I've worked with a few where that point [negative productivity] was the moment they were given network credentials.
Many years ago a company I worked for in the UK was taken over. Most of us were made redundant, but a few were kept on to help implement a new computer system for both my former company and the company that had taken us over. I still talked with a few of my ex-colleagues who were implementing the new system, and they often complained about a manager from the other company who was in overall charge of the implementation. According to them he was a pain, interfering and making bad decisions, so one day I asked them if they thought it would be better if he retained his role without any pay or if he just sat at home and did nothing, but received his full (and probably substantial) pay: my recollection is that they unanimously opted for the latter choice. (In a previous role he'd been a Wing Commander in the RAF, equivalent to a Lieutenant Colonel in the USAF, but I'm *not* saying that managerial incompetence is typical of middling to senior military ranks.)
"I'm not quite sure how fighting the Axis after being attacked by it counts as generous" - Well, before December 1941 the US with Franklin D. Roosevelt as President was doing quite a bit of prodding the Axis (rightly, in my British view), for example:
Lend Lease "...This program effectively ended the United States' pretense of neutrality and was a decisive step away from non-interventionist policy, which had dominated United States foreign relations since 1931... In December 1940, President Roosevelt proclaimed the U.S. would be the 'Arsenal of Democracy' and proposed selling munitions to Britain and Canada..."
Battle of the Atlantic "... By 1941, the United States was taking an increasing part in the war, despite its nominal neutrality. In April 1941 President Roosevelt extended the Pan-American Security Zone east almost as far as Iceland. British forces occupied Iceland when Denmark fell to the Germans in 1940; the US was persuaded to provide forces to relieve British troops on the island. American warships began escorting Allied convoys in the western Atlantic as far as Iceland, and had several hostile encounters with U-boats...."
Escort Duties:... From May 1941 the US Navy became a British ally in the struggle in the Atlantic. By taking over escort duties in the western Atlantic, it became involved in a shooting war with Germany, and on Halloween 1941, the inevitable happened. While escorting a British convoy, an American warship, the destroyer Reuben James, was torpedoed and sunk by the submarine U-562. This was at a time when Roosevelt still faced fierce opposition from isolationists within the USA, and escort duties in the Battle of the Atlantic had so far been the most that the President could do to bring the USA into the war on the British side. However, eventually this undeclared German-American naval war probably played a role in Hitler's decision to declare war on the USA - in the aftermath of Pearl Harbor....
US aid to China:... In 1940 and 1941, President Franklin D. Roosevelt formalized U.S. aid to China. The U.S. Government extended credits to the Chinese Government for the purchase of war supplies, as it slowly began to tighten restrictions on Japan. The United States was the main supplier of the oil, steel, iron, and other commodities needed by the Japanese military as it became bogged down by Chinese resistance but, in January, 1940, Japan abrogated the existing treaty of commerce with the United States. Although this did not lead to an immediate embargo, it meant that the Roosevelt Administration could now restrict the flow of military supplies into Japan and use this as leverage to force Japan to halt its aggression in China. After January 1940, the United States combined a strategy of increasing aid to China through larger credits and the Lend-Lease program with a gradual move towards an embargo on the trade of all militarily useful items with Japan....
It hadn't occurred to me before, but Zaphod Beeblebrox (in The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy by Douglas Adams) is spookily predictive of Trump as US President:... He was briefly the President of the Galaxy (a role that involves no power whatsoever, and merely requires the incumbent to attract attention so no one wonders who's really in charge, a role for which Zaphod was perfectly suited).... As a character, Zaphod is hedonistic and irresponsible, narcissistic almost to the point of solipsism, and often extremely insensitive to the feelings of those around him. In the books and radio series, he is nevertheless quite charismatic which causes many characters to ignore his other flaws.... Throughout the book and radio versions of the story, Zaphod is busy carrying out some grand scheme, has no clue as to what it is and is unable to do anything but follow the path that he laid out for himself....
Regarding any CEO who claims - or about whom it is said - that they were unaware of some serious problems: a CEO is supposed to know - it's part of the job. Especially if they are getting paid mega-bucks.
A story behind that comment: in the years before World War 2 the air defence of the UK was reorganised under the leadership of Air Chief Marshal Dowding, who managed the development of an integrated command and control system:...The Dowding system is considered key to the success of the RAF against the German air force (Luftwaffe) during the Battle of Britain. The combination of early detection and rapid dissemination of that information acted as a force multiplier, allowing the fighter force to be used at extremely high rates of effectiveness.... Although many histories of the Battle of Britain comment on the role of radar, it was only in conjunction with the Dowding system that radar could be truly effective. This was not lost on Winston Churchill, who noted that: "All the ascendancy of the Hurricanes and Spitfires would have been fruitless but for this system which had been devised and built before the war. It had been shaped and refined in constant action, and all was now fused together into a most elaborate instrument of war, the like of which existed nowhere in the world."
Dowding did not have day to day control of the RAF fighters in the Battle of Britain, but was in overall command, for example managing reserves and rotating the pilots flying the fighters: in short, he had managerial skills of a very high order which were - in my view - demonstrably better than most CEOs today. But after the Battle of Britain had been won a meeting was held to discuss the tactics used. To Dowding's surprise, a relatively junior officer Douglas Bader (who had - wrongly - disagreed with Dowding's system, partly because Bader - undeniably courageous and an excellent fighter pilot - didn't understand it) attended the meeting. The result of that meeting was that, disgracefully, Dowding was dismissed, along with - even more disgracefully - Air Vice Marshal Keith Park, who had commanded the most important group of fighters in the Battle of Britain.
What now follows is my recollection from reading "The Right of the Line" by John Terraine, which deals with the Royal Air Force in World War 2. At some point after that disgraceful meeting, Dowding said that he hadn't known about Bader's (remember, a relatively junior officer) disagreement about tactics, and Terraine remarks that possibly a solution might have been to transfer Bader from a relatively secondary group into the main group fighting in the Battle of Britain, which would at least have given Bader the action he craved, and might have kept Bader quiet. Terraine then quotes a senior civil servant remarking on Dowding saying he hadn't known about Bader: a commander-in-chief is supposed to know - that's part of the job.
I don't recall seeing a "Google is your friend" comment recently, so searching on yoga+unchristian gives the following top two search items:
todayschristianwoman.com telegraph.co.uk A little futher down is item by a Christian criticising the first articlechristianitytoday.com, so yoga isn't universally condemned by Christians.
