond) the carrying capacity of the planet. from the original parent. I'm not wrong. The planet can handle many many many more people. Unfortunately, it has a problem with human nature but that is independant of the number.
My T68 is being repaired for the second time in a month - it goes into a state where it refuses to make or receive calls, mainly on GSM-1800 networks. Along with the frequent crashes and spontaneous switching-off in my pocket (even though keypad lock is on), this is making me less than impressed with SonyEricsson...
I'd ask for a replacement phone. I know 4 people that have T68's and have never had any problem. There is a bug with the keylock though, and you can turn the phone off. I've done it before, but forgot what the key combo was.. I remember thinking it was really stupid. I turned AutoLock on, and it went away (go figure) and doesn't do it anymore. The only gripe I have with the phone is that the clip that holds the battery in is easy to pry open when you are digging in your pocket. I've popped my battery of twice catching pens and what not on it.
Of course, the phone isn't very fancy. No color screen or anything. Just a slimmer 61xx-style phone, but with all the stuff you really want: GPRS, Bluetooth, WAP.
Well, I got a nice color screen so I'll take my 1 hour shorter battery life:) (Fully charged is about 6h-6:30)
Indeed. When I got my current UID it was during a big upswing of account creation (just around the time Netscape was going to be open sourced). I remember feeling like such a n00b when they introduced moderation and my UID was too high to qualify at first.
I always just thought, "Eh, I'll never post on here." *cough* 1605 comments *cough*
I suppose that is low for how low my UID is. Can you believe they're up to 600,000 now?
Besides, how is battery time on this one? The latest nokia phones i have seen has had two-thirds or even half the battery time of the competitors.
From the website:
Talktime: 2 h 20 min (WCDMA), 2 h 40 min (GSM)
Standby time: Up to 350 h
My Ericsson T68 with the battery bar at half:
Talktime: 3 h 42 min (GSM)
Standby time: 133 h
I've never had a Nokia even go close to this phone. I get about 5 hours of talk time on my phone, and I've verified it's battery reporting function too.
Thanks for the info. Right now I don't have medical/vision insurance, but need to go to the doctor. My prescription is about 2 years old, and has stabilized. I still would wait at least another year for it -- I'm just concerned because my eyes don't really contract, and I have some concerns about it functioning well with my eyes.
Slashdot Mirror
I noticed your .sig, for kanjischool.com. I am in the process of learning kanji, and this looks to be exactly something I want. I don't have any windows boxes, only unix (X11) - was wondering if you'd be willing to trade code for a X11 port?
Drop me an email if you are interested.
Yes, I know this is off-topic. No I don't want to post anonymously. Yes, feel free to waste your mod points.
Part of that may have to do with a questionable design of the interface. I bought an Ericsson T-68 and found it kind of annoying that all the ringer choices were 'melodies'. All I wanted was "beep beep" not the 1812 overture. It wasn't until I got to the end of the list that I found those.
I have an T68 too, same gripe about trying to find the volume to turn it down. I use custom-made ringers, a buddy is really good at making ringers for cell phones. Helps that way, because I know who I want to talk to and who I don't without even looking at the phone. Easy to hit the hangup button when you don't need to look, or answer it before looking at caller ID.
I want to know where all these people are that can't use a phone without pissing everybody off. I live in Portland, Oregon. You can't throw a rock here without hitting 3 people with a cell phone.
So that was you, asshole! That rock hurt... I'm a cell phone user. I don't even have a land line.
So every time I hear these people getting upset, a big question mark appears over my head. Either people in Portland are far more polite with their phones than in some other areas (which is possible...) or the people posting all these anti-cell phone posts on Slashdot are exaggerating.
I lived in the bay area for a while, and been living in PDX for about a year and a half and there isn't any difference. Some people are rude on their phones, other people aren't. The minority in my experience is rude.
The thing that bugs me more than anything are these stupid kids with their new cell phones that have to play through every damned ringer on their phone 3 times to be sure which one they want.
