There is. This only supports animation, not ActionScript. Interactive applications like games, charts, menus, etc don't get to come along for the ride.
True, you get to dump the buggy Flash plugin, and that's a good thing. On the other hand, you lose all the things that make Flash more than just a video player.
The computer can track not only how well each player does, but how well combinations of players do as a group. It can weigh that information to a far greater extent than a human coach.
Which is not to say it'll always be right, or to outright dismiss the obvious presence of intuition and randomness of a human coach, but intuition and randomness introduce as many brilliantly wrong answers as they do brilliantly right ones.
Not necessarily. If both computers had the same program and both were loaded with the exact same information, then yes, that's almost certain. But each computer would have (one would hope) more information about the players on its own team, for example, that might change the optimal answer. You might also have independent programmers or parameter tweakers on either team making changes to their algorithm.
There's also going to be a certain element of randomness, where two or three optimal answers are near-ties, and it's more optimal to pick randomly between the multiple decent answers rather than optimizing the "most correct" answer to a very high degree. Doing what your opponent does not expect is worth more than a small increase in probability of success, so you pick the top x answers that all fall within a given range of optimal and randomly select one.
But, yeah, if there's an "obviously correct" play, the computer is probably going to pick it. In the same way, the die-hard and very informed fans of most sports can predict to a relatively high confidence level what game the human coach is going to choose.
I remember reading the same kinds of things about another game of similar complexity that IBM built a computer to try out a few years ago. The concept that a computer could possibly beat a human at this complex, intuition-based game was considered ridiculous.
If I recall correctly, Kasparov didn't fare so well. In fact, Deep Blue figuratively kicked his ass (of the 5 games played, two were played to a draw and three were won by Deep Blue. Since then, computer power has increased to the point where any relatively modern desktop PC could accomplish the same task, and most smartphones could probably do the same.
Unless there are an infinite number of plays, it's going to be possible to find all the possible plays that could be made, prioritize them based on chances of success and desirability of outcome, and pick the one that has the best chance of achieving the desired result. That's not to say that a computer coach is ever going to win a game without a team that has some talent themselves, but it could almost certainly lead one.
A computer coach is probably not (at least in the near future) going to be able to actually COACH a team (as in, develop team rapport, hone player skills, work out player interpersonal issues, etc). Mostly because the players are not going to respond well, and the computer can't be programmed with enough information yet.
But I'd expect the Watson team could probably adapt Watson to lead an awesome game of (insert sport here) in fairly short order.
As a parent myself, I have to respectfully suggest that a real solution is to be a parent.
When your kids get old enough to be exposed to the big scary Internet, they'll encounter stuff no matter what you do. Bring them up with a healthy respect for the difference between fantasy and reality, a little dose of "not everyone who claims to be your friend, is your friend", and the mean old world won't be so scary and mysterious to them when you suddenly turn off the parental controls and set them loose when they're 18.
Anyone who successfully survives the experience is awarded the patent.
Let's further that...
"If the bear is the eventual winner, the patent is awarded, in perpetuity, to the public. If the bear is not the eventual winner, we keep swapping out bears until it is."
Change (2) to "any person or group can pay the patentholder to release the patent into public domain" and you'll basically be repeating the proposal I made about copyrights a couple of days ago (and did not copyright or patent, so I'm not complaining!).
Needless to say, with that one little modification, I agree. (grin).
No, parents are allowed to set up parental controls for iPucks they give to their kids, though. Opera bypasses those controls, so the entire app has (by Apple policy, and probably COPA law since Apple is taking on the liability of parental controls) to be marked as "not safe for yon chilluns"
Yes, but Opera Mini sends all traffic to Opera's proxies. There's no way for Apple Parental Control to know what the Opera browser is seeing, it's just a connection to borkborkbork.opera.com or whatever. So if Apple blocked the opera.com domain, Opera wouldn't work at all.