Addressing your precise point, searching on yoga+evil gives this 2011 news report (I use the term loosely - it's from the English Daily Mail):... Father Amorth, a colourful and often outspoken personality, said:'Practising yoga brings evil as does reading Harry Potter. They may both seem innocuous but they both deal with magic and that leads to evil.' He added:'Yoga is the Devil's work. You thing [typo is in the online article] you are doing it for stretching your mind and body but it leads to Hinduism. All these oriental religions are based on the false belief of reincarnation.'...
"And what was it that happened to the inventor of the guillotine again?" - He survived!
Rather appropriate since according to Wikipedia "Guillotin was opposed to the death penalty and hoped that a more humane and less painful method of execution would be the first step toward a total abolition of the death penalty". However someone else with the same surname was executed by a guillotine.
Joseph-Ignace Guillotin ...
Towards the end of the Reign of Terror, a letter from the Comte de Méré to Guillotin fell into the hands of the public prosecutor, Fouquier-Tinville in which the Count, who was to be executed, commended his wife and children to Guillotin's care. The authorities demanded Guillotin inform them of the whereabouts of the Count's wife and children. As Guillotin either would not or could not give the information, he was arrested and imprisoned. He was freed from prison in the general amnesty of 9 Thermidor 1794 after Robespierre fell from power and abandoned his political career to resume the medical profession.
...
The association with the guillotine so embarrassed Dr. Guillotin's family that they petitioned the French government to rename it; when the government refused, they instead changed their own family name. By coincidence, a person named Guillotin was indeed executed by the guillotine – he was J.M.V. Guillotin, a doctor of Lyons. This coincidence may have contributed to erroneous statements that Guillotin was put to death on the machine that bears his name; however, in reality, Guillotin died at home in Paris in 1814 of natural causes, specifically from a carbuncle, and is now buried in the Père-Lachaise Cemetery in Paris.
...
Assuming you are the same AC who wrote "The number went down so that is a negative effect. No need to introduce value-laden descriptors into the math." in the first post: "To describe an effect on a number which acts to decrease the number as "positive" (since it is referring to an ideological as distinct from a mathematical effect) is value-laden. Liberal bias detected."
Are you seriously arguing that, for example, Ron Clarke's achievement running 10,000 metres in 27m39.4s in 1965, reducing the world record from the previous 28m15.6s, was negative? And that anyone who considers it a positive achievement is showing value-laden Liberal bias? To mis-quote Douglas Adams, this is obviously some strange usage of the word "negative" that I hadn't previously been aware of. You must be on more drugs and booze than Hunter S Thompson.
If you wish: to cite only a few, in 1845 I gave the first mathematical development of Faraday's idea that electric induction takes place through an intervening medium, or "dielectric", and not by some incomprehensible "action at a distance", and it was partly in response to my encouragement that Faraday undertook the research in September 1845 that led to the discovery of the Faraday effect, which established that light and magnetic (and thus electric) phenomena were related; in 1846, at the age of 22, I became the Professor of Natural Philosophy at Glasgow University, and in 1900 I gave a lecture on the two major problems not solved by 19th century physics - how matter moves through the aether (including the puzzling results of the Michelson–Morley experiment), which was solved by Einstein's Special Theory of Relativity, and indications that the Law of Equipartition in statistical mechanics might break down, which led to the developent of quantum mechanics.
"Moreover, after centuries of practice, humans aren't going to get significantly better at playing Go."
If one of the best 20th or 21st century chessplayers went back in time to play the best 19th century players, the 19th century players would lose, and I think it unlikely you could justify making a similar comment about chess, which makes me suspect that it's not true for Go.
Examples: in 1873 Steinitz" introduced a major improvent in playing style: "...All of Steinitz's successes up to 1872 inclusive were achieved in the attack-at-all-costs "Romantic" style exemplified by Anderssen. But in the Vienna 1873 chess tournament, Steinitz unveiled a new "positional" style of play which was to become the basis of modern chess..."
Later, in the 20th century, the Russian (or more accurately Soviet) school of chess made a major improvement by emphasising the dynamic possibilities of positions.
AlphaGo's playing style seems similar to that of some great chessplayers:
Karpov:... Karpov's "boa constrictor" playing style is solidly positional, taking no risks but reacting mercilessly to any tiny errors made by his opponents. As a result, he is often compared to his idol, the famous José Raúl Capablanca, the third World Champion. Karpov himself describes his style as follows:
Let us say the game may be continued in two ways: one of them is a beautiful tactical blow that gives rise to variations that don't yield to precise calculations; the other is clear positional pressure that leads to an endgame with microscopic chances of victory.... I would choose [the latter] without thinking twice. If the opponent offers keen play I don't object; but in such cases I get less satisfaction, even if I win, than from a game conducted according to all the rules of strategy with its ruthless logic....
Capablanca:... Capablanca excelled in simple positions and endgames, and his positional judgment was outstanding, so much so that most attempts to attack him came to grief without any apparent defensive efforts on his part. However, he could play great tactical chess when necessary... He was also capable of using aggressive tactical play to drive home a positional advantage, provided he considered it safe and the most efficient way to win, for example against Spielmann in the 1927 New York tournament....
or maybe Petrosian: Petrosian was a conservative, cautious, and highly defensive chess player who was strongly influenced by Aron Nimzowitsch's idea of prophylaxis. He made more effort to prevent his opponent's offensive capabilities than he did to make use of his own. He very rarely went on the offensive unless he felt his position was completely secure. He usually won by playing consistently until his aggressive opponent made a mistake, securing the win by capitalizing upon this mistake without revealing any weaknesses of his own.... Petrosian was known for his use of the "positional exchange sacrifice", where one side sacrifices a rook for the opponent's bishop or knight. Kasparov discussed Petrosian's use of this motif: "Petrosian introduced the exchange sacrifice for the sake of 'quality of position', where the time factor, which is so important in the play of Alekhine and Tal, plays hardly any role. Even today, very few players can operate confidently at the board with such abstract concepts. Before Petrosian no one had studied this. By sacrificing the exchange 'just like that', for certain long term advantages, in positions with disrupted material balance, he discovered latent resources that few were capable of seeing and properly evaluating."
"Actually he got less votes than Hillary" [irony] Not if you exclude all the "fraudulent" votes for Hillary Clinton! [/irony]
"In the Westminster system parties that dont get 50.00001% of the vote dont get their seats." - as a correction, if by "Westminster system" you mean something similar to the electoral system here in the United Kingdom, then, for example, in the 2010 General Election over half of the members of parliament were elected after receiving less than 50% of the vote in their constituency.
At which point I confess utter bewilderment. Is this post (a) for Trump and against Obama and the Clintons, (b) against Trump and for Obama and the Clintons, or (c) arguing something else.
