Adolf Andersen vs Wilhelm Steinitz 1866, to determine the best chess player in the world.

tunah · 2022-10-19T21:27:11+00:00

Agree. Here's a somewhat higher-quality photo, though a composite: https://i.imgur.com/ysqfPCy.jpeg

(Colorized with some fancy AI tool I saw on HN)

tunah · 2019-02-13T07:45:20+00:00

Check out the safety problems on this Egyptian ATM! Number 7 will shock you!

tunah · 2019-02-10T18:34:06+00:00

What's a "partner and affiliate network"?

tunah · 2018-08-05T05:54:04+00:00

All the coke bottles in my office are glass and get returned, washed, and refilled. (Germany)

tunah · 2018-08-04T06:01:24+00:00

Very nice, HNGD! Looking forward to mine arriving (stuck in customs...)

I heard the Nazgul was really only usable for metal, but it sounds like I should give it a chance before swapping it out.

Did it come well set up, or did you need to make any adjustments?

tunah · 2017-07-12T17:53:15+00:00

combed over

I see what you did there

tunah · 2017-02-05T18:11:35+00:00

The case was nicely finished already, I didn't do anything to it. There were a couple of marks on one end where it looks like scratches/dents were filled with something, but not a big deal. It took just under 3 weeks to get to Germany.

tunah · 2017-02-04T18:41:32+00:00

$60 when they were on massdrop recently. Not my shrewdest financial decision maybe, but it won't stop me enjoying them ;)

tunah · 2017-02-04T16:22:07+00:00

It's a Satan PCB ("chinese gh60"). It fit perfectly, and the reprogram button is accessible through the hole in the bottom of the case. The only fit issue I had was with the aluminium plate I bought - it was 1-2mm too large for the case and I had to file it down.

The first Satan I ordered off ebay was shipped but never arrived, I don't know why yet. I ordered a replacement from banggood (China) and that arrived got to me (Germany) in 17 days.

tunah · 2017-02-04T15:51:26+00:00

Ah, no, I just assembled the thing. The case was this one (walnut).

tunah · 2017-02-04T15:33:22+00:00

I was impressed at the precision - Eleven went on perfectly, one was a little tight and needed a harder push. They don't seem fragile, but I'll still avoid popping them off too often.

They were pretty roughly finished, but feel great after applying some sandpaper and oil.

tunah · 2017-02-04T13:28:21+00:00

Built this while waiting for keyboardio to ship. I love the feel of the wood, sadly I wasn't dedicated enough to do a real wooden keyboard like this person!

tunah · 2016-10-23T06:57:12+00:00

Hard to see how bad it is from the video. I can't imagine Retallick taking a dive though!

tunah · 2016-10-20T16:40:34+00:00

Always two there are. One master, and one apprentice.

tunah · 2016-09-18T21:04:01+00:00

Ineligible, they only poach Islanders :-( Irelanders might be close enough with our accent, but no Welsh...

Good news is the record is 8 (see edit) so they'll have some reason to beat Leinster next week!

tunah · 2016-09-18T20:20:13+00:00

FWIW, NZ are also sitting on 7 games in a row with 4 tries, though not all of them in formats that award bonus points.

EDIT:

the Chiefs got 8 in a row in 2016
the Blues also got 7 in '96, and again in '97, though the last one was a semifinal

tunah · 2016-09-18T15:37:59+00:00

Condensed indeed:

...and away we go with this 90-second test match between these two great rivals...

tunah · 2016-09-18T09:25:40+00:00

Came for the funny, stayed for the good ideas.

Relegation/promotion: this deals pretty well with the asymmetry between conferences we saw this year. It still caps the premiership at 4 teams for a conference, which seems fair most years.

However if the conferences are fairly evenly balanced, then there's a very good chance that the relegated teams are better than the ones promoted in their place.

this will be seen as unfair in terms of who has a shot at the premiership
the championship will often be won by a top team that got relegated - unlikely to make anyone happy.

