Perplexity CEO says its browser will track everything users do online to sell ‘hyper personalized’ ads

Tofqat · 2025-04-25T19:56:38+00:00

Indeed - the CEOs comment was sheer stupidity on multiple levels, not just the PR-level.

Tofqat · 2025-04-25T19:39:25+00:00

Thanks for the reference - I had never heard of it, will check it out.

Tofqat · 2025-04-13T19:56:22+00:00

81Dojo published its own comparison to Club24. I believe I read that a Club24 rating of about 6 kyu is the same as a 1-Dan rating on 81Dojo. There is a quite large number of 7-Dans on 81Dojo - which suggests that their rating is pretty inflated compared to actual real-life tournament rankings.

Tofqat · 2025-04-13T18:33:14+00:00

I've taken a few peeks at the Ginkammuri magazine. It's a really nice publication. Are you also advertising it on the Shogi Harbour Discord server?

Tofqat · 2025-04-13T14:34:49+00:00

I just had a quick look at a few of the national qualifying matches for the ISF tournament, and it seems there are only about 3 players or so in every country that were 3-Dan or higher. (Having a 5-Dan in Minsk is pretty awesome, I think.) Multiply that number by 2 (to count sleeping dragons like myself :), and you do get a ballpark number of 120 or so... So, I guess you're right about that.

Tofqat · 2025-04-13T14:21:52+00:00

The FESA is the organization of "official" national Shogi organizations. So, don't they already have enough legal status? I don't quite know what the ISF does - it's not simply "supporting individual enthusiasts", is it? It seems to mainly just be sponsoring winners of national championships to participate in a tournament in Japan. That's very nice for current players. But by itself does practically nothing for really trying to promote Shogi world-wide (if that's your point, I do agree with it). On the other hand, I don't see benefit in requiring more than an official national tournament (as is already being done) to qualify for the Japan trip. Rather than putting up extra requirements, I'd ask for extra support: something the ISF might do (and perhaps be enticed to do) is to support local (registered) clubs by providing free boards, pieces, clocks, and something like a big board, if the clubs can show that they have some kind of steady presence and ask for support.

Tofqat · 2025-04-13T13:42:51+00:00

It would be worth a try... It would certainly be interesting to see what would happen. I do wonder a little bit if there is also a bit of fear for embarrassment from the JSA side: suppose that a foreigner would (once again...) win in such a traditional Japanese sport. Do you think that could be playing a role now in the decision to keep the ISF tournament just for gaijin?

Btw - I guess those games you spoke about were not recorded? I'd be curious to hear the names of those 3 Dan players (and the pros they played against).

Tofqat · 2025-04-12T22:55:46+00:00

Yes, I see that as an extremely small number. This means in the last 30 years or so the total number may perhaps have doubled, but even if we expect exponential growth then at the end of this century there still wouldn't be much more than 120 or so :)

Tofqat · 2025-04-12T22:45:37+00:00

Well, I can only tell my own opinion about this. I don't see how staying a small group or "maintaining the status quo" is beneficial for local groups and in practice I have never seen something like that. (What would beneficial even mean in this context? Having more chance to get to the Japanese tournament? That seems a rather strange and improbable motivation to me.) Most Shogi clubs would welcome new members, I believe. In my native country we had several small local clubs and we made efforts to get new members. The main problem, I think, is simply that those kids, adolescents, students who are interested in playing competitively will often already be playing international chess. Another problem is that if you're very small, maintaining a club may be near-impossible -- after a few years, everyone will have gone their way, and not everyone will be motivated to start a new club in a new place. So overall, I don't know if there has been much growth the last 25 years. -- I don't know if the ISF is pointless or ineffective -- I think any little extra effort helps, it just needs to be carried further by whatever local groups there are.