I'm not saying the Parental Controls work. We all know they don't really work. The problem is that Safari is subject to them, and Opera bypasses them, therefore Apple cannot even claim a good-faith effort to protect the chilluns from seeing sausage and meatballs or melons and bush on Opera.
I think offering to sell a child something they can't legally get on their own is the kind of activity that will get your address listed on the "naughty people who mess with kiddies" lists for life. Fair warning that they don't differentiate between "buying alcohol for a 20 year old" and "sexually violating an infant" on that list, and neither will the angry armed vigilante living three doors down...
Safari respects Apple's Parental Control system. Opera does not.
If Opera respected Apple's "Parental Control" settings, Apple would not have to issue this warning. This isn't anti-competitive, this is a clear violation of their own well-documented policies of providing working parental controls if they don't do this.
Sorry, I'm not an Apple fanboi by any stretch, I hate the idea of the walled garden, etc etc. But for once this is something Apple needs to do. Not because I agree with the concept of Parental Controls, but because Apple has decided to offer them and they therefore have an obligation to make sure they work as well as they possibly can.
Which is to say, pretty much not at all. But when software is introduced that falls outside the parental controls Apple can enforce, Apple needs to post a warning about it to keep parents in their false sense of security that their kids aren't looking at bush and balls.
Because Apple's implementation of Safari respects Apple's Parental Controls, so if your parents bought you one they could (if they wanted to) lock you own of porn by using well-documented settings on the device.
Opera and many other browsers do not respect those controls, therefore Apple cannot prevent you from seeing porn, and they have to let Mom and Dad know that so they don't run afoul of the Child Online Protection Act (COPA) and get in trouble.
It's all about how us adults like to fool ourselves that we can somehow protect you from things that occur in nature. So stop looking at porn and go watch a violent kiddie cartoon like a good little boy.
Safari respects Apple's Parental Control system. Opera does not. Therefore, Safari does not require a warning since parents can lock it down if they choose, Opera cannot be locked down using any Apple controls so Apple has to warn parents that it falls outside of the "safe zone" and can be used to access porn no matter what Parental Controls are set for the iDevice.
Apple has created an environment they can claim is kid-safe. They have a Safari browser that you can enable parental controls on, and (in theory) keep your kids away from looking at melons and sausages and keep them looking at cartoon violence like God intended.
Opera is not "hooked in" to that control. Opera Mini runs proxy servers direct back to Opera and all content is routed through there (to save you on bandwidth and phone battery when rendering complex sites). Apple cannot be made aware of what sites your kids might be accessing, and cannot keep them away from porn and other sites you might find undesirable for them to see.
Therefore, since Opera is not subject to the Apple Parental Control system and can be used to view porn even if Parental Controls are turned on, it has to be marked as such or Apple gets kicked out of the COPA Cabana (*).
I'd assume so. Opera Mini (which appears to be the version Opera is selling) has a major selling point in that all page requests go through Opera's own proxies. Opera's proxies do a lot of the heavy lifting (Javascript, etc) and present the web page as a compressed image-and-text to the phone, meaning you use a LOT less of your monthly allotment of data and a LOT less processing power on your phone to render the web pages.
The downside is that, simply put, your phone is only connecting to Opera's proxies (the other downside is that Opera gets to see everything you send and receive, and I don't think SSL encryption works to protect your data from Opera's proxies, and you thought Google paranoia was bad!).
From Apple's point of view, they can't implement parental controls in Opera, because you never connect to any porn sites when surfing porn. You connect to Opera's proxy.
So Apple has to acknowledge (since they've set up an environment that they claim is "child-safe") that they cannot stop porn on Opera, and therefore Opera operates outside the "safe zone".
Don't worry, your kids can still download all the cartoon violence they want. So your values are safe!
IANAL, but that might work. I don't know the legal definition of "third party" as used in their licensing agreements, and whether selling it to a common-property partner would honestly be a "third party". Maybe someone who IS a lawyer could chime in on that.
