Most high end players have a better understanding of how the game works (and where its weak points are) than the authors do.
Heh. I'm a MUD coder, and precisely the same thing applies there, too. Which is why listening very, very carefully to what high-level players tell you is a Good Thing.
First really helpful advice on this topic. Kudos to whomever is behind the AC mask. And the self-absorbed sheep with their "tips" should perhaps look at this, and consider that their generic platitudes are only fooling the moderators.
In short, mod this up. And please, PLEASE, if you have less than this to contribute to a topic, consider staying quiet. Slashdot is not short of self-proclaimed experts spouting their ill-informed opinions as it is.
--
It's weird... when I first found Slashdot, I remember thinking "Wow, a place for interesting and intelligent people. This is gonna be great."
I was quickly disenchanted. Don't get me wrong, Slashdot is great. I'd say 95% of the people I meet every day online and in person are dumb. On Slashdot, it's maybe 80%. I was just hoping for something closer to 10%... ah well.
It's not the trolls and the crapflooders who are the problem. It's the sheep. --
"One in four female respondents (25 percent) [...] reported being raped and/or physically assaulted by a current or former spouse, cohabiting partner, or date some time in their life."
Raped and/or physically assaulted. If I hit my date, that's physical assault. If I grope her in a disco while drunk, that's sexual assault. It can by no means be condoned, but it's certainly not rape.
Please refrain from posting alarmist nonsense. Rape statistics are bad, but there's no need to wildly exaggerate them. --
Do you seriously believe intelligent people are less prone to suicide? You're very wrong. To some, intelligence is the cold curse of lucidity in a drunken world. And if you're a teenager, this can be very hard to deal with.
Yes, the kid had "problems". Was probably schizoid. But the school should have understood that 13-year old kids are incredibly unstable emotionally. Some more understanding, tact, and human kindness wouls almost certainly have prevented this. --
Um... in case it wasn't clear, this is _humour_. Most of the people who got screwed by the big dotcom implosion didn't actually work for people they met in cabs. This article's a spoof, exaggerating all the flaws of the dotcom paradigm.
For the humour-impaired, here are the parallels:
a stranger I had shared a taxi with pitched me a leading technical position at his new start-up company means: "people were way too eager to be a part of the dot-com phenomenon, without knowing or caring what they were really getting into."
and before I could answer I was hired means:
"the dot-coms didn't really care about the professional qualifications of their employees - in fact, most often, the management was incompetent as well and couldn't even tell who was qualified and who was not."
All they needed was more investors, 300 programmers (...)
means:
"dot-coms were so inebriated by their initial successes that they set themselves unrealistic goals, dooming themselves to failure."
Why not let people adjust their screen settings from anywhere in the world over the web? means:
"Many dot-coms were based on ideas that were stupid, trivial, and impractical."
we liked the color yellow, it meant something to us, and for our investors it was all they had from us so far.
means:
"Most dot-coms had all of the hallmarks of a successful business... except product. You could get by on pure spin for a while, but not forever."
But we worked hard and the money didn't mean anything to us.
means:
"Dot-coms worked hard _at keeping themselves above water_, instead of producing something tangible. They built a castle of hopes and dreams, and people were stupid enough to pay them rent."
After all, I have learned some valuable lessons: (...) never trust investors.
means:
"Dot-com management was (and is) often dumb enough to whine like a spoilt child instead of trying to understand _why_ they failed."
This reminds me quite a lot of Erich von Daniken. He did things like take the different measurements of pyramids, multiply them together, take square and cube roots wildly until he got a number that could be construed as similar to some astronomical measurement, and then claim that as proof that the "ancients" had an incredibly advanced knowledge of astronomy. No, it's just proof that one set of numbers can be transformed into something similar to another (arbitrary) set by using lots of mathematical operations.
Same thing here. If you try hard enough, you can find connections between just about anything. That proves nothing, however, beyond the creativity of the person coming up with the "connections".
--
Good point. The problem is that old games could be - and were - put together in mere days by one or two programmers. If they had a risky, strange, unexplored idea (like Tetris), well, what did they have to lose? If it flopped, it flopped, big deal.
Nowadays, it's quite different. You need a lot of money and time to make a successful game, and developers - somewhat understandably - tend to stick with older, proven concepts. A flop today means a huge financial loss.
Hopefully, now that the "game development in your basement" idea is slowly, slowly becoming viable again, we'll see some more interesting game ideas.
--
Really, why are old games judged from this weird point of view? Since when are older, more simplistic games better? Is it because people are dying to show others that they are oldskool, and have fond memories of Pong, or something?
Personally, my favourite game supported by MAME is Dungeons and Dragons: Shadow Over Mystara. It's a surprisingly "deep" game, with a non-linear plot, things you can actually use your "points" (gold) for, spells, support for up to 4 players, etc? What does Pong give us? Well, uh, two players can move little paddles up and down. Fascinating.