I also need enlightenent on how a post which seems to claim "Russia handed over an entire forward operating base full of equipment to ISIS, and the Syrian "army" joined in by giving ISIS even more equipment" is supported by the two cited references:
* ISIS takes over Russian base in Syria’s Palmyra: Islamic State fighters have seized a Russian military base in Palmyra after a massive attack launched by the terror group.... Russian forces have reportedly blew up its heavy arms depots before they withdrew from the base to avoid being used by ISIS. ISIS stormed the desert city of Palmyra last Sunday after conducting multiple suicide attacks against government forces defending the city....
* ISIS seizes Syrian tanks, Russian vehicles left behind in PalmyraAfter the fall of Palmyra earlier today, brand new footage released by Amaq Agency now suggests the Syrian Arab Army’s (SAA) withdrawal from the city was not as well-coordinated as initially believed. During the SAA’s retreat from the city, dozens of armored vehicles were seemingly abandoned, including Russian ones....
That's true in theory, but not in practice, at least not in practice in this 2017 General Election.
As evidence for this consider the Conservative "battle bus". If you double click on the top photo on that page to enlarge it (or alternatively click this link), and then look *very* carefully just under the window on the open door at the front you might be able to just make out the word "Conservatives". If you have the eyes of a hawk.
* Debussy - String Quartet (1893) 1. Animé et très décidé
2. Assez vif et bien rythmé
3. Andantino, doucement expressif
4. Très modéré - En animant peu à peu - Très mouvementé et avec passion
A German mixed example:
* Schumann - Piano Sonata 2 in G minor (1831-1838) 1. So rasch wie möglich ("As quickly as possible" — however, near the end, Schumann writes "Schneller" and then "Noch schneller", meaning "Faster" and "Still faster")
2. Andantino. Getragen
3. Scherzo. Sehr rasch und markiert
4. Rondo. Presto
In 1995 there was a so-so BBC TV series "Backup" > about a British police support unit. It was unusual because one of the leading actors was a British-Chinese woman Colette Koo playing someone studying for a sargeant's exam.
In one episode she was commanding the backup unit waiting in a van outside a bar observing a confrontation between two opposing groups of people which looked like getting very nasty. The men (or some of them) under her command were all for going in to deal with this, but she decided to wait, and - from memory - some women in the two opposing groups then defused the situation, justifying her decision.
Although, as I said, the series wasn't exceptional, on a few occasions, as here, it took quite bold storyline decisions, avoiding the cliched route.
Just a mention that the URL generates a 403 error on UK, Netherlands or Hong Kong IPs, but is viewable on USA and Canada IPs. (Banned IP address list).
Are you sure about that? I can't speak for Netherlanders or Hong-Kongers, but as a UKer who is under the impression that as he types this he is sitting in a room looking out on a leafy suburb of Surrey, England, UK (but, hey, what do I know) I can click the link, and the URL doesn't seem blocked. Having skimmed through the page I don't see its relevance to the topic under discussion, but near the bottom of the page there is a rather cute animated cartoon dog.
I'm not a mathematician, but - from many years ago - I do have a mathematics degree. I'm also not a musician, but I have a very strong interest in many types of music. (But not Disco! Nor Herb Alpert & The Tijuana Brass. But I digress.) And I have a very strong interest in dance: but I'm not a dancer.
Anyway, what you write resonates with me. At my university (Warwick) mathematics students could choose whether to be awarded a BSc (UK - BS in USA?) or a BA. Most chose BSc, but a few of us chose BA. My reasons were partly that I felt that most of the mathematics I chose to study was - although rigorous - in some ways more of an art than a science, and partly because I rather preferred having an "arts" degree to a science degree.
I read Francis Su's address in full, and I recommend it, particularly the sections on the importance of play (not just in mathematics) and beauty. (And if you read Andrew Wiles's account of how he finally saw how to solve the serious difficulty that was preventing his approach to proving "Fermat's Last Theorem", you'll appreciate the joy of creation.)
As an example of beauty in mathematics, I want to cite Muntz's Theorem, also known as the Muntz-Szasz Theorem. I came across this while taking a course in Topology: the set book was "Introduction to Topology and Modern Analysis" by G F Simmons. The appendices weren't included in the course but I read them, with not much understanding. But I was delighted when I read a description, without proof, of Muntz's Theorem. It didn't give me the aesthetic pleasure of the greatest music or dance, but my aesthetic pleasure in seeing this theorem was - and still is - maybe similar to that given by a good relatively minor piece by Beethoven or Chopin.
I think part of its appeal to me is that the theorem is a combination of the expected and the unexpected: if you were asked to guess at the correct form of the theorem, then you might well choose what is actually the theorem, but it's still in some ways a surprise, something which is perhaps also true of some of the greatest music - it can be both familiar and strange.
Think of a "continuous" function, say sin(x), and consider it defined on a restricted interval a <= x <= b.
* The Weierstrass Approximation Theorem says that any "continuous" function defined on a restricted interval a <= x <= b can be approximated as closely as we wish by (carefully chosen) polynomials of a sufficiently high degree.
* Muntz's Theorem says that suppose we don't allow all powers of x in the polynomials, and instead use only a restricted set of powers of x: for example
**maybe (1) only x**0 and x **i where i is a multiple of 3,
** or maybe (2) only x**0 and x **i where i is a prime number,
** or maybe (3) only x**0 and x **i where i is a power of 2:
then Weierstrass's Theorem is still true if and only if the infinite sum of 1/i diverges, where i are the powers of x allowed in the polynomials.
So polynomials of type (1) or (2) are all we need to approximate any continuous function, but for polynomials of type (3) there are some continuous functions which they can't approximate well.
Somewhat to my "progressive" surprise, "George W Bush was more popular over the course of his Presidency than Barack Obama. Obama, in fact, only beats Nixon and Ford in recent-President popularity" appears to be mostly true. Assuming Wikpedia is accurate, then even Nixon was (just) on average more popular than Obama.
Before you make too much of that you might want to consider that both Clinton and Johnson - and G H W Bush - were on average more popular than Reagan.
And using the "highest disapproval rating", Obama is comfortably below G W Bush, Nixon, and G H W Bush, and only 1 percentage point above Reagan. But on this measure Ford is comfortably below Obama.
"There's even been cases of people who know they're dying to create a work to look after their dependents."
--An example is the "Personal Memoirs of Ulysses S Grant", which I highly recommend, not only for their content, but because Grant was a good writer:
The Personal Memoirs of Ulysses S. Grant is an autobiography by Ulysses S. Grant, the 18th President of the United States, focused mainly on his military career during the Mexican-American War and the American Civil War. Written as Grant was dying of cancer in 1885, the two-volume set was published by Mark Twain shortly after Grant's death.