I doubt it's worth that trouble, though, since I can't imagine Microsoft would ever be stupid enough to enforce against an action that has appeared in their own marketing materials. But it might be worth typing up a bill of sale and making it legit all the same. At least you can show you've made a good faith effort, whereas Microsoft (who has printed language saying "building a machine for yourself makes you a builder and qualified to use OEM" on their marketing materials for years) has clearly contradicted themselves.
Of course, it really doesn't matter. They'd approach you under the DCMA, not a sane law, and they'd sue you for some amount that was just above the threshold for small claims court so you'd feel you needed a lawyer, but just below what it would cost to hire a lawyer to defend yourself, with a threat that it'd turn into a multi-hundred-thousand-dollar suit if you didn't send them their check for a few thousand to settle it.
Faced with bankruptcy or losing a few thousand, you'd do what most people do when faced with a piracy lawsuit, justified or no. You'd pay up.
But, again, Microsoft would be very unlikely to be stupid enough to risk the bad will from their paying customers, even if a few of those customers got a slight discount they weren't technically entitled to. At least they paid SOMETHING for the right to run Windows, right?
Sure, there's lots of use of justifiable force. If you're in a job where the people you interact with will fight, you have the absolute and utter right to defend yourself and you have the obligation to apply the force necessary to complete the task at hand.
That doesn't mean you get a free pass when you taze a guy who is already lying down in a submissive position begging not to be tazed, even if he had previously resisted arrest. That doesn't mean you can zap an 80-year-old woman who is presenting you with verbal (not physical) resistance. That doesn't mean you can form a circle around a black man who tried to run and take turns beating the billy-club bejessus out of him while he lies on the ground screaming in pain.
Are these isolated incidents? Sure.
Are the vast majority of officers honorable people trying to do an honest job under very difficult circumstances? Absolutely.
Might there be a reasonable explanation behind each of these incidents? Sure. Let's hear it. Don't arrest the person who took the video, allow them to freely air it and then present your own case. The first amendment exists for a reason, and just because you have a gun doesn't mean you own the truth. Have your say, but don't try to make it the only say, or people will simply assume you are trying to cover something up.
With power comes responsibility. If you don't want the responsibility, turn in your badge and gun on your way out and find a job that you can handle.
If I, as a taxpaying citizen, am going to authorize someone to carry a gun and represent the interests of myself and my fellow citizens to protect us from internal threats, I think it's perfectly reasonable to expect that the person will perform their job as a professional. I know I'm held to that standard in my employment, and I don't think it's unreasonable to expect the same from someone who society has handed "extra" powers to.
That means pulling me over and giving me a ticket if I'm caught speeding, or putting me in jail if I'm caught driving drunk, using reasonable force to restrain me if I resist, and using deadly force if I am a clear and present danger. That also means being public about 'fessing up to mistakes (if I pull out my wallet and you think it's a gun, that could still be a justifiable shooting, even if you kill me and I presented no threat. My wife might not think so at the time, of course. But mistakes happen. If you honestly thought I was a threat, you had the right and duty to protect yourself, and the only way to protect yourself from an armed man is to kill him - injury means he might still use his gun and kill you. Tragic mistakes are tragic, but mistakes. Attempting to cover it up, however, is unacceptable.).
That does NOT include beating the shit out of me for making a snide remark or engaging in unfortunate but nonthreatening behavior. That does NOT include striking me in any way, shape, or form unless it is immediately necessary to protect yourself from injury. That does NOT include abusing, arresting, or even hassling a non-interfering bystander because they were taking video of the event. You are performing a public service, in public, which affects the public. Tell your chief when you get back to the station so he can get your side of the story out.
Slashdot Mirror
It's on the way. I found you a really expensive one. It's nice.
I used your credit card, hope you don't mind.
Meesa poopsa?
There is. This only supports animation, not ActionScript. Interactive applications like games, charts, menus, etc don't get to come along for the ride.
