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User: gmiller123456

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  1. Re:600k games is a very limited dataset on A Data-Driven Exploration of the Evolution of Chess · · Score: 1

    Autocorrect strikes again.

  2. 600k games is a very limited dataset on A Data-Driven Exploration of the Evolution of Chess · · Score: 3, Informative

    There are about 300k games played per week just on FICS. There are a few hundred USCF games played each week just in Louisville KY (where I play). I would imagine if you managed to pull from all of the sources, 600k wouldn't even amount to a day's worth of games.

    The set the author used suffers greatly from selection bias. Games are usually only included in commercial databases because they're interesting, or were played by interesting people. So I'm not sure anything interesting can be drawn from his results.

    Also, there needs to be some control put in place to account for rating differences. The Eli system isn't that old, and in the past players with drastically different levels of skill were more likely to play each other.

  3. Re: 3D printed guns are no different to any other on 3D Printed Guns Might Lead To Law Changes In Australia · · Score: 1

    An ar-15 is fairly complicated to make from scratch. But rifling a barrel is something 5hat pre-dates the industrial revolution and can easily be done by hand. But you don't need rifling to kill someone at close range.

  4. Re:Should be simple on Arduino Dispute Reaches Out To Distributors · · Score: 1

    You're thinking of criminal law, this is about civil law (money). You don't have to do something illegal to get sued: e.g. the parking break on your car failing and hitting someone.

  5. Re:No revolt in evidence on Developers and the Fear of Apple · · Score: 2

    Might appear "remarkably consistent" in the graph you posted, but only because their market share is so small compared to Android. They fell from 20% in 1212 to 15% in 2013, 2014. Which is a 20% decline, and not what a normal person would call consistent. It only appears small on the graph due to the fact that Android has over 80% of the market, and 5% is minuscule compared to that.

  6. Re:Cause meet Effect. on When Chess Players Blunder · · Score: 1

    Those ratings for those engines are mostly worthless. They only apply to the specific machine in a specific configuration that competed, and the computer was allowed to manage its own clock. Here, analysis was limited to two seconds per move, and likely on very low end hardware and memory compared to the machines that are rated. Just upgrading the hardware for Crafty would close the rating gap at least some. And you'd be very hard pressed to say ratings for full games played at normal time controls still translates that accurately to 2 secs per move without all that dedicated RAM, CPU, and storage.

  7. Re:...and nothing of value was lost... on Radioshack Declares Bankruptcy · · Score: 1

    The main reason so many people support the Arduino project is because it is open, and anyone can make clones. Fortunately, they don't seem to be complaining, and trying to steer people away from clones. But that's what happened with the MakerBot. Bre Pettis capitalized on a lot of people's work promoting his platform under the assumption that it was open, and always would be. Then Bre started complaining when people actually started making clones, and closed everything up. I hope that never happens to the Arduino, but history tells me it eventually will.

  8. Stop looking for video cameras and go with a still on Ask Slashdot: Is There a Modern IP Webcam That Lets the User Control the Output? · · Score: 1

    Video cameras all have very low resolution compared to a still camera, so don't try to use a video camera to get a good quality still photo. Almost all still cameras today support Picture Transfer Protocol (PTP). If there's already a computer on the site, it's as simple as plugging it in and loading some free software. If not, you can add one or something like a Raspberry Pi if you're comfortable with that sort of thing. There are also things like the Eye-Fi cards that use WiFi to transfer files automatically. There's probably a dozen other ways to solve it too, I think you've just locked yourself into the idea of using a video camera for no good reason, and that's why you haven't been able to find an acceptable solution.

  9. Re:some rules *nearly* never come up on Computer Chess Created In 487 Bytes, Breaks 32-Year-Old Record · · Score: 1

    FTFY. It doesn't end automagically, a player has to invoke that rule explicitly.

    Actually, no rules are imposed automatically, it's up to the players to enforce them. It's only when both players agree to egregiously refuse to follow the rules that a TD can intervene. The fact that a lot of software automatically enforces things like valid moves is just a convenience to the TD and players. In a rated over the board game, anytime a player wants to make a claim they are supposed to pause the clock and go get a TD, which is hard or even impossible where there is no real TD.

  10. Re: higher risk of death on Regular Exercise Not Enough To Make Up For Sitting All Day · · Score: 1

    You don't stand a chance against a Land Shark if you're sitting down.

    Land sharks only attack when answering the door, so you are actually better off just sitting down.

  11. Re: Mann is a fruad on Michael Mann: Swiftboating Comes To Science · · Score: 1

    Source?