Twain created a unique marketing system designed to reach millions of veterans with a patriotic appeal just as Grant's death was being mourned. Ten thousand agents canvassed the North, following a script Twain had devised; many were themselves veterans who dressed in their old uniforms. They sold 350,000 two-volume sets at prices from $3.50 to $12 (depending on the binding). Each copy contained what looked like a handwritten note from Grant himself. In the end, Grant's widow Julia received about $450,000, suggesting a gross royalty before expenses of about 30%.
...
After finishing his second term in office in 1877, Grant and his wife Julia took a trip around the world which left him short on money. Nearly 60, the ex-president looked for something to engage his time.... Grant moved to New York City to go into business with his son, Ulysses S. Grant, Jr., and a young investor, Ferdinand Ward, described by his great-grandson Geoffrey Ward as "a very plausible, charming, unobtrusive, slender person with a genius for finding older people and pleasing them, which he learned early on." The firm of Grant & Ward did well at first, bolstered by Ward's skills and Grant's name.... But Grant was largely disengaged from the company's business, often signing papers without reading them. This proved disastrous, as Ward had used the firm as a Ponzi scheme, taking investors' money and spending it on personal items, including a mansion in Connecticut and a brownstone in New York City. Grant & Ward failed in May 1884, leaving Grant penniless.
That fall, the former president was diagnosed with terminal throat cancer. Facing his mortality, Grant struck a publishing deal with his friend Mark Twain and began working on his memoirs, hoping they would provide for his family after his death.... Grant suffered greatly in his final year. He was in constant pain from his illness and sometimes had the feeling he was choking. Despite his condition, he wrote at a furious pace, sometimes finishing 25 to 50 pages a day. In June 1885, as the cancer spread through his body, the family moved to Mount MacGregor, New York, to make Grant more comfortable. Propped up on chairs, and too weak to walk, Grant worked to finish the book. Friends, admirers and even a few former Confederate opponents made their way to Mount MacGregor to pay their respects. Grant finished the manuscript on July 18; he died five days later.
...
"The almost universal praise in this thread for calling Julian a prick, is way more telling. There is NO WAY a rational person can look at the Julian situation and have an easy, simple, answer painting Julian as the bad guy. What the governments have done to him, they could do to any of us. And the fact that normally "skeptical" Slashdotters are almost completely in agreement here, is very telling. I would not be surprised at all to find a number of these accounts run by the US government. This sounds entirely like a planned PR storm. Like pardoning Chelsea was intentionally done (since his prison has NO real international effects... he's not working for any foreign country or has any access to any new information) to ruin Julian's global reputation by giving him something he never thought was possible, to push him into a PR corner. And the icing on the cake is the almost wall-to-wall condemnation of a man that a week ago people were skeptically supporting in mass."
--My initial reaction to your post was to ask whether you seriously believe that the US government cares sufficiently - or indeeed at all - about what's said on Slashdot that it might deliberately set up fake accounts to post on Slashdot. Then a bit later I started wondering whether your post might actually be a rather good troll, in which case congratulations!
A 20th century equivalent was Vlasov, a Soviet general captured by the Nazis, and who then changed sides (so a reverse of the German general Paulus), not particularly effectively, a major reason being distrust of him by the Nazis, a distrust that was not entirely unjustified when "at the war's end he changed sides again and aided the Prague uprising".
"Vlasov claimed that during his ten days in hiding he affirmed his anti-bolshevism, believing Joseph Stalin was the greatest enemy of the Russian people, and there is evidence that suggests Vlasov may have changed sides in a bid to give his countrymen a better life than the one they had under Stalin. His critics... argued that Vlasov adopted a pro-Nazi German stance in prison out of opportunism, careerism, and survival, fearing Stalinist retribution for losing his last battle and his army.
In 2016 Russian historian Kirill Alexandrov in his habilitation thesis analyzed the careers of 180 Soviet generals and officers who joined the Vlasov army and concluded that most of them personally experienced atrocities committed by the NKVD during the Great Purge and previous purges in the Red Army, which made them disillusioned with the leadership of Stalin and motivated them to defect to the Nazis. Alexandrov's work was reported to the FSB by Russian nationalists as 'inciting hatred' but his university, regardless of the political pressure, voted in favor of its scientific value."
As I post there are 373 comments, so I apologise if I missed anyone else pointing out the remarkably impressive feat of Ivey's "assistant" Cheng Yin Sun spending hundreds of (possibly up to a thousand) hours training herself over four years to recognise minute variations on the backs of cards which she could detect when the cards were rotated.
If that isn't news for nerds, I don't know what would qualify!
It also means that while she's nowhere near as famous as Ivey, in this enterprise she wasn't a mere "assistant", much more something like an equal partner: despite at least one comment above referring to Ivey having trained himself to recognize by spotting inconsistencies in the card markings, on the facts as reported (I read both the Washington Post article and the judgment linked to in the summary (fwiw I entirely agree with the judge and his reasons for making the judgment he did), *and* I read a New York Times magazine article linked to by the Washington Post article), the only person who could recognise the differences when cards had been rotated was Cheng Yin Sun.
In fact, if the New York Times magazine article is accurate, Sun (the NYT article calls her Cheung Yin Sun, but Cheng Yin Sun as in the judgment seems more likely to be correct) first did this with other people at several casinos, and then *she* recruited Phil Ivey:
"Over the coming week, Sun and her highly organized group used the same strategy to beat more Las Vegas casinos, including Treasure Island and Caesars Palace. They made a trip to Foxwoods Resort Casino in Mashantucket, Conn. Eventually Sun recruited the celebrity poker pro Phil Ivey, who is also known as a high-stakes gambler at craps and baccarat."
Washington Post...
Sun had spent, according to the New York Times magazine, hundreds of hours memorizing tiny flaws in purple Gemaco Borgata playing cards.... She purchased souvenir playing cards from the Borgata, identical to the ones used on the casino floor save for holes punched in the center. She discovered that patterns on card backs, designed to be symmetrical, were not perfectly so. Sun trained herself to identify aberrations along the left or right margins of the card backs, no wider than 1/32 of an inch, the Times reported. ("Sun's mental acumen in distinguishing the minute differences in the patterns on the back of the playing cards is remarkable," Hillman noted.) So prepared, she helped Ivey on his way to millions.
