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Starcraft AI Competition!

Hot Diggity Dream

I’m attending a hockey camp/amusement park. There are two nets side by side with Evgeni Malkin and Sidney Crosby tending one each (wtf?). I start by ripping a shot into the net. Next, I skate up and poke a puck that’s laying by one of their legs past them into the net. Finally, I drop a puck from my glove to the ice (legal) and fire it home. Maybe I’ve been watching too much hockey.

Lobbing Mortars from Hell

Was reading Phoronix today when I encountered this great quote about S3 graphics:

Personally, S3’s biggest recognition in my life was playing Heavy Gear 2 at a LAN. Some putz was putting mortars on us from way the Hell at the far end of the map with impunity. After allegations of cheating and threats of beating, we all found out his Savage4 didn’t support pretty much any way of rendering distance fog. He had an infinite viewline.

After further allegations of cheating and rigging, we found out that not only did he not intentionally arrange a corner case to get this screwup, there were no drivers from S3 that could fix it, and S3 had stopped making drivers for his card.

Maybe that’s why no one uses S3 video cards.

Rachel Getting Married

What a terrible movie. I don’t care what Rotten Tomatoes says; I’ve disagreed with critics on many occasions, such as the Godfather series.

The movie was part of a psychology club dinner+movie+discussion night. Admittedly,  the acting is powerful, and all the relevant players deliver convincing and human roles. However, the scriptwriting and camera work is downright shoddy.  I understand that the handheld feel is possibly there to make the film more human, but when it gets to the point that it stands out rather than adds to the work, it’s become disruptive. The storyline is utterly unrealistic. Kym’s relationship with her family is never resolved, nor is the major theme of Ethan’s death. Everyone just suddenly seems to forget their hostilities at the end even though no convincing catalytic event causes that transformation. Maybe they’re all tired of each other and want to put up facades. Scene to scene transitions are also terribly done. Various scenes just seemed to have no purpose other than to show us how the family normally behaves or how a wedding goes. Belly dancers? How do they add to the plot? Characters can be hateful at one moment, crying the next, and happy again, all in the span of a weekend. Golly gee. If the dad is suddenly reminded of his dead son and has to leave the room, quieting everyone, we shouldn’t expect to see him acting all normal again just 10 minutes later!

The one film I will compare this to is Revolutionary Road, which I found to be much tighter in terms of plot and generally more moving. “Rachel” bandies emotions like drunks at a bar fight. Revolutionary Road deals with the transformation of genuine feelings and is smooth and slick like a duel in a ballroom. Or perhaps I should use the comparison of cheap beer to fine wine.

News Roundup

So are geeks cool now?

With all the shoddy research going on, it’s no wonder something like this slipped through the cracks. Research on romance and attraction have been going on for some time, with wildly divergent but hilarious results. In the end, it seems that no one, not even women, know what they want.

The new Reich?

Germany’s new right front is shaping up to be a lot more appealing than the last, or maybe they’re just marketing it better. With classical liberal beliefs, new-found social tolerance, and multicultural booth babes, who can resist?

Roll over Da Vinci

The polymath has always been an aspiration of mine, in part because my childhood heroes were all men who aspired to at least mediocrity in multiple subjects.

A future I can get behind

NHS predicts that female docs will dominate the future landscape in the UK. I can’t wait for the next time I go in for a hernia exam. In all seriousness, this future might be distressing to some because females overwhelmingly prefer lifestyle specialties. Looks like there will be a shortage of surgeons in the future as well.

The trials women face every day

Deborah Tannen provides a fascinating perspective on women’s lives that most of us menfolk never have to experience. Get the inside scoop on the tough choices women have to make to avoid ridicule in society and see how men remain obliviously unaware of male privilege. It’s a humbling article to be sure, and one that remains relevant in spite of its publication date.

Players the San Jose Sharks like

There’s a consensus that the Sharks tend to draft Germans, goalies, and former Ottawa 67ers players. idunno723 takes the cake with the comment “when will the Sharks hit the jackpot with a German goaltender who plays on the Ottawa 67’s?” Even this summer’s blockbuster addition, Dany Heatley, was born in Germany.

