Technically, the NSA have been doing what they are doing for a while. So irrespective of what you think about the NSA or Snowden, it was the information that they're doing it getting wider attention that is causing the demand to drop.
Well, it may be that your opinion is that poker is "easier to compute" (whatever that means) than chess.
However, as justification for this opinion you give completely irrelevant comparisons.
I can go into the technical details if you insist as to _why_ it is the case, or you could go to to http://www.cs.ualberta.ca/~games/ and read around there (and contemplate why the University of Alberta considers their chess research a "previous project", while the Poker research is ongoing), or perhaps you'd like to actually implement either a chess engine or a poker bot or both, and then see how far you can get. Or you could read one of the actual scientific papers on Poker AI, where there's usually a justification why they think Poker research is more fruitful nowadays than chess research.
Alternatively, you could just trust me when I say:
The techniques used in writing a chess engine that can beat an average human player are so established that even beginning programmers can quickly implement them (drop by the forums at http://www.talkchess.com/forum/viewforum.php?f=7 for some non-academic discussions on chess engine writing). Essentially, just searching as many positions as possible as quickly as possible (and using the latest hardware) has been the most successful approach.
For Poker, just the fact that parts of the game are hidden makes it harder by orders of magnitude, and research is very active.
The number of combinations you can make with a deck of cards vs. the number of moves in a chess game is a completely invalid comparison. I'd suggest that any such comparison attempted would be more or less meaningless.
Just the fact that endless numbers of games playable with a standard deck of cards of a complexity ranging from the trivial to the extremely complicated should suggest to you that perhaps that the number of comparisons is perhaps not a very meaningful metric.
I'll pick out just one small factor to perhaps illustrate the huge differences involved: Judging the strength of a chess engine properly is hard enough despite the fact that in principle the results are very easy to analyse: There is only either a win, a loss or a draw. Even with this superficial simplicity thousands of games have to be played before chess engine A can be confidently judged to be stronger than engine B. And this in a game where there's supposedly no random factor!
In Poker, even just determining whether one player was simply lucky or actually better is a research programme in its own right. In the FA, a very limited variant of Poker was used: One-on-One Limit Texas Hold-em. It gets much more complicated once you add more players, and more complicated again when you go from Limit to No-Limit Poker.
Your "opinion" is wrong on so many levels that it takes real effort for me to stay on-topic and not flame you personally for it (I apologize if my effort was not sufficient).
I'll believe it when I see it. I still remember the words "Nobody plans to build a wall", though those were said in German...
You must be fairly old then, because the wall was built in 1961. Much more recent is "The wall will stand for 100 years", which was said shortly before 1989...
(I put "gifted" in quotes because it presupposes someone doing the gifting.)
Why?
Does "demented" presuppose someone doing the dementing? Does "tired" presuppose somone doing the tiring? Does "wasted" (as in drunk) presuppose someone doing the wasting?
And he's the first link on that disambiguation page you looked at!
Ouch. You're right; where do I hand it in?
I should have put a:-) after my statement, but then again, I really didn't know, and I really didn't read all the entries in the disambig page that I so carefully dug out:-)
Shame on me!
Of course, posting as AC doesn't exactly qualify you as a geek, either:-)
The training for high-speed train conductors is mostly in simulators as far as I know.
Wow, the conductors really have a tough job, so obviously they need simulations before they can be let loose to check real passengers' tickets. They must be using some advanced AI techniques to get "aggravated customer" sim just right.
I think "Gambit" is a mutant. Or at least a mutation of the English language.
Not sure what you're talking about here (mutant), GP is correct.
A gambit is a chess opening with at least one pawn sacrifice. There are other meanings (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gambit_(disambiguati on)) that usually refer to the one taken from chess. The word is derived from "dare il gambetto" (although my Italian colleague says it should be "fare.."), which means "to trip someone up".
I tend to take most things I read on Wikipedia that I'm not an expert on with a grain of salt, simply because I keep finding errors in articles that I am.
I do the same with every kind of article, especially in newspapers and magazines (even with "trade" magazines, albeit somewhat more leniently).
Why do you feel you have the need to single out Wikipedia?
Haven't you ever read an article in even a respected newspaper on a subject that you're an expert in, and cringed given all the little or big inaccuracies and oversimplifications?
Nothing in what you quoted was an endorsement by the APA of the SOURCE of and use of references, but, as per the second blockquote, a STYLE GUIDE on how to cite as per their style.
I didn't say there was an endorsement, I just said that contrary to what Sycraft-fu said, APA does not outlaw quoting reference books. Otherwise they would say so instead of giving guidelines of how to quote them:
* For reference books, which includes encyclopedias, dictionaries, and glossaries, the book title is preceded by the word In. It is not italicized, but the book title following it is.
4) You don't cite reference books/sites (again since you are hainvg trouble with this one).
What makes you think I'm "having trouble with this one"? You seem to be looking for a disagreement where there is none.
I said It also gives several other pieces of advice that coincide with your other opinions (regarding citing an encyclopedia).