True, you get to dump the buggy Flash plugin, and that's a good thing. On the other hand, you lose all the things that make Flash more than just a video player.
Player history?
The computer can track not only how well each player does, but how well combinations of players do as a group. It can weigh that information to a far greater extent than a human coach.
Which is not to say it'll always be right, or to outright dismiss the obvious presence of intuition and randomness of a human coach, but intuition and randomness introduce as many brilliantly wrong answers as they do brilliantly right ones.
Not necessarily. If both computers had the same program and both were loaded with the exact same information, then yes, that's almost certain. But each computer would have (one would hope) more information about the players on its own team, for example, that might change the optimal answer. You might also have independent programmers or parameter tweakers on either team making changes to their algorithm.
There's also going to be a certain element of randomness, where two or three optimal answers are near-ties, and it's more optimal to pick randomly between the multiple decent answers rather than optimizing the "most correct" answer to a very high degree. Doing what your opponent does not expect is worth more than a small increase in probability of success, so you pick the top x answers that all fall within a given range of optimal and randomly select one.
But, yeah, if there's an "obviously correct" play, the computer is probably going to pick it. In the same way, the die-hard and very informed fans of most sports can predict to a relatively high confidence level what game the human coach is going to choose.
I remember reading the same kinds of things about another game of similar complexity that IBM built a computer to try out a few years ago. The concept that a computer could possibly beat a human at this complex, intuition-based game was considered ridiculous.
If I recall correctly, Kasparov didn't fare so well. In fact, Deep Blue figuratively kicked his ass (of the 5 games played, two were played to a draw and three were won by Deep Blue. Since then, computer power has increased to the point where any relatively modern desktop PC could accomplish the same task, and most smartphones could probably do the same.
Unless there are an infinite number of plays, it's going to be possible to find all the possible plays that could be made, prioritize them based on chances of success and desirability of outcome, and pick the one that has the best chance of achieving the desired result. That's not to say that a computer coach is ever going to win a game without a team that has some talent themselves, but it could almost certainly lead one.
A computer coach is probably not (at least in the near future) going to be able to actually COACH a team (as in, develop team rapport, hone player skills, work out player interpersonal issues, etc). Mostly because the players are not going to respond well, and the computer can't be programmed with enough information yet.
But I'd expect the Watson team could probably adapt Watson to lead an awesome game of (insert sport here) in fairly short order.
D'OH! And you'd think I'd be better about that from my slide rule days.
As a parent myself, I have to respectfully suggest that a real solution is to be a parent.
When your kids get old enough to be exposed to the big scary Internet, they'll encounter stuff no matter what you do. Bring them up with a healthy respect for the difference between fantasy and reality, a little dose of "not everyone who claims to be your friend, is your friend", and the mean old world won't be so scary and mysterious to them when you suddenly turn off the parental controls and set them loose when they're 18.
Anyone who successfully survives the experience is awarded the patent.
Let's further that...
"If the bear is the eventual winner, the patent is awarded, in perpetuity, to the public. If the bear is not the eventual winner, we keep swapping out bears until it is."
Change (2) to "any person or group can pay the patentholder to release the patent into public domain" and you'll basically be repeating the proposal I made about copyrights a couple of days ago (and did not copyright or patent, so I'm not complaining!).
Needless to say, with that one little modification, I agree. (grin).
It slows down. A little.
What, 0.93% of the drive capacity isn't enough for you? I bet you want a whole 1% of drive capacity all to yourself.
Greedy bastard...
What would you suggest as an alternative?
No, parents are allowed to set up parental controls for iPucks they give to their kids, though. Opera bypasses those controls, so the entire app has (by Apple policy, and probably COPA law since Apple is taking on the liability of parental controls) to be marked as "not safe for yon chilluns"
Yes, but Opera Mini sends all traffic to Opera's proxies. There's no way for Apple Parental Control to know what the Opera browser is seeing, it's just a connection to borkborkbork.opera.com or whatever. So if Apple blocked the opera.com domain, Opera wouldn't work at all.
