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Aug-25-05
 | | BishopBerkeley: <csmath: I have played Zappa and I have positive score against Zappa (+2, =3).> Heavens, what is your FIDE rating, if you don't mind my asking?! I assume you mean you've played against Zappa 1.0, the freeware version? (I don't think the other version is available yet.) I wonder what hardware you were using? Also (again, if you don't mind my asking), how have you fared against Shredder (Computer) , Junior (Computer) , and Fruit? (Fruit came in 2nd in the recent Iceland contest, ahead of the two former World Chess Champions.) Finally, if you don't mind my asking, are you a vegetarian?!?! Thanks in advance!
(: ♗ Bishop Berkeley ♗ :)
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| Aug-25-05 | | azaris: When <csmath> says he's played against someone, he means his computer has played against someone. He's got some kind of weird cyborg thing going on. |
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| Aug-25-05 | | csmath: <<I assume you mean you've played against Zappa 1.0, the freeware version? (I don't think the other version is available yet.) I wonder what hardware you were using?>> I used a single processor AMD computer and myself including my opening lines against Zappa. I played 4 times the older version of Zappa (+2, =2) and once new version of Zappa (and newer hardware, 1=). Both wins were accomplished after getting opening advantage (this is what a human can do, it is next to impossible to outplay me in the opening though I did lost some games that way). I don't have ELO as this is advanced play and I do not play tournaments for decades already (I used to). |
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Aug-25-05
| | BishopBerkeley: <azaris> Whew! For a second there, I thought he might be the reincarnation of Paul Morphy !! (: ♗ Bishop Berkeley ♗ :)
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Aug-25-05
| | BishopBerkeley: <csmath> Thanks for putting up with my interrogations! You've got some pretty impressive achievements there! (: ♗ Bishop Berkeley ♗ :)
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| Aug-25-05 | | csmath: Human+computer is always stronger than computer alone. :-)
This is what Kasparov has been accusing IBM team of doing. |
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Aug-25-05
| | BishopBerkeley: <csmath: Human+computer is always stronger than computer alone. :-)> Indeed, in my mini-essay over on the Shredder (Computer) message board, I suggest that Human+Computer competition is "Chess with weapons": somewhat like a gladiator contest, whereas Human-alone Chess is "Chess without weapons", more like boxing or wrestling. But what about Computer-alone Chess? Well, strictly speaking there is no such thing! The human element is always there, to a greater or lesser extent. Thanks for your response!
(: ♗ Bishop Berkeley ♗ :)
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| Aug-25-05 | | csmath: I think it would be marvellous to have a tournament with Anand, Kramnik, Topalov and all these guys using computers. That would be a nuclear chess, way better than anything ever played anywhere. |
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| Aug-25-05 | | ryanpd: <csmath> It has already been done. Look up "Advanced Chess". Anand won three times in a row, but Kramnik won the last advanced chess tournament I believe. |
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Aug-25-05
| | BishopBerkeley: Though the news is a bit dated, the KLAT2 Supercomputing Project estimated the out-of-pocket cost of their low-end supercomputer at less than $50,000 (US) in 2000-2001: http://aggregate.org/KLAT2/cost.html
http://aggregate.org/KLAT2/
I have to think the cost for this level of computing power has dropped significantly since then (with smaller configurations of the (Virginia Tech / System X)-type mentioned above.) In the "fun math" department, we note that KLAT2 ran comfortably between 32 and 64 gigaflops: http://aggregate.org/KLAT2/ScaLAPAC...
And the fastest supercomputer on earth in 1996 ran at 368.2 gigaflops. If we assume that Deep Blue was one third as fast as the fastest supercomputer of its day (probably an overestimate of its speed), this would mean that this $50K supercomputer ran 1/4 to 1/2 as fast as Deep Blue. I suspect it would be very safe to estimate that a system with the computing power of Deep Blue (Computer) could be assembled today using the System X paradigm for significantly less that $100,000. And this price is almost certain to drop substantially in coming years. So Chessplaying supercomputers would now be well within the reach of Chess-enthused vulture capitalists -- sorry -- VENTURE capitalists, and we have to think that experiments of this kind will be more and more common in coming years. All rather exciting!!
