The same thing is true of chess games. The creation of a (sudden) change in the balance and the exploitation of that change is an expression of the real elegance within chess which makes it more interesting than watching videotapes of accountants.
I agree with you, though I believe the fact that computers don't currently do this is due to a lack of sufficient "foresight". Humans create an imbalance not to merely spice up the game, but because they see an eventual advantage from it. Given that a chess program can only look so many levels ahead, it is typically programmed to only consider moves which lead to an advantage in order to cut down the nodes it must search. When programs become sufficiently fast, powerful, and flexible, I think we'll start seeing the imbalances of which you speak in grandmaster level games... but only when a program has sufficient confidence that the imbalance created will eventually lead to a positive outcome.
The short form of all of the above is: 'computer programs either are or will soon be the strongest players on earth, but their games tend to be dry.'
And what causes that? Computers play always at 100% of their maximum possible strength. That's why you'd think they're dry -- it's the consistency. Just like great boxing fights aren't ones where the opponent comes out and always knocks the other guy out cold in the first 10 seconds. A great fight is where it's undecided up until the very last round and then someone lands a stunning blow and wins the victory. Yet the guy who can knock his opponent out in 10 seconds every time is by far the superior boxer (judging by results alone).
Humans play chess, on the other hand, probably at some fraction of what they're capable of and, every once in a while, hit that 100% mark. Hitting 100% looks like inspiration compared to normal, more mediocre play but if every person hit 100% all the time, their games would be similarly boring -- though boring at a much higher level of play.
However I was surprised to learn that the top human checkers players can easily trounce the computer. I would guess that checkers would be orders-of-magnitude a "simpler" problem than chess. Maybe it's that chess gets all the buzz, since it's considered to be the ultimate thinking-man's game.
Checkers has all but been solved. See this Mathworld article for more info. Basically, there's an estimated 10^12 to 10^18 different positions in a game, with a possibility for only having to solve 10^9 of them. With sufficient memory (Beowulf cluster, anyone?) checkers can be completely solved such that you can guarantee either a win or at worst a draw for the first person to move.
Except a human has this neat thing called intuition.
Your intuition can tell you things that will take you hours and hours to prove on paper. Or even in your head, following logic.
Intuition is not much more than having a large sample set from which to draw and using that sample set to infer generalities. Those generalities allow you to recognize certain patterns and also reject other patterns outright so that you don't consciously consider them. When you think about it, intuition really means "I have a hunch", and those hunches are formed on the basis of past experience. There's nothing that prevents a computer from building up a sufficiently large body of samples and, with the proper programming of course, inferring patterns from it as well.
Its a shame I can't mod the parent +1 astroturf...how about:
"Interestingly CodeTek uses this exact same bit of code for their latest VirtualDesktop program."
Seems pretty clear to me.
Perhaps you should read it again, in context this time:
"To allow DM to modify windows I had to use a little bit of code by Jon Rentzsch which allowed me to stick a bit of DM inside the Dock process (see later question). This bit of code communicates with the main app and performs much of the magic you see.
Interestingly CodeTek uses this exact same bit of code for their latest VirtualDesktop program."
The "exact same bit of code" referenced is obviously the Jon Rentzsch code, which you can find here. As you'll note from the site, it's released under a BSD license which can be incorporated into closed source projects. Since the article summary referenced "who steals GPL code" this doesn't even apply, now does it?
Thanks for the clarification. That makes much more sense. I guess I incorrectly parsed the ambiguous paragraph, and it makes me wonder how many others read it that way as well.
Highlights are secret APIs in OS X for VirtualDesktops, who steals GPL source...
Where is this in the article? I read the whole thing, then went back and searched for every occurrence of "steal" (zero results) and "GPL". The only part that mentions Virtual Desktops is that CodeTek can't use the Desktop Manager source in their closed source app because it's GPLed. The relevant section is:
"I still get some emails accusing me of being petty and small minded for GPL-ing Desktop Manager since CodeTek can't easily use my code. That is silly since they are quite capable of re-implementing Desktop Manager in a far better way using my techniques. I haven't tried (nor could I probably) claim control over how people use the APIs I discovered."