The technique Ivey and Sun used was called edge-sorting. Sun was allowed to peek at the card before the dealer flipped it over. In Mandarin, she would ask the dealer to rotate the most valuable cards in the baccarat deck -- the sixes through nines -- 180 degrees as they were flipped. The automatic shuffler could randomize the cards, but would not alter their rotation. "Baccarat is a casino game well known for unique and superstitious rituals," Hillman noted in an October opinion. "Thus, Sun telling the dealer to turn a card in a certain way did not raise any red flags for Borgata." With the deck sorted, it was possible for Sun to identify which cards had been rotated. The pair therefore knew the values of the cards while they were being dealt, before completing bets. Ivey adjusted his bets, and once the pair edge-sorted the entire deck, he increased his bids to the maximum allowed....
Slashdot Mirror
I've worked with a few where that point [negative productivity] was the moment they were given network credentials.
Many years ago a company I worked for in the UK was taken over. Most of us were made redundant, but a few were kept on to help implement a new computer system for both my former company and the company that had taken us over. I still talked with a few of my ex-colleagues who were implementing the new system, and they often complained about a manager from the other company who was in overall charge of the implementation. According to them he was a pain, interfering and making bad decisions, so one day I asked them if they thought it would be better if he retained his role without any pay or if he just sat at home and did nothing, but received his full (and probably substantial) pay: my recollection is that they unanimously opted for the latter choice. (In a previous role he'd been a Wing Commander in the RAF, equivalent to a Lieutenant Colonel in the USAF, but I'm *not* saying that managerial incompetence is typical of middling to senior military ranks.)
Everyone knows only Asian Women have any Math Skills.
For starters, and not totally at random:
Sofia Kovalevskaya
Emmy Noether
Mary Cartwright
Julia Robinson
Maryam Mirzakhani
"I'm not quite sure how fighting the Axis after being attacked by it counts as generous" - Well, before December 1941 the US with Franklin D. Roosevelt as President was doing quite a bit of prodding the Axis (rightly, in my British view), for example:
Escort Duties:
It hadn't occurred to me before, but Zaphod Beeblebrox (in The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy by Douglas Adams) is spookily predictive of Trump as US President: ... He was briefly the President of the Galaxy (a role that involves no power whatsoever, and merely requires the incumbent to attract attention so no one wonders who's really in charge, a role for which Zaphod was perfectly suited). ... As a character, Zaphod is hedonistic and irresponsible, narcissistic almost to the point of solipsism, and often extremely insensitive to the feelings of those around him. In the books and radio series, he is nevertheless quite charismatic which causes many characters to ignore his other flaws. ... Throughout the book and radio versions of the story, Zaphod is busy carrying out some grand scheme, has no clue as to what it is and is unable to do anything but follow the path that he laid out for himself. ...
Regarding any CEO who claims - or about whom it is said - that they were unaware of some serious problems: a CEO is supposed to know - it's part of the job. Especially if they are getting paid mega-bucks.
A story behind that comment: in the years before World War 2 the air defence of the UK was reorganised under the leadership of Air Chief Marshal Dowding, who managed the development of an integrated command and control system: ...The Dowding system is considered key to the success of the RAF against the German air force (Luftwaffe) during the Battle of Britain. The combination of early detection and rapid dissemination of that information acted as a force multiplier, allowing the fighter force to be used at extremely high rates of effectiveness. ... Although many histories of the Battle of Britain comment on the role of radar, it was only in conjunction with the Dowding system that radar could be truly effective. This was not lost on Winston Churchill, who noted that: "All the ascendancy of the Hurricanes and Spitfires would have been fruitless but for this system which had been devised and built before the war. It had been shaped and refined in constant action, and all was now fused together into a most elaborate instrument of war, the like of which existed nowhere in the world."
Dowding did not have day to day control of the RAF fighters in the Battle of Britain, but was in overall command, for example managing reserves and rotating the pilots flying the fighters: in short, he had managerial skills of a very high order which were - in my view - demonstrably better than most CEOs today. But after the Battle of Britain had been won a meeting was held to discuss the tactics used. To Dowding's surprise, a relatively junior officer Douglas Bader (who had - wrongly - disagreed with Dowding's system, partly because Bader - undeniably courageous and an excellent fighter pilot - didn't understand it) attended the meeting. The result of that meeting was that, disgracefully, Dowding was dismissed, along with - even more disgracefully - Air Vice Marshal Keith Park, who had commanded the most important group of fighters in the Battle of Britain.
What now follows is my recollection from reading "The Right of the Line" by John Terraine, which deals with the Royal Air Force in World War 2. At some point after that disgraceful meeting, Dowding said that he hadn't known about Bader's (remember, a relatively junior officer) disagreement about tactics, and Terraine remarks that possibly a solution might have been to transfer Bader from a relatively secondary group into the main group fighting in the Battle of Britain, which would at least have given Bader the action he craved, and might have kept Bader quiet. Terraine then quotes a senior civil servant remarking on Dowding saying he hadn't known about Bader: a commander-in-chief is supposed to know - that's part of the job.
I don't recall seeing a "Google is your friend" comment recently, so searching on yoga+unchristian gives the following top two search items: ... Father Amorth, a colourful and often outspoken personality, said:'Practising yoga brings evil as does reading Harry Potter. They may both seem innocuous but they both deal with magic and that leads to evil.' He added:'Yoga is the Devil's work. You thing [typo is in the online article] you are doing it for stretching your mind and body but it leads to Hinduism. All these oriental religions are based on the false belief of reincarnation.' ...
todayschristianwoman.com
telegraph.co.uk
A little futher down is item by a Christian criticising the first articlechristianitytoday.com, so yoga isn't universally condemned by Christians.
Addressing your precise point, searching on yoga+evil gives this 2011 news report (I use the term loosely - it's from the English Daily Mail):
"And what was it that happened to the inventor of the guillotine again?" - He survived!
Rather appropriate since according to Wikipedia "Guillotin was opposed to the death penalty and hoped that a more humane and less painful method of execution would be the first step toward a total abolition of the death penalty". However someone else with the same surname was executed by a guillotine.
Joseph-Ignace Guillotin
...
Towards the end of the Reign of Terror, a letter from the Comte de Méré to Guillotin fell into the hands of the public prosecutor, Fouquier-Tinville in which the Count, who was to be executed, commended his wife and children to Guillotin's care. The authorities demanded Guillotin inform them of the whereabouts of the Count's wife and children. As Guillotin either would not or could not give the information, he was arrested and imprisoned. He was freed from prison in the general amnesty of 9 Thermidor 1794 after Robespierre fell from power and abandoned his political career to resume the medical profession.
...
