The Frying Pan - 2015-07-07 (page 3 of 4)

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6:01 PM

Scrabble sounds as though it should be an easy AI problem

Not that I know very much at all about AI

It makes sense to me that it probably is pretty simple to program a "player" to always score the maximum points per turn.

Thought that's just occurred to me: Is it acceptable to permit the game's AI to see your tiles if that allows the algorithm to give you a challenging game?

I've never played a computer opponent that seemed to even consider defense.

If you design the algorithm to occasionally make 'wrong' decisions in a way that mimics a real player - in other words, only using that advantage for good - does it make any difference?

The closest I've seen to that is that some programs don't even play all the two-letter words. That is clear pretty quickly because 2-letter words make all the difference in the world. Not playing them well stands out.

On level 3 of 5, Kindle no longer knows QI or ZA.

6:13 PM

By the way:

> I've never played a computer opponent that seemed to even consider defense.

Do you mean 'in Scrabble'? Or generally?

in Scrabble only

I think rumi nailed it.

I naively imagine that AI research can come up with an algorithm that can be smoothly 'dialed up' in terms of difficulty, based on proportion of imperfect moves or whatever. I expect that's very, very wrong for some subtle and complicated reason, however

Having the entire dictionary memorized, the "smartest" Kindle AI will slaughter most human opponents.

I say "Kindle AI" only because I have not played against any other enough to judge.

I don't really consider conventional board games anymore. I'm a gamer and fairly into big-ticket strategy games; there the dynamic is completely inverted. For those sorts of games, usually no AI exists that can defeat the best players without cheating

or even halfway competent ones depending on the title

So far, I've not played against a computer opponent that can consistently beat me in Scrabble despite the huge advantage of it "knowing" every legal play.

6:21 PM

Interesting. I wonder if the designers even have contact with very good human players enough to know what they should be aiming for

Hi guys. You really get around, topicwise, don't you?

Since just knowing the whole dictionary would make it unbeatable for 99% of human players, maybe no one has bothered trying.

There are some boffins here. Interesting thoughts abound on most topics

@Jolenealaska we're not worthy! we're not worthy! prostrates

When she wants a real challenge, she plays me. Then she only wins by 200 points or so

@rumtscho The former. Are you saying people get that wrong?

6:27 PM

I mentioned to rumi that you are the only human to have beaten me in years!

@Jolenealaska I'm curious as to whether this ability translates to all games

e.g. plant you in a Korean Starcraft tournament and see where you end up

@FaheemMitha yes, the majority of people get that wrong

it's a pretty consistent result

@rumtscho Hmm. Strange.

and easily explained by non-objectivist cognition theories

No. I am a poor chess player, an average player of most games I know.

6:28 PM

@rumtscho I've no idea what those are.

nothing strange about that, it's how humans work

@rumtscho If you say so.

Speaking of ML....

Hi @TomW.

another (related) side effects of the way humans work is that they are bad at statistics. Or rather, that common sense is often wrong when it comes to solving problems for which statistics are needed.

6:29 PM

I am so high right now

^ That's the result of deliberately inducing a feedback loop into a Google image recognition algorithm

or from what I understood

@FaheemMitha yo

Years ago I climbed to #2 on Yahoo gin, the only other game I consider myself to be particularly good at.

trippy!

@rumtscho Hmm. I remember reading somewhere that human beings are terrible random number generators because they don't expect things to repeat as often as they really do. I.e. coin tosses.

Probability is actually easy, as long as you remember to model it mathematically.

dilbert.com/strip/2001-10-25

@TomW I was just watching Homecoming. Someone should write a fan-fic from the POV of Holly Charleston and Michelle Blake. Though it wouldn't be that interesting.

@FaheemMitha That was the subject of an experiment we duplicated in high school.

6:33 PM

Means nothing to me I'm afraid

@TomW Tchah. And you call yourself a Buffy fan.

...I do not? I liked it when it was on

@Jolenealaska Oh, and what was the result?

I didn't pay that much attention

@TomW Oh, did I get you confused with someone else? You said you have repeatedly rewatched it.

6:35 PM

I don't remember saying that, but I don't remember a lot of what I say

@TomW Oh, maybe I got you confused with someone else. Though SE isn't excactly thronged with Buffy fans. You did say you liked Cordelia, right?