(: ♗ Bishop Berkeley ♗ :)
(Please note that 16 pizzas and 4 cases of soda were figured into the cost of KLAT2 (in the next-to-last section near the bottom of the cost estimate: http://aggregate.org/KLAT2/cost.html ). I would like to point out that there is a small but not-non-existent savings to be had if one stays with vegetarian pizzas. I mean, I don't know what the exact pepperoni-to-milliflop savings ratio would be, but it's not nothing.) |
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| Aug-25-05 | | csmath: BB, one of the problems is that chess programs, in common use today, have to be reprogrammed to use cluster computing, multiprocessors etc. For example Fruit, which is very strong, I am using it as well, can be used only on a single processor, Shredder can be used on 8 processors max. Only Hydra team is writting the program specifically for a supercomputer. The rest is only writing retail PC engines, by the most part. |
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| Aug-25-05 | | csmath: <<It has already been done. Look up "Advanced Chess". Anand won three times in a row, but Kramnik won the last advanced chess tournament I believe.>> Yes, I am aware of that. It is not done in a regular manner though and not recently. The Anand-Kramnik match was in 2002. We do not have tournaments, and these top elite players are not playing it else than very ocassionally. We do know they are using computer analyses for their regular tournament plays, the opening lines are now done that way, yet it seems they are afraid to admit that. I remember only Kasparov made admission in that regard openly. The advancement of the chess theory is just not possible any more without computers. The top tournament play these days is just simply irrelevant as far as development of opening lines go. For example Kasparov played opening line against Kasim in Linares that was obviously a computer analysis and Kasim's reaction was poor. The whole analysis has to be confronted with another computer analysis as well, since Kasim's play is totally irrelevant for the line itself, it was so inferior. |
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Sep-23-05
| | BishopBerkeley: IBM's historic 1958 paper titled "Chess-Playing Programs and the Problem of Complexity" takes one back to the early days of thinking on the subject (here in PDF format): http://www.research.ibm.com/journal... Eric Lerner's article "The Making of a Chess Machine", mirrored here by IBM, appears to have been published after Deep Blue had won a *game* (but not a *match*) against Garry Kasparov . Mr. Lerner raises the question, "How did Deep Blue, IBM's chess-playing computer, manage to compete so vigorously against world chess champion Garry Kasparov last February [1996?]?" http://domino.research.ibm.com/comm... If I'm not mistaken, the Chess program "Cray Blitz" mentioned in the article is an early incarnation of Crafty (Computer) . And here is IBM's internal press release after the 1997 match victory: http://domino.research.ibm.com/comm... All quite interesting!
(: ♗ Bishop Berkeley ♗ :)
http://www.bbbbbb.org/
Bishop Berkeley's Chess Interface
(recently enhanced for ease of use of non-me users)
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| Sep-23-05 | | csmath: Thanks for the link to the first article. Claude Shannon work is the most important for the development of program ideas. The evaluation function is his idea. Game theory could not crack chess otherwise, it is too complex.
The way this function is implemented these days as well as searching and prunning, we got computers with different styles of playing. |
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Sep-23-05
| | BishopBerkeley: You are most welcome, <csmath>! It is interesting to travel back in time to the musings of Claude Shannon and Alan Turning! By the way, I've enjoyed your anaylses of the unfolding correspondence match between the Chess monster Hydra and GM Arno Nickel over on the Hydra (Computer) message board! I hope to jump in from time to time myself. But please know, your contributions are appreciated!