The association with the guillotine so embarrassed Dr. Guillotin's family that they petitioned the French government to rename it; when the government refused, they instead changed their own family name. By coincidence, a person named Guillotin was indeed executed by the guillotine – he was J.M.V. Guillotin, a doctor of Lyons. This coincidence may have contributed to erroneous statements that Guillotin was put to death on the machine that bears his name; however, in reality, Guillotin died at home in Paris in 1814 of natural causes, specifically from a carbuncle, and is now buried in the Père-Lachaise Cemetery in Paris.
...
Why the PR supporter is not an idiot in five words: post World War 2 Germany
Assuming you are the same AC who wrote "The number went down so that is a negative effect. No need to introduce value-laden descriptors into the math." in the first post:
"To describe an effect on a number which acts to decrease the number as "positive" (since it is referring to an ideological as distinct from a mathematical effect) is value-laden. Liberal bias detected."
Are you seriously arguing that, for example, Ron Clarke's achievement running 10,000 metres in 27m39.4s in 1965, reducing the world record from the previous 28m15.6s, was negative? And that anyone who considers it a positive achievement is showing value-laden Liberal bias? To mis-quote Douglas Adams, this is obviously some strange usage of the word "negative" that I hadn't previously been aware of. You must be on more drugs and booze than Hunter S Thompson.
If you wish: to cite only a few, in 1845 I gave the first mathematical development of Faraday's idea that electric induction takes place through an intervening medium, or "dielectric", and not by some incomprehensible "action at a distance", and it was partly in response to my encouragement that Faraday undertook the research in September 1845 that led to the discovery of the Faraday effect, which established that light and magnetic (and thus electric) phenomena were related; in 1846, at the age of 22, I became the Professor of Natural Philosophy at Glasgow University, and in 1900 I gave a lecture on the two major problems not solved by 19th century physics - how matter moves through the aether (including the puzzling results of the Michelson–Morley experiment), which was solved by Einstein's Special Theory of Relativity, and indications that the Law of Equipartition in statistical mechanics might break down, which led to the developent of quantum mechanics.
What, dear AC, have you achieved?
Yours etc, Lord Kelvin
"Moreover, after centuries of practice, humans aren't going to get significantly better at playing Go."
If one of the best 20th or 21st century chessplayers went back in time to play the best 19th century players, the 19th century players would lose, and I think it unlikely you could justify making a similar comment about chess, which makes me suspect that it's not true for Go.
Examples: in 1873 Steinitz" introduced a major improvent in playing style: "...All of Steinitz's successes up to 1872 inclusive were achieved in the attack-at-all-costs "Romantic" style exemplified by Anderssen. But in the Vienna 1873 chess tournament, Steinitz unveiled a new "positional" style of play which was to become the basis of modern chess..."
Later, in the 20th century, the Russian (or more accurately Soviet) school of chess made a major improvement by emphasising the dynamic possibilities of positions.
AlphaGo's playing style seems similar to that of some great chessplayers:
Karpov: ... Karpov's "boa constrictor" playing style is solidly positional, taking no risks but reacting mercilessly to any tiny errors made by his opponents. As a result, he is often compared to his idol, the famous José Raúl Capablanca, the third World Champion. Karpov himself describes his style as follows:
...
Let us say the game may be continued in two ways: one of them is a beautiful tactical blow that gives rise to variations that don't yield to precise calculations; the other is clear positional pressure that leads to an endgame with microscopic chances of victory.... I would choose [the latter] without thinking twice. If the opponent offers keen play I don't object; but in such cases I get less satisfaction, even if I win, than from a game conducted according to all the rules of strategy with its ruthless logic.
Capablanca: ... Capablanca excelled in simple positions and endgames, and his positional judgment was outstanding, so much so that most attempts to attack him came to grief without any apparent defensive efforts on his part. However, he could play great tactical chess when necessary ... He was also capable of using aggressive tactical play to drive home a positional advantage, provided he considered it safe and the most efficient way to win, for example against Spielmann in the 1927 New York tournament. ...
or maybe Petrosian: Petrosian was a conservative, cautious, and highly defensive chess player who was strongly influenced by Aron Nimzowitsch's idea of prophylaxis. He made more effort to prevent his opponent's offensive capabilities than he did to make use of his own. He very rarely went on the offensive unless he felt his position was completely secure. He usually won by playing consistently until his aggressive opponent made a mistake, securing the win by capitalizing upon this mistake without revealing any weaknesses of his own. ... Petrosian was known for his use of the "positional exchange sacrifice", where one side sacrifices a rook for the opponent's bishop or knight. Kasparov discussed Petrosian's use of this motif: "Petrosian introduced the exchange sacrifice for the sake of 'quality of position', where the time factor, which is so important in the play of Alekhine and Tal, plays hardly any role. Even today, very few players can operate confidently at the board with such abstract concepts. Before Petrosian no one had studied this. By sacrificing the exchange 'just like that', for certain long term advantages, in positions with disrupted material balance, he discovered latent resources that few were capable of seeing and properly evaluating."
"Actually he got less votes than Hillary" [irony] Not if you exclude all the "fraudulent" votes for Hillary Clinton! [/irony]
"In the Westminster system parties that dont get 50.00001% of the vote dont get their seats." - as a correction, if by "Westminster system" you mean something similar to the electoral system here in the United Kingdom, then, for example, in the 2010 General Election over half of the members of parliament were elected after receiving less than 50% of the vote in their constituency.
At which point I confess utter bewilderment. Is this post (a) for Trump and against Obama and the Clintons, (b) against Trump and for Obama and the Clintons, or (c) arguing something else.
I also need enlightenent on how a post which seems to claim "Russia handed over an entire forward operating base full of equipment to ISIS, and the Syrian "army" joined in by giving ISIS even more equipment" is supported by the two cited references:
* ISIS takes over Russian base in Syria’s Palmyra: Islamic State fighters have seized a Russian military base in Palmyra after a massive attack launched by the terror group. ... Russian forces have reportedly blew up its heavy arms depots before they withdrew from the base to avoid being used by ISIS. ISIS stormed the desert city of Palmyra last Sunday after conducting multiple suicide attacks against government forces defending the city. ...
* ISIS seizes Syrian tanks, Russian vehicles left behind in PalmyraAfter the fall of Palmyra earlier today, brand new footage released by Amaq Agency now suggests the Syrian Arab Army’s (SAA) withdrawal from the city was not as well-coordinated as initially believed. During the SAA’s retreat from the city, dozens of armored vehicles were seemingly abandoned, including Russian ones. ...
That's true in theory, but not in practice, at least not in practice in this 2017 General Election.
As evidence for this consider the Conservative "battle bus". If you double click on the top photo on that page to enlarge it (or alternatively click this link), and then look *very* carefully just under the window on the open door at the front you might be able to just make out the word "Conservatives". If you have the eyes of a hawk.