I'll rephrase, since you are "having trouble with this one":-) : The Wikipedia entry on citing Wikpedia gives several pieces of advice that agree with and are totally on your side of all the other stuff you talked about, including citing encyclopedias, both in general and Wikipedia in particular. In addition, they are completely on your side and think you're right.
Clear enough now? Perhaps the word "coincide" is a bit too big for you?:-):-):-)
I'll put one on top, by citing even more from Wikipedia:As with any source, especially those of unknown authorship, you should be wary and independently verify the accuracy of Wikipedia information if possible; see also http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Academic_us e and our General Disclaimer page.
In fact, on the Academic use page, it says citation of Wikipedia in research papers has been known to result in a grade of F. I can't see any more agreement to what you've said than that.
I don't care how much you like Wikipedia, I don't think I made any comment about how much or how little I like Wikipedia.
For someone who seems to value academic principles so highly, you come across as very quick to jump to conclusions:
You haven't read my response, instead you assumed I was attacking you, when I was supporting you, except on one small issue.
You haven't followed the link, to see what the Wikipedia recommendations are for citing (which happen to agree mostly with your opinions). Instead, you assumed they would be disagreeing with you, which they don't.
You make uncalled-for assumptions about my motivations, instead of just staying on-topic.
Here's my view on the subject. I've tried to phrase it as clearly as possible. You may find that we are in agreement, except perhaps for little things:
1. Citing an encyclopedia is usually not a good idea. As was said above, an encyclopedia should be used as a starting point, not the only source. It may be acceptable for topics that are marginal to the paper's main content. For example, a paper on computer go could very well include a reference to an overview entry on computer chess from the Encyclopedia of Artificial Intelligence. 2. Citing Wikipedia is an even more controversial subject, so great care has to be taken. In general, I would consider citing from Wikipedia inappropriate for a college term paper (and "above"), perhaps adequate for high school. There are areas where Wikipedia really is among the best sources, for example on the various Internet phenomena. I wouldn't dismiss it offhand, however. 3. Part of the care that needs to be taken when citing from Wikipedia is to make sure that the version that is cited is clearly marked by time and date, if only to make sure that the reader of the paper has a chance to verify exactly what was cited. 4. The idea that students might write a paper, and edit Wikipedia just so that the particular WP entry agrees with their paper is very creative, but a bit far-fetched IMHO. Usually such changes would be quickly reverted, and the history will show exactly that. Spinning your idea further, if the student were to do exactly that, and would claim what you've said he would/could, the professor would have an easy case in that not enough care was taken that the information taken from the WP article was sufficiently stable. Were you really thinking of this situation when you wrote I mean the student can always change it to
So even when you are talking about Britanica, it's improper form to cite a reference book. When you are talking Wikipedia, it's downright stupid. Especially since it's changeable. I mean the student can always change it to say what they want. It'll get reverted, of course, but they can just claim "That's what it said when I looked at the page, so I figured it was right."
Apparently you haven't read http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Citing_Wiki pedia yet. It explicitly states "The citation should normally include the full date and time of the article revision you are using, because the page may well change drastically between when you view it and when somebody else following your reference views it."
It also gives several other pieces of advice that coincide with your other opinions (regarding citing an encyclopedia).
But the paragraph you've written is incorrect; if Wikipedia is cited properly (with precise date and time), there is no way that "the student can always change it to say what they want".
The use of computers models to predict what to buy has been around for some time. The absolute belief in these models caused Long Term Capital Management to go under in 1998 ( see When Genius failed ).
It was not "the absolute belief in these models" that caused them to fail. It was greed, pure and simple. Plus a bit of false sense of pride. They had been hailed to the top so much, they couldn't admit they should scale down.
They did not get out of their positions when they started becoming more correlated. After they went out of business, government bonds went back to "what they should have been".
If someone had a bot that could successfully beat online poker, why would they sell it?
For the same reason that it makes sense to sell "trading systems" or "betting strategies", or "surebets" (or even just to write books on Poker).
When you wager an amount x in a situation where you (think you) get favourable odds, it depends very much on the amount you're spending how much you're going to get back (duh!, but bear with me). I'll only use examples from Poker, but the same applies in the other areas mentioned.
If you have e.g. 100,000 $ to wager, it won't make sense to participate in $1/$2 limit games. It is possible to earn some money fairly safely, but the return just isn't high enough. So you have to move up to a limit until the Risk/Return ratio becomes optimal for your bankroll.
If you then sell your strategy or your bot, or whatever, to those people with lower bankrolls, you can make additional money without them taking anything from you. The only flaw in this strategy happens when the "others" start playing in the same games with you. Well, you just have to make sure they won't.
But it's the same for say, David Sklansky telling "all his secrets" in Poker books: Isn't he worried that thousands of players come to play at his limit and make the pie smaller for everyone? Well, obviously he isn't. Perhaps he would be if there were only One Table in the whole world where he could play, and it were really easy for everyone, they could just read his books and become him. That's not the case, and a similar argument applies to "sharks selling breadcrumbs to the small fish".