  12. Re: How depressing... on Washington DC's Public Library Will Teach People How To Avoid the NSA · · Score: 1

    The idea that they can be simply replaced if they do things we don't like is only true in an efficient and fair election system. Most candidates never state where they stand on most issues, and make sure the public never gets a chance to challenge them on any issue beyond asking single question. So you wouldn't know who to vote for to begin with, even if you assume both candidates were actually in opposition on the topic.

    Running yourself won't help as money is required to get your word out, and our voting system only works with two parties.

  13. Re: Leading Edge? on Hubble Takes Amazing New Images of Andromeda, Pillars of Creation · · Score: 1

    Places with a lot of activity like this one migh5 have a lot of stars capable of supporting life. Unfortunatley they also have a lot of debris, that'll probably wipe out any life before it gets very advanced. Places to look for life are usually much less active.

  14. Re: Extending the life of Hubble... on Hubble Takes Amazing New Images of Andromeda, Pillars of Creation · · Score: 1

    I'm not totally familiar with the new manned vehichle, but the primary idea was to send up the people on one rocket and all of the other cargo on another. So the only reason it couldn't service the Hubble would be if it's not powerful enough to get people there.

  15. Re: Cool 3D effect... on Hubble Takes Amazing New Images of Andromeda, Pillars of Creation · · Score: 1

    It looked like electrons vibrating an a CCD. Which is not verry interesting, so they used that data to produce colors on a screen.

    I'm always baffled by people who think they know what an acceptable level of processing is. Yes, there are ethical concerns when someone is trying to deliberately be deceptive, but all images are heavilly processed from their original form. That's true whether it's digital or film, or whatever comes next.

  16. Good information doesn't necessarily sell unfortunatley. I'm willing to bet the WSJ editors have a much better understanding of what sells, and are activley using on that information. People looking for good, accurate information will probably get access to it for free.

  17. Re: What about switching to a proportional system? on Mathematicians Study Effects of Gerrymandering On 2012 Election · · Score: 1

    It's pretty amazing how little attention proportional representation gets in the us. Too many people would rather argue about things they'll never agree on, than focus on things like proportional representation, which pretty much everyone would agree on (as demonstrated by almost every other democratic country on Earth).

  18. Objective C for now on Ask Slashdot: Objective C Vs. Swift For a New iOS Developer? · · Score: 1

    Just in the past month or so I decided to make the jump and learn iOS programming. My experience is not at all similar to yours in that I have a CS degree and have been a full-time programmer since '94, and have been developing Android apps for over a year, and Blackberry apps before that, and PalmOS before that. Had I known Apple was in the middle of a language switch, I would have put it off a lot longer. It should be obvious that the one to learn is whichever one will win out in the end. There is no since in learning a language that will never take off, nor in learning a language that is being phased out.

    So your goal is to predict which one will win. And, statistically speaking, the odds aren't in Swift's favor as almost all new languages fail. Granted, most of those don't have the power of a company like Apple behind it, but VBScript is one example that failed to catch on with an even more powerful company behind it. Microsoft had tried and failed several times to introduce VBScript in different environments. So, just because Apple wants it to succeed, and says it's the "new thing" in their documentation, doesn't mean it's going to. On the contrary, JavaScript is a good example of a language that likely would have failed, but has been immensely successful solely due to Netscape's adoption of it. So, which language is better really won't matter as far as which one wins in the end.

    My current take on Swift is that it's too difficult to find working examples on how to call the framework libraries. That's not to say they don't exist, I just haven't been able to find them. Most of what you find on Google today is from the beta versions of Swift, and they're not syntactically compatible with the current version. It's certainly possible to figure it out yourself, but takes quite a bit of time. So the question boils down to: "If Swift wins, will you waste more time trying to figure out Swift today, or will it be more efficient to learn Objective-C today and switch to Swift after it's won?". IMHO, Objective-C is the answer today, and if you combine it with the fact that Swift will likely fail just by playing the odds, then Objective-C is the clear winner. If Swift wins, you'll likely spend a lot less time learning it later than you will spend learning Objective-C today.

    Reading the comments above, there's obviously no shortage of people who think they absolutely know which language is the future, but I'll be the first to admit that I don't know. You'll have to hedge your bets they best you can. But if I were a betting man, I'd say Swift will fail as it's got several serious strikes against it:
    - Most new languages and platforms fail
    - It's a proprietary language with only one use case.
    - The one use case it has (iOS) is declining in market share.
    - The launch appears to have been botched with few sources of documentation available on how to actually use it for iOS programming.
    - The language has already been polluted by the beta versions, leaving newcomers with no way to discern from the old and the new.
    - Apps in the App Store are no longer the cash cow they once were, reducing the benefit for people to spend time learning it.
    - Since iOS is declining, even if Swift wins the iOS language war, it's possible it won't be relevant.
    - For existing programmers, there is no economic benefit to switching to Swift
    - Swift brings no new functionality to the table, so there's no reason to switch to it other than Apple wants you to.