Why the poor stay poor

Admittedly, this is a bit of a twist on the words of the group Innovations for Poverty Action. What the article suggests is that the rich have more of an incentive to save because they expect to be wealthy. I don’t buy it though, as I find the previous reasons for poverty rather convincing. In other words, I take issue with the author’s challenge of the premise that the poor are not naturally more impatient or inconsistent than the rich.

News Roundup

The best of the last week:

Sci-fi tearjerkers

My personal #1 would be Buffy’s “The Gift”, which makes the list at #5. Many of the other choices should be recognizable by avid sci-fi fans, and if not, should serve notice for you to start watching those. Revisiting this list at times brings back tragic memories of tears shed.

Reality district

On the same vein, District 9 is not just a successful indie sci-fi flick; it’s an allegory for the violence against immigrants in South Africa. It’s somewhat tragic as South Africa has had opportunities to reinvent itself as the Costa Rica of Africa, becoming a beacon of hope and example of successful governance in a continent of poverty and suffering. Corruption and tribal politics have ended Thabo Mbeki’s vision of an African Renaissance.

Dollhouse becomes reality

Sometimes, I don’t what is more strange, sci-fi or Japan. This post sheds light on what has been happening in Japan for some time, and it is not unexpected for what Wayne has termed a “repressed society”. Still, paying for companionship may soon become more popular throughout the world, starting with the US.

Karlovic outdoes himself

Moving on to sports now, Ivo Karlovic serves 78 aces in a 5 set match against Radek Stepanek in the Davis Cup, and loses. He served 55 against Lleyton Hewitt (my fav. tennis player) and lost. Sometimes, you just don’t get into a rhythm when you aren’t involved in sustained rallies. Regardless, serving 78 aces is an incredible accomplishment, almost ensuring that you never lose serve.

What’s in Intel’s closet?

I feel conflicted about this. On one hand, Intel is a leader in technology and is on the forefront of innovation in many areas (compilers, CPUs, GPUs, chipset, IEEE standards, and many others). The company is a heavy contributor to open-source initiatives and has one of the finest Linux graphics drivers excluding Poulsbo. However, I’ve always had this nagging suspicion in the back of my calvarium that they’ve been artificially excluding competition with AMD by paying off OEMs (Dell, HP, Lenovo, etc.) to not build AMD-based computers. Check out what the EU dug up on Intel and the phrases executives used when discussing their payoff.

RMS vs MDI

In the open-source world, Miguel de Icaza has often been castigated, but none more harshly than this remark by Richard Stallman, calling him a traitor to the movement. Most reactions have been critical of Stallman for his harsh language and attempts to purify the community with an absurd witch-hunt. I’ve met de Icaza in person in 2006 at Microsoft’s .NET conference when I worked as an intern there (the same summer that I met Bill Gates, Anders Heljsberg, and Jim Hugunin). He was amazingly focused, energetic, and passionate about certain technologies, not all of which I found to be technically sound. His actions and words were certainly colourful, and often talked trash about competing technologies (XGL vs AIGLX: “How do you pronounce AIGLX?”, .NET vs Java: “No one uses Java anymore.”). Some of that is certainly due to his involvement in a commercial company (Novell) that is carving out a niche marketplace by collaborating with and being friendly to proprietary companies. Despite those issues, I saw nothing disingenuous about his dedication to the open-source community. His brainchild, Mono, is an amazing technical piece of work that should be embraced by the community as bringing more languages and software to our existing pool.

Deficit doomsday prophet

Previously, I’ve expressed disappointment at Obama’s deficit-happy policies. I’m not alone in that worry. This article describes the activities of David Walker in educating the public about the dangers of high and sustained deficits. He wages a lonely crusade against politicians who kick problems down to future generations and against naive voters who demand more benefits and less taxes at the same time.

Banana republic watch

It’s quite the season for doom-and-gloom prophets to emerge from the woodworks. In terms of wealth, Europe has just surpassed North America in terms of assets under wealth management. Sure, it’s not a precise measurement, but it’s worrisome for some seeing that Europe already leads in other categories, such as leisure time, happiness, and HDI.

Speaking of measurements of development, Joseph Stiglitz takes issue with GDP as the preferred measurement of progress. This comes in the wake of (or maybe inspired) Sarkozy’s determined effort to find a new indicator of growth.