Nowhere does this claim that Virtual Desktops is using, let alone stealing, anything from his source. Unless I missed something here, I fail to see how such a statement is anything more than libel.
But the cube didn't sell very well compared to the imac models.
Have you checked eBay lately? Perhaps it's the low supply, but G4 cubes are going for quite a hefty sum there. It's one computer which just about keeps its value constant.
I recommend Microsoft(r) Internet Information Services for server software...
The problem with Microsoft products is that those bastards invariably sneak in improvements along with bug fixes. This version of Apache, on the other hand, er... uh... never mind. Hey! What's that over there? [exits stage left]
In the education market, Apple has historically emphasized its iBook notebook PC and the eMac desktop machine rather than the iMac computer, which has a circular base and a flat-panel screen that hovers above it.
Last I checked, the iMac's flat panel was attached via a swing-arm to the circular base. Where can I find one with no arm where the LCD magically hovers above? Perhaps this is the new model in fall? The hoverMac?
Women are first and foremost attracted to confidence. If you're confident and you can project your intelligence through humor then that's a winning combination.
It's the explanation to the old "nice guys finish last, but the assholes get all the women". Women don't always interpret that behavior as that of an asshole... she'll most likely see that as confident behavior and *that* more than anything is what scores the babes.
How is it that I am to know I can extrapolate "indoor" from "theater" but not "people" who "assume they aren't being watched" to people outdoors?
The problem is that you extrapolated at all. He only ever mentioned in a theatre. It's common knowledge that movie theatres are indoors, and no extrapolation is necessary. But since you enjoy extrapolation so much, why not extrapolate on "invasion" and apply it to privacy in Iraq? After all, how are you supposed to know that you're not supposed to extrapolate on every single word in his sentence to feed your particular pathology?
I upsold her from a 10x10 album to an 11x14 buy moving it in front of the 10x10. It worked, but I felt so dirty. I still have nightmares about "the vanishing."
What, did you drop the 10x10 down your pants and you got a paper cut out of it?
Actually contacting people costs money because a human has to pick up the phone. Terminating their service costs money for obvious reasons, and charging them for a dubious "service" is likely to get your customer angry at you and waste time and money in calls to your help line.
One possibility is to increase the monthly fee for *all* subscribers but have a "clean PC" discount which makes it less expensive than before. For example, if Comcast now charges $40 a month for X service, they can raise the price to $50... but customers who don't have zombied computers automatically get a discount to make it $38 a month. Not perfect, still need to accurately identify the zombie from the clean PCs... but a financial penalty would certainly motivate more people to do something about the problem.
Imagine if someone's fax machine were hijacked and used to send out death threats. How long would that be allowed to go on before police would come knocking on the door? Spam isn't quite as serious, but some days I wish it were treated the same -- or at least treat the spammers as murderers.:)
I sure hope this doesn't turn into a repeat of Halo on the Mac. From the reports, it was buggy, slow, and there was no demo available. Then Macsoft starts complaining about piracy. Gee, with no demo and reports of a crappy port, I wonder why people took to pirating it.
As for BF1942, the jury's still out. All I want to know is where I can download the demo and try it out myself.
This also comes into play with our economy right now - being in this recession (they call it what they want but until they can sustain their family on less than $20,000/yr I don't even hear the words coming out of their unknowledgeable mouths)
So if the economy weren't in a recession you *could* sustain your family on $20,000 a year? I don't understand this logic.
Slashdot Mirror
The same thing is true of chess games. The creation of a (sudden) change in the balance and the exploitation of that change is an expression of the real elegance within chess which makes it more interesting than watching videotapes of accountants.
I agree with you, though I believe the fact that computers don't currently do this is due to a lack of sufficient "foresight". Humans create an imbalance not to merely spice up the game, but because they see an eventual advantage from it. Given that a chess program can only look so many levels ahead, it is typically programmed to only consider moves which lead to an advantage in order to cut down the nodes it must search. When programs become sufficiently fast, powerful, and flexible, I think we'll start seeing the imbalances of which you speak in grandmaster level games... but only when a program has sufficient confidence that the imbalance created will eventually lead to a positive outcome.
