Idea for the winter...


cinaed666

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I was browsing around DealExtreme for USB gadgets I could use with the pandora, and came across this.


I like the thought of having heated gloves anywhere, powered by my pandora ! :p


Any other ideas like this?
 
Most of these USB gadgets will drain a bit too much power from the Pandora's battery for my liking, however I have always liked the look of the USB missile launchers.
 
Most of these USB gadgets will drain a bit too much power from the Pandora's battery for my liking, however I have always liked the look of the USB missile launchers.
I think I'd actually buy them for those wintery school days :)
 
^ That part of the film always confused me.


I know the computer was supposed to be borderline sentient, but a ordinary high-end computer in the 80's could easily play chess above ELO 2200, so why bother? If an ordinary computer could demolish an IM, then surely a government computer could beat anybody (even a GM) not using anti-computer tactcs, making playing the game in the first place redundant.


And no, I'd much rather play GLOBAL THERMONUCLEAR WAR :p
 
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^ That part of the film always confused me.


I know the computer was supposed to be borderline sentient, but a ordinary high-end computer in the 80's could easily play chess above ELO 2200, so why bother? If an ordinary computer could demolish an IM, then surely a government computer could beat anybody (even a GM) not using anti-computer tactcs, making playing the game in the first place redundant.

Try not to think too hard about these sorts of things and simply enjoy Ally Sheedy's cuteness.
 
^ That would be more than a little weird for me, because she'd be more than twice my age. That said, it's one of the films I often have on in the background while I'm coding.
 
Everyone has their own tastes, I suppose. Me? I kinda have a Mrs. Robinson thing going.


I wouldn't mind if Ms. Sheedy tried to seduce me.
 
^ That part of the film always confused me.


I know the computer was supposed to be borderline sentient, but a ordinary high-end computer in the 80's could easily play chess above ELO 2200, so why bother? If an ordinary computer could demolish an IM, then surely a government computer could beat anybody (even a GM) not using anti-computer tactcs, making playing the game in the first place redundant.

The difficulty of a computer opponent can be scaled, simply by changing how many moves it looks ahead. Surely you don't think Joshua would be playing at his full capacity?


I, for one, dislike playing computer opponents because there is no psychological warfare. There is no satisfaction in "outsmarting" something that either must be crippled to let you do so, or was never "smarter" in the first place. There is also no satisfaction in "tricking" a deterministic algorithm. That's why I rarely play computer opponents.


That said, there's a newer chess-like game that computers are terrible at, due to their reliance upon brute-force... Hey Joshua, how about a nice game of Arimaa?
 
I feel exactly the same way, and it's why I stopped playing chess - people rely on computers too much, and I think it actually hurts the game because we'll never see another genius like Tal or Fischer, who did everything themselves.


As for arimaa, I played some of it a year or so ago, and it felt sort of wrong. Like it was a version of chess that was made specifically to be humans-only, rather than being its own game.
 
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I feel exactly the same way, and it's why I stopped playing chess - people rely on computers too much, and I think it actually hurts the game because we'll never see another genius like Tal or Fischer, who did everything themselves.

There's always over-the-board games; you can't bring a computer to one of those!


Also, being an abstract board game, chess lends itself to variants, bringing about a whole new world of possibilities. I love Arimaa (don't quite get why you dont like it-- computer-proof games should be a good thing), but nothing beats a good game of crazyhouse (chess with the drop rule from shogi). It's my favourite variant and there's not nearly as much theory on it yet as it's a completely different game. For example, my girlfriend always loses to me at vanilla chess (when I'm trying), but almost always beats me at crazyhouse. Go figure.


It saddens me that people are giving up on chess just because the robots are taking over. I'm so interested in chess, and I'm such a weak player still... by the time I get any better, there will be nobody to play against.
 
I guess I still find chess very interesting, but when I stopped I was around 1600, which is the stage where you really need to start using a computer to train and analyze your games if you want to get better, and I found that took a lot of the fun out of it. I also don't like the fact that because the best players all now train with computers, the level of play has soared (arguably a good thing), but has robbed us of the truly thrilling matches from earlier times, where people playing for the world title would make mistakes and then have to claw their way back. Now, the title matches are brilliant but boring, and I'd argue that players like Carlsen and Anand would not have done so well at such a young age had it not been for the computers.


As for arimaa, the game itself is not bad, it's just that -to put it in computer-game terms- it's just a chess-clone. It's not really unique, except for the randomized starting positions (for which you could just play 960 chess), and the different pieces.
 
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