I'm not trying to flame or troll here, I just honestly can't understand what people see in some of these older games. Yes, there are some stunningly good "old" games, but most of the "oldies" are tedious crap.
--
Insightful, my ass. If you had read the FAQ, you'd know that Slashdot calculates the number of mod points to be distributed, and _then_ distributes them.
In other words, if there are twice as many people eligible for moderation, and the same number of comments, a given Slashdot user will only get mod points half as often.
-- --
No "probable" about it... there _is_ a perfect chess game. We just don't have a prayer of computing it. Most people believe it ends in a draw, though.
or that any human could memorize it:)
Memorizing a game is absolutely trivial. Show any competent chess player (master or above) a record of a game and he'll have it memorized in 5 minutes, tops.
-- --
Irrelevant. Tournament chess is not about who has more patience to ponder on a move. It's about who can play better with _limited_ time allotted to them. Chess Player A is better then Chess Player B if - given equal time - he wins. The same should apply to a chess program versus a human.
--
Probably not the best example, because all chess programs have a stored database of opening moves. The number of opening moves a goood AI (or human) could choose from is about 6. The number of reply moves to choose from varies from around 5-8. I'd estimate the possible states after the first round between two skilled players to be about 40, max. If one of the players is known, this number goes down to about 25-30, and if both players are known, it's down to 15, maybe. --
--
He saw patterns of behavior that Deep Blue remained oblivious to. Human players are capable of thinking more "strategically". Some moves provide no obvious benefit, but because of the not-quite-chaotic nature of chess, a good player can see that a pawn move will have beneficial effects 30 moves down the line, pretty much regardless of how the game progresses. --
Slashdot Mirror
Jesus Christ, people. Humour doesn't _get_ any more obvious than this. Try to keep up, please. You're depressing me.
Most high end players have a better understanding of how the game works (and where its weak points are) than the authors do.
Heh. I'm a MUD coder, and precisely the same thing applies there, too. Which is why listening very, very carefully to what high-level players tell you is a Good Thing.
Masterfully engineered. I salute you.
I'm currently majoring in Computer Science and English Lit. My main focus will almost certainly be English Lit, but I'm a fairly competent coder.
Agreed. He's a moron.
What the hell, this is worth losing 2 points of karma over.
If this gets modded up, I'm outta here.
--
First really helpful advice on this topic. Kudos to whomever is behind the AC mask. And the self-absorbed sheep with their "tips" should perhaps look at this, and consider that their generic platitudes are only fooling the moderators.
In short, mod this up. And please, PLEASE, if you have less than this to contribute to a topic, consider staying quiet. Slashdot is not short of self-proclaimed experts spouting their ill-informed opinions as it is.
--
Because Slashbots have no sense of humour. Generally the case with anyone who thinks he's more intelligent than he actually is.
--
Which is why I read Slashdot at -1.
It's weird... when I first found Slashdot, I remember thinking "Wow, a place for interesting and intelligent people. This is gonna be great."
I was quickly disenchanted. Don't get me wrong, Slashdot is great. I'd say 95% of the people I meet every day online and in person are dumb. On Slashdot, it's maybe 80%. I was just hoping for something closer to 10%... ah well.
It's not the trolls and the crapflooders who are the problem. It's the sheep.
--
Read your own evidence, please.
"One in four female respondents (25 percent) [...] reported being raped and/or physically assaulted by a current or former spouse, cohabiting partner, or date some time in their life."
Raped and/or physically assaulted. If I hit my date, that's physical assault. If I grope her in a disco while drunk, that's sexual assault. It can by no means be condoned, but it's certainly not rape.
Please refrain from posting alarmist nonsense. Rape statistics are bad, but there's no need to wildly exaggerate them.
--
Do you seriously believe intelligent people are less prone to suicide? You're very wrong. To some, intelligence is the cold curse of lucidity in a drunken world. And if you're a teenager, this can be very hard to deal with.
Yes, the kid had "problems". Was probably schizoid. But the school should have understood that 13-year old kids are incredibly unstable emotionally. Some more understanding, tact, and human kindness wouls almost certainly have prevented this.
--
Moderators, please read the moderation guidelines. Whether or not you think the parent comment is funny or not, it certainly isn't "Offtopic".
Don't moderate down just because something offends your sensibilities or clashes with your opinions, please.
This post is offtopic, you may label it as such, if you like. But please at least consider what I've said.
--
Sebbo isn't Offtopic, you dumbass moderators. He understood the original post better than I did. What is _wrong_ with you people?
--
I object! My post was most definitely Informative. It informs people most efficaciously about the dangers of posting without using one's brain.
--
*reads the post again*
Hmm. Okay, you're right. Chalk up one stupid point for me.