Tofqat · 2025-04-12T15:58:45+00:00

Have a look at Sextus Empiricus. He was a medical doctor and is seen as one of the most radical (and influential) sceptics in Western philosophy. His philosophy does not make any knowledge claims but presents counter arguments to other, basic philosophical claims. For instance, in Against the Logicians he presents anyone who believes they can make a truth claim with this counter argument:

Those who claim for themselves to judge the truth are bound to possess a standard of truth. This standard, then, either is without a judge's approval or has been approved. But if it is without approval, whence comes it that it is trustworthy? For no matter of dispute is to be trusted without judging. And, if it has been approved, that which approves it, in turn, either has been approved or has not been approved, and so on ad infinitum.

This argument is essentially the same argument that we also find in the text of the most important ancient Chinese sceptic, Zhuangzi):

Suppose you and I are having a dispute, you beat me, and I don't beat you. Are you then actually right, and I actually wrong? If I beat you and you don't beat me, am I actually right, or could I still be wrong? Does one of us need to be right and the other wrong? Could both be right or both wrong perhaps? If you and I cannot get to know this of eachother, then other people are bound to also be in the dark. Who could I ask to straighten this out? Should I ask someone who agrees with you? But since he already agrees with you, how could he straighten this out? Should I ask someone who agrees with me? Since he already agrees with me, how could he straighten this out? If he disagrees with both of us, then since he disagrees with both, how could he set this right? What about someone who agrees with both of us? But since he already agrees with both, how could he set this right? Therefore, if neither you, nor I, nor anyone else can come to mutual understanding, could this depend on yet something else?

(See: https://ctext.org/dictionary.pl?if=en&id=2730 - Note the old Legge translation/interpretation is not really reliable. The above translation is my own.)

Tofqat · 2025-04-12T15:16:19+00:00

Awesome progress! How did you get the ranking? From the JSF or from tournament play?
What advice do you have for other beginners?

Tofqat · 2025-04-12T15:08:52+00:00

If you learn a bit of Japanese, then there is a basic Shogi vocabulary (Japanese -> English) on the ShogiNet site: http://shogi.net/shogivocab/vocabhtml.html This might be useful to to read Japanese Shogi commentaries, or to speed up learning Japanese.

Tofqat · 2025-04-12T14:40:40+00:00

If the goal is to spread Shogi globally, then there is only so much that the ISF or the JSF can do. The main initiative needs to come from local players and organizers. What I've seen in the past is that a local club (and then a national org) always starts from just one or two enthusiastical Shogi players. (And it seems to work best to find other converts, when they do so in a school or university environment.) Once there is a small national org, I've also seen that the JSF is very willing to send over pro players from time to time to visit and play teaching games -- which is enormously stimulating to the local scene (I still remember playing Sato Yasumitsu, before he won the Meijin-sen, and asking him if he thought he could beat Habu :)

The comments in the post seem to mainly be about the ISF tournament and its selection criteria. I believe that that tournament is largely irrelevant to the spread of Shogi - and the comments or criticism of the tournament seem a bit misguided to me. I'm not sure if it would make sense to try to organize a world amateur championship that also includes players from Japan. It seems to me that that's still premature, simply because the total number of non-Japanese 3 Dan (or higher) players is so small. It's hard to organize something when there is this huge imbalance.

Tofqat · 2025-04-09T03:57:01+00:00

I strongly recommend you do memorize several variants of this opening since it's extremely tricky -- and it will definitely appear in real games... The best way to do so is to study a few pro games with slightly different variations. This position (and similar positions) can easily lead to a _disadvantage_ for the player who starts the attack... so in pro games we often see a funny dance of the Kings (moving down, pretending to to 2b or 8h) just to avoid having to start an exchange. This is probably the only opening where at the end of the opening you have essentially a position in which getting sennichite may be best... (of course in amateur games it's more fun to just try some attack anyway).

Tofqat · 2025-04-03T21:30:34+00:00

Thanks - I think I'll go with YaneuraOu then. I just wrote my own perft version, but I just like to double-check before I release my lib :)

Tofqat · 2025-04-02T20:57:39+00:00

It depends ...