Faheem has a strange penchant for American teenage dramas it seems

I'm pretty sure I didn't say that, but she is hot

Charisma Carpenter?

Exactly that. Only 1% of the students ever tasked to come up with a "random" string of 50 digits had the same digit 3 times in a row.

6:37 PM

I wouldn't kick her out of bed for eating crackers I suppose.

@TomW Yes, I was confusing you with @Jay.

Sorry about that.

@ElendilTheTall Not that strange.

The SciFi and Fantasy stack has some pretty rabid Buffy fans!

And not American teenage dramas, really. Just Buffy.

@Jolenealaska Oh. I've not spent much time there.

@Jolenealaska Hmm, yes I see. Interesting.

One of the mods (Richard) seems to have every Buffy script memorized.

It's actually really easy to come up with a reasonable random number sequence with a little common sense. You don't even need to know much about probability.

@Jolenealaska were they allowed to use computers?

If not, it is a little harder.

@Jolenealaska How nice.

6:41 PM

No, that's the point. The ongoing experiment is more about the human mind than random numbers.

A common theme among statistics people is how alarmingly little people know about Statistics. Though the same could be said of Medicine, or Politics, or History. Or any number of other things.

Sometimes I think of saying something disparaging about Buffy. Then I compare it to pretty much everything else that has ever been on television.

If expertise in such things came easily, we would have no need for experts.

@Jolenealaska Hmm. A little common sense goes a long way. But maybe you are right.

(doctors would be out of a job, for instance)

@ElendilTheTall Yes.

@ElendilTheTall She probably doesn't eat crackers. Has to watch her figure.

@Jolenealaska Well, doctors kind of suck anyway. Unless you need surgery, in which case you are grateful they are around.

6:43 PM

@FaheemMitha Thin people eat Ryvita, for example. In my book that's a cracker

Or it might be cardboard. To be honest, what's the difference

@TomW Where do you get that?

Sounds like a US thing.

> The company was founded in Birmingham, England, in 1930

Apparently not

I'd have assumed that too

Probability theory is actually a really interesting branch of mathematics. But most people would disagree, probably.

Since everyone knows mathematics was only invented to torture people.

@TomW Ah, Ok.

@Jay I was just watching Homecoming. Someone should write a fan-fic from the POV of Holly Charleston and Michelle Blake. Though it wouldn't be that interesting.

@FaheemMitha have you watched any Star Trek: The Next Generation?

@Jolenealaska None at all, as far as I know. Is that the Picard one?

6:48 PM

Yep.

I did watch the two recent ST films. There were moderately entertaining.

HW always impressed with its production values.

It takes a couple of seasons before it really finds its footing, but TNG is some very good TV.

I used to read a lot of SF when I was younger, but I've never really watched the TV or film variety. No doubt partly because I grew up in India.

I have no doubt that Buffy is too, I just want to start it from the beginning and I haven't gotten around to it yet.

@Jolenealaska amen to that. Better as it ages, also.

6:50 PM

@Jolenealaska I see. Well, there is a lot more TV than there used to be. Compared to if you grew up in the 50s for example. You'd get to watch Lucy.

There was also something called Leave it to Beaver?

I'm still not a big TV watcher, but TNG rocked my world.

Yes, same era.

One does get the sense that the mass American audience has increased considerably in intelligence and sophistication in the last 50 years or so.

I've said this several times already recently, though.

In fact I think the opposite is true, partly because of television.

Probably the outcome of the post-WW2 push for higher education in North America and Europe.

@Jolenealaska The opposite? I don't follow. You think they are dumber?

I'm actually going by the kind of TV that is available.

Americans and Europeans used to read, now most watch TV instead.

6:53 PM

Buffy would have fallen over and died in the 50s. in the very late 1990s and early 21st century it got an audience of millions.

@Jolenealaska Hmm, well I think most people have never read in any era. Though I admit I have no statistics to back that up.

It's true, if you have tv shows to watch, you are less likely to pick up a book. But there are plenty of terrible books.

I like watching tv because it lets my eyes unfocus.