Yes, one should be skeptical, but in this case I don't see a convincing counter-argument. Maybe you have one.
Well, my entirely non-scientific view on this: You'd be surprised how much of a person is genetic, even personality aspects.
I have two sons, and it is amazing how opposite they are in personality. You may say "aren't you contradicting yourself?"; wait for it.
The older son is almost a perfect mirror of my (ex-) wife: Cautious, always putting himself last, etc. The younger one is a mirror of (a younger) me: Stubborn, always ready to jump into trouble, always putting himself first. And that's only the tip of the iceberg, there are too many things to list here (the younger one taught himself to read at 3, like I did, the older one learnt it at school, etc., etc.). And I am very careful about not retro-curve-fitting on these issues: I am very skeptical about these things and reality has "bowled me over".
Having children really makes you (or at least makes _me_) think about those things like talent vs. training, born vs. made "nurture vs. nature" etc. I'm fairly sure that the other two members of Slashdot that have more than one child will agree: It is almost unbelievable how much is there from the start (and if they are negative aspects, hard to impossible to change).
And it's the same with "talent", be it mental or physical: I have a long line of family "musical talents" (relatively speaking; only one actually went professional a long time ago). I taught myself from books (and a little help from the computerized keyboard) how to play the piano far beyond the age of 30, and after two years of practice (and one year on and off _with_ a teacher) I'm playing pieces that are meant to be suitable for playing after six-eight years (in terms of difficulty). And I've never had any significant training before that. Is that talent?
On the other hand I'm as lazy as S#*T, so I'd never have made it as a musician. In so many areas there are people that have far less talent than others, but are more successful because they work harder. Even Chess GMs.
I'm sure that pretty much any child can be drilled to reach at least the FM level eventually, but GM or even World Champion requires both talent and a lot of hard work.
So, to sum up, I strongly believe what many others have said before:
Talent alone is nothing, hard work alone is worth more than talent alone. But talent and hard work (plus a little bit of luck) is what is required to reach the very top of _any_ endeavour.
Maybe Pac-Man isn't really harming the ghosts. He's not eating the Ghosts, they live on. He's eating their clothing. The so called ghosts simply return home and don another sheet when Pac-Man catches them.
Maybe Pac-Man is really just a creature that enjoys the taste of clothing worn by a dark skinned creature. Eating the clothing seems to be enjoyable to Pac-Man, but receiving a whip crack to the ass from the mystical material transports Pac-Man back to his starting position.
How do we know the Ghosts don't enjoy chasing Pac-Man! They get to smack him on the rear if they catch him, but if he catches them they have to go home naked. It could all be in fun and jest, and us dolts of the human race have misinterpreted the entire ritual!
Ah, so it's 87 % nudity and implied sex! As we Europeans know, that is far worse than violence for US children.
It's also worth considering that even if the U.S. doesn't travel back to the Moon, other countries will. Do you really want your grandkids to have to buy tickets on a Chinese spacecraft to visit the Chinese moon city fifty years hence? Or the EU moon base? Or the Russian Mars base? Not that our grandkids will be able to afford such things; we'll be the has-beens, the left-behinds who stand at night and gaze at the sky while other nation-states dominate the heavens. No way. The U.S. has got to maintain its leadership role in space or it will become an also-ran.
I have no problem visiting a Chinese, EU, or Russian base, just like I have no problem visiting a US base.
I do have a problem with excessive chauvinism, however.
Yours is a common argument. In an earlier era in the 1970s people were saying, why don't we spend that money here on earth where it's needed? Yet, every cent of that money is spent here on earth; it's not as though we launch tons of dollar bills into orbit and eject them into space. Thousands of engineers, scientists, physicians, space suit makers, rocket ship builders, computer programmers, astrophysicists, and others are employed by the space program.
By the same argument, wars are good for the economy. It is, however, a flawed argument, an example of the "broken window fallacy": "Throwing a baseball into the neighbour's window is good for the economy, because the glazier gets the money (by the insurance company), who then spends it at the baker's, or whereever."
It is a fallacy because the money that the insurance company pays has to come from somewhere. Overall, it is better for the economy if that money is invested productively.
The grandparent (poster)'s argument may well be that the same money could be spent more productively. Besides, part of the money really is burnt in space:-)
It is a matter of discussion what percentage of the money spent at NASA could be called productive (in a similar way to "fundamental research").
Now, there may be all sorts of political reasons (and I don't mean this in a negative way, I mean it in the way "people want it") to go to the Moon and Mars (beside the fact that eventually we'll have to leave Earth, and we'll have to start some time before it's too late), but your economic reasoning is flawed.
Please let it be known that I love the idea of going back to the Moon etc., I'm just trying to be fair and not claim that there is more to it than there really is: A good idea, yes. Economically, probably not.
And there is a reason that baseball leagues play matches rather than games. In any case, I would have expected the US team to win despite the luck factor. Guess I was wrong.