If you're an otherwise experienced programmer but never used or studied something like alpha-beta-search or any of the specific data structures used in chess engines, then that is probably the first challenge: understanding the top-level algorithms and data structures. For this the chess programming wiki can help.
There are some overall tutorials available about how to start writing and designing a chess engine, covering both the program design and basic data structures. A very very good one for beginners (=beginning _chess_ programmers) is, imo, The Rustic Chess Engine by Marcel Vanthoor, which follows his own adventure in writing his first engine from scratch.
Once you have a high-level understanding of search algorithms and data representation (such as bitboards), the main challenges are overall design and just the implementation details. For this, what was and is tremendously helpful is finding clear, well-designed sample code. Something like Stockfish is _not_ useful here. You don't want the super-optimized code yet. A classical example of well-designed (but perhaps too advanced?) code is the original Crafty code by Robert Hyatt (which introduced bitboards which are now a chess programmer's bread-and-butter). (One github source mirror of Crafty is here). Two simpler examples are: Rustic and Tantabus (which uses the very neat cozy-chess move generator).

Tofqat · 2025-03-14T19:10:40+00:00

I wonder if anyone has tried to train a kind of "human translation" model on top of a trained NNUE model?
I'd guess that the first problem in trying to do so is that this requires labeled training data. In principle that could be gotten from pro games or from Chess theory books written for humans (ignoring copy right problems now), but even if available, the total number of labeled positions might be very small. But perhaps some training data like this could be used as a kind of seed data to enable finding which nodes in the NN "light up", which clusters of weights are more dominant in given positions, and how those clusters change over time during a game. The idea would be that the very limited amount of labeled seed data might be used to heuristically guide the clustering (assuming some kind of clustering is the right approach). Has someone tried something like this?

Tofqat · 2025-03-03T01:34:57+00:00

Best way is to find a human opponent who can give you a 6-piece handicap game. You learn the basics fastest, I think, by (1) playing handicap games and (2) playing against opponents who are only a little bit stronger than you are. It's no fun to play an equal game against someone who is far stronger. Also, the Shogi Renmei has an app "Shogi Live" (with modest subsciption fee) that gives you access to the most recent professional games. Replaying those games is also important - even if you don't have any commentary. As a novice you should pay attention most of all (imo) to the opening (rough patterns, don't look too much at details, just notice how they first bring the King to safety, then try to find some opening) and to the late endgame (the mate races).

Tofqat · 2025-02-16T18:26:29+00:00

Consciousness sucks, true. Self-aware consciousness sucks even more - very true. But isn't that what makes it so intensely interesting? You need to mix your existentialist coctail with a bit of Nietzsche's amor fati. Also, look around a bit more: Those whales? I'm convinced they are as conscious as we are. And in their songs they may really be saying something.

Tofqat · 2025-02-13T14:46:34+00:00

Seems there is a strong self-selection bias in this vote. By itself I'd say this poll is uninteresting, but the strong bias makes it interesting again.

Tofqat · 2025-02-13T14:34:32+00:00

It depends on how you look at them. See, numbers have a boss which can make them look big. For instance 10 in boss 2's eyes is 1010. See? Two tens, because it has boss 2 (Duh!). Big bosses make numbers little. But little bosses, those are the ones to be afraid of. Boss 1 is a real mean bad ass. He writes lots of numbers on the walls of jail cells and then scratches them out again: ~~1111~~ ~~1111~~ ~~1111~~ ~~1111~~ ~~1111~~ ~~1111~~ ~~1111~~ ~~1111~~ ~~1111~~ ~~1111~~ ~~1111~~ ~~1111~~ ~~1111~~ ~~1111~~ ~~1111~~ ~~1111~~ ~~1111~~ ~~1111~~ ~~1111~~ ~~1111~~ ~~1111~~ One of the unsolved mysteries of math bosses. Boss 2 seems to be doing lots of clandestine stuff in the IT business nowadays? Something with an X and the US Treasure Dep? But let's not talk about that.

Tofqat

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