@FaheemMitha I'd suggest it's more to do with the maturity of television as an art form. When TV is genuinely new, figuring out how to actually solve the technical and logistical challenges is hard. Theatre is kind of a precedent, but audience engagement is left to the actors

So the early iterations are...well, banal

@TomW I'm inclined to disagree. Why would it go from mindless crap to, well, not quite so mindless crap?

As a writer, you think "Are they going to get it? Probably, but how can we tell?"

I'd really be inclined to point to mass education. For the Americans who might have some idea, what proportion of people in the US got a bachelors degree in the early 50s say? As opposed to now?

When I first moved into this apartment, it took me several months to get around to buying a television. During that time I invited a couple I had met to dinner. Halfway through the evening the wife noticed that I didn't seem to have a TV.

6:57 PM

@Jolenealaska And was shocked and horrified.

Or maybe thought you were an intellectual?

She asked where my TV was. I shrugged and replied that I didn't have one.

Hello :D

@Catija hey

Care to weigh in on why US tv is less sucky now than then?

They both stopped eating, forks poised halfway to their mouths.

Not sure if any of you ever spend time in Meta but I've just posed a revision to some tag usages and I'd like to know what people think.

@FaheemMitha Then meaning when?

7:00 PM

@Jolenealaska Shock! Horror!

You should be over in the Screening Room :P

Simultaneously they both said, "So what do you do?"

@Catija Well, I was using the 50s as an arbitrary benchmark.

@Catija Why?

@Jolenealaska Did you say "I go fox hunting"?

@FaheemMitha I didn't mean "you can't talk about it here"... I just meant that, when they're in the room, there are some very opinionated TV viewers over there. :D

"WHAT DO YOU POINT YOUR FURNITURE AT? "

7:01 PM

@Catija Ah, ok.

@ElendilTheTall Exactly

You could alternatively have said - I like to watch the stars with my very expensive telescope.

The Screening is attached to the Movies and TV SE, I assume.

My refrigerator is more entertaining than most TV shows.

@Jolenealaska Why, what do you have going on in there? :-)

Hi @Jay

Lol was just reading that whole segment

7:03 PM

@FaheemMitha guacamole ageing

where you confused me with Tom

@Jay Yes, sorry about that. Terrible memory for names.

lol np

I haven't really viewed a lot of old TV... but I would guess that it has to do with the less episodic nature of modern TV shows. Because of the prevalence of "watch it anytime" tv show availability, you can always catch up on a show, so the shows can have huge arcs, while in the 50s, they had to make the shows contained in each episode for the most part, as someone might miss an episode and not understand what's happening.

@FaheemMitha Yep.

@Catija That does make a difference, I guess.

7:04 PM

People who commission TV shows are advertising salesmen

But is it just me, or is Threes Company for example aggressively brainless in a way that is not so common these days?

I want some fanfiction from the point of view of some of the "villains"

@TomW True.

that might be interesting

@Jay Yes, it might be. Who were you thinking?

Or Jonathan.

7:05 PM

lol

we already have a episode from jonathon's pov

i think thats enough

Though I bet there is a fair amount of Jonathan fan-fic out there. Apparently he was quite popular.

@Jay I doubt the fans think so.

I was thinking drusilla pov might be interesting

If most people the guide first, and then chose what to watch, TV would not be the scourge it is today. Unfortunately, from what I can see, many if not most people just turn the TV on and watch anything.

I was on the old btvs newsgroup a few years ago. To my surprise it was still quite active.

Heaven knows what they talk about.

Actually, I've not seen a lot of Three's Company but I do think it's interesting how they dealt with the issue of being perceived to be homosexual in that era... though they could do it with less grace than I imagine.

7:06 PM

@FaheemMitha Less popularity and more relatability

@Jay What's the difference?

@Jolenealaska True.

I rarely watch any tv live these days

i guess the line is pretty thin

I don't know if it's true, but I read recently that the average American sixth-grader watches eight hours of television a day.

it's either recorded, streamed via on-demand, or netflix

7:07 PM

Apparently Danny Strong is a successful screenwriter these days, but everyone still thinks of him as Jonathan. That is called the Buffy curse.

I've not watched tv on tv since like 2007 or so.

I don't think I have ever watched eight hours of television in a single day.

That's a lot of tv.