They should have learned the lesson from Ford. Anything named "Taurus" should be avoided.
I'm not saying the Parental Controls work. We all know they don't really work. The problem is that Safari is subject to them, and Opera bypasses them, therefore Apple cannot even claim a good-faith effort to protect the chilluns from seeing sausage and meatballs or melons and bush on Opera.
It's a legal disclaimer.
I think offering to sell a child something they can't legally get on their own is the kind of activity that will get your address listed on the "naughty people who mess with kiddies" lists for life. Fair warning that they don't differentiate between "buying alcohol for a 20 year old" and "sexually violating an infant" on that list, and neither will the angry armed vigilante living three doors down...
Safari respects Apple's Parental Control system. Opera does not.
If Opera respected Apple's "Parental Control" settings, Apple would not have to issue this warning. This isn't anti-competitive, this is a clear violation of their own well-documented policies of providing working parental controls if they don't do this.
Sorry, I'm not an Apple fanboi by any stretch, I hate the idea of the walled garden, etc etc. But for once this is something Apple needs to do. Not because I agree with the concept of Parental Controls, but because Apple has decided to offer them and they therefore have an obligation to make sure they work as well as they possibly can.
Which is to say, pretty much not at all. But when software is introduced that falls outside the parental controls Apple can enforce, Apple needs to post a warning about it to keep parents in their false sense of security that their kids aren't looking at bush and balls.
Because Apple's implementation of Safari respects Apple's Parental Controls, so if your parents bought you one they could (if they wanted to) lock you own of porn by using well-documented settings on the device.
Opera and many other browsers do not respect those controls, therefore Apple cannot prevent you from seeing porn, and they have to let Mom and Dad know that so they don't run afoul of the Child Online Protection Act (COPA) and get in trouble.
It's all about how us adults like to fool ourselves that we can somehow protect you from things that occur in nature. So stop looking at porn and go watch a violent kiddie cartoon like a good little boy.
Safari respects Apple's Parental Control system. Opera does not. Therefore, Safari does not require a warning since parents can lock it down if they choose, Opera cannot be locked down using any Apple controls so Apple has to warn parents that it falls outside of the "safe zone" and can be used to access porn no matter what Parental Controls are set for the iDevice.
Apple has created an environment they can claim is kid-safe. They have a Safari browser that you can enable parental controls on, and (in theory) keep your kids away from looking at melons and sausages and keep them looking at cartoon violence like God intended.
Opera is not "hooked in" to that control. Opera Mini runs proxy servers direct back to Opera and all content is routed through there (to save you on bandwidth and phone battery when rendering complex sites). Apple cannot be made aware of what sites your kids might be accessing, and cannot keep them away from porn and other sites you might find undesirable for them to see.
Therefore, since Opera is not subject to the Apple Parental Control system and can be used to view porn even if Parental Controls are turned on, it has to be marked as such or Apple gets kicked out of the COPA Cabana (*).
(*) The most boring spot north of Havana.
I'd assume so. Opera Mini (which appears to be the version Opera is selling) has a major selling point in that all page requests go through Opera's own proxies. Opera's proxies do a lot of the heavy lifting (Javascript, etc) and present the web page as a compressed image-and-text to the phone, meaning you use a LOT less of your monthly allotment of data and a LOT less processing power on your phone to render the web pages.
The downside is that, simply put, your phone is only connecting to Opera's proxies (the other downside is that Opera gets to see everything you send and receive, and I don't think SSL encryption works to protect your data from Opera's proxies, and you thought Google paranoia was bad!).
From Apple's point of view, they can't implement parental controls in Opera, because you never connect to any porn sites when surfing porn. You connect to Opera's proxy.
So Apple has to acknowledge (since they've set up an environment that they claim is "child-safe") that they cannot stop porn on Opera, and therefore Opera operates outside the "safe zone".