The short form of all of the above is: 'computer programs either are or will soon be the strongest players on earth, but their games tend to be dry.'
And what causes that? Computers play always at 100% of their maximum possible strength. That's why you'd think they're dry -- it's the consistency. Just like great boxing fights aren't ones where the opponent comes out and always knocks the other guy out cold in the first 10 seconds. A great fight is where it's undecided up until the very last round and then someone lands a stunning blow and wins the victory. Yet the guy who can knock his opponent out in 10 seconds every time is by far the superior boxer (judging by results alone).
Humans play chess, on the other hand, probably at some fraction of what they're capable of and, every once in a while, hit that 100% mark. Hitting 100% looks like inspiration compared to normal, more mediocre play but if every person hit 100% all the time, their games would be similarly boring -- though boring at a much higher level of play.
However I was surprised to learn that the top human checkers players can easily trounce the computer. I would guess that checkers would be orders-of-magnitude a "simpler" problem than chess. Maybe it's that chess gets all the buzz, since it's considered to be the ultimate thinking-man's game.
Checkers has all but been solved. See this Mathworld article for more info. Basically, there's an estimated 10^12 to 10^18 different positions in a game, with a possibility for only having to solve 10^9 of them. With sufficient memory (Beowulf cluster, anyone?) checkers can be completely solved such that you can guarantee either a win or at worst a draw for the first person to move.
Can't they play over the internet?
Can't I participate in your $1,000,000 trivia contest over the internet?
Except a human has this neat thing called intuition.
Your intuition can tell you things that will take you hours and hours to prove on paper. Or even in your head, following logic.
Intuition is not much more than having a large sample set from which to draw and using that sample set to infer generalities. Those generalities allow you to recognize certain patterns and also reject other patterns outright so that you don't consciously consider them. When you think about it, intuition really means "I have a hunch", and those hunches are formed on the basis of past experience. There's nothing that prevents a computer from building up a sufficiently large body of samples and, with the proper programming of course, inferring patterns from it as well.
Its a shame I can't mod the parent +1 astroturf...how about:
"Interestingly CodeTek uses this exact same bit of code for their latest VirtualDesktop program."
Seems pretty clear to me.
Perhaps you should read it again, in context this time:
"To allow DM to modify windows I had to use a little bit of code by Jon Rentzsch which allowed me to stick a bit of DM inside the Dock process (see later question). This bit of code communicates with the main app and performs much of the magic you see.
Interestingly CodeTek uses this exact same bit of code for their latest VirtualDesktop program."
The "exact same bit of code" referenced is obviously the Jon Rentzsch code, which you can find here. As you'll note from the site, it's released under a BSD license which can be incorporated into closed source projects. Since the article summary referenced "who steals GPL code" this doesn't even apply, now does it?
How's that astroturf feeling?
Thanks for the clarification. That makes much more sense. I guess I incorrectly parsed the ambiguous paragraph, and it makes me wonder how many others read it that way as well.
Highlights are secret APIs in OS X for VirtualDesktops, who steals GPL source...
Where is this in the article? I read the whole thing, then went back and searched for every occurrence of "steal" (zero results) and "GPL". The only part that mentions Virtual Desktops is that CodeTek can't use the Desktop Manager source in their closed source app because it's GPLed. The relevant section is:
"I still get some emails accusing me of being petty and small minded for GPL-ing Desktop Manager since CodeTek can't easily use my code. That is silly since they are quite capable of re-implementing Desktop Manager in a far better way using my techniques. I haven't tried (nor could I probably) claim control over how people use the APIs I discovered."
Nowhere does this claim that Virtual Desktops is using, let alone stealing, anything from his source. Unless I missed something here, I fail to see how such a statement is anything more than libel.
the free word viewer is for M$ windows
Hark! The 90's are calling. They want their cheesy Microsoft abbreviation back.
But the cube didn't sell very well compared to the imac models.
Have you checked eBay lately? Perhaps it's the low supply, but G4 cubes are going for quite a hefty sum there. It's one computer which just about keeps its value constant.