P.S. There are a few places in downtown that are "Cell Phone Free" zones. A cafe out on Belmont stands out, and I'm pretty sure there is a restaurant in Pearl that does that too.
In 2000, Manhattan had 2.3 million residents living on 23 square miles of land. That works out to 270.4 square feet per person -- only 1/4 of the put-everyone-in-Texas rate, and actually not bad considering the average building size in Manhattan has got to be AT LEAST 5 vertical floors...
That's why Tokyo is a great example, because the population density is higher than the Texas example.
It's all hypothetically great, like communism. Would never work in the real world, unless you tiered the living quarters (higher up = more money) and obliterated the necessity for cars, where they became a luxory item (racing, scenic driving as vacation packages and what not). I bet we kill ourselves before any system of this level of organization happens.
As you mentioned, Texas would house 1,184 people per square feet. The ironic thing in all of this, is Tokyo has a much higher density through the city. Now, Tokyo as a whole (each individual district) is not inhabited, per se. There are many office buildings, and unusable land through the area of Tokyo. Take into account the Emporers palace in the center, it's not all that bad. Yeah, living area is small but it's definitely livable.
;)
Now, it's true that this is merely living area. Not supporting area. Some areas are very well suited for certain things, like cattle or growing fruits. If you had people that enjoyed that life doing this, that basically got a free ticket on a regulated "monopoly" (think of a contract, "You provide us beef at this rate, and we provide you with everything you need.) Then the entire population could live in a land area the size of texas, be supported by another set of areas much smaller than texas, and have the rest of the world to play on and let rebuild itself so we can expand and conquer that properly too
Bah. Backgammon, now -that- is a real game; a game in which, even with 'perfect' play, the uncertaintly of the dice still produces a possibility of losing.
Sarcasm.. please.. let this be sarcasm. Anybody who has to rely on chance to win at a game, shouldn't play chess.
This is correct to a degree, but also shows some misunderstanding on your part of the differences between these two games. I'm not slamming chess, and I know you're not slamming go, but go is fundamentally a harder problem than chess. Search space aside, we don't have an algorithm that will tell with certainty whether a particular group of stones is alive or not.
Absolutely the algorithm for playing Go successfully against mid-grade players is more complex than that for chess. Go is more of a "water" game. Chess is a "stone" game. Water, changes, takes shape. Stones.. well, they're stones. They sit there, and you can bludgeon people with them.
The point about the numbers and search space is that even if we created some computing process that could brute-force chess, it would still barely be a drop in the bucket of the power needed to brute force go. So yes, I think the tic-tac-toe analogy is valid.
There is no perfect game of chess. There is no tree that will yield a victory that we know of, however a lot of masters/GMs state that perfect play should result in white victory -- a lot say perfect play should result in a draw. We just don't know. Tic-Tac-Toe will always result in a tie. The thing is, chess should not be brute forced -- we don't brute force and we still win so why is chess being computed as brute force? A good chess player doesn't see value in one piece, but all of them.
Do you honestly believe a little more time spent on the algorithms for playing Chess is the primary reason computers can dominate humans in Chess and not even touch a competent one in Go given such an unimaginable exponential difference in complexity?
I didn't realize that being tied was dominating.
The difference between chess and Go is apples and oranges. There has been no decent algorithm work in the way of automated Go play. Period. End of story.
When there has been, yes, computers will be Go players like it is in chess. Keep in mind most good chess players (not great, just actual players) can beat chess computers purely because they play like a computer. Algorithms can be beaten. Kasparov lost because the computer was geared specifically to play against him, and he was playing a blind opponent.
For such a big tree size, about mid-game in chess I always feel like I'm in a freakin' straight jacket, my options become so limited. It's at about that point I begin wondering if there was something fun I could be doing in the meantime.
I can honestly say if you feel that way, not only chess isn't for you, but it's because you just aren't good at it. Seldom do I find myself in a position forced to do something, if I am, it's usually time to resign because I'm being forced into a mate.