Is it true that the Italian team used second-generation American-Italians? Gosh, I'll submit a team of "ethnic" Germans for consideration: Schilling, Buehrle, Isringhausen, Wagner, Smoltz,... (not sure these really are of German origin, just guessing from the names:-)
In competitions where professionals are able to play there are quite a few teams better than the USA. In the recent World Baseball Classic pros were able to play and most players from the major leagues were allowed/agreed to play (this usually doesnt happen for fear of injury to VERY expensive players).
The USA won 3 of its 6 games and didnt even make the semi finals. They finished 8th overall. Teams above them were (in order). Japan, Cuba, Korea, Dominican Republic, Puerto Rico, Mexico and Venezuela.
Wow, you're right. I did not know that, I guess my knowledge of this is out-of-date. Is this a 2006 thing, or how long have I been missing this? And while just like in Basketball, for these competitions they don't seem to send the very best players, I'm not sure this has happened here. I certainly recognize a few names as top players, but I haven't been following the MLB for a while now (so I don't know who the current stars are, and if they took part): (from US Roster for World Baseball Classics)
Clemens, Roger
Jeter, Derek
Jones, Chipper
Rodriguez, Alex
Griffey Jr., Ken
Barry Bonds
So I guess things have changed. And it seems for Baseball at least they should change the name of their final series.
This is simply because the rest of the world play sensible sports such as football, cricket and rugby. No one cares about weird American bastardisations.
Well, it's interesting to see that the chauvinism the Americans are accused of (probably rightly) goes both ways. The only sports that are "sensible" are the ones you happen to like, and because you don't care, "no one cares"? Flamebait? Troll?
In each case international rugby, cricket and football draws in a huge amount of countries competing with one another
Rugby and Cricket are pretty much limited to the Commonwealth and former colonies. Football/Soccer seems to have the most worldwide appeal; even George W. knows by now that the World Cup is "bigger" than the Super Bowl. I'm sure at least part of it has to do with the fact that it can be played with so little preparation. Try to get a (n American) Football team or even league together, just the pads are a major investment. For Baseball, it's not just the bats and gloves, but backstops, Bases all require a certain amount of investment before one can get started. To get a full Rugby XV together, plus another team to play against, posts, etc., is pretty tough as well. With cricket, it's similar to Baseball. You need the space, bats, wickets, helmets,... For Basketball,... well, the list goes on.
With Assoc. Football, all you need is a ball, plus some bags or whatever for goal posts, and you can start playing.
which makes the sport far more interesting than simply playing at a national level
Well, this is not a valid conclusion. Seeing the best Am. Football teams play each other is also interesting if you like the sport, irrespective of whether there's an international level or not.
and certainly improves the game of all the nations involved through increased competition.
Well, neither the NFL nor the MLB are trying to prevent the competition from other countries. In fact, they both have programs that are actively promoting the sports outside the US, to help bring in players (and of course fans) from abroad. You can't really blame them that for now, the other countries are so far behind.
I think the US does have a football, cricket and rugby team but it is puzzling as to why they are so often so far down the bottom of the pecking order as be invisible.
Please explain why the level at which US teams compete in your favourite sports has any relevance to the discussion. Would it make a difference to you if the US teams in "non-US sports" would be better? In the discussion about why NFL and MLB call their winners "World Champions"? What does one have to do with the other?
I agree that calling the winners of a national league "World Champions" sounds a bit strange. But I also try to see the other side and I think there is some truth in it. Blind yank-bashing doesn't make for a balanced discussion.
Just so you know where I'm coming from: I spent a few years in England, and played Rugby (XV and VII) there, even scored a Cricket game once (couldn't play though). Later I played (American) Football at a high Amateur level in Germany (as well as coached a few teams), I coached a Baseball team (can't play worth a d*mn) and scored at high Amateur level. And of course I'm eagerly awaiting the FIFA World Cup 2006 in my home country (and of course I used to play it myself as a child).
I think that each sport has its merit; be open-minded about them; there is no point in criticizing other sports.
And it's the same with other countries. Try to be a bit more open-minded.
It also happens to be a sporting event that actually deserves the word "World" in it's title unlike the World Series in baseball which as far as I can tell is contested between teams from USA and Canada exclusively and the Super Bowl where the winners are crowned as World champions (what a joke!)
On the other hand, they have a point. In American Football and Baseball, no teams that mainly consist of non-US players come close to being a contender for the title.
In Football they are so far ahead that "NFL Europe" consists of 95 % US nationals, and it would be even less if they didn't have a sort of "equal opportunities" rule to make sure that "national players" get some time to play. If you have played even at a third-rate college you can easily make the team in one of the national leagues such as the German Bundesliga ("German Football League").
In Baseball the ratio is even worse. The only country that could challenge US baseball amateurs is Cuba, and it is a very very long way from there up to the Major Leagues, and of course even longer to the World Series.
