Sigi_BC84

Woolsey/Woolsey play Woolsey over NT but explain it using "Multi-Landy" on their CC. They also play the F-convention (2♥ opener). --Sigi

Don't worry, it won't come up.

Priceless.

England will win... the match for third place. Actually I'd prefer England losing the final because David messes up during the penalty shooting :-). --Sigi

this post is scandalous. next time you envisage to post obscenities, please consider first that we all are sheri, fred and uday's guests here. maybe that will help you to avoid giving them rudeness lessons with such violent tones. Helloo???? Reality check, anyone? If you want I give you a few examples for "obscenity", which might help you to realize that Joshs post actually wasn't obscene at all (or "scandalous" or whichever other terms you found). All he was doing was strongly wording his opinion on this debated issue. FWIW I agree with Josh, leaving as dummy should not be punished, and quitting mid-hand while playing should be punished even more harshly. I find it extremely annoying and rude to leave mid-hand (mostly they don't even give note when they do it). --Sigi

A few remarks from a dedicated but not fanatic Linux user: "Fedora 3" is the name/version of a Linux distribution (ie. install system, administrative tools and packaging of programs together with the Linux kernel), and not some "Linux version". This might sound like nitpicking but it's not. Linux is the name of the kernel. The kernel is the thing most close to the hardware (it contains all the drivers that talk to the devices) and it also manages resources (hard disk space, memory). The version number of the kernel actually correlates to which hardware is supported. The Linux kernel usually is packaged with the "GNU toolset" (hence some people prefer the name "GNU/Linux" over "Linux"), which provides for the actual Unix environment one is used to (the shell, many commands). Along come many other tools and applications such as the graphic interface and so on. All of this is packaged into a manageable form by the Linux distributors (eg. Debian, Suse, Redhat, Ubuntu, you name it), each of whom follows their own way of doing things and preconfiguring the various applications. The main problem you will be running into when using Linux is hardware compatibility, aka missing drivers. Vendors are beginning to jump the slowly rolling bandwagon and more and more provide Linux drivers, but it is still a pain in the neck running Linux on very recent hardware. Specially troublesome are any recent notebook computers. Another sore spot is the lack of special applications such as BBO, which often don't get ported to Linux due to lack of market/demand. This is where the cat bites its tail, but luckily the "important" stuff such as web browsers, email applications, office suites is available in high quality (and mostly free!). So I'd say that for unassuming users who only rely on standard software Linux is fine. I personally recommend Ubuntu Linux (which is derived from Debian Linux), which has a very dedicated and generous person backing it with a lot of money. They send you CD-ROMs for free, no strings attached whatsoever, if order them on their website. It installs nicely and works really well (I'm using it myself). And yes, the "aargh factors" definitely are there. I'm quite knowledgeable concerning Linux and I've got my "aargh moments" as well from time to time. A big difference to Windows, however, is that there is almost always a way to find out exactly what went wrong and where it went wrong instead of having to stare blankly at a more or less meaningless error message with no log files, as it is usually the case with Windows. Linux is a lot more secure. Basically you don't have to care about viruses and such. This goes a long way nowadays. Actually I might even say it could be the killer argument for many users in favor of Linux. In principle, Linux is vulnerable as well, and Windows in turn can be made a lot less vulnerable, but in practice, Linux fares much better in this arena. So if you are one of those typical users without special needs, ie. you are happy with your word processor, email and web, I strongly suggest giving Linux a try. Then start bugging Fred about porting BBO ;-)). --Sigi

Those scientists who believe in brain = digital computer are proponents of the so called "strong AI". Penrose indeed is in the other group of people, who doubt that it is that easy to get strong AI. (FWIW I'm on Penrose's side of the argument). In any case I'm doubting that even by 2050 we will have understood enough about the brain and conciousness to even begin simulating it in hardware. This being only a gut feeling of mine I might easily be proven wrong, actually I'm hoping so. Having machine intelligence sounds exciting. We will then see the technological singularity as well (also exciting ;-). Having said that, all what is being done in computer science (and practice) today with "AI" in its name is much closer to bread-and-butter computer science than to any kind of "true intelligence" or brain simulation. Systems like neural networks which kind of mimic what we have found out about the brain so far are hideously hard to handle and for that reason being actually employed only in a few special areas so far. It's not that you can build one of these networks and "switch them on" and some kind of intelligence mysteriously develops. That is science fiction but has nothing to do with reality (as of yet). I might also add in the possibility that brain and mind might not be the same thing. The brain could be merely a device enabling mind/consciousness, so by mimicking the (physical) brain you still would not achieve "mind" (this is somewhat along the lines of Penrose's arguments). All of this is very fascinating in any case. I love speculating about it. --Sigi

Turing himself defined an abstract machine (called "Turing Machine", quite surprisingly) and it was proved that this machine is as powerful as any general purpose computer. This only means that the class of problems this machine can solve does not increase if you make the machine more sophisticated. You are usually taught about Turing machines in an undergraduate computer science course. It is a very fundamental concept because it shows mathematically where the principal limits of a digital computers are and that you cannot extend those limits by making the computer faster or more efficient in any way. This is also the reason why you don't define "machine" over and over again when doing research in computer science. Now it is completely undecided if the human brain is a digital computer (ie. equivalent to a Turing Machine) or more than that. Some argue that it is indeed equivalent to a digital computer (which would mean that there must be some way of simulating the human brain exactly with a digital computer). Others disagree with that position. Computer science concerns itself with solving problems on Turing Machines (or their real world counterparts, being TMs with limited memory). If we find a way some day to reliably connect brains and machines and it turns out that you get more than a Turing Machine that way, you will have to reconsider a lot of things. This depends entirely on how the brain actually works, and we still know next to nothing about this. A good and easy to read book is "The Emperor's New Mind" by Penrose. --Sigi

Yeah, right. Our team barely tied the Japanese in one of the preparatory matches yesterday. No way they are going to take the World Cup. We are way lucky already that we didn't get into one of the death groups, like Australia or USA. That way we at least have some chance to to get into the final round, but then it will be over pretty soon. In the round of sixteen we will likely playing against the Swedes or England, and the team will have to get a lot better in the next few days to beat either of these. But never say never, everything is possible in these tournaments, and nobody would have expected Germany to advance to the finals in the last world championship. Then again, look at the poor performance in the last European championship... I'm looking forward to see the Dutch, Tchechs, Brasil and all of the other fine teams. My bet: Brasil will win yet again. --Sigi

I'm writing my masters thesis in a research department concerned with information retrieval and machine learning. Ideas such as those mentioned by Helene and Elianna are actively pursued by a lot of the research that's being done. For example, one student has designed an algorithm that uses the click behaviour of the search engine's users to refine the search. Others try to use natural language processing. --Sigi

It's sad that Google is already at the point where they are spreading similar kinds of marketing hype as Microsoft. For a start, the search engine would actually have to be capable of understanding the searched content to even get close to the position of "knowing exactly what [the user] is looking for". I'm not sure how that second step would be achieved (some new kind of mind-reading device, probably). Sadly, when the founders of Google "