Go interests me more because it offers much more freedom when it comes to what constitutes a good move.
Great, go play Go. We'll continue to play chess and code better computers. Go spend your time focusing on Go algorithms if that's what pleases you, but please leave chess players alone with the constant "Chess is a computationally easy problem" because it's not. If it was, Kramnik would be 0-7.
You can only (try to) evaluate Go sucessfully if you really really really play great Go. And that is a problem for a computer, that makes moves based on the evaluation function (ie: 1 pawn x 1 rook = good after 10 moves, I'd do that). In Go that doesn't work :)
Again, it's algorithm design. The reason why chess algorithms are brute force mixed with heuristics is because that's how humans play. The algorithms in chess still need to be worked out, as the pinnacle is still struggling against the world champion. Once Go gets more popular, I'm certain algorithms will be geared towards playing it. Until then, it doesn't have exposure and you won't be seeing any high level AI systems.
Maybe that's why many people do not like computer chess. Because we can have state of art inteligence but a simple computer can kick our ass. Then something must be wrong.
Most chess players don't like computer chess because they are predictable, and you can use anti-computer (computer crusher) techniques to beat them.
And I've only met a few good Counterstrike players that are able to beat me at Street Fighter. What's your point?
Rhetoric is lost, apparently. Next up to die: Irony.
My point is that they are different games. While a Go player can spout about how easy chess is, he won't beat me. Period. Unless he's been playing chess for a few years, he won't come close. They are different games, chess is not an easy game. Chess is as easy as your opponent, and so is Go.
So, to reiterate my point:
Saying Chess is an easy/boring game while you are not a Chess player is like saying Apples are better than Oranges when you've only seen an Orange on the tree.
Arguing about whether go or chess is better is bloody stupid. By any reasonable measure, go and chess are two of the best games that humans have invented. Different people like different games, and these two are no exception. I prefer go, so keep that bias in mind, but I started playing chess at 5 and still play.
Agreed, I wasn't stating that Chess was better than Go at any point.
No one's yet found perfect play in go. There's no reason to think it's not possible, but it's a staggering challenge given that there are still many openings (called fuseki on a larger scale, and joseki for primarily corner plays) that haven't been fully explored. The most comprehensive book of joseki available lists over 60,000. Joseki are roughly equivalent in complexity and importance to opening libraries in chess.
Again, you caught my point. There is no way to say it's a perfect Go game, nor is there in Chess.
I hope that after you hit "post" on this you realized how ignorant that sounds. Are you saying that go masters and chess masters should be able to play competitively against each other? That there's one omni "board-playing" skill that transfers easily between games? That's like a poker player dissing a bridge player for not beating him, or a 100-yard sprinter ragging on a marathoner - pointless.
No, it wasn't ignorant. It was merely saying that the games are so different that they actually have to learn the game. I get sick of people saying, "Chess is so easy compared to Go" -- if it's so easy, then why can't you just understand chess and beat me? That's the ignorant part. It was a rhetorical question, meant to deliver thoughtfulness as to why they can't beat me (Because they are different freaking games, that's why)
Some people are more blind about their game loyalties, and make silly comparisons. No reasonable person would say that chess is "easy." Chess is as easy as your opponent, just like go. From a game theory and programming perspective, however, chess is much easier than go. The world champion is in a serious match with a computer. Many people don't think that will happen for go this century.
Again, it's algorithm work. More work has gone into chess algorithms and "thinking" than has gone into Go. Chess is more popular than Go, hence a much more attractive target for most people to try to write algorithms for.
That's a great page to read, by the way. You're free to prefer any game you want, and I agree that there are snobs on both sides. But there's no question that, for computers, go makes chess look like tic-tac-toe.
Except that the sun will burn out by the time a computer can calculate a full move tree. I'm not sure how that's like tic-tac-toe.
I believe there has not been a single case of a serious Go player converting to Chess.
Chess is the third largest sporting body. FIDE consists of 173 Nations, trailing Soccer and the Olympics. I think the chess camp has plenty of people converting and playing.