So until there are actually any other contenders for the titles, I'm happy to let the Americans call their best Football and Baseball teams World Champions.
Note that in "the other" two major US sports, Basketball and (Ice) Hockey (where other nations are starting to catch up), they are a bit more restrained.
Slashdot Mirror
Technically, the NSA have been doing what they are doing for a while. So irrespective of what you think about the NSA or Snowden, it was the information that they're doing it getting wider attention that is causing the demand to drop.
A tool to find exploits of open source software? That is so evil.
Well, it may be that your opinion is that poker is "easier to compute" (whatever that means) than chess.
However, as justification for this opinion you give completely irrelevant comparisons.
I can go into the technical details if you insist as to _why_ it is the case, or you could go to to http://www.cs.ualberta.ca/~games/ and read around there (and contemplate why the University of Alberta considers their chess research a "previous project", while the Poker research is ongoing), or perhaps you'd like to actually implement either a chess engine or a poker bot or both, and then see how far you can get. Or you could read one of the actual scientific papers on Poker AI, where there's usually a justification why they think Poker research is more fruitful nowadays than chess research.
Alternatively, you could just trust me when I say:
The techniques used in writing a chess engine that can beat an average human player are so established that even beginning programmers can quickly implement them (drop by the forums at http://www.talkchess.com/forum/viewforum.php?f=7 for some non-academic discussions on chess engine writing). Essentially, just searching as many positions as possible as quickly as possible (and using the latest hardware) has been the most successful approach.
For Poker, just the fact that parts of the game are hidden makes it harder by orders of magnitude, and research is very active.
The number of combinations you can make with a deck of cards vs. the number of moves in a chess game is a completely invalid comparison. I'd suggest that any such comparison attempted would be more or less meaningless.
Just the fact that endless numbers of games playable with a standard deck of cards of a complexity ranging from the trivial to the extremely complicated should suggest to you that perhaps that the number of comparisons is perhaps not a very meaningful metric.
I'll pick out just one small factor to perhaps illustrate the huge differences involved:
Judging the strength of a chess engine properly is hard enough despite the fact that in principle the results are very easy to analyse: There is only either a win, a loss or a draw. Even with this superficial simplicity thousands of games have to be played before chess engine A can be confidently judged to be stronger than engine B. And this in a game where there's supposedly no random factor!
In Poker, even just determining whether one player was simply lucky or actually better is a research programme in its own right.
In the FA, a very limited variant of Poker was used: One-on-One Limit Texas Hold-em. It gets much more complicated once you add more players, and more complicated again when you go from Limit to No-Limit Poker.
Your "opinion" is wrong on so many levels that it takes real effort for me to stay on-topic and not flame you personally for it (I apologize if my effort was not sufficient).
I'll believe it when I see it. I still remember the words "Nobody plans to build a wall", though those were said in German...
You must be fairly old then, because the wall was built in 1961. Much more recent is "The wall will stand for 100 years", which was said shortly before 1989...
(I put "gifted" in quotes because it presupposes someone doing the gifting.)
Why?
Does "demented" presuppose someone doing the dementing?
Does "tired" presuppose somone doing the tiring?
Does "wasted" (as in drunk) presuppose someone doing the wasting?
Please hand in your geek card.
Gambit is a member of the X-Men -- i.e. a mutant.
And he's the first link on that disambiguation page you looked at!
Ouch. You're right; where do I hand it in?
I should have put a
Shame on me!
Of course, posting as AC doesn't exactly qualify you as a geek, either
The training for high-speed train conductors is mostly in simulators as far as I know.
Wow, the conductors really have a tough job, so obviously they need simulations before they can be let loose to check real passengers' tickets. They must be using some advanced AI techniques to get "aggravated customer" sim just right.
I think "Gambit" is a mutant. Or at least a mutation of the English language.
i on)) that usually refer to the one taken from chess.
Not sure what you're talking about here (mutant), GP is correct.
A gambit is a chess opening with at least one pawn sacrifice. There are other meanings (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gambit_(disambiguat
The word is derived from "dare il gambetto" (although my Italian colleague says it should be "fare.."), which means "to trip someone up".
"Runs the gamut" would have been the correct phrase, "gamut" meaning "complete range": http://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/gamut
Avoid clichés like the plague!
I tend to take most things I read on Wikipedia that I'm not an expert on with a grain of salt, simply because I keep finding errors in articles that I am.
I do the same with every kind of article, especially in newspapers and magazines (even with "trade" magazines, albeit somewhat more leniently).
Why do you feel you have the need to single out Wikipedia?
Haven't you ever read an article in even a respected newspaper on a subject that you're an expert in, and cringed given all the little or big inaccuracies and oversimplifications?
Yes, we are all so weak-minded. In fact, "Jack Thompson"'s real name is Johann Müller.
Nothing in what you quoted was an endorsement by the APA of the SOURCE of and use of references, but, as per the second blockquote, a STYLE GUIDE on how to cite as per their style.
