Posts by astrax

Re: Did it come up with anything new?

AlphaZero is causing a stir in the chess community. I'm a big fan of agadmator's Youtube chess channel and I watched an analysis of one of the games between AlphaZero and StockFish. The greatest surprise was the way AlphaZero willingly gave up a whole piece (a Knight) to keep up its own momentum and refuse to allow StockFish to develop its pieces. Note this behaviour is very human; usually a chess engine will sac(rifice) a piece for some tangible, strategic gain or to implement a tactic.

This is the key difference here. The point to take away from this is that Google have not merely developed a more powerful chess engine that runs on more powerful hardware, rather they have created something that behaves much like an *extremely* strong human Grandmaster, not simply a super-powerful logic-monster. This will probably change the way elite chess players train for tournaments.

Keep in mind that even with the hardware handicap, StockFish could analyse up to 70 million positions a second and play with an elo rating of 3300+. AlphaZero took just 4 hours to learn the game from scratch and beat a well honed engine like StockFish is pretty impressive.

Linky: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NaMs2dBouoQ&t=379s

I'd argue the LibreOffice suite does, on the whole, a very good job of what it's supposed to do. The reason why using it in certain contexts is undesirable is due to the difficulty in preserving formatting and/or specific functionality with documents generated with MS products (which in all fairness is a lot of companies/institutes).

Personally I think it is the lack of a decent document standard(s) that is the major issue.

Re: Counter-strike

Here is an excerpt his CS AMX server options:

public plugin_init(){

register_plugin("Respawn NEVER", VERSION, "Operation Neptune Spear")

register_event("DeathMsg","on_Death","wtf is Geronimo?")

register_cvar("sv_checkpistols", "0")

}

Re: Redmond Hat?...

Yep, MicroHat is awesome...and don't call me Shirley.

Re: Down voting?

Down-voting for having a different opinion is somewhat different from down-voting due to:

1). incorrect information presented as fact

2). going off-topic

3). being a complete bell end

Note that point 3 is not mutually exclusive with anything else :)

Re: "as the son of poor immigrants"

I think it's referring to the origin of the guy's predisposition to having (lots of) money, rather than blaming the crime on the fact that his parents were a). poor and/or b). immigrants. Sigh.

Re: 20 years old (now) Asbergers AND autism

Just a quick fact - Aspergers is on the Autistic spectrum, they are not separate conditions per se. Probably going to get a lot of down votes here, but while I think his actions are inexcusable and worthy of punishment, I'm not sure throwing the book at him is proportional to the crime. There are several extenuating factors in this case, most notably his Aspergers that ultimately changes the outlook of the case. If you knew what that condition entails, you probably would shift your opinion (albeit slightly).

I've seen con men who swindled OAPs out of their life savings who got less time than this young man. I've seen a person who took their eyes off the road for an entire 16 seconds whilst driving an articulated lorry (who ended up killing someone) get LESS time than this guy. Someone mentioned Bankers earlier...another prime example. I'm not saying he should get less because those cases were punished too leniently, I'm saying that due proportion is key in sentencing. I really do not understand why this guy should be made an example of (in consideration of all factors).

Re: re: I have no interest in streaming or renting TV shows and movies

"Agreed. Linux users are probably more anti-streaming/anti-cloud than OSX/WinX."

I don't understand that statement; why would your choice of OS have any bearing on whether you decide to use streaming services or "duh cloud"? The only possible correlation I see between Linux users and these technologies is that they are more likely to implement such services themselves.

Re: Employers have called for a "sensible" immigration programme

@AC

The truth be told it's an easier argument for you to simply stereotype leave voters as stupid/racist/xenophobic. Truth be told, even if the reason behind someone voting leave was immigration, that does not necessarily mean they are racist. It's an appalling situation where people cannot openly discuss topics such as immigration without being labelled a neo-nazi. You're quite happy to advocate positive discrimination concerning EU nationals, so what about every other nationality in the world?

Re: stir and stoke

This is probably one of the most balanced perspectives I've seen regarding the referendum. A lot of people are basing their projections on the current state of the global economy; in reality, five years from now the new power-house economies will be the likes of Brazil and India. It is clear that we are leaving the EU, and like AC said previously, the UK should focus on getting the EU trading agreements completed as quickly as possible. When these global economic shifts occur, we want to be riding the crest of the wave, not drowning under it.

Re: DespiteBrexitNotHavingStartedYetNorAnybodyKnowingWhatItWillBe.com

Equally, the reverse of that statement is also true.

Re: Sounds like serious crime was afoot

Toe-tally unacceptable. He is soley responsible for his actions and as such should stand on his own two feet and take it like a man. She was clearly in a tight situation and tried to leg it, but the toerag got a foothold on her before she could run (she could've socked him one in the face I suppose). Give that callous git an ankle bracelet and, if the shoe fits, send him to a sweaty prison.

Re: New Star Wars antagonist...

Or video game title? i.e. Boob Rader: The Last Revelation?

You know what would be great? The UK Sentencing Council defining guidelines that actually reflect the gravity of dangerous driving crimes.

For every single frickin' motorist, commercial or otherwise.

Go to the bloody walk-in centre, it's their bread & butter.

Re: Is this what they mean....

It's not very often a company has a "legitimate" reason to instigate a massive price hike, so I get the impression it goes like this:

"Whoo no Brexit! Loadsa money in the Sky Rocket, here's a price increase!"

or

"Boo, Brexit! Everyone's Boracic lint, loadsa Barney Rubble, here's a price increase!"

Also, you might want to aim some of that vitriol at the last five successive governments who have managed to alienate half of population in quite an impressive manner.

Re: To be fair...

I think you are being very generous with the word "partly" there. The formation of both the UN and NATO have been far more influential in keeping peace then the instantiation of the original trade treaty that has grown into what we now call the EU.

Also, I have a stone that keeps Bears away; yours for a mere £50,000.

Re: Disgraceful penalty

Hands up, I genuinely thought prison sentences were finally introduced after, you know, ten years of constant badgering to get it in place. My apologies. *sigh* What a freakin' mess.