  19. tint tiny rss on Slashdot Asks: How Will You Replace Google Reader? · · Score: 1

    I went with Tiny Tiny RSS. despite its name, the native interface is actually quite bloated. But fortunatley someone has written a fairly minimalist plugin UI which performs quite well on mobile devices.

    I'm not sure if it's just me, or if all of the "social" features of many of the other RSS are actually useful to others. But all I really wanted is a simple thing that tracks which articles are new vs. what I've read. Pretty much every reader I came across was bloated with a lot of features and decorations that slowed it down. I belive I've got a good enough solution with Tiny Tiny RSS. It requires you to host the app on your own website, so it's not going to work for everyone, nor be exactly easy to set up.

  20. What does this have to do with Groupon? on Groupon Deal Costs Photographer a Year's Free Work · · Score: 1

    Seems to me like the article referring to "Groupon Piranhas" was just looking for a reason to pick on Groupon. Even if Groupon didn't take a penny of the proceeds, the photography still wouldn't get enough to make it worth his/her time based on all of the assumptions made by the author. Even so, there are still plenty of logical explanations as to why a photography would agree to such a deal, even knowing what they're getting in to.

    Having been a hobbyist photographer (never working for anyone) for the past 15 or so years I have seen plenty of people attempting to break into the professional photography business grossly under price their services just to get experience. Most of them are not good at all, none of them are great, but they all generally truly enjoy photography and would pay a pretty penny themselves to have 300 people pose for them in 300 different locations.

  21. "Dynamic" hashing isn't cryptography on Are You Sure SHA-1+Salt Is Enough For Passwords? · · Score: 1

    The problem with the "dynamic hashing" solution to the problem is it fails to account for the fact that a devoted attacker is going to be willing to dedicate vastly more resources to cracking it than you are to securing it. Dynamic hashing grows linearly with the amount of computing power used to secure it vs how much it takes to break it. So, for very weak passwords, rather than it taking .1 seconds to crack, it takes five minutes, which is not likely to deter any attacker.

    It might deter someone from cracking a large range of passwords to your systems, or someone from guessing the password to your blog's administrative account. But it's not something you can rely on for systems that would be targeted by devoted attackers. At the end of the day, weak passwords cannot be made a secure authentication method.

  22. Re:Let that be a lesson to you! on Woman Gets Revenge Courtesy of Google Images · · Score: 1

    That's not surprising, the police have no duty to protect you:
    http://www.firearmsandliberty.com/kasler-protection.html

    "In 1989, in a suburb of Los Angeles, Maria Navarro called the L. A. County Sheriff's 911 emergency line asking for help. It was her birthday and there was a party at her house, but her estranged husband, against whom she had had a restraining order, said he was coming over to kill her. She believed him, but got no sympathy from the 911 dispatcher, who said: "What do you want us to do lady, send a car to sit outside your house?" Less than half an hour after Maria hung up in frustration, one of her guests called the same 911 line and informed the dispatcher that the husband was there and had already killed Maria and one other guest. Before the cops arrived, he had killed another. "

    If your lawyer didn't listen, you need a new lawyer. Or maybe you just need to listen to your lawyer, the fact that you're still alive shows they were just empty threats.

  23. Cookie Jar Accounting. on 40M Vista Licenses in 100 Days · · Score: 1

    They did't "get in trouble" since it's not an illegal practice, the SEC just announced the fact that they noticed Microsoft was using the practice.

  24. Re:Rentacoder = Not Good Use Of Time For First Wor on Finding Programming Work on the Side? · · Score: 1

    I wouldn't necessarily assume they're oversees. A lot of them are just people trying to get into programming and looking for projects to do, and they're litterally willing to work for free. But they usually fail to complete their projects, and the owners normally end up either throwing the project out altogether or they go looking for a better programmer. I used to do a lot of freelance work, and I'd say 50-60% of my work was from someone who said the last guy they hired was unable to make progress and asked for assurance I could complete a task. So focus on your ability to actually program.

  25. About 50% of my traffic is non-US on What Would We Lose From a Regionalized Internet? · · Score: 1

    About 50% of traffic for my chess website is from outside the US. It's pretty common for someone to send me an e-mail on bahalf of another user because the other user doesn't speak english.