Sure, why not. These guys are supposed to be teh fresh shit and not derivative, saviors of the genre according to reviewers.

I'm not really seeing it, but OK whatev. Maybe I need some different drugs or something...

Posted by: Open Blogger at 04:22 PM | Comments (312)
Post contains 50 words, total size 1 kb.

The subject matter and most of the content is good, but you have to ignore the stupid whispering of the narrator. I think the director was trying to portray "thoughts in the head" of Kasparov or perhaps someone watching at a tournament, but it sounds more like a golf announcer broadcasting from the edge of the eighteenth green at a major championship. "Looks like he's got an eight iron there, Bob." Completely unnecessary.

The other irritating thing is the contrived big corporation conspiracy theory angle. I think they had to play that up for plot, for purposes of drama, and much of the material along this line is of the terribly trite variety: "the heartless, evil corporation cares about nothing but money." Kasparov had a legitimate beef about the way IBM handled some things, but my guess is they egged him on with questions designed to elicit philosophical-sounding answers about corporate power. The documentary isn't filled with it, however, but it is sprinkled here and there with the narrator hinting at times about unknowable evil.

Here is what happened: Deep Blue played the first game like a computer and got blown away. During a critical move in game two, after spending 15 minutes calculating at 200 million positions per second, Deep Blue made a very human-looking move. The thing is, a few moves later it missed a very basic move, but in typical computer fashion. By then, however, Kasparov was blinded by frustration, and he missed it. Regardless, how could this happen? That question becomes the thing that defeats Kasparov in the end. After game two, Kasparov demanded documentation of the computer's analysis. IBM refused, and Kasparov couldn't shake his anger and suspicion.

The best thing about the documentary is that you get a glimpse of Kasparov's inner world, his anguish and, maybe, a touch of regret about the way he handled things. Most are familiar with what appeared to be spoiled-brat rudeness at the end of the final game where he resigned and stormed away from the table. That clip was played over and over on television. Kasparov came off like a jerk. Well, it turns out there were real reasons for his response that went beyond simply reacting angrily from losing. There was a certain amount of jackassery from the IBM team that had been building over the course of the week, and Kasparov couldn't recover from that. He describes what might be referred to as "intrusive thoughts" that centered on the difference between the machine's performance between game one and game two. Kasparov couldn't get past his emotional reaction, and it wore him down. The IBM team knew that. He was defeated before the last game even started.

As they explain in the documentary, playing a human is one thing, and playing a computer is another, but playing a human and a computer is impossible. That is, a human helping a computer at this level is unbeatable. The person need not be a grandmaster either. They simply need to let the computer know what lines of attack to abandon. This is because of something called the Shannon number. The Shannon number is the number of possible moves in the typical 40-move chess game: 10¹²³ variations. For comparison, the number of atoms in the observable universe is only 10⁸¹. From Claude Shannon's paper: "A machine operating at the rate of one variation per micro-second would require over 1090 years to calculate the first move!" And therein lies the problem for computers and programmers and the way they can be beaten. A computer can't just look at the board and eliminate dumb lines of analysis. So they have to find ways to program around that.

One of the knocks against Kasparov is the argument that he was the best in the world, so it wouldn't matter if a human was helping the computer. But the suspicion wasn't that a human was playing the game; it's that a human was eliminating fruitless lines of analysis. It's a compelling idea, and the documentary could have spent more time developing it by explaining the way in which moves were relayed from the computer to the playing board and back again. This was just hinted at: that Deep Blue was behind some locked doors surrounded by all these IBM people--including hired grandmasters--and private security, and who knows what was going on?

There are other important factors. For example, IBM hadn't provided a record of Deep Blue's prior games. It turns out the contract stipulated providing a record of "public games." Deep Blue had only played private games. So the Deep Blue team had every game Kasparov had ever played in a tournament, and Kasparov had no Deep Blue games to examine. In a match against a human, Kasparov would have been able to examine prior games.

Anyway. It's worth a watch. more...

Posted by: rdbrewer at 12:58 PM | Comments (374)
Post contains 1015 words, total size 6 kb.