(The continuing Hydra-Nickel match may be followed, move by move, at this site: http://direct.chessfriend.com/Nicke... ) (: ♗ Bishop Berkeley ♗ :)
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Sep-24-05
| | BishopBerkeley: The Chess Symbols take their place in the Universal Symbol Code of Computing: the ASCII superset "UNICODE": For a large part of the history of computing, the text of programming was based on a set of 128 symbols known as "ASCII", an acronym which stands for "American Standard Code for Information Interchange". The acronym is usually pronounced "AS-kee". This symbol set was (and is) comprised of 95 printable characters and 33 non-printable characters. The printable characters are: !"#$%&'()*+,-./ 0123456789:;<=>? @ABCDEFGHIJKLMNOPQRSTUVWXYZ[\]^_
`abcdefghijklmnopqrstuvwxyz|~
(The blank space is also one character, you just can't see it!) The non-printable characters may be seen in a table in this article. Many of them are functional - they tell a printer or a data transmission system to do or not to do something: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ASCII
The number 128 is not, of course, arbitrary. If you start counting with zero instead of one, and finish with 127, you have 128 numbers, which is two to the seventh power (2^7). The text and text-functions of ASCII were developed with 128 "slots", and each of these was filled in the way indicated above. Of course, humankind and their computers would like to have a larger symbol set, a symbol set that includes all the characters of all known human languages, all scientific and mathematical characters, and a great many other fundamental symbols that are a part of human communication. Two-to-the-seventh power has become two-to-the-16th power (2^(16)), and "ASCII" has become "UNICODE". This gives humankind 65,536 symbol slots to fill. But can every significant human symbol be contained within these slots? Time will tell: the development process is well underway. Happily, the twelve Chess symbols have already staked their claim in the Universal Symbol Code, and they have been assigned their places. They occupy slots 9,812 through 9,823, which in hexadecimal numeration ("base 16", which uses the digits 0,1,2,3,4,5,6,7,8,9,A,B,C,D,E,F) are slots 2654 (for the White King) through 265F (for the Black Pawn). You may see the Chess symbols proudly alongside many other human symbols in the "Miscellaneous Symbols" (slots 2600-26FF (hex)) section of the Unicode protocol at this site (in PDF format: can you find the Chess symbols?): http://www.unicode.org/charts/PDF/U...
YAY!!! We're in!! Kinda like being a couple of giraffes on Noah's Ark, eh?! Here's the human language character chart:
http://www.unicode.org/charts/
And the symbols and punctuation chart:
http://www.unicode.org/charts/symbo...
The Unicode Standard main page:
http://www.unicode.org/
All quite fascinating, in a kind of utopio-nerdly way. (: ♗ Bishop Berkeley ♗ :)
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Sep-24-05
| | BishopBerkeley: Unicode Addendum:
WOW! Someone has actually placed a chart of the emerging 65,536 "slot" symbol set of future human computing online! Please note: the following website is ONLY intended for the industrial-strength geek. PLEASE READ THE CAUTION at the end of this message before clicking the link at the end. This chart is not easy to navigate at first, but if you're into this kind of thing, it's worth the effort. Ideally, you should have a high-speed internet connection and the "Flash 6" software installed on your system (which well may be in place already, especially if you use "Dreamweaver" for web development. (If the small "plug-in" is not installed, you may download it for free here: http://www.macromedia.com/shockwave... )) The chart is best viewed using the MS Internet Explorer browser (not my personal favorite: by default, I am a Mozilla user. Mozilla will work, but the viewing window is smaller.) Initially, you will see a wispy, greyish rectangle when you click the link below. Clicking the '+' symbol at the bottom of the page will cause you to "zoom in" on the rectangle. In the upper left corner, you will see a little red rectangle that shows you the portion of the chart you are now viewing. It took me about six clicks on the '+' before viewable symbols began to appear. There may be a "setup" period of several seconds duration after each click as the fuzzy symbols start to "sharpen up". Patience will be rewarded! Once you can see symbols at a comfortable level of resolution, you may use the arrow keys at the bottom to scroll up and down and side to side, the '+' and ' - ' keys to zoom in and out, OR, you may click-hold-and-drag anywhere on the chart to move it from side to side. BUT...
...can you find the Chess symbols?!?