I didn't say there was an endorsement, I just said that contrary to what Sycraft-fu said, APA does not outlaw quoting reference books. Otherwise they would say so instead of giving guidelines of how to quote them:
* For reference books, which includes encyclopedias, dictionaries, and glossaries, the book title is preceded by the word In. It is not italicized, but the book title following it is.
What makes you think I'm "having trouble with this one"? You seem to be looking for a disagreement where there is none.
I said It also gives several other pieces of advice that coincide with your other opinions (regarding citing an encyclopedia).
I'll rephrase, since you are "having trouble with this one"
Clear enough now? Perhaps the word "coincide" is a bit too big for you?
I'll put one on top, by citing even more from Wikipedia:As with any source, especially those of unknown authorship, you should be wary and independently verify the accuracy of Wikipedia information if possible; see also http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Academic_us e and our General Disclaimer page.
In fact, on the Academic use page, it says citation of Wikipedia in research papers has been known to result in a grade of F. I can't see any more agreement to what you've said than that.
I don't care how much you like Wikipedia,
I don't think I made any comment about how much or how little I like Wikipedia.
For someone who seems to value academic principles so highly, you come across as very quick to jump to conclusions:
Here's my view on the subject. I've tried to phrase it as clearly as possible. You may find that we are in agreement, except perhaps for little things:
1. Citing an encyclopedia is usually not a good idea. As was said above, an encyclopedia should be used as a starting point, not the only source. It may be acceptable for topics that are marginal to the paper's main content. For example, a paper on computer go could very well include a reference to an overview entry on computer chess from the Encyclopedia of Artificial Intelligence.
2. Citing Wikipedia is an even more controversial subject, so great care has to be taken. In general, I would consider citing from Wikipedia inappropriate for a college term paper (and "above"), perhaps adequate for high school. There are areas where Wikipedia really is among the best sources, for example on the various Internet phenomena. I wouldn't dismiss it offhand, however.
3. Part of the care that needs to be taken when citing from Wikipedia is to make sure that the version that is cited is clearly marked by time and date, if only to make sure that the reader of the paper has a chance to verify exactly what was cited.
4. The idea that students might write a paper, and edit Wikipedia just so that the particular WP entry agrees with their paper is very creative, but a bit far-fetched IMHO. Usually such changes would be quickly reverted, and the history will show exactly that. Spinning your idea further, if the student were to do exactly that, and would claim what you've said he would/could, the professor would have an easy case in that not enough care was taken that the information taken from the WP article was sufficiently stable.
Were you really thinking of this situation when you wrote I mean the student can always change it to
So even when you are talking about Britanica, it's improper form to cite a reference book. When you are talking Wikipedia, it's downright stupid. Especially since it's changeable. I mean the student can always change it to say what they want. It'll get reverted, of course, but they can just claim "That's what it said when I looked at the page, so I figured it was right."
i pedia yet. It explicitly states "The citation should normally include the full date and time of the article revision you are using, because the page may well change drastically between when you view it and when somebody else following your reference views it."
Apparently you haven't read http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Citing_Wik
It also gives several other pieces of advice that coincide with your other opinions (regarding citing an encyclopedia).
But the paragraph you've written is incorrect; if Wikipedia is cited properly (with precise date and time), there is no way that "the student can always change it to say what they want".
The use of computers models to predict what to buy has been around for some time. The absolute belief in these models caused Long Term Capital Management to go under in 1998 ( see When Genius failed ).
n agement#A_deeper_understanding_of_the_risks_taken_ by_LTCM
It was not "the absolute belief in these models" that caused them to fail. It was greed, pure and simple. Plus a bit of false sense of pride. They had been hailed to the top so much, they couldn't admit they should scale down.
They did not get out of their positions when they started becoming more correlated. After they went out of business, government bonds went back to "what they should have been".
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Long_term_capital_ma
If someone had a bot that could successfully beat online poker, why would they sell it?
For the same reason that it makes sense to sell "trading systems" or "betting strategies", or "surebets" (or even just to write books on Poker).
When you wager an amount x in a situation where you (think you) get favourable odds, it depends very much on the amount you're spending how much you're going to get back (duh!, but bear with me). I'll only use examples from Poker, but the same applies in the other areas mentioned.
If you have e.g. 100,000 $ to wager, it won't make sense to participate in $1/$2 limit games. It is possible to earn some money fairly safely, but the return just isn't high enough. So you have to move up to a limit until the Risk/Return ratio becomes optimal for your bankroll.
If you then sell your strategy or your bot, or whatever, to those people with lower bankrolls, you can make additional money without them taking anything from you. The only flaw in this strategy happens when the "others" start playing in the same games with you. Well, you just have to make sure they won't.
But it's the same for say, David Sklansky telling "all his secrets" in Poker books: Isn't he worried that thousands of players come to play at his limit and make the pie smaller for everyone? Well, obviously he isn't. Perhaps he would be if there were only One Table in the whole world where he could play, and it were really easy for everyone, they could just read his books and become him. That's not the case, and a similar argument applies to "sharks selling breadcrumbs to the small fish".