--
Um... in case it wasn't clear, this is _humour_. Most of the people who got screwed by the big dotcom implosion didn't actually work for people they met in cabs. This article's a spoof, exaggerating all the flaws of the dotcom paradigm.
For the humour-impaired, here are the parallels:
a stranger I had shared a taxi with pitched me a leading technical position at his new start-up company
means:
"people were way too eager to be a part of the dot-com phenomenon, without knowing or caring what they were really getting into."
and before I could answer I was hired
means:
"the dot-coms didn't really care about the professional qualifications of their employees - in fact, most often, the management was incompetent as well and couldn't even tell who was qualified and who was not."
All they needed was more investors, 300 programmers (...)
means:
"dot-coms were so inebriated by their initial successes that they set themselves unrealistic goals, dooming themselves to failure."
Why not let people adjust their screen settings from anywhere in the world over the web?
means:
"Many dot-coms were based on ideas that were stupid, trivial, and impractical."
we liked the color yellow, it meant something to us, and for our investors it was all they had from us so far.
means:
"Most dot-coms had all of the hallmarks of a successful business... except product. You could get by on pure spin for a while, but not forever."
But we worked hard and the money didn't mean anything to us.
means:
"Dot-coms worked hard _at keeping themselves above water_, instead of producing something tangible. They built a castle of hopes and dreams, and people were stupid enough to pay them rent."
After all, I have learned some valuable lessons: (...) never trust investors.
means:
"Dot-com management was (and is) often dumb enough to whine like a spoilt child instead of trying to understand _why_ they failed."
There, is everything nice and clear now?
--
"My Boob: Hernia, In Time"? Doesn't sound very profound to me.
--
This reminds me quite a lot of Erich von Daniken. He did things like take the different measurements of pyramids, multiply them together, take square and cube roots wildly until he got a number that could be construed as similar to some astronomical measurement, and then claim that as proof that the "ancients" had an incredibly advanced knowledge of astronomy. No, it's just proof that one set of numbers can be transformed into something similar to another (arbitrary) set by using lots of mathematical operations.
Same thing here. If you try hard enough, you can find connections between just about anything. That proves nothing, however, beyond the creativity of the person coming up with the "connections".
--
Good point. The problem is that old games could be - and were - put together in mere days by one or two programmers. If they had a risky, strange, unexplored idea (like Tetris), well, what did they have to lose? If it flopped, it flopped, big deal.
Nowadays, it's quite different. You need a lot of money and time to make a successful game, and developers - somewhat understandably - tend to stick with older, proven concepts. A flop today means a huge financial loss.
Hopefully, now that the "game development in your basement" idea is slowly, slowly becoming viable again, we'll see some more interesting game ideas.
--
Really, why are old games judged from this weird point of view? Since when are older, more simplistic games better? Is it because people are dying to show others that they are oldskool, and have fond memories of Pong, or something?
Personally, my favourite game supported by MAME is Dungeons and Dragons: Shadow Over Mystara. It's a surprisingly "deep" game, with a non-linear plot, things you can actually use your "points" (gold) for, spells, support for up to 4 players, etc? What does Pong give us? Well, uh, two players can move little paddles up and down. Fascinating.
I'm not trying to flame or troll here, I just honestly can't understand what people see in some of these older games. Yes, there are some stunningly good "old" games, but most of the "oldies" are tedious crap.
--
Insightful, my ass. If you had read the FAQ, you'd know that Slashdot calculates the number of mod points to be distributed, and _then_ distributes them.
In other words, if there are twice as many people eligible for moderation, and the same number of comments, a given Slashdot user will only get mod points half as often.
--
--
No "probable" about it... there _is_ a perfect chess game. We just don't have a prayer of computing it. Most people believe it ends in a draw, though.
:)
or that any human could memorize it
Memorizing a game is absolutely trivial. Show any competent chess player (master or above) a record of a game and he'll have it memorized in 5 minutes, tops.
--
--
Irrelevant. Tournament chess is not about who has more patience to ponder on a move. It's about who can play better with _limited_ time allotted to them. Chess Player A is better then Chess Player B if - given equal time - he wins. The same should apply to a chess program versus a human.
--
Probably not the best example, because all chess programs have a stored database of opening moves. The number of opening moves a goood AI (or human) could choose from is about 6. The number of reply moves to choose from varies from around 5-8. I'd estimate the possible states after the first round between two skilled players to be about 40, max. If one of the players is known, this number goes down to about 25-30, and if both players are known, it's down to 15, maybe.
--
--
He saw patterns of behavior that Deep Blue remained oblivious to. Human players are capable of thinking more "strategically". Some moves provide no obvious benefit, but because of the not-quite-chaotic nature of chess, a good player can see that a pawn move will have beneficial effects 30 moves down the line, pretty much regardless of how the game progresses.
--