Re:What's the point?
on
Men vs. Machines
·
· Score: 3, Interesting
My father has been a chess fanatic for years upon years. He's read books upon books and is really good. He can beat any mere mortal that he plays. There are a bunch of people on Yahoo! games and other online chess networks that he can play and can compete with, but they are a distinct minority... it comes down to the rankings. Point is, my dad is really good.
There was a chess program for the Vic 20 that could whip my dad's ass every time. Machines have been whipping general players asses for a very long time. My dad is really good but for all of that my dad is still an amateur and could never hope to make a showing in a real competition. It's only the great grandmasters that give the machines trouble... these grandmasters are several orders of magnitude better than the amateur players like my father and are far better than most pros. It says a *LOT* that a machine is able to beat someone like Kasparov... even knowing his moves ahead of time.
It's true that the machine was made just to beat kasparov, but that was probably from a lack of programmer time..... it could be programmed the same, and a Bobby Fisher module added, and a Karpov module and a Kramnik module and so on.
It's an exciting time for the chess nuts out there. Anyone that follows chess should be fairly excited by this. Of course, the chess followers are rooting for the human, while the AI folks are rooting for the computer.
It's been noted for years that one benchmark of a machine's ability to think intelligently was to beat a grandmaster in chess. That goal has been significantly harder to achieve than beating the Turing test. Now just for a Go playing computer, a harder still benchmark.
I like chewing my ice after i finish my drink. If it's self serve drinks, usually i'll get my drink with a standard amount of ice, then when i'm leaving i'll get a refill with a lot of ice so i can chew it... when i can't brush, i feel like chewing ice cleans my teeth.
Of course, that's just me.... For the few people in the general public who like to chew ice, it's probably not justified to heap the ice on. I assume it's a cost cutting measure, but as you said... it prolly costs more to make ice than coke.
"I think, though, that IBM will get moving on this problem around the year 1995, if only so that the society on which they depend for profits will continue to exist. "
If something like this made it anywhere near being a policy decision, when the popular press got ahold of it, it would not last very long. Joe Sixpack doesn't know much about computers, but he knows the word 'hacker' and he knows that it's mapped to the word 'bad'. So when anyone suggests letting (hackers=>bad people) near our critical computers (which all computers are...) then Joe goes on the warpath and gets it struck down.
There is another possibility. It could well be that life will tend to spread itself like the plague, but it will resemble a growing sphere with center wherever the life became intelligent at.
The reason we think life elsewhere exists is because there is so much space that even if the odds on a planet producing intelligent life were 10^trillion against, there would be still be trillions of intelligent societies.
When you start to play with the odds, the distances to such life start to change. Better the odds, the closer are the planets that produce life. Worse odds means planets are farther away. The fact that other life forms haven't found us already leads me to believe that they are REALLY far away and never will contact us.
All intelligent life may begin to spread across the universe, but even at near light speed, it's entirely possible that the sphere encompassing their spread will never intersect any others. There is, afterall, a lot of space out there.
If one in a million galaxies has planetary systems... and one out of a million planetary systems has a planet that 'could' support life and if one in a TRILLION of those spawned life, and if one in a TRILLION of those spawned something that we could recognize as alive and then one in a million of those became intelligent and then one in a million of those decided to emit radio signals, there would still be an infinate number of them spread througout the universe.
Granted, they might be pretty far apart... but it would be silly of us not to be listening.
Looking at it this way, intelligent life IS out there, it's just probably too remote to ever be seen or found or travelled to or even recognized.
Interestingly enough that arguement is useful in considering time travel. Ignoring the universe as a whole, and just focusing on the earth, the fact that no person has ever showed up in a really futuristic outfit in a time machine (and been actually scientifically examined and thought not a hoax) leads us to believe that such time travel will never be possible.
When i was a wee-little kid... like in elementary school, my dad would always come up to me and ask me to teach him math. He made it out like he didn't know anything about math and that i was showing him how it worked. Well, it turns out that he knew exactly how to do everything, he was just helping me study by making me teach it.
When i got to college and was taking calculus, dif eq and discrete math, I would show my dad the stuff i was learning and now that he actually didn't understand any of it, he wasn't so interested in me teaching him anymore. Sort of a student out does the master kind of thing...:)
I had exactly the same experience... Calc 1 & 2 were great at the community college... i understood everything and loved it. Meet Dif Eq at the main University and suddenly i was not understanding anything, and only passed because it's possible to memorize the problem solving procedures in that class without totally understanding everything.