The other direction however has shown plenty making that switch. It really ends up being like creationism versus evolution, the Go proponents having by far better arguments much like the evolution proponents.
No, this ends up being anecdotal at best. There are plenty of people who go from Go to chess and chess to go. It's called personal preference, I personally don't like Go. I think it's a rather silly game. Some people think chess is a rather silly game. There are no arguments between Go and Chess even in the same league as Evolution vs. Creationism. One is a game, the other is a game. They both are played on a board. That is the end of their similarities.
End of story. There are no comparisons that can be validly made. Anyone trying to say Chess is better than Go is stupid. Anyone trying to say Go is better than Chess is stupid. See my point?
Go argue about apples and oranges, you'll get further in life.. it's a shame that both are pawned off as intellectual games yet "proponents" are too dense to understand this.
Apparently there's a Japanese Go player who had begun playing chess as an aside and had quickly started climbing the ranks, as it were.
He is/was a Shogi player, I forgot his name now. He started playing chess and within 3 years achieved a master ranking.
For those not familiar, Shogi is very similar to chess with the capability to drop pieces.
Actually, there was a link from an earlier Slashdot Chess article-that-turned-into-a-chess-vs-Go discussion.
People that compare chess to go should have a digit removed each time. They are two seperate games, both intellectual at base. Which is better, VI or emacs? At least both of those are text editors. It'd be nice to see a thread about chess pop up on slashdot that doesn't have someone say Go is better, and visa versa.
Must suck to not actually play chess, just criticize it.
...therefore I concider that more of a challenge for AI.
The difference between chess and Go is phenominal. Weights of pieces, sacrifices, all towards a common goal. What's the point of Go? All the same, building "fences" and occupying territory.
Who wins at 9Dan perfect play with Go?
Go is a two-dimensional game, X + Y, many configurations yes, but depth? Hell no. I'm growing so tired of this new wave of Go fanactics boasting about how much better it is than chess.
I've never met one decent Go player who could come close to beating me at chess (I'm well under a Master) -- if chess is so easy, why can't you beat me? If it's so boring, why are their over 10^80 possible moves to be made? Lets see you brute force that, considering chess can result in victories by purposeful imperfect play.
Please go and read about chess computers, and about how they don't brute force (At least not the decent ones) -- they do heuristics based upon other games, cross referencing libraries and doing simple depth traversal on position.
Why are most computers so easy to beat? They rely on material/mate rather than position. You can bait a computer to be into a poor position by targeting "easy" mates that have a catastrophic counter move.
Since you seem to be an expert on AI, could you define it please? Could you define what, exactly, it would take for you to concider[sic] a chess computer as AI? You need to go read up on common algorithms for chess computers.
Wow! That's an old mother. Who would have known women were waiting until the age of 45+ to have children...
If she had kids at twenty that are now grown, is she not a mother? I'm hoping it was an attempt at humor, otherwise just a nasty case of the stupids.
Would it really be a bad thing for a mod: -1, Stupid?
Illiad had this figured out a while ago...
I submitted the idea for this one. It comes from a story a few years back (1996, I believe). Here is the original story that I sent in to him: I was working tech support for this unfriendly piece of hardware that refused to work properly with most standard shipped-on-Windows-CD video card drivers. The common support call was just telling them to upgrade the video card drivers.
A friend who sat behind me (who is now the mother of my niece) gets a call that I took earlier in the day instructing the lady to download the new drivers and call us back for installation instructions.
I wasn't on a call so I was paying attention to her call (easy job) and it went (from my end):
Tech: Ok, so now that you have uncompressed the driver, right click on the desktop and on the popup menu that shows up, select Properties.
<moment of silence>
Ok, well move the mouse cursor away from any icons, and try it again.
<another moment, she glances at me with the "Stupid Caller" look>
Alright, are you sure you are pressing the right mouse button?