It seems a correct answer is yes and no:
* Debussy - String Quartet (1893)
1. Animé et très décidé
2. Assez vif et bien rythmé
3. Andantino, doucement expressif
4. Très modéré - En animant peu à peu - Très mouvementé et avec passion
* Faure - String Quartet (1924)
1. Allegro moderato
2. Andante
3. Allegro
Perhaps the above is not surprising, because Faure was 17 years older than Debussy, but intriguingly:
* Ravel - String Quartet (1903)
1. Allegro moderato - très doux
2. Assez vif - très rythmé
3. Très lent
4. Vif et agité
* Debussy - Violin Sonata (1917)
1. Allegro vivo
2. Intermède: Fantasque et léger
3. Finale: Très animé
A German mixed example:
* Schumann - Piano Sonata 2 in G minor (1831-1838)
1. So rasch wie möglich ("As quickly as possible" — however, near the end, Schumann writes "Schneller" and then "Noch schneller", meaning "Faster" and "Still faster")
2. Andantino. Getragen
3. Scherzo. Sehr rasch und markiert
4. Rondo. Presto
In 1995 there was a so-so BBC TV series "Backup" > about a British police support unit. It was unusual because one of the leading actors was a British-Chinese woman Colette Koo playing someone studying for a sargeant's exam.
In one episode she was commanding the backup unit waiting in a van outside a bar observing a confrontation between two opposing groups of people which looked like getting very nasty. The men (or some of them) under her command were all for going in to deal with this, but she decided to wait, and - from memory - some women in the two opposing groups then defused the situation, justifying her decision.
Although, as I said, the series wasn't exceptional, on a few occasions, as here, it took quite bold storyline decisions, avoiding the cliched route.
Just a mention that the URL generates a 403 error on UK, Netherlands or Hong Kong IPs, but is viewable on USA and Canada IPs. (Banned IP address list).
Are you sure about that? I can't speak for Netherlanders or Hong-Kongers, but as a UKer who is under the impression that as he types this he is sitting in a room looking out on a leafy suburb of Surrey, England, UK (but, hey, what do I know) I can click the link, and the URL doesn't seem blocked. Having skimmed through the page I don't see its relevance to the topic under discussion, but near the bottom of the page there is a rather cute animated cartoon dog.
I'm not a mathematician, but - from many years ago - I do have a mathematics degree. I'm also not a musician, but I have a very strong interest in many types of music. (But not Disco! Nor Herb Alpert & The Tijuana Brass. But I digress.) And I have a very strong interest in dance: but I'm not a dancer.
Anyway, what you write resonates with me. At my university (Warwick) mathematics students could choose whether to be awarded a BSc (UK - BS in USA?) or a BA. Most chose BSc, but a few of us chose BA. My reasons were partly that I felt that most of the mathematics I chose to study was - although rigorous - in some ways more of an art than a science, and partly because I rather preferred having an "arts" degree to a science degree.
I read Francis Su's address in full, and I recommend it, particularly the sections on the importance of play (not just in mathematics) and beauty. (And if you read Andrew Wiles's account of how he finally saw how to solve the serious difficulty that was preventing his approach to proving "Fermat's Last Theorem", you'll appreciate the joy of creation.)
As an example of beauty in mathematics, I want to cite Muntz's Theorem, also known as the Muntz-Szasz Theorem. I came across this while taking a course in Topology: the set book was "Introduction to Topology and Modern Analysis" by G F Simmons. The appendices weren't included in the course but I read them, with not much understanding. But I was delighted when I read a description, without proof, of Muntz's Theorem. It didn't give me the aesthetic pleasure of the greatest music or dance, but my aesthetic pleasure in seeing this theorem was - and still is - maybe similar to that given by a good relatively minor piece by Beethoven or Chopin.
I think part of its appeal to me is that the theorem is a combination of the expected and the unexpected: if you were asked to guess at the correct form of the theorem, then you might well choose what is actually the theorem, but it's still in some ways a surprise, something which is perhaps also true of some of the greatest music - it can be both familiar and strange.
Think of a "continuous" function, say sin(x), and consider it defined on a restricted interval a <= x <= b.
* The Weierstrass Approximation Theorem says that any "continuous" function defined on a restricted interval a <= x <= b can be approximated as closely as we wish by (carefully chosen) polynomials of a sufficiently high degree.
* Muntz's Theorem says that suppose we don't allow all powers of x in the polynomials, and instead use only a restricted set of powers of x: for example
**maybe (1) only x**0 and x **i where i is a multiple of 3,
** or maybe (2) only x**0 and x **i where i is a prime number,
** or maybe (3) only x**0 and x **i where i is a power of 2:
then Weierstrass's Theorem is still true if and only if the infinite sum of 1/i diverges, where i are the powers of x allowed in the polynomials.
So polynomials of type (1) or (2) are all we need to approximate any continuous function, but for polynomials of type (3) there are some continuous functions which they can't approximate well.
Somewhat to my "progressive" surprise, "George W Bush was more popular over the course of his Presidency than Barack Obama. Obama, in fact, only beats Nixon and Ford in recent-President popularity" appears to be mostly true. Assuming Wikpedia is accurate, then even Nixon was (just) on average more popular than Obama.
Before you make too much of that you might want to consider that both Clinton and Johnson - and G H W Bush - were on average more popular than Reagan.
And using the "highest disapproval rating", Obama is comfortably below G W Bush, Nixon, and G H W Bush, and only 1 percentage point above Reagan. But on this measure Ford is comfortably below Obama.
"There's even been cases of people who know they're dying to create a work to look after their dependents."
... Grant moved to New York City to go into business with his son, Ulysses S. Grant, Jr., and a young investor, Ferdinand Ward, described by his great-grandson Geoffrey Ward as "a very plausible, charming, unobtrusive, slender person with a genius for finding older people and pleasing them, which he learned early on." The firm of Grant & Ward did well at first, bolstered by Ward's skills and Grant's name. ... But Grant was largely disengaged from the company's business, often signing papers without reading them. This proved disastrous, as Ward had used the firm as a Ponzi scheme, taking investors' money and spending it on personal items, including a mansion in Connecticut and a brownstone in New York City. Grant & Ward failed in May 1884, leaving Grant penniless.
... Grant suffered greatly in his final year. He was in constant pain from his illness and sometimes had the feeling he was choking. Despite his condition, he wrote at a furious pace, sometimes finishing 25 to 50 pages a day. In June 1885, as the cancer spread through his body, the family moved to Mount MacGregor, New York, to make Grant more comfortable. Propped up on chairs, and too weak to walk, Grant worked to finish the book. Friends, admirers and even a few former Confederate opponents made their way to Mount MacGregor to pay their respects. Grant finished the manuscript on July 18; he died five days later.