All that missing heat is like...hiding in the oceans now and threatening to come popping back out FAST with a vengeance. Any. Time. Now.

... Experts in France and Spain said on Sunday that the oceans took up more warmth from the air around 2000. That would help explain the slowdown in surface warming but would also suggest that the pause may be only temporary and brief.

"Most of this excess energy was absorbed in the top 700 meters (2,300 ft) of the ocean at the onset of the warming pause, 65 percent of it in the tropical Pacific and Atlantic oceans," they wrote in the journal Nature Climate Change...

Posted by: Open Blogger at 12:00 PM | Comments (226)
Post contains 170 words, total size 1 kb.

Victim of Sequestration

Good morning morons and moronettes and welcome to the once robust, but now increasingly shakey and on the verge of collapse Sunday Morning Book Thread here at the award-winning AoSHQ.

The Irremediable Corruption At The Top Of The Pyramid

OK, so we all know we're on a downward economic spiral and I suspect it's going to get a lot worse before it gets better. Here are three books attempting to detail the history and the causes of the 2008 financial collapse.

All the Devils Are Here: The Hidden History of the Financial Crisis. You know what's disgusting about this book is that the paperback edition costs $6.80, but you have to shell out $13.99 if you want get it for your Kindle. Heck, even the hardback version sells for as little as $5 (new, not used!). Also, most of the 1-star reviews are complaints about the Kindle pricing, and say nothing about the book itself. I dislike the price, too, but there is something consumers can do: if you think something costs too much, DON'T BUY IT! I used to get into big discussions about this with Mrs. Muse early on in our marriage: there was a certain style or manufacturer of kitchenware (plates, cups and saucers) that she liked, but not the price, about which she complained bitterly every time she bought more items. I would tell her, "yeah, but you paid it" and try explain to her that despite the fact that she thinks the dishes are priced way too high, her agreeing to buy them is a signal to the manufacturer that the price is OK. What she thinks about the price is irrelevant, what counts are her actions. This is the basic mechanism of a free market. Mrs. Muse is no socialist, but it took her a while to understand this.

So Kindle prices will be high as long as we're willing to pay them.

Anyway, about the book:

As soon as the financial crisis erupted, the finger-pointing began. Should the blame fall on Wall Street, Main Street, or Pennsylvania Avenue? On greedy traders, misguided regulators, sleazy subprime companies, cowardly legislators, or clueless home buyers?

According to Bethany McLean and Joe Nocera, two of America's most acclaimed business journalists, the real answer is all of the above-and more. Many devils helped bring hell to the economy. And the full story, in all of its complexity and detail, is like the legend of the blind men and the elephant. Almost everyone has missed the big picture. Almost no one has put all the pieces together.

The only caveat here is that it was rated very high by the execrable Huffington Post, which tends to make me suspicious. Might be worth checking out, anyway, though.

Reckless Endangerment: How Outsized Ambition, Greed, and Corruption Led to Economic Armageddon is priced more reasonably at $7.99 (although Vic is probably shouting "that's still too damn high!"). What this book has got going for it is that most of the 1-star reviews appear to be written by left-wing parrots who want to blame everything on "deregulation". Which is surprising since the book was written Gretchen Morgenson, a business reporter and columnist at The New York Times. So you'd think her liberal credentials should be pretty solid.
more...

Posted by: Open Blogger at 06:55 AM | Comments (195)
Post contains 1250 words, total size 8 kb.

The Giffords-Kelly Lie Machine Strikes Again

Not content to let her husband have all the action, Gabrielle Giffords falsely implies that her assailant was not subjected to a background check.

Right now, we have one system where responsible gun owners take a background check — my husband, Mark, took one just last month, and it took 5 minutes and 36 seconds. I remember waiting a lot longer than that for the subway to take me to my office when I lived in New York City! And then we have a second system for those who don’t want to take a background check. Those people — criminals, or people suffering from mental illness, like the young man who shot me — can buy as many guns as they want on the Internet or at a gun show, no questions asked.

