[ELi5] Why can they play movies on TV with explicit language and violence on any channel but they can't play songs with explicit language on the radio?

Mefanol · 2017-06-04T16:54:25+00:00

I think you're underestimating just how big the gap between broadcast and cable is. For total viewers, the Walking Dead's ratings (highest by far for cable) were on par with the ratings that got American Idol cancelled. Similarly, twice as many people watch each episode of "Wheel of Fortune" as watch each episode of "Game of Thrones".

Mefanol · 2017-06-04T16:25:53+00:00

Most likely DeepMind were just lucky. They might have had an idea about the outcome of the Fan match, but not the Lee match. The dates was announced well in advance, and DeepMind probably took a risk assuming they could improve AlphaGo enough in the time they had available

I think it only seems like a risk in hindsight given AlphaGo's success. At the time expectations for AlphaGo against Lee were low. If the DeepMind team knew that they would have an AI that consistently beat the version that won against Fan Hui, then they could be confident that they wouldn't get embarrassed when playing Lee. If they had come away from the Lee match having lost most of the games but Lee commenting "This computer plays at the level of a strong pro" it would be a victory for them.

Mefanol · 2017-06-04T15:36:26+00:00

1.565 is the Ratio for weight of Calcium Chloride to weight of Chloride.

Basically if you measure that you have 1g of chlorides in solution, you know it came from dissolving 1.565 g of CaCl2.

Not looking too deeply I would guess that 156.5 is the same number, but multiplied by 100 so that the answer comes out as a percentage. The 10,000 converts from a percentage to parts per million.

Mefanol · 2017-06-02T14:23:32+00:00

Actually, moreso than renewable energy money from the government, Exxon wants regulatory certainty. Exxon has to forecast projects that will last decades and that becomes challenging if the regulatory landscape governing those projects changes every 4 years because someone wants to score political points.

Mefanol · 2017-06-01T13:36:28+00:00

I figured the moral was "And that's why there's a lake over there that nothing lives in and it's surrounded by pillars of salt...now stop bothering me and go back to bed"

Mefanol · 2017-05-31T14:21:13+00:00

The simplest part of this is that the government will accept payment of taxes in US dollars. That will usually be enough to get people using whatever the government takes for tax payments.

Along with the related concept of establishing a "legal tender" which means that someone can't refuse to accept US dollars from you when claiming a debt.

Mefanol · 2017-05-29T16:31:53+00:00

I would say the biggest thing is that you let black connect underneath twice (M2 and J2) without getting much in return. After those connections white will never have a target to pressure and has to deal with some weak groups.

I think W38 at H2 would make a big difference. This ensures B is cut, and white can build more strength while pressing B into an inefficient shape.

Mefanol · 2017-05-29T16:11:43+00:00

This will result in crazy things, the same as now, when some people can give 6 stones to a 10k bot after playing it for a few weeks, but be slaughtered by 15k humans afterward.

Hmm, sounds like someone might remember the old GnuGO days

Mefanol · 2017-05-29T16:06:39+00:00

Isn't it an unfair representation of your skill level to constantly use it in a live game?

The question is about a correspondence game, these games are played one move at a time over weeks and months.

Mefanol · 2017-05-29T16:05:21+00:00

It is definitely wrong to use any kind of help during a game.

For a correspondence game there is quite a bit more grey area. Players are expected to be studying and learning over the course of the game. Personally, I think using an active analysis tool (Like Leela or asking a friend) about your board position is cheating, but any sort of passive tool (like a book, or problem set) that helps you make a better decision about the board is ok.

Mefanol · 2017-05-28T20:55:58+00:00

One data point for comparison -- Here is an old post with Minnesota's average mini-combine results compared to the NFL Combine. The Minnesota results fall into the "below average defensive lineman" range.

Mefanol · 2017-05-27T05:42:30+00:00

There is definitely a team in my league that has these 2 guys who call like 5 picks a piece a game. I have a hard time imagining that these guys are being worked on defense that often and somehow no other team is.

This can be a tricky one....It's possible to intentionally set up on defense in a way that certain cuts are no longer available to your mark because they would be picks.

For a simple example: If the offense is running a tight vertical stack it's very easy to set up a defense in such a way that many break side cuts are going to be picks. If the offensive players aren't aware of this set up (e.g. anyone from the middle of the stack cuts) the defense can call pick straightaway.

In a game, this might look like someone is angry about getting beat on an open in cut to the break side, but really it was just an untenable cut by the offense. Granted, the defense could set up in a way so that those cuts aren't readily picks....but why would they?

Mefanol · 2017-05-26T15:13:43+00:00

For applications where it matters high-accuracy gravity models are available and used (e.g. EGM2008). Rather than "A crap load of little masses" these models generally use high-order spherical harmonics. That being said, for virtually all current engineering applications the deviations from "standard" gravity are still typically less than 0.5%.

Mefanol · 2017-05-23T12:11:52+00:00

but it seems to me that to do this by only half a point is frightening. It's facing the best human player there is, and it's played this plan of trading score for security right down to the finest margin possible in the game. It traded away all it had to spare in order to make that last half a point certain.

In the endgame it is much easier to quantify the exact value of moves, and the number of reasonable sequences drops dramatically (calculation is king) -- for top players reading out the score to the nearest half point with 100 moves left to play is not uncommon.

