And by the way, the best bet in the whole house is the "odds" bet on the craps table....
I think you need to compute the odds again. The casino takes a big chunk of all bets at the craps table except the pass/come and don't pass/don't come lines. In fact, I think you'll find that the don't pass/don't come bets are the best odds the house offers, at least at American casinos.
Yeah, 100 times a second, a normal star would fly apart, pulsars are not normal stars though and can withstand that spin due to how they are made. (100/s is actually pretty slow, 1K/s and 10K/s are also out there.)
Do you have a reference for any pulsar that spins more than 1000 times per second? I just googled around a bit, and the fastest one I could find is PSR 1937+21, which spins about 640 times per second.
This is a very cogent analysis. I hope that standards bodies and non-US governments are up to the task of defeating this ploy, if in fact your analysis is correct. Your last point is dead on.
Amen to that. The only problem I see is that for such a device to be practical to me, it needs an antenna that can be located a few feet from the laptop.
I just hope they don't do the 1970's... I mean, Vice City already did all the "boy, people were weird back then... look at their clothes/hair/idioms!" jokes.
Gee, thanks. Although the gas lines really did suck!
According to this page, air is essentially incompressible until roughly 1/3 the speed of sound. I was wrong about where the onset of compressibility takes place, but I was clearly correct about the notion that air acts incompressibly at low airspeeds and exhibits compressibility only at higher airspeeds.
Furthermore, although you throw a bunch of terms around very nicely, you clearly don't know what you're writing about. Induced drag has nothing to do with airspeed -- that's form or parasitic drag. Induced drag is the drag induced by the creation of lift, and can be thought of in terms of the backward tilt of the lift vector as you increase g loading, as in a high performance turn. Induced drag is one of the two main reasons that fighters need afterburners -- the other being in order to accelerate quickly to top speed.
I hate to burst your "bubble," but from the standpoint of aerodynamics, air behaves as an incompressible fluid until you get close to the speed of sound. So air and water work in much the same way at typical speeds.
Unlike in true flight, where it doesn't require more energy to maintain an altitude of 2000 feet than 1000,
Yes it does, the air is thinner up there.
Not in my experience. Sure the air is thinner, but you end up flying faster to compensate. Aircraft measure airspeed using a concept called indicated airspeed, which basically just reflects the amount of air whizzing by. Within a pretty large range of altitude, most jets use the same fuel flow to maintain the same indicated airspeed, and the indicated airspeed is really what counts when computing lift. So if I can keep airborne at 200 KIAS (knots indicated airspeed) at sea level, I can pretty much do the same at 20,000 feet. My KTAS (knots true airspeed) will be higher, of course. But the thrust required, and the corresponding fuel flow will remain about the same.
I guess we just have to come up with something that's "for the children" and "fights terrorism" at the same time. Seems to me, that would be an unstoppable combination.
Quite true. In addition, my experience tells me that India also has plenty of smart, educated, highly motivated people as well. I don't think it's going to prove much of a challenge for them to manage a collection of Linux machines.
I realize that this comment goes against the political correctness favored by a significant percentage of the slashdot crowd, but Admiral Pointexter is not a convicted felon. True, he was a convicted felon for a time, but the conviction was overturned on appeal and no longer stands. I know that some folks don't like the way our legal system works on occasion, but that's the way it works. It doesn't strengthen one's treatise to pepper it with half truths and lies.
A student work is a work produced by a registered student without the use of University funds (other than Student Financial Aid), that is produced outside any University employment, and is not a sponsored, contracted facilities, or commissioned work.
Ownership of copyrights to student works shall reside with the originator. (Emphasis added.)
So in the University of California system, at least, students own their own work -- unless they get paid for it via a research grant or something, maybe. What am I missing here?
I'm sorry, but in a movie theater with six (or more) channel sound, I can definitely hear sounds coming from the rear speakers and differentiate them from sounds coming from the front speakers. When I saw Star Wars for the first time (1977), I could clearly hear the spaceships rumble overhead from behind me to ahead of me. No way that can be done with two speakers (unless you consider humongous two dimensional speakers) -- at least not for a relatively large listening area. I remember some fancy "3D" sound field technology about 20 years ago that came from just two speakers, but the effect was highly localized. It doesn't seem to have caught on, either.
Furthermore, low frequency sound travels to the ears through your bones as well as through the ear canals, which is why you can literally "feel" the sound sometimes. And that's the point of the.1 in 5.1 systems.
The sophisticated headphones to which you allude generally have complex speaker systems built in -- each side produces a front and a back. And there's no way that headphones can accurately reproduce very low frequency sound in a convincing manner -- it's that bone conduction thing again. I think you're not completely familiar with the way we hear things.