I don't know what channel was carrying it, it was some weird channel, but it was the ABC coverage, with all the ABC logos and the ABC commentators and everything labeled ABC. But the channel definately wasn't ABC.
Ok, then it's not cable theft. The person taking more bandwidth than he was alloted by the cap, means that he *IS* specifically authorized to be receiving service by the cable operator. The person may be taking more bandwidth than his TOS specified, but he is authorized to be on the network.
10,000 is peanuts.... spread over 10 years, that's one thousand a year. If you compare that to the advertising revenue that the radio stations generate (and not to mention the whole payola scam) that's hardly a blip on the station's radar. It's practically free. I'm sure they spend more on promoting one event.
Also, 10 years is a LONG time to be guaranteed a nice revenue stream, and the fact that they can renew it (and it doens't go up for auction or they have to compete to keep it) means that it IS, pretty much, a free lifetime license.
Broadcast television frequencies, for example, are worth BILLIONS. But the FCC just sort of gave them away to the networks a long time ago. It's just not right that consumers now have to squeeze their various new electronic devices into just a narrow spectrum.
I got a few items backordered from tigerdirect for a while, but they came out soon enough. The one beef that i had was that some RAM that i bought was just sort of tossed in the box... not really packaged, just in the antistatic bag floating in with all the other heavier components, including a tower case.
Ok, so everyone so far seems to agree on pricewatch.com and newegg.com. I've bought from tigerdirect.com but was disappointed with how they packaged my memory with my other components (just tossed in...) But enough of that... maybe it would be better for the discussion to change the question to something useful. Like what to look for in a vendor, and what is the best equipment to get.
Personally, i think it's a good idea to stay away from Western Digital for your HD. Do go with Asus for the mobo and to make sure to buy from a vendor that's out of state so you don't get stuck paying the shipping AS WELL as sales tax.
Well, maybe wal-mart is a bad example... the people they put out front with the public are decent enough, but at the 24-hr Wal-marts, the ones where they stock the shelves while there are still people in the store, at 3am I've seen some freaky ass people lugging boxes. Sure, they were wearing blue vests with smiley faces on them, but the tatoos and Rob Zombie beard don't match.
Disney is a better example, they have standards down to what color nail polish or lipstick the girls can wear.
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My father has been a chess fanatic for years upon years. He's read books upon books and is really good. He can beat any mere mortal that he plays. There are a bunch of people on Yahoo! games and other online chess networks that he can play and can compete with, but they are a distinct minority... it comes down to the rankings. Point is, my dad is really good.
There was a chess program for the Vic 20 that could whip my dad's ass every time. Machines have been whipping general players asses for a very long time. My dad is really good but for all of that my dad is still an amateur and could never hope to make a showing in a real competition. It's only the great grandmasters that give the machines trouble... these grandmasters are several orders of magnitude better than the amateur players like my father and are far better than most pros. It says a *LOT* that a machine is able to beat someone like Kasparov... even knowing his moves ahead of time.
It's true that the machine was made just to beat kasparov, but that was probably from a lack of programmer time..... it could be programmed the same, and a Bobby Fisher module added, and a Karpov module and a Kramnik module and so on.
It's an exciting time for the chess nuts out there. Anyone that follows chess should be fairly excited by this. Of course, the chess followers are rooting for the human, while the AI folks are rooting for the computer.
It's been noted for years that one benchmark of a machine's ability to think intelligently was to beat a grandmaster in chess. That goal has been significantly harder to achieve than beating the Turing test. Now just for a Go playing computer, a harder still benchmark.
I like chewing my ice after i finish my drink. If it's self serve drinks, usually i'll get my drink with a standard amount of ice, then when i'm leaving i'll get a refill with a lot of ice so i can chew it... when i can't brush, i feel like chewing ice cleans my teeth.
Of course, that's just me.... For the few people in the general public who like to chew ice, it's probably not justified to heap the ice on. I assume it's a cost cutting measure, but as you said... it prolly costs more to make ice than coke.
"I think, though, that IBM will get moving on this problem around the
year 1995, if only so that the society on which they depend for profits
will continue to exist.
"
If something like this made it anywhere near being a policy decision, when the popular press got ahold of it, it would not last very long. Joe Sixpack doesn't know much about computers, but he knows the word 'hacker' and he knows that it's mapped to the word 'bad'. So when anyone suggests letting (hackers=>bad people) near our critical computers (which all computers are...) then Joe goes on the warpath and gets it struck down.
There is another possibility. It could well be that life will tend to spread itself like the plague, but it will resemble a growing sphere with center wherever the life became intelligent at.