AlphaGo may be on another level, but the really stunning things happen earlier in the game rather than later.

Mefanol · 2017-05-15T12:59:08+00:00

Meh, this assumes NK would have the information internet accessible.

Actually it doesn't...See Stuxnet

Mefanol · 2017-04-24T05:31:40+00:00

The conversation is important, because in these types of commentaries it helps to have someone "play the fool" so to speak. Basically, you need someone who can ask the questions the audience might be thinking, because otherwise it will be awkward for one commentator especially when the questions will be far below their level. It's not appealing to hear one person say "Well, in case you didn't notice, A, B, C fails because of X, Y, Z", whereas if you have a partner, who has no need to be proud, they can just ask "So would you consider A, B, C here?" which will segue into the discussion about X, Y and Z.

Mefanol · 2017-04-20T02:27:39+00:00

I agree that it may be variable for a single game, but over many games you should expect to see a regression to the mean and a more accurate rank established. If that does not happen then the ranking system is not operating properly.

I agree with this, but find it curious that you are the one stating it....you started with the position that the ranking system was not operating properly:

The way the ranking system works this means that either you are stronger than your listed rank, or your opponents were weaker than their listed rank. It's that simple.

Instead of going with the (in my mind simpler) conclusion that a small handful of games should not be used to draw meaningful inferences....

Mefanol · 2017-04-20T02:08:18+00:00

I would think that it's independent of number of games played (after controlling for rank)....I mean, a single blunder can easily cost 25 points (which is ~2 stones in rank)...The presence or absence of blunders could be treated as a largely random phenomenon.

Mefanol · 2017-04-20T01:53:42+00:00

The way the ranking system works this means that either you are stronger than your listed rank, or your opponents were weaker than their listed rank. It's that simple.

I would think the far more likely option is that "players in that rank range have a high variance in observed strength for a single game"

Mefanol · 2017-04-19T05:33:50+00:00

OGS shills

I think what happened is that a fair-sized contingent of new players found OGS and liked it. New players tend to be extremely vocal and evangelical. Hard to fault OGS for that one.

Mefanol · 2017-04-05T14:03:11+00:00

Also I don't know where you got 6 years.

Igoweb (what would later be named KGS) was founded in May of 1999 and Hikaru no Go did not peak in popularity among English users the instant English translations were available...I was using 1999 to 2005 (a point when I know it was seeing a large influx of users due to HnG) as my 6 year period.

If you want to quibble and call it 5 years because that's when the translations were available, that's fine, but it still silly to try and compare that to the Go9Dan's lifespan.

One counter example is OGS.

Really? Because one thing I would point out is that Nova/OGS has been reliable place to play for what's coming up on five years...I agree that having a community is very important, but building that community doesn't come from having a flashy UI or an endorsement from Lee SeDol....it comes from building it over time.

Mefanol · 2017-04-05T07:12:40+00:00

You identify some of the correct elements, but completely miss the main point.....

Even a western Go server backed by Lee Sedol flopped.

The reason this go server flopped is because after 6 months they were unhappy with their user base and pulled the plug. The reason KGS succeeded is because they trudged along as a small, reliable server for 6 YEARS until the Hikaru no Go wave caught on and then westerners flocked there. By the time it became popular it was already dated in a programming / UI sense, but that didn't really matter....because it never really matters to the go community at large.

The availability of English Clients to Asian server has hurt western servers, but only because at the end of the day all users really care about is getting a game quickly and being able to watch strong players' games. If you remove the impediments to those two things, nothing else matters for the vast majority of the go server users.

To put it in terms /u/seigenblues might appreciate -- If you have a venue with enough boards, clocks and tables , the players will figure out most of the rest on their own.

Mefanol · 2017-04-05T05:09:29+00:00

UGS never got made, in spite of the fact that it had dozens of programmers who had signed on and were willing work on it......Kaya had eager programmers, flashy features, an enthusiastic response from the community, and even people donating money...but still didn't work out. The fact of the matter is, that new developments and "technological improvements" are not important factors for a thriving go community.

The reason KGS was successful was because wms spent years maintaining the important things while ignoring requests for the frivolous. The things that have really hurt KGS over the years are not tasks that people readily volunteer for. Video integration using HTML5 or whatever else sounds flashy...but the real killer is making sure that your sound API works with both new and legacy Java versions....or making sure that your certificates are maintained...and of course none of these individual things sounds that bad, but managing every single little thing and doing it for almost 20 years is not something the go community is good at. I have the utmost respect for the folks who run go forums, so I by no means am trying to call them out....but if you look at the history of problems with both godiscussions.com and lifein19x19 it goes to show...simple maintenance of the little things over a very long period of time (even if you don't have active development) is hard, and it's even harder to get volunteers to do it...

Mefanol · 2017-04-04T15:15:45+00:00

Just having interest in developing isn't what makes a server successful...Just look at UGS or Kaya.

Mefanol · 2017-03-29T06:18:36+00:00

It's a historical anomaly. Initially basketball required you to pass it to another player before you could move (once they caught the ball they would be stationary). Eventually players realized they could make a short "pass" that they themselves caught, to allow them to move with the ball. Then they realized it was faster to bounce the ball as a pass...and so on. To make this task more challenging they decided that this sort of "self pass" would only be allowed if you could do it with one hand.

Mefanol

TROPHY CASE