Well, I suppose you're suggesting that we can differentiate only left and right. Then please explain how we can differentiate front and back as well (without moving our heads)? Maybe sound reproduction is a bit more complex than you realize. Maybe you don't know what you're talking about?
I for one could hear distinct differences between CD's and vinyl on superb classical recordings. However, you are right about me being anal....
It also seems that many folks don't understand why such matches have an even number of games -- in order to equalize the number of times each player plays as white or black. Also, it's theoretically possible for all games to be drawn, so there's never really a guarantee that any match will be decisive.
I have to admit I learned Fortran in high school in 1966. And we did use punch cards. Programming the card puncher to automatically skip columns and stuff was part of the fun.
How is it that you can conclude that Mark Barnett "caved" and not the other way around? Sounds to me as if he got the better deal. Just because the other guy didn't realize he was getting screwed doesn't mean that he didn't get screwed. And why should Mark abuse himself when such an opportunity presented itself? I think you're being unnecessarily judgmental here.
It would be interesting to see what you would do under similar circumstances.
OTOH, you could look at it this way: all other things being (relatively) equal, an OS developed by a bunch of guys around the world for free performed as well as an OS developed by a bunch of millionaires for $billions.
Agreed. I remember seeing ads like this in the Kyoto subway system in 1984.
Re:Someone posts a chess computer story...
on
Men vs. Machines
·
· Score: 1
Well, I already agreed that Kasparov was put a significant disadvantage. In fact, I'm pretty sure that he had NO opportunity to study the computer's past games, because it had been significantly revised and the IBM team deliberately refused to give him any sample games. All in all, I'd like to see a computer participate in a strong round robin tournament as you suggested. I also think that it's only a matter of time, because the advances in speed and such will just overwhelm us poor humans. Of course, all that it really demonstrates is that machines can crunch through enormous numbers of possibilities and handle certain computations better than humans can. For example, if a strong machine makes it to a five piece or less endgame, it will play the remainder of the game flawlessly, and it does so with no real intelligence.
For what it's worth, mathematicians have had to put up with the "tyranny of the machine" with the acceptance of a computerized exhaustive search that confirms the proof of the (formerly) famous "four color theorem." But what can you do?
Re:Someone posts a chess computer story...
on
Men vs. Machines
·
· Score: 1
You are correct when you observe that Kasparov was denied the opportunity to prepare for Deep Blue, and therefore that Deep Blue's win is somewhat diminished.
However, I think it's fair for Deep Blue's handlers to tune Deep Blue for Kasparov or any other opponent. If Deep Blue were to play in a tournament, it would make sense for the handlers to prepare it for each opponent, and then to set up its style of play for any particular game based on the opponent in that game. Human grandmasters do as much. They take their opponent into consideration, including recently played games, when they decide how to play a specific game in a tournament.
I agree completely with your observation that creating a computer program that could win a prestigious international round robin tournament would be a much more impressive achievenment. However, adjusting the style of play for each opponent would be fair game.
Slashdot Mirror
This is a very cogent analysis. I hope that standards bodies and non-US governments are up to the task of defeating this ploy, if in fact your analysis is correct. Your last point is dead on.
Amen to that. The only problem I see is that for such a device to be practical to me, it needs an antenna that can be located a few feet from the laptop.
Although the gas lines really did suck!
According to this page, air is essentially incompressible until roughly 1/3 the speed of sound. I was wrong about where the onset of compressibility takes place, but I was clearly correct about the notion that air acts incompressibly at low airspeeds and exhibits compressibility only at higher airspeeds.
Furthermore, although you throw a bunch of terms around very nicely, you clearly don't know what you're writing about. Induced drag has nothing to do with airspeed -- that's form or parasitic drag. Induced drag is the drag induced by the creation of lift, and can be thought of in terms of the backward tilt of the lift vector as you increase g loading, as in a high performance turn. Induced drag is one of the two main reasons that fighters need afterburners -- the other being in order to accelerate quickly to top speed.
I hate to burst your "bubble," but from the standpoint of aerodynamics, air behaves as an incompressible fluid until you get close to the speed of sound. So air and water work in much the same way at typical speeds.
Not in my experience. Sure the air is thinner, but you end up flying faster to compensate. Aircraft measure airspeed using a concept called indicated airspeed, which basically just reflects the amount of air whizzing by. Within a pretty large range of altitude, most jets use the same fuel flow to maintain the same indicated airspeed, and the indicated airspeed is really what counts when computing lift. So if I can keep airborne at 200 KIAS (knots indicated airspeed) at sea level, I can pretty much do the same at 20,000 feet. My KTAS (knots true airspeed) will be higher, of course. But the thrust required, and the corresponding fuel flow will remain about the same.
They (the Corporation for Public Broadcasting) get a few hundred million per year from our government's revenue (taxes).