I recommend Microsoft(r) Internet Information Services for server software...
The problem with Microsoft products is that those bastards invariably sneak in improvements along with bug fixes. This version of Apache, on the other hand, er... uh... never mind. Hey! What's that over there? [exits stage left]
In the education market, Apple has historically emphasized its iBook notebook PC and the eMac desktop machine rather than the iMac computer, which has a circular base and a flat-panel screen that hovers above it.
Last I checked, the iMac's flat panel was attached via a swing-arm to the circular base. Where can I find one with no arm where the LCD magically hovers above? Perhaps this is the new model in fall? The hoverMac?
Yes, I am a small shell script. ::: the economist troll
Lol... gets an insightful mod. Now mod me funny.
Hell, no. I outsourced the note taking to Bangalore.
Women are first and foremost attracted to confidence. If you're confident and you can project your intelligence through humor then that's a winning combination.
It's the explanation to the old "nice guys finish last, but the assholes get all the women". Women don't always interpret that behavior as that of an asshole... she'll most likely see that as confident behavior and *that* more than anything is what scores the babes.
Don't forget your solar powered flashlight in case you run out of batteries.
That's what the battery-powered extension cord is for.
The price is pretty good (there are cheaper), and the remote is a nice touch.
A remote for your portable music player? What's next? A remote control for a flashlight?
You honestly don't know what the word extrapolate means, do you? Might have done well to look that up before getting in a debate about it.
Of course I do. Additionally, I realize you love to argue and I just don't have the time. So I'm sure you'll consider that you've won. Enjoy your win.
How is it that I am to know I can extrapolate "indoor" from "theater" but not "people" who "assume they aren't being watched" to people outdoors?
The problem is that you extrapolated at all. He only ever mentioned in a theatre. It's common knowledge that movie theatres are indoors, and no extrapolation is necessary. But since you enjoy extrapolation so much, why not extrapolate on "invasion" and apply it to privacy in Iraq? After all, how are you supposed to know that you're not supposed to extrapolate on every single word in his sentence to feed your particular pathology?
Quit trolling already.
I upsold her from a 10x10 album to an 11x14 buy moving it in front of the 10x10. It worked, but I felt so dirty. I still have nightmares about "the vanishing."
What, did you drop the 10x10 down your pants and you got a paper cut out of it?
You didn't loose, but you end up being a little less rich. Oh wait, that's the definition of loosing.
Wrong. The definition of loosing would be to release, detach, let fly, absolve, relax, etc. Loose is the opposite of tight and it rhymes with goose.
Actually contacting people costs money because a human has to pick up the phone. Terminating their service costs money for obvious reasons, and charging them for a dubious "service" is likely to get your customer angry at you and waste time and money in calls to your help line.
:)
One possibility is to increase the monthly fee for *all* subscribers but have a "clean PC" discount which makes it less expensive than before. For example, if Comcast now charges $40 a month for X service, they can raise the price to $50... but customers who don't have zombied computers automatically get a discount to make it $38 a month. Not perfect, still need to accurately identify the zombie from the clean PCs... but a financial penalty would certainly motivate more people to do something about the problem.
Imagine if someone's fax machine were hijacked and used to send out death threats. How long would that be allowed to go on before police would come knocking on the door? Spam isn't quite as serious, but some days I wish it were treated the same -- or at least treat the spammers as murderers.
I sure hope this doesn't turn into a repeat of Halo on the Mac. From the reports, it was buggy, slow, and there was no demo available. Then Macsoft starts complaining about piracy. Gee, with no demo and reports of a crappy port, I wonder why people took to pirating it.
As for BF1942, the jury's still out. All I want to know is where I can download the demo and try it out myself.
It'll be kinda neat to return to the days of the Apple II when you'd pop in a disc, boot, and get the game :)
You mean as you can do now with PlayStation, XBox, GameCube...?
This also comes into play with our economy right now - being in this recession (they call it what they want but until they can sustain their family on less than $20,000/yr I don't even hear the words coming out of their unknowledgeable mouths)
So if the economy weren't in a recession you *could* sustain your family on $20,000 a year? I don't understand this logic.