We don't even have cable. We watch everything on Netflix, Hulu Plus, Amazon Prime, or through... other... methods.

@Jolenealaska Battlestar Galactica marathon, about 2005-06

@Catija you can just say it. :-)

7:08 PM

I've definitely binged watched series in the past

but no regularly 8hr a day is a bit much

@Catija so you don't think that improved education has anything to do with it?

@Catija employing a team of slaves to act out episodes? you monster!

I take that back. (Sort of) I binge watched Firefly on Netflix.

@Jolenealaska Ah, so you have watched Joss Whedon shows?

I don't know that I actually ever watched eight hours in one day, but close enough.

7:10 PM

@FaheemMitha Not really. I think that shows considered to be "more risky" are more likely to get a chance because there are more niche audiences and when those shows do well outside those niches, you get big hits.

I've actually never watched that one. I did watch Serenity though.

@Catija Hmm. Cable and so forth?

@ElendilTheTall I'll stop... I promise... Anyone need an acting slave?

@FaheemMitha Yes, but also Netflix, specifically... and Hulu. I don't think Transparent would have made it without Netflix, for example.

Actually, it seems all the good series get cancelled. I tend to watch mostly cancelled series for some reason...

Angel got canceled too abruptly

@Catija I didn't know Netflix commissions original series.

7:11 PM

@FaheemMitha Like what?

@Jay Agreed.

@Catija Dead Like Me. Selfie. Party Down.

And dollhouse

Transparent is Amazon, not Netflix!

@Catija Have you watched House of Cards?

@FaheemMitha Some of the best shows out there right now are Netflix Original series.

List of original programs distributed by Netflix

Netflix is an on-demand internet streaming media provider. It has distributed a number of Netflix-exclusive programs, including original series such as House of Cards and Orange Is the New Black, among specials, miniseries, and films such as The Square (2013), which was nominated for an Academy Award, the first nomination for a Netflix production. In addition to its original productions, Netflix's exclusive programming contains continuations of previously canceled series from other channels, including Arrested Development, The Killing, Star Wars: The Clone Wars, Trailer Park Boys and Longmire....

7:12 PM

But at least dollhouse got resolved in its own way

Early Edition (though that did run 4 years).

@Catija I see.

@Jolenealaska Ooops, sorry. But it still is the same point. It's on a web-only medium instead of on a network or cable channel.

I also watch TBBT, which I'm starting to become a little embarrassed to admit.

I canceled Netflix a while ago, but House of Cards may get me to pay for it again.

Early Edition was a pretty good show.

7:14 PM

@ElendilTheTall I keep trying but... I don't like seeing the sausage being made, so to speak. I have a difficulty accepting that Washington is quite that cynical and devious and so I've not been able to get into it.

There was also a nice show in 1998 called Cupid which got cancelled abruptly.

Also a show called "The Class" around 2006 that should have been a big hit, imo, but lasted like 19 episodes.

@FaheemMitha It was fun but it certainly could get a bit old... a very basic concept.

@Catija I am already that cynical myself, so that isn't a problem :) It is perhaps the best show I have ever seen

@Catija Oh, you watched it, then?

@Catija They might be more.

@ElendilTheTall I know a lot of people feel that way and I believe them. I'm too much of a hopeful optimist at times.

7:16 PM

you just have to suspend your belief in the same way as you would for, say, sci-fi

@FaheemMitha I've seen a dozen or so episodes, yes. I liked that the paper showed up with a cat.

@Catija Yes, that was a good touch. It's not about the concept, it's about the execution...

@ElendilTheTall I've never really been into pure drama

And the quality of EE was very variable. Like a lot of shows.

and politics bore me

7:17 PM

Buffy being a notable exception.

Buffy is first and foremost a sci fi/fantasy

@ElendilTheTall It took me a few weeks to convince myself watch the third episode of Game of Thrones... I got so upset by the treatment of the characters... and now I'm so used to it, nothing they do phases me.

drama is a secondary category

@Jay I disagree. It's a metaphorical allegorical thingy.

Whatever our opinions, the main point is, its not purely a drama

7:19 PM

@Catija well hell, if you can watch GoT, you can watch HoC!

Like Narnia, it doesn't make a lot of sense on its own terms.