Light has mass -- it just has zero REST mass. Light particles (photons) are affected by gravity -- a demonstration of their mass.
I guess we just have to come up with something that's "for the children" and "fights terrorism" at the same time. Seems to me, that would be an unstoppable combination.
Quite true. In addition, my experience tells me that India also has plenty of smart, educated, highly motivated people as well. I don't think it's going to prove much of a challenge for them to manage a collection of Linux machines.
I realize that this comment goes against the political correctness favored by a significant percentage of the slashdot crowd, but Admiral Pointexter is not a convicted felon. True, he was a convicted felon for a time, but the conviction was overturned on appeal and no longer stands. I know that some folks don't like the way our legal system works on occasion, but that's the way it works. It doesn't strengthen one's treatise to pepper it with half truths and lies.
So in the University of California system, at least, students own their own work -- unless they get paid for it via a research grant or something, maybe. What am I missing here?
Thanks for saying this. I was going to make the exact same point with the exact same title. Fortunately, I found your comment first.
Think about this for a second....
.1 in 5.1 systems.
OK -- done.
I'm sorry, but in a movie theater with six (or more) channel sound, I can definitely hear sounds coming from the rear speakers and differentiate them from sounds coming from the front speakers. When I saw Star Wars for the first time (1977), I could clearly hear the spaceships rumble overhead from behind me to ahead of me. No way that can be done with two speakers (unless you consider humongous two dimensional speakers) -- at least not for a relatively large listening area. I remember some fancy "3D" sound field technology about 20 years ago that came from just two speakers, but the effect was highly localized. It doesn't seem to have caught on, either.
Furthermore, low frequency sound travels to the ears through your bones as well as through the ear canals, which is why you can literally "feel" the sound sometimes. And that's the point of the
The sophisticated headphones to which you allude generally have complex speaker systems built in -- each side produces a front and a back. And there's no way that headphones can accurately reproduce very low frequency sound in a convincing manner -- it's that bone conduction thing again. I think you're not completely familiar with the way we hear things.
Nice try, though.
Well, I suppose you're suggesting that we can differentiate only left and right. Then please explain how we can differentiate front and back as well (without moving our heads)? Maybe sound reproduction is a bit more complex than you realize. Maybe you don't know what you're talking about?
I for one could hear distinct differences between CD's and vinyl on superb classical recordings. However, you are right about me being anal....
It also seems that many folks don't understand why such matches have an even number of games -- in order to equalize the number of times each player plays as white or black. Also, it's theoretically possible for all games to be drawn, so there's never really a guarantee that any match will be decisive.
I have to admit I learned Fortran in high school in 1966. And we did use punch cards. Programming the card puncher to automatically skip columns and stuff was part of the fun.
How is it that you can conclude that Mark Barnett "caved" and not the other way around? Sounds to me as if he got the better deal. Just because the other guy didn't realize he was getting screwed doesn't mean that he didn't get screwed. And why should Mark abuse himself when such an opportunity presented itself? I think you're being unnecessarily judgmental here.
It would be interesting to see what you would do under similar circumstances.
OTOH, you could look at it this way: all other things being (relatively) equal, an OS developed by a bunch of guys around the world for free performed as well as an OS developed by a bunch of millionaires for $billions.
Agreed. I remember seeing ads like this in the Kyoto subway system in 1984.
Well, I already agreed that Kasparov was put a significant disadvantage. In fact, I'm pretty sure that he had NO opportunity to study the computer's past games, because it had been significantly revised and the IBM team deliberately refused to give him any sample games. All in all, I'd like to see a computer participate in a strong round robin tournament as you suggested. I also think that it's only a matter of time, because the advances in speed and such will just overwhelm us poor humans. Of course, all that it really demonstrates is that machines can crunch through enormous numbers of possibilities and handle certain computations better than humans can. For example, if a strong machine makes it to a five piece or less endgame, it will play the remainder of the game flawlessly, and it does so with no real intelligence.
For what it's worth, mathematicians have had to put up with the "tyranny of the machine" with the acceptance of a computerized exhaustive search that confirms the proof of the (formerly) famous "four color theorem." But what can you do?
You are correct when you observe that Kasparov was denied the opportunity to prepare for Deep Blue, and therefore that Deep Blue's win is somewhat diminished.
However, I think it's fair for Deep Blue's handlers to tune Deep Blue for Kasparov or any other opponent. If Deep Blue were to play in a tournament, it would make sense for the handlers to prepare it for each opponent, and then to set up its style of play for any particular game based on the opponent in that game. Human grandmasters do as much. They take their opponent into consideration, including recently played games, when they decide how to play a specific game in a tournament.
I agree completely with your observation that creating a computer program that could win a prestigious international round robin tournament would be a much more impressive achievenment. However, adjusting the style of play for each opponent would be fair game.