<another moment, a bit longer. In a strained voice: > Mam, I need to put you on hold real quickly, please hold.
She flicks the hold switch, than just dies laughing.
The caller had wrote the world click on her desk 3 times in pen.
Yes, this is a true story. It's probably the most clueless, but not the most amusing one I've encountered.
Yes it is. 335.5 people per square kilometer is over capacity. But it makes up for it by the fact that much of the REST of the world is under capacity, which was my whole point. The reason 335.5 people per square mile can live in Japan is because much of their food production (including fishing) occurs elsewhere, outside the country's political boundry.
Have you ever been to Japan? I'd be really surprised if you have and think it's over capacity. Outside of Tokyo, it is not crowded. If you haven't been to Japan, you are talking out of your ass.
And please provide proof that "much of their food production occurs elsewhere, outside the country's political boundry."
What a load of crap. First, lets get one thing straight. You can be no more "semi-pro" than you can be "kind of pregnant". You either are or aren't.
Actually, I have to argue with the point you make here. It's important to the context of the article.
You see, they have any entire group of cameras named for these people. Prosumer, maybe you have heard of it. I don't know. I know a guy who can paint works that make Dali look horrible, but he isn't a painter. Nope, he makes coffee. He'll sell some of his work (for a rather large sum) only if he knows the person and knows they understand the meaning, and what it took for him to do it. He's a semi-pro painter. He paints, could easily support himself on it (If he sold his collection of his own work he'd probably make well over 6 figures) but he chooses not to, or at least only when he desires. That's where the "semi-" comes in.
It also comes in when someone does it as a part time job. It is not the profession, only a segment of it.
For a photographer to be semi-professional, it just means they do not do it as their primary source of income.
Understand the difference between 41.3 and 335.5? It's a rather large one.
...but each year the human population increases closer to (or perhaps beyond) the carrying capacity of the planet. from the original parent. I'm not wrong. The planet can handle many many many more people. Unfortunately, it has a problem with human nature but that is independant of the number.
Yep, and you know what? Japan isn't even close to being filled to capacity. The point stands: Earth is no where near carrying capacity.
The reason I provided the numbers and the data is purely for this sentence:
My T68 is being repaired for the second time in a month - it goes into a state where it refuses to make or receive calls, mainly on GSM-1800 networks. Along with the frequent crashes and spontaneous switching-off in my pocket (even though keypad lock is on), this is making me less than impressed with SonyEricsson...
I'd ask for a replacement phone. I know 4 people that have T68's and have never had any problem. There is a bug with the keylock though, and you can turn the phone off. I've done it before, but forgot what the key combo was.. I remember thinking it was really stupid. I turned AutoLock on, and it went away (go figure) and doesn't do it anymore. The only gripe I have with the phone is that the clip that holds the battery in is easy to pry open when you are digging in your pocket. I've popped my battery of twice catching pens and what not on it.
Of course, the phone isn't very fancy. No color screen or anything. Just a slimmer 61xx-style phone, but with all the stuff you really want: GPRS, Bluetooth, WAP.
:) (Fully charged is about 6h-6:30)
Well, I got a nice color screen so I'll take my 1 hour shorter battery life
Indeed. When I got my current UID it was during a big upswing of account creation (just around the time Netscape was going to be open sourced). I remember feeling like such a n00b when they introduced moderation and my UID was too high to qualify at first.
I always just thought, "Eh, I'll never post on here." *cough* 1605 comments *cough*
I suppose that is low for how low my UID is. Can you believe they're up to 600,000 now?
From the website:
My Ericsson T68 with the battery bar at half:
I've never had a Nokia even go close to this phone. I get about 5 hours of talk time on my phone, and I've verified it's battery reporting function too.
I'll stick with Sony Ericsson
Thanks for the info. Right now I don't have medical/vision insurance, but need to go to the doctor. My prescription is about 2 years old, and has stabilized. I still would wait at least another year for it -- I'm just concerned because my eyes don't really contract, and I have some concerns about it functioning well with my eyes.