GoT is also fantasy based tho

@Jay I never said it was.

@ElendilTheTall But GoT takes place in a fantasy world, HoC takes place in the "real world". If it was set in some other country I'd probably be fine with it.

In fact, the series itself points that out. In Normal Again.

7:19 PM

@Catija spoken like a true westerner :)

3 mins ago, by Faheem Mitha

Buffy being a notable exception.

oh nvm

Exception to the variable quality thing.

that was directed at something else

Much of it was way way way higher than you would expect on something in a mass medium.

I also really enjoyed Charmed

7:22 PM

@ElendilTheTall Westerner meaning American or meaning western hemisphere?

I can still remember how taken aback by Seaon 2 I was. I didn't know a TV show could do that kind of thing.

@Jay Yuck.

@Catija hemisphere. and that's speaking as one myself

perhaps 'first worlder' would be more accurate

Probably.

Ghost Whisperer made me sad when it was canceled

@Jay Ghost Whisperer made me sad whenever it came on TV. Tripe.

7:23 PM

@ElendilTheTall Yeah. Probably. And my battery is about to die. See you all later... check out my Meta post if you care. :P

I'm convinced Mrs The Tall would put it on just to get rid of me

@Catija bye

How dare you! Anything Jennifer Love Hewitt graces with her presence is gold

@Jay She's certainly very cute.

At least your wife has good taste

But TV actresses can also be terrifying. I remember reading an interview wtih JLH. It was quite, quite scarifying.

7:24 PM

how so

@FaheemMitha a while back you said something that I want to revisit. You seemed to use the percentage of people with a degree as a metric for how "educated" that group of people is. Would you say that is correct?

@Jay I forget now. It was just her worldview.

@FaheemMitha it made a series of tiny incisions in your skin?!

@Jolenealaska Not really a metric, more of a proxy.

@Jay no, she really doesn't. pop music and reality tv >.<

7:25 PM

But yes, there is some correlation.

@ElendilTheTall haha oh

Not that having a degree means you are educated, of course. I know lots of idiots with PhDs.

Well, I've worked with some of them.

Correct me if I'm wrong but most reality tv viewer are female right?

@Jolenealaska it sounds to me like you are about to take exception to it, hence the hasty back-pedalling.

@ElendilTheTall Metaphorically speaking.

Conversely, I know some highly educated people who have never been to college. But, I agree that it is relevant.

7:27 PM

@Jay I'll forgive her, she has a great ass :D

But for better or worse, most people do tend to get much of their education via a formal route.

@Jolenealaska Sure. I actually don't think my stay in universities has actually had much to do with educating me.

@ElendilTheTall I'm an ass man myself :D

And I hated my school. I spent most of my time there wishing I was dead, so I doubt I learned much.

Misery is very distracting, pedagogically speaking.

There are a lot of things i can overlook if the person im dating has a great ass

I can see the conversation is taking an elevated turn.

7:29 PM

Blame @ElendilTheTall

lol

Actually, I kind of liked being in Cambridge. Even though it was full of English people. No place is perfect, I suppose.

My years at the University of Iowa were a colossal waste of time, but to this day I still feel a bit "unfinished" since I never got a degree.

@Jolenealaska What were you studying?

I changed my major more often than I changed my mind.

That's one of the reasons I quit. I always figured I'd go back someday once I decided what to study.

@FaheemMitha some people would take great offence at that and start whining about it

7:32 PM

Ok, pop quiz. Which book is this sentence from? No peeking.

I however, will not

" As I was talking with Ernest one day not so long since about this, he said he was so happy now that he was sure he had never been happier, and did not wish to be so, but that Cambridge was the first place where he had ever been consciously and continuously happy."

<plots bloody revenge>

Then life happened and the next thing I know I'm 47 years old.

@ElendilTheTall LOL

@Jolenealaska Yes, life has an annoying habit of doing that.

Any takers?

7:33 PM

@FaheemMitha ooo, I know this

but i can't remember the title

@ElendilTheTall Go for it.

<massages temples>

@ElendilTheTall Author?

it's an old book

@ElendilTheTall relatively speaking, yes. It's pre-Buffy.

But a very famous one. At least, it used to be.