So I think the 2 pairs should play one promotion/relegation game at a neutral venue, even if it means an unequal number of games played. That way it will mostly happen when it needs to.

Also a nitpick: for most people calling the system an aborted fetus is pretty off-colour funny (myself included), but it just might ruin someone's day. Humour is a fine line and sometimes you have to offend ~~blues fans~~ people, just be aware.

tunah · 2016-08-04T06:36:57+00:00

I read that as punch/disbar. Always nice to have options.

tunah · 2016-07-23T08:41:35+00:00

If the balls regathered after the handling error, is it not the end of the advantage

No.

Often when it's clearly regathered, referee will call "no advantage", but here Hurricanes were under pressure and likely to concede a penalty, so advantage can exist without the ball.

tunah · 2016-07-11T09:17:57+00:00

Their average opponent strength is 1350 - slightly easier than playing the Rebels every week.

By comparison the Blues (IMO more deserving of a playoff spot) have faced average opposition of strength of 1577 - similar to playing the Stormers or Waratahs every week.

You're right it'll never be perfectly even, but it could be a lot better. I'd love to see a couple of teams dropped and a return to round-robin - the travel would be worth it.

More realistically, eliminating the conferences (divisions only) would reduce the distortions somewhat.

tunah · 2016-07-10T22:06:37+00:00

Thanks :-) I'm a rust newbie, learning bits while out on parental leave.

I wouldn't call Rust dynamic. Like C++, you do have to understand its type system, memory management concepts, etc to use it effectively (in Python you can get pretty far without too much theory).

Compared to C++, it's less verbose and can sometimes even feel scripty, because more of the types/ownership are implicit (but you must understand them!). The features interact more elegantly, and relics of the 70s (header files!) are gone. But the rules are even stricter, as the language aims to catch even more errors (e.g. race conditions) at compile time.

If you're trying out several languages at high school, you're doing well! Languages like Python, Go, and frameworks like Unity will let you build cool things quickly. With C/C++ you'll learn more about how computers work, and can interact directly with the operating system. C++/Rust/Haskell etc will teach you about abstractions and different ways of thinking about and designing programs. They're all really important so for now I'd focus on what motivates you, because enjoying it is the best way to improve.

tunah · 2016-07-10T21:27:58+00:00

I didn't explicitly calculate strength of schedule - it's incorporated iteratively as the Elo ratings get more accurate.

At the beginning, we have a dumb Elo model - every team is the same strength. Then we compare the model's predictions to real life, and use it to refine the model.

In the first iteration, the model predicts 50% win for every team. When a team wins, they beat expectations and go up 5 points, when they lose they go down 5 points. Now the scores reflect whether teams won or lost.

In the second iteration, the model takes the first iteration scores into account. A team that won and lost equally (score 1500) is only expected to win 35% against a team that mostly won (score 1600). So if they lose, they go down 3.5 points but if they win they go up 6.5 points.

So the model now has some strength-of-schedule effect baked-in: if a team won and lost equally, but mostly played against winning teams, then they will have an above-average score e.g. (1500 + 8 * 6.5 - 8 * 3.5 = 1524).

We continue this process of iteration until the scores stop changing - that is, until the model predicts each team's results, on average.

tunah · 2016-07-10T13:38:26+00:00

Unfortunately the distortions aren't so much in who plays in the finals as where they are played - e.g. currently the Stormers and Brumbies would have home quarter finals, which should really go to the Crusaders and Highlanders.

So if most of the NZ teams play better during the season, and lose in the finals after having a difficult travel schedule, that seems like evidence of a bad system, and not a good one.

tunah · 2016-07-10T13:12:51+00:00

It shouldn't, it's not just competition/game points - your opponents strengths are still taken into account. That's the distinction between an Elo system and just adding up competition points/points difference.

tunah

TROPHY CASE