Yes, one should be skeptical, but in this case I don't see a convincing counter-argument. Maybe you have one.
Well, my entirely non-scientific view on this:
You'd be surprised how much of a person is genetic, even personality aspects.
I have two sons, and it is amazing how opposite they are in personality. You may say "aren't you contradicting yourself?"; wait for it.
The older son is almost a perfect mirror of my (ex-) wife: Cautious, always putting himself last, etc. The younger one is a mirror of (a younger) me: Stubborn, always ready to jump into trouble, always putting himself first. And that's only the tip of the iceberg, there are too many things to list here (the younger one taught himself to read at 3, like I did, the older one learnt it at school, etc., etc.). And I am very careful about not retro-curve-fitting on these issues: I am very skeptical about these things and reality has "bowled me over".
Having children really makes you (or at least makes _me_) think about those things like talent vs. training, born vs. made "nurture vs. nature" etc. I'm fairly sure that the other two members of Slashdot that have more than one child will agree: It is almost unbelievable how much is there from the start (and if they are negative aspects, hard to impossible to change).
And it's the same with "talent", be it mental or physical: I have a long line of family "musical talents" (relatively speaking; only one actually went professional a long time ago). I taught myself from books (and a little help from the computerized keyboard) how to play the piano far beyond the age of 30, and after two years of practice (and one year on and off _with_ a teacher) I'm playing pieces that are meant to be suitable for playing after six-eight years (in terms of difficulty). And I've never had any significant training before that. Is that talent?
On the other hand I'm as lazy as S#*T, so I'd never have made it as a musician. In so many areas there are people that have far less talent than others, but are more successful because they work harder. Even Chess GMs.
I'm sure that pretty much any child can be drilled to reach at least the FM level eventually, but GM or even World Champion requires both talent and a lot of hard work.
So, to sum up, I strongly believe what many others have said before:
Talent alone is nothing, hard work alone is worth more than talent alone.
But talent and hard work (plus a little bit of luck) is what is required to reach the very top of _any_ endeavour.
Ah, so it's 87 % nudity and implied sex! As we Europeans know, that is far worse than violence for US children.
In addition, we Europeans still have to learn how to use HTML tags (and the Slashdot Preview function) properly...
Maybe Pac-Man isn't really harming the ghosts. He's not eating the Ghosts, they live on. He's eating their clothing. The so called ghosts simply return home and don another sheet when Pac-Man catches them.
Maybe Pac-Man is really just a creature that enjoys the taste of clothing worn by a dark skinned creature. Eating the clothing seems to be enjoyable to Pac-Man, but receiving a whip crack to the ass from the mystical material transports Pac-Man back to his starting position.
How do we know the Ghosts don't enjoy chasing Pac-Man! They get to smack him on the rear if they catch him, but if he catches them they have to go home naked. It could all be in fun and jest, and us dolts of the human race have misinterpreted the entire ritual!
Ah, so it's 87 % nudity and implied sex! As we Europeans know, that is far worse than violence for US children.
It's also worth considering that even if the U.S. doesn't travel back to the Moon, other countries will. Do you really want your grandkids to have to buy tickets on a Chinese spacecraft to visit the Chinese moon city fifty years hence? Or the EU moon base? Or the Russian Mars base? Not that our grandkids will be able to afford such things; we'll be the has-beens, the left-behinds who stand at night and gaze at the sky while other nation-states dominate the heavens. No way. The U.S. has got to maintain its leadership role in space or it will become an also-ran.
I have no problem visiting a Chinese, EU, or Russian base, just like I have no problem visiting a US base.
I do have a problem with excessive chauvinism, however.
Yours is a common argument. In an earlier era in the 1970s people were saying, why don't we spend that money here on earth where it's needed? Yet, every cent of that money is spent here on earth; it's not as though we launch tons of dollar bills into orbit and eject them into space. Thousands of engineers, scientists, physicians, space suit makers, rocket ship builders, computer programmers, astrophysicists, and others are employed by the space program.
:-)
By the same argument, wars are good for the economy. It is, however, a flawed argument, an example of the "broken window fallacy": "Throwing a baseball into the neighbour's window is good for the economy, because the glazier gets the money (by the insurance company), who then spends it at the baker's, or whereever."
It is a fallacy because the money that the insurance company pays has to come from somewhere. Overall, it is better for the economy if that money is invested productively.
The grandparent (poster)'s argument may well be that the same money could be spent more productively. Besides, part of the money really is burnt in space
It is a matter of discussion what percentage of the money spent at NASA could be called productive (in a similar way to "fundamental research").
Now, there may be all sorts of political reasons (and I don't mean this in a negative way, I mean it in the way "people want it") to go to the Moon and Mars (beside the fact that eventually we'll have to leave Earth, and we'll have to start some time before it's too late), but your economic reasoning is flawed.
Please let it be known that I love the idea of going back to the Moon etc., I'm just trying to be fair and not claim that there is more to it than there really is: A good idea, yes. Economically, probably not.