There are several lies here, in fact. Let's dispense with the main one: Jared Loughner passed a background check, so STFU.

Now for the rest of her bullshit. First off, I was at a gun store last weekend and watched a guy wait a hell of a lot longer than 5 minutes for his "instant" background check to come back. It got flagged for further review, and he said this happens to him every time he buys a gun. There must be something in the database that's not perfectly clean, unlike ... say ... the record of an astronaut and husband of a congressman, that keeps tripping it. He still didn't have his gun when I left the store, but the owner and other customers got a good chuckle when I joked that adding every private transaction nationwide would obviously make this process more efficient.

And, for the millionth time, gun purchases "on the Internet" or "at a gun show" are subject to all federal and state laws governing the buyer and seller. Why aren't they screaming about the "classified ad loophole"? It's the same thing.

So, once again, we have people agitating for new laws on a false premise and without examining why the existing ones don't work. See also, Democrats.

Gun Of The Week

What's this beauty?

(answer below)

more...

Posted by: andy at 08:55 AM | Comments (324)
Post contains 571 words, total size 5 kb.

The ATF wants to build a massive database of your online connections. Maybe then they'll be able to figure out once and for all who's been smuggling all those guns to Mexico.

What could possibly go wrong?

Posted by: andy at 04:07 AM | Comments (364)
Post contains 45 words, total size 1 kb.

Gaming below more...

Posted by: Gang of Gaming Morons! at 12:27 PM | Comments (132)
Post contains 788 words, total size 5 kb.

Eight years ago, USS San Francisco (SSN-711) ran full speed into a mountain more than 500 feet below the oceanÂ’s surface.

One sailor died.

That sailor sadly died from head injuries. But the rest of the crew lived, and the boat rejoined the fleet in 2009. Because of a program initiated after the loss of the USS Thresher SSN-593 in 1963, this month, the tenth. Thresher imploded on a deep dive test after having had her reactor replaced.

The program was called SUBSAFE, and it's mission was to ensure a damaged USN submarine could take a hit, like running into an undersea mountain, and survive to bring its crew to the surface.

The Navy created an elaborate series of checks in the design, construction and maintenance of nuclear submarines to certify a submarine would be able to surface in the event of an emergency. Certification gets as specific as cataloguing the source of the alloy for every piece of equipment thatÂ’s SUBSAFE approved, according to the Navy. That means the lot number on a SUBSAFE valve can be traced back to the source.

The Thresher catastrophe was a wake up call, and the Navy, along with a bunch of smart engineers responded to make a dangerous job somewhat less dangerous.

Those who serve have a job that is not a nine-to-five. They train to fight to defend the nation, and that training isn't easy, and often isn't safe. Just because their not in harm's way from the enemy, they are still in harm's way.

Contrast this story with that of the Russian Kursk incident.

via @ExJon on twitter, who served on this boat, and also a nod to my dad, who served on 4 diesel electric boats during Korea.

Posted by: Dave in Texas at 11:46 AM | Comments (265)
Post contains 313 words, total size 2 kb.

It's not wise to play the blame game within your own team when trying to confront your opponent. Who exactly ordered those destroyers against Korea? This is some weak leadership and not too smart to air your internal command issues publicly. Don't think that Lil' Kim, Putin, Ahmadinnerjacket, etc haven't noticed either. Yup, go ahead, blame the Navy for pushing the NORKS too far. I guess Commander in Chief is in title only then?

Funny Lil' Kim images. more...

Posted by: CDR M at 05:53 PM | Comments (680)
Post contains 479 words, total size 5 kb.

If you happen to be in the Jacksonville area , and are in the mood for a luxury car or some bling, the Jacksonville Sheriffs Office would like to speak to you.

For a real giggle, check out photos 19-21 and tell me that drug dealers aren't the sensitive type.

Note: Does anyone else think these prices might be a TAD bit high?

Oh, and Open Thread.

Posted by: Open Blogger at 01:43 PM | Comments (560)
Post contains 81 words, total size 1 kb.