7:34 PM

@FaheemMitha ah, 'BB'

The "Ernest" is a bit of a giveaway.

The Way of All Flesh.

@Jolenealaska Did you Google it?

Samuel Butler!

I knew I knew it

As a matter of fact, no. But I haven't read it either.

7:36 PM

That sentence just popped into my head just now. So, naturally, I looked it up. That's what the net is for.

@Jolenealaska Naughty.

I wanted to see if @ElendilTheTall would get it.

It rang a bell, but I don't know why.

Very good book. Not the most upbeat thing out there.

It's sometimes billed as - the famous attack on the Victorian concept of the family.

Or something like that.

Unfortunately, it is a bit better as describing the symptoms than the cure.

@Jolenealaska Maybe you read it once.

It is very common for me to realize that I've read a book about 50 pages in.

I read a lot as a kid and young adult.

Me too. Though usually I can remember them quite well.

I tend to startle people by describing plots of random books in detail.

Though my memory for many other things is very poor. Like names.

Pretty much anything I could get my hands on. I can't give you a synopsis of a book I read last year, but I remember verbatim certain walls of text. Strange stuff.

One of the oddest that will not leave my brain is the Prologue to the Canterbury Tales in Middle English.

7:42 PM

If I could devote 50% of what i used to memorize video game information into remembering other stuff, i'd be a savant

Hmm, Orwell liked The Way of All Flesh. I did not know that. Though that's not surprising. It's his kind of book. I wonder what Wells thought.

I used to play a game called Guild Wars, and I literally memorized every aspect of that game

@Jolenealaska When I was under mental stress, like during an exam, streams of words I had read would enter my brain. I've no idea how common this is.

I read it out loud for a school project when I was a tot, and it is stuck like old gum.

It hasn't happened recently - I haven't done any exams for a while.

7:44 PM

No lie, and this might be tmi, but i get horny when i'm stressed

@Jay lol. Must make exam taking hard.

I get stressed when I'm horny!

lolol

Taking exams aren't too bad

its mostly the studying the night before

thats when im most stressed

I have never studied for an exam in my life

im usually a pretty good test taker so during the test, im able to calm donw

7:46 PM

I was about to say that too, Tall. But I decided against it.

lol

I procrastinate and pull allnighters before every exam

which is why im super stressed out during the studying

i created a new word from experience

For what little it's worth (which is exactly nothing since I don't think any of us are still in school) a good nights sleep trumps any cramming you can do the night before.

@Jolenealaska it always struck me as entirely too much like hard work

promasturbating

@ElendilTheTall And that is why you work for the British Secret Service. James Bond was an indifferent student too.

7:47 PM

i need a better way to combine masturbate and procrastinate

@Jay masturnate?

procrastibate

cramwank

there we go

lol

HA!

7:48 PM

stressjerk

Cramwank sounds like a Dickens character

or an awesome band name

The Interesting Tale of Cornelius Cramwank

<patents feverishly>

I gots to get paid!

"Oh no, I feel a cramwank® coming on!"

The only thing that would make me work at anything school related was a project that put me centerstage. I would occasionally do assigned readings and such if I found them interesting, but not just because they were assigned.

terrortoss

@ElendilTheTall oh, behave.

7:51 PM

@FaheemMitha never!

give me liberty or give me cash

I had a fun conversation with my little brother the other day. Apparently he to absolutely refuse to memorize his multiplication tables.

@ElendilTheTall so if i gave you money, you wouldn't mind if i locked you in my basement?

is this an adult brother or a young brother

To this day we both think 6*6=36, +6 = 42...6*7=42

7 years my junior.

@Jay depends what you planned on doing with me when I was in there

@ElendilTheTall lol

what are acceptable things i can do

7:56 PM

Samuel Butler was a very good English stylist. Unfortunately people don't write so well these days.

@Jay how much cash are we talking? :D

@FaheemMitha have you read any Chris Hitchens?

@ElendilTheTall you took the words right out of my mouth.

@ElendilTheTall Is that the dreadful man who supported the Iraq War?

It seems Mr. Butler also liked Handel. I prefer Bach myself. Though I appreciate Handel too.

"people don't write so well these days" hmmm...that one stretches the "wide brush" concept.

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