The reason we think life elsewhere exists is because there is so much space that even if the odds on a planet producing intelligent life were 10^trillion against, there would be still be trillions of intelligent societies.
When you start to play with the odds, the distances to such life start to change. Better the odds, the closer are the planets that produce life. Worse odds means planets are farther away. The fact that other life forms haven't found us already leads me to believe that they are REALLY far away and never will contact us.
All intelligent life may begin to spread across the universe, but even at near light speed, it's entirely possible that the sphere encompassing their spread will never intersect any others. There is, afterall, a lot of space out there.
Thing is, it's an odds based game.
If one in a million galaxies has planetary systems... and one out of a million planetary systems has a planet that 'could' support life and if one in a TRILLION of those spawned life, and if one in a TRILLION of those spawned something that we could recognize as alive and then one in a million of those became intelligent and then one in a million of those decided to emit radio signals, there would still be an infinate number of them spread througout the universe.
Granted, they might be pretty far apart... but it would be silly of us not to be listening.
Looking at it this way, intelligent life IS out there, it's just probably too remote to ever be seen or found or travelled to or even recognized.
Interestingly enough that arguement is useful in considering time travel. Ignoring the universe as a whole, and just focusing on the earth, the fact that no person has ever showed up in a really futuristic outfit in a time machine (and been actually scientifically examined and thought not a hoax) leads us to believe that such time travel will never be possible.
I guess all those x10 ads were just a bunch of Chinese dissidents passing messages ICQ style.
Well, at least until everyone recompiles with all the ad software stripped out.
Being open source, people can do that.
Sure, i don't know how he feels on a variety of other issues, but his stand on tech issues makes him president material in my book.
When i was a wee-little kid... like in elementary school, my dad would always come up to me and ask me to teach him math. He made it out like he didn't know anything about math and that i was showing him how it worked. Well, it turns out that he knew exactly how to do everything, he was just helping me study by making me teach it.
:)
When i got to college and was taking calculus, dif eq and discrete math, I would show my dad the stuff i was learning and now that he actually didn't understand any of it, he wasn't so interested in me teaching him anymore. Sort of a student out does the master kind of thing...
I had exactly the same experience... Calc 1 & 2 were great at the community college... i understood everything and loved it. Meet Dif Eq at the main University and suddenly i was not understanding anything, and only passed because it's possible to memorize the problem solving procedures in that class without totally understanding everything.
So, basically, what your saying is: "Imagine a beowulf cluster of those" :)
Mod parent up! The linked article is VERY interesting and a must read.
I don't know what channel was carrying it, it was some weird channel, but it was the ABC coverage, with all the ABC logos and the ABC commentators and everything labeled ABC. But the channel definately wasn't ABC.
I think This Link is most telling.
Ok, then it's not cable theft. The person taking more bandwidth than he was alloted by the cap, means that he *IS* specifically authorized to be receiving service by the cable operator. The person may be taking more bandwidth than his TOS specified, but he is authorized to be on the network.
A JonKatz review not written by JonKatz!! Who would have thunk it?!?
Also, 10 years is a LONG time to be guaranteed a nice revenue stream, and the fact that they can renew it (and it doens't go up for auction or they have to compete to keep it) means that it IS, pretty much, a free lifetime license.
Broadcast television frequencies, for example, are worth BILLIONS. But the FCC just sort of gave them away to the networks a long time ago. It's just not right that consumers now have to squeeze their various new electronic devices into just a narrow spectrum.
And, of course, the big fallout with ticketmaster that makes it hard for them to be able to do big shows.
I got a few items backordered from tigerdirect for a while, but they came out soon enough. The one beef that i had was that some RAM that i bought was just sort of tossed in the box... not really packaged, just in the antistatic bag floating in with all the other heavier components, including a tower case.
Personally, i think it's a good idea to stay away from Western Digital for your HD. Do go with Asus for the mobo and to make sure to buy from a vendor that's out of state so you don't get stuck paying the shipping AS WELL as sales tax.
Well, maybe wal-mart is a bad example... the people they put out front with the public are decent enough, but at the 24-hr Wal-marts, the ones where they stock the shelves while there are still people in the store, at 3am I've seen some freaky ass people lugging boxes. Sure, they were wearing blue vests with smiley faces on them, but the tatoos and Rob Zombie beard don't match.
Disney is a better example, they have standards down to what color nail polish or lipstick the girls can wear.
One great feature of Gnucleus, being Java, it SHOULD be portable to any Java-supported OS that has a virtual machine installed (linux boxen included).
But, as you noted, if it doesn't run on linux, being open source, it would probably be an easy matter to modify it some to make it portable.