Tumbling

While I plan on using this blog more concretely, I've decided I want a more abstract output.

http://alangfiles.tumblr.com/

Watson

I've really enjoyed watching Watson on the IBM sponsored Jeopardy! rounds. I felt like it was an amazing moment in history. (Here's a link if you don't know what I'm talking about)

Chess just seems like a machine's game. It seems like two humans are seeing which of them is the better computer while playing, looking ahead, etc (Although I greatly enjoy the idea of masters playing chess intuitively, making the right moves because they 'feel right'). But to have a computer play a language based game was so exciting. (Language rules being so interesting, especially since we usually go by what 'sounds right').

A lot of people thought of it as man vs. machine, but I saw it more as individual vs. community. It's amazing that so many great minds were able to program an understanding of language into a computer, to me it was beautiful to watch Watson work.

Resolutions

I decided to stop playing minesweeper in 2011.

I really picked it up in late summer of 2010 (I think), and would always play it while listening to lectures or talks or while I was watching video. Around game 500 I started getting pretty good, and brought it up from a win average of ~5% to ~13%. I started seeing minesweeper tiles in my mind, and my brain would play virtual games in my head even when I was away from a computer.

Bibimbap

On being a detective

I'm very much enjoying Doulgas Adam's detective Dirk Gently. Very fun, and funny.

"What was that Sherlock Holmes principle? 'Once you have discounted the impossible, then whatever remains, however improbable, must be the truth.' "

"I reject that entirely," said Dirk sharply. "The impossible often has a kind of integrity to it which the merely improbably lacks. How often have you been presented with an apparently rational explanation of something that works in all respects other than one, which is just that it is hopelessly improbably? Your instinct is to say, 'Yes, but he or she simply wouldn't do that.' "

"The impossible merely supposes that there is something we don't know about, and God knows there are enough of those. The improbable, however, runs contrary to something fundamental and human which we do know about. We should therefore be very suspicious of it and all its specious rationality."

- from The Long Dark Tea Time of the Soul by Douglas Adams

Workstation

I'm about to change my workstation, but here it is in all its old glory!

Nethack

I've been playing Nethack for about 5 years. It's a game where the graphics are all typographic characters (you start the game as the @ sign), and you explore a dungeon, trying to find the amulet of yendor (If you haven't caught on, it's pretty nerdy). I've introduced two other friends to the game, and I've played countless hours. And this last week, for the first time, I finally beat it. And so I thought I'd share my final screen shot and my final manifest.

http://alt.org/nethack/userdata/g/glucose/dumplog/1290571478.nh343.txt

You wouldn't believe how happy I am with this.