--An example is the "Personal Memoirs of Ulysses S Grant", which I highly recommend, not only for their content, but because Grant was a good writer:
The Personal Memoirs of Ulysses S. Grant is an autobiography by Ulysses S. Grant, the 18th President of the United States, focused mainly on his military career during the Mexican-American War and the American Civil War. Written as Grant was dying of cancer in 1885, the two-volume set was published by Mark Twain shortly after Grant's death.
Twain created a unique marketing system designed to reach millions of veterans with a patriotic appeal just as Grant's death was being mourned. Ten thousand agents canvassed the North, following a script Twain had devised; many were themselves veterans who dressed in their old uniforms. They sold 350,000 two-volume sets at prices from $3.50 to $12 (depending on the binding). Each copy contained what looked like a handwritten note from Grant himself. In the end, Grant's widow Julia received about $450,000, suggesting a gross royalty before expenses of about 30%.
...
After finishing his second term in office in 1877, Grant and his wife Julia took a trip around the world which left him short on money. Nearly 60, the ex-president looked for something to engage his time.
That fall, the former president was diagnosed with terminal throat cancer. Facing his mortality, Grant struck a publishing deal with his friend Mark Twain and began working on his memoirs, hoping they would provide for his family after his death.
...
"The almost universal praise in this thread for calling Julian a prick, is way more telling. There is NO WAY a rational person can look at the Julian situation and have an easy, simple, answer painting Julian as the bad guy. What the governments have done to him, they could do to any of us. And the fact that normally "skeptical" Slashdotters are almost completely in agreement here, is very telling. I would not be surprised at all to find a number of these accounts run by the US government. This sounds entirely like a planned PR storm. Like pardoning Chelsea was intentionally done (since his prison has NO real international effects... he's not working for any foreign country or has any access to any new information) to ruin Julian's global reputation by giving him something he never thought was possible, to push him into a PR corner. And the icing on the cake is the almost wall-to-wall condemnation of a man that a week ago people were skeptically supporting in mass."
--My initial reaction to your post was to ask whether you seriously believe that the US government cares sufficiently - or indeeed at all - about what's said on Slashdot that it might deliberately set up fake accounts to post on Slashdot. Then a bit later I started wondering whether your post might actually be a rather good troll, in which case congratulations!
A 20th century equivalent was Vlasov, a Soviet general captured by the Nazis, and who then changed sides (so a reverse of the German general Paulus), not particularly effectively, a major reason being distrust of him by the Nazis, a distrust that was not entirely unjustified when "at the war's end he changed sides again and aided the Prague uprising".
... argued that Vlasov adopted a pro-Nazi German stance in prison out of opportunism, careerism, and survival, fearing Stalinist retribution for losing his last battle and his army.
In 2016 Russian historian Kirill Alexandrov in his habilitation thesis analyzed the careers of 180 Soviet generals and officers who joined the Vlasov army and concluded that most of them personally experienced atrocities committed by the NKVD during the Great Purge and previous purges in the Red Army, which made them disillusioned with the leadership of Stalin and motivated them to defect to the Nazis. Alexandrov's work was reported to the FSB by Russian nationalists as 'inciting hatred' but his university, regardless of the political pressure, voted in favor of its scientific value."
"Vlasov claimed that during his ten days in hiding he affirmed his anti-bolshevism, believing Joseph Stalin was the greatest enemy of the Russian people, and there is evidence that suggests Vlasov may have changed sides in a bid to give his countrymen a better life than the one they had under Stalin. His critics
I understood El Cubano's "This folks, is what we call a technicality" comment to be ironic.
As I post there are 373 comments, so I apologise if I missed anyone else pointing out the remarkably impressive feat of Ivey's "assistant" Cheng Yin Sun spending hundreds of (possibly up to a thousand) hours training herself over four years to recognise minute variations on the backs of cards which she could detect when the cards were rotated.
...
Sun had spent, according to the New York Times magazine, hundreds of hours memorizing tiny flaws in purple Gemaco Borgata playing cards. ... She purchased souvenir playing cards from the Borgata, identical to the ones used on the casino floor save for holes punched in the center. She discovered that patterns on card backs, designed to be symmetrical, were not perfectly so. Sun trained herself to identify aberrations along the left or right margins of the card backs, no wider than 1/32 of an inch, the Times reported. ("Sun's mental acumen in distinguishing the minute differences in the patterns on the back of the playing cards is remarkable," Hillman noted.) So prepared, she helped Ivey on his way to millions.
...
... Sun visited several Las Vegas casino gift shops and bough
If that isn't news for nerds, I don't know what would qualify!
It also means that while she's nowhere near as famous as Ivey, in this enterprise she wasn't a mere "assistant", much more something like an equal partner: despite at least one comment above referring to Ivey having trained himself to recognize by spotting inconsistencies in the card markings, on the facts as reported (I read both the Washington Post article and the judgment linked to in the summary (fwiw I entirely agree with the judge and his reasons for making the judgment he did), *and* I read a New York Times magazine article linked to by the Washington Post article), the only person who could recognise the differences when cards had been rotated was Cheng Yin Sun.
In fact, if the New York Times magazine article is accurate, Sun (the NYT article calls her Cheung Yin Sun, but Cheng Yin Sun as in the judgment seems more likely to be correct) first did this with other people at several casinos, and then *she* recruited Phil Ivey:
"Over the coming week, Sun and her highly organized group used the same strategy to beat more Las Vegas casinos, including Treasure Island and Caesars Palace. They made a trip to Foxwoods Resort Casino in Mashantucket, Conn. Eventually Sun recruited the celebrity poker pro Phil Ivey, who is also known as a high-stakes gambler at craps and baccarat."
Washington Post
The technique Ivey and Sun used was called edge-sorting. Sun was allowed to peek at the card before the dealer flipped it over. In Mandarin, she would ask the dealer to rotate the most valuable cards in the baccarat deck -- the sixes through nines -- 180 degrees as they were flipped. The automatic shuffler could randomize the cards, but would not alter their rotation. "Baccarat is a casino game well known for unique and superstitious rituals," Hillman noted in an October opinion. "Thus, Sun telling the dealer to turn a card in a certain way did not raise any red flags for Borgata." With the deck sorted, it was possible for Sun to identify which cards had been rotated. The pair therefore knew the values of the cards while they were being dealt, before completing bets. Ivey adjusted his bets, and once the pair edge-sorted the entire deck, he increased his bids to the maximum allowed.
New York Times magazine