TIP: the original 128 ASCII characters occupy the first 128 slots of Unicode, and you may see them in the upper leftmost region of this chart. In this chart, there are 65,536 slots (from 0 to 65,535, numbered hexadecimally from 0000 to FFFF ( 0x0000 to 0xFFFF for the post-graduate geek ) ). The binary range of the chart is, of course, from
0000 0000 0000 0000 (bin) to
1111 1111 1111 1111 (bin)
Nearly all the symbols from all major living human languages are believed to be incorporated in this set, with many slots still left over! Well, please take a deep breath, read the following disclaimer, and then decide what to do... CAUTION: You are STRONGLY DISCOURAGED from trying to view this chart unless: 1) You are wearing a pocket-protector,
2) You still own a slide-rule or know someone who does, OR
3) You laugh at the following joke:
"There are 10 kinds of people in the world: those who understand binary numbers, and those who don't." If you qualify (and please take a long, hard look deep into your soul before you conclude that you do...), you may click the following link: http://www.ianalbert.com/misc/zoom-...
Good luck, and may the 1s and 0s be with you!
(: ♗ Bishop Berkeley ♗ :)
More on "UNICODE":
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Unicode
And more on the chart above:
http://www.ianalbert.com/misc/unich...
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| Oct-20-05 | | Whitehat1963: I'm surprised no one has come up with a computer program called "Deep Purple." |
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| Oct-20-05 | | Deep Urkel: I'm the closest you're ever gonna get! |
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| Oct-20-05 | | underrated: what about "Shallow Hal" from that space 2000 oddsey movie |
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| Oct-20-05 | | Deep Urkel: Your all mixed up, you're confusing director genius Stanley Kubric with actor/musician buffoon Jack Black!! |
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| Oct-21-05 | | Whitehat1963: <underrated>, I think that's actually clever! It also happens to describe all the computer power needed to beat me! |
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Nov-06-05
| | BishopBerkeley: Well, the Terabyte Hard Drive is no longer just a theory (1 Terabyte = 1,000 Gigabytes): http://www.lacie.com/products/produ...
A glorious monument to human ingenuity! And I'm sure others will follow from other manufacturers, if they haven't already. "The most powerful Hi-Speed USB 2.0 hard drive in a portable 5.25 [inch] 1U form factor, the LaCie Big Disk is designed for low-cost storage expansion and is ideal for backing up several workstations with enormous capacities up to 1TB. With USB universal connectivity and no software to configure, this plug & play drive delivers high performance with maximum convenience." Makes me less concerned when I see the 100 MB to 300 MB Openings books of Shredder (Computer) , Junior (Computer) , and Fritz (Computer) on my PC's hard drive! Less that $1(US) per Gigabyte! I hope it proves reliable... (: ♗ Bishop Berkeley ♗ :)
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| Nov-06-05 | | Dionyseus: <BishopBerkeley> Nice find. |
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Nov-06-05
| | BishopBerkeley: Thanks, <Dionyseus>! It is an impressive product! I wonder: when will we hit the quantum limit?
[Kilobytes]
[Megabytes]
[Gigabytes]
Terabytes? (1.0E+12 bytes)
Petabytes? (1.0E+15 bytes)
Exabytes? (1.0E+18 bytes)
Zettabytes? (1.0E+21 bytes)
Yottabytes? (1.0E+24 bytes)
[milliseconds]
[microseconds]
nanoseconds? (1.0E-09 seconds)
picoseconds? (1.0E-12 seconds)
femtoseconds? (1.0E-15 seconds)
attoseconds? (1.0E-18 seconds)
zeptoseconds? (1.0E-21 seconds)
yoctoseconds? (1.0E-24 seconds)
http://www.bipm.fr/en/si/prefixes.h...
I want to have a Petabyte flash drive for my keychain NOW!!! (And it MUST be SMALL and LIGHTWEIGHT or I am NOT interested!!) (: ♗ Bishop Berkeley ♗ :)
Also of interest:
The International Bureau of Weights and Measures ("Le Bureau international des poids et mesures" (BIPM) ): http://www.bipm.fr/
English version:
http://www.bipm.fr/en/home/
It's nice to know that the kilogram, the metre, and the second have such a nice home! |
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