Don't worry, your kids can still download all the cartoon violence they want. So your values are safe!
IANAL, but that might work. I don't know the legal definition of "third party" as used in their licensing agreements, and whether selling it to a common-property partner would honestly be a "third party". Maybe someone who IS a lawyer could chime in on that.
I doubt it's worth that trouble, though, since I can't imagine Microsoft would ever be stupid enough to enforce against an action that has appeared in their own marketing materials. But it might be worth typing up a bill of sale and making it legit all the same. At least you can show you've made a good faith effort, whereas Microsoft (who has printed language saying "building a machine for yourself makes you a builder and qualified to use OEM" on their marketing materials for years) has clearly contradicted themselves.
Of course, it really doesn't matter. They'd approach you under the DCMA, not a sane law, and they'd sue you for some amount that was just above the threshold for small claims court so you'd feel you needed a lawyer, but just below what it would cost to hire a lawyer to defend yourself, with a threat that it'd turn into a multi-hundred-thousand-dollar suit if you didn't send them their check for a few thousand to settle it.
Faced with bankruptcy or losing a few thousand, you'd do what most people do when faced with a piracy lawsuit, justified or no. You'd pay up.
But, again, Microsoft would be very unlikely to be stupid enough to risk the bad will from their paying customers, even if a few of those customers got a slight discount they weren't technically entitled to. At least they paid SOMETHING for the right to run Windows, right?
Sure, there's lots of use of justifiable force. If you're in a job where the people you interact with will fight, you have the absolute and utter right to defend yourself and you have the obligation to apply the force necessary to complete the task at hand.
That doesn't mean you get a free pass when you taze a guy who is already lying down in a submissive position begging not to be tazed, even if he had previously resisted arrest. That doesn't mean you can zap an 80-year-old woman who is presenting you with verbal (not physical) resistance. That doesn't mean you can form a circle around a black man who tried to run and take turns beating the billy-club bejessus out of him while he lies on the ground screaming in pain.
Are these isolated incidents? Sure.
Are the vast majority of officers honorable people trying to do an honest job under very difficult circumstances? Absolutely.
Might there be a reasonable explanation behind each of these incidents? Sure. Let's hear it. Don't arrest the person who took the video, allow them to freely air it and then present your own case. The first amendment exists for a reason, and just because you have a gun doesn't mean you own the truth. Have your say, but don't try to make it the only say, or people will simply assume you are trying to cover something up.
With power comes responsibility. If you don't want the responsibility, turn in your badge and gun on your way out and find a job that you can handle.
If I, as a taxpaying citizen, am going to authorize someone to carry a gun and represent the interests of myself and my fellow citizens to protect us from internal threats, I think it's perfectly reasonable to expect that the person will perform their job as a professional. I know I'm held to that standard in my employment, and I don't think it's unreasonable to expect the same from someone who society has handed "extra" powers to.
That means pulling me over and giving me a ticket if I'm caught speeding, or putting me in jail if I'm caught driving drunk, using reasonable force to restrain me if I resist, and using deadly force if I am a clear and present danger. That also means being public about 'fessing up to mistakes (if I pull out my wallet and you think it's a gun, that could still be a justifiable shooting, even if you kill me and I presented no threat. My wife might not think so at the time, of course. But mistakes happen. If you honestly thought I was a threat, you had the right and duty to protect yourself, and the only way to protect yourself from an armed man is to kill him - injury means he might still use his gun and kill you. Tragic mistakes are tragic, but mistakes. Attempting to cover it up, however, is unacceptable.).
That does NOT include beating the shit out of me for making a snide remark or engaging in unfortunate but nonthreatening behavior. That does NOT include striking me in any way, shape, or form unless it is immediately necessary to protect yourself from injury. That does NOT include abusing, arresting, or even hassling a non-interfering bystander because they were taking video of the event. You are performing a public service, in public, which affects the public. Tell your chief when you get back to the station so he can get your side of the story out.