Jolt Country

odyssia76 wrote: Mon Mar 21, 2022 11:33 pm

RealNC wrote: Thu Dec 24, 2020 8:32 am Yes, it's hard sci-fi with freakin' vampires in it. In fact, the captain of the mission is a vampire.And it's amazing. Everybody should read it

What book is this?

Blindsight by Peter Watts.

I'm glad RealNC flipped the page. It's best to put that last page behind us. That's what my wife's grandmother said.

Hey now.

I feel the euchre discussion got off the rails.

Hey Ben, when was the last time you played Euchre with live people, like in person?

The point you lead with was that computers could never win at Euchre, and your supporting facts were that people cheat. We all agree you and your grandmothers cheat at Euchre, but that's not what the book was about, it was about the people who play games and the people who trained computers to be better at them, and implicit in the whole thing was that the humans were not cheating.

Also you said poker got worse when more people played it, which just means you have some sort of developmental delay or something.

pinback wrote: Tue Mar 22, 2022 6:55 pm The point you lead with was that computers could never win at Euchre, and your supporting facts were that people cheat. We all agree you and your grandmothers cheat at Euchre, but that's not what the book was about, it was about the people who play games and the people who trained computers to be better at them, and implicit in the whole thing was that the humans were not cheating.

yeah. . . . you didn't answer when you actually played social Euchre in upstate NY where numerous viewers of this website are from.

pinback wrote: Tue Mar 22, 2022 6:55 pm Also you said poker got worse when more people played it, which just means you have some sort of developmental delay or something.

Nice try but your review said that "computers" had ruined Poker such that now people just play the top moves from the computer player. This ignores the fact that streaming and the remaining "airwaves" are filled with mulleted assholes doing exactly what you complain about.

Casual Observer wrote: Wed Mar 23, 2022 12:23 amwhen you actually played social Euchre in upstate NY

I try to steer clear of upstate NY.

Okay let's walk it back a bit

pinback wrote: Wed Mar 23, 2022 4:00 am

Casual Observer wrote: Wed Mar 23, 2022 12:23 amwhen you actually played social Euchre in upstate NY

I try to steer clear of upstate NY.

So it's confirmed, you never played the game, you just pulled a Commander and looked up the rules.

I played a long time ago, but not anymore, because I'm an adult.

Let's back out from the twist we're in okaay

pinback wrote: Wed Mar 23, 2022 2:43 pm I played a long time ago, but not anymore, because I'm an adult.

Also everyone was cheating.

Bringing the energy down

Those who claim computers could never play - or never win - a particular game because human players will cheat, forget one thing: the program will not allow you to cheat. That doesn't mean the computer itself won't cheat; since it enforces the rules, it can.

That might be an interesting game, where the computer or the player can cheat.

Any game with fixed rules (which most games have) in which there is a potential strategy to win, can be played by a computer. The biggest example of this was when IBM's Big Blue defeated Kasparov at chess, and when it won against Ken Jennings in Jeopardy.

Hell, there were Star Trek-themed games decades before Paramount even considered the idea. We had one running on our mainframe back in 1978 or so.

Tdarcos wrote: Thu Mar 24, 2022 1:03 pm Those who claim computers could never play - or never win - a particular game because human players will cheat, forget one thing: the program will not allow you to cheat.

Yeah, CO, did you consider THAT?

The biggest example of this was when IBM's Big Blue defeated Kasparov at chess, and when it won against Ken Jennings in Jeopardy.

The biggest example was AlphaGo beating Lee Sedol. Even by the time computers took over chess, it was still generally accepted that they could never take over Go, and less than 20 years later, it was over. More interesting, impressive, and a bit frightening about that one was that Deep Blue was taught the entirety of chess knowledge compiled by humans since the world began, where AlphaGo was just told the rules and then left to figure it all out itself. Which it did.

pinback wrote: Thu Mar 24, 2022 1:29 pm they could never take over Go

But would they have FUN doing so? No? They can fuck off then. My toaster "took over" making toast better than I can. Who cares.

Alright, great talk. I'm so glad I shared the latest book I read.

Look at two pages of content you brought!

Im blowing on the heat

Whaaaooooooooooooooooo