And there is a reason that baseball leagues play matches rather than games. In any case, I would have expected the US team to win despite the luck factor. Guess I was wrong.
... (not sure these really are of German origin, just guessing from the names :-)
Is it true that the Italian team used second-generation American-Italians? Gosh, I'll submit a team of "ethnic" Germans for consideration: Schilling, Buehrle, Isringhausen, Wagner, Smoltz,
The USA won 3 of its 6 games and didnt even make the semi finals. They finished 8th overall. Teams above them were (in order). Japan, Cuba, Korea, Dominican Republic, Puerto Rico, Mexico and Venezuela.
Wow, you're right. I did not know that, I guess my knowledge of this is out-of-date. Is this a 2006 thing, or how long have I been missing this? And while just like in Basketball, for these competitions they don't seem to send the very best players, I'm not sure this has happened here. I certainly recognize a few names as top players, but I haven't been following the MLB for a while now (so I don't know who the current stars are, and if they took part):
(from US Roster for World Baseball Classics)
So I guess things have changed. And it seems for Baseball at least they should change the name of their final series.
This is simply because the rest of the world play sensible sports such as football, cricket and rugby. No one cares about weird American bastardisations.
... For Basketball, ... well, the list goes on.
Well, it's interesting to see that the chauvinism the Americans are accused of (probably rightly) goes both ways. The only sports that are "sensible" are the ones you happen to like, and because you don't care, "no one cares"? Flamebait? Troll?
In each case international rugby, cricket and football draws in a huge amount of countries competing with one another
Rugby and Cricket are pretty much limited to the Commonwealth and former colonies. Football/Soccer seems to have the most worldwide appeal; even George W. knows by now that the World Cup is "bigger" than the Super Bowl. I'm sure at least part of it has to do with the fact that it can be played with so little preparation. Try to get a (n American) Football team or even league together, just the pads are a major investment. For Baseball, it's not just the bats and gloves, but backstops, Bases all require a certain amount of investment before one can get started. To get a full Rugby XV together, plus another team to play against, posts, etc., is pretty tough as well. With cricket, it's similar to Baseball. You need the space, bats, wickets, helmets,
With Assoc. Football, all you need is a ball, plus some bags or whatever for goal posts, and you can start playing.
which makes the sport far more interesting than simply playing at a national level
Well, this is not a valid conclusion. Seeing the best Am. Football teams play each other is also interesting if you like the sport, irrespective of whether there's an international level or not.
and certainly improves the game of all the nations involved through increased competition.
Well, neither the NFL nor the MLB are trying to prevent the competition from other countries. In fact, they both have programs that are actively promoting the sports outside the US, to help bring in players (and of course fans) from abroad. You can't really blame them that for now, the other countries are so far behind.
I think the US does have a football, cricket and rugby team but it is puzzling as to why they are so often so far down the bottom of the pecking order as be invisible.
Please explain why the level at which US teams compete in your favourite sports has any relevance to the discussion. Would it make a difference to you if the US teams in "non-US sports" would be better? In the discussion about why NFL and MLB call their winners "World Champions"? What does one have to do with the other?
I agree that calling the winners of a national league "World Champions" sounds a bit strange. But I also try to see the other side and I think there is some truth in it. Blind yank-bashing doesn't make for a balanced discussion.
Just so you know where I'm coming from:
I spent a few years in England, and played Rugby (XV and VII) there, even scored a Cricket game once (couldn't play though). Later I played (American) Football at a high Amateur level in Germany (as well as coached a few teams), I coached a Baseball team (can't play worth a d*mn) and scored at high Amateur level. And of course I'm eagerly awaiting the FIFA World Cup 2006 in my home country (and of course I used to play it myself as a child).
I think that each sport has its merit; be open-minded about them; there is no point in criticizing other sports.
And it's the same with other countries. Try to be a bit more open-minded.
It also happens to be a sporting event that actually deserves the word "World" in it's title unlike the World Series in baseball which as far as I can tell is contested between teams from USA and Canada exclusively and the Super Bowl where the winners are crowned as World champions (what a joke!)
On the other hand, they have a point. In American Football and Baseball, no teams that mainly consist of non-US players come close to being a contender for the title.
In Football they are so far ahead that "NFL Europe" consists of 95 % US nationals, and it would be even less if they didn't have a sort of "equal opportunities" rule to make sure that "national players" get some time to play. If you have played even at a third-rate college you can easily make the team in one of the national leagues such as the German Bundesliga ("German Football League").
In Baseball the ratio is even worse. The only country that could challenge US baseball amateurs is Cuba, and it is a very very long way from there up to the Major Leagues, and of course even longer to the World Series.
So until there are actually any other contenders for the titles, I'm happy to let the Americans call their best Football and Baseball teams World Champions.
Note that in "the other" two major US sports, Basketball and (Ice) Hockey (where other nations are starting to catch up), they are a bit more restrained.