Health care addendum (and here)

Here are some articles following up on my earlier post on health care in the US. Greg Mankiw shares the economic basis behind rationing care with a realistic example of what might happen. He lays out rather clearly why we can’t have equal health care for everyone. The other article is by John Tierney and dispels myths of US health care being behind that of other nations in terms of outcomes.

The Danger of Competition

Competition is good, or so we’re taught. It has been the cause of low prices as companies compete for business, productivity improvements as workers vie for raises and promotions. However, there is an insidious side to this as well. I’m sure you can see that competition can drive companies out of business and stress out workers. There’s something more insidious though. Children competing in sports can suffer lifelong injuries as they ramp up the practice hours. Their developing bodies and fragile bones are not accustomed to the punishing physical play most sports require. It didn’t used to be like this, but recently every parent is pushing his/her kid to succeed in all areas, sports included. When everyone does this at the same time, the end result is the same but everyone has expended more effort.

Over time, businesses have evolved techniques for colluding to keep prices high and to avoid competing. Likewise, unions are the natural way workers have developed to keep wages high and work minimal. There’s nothing comparable for students. Wouldn’t it be great (from a health perspective) if all student athletes got together and set mandatory limits on practice time or students voluntarily deciding to limit study time. The problem is in enforcement. There will always be rogue elements that ignore the agreement to gain an upper hand. It’s the classical prisoner’s dilemma.

Hat tip to Charles Wheelan.

From Runescape to… This

Online games are bad. WOW sucks up tons of time and ruins lives. Maple Story and Runescape have caused my brother to dip into theft and credit card fraud to purchase premium items. But worst of all is Jeff Atwood’s discovery of a game called Civony which slowly descended into pornography to attract players. Witness the disturbling evolution here.

Dollhouse Update

Well, a lot has happened over the past few years with respect to television. Ratings in general are on a perpetual spiral downward, but Dollhouse blew them all out of the water in comparison by scoring abysmal ratings (finale was 1.0 share), even lower than Firefly, which you remember was promptly canceled. Thus, everyone was expecting the worst for Dollhouse. Much to everyone’s surprise, the show was retained for another season. It turns out that angus63’s dire predictions of generals fighting the last war are not coming to pass for a few reasons:

1. Joss Whedon. Whedonesque is ecstatic about Joss’s ability to deliver in a second season, citing Buffy and Angel as the prime examples.  It seems that Fox is aware of this as well and is hoping for a more solid and coherent show.

2. Kevin Reilly. The president of Fox Broadcasting has a reputation for nurturing promising shows (see: The Office). Whedon has stated that the whole team at Fox has changed from the ones that destroyed Firefly, and it seems to be true: Whedon’s posts state that Fox is behind the show and gets the premise.

3. The importance of new media.  Perhaps due to being placed on the Friday night slot, Dolhouse didn’t perform as well by the Neilson ratings as indicative of its popularity. DVR, Hulu, and iTunes views undoubtedly influenced the decision, convincing the execs that the show has avant-garde viewers watching in nontraditional fashions. Now it’s up to broadcasters to monetize that population.

4. All in the family (acknowledgements to NickC).  Since Whedon (in the form of Mutant Enemy) and 20th Century Fox are also producers, Fox Broadcasting could ask them internally to reduce the show’s price tag and shoulder a larger share of production costs.

Despite the hope injected by the renewal, I feel that Whedon still has to tighten up the plot to attract viewers. Whedonesque speculates on why the show is not succeeding. If you ask me, it’s due to a lack of relatable characters. There is no sense of family or any romance, as was in all of Whedon’s previous forays into TV. Instead, all the characters put up barriers, making it difficult to become emotionally attached to anyone. Also, the fact that the show focuses on the gray areas between solid moral boundaries of technology, regular viewers lack a “hero” or a “villain” to identify with and root against. Each character on the show is complex and motivated by different priorities, which makes for an intriguing novel but a dense show (see Ice and Fire).

The Best Linux Games

A careful selection of the best games, given my 4 years using Linux.

OSS:
pingus
wormus
nexuiz
wesnoth
supertux
lincity
frozen bubbles
freeciv
freecol

Proprietary:
UT 2004
Neverwinter Nights
ETQW
sid meier alpha centauri
heroes of might and magic III

Windows Native on Wine
warcraft 3 (including all blizzard games)
aoe 2
medieval 2 total war
morrowind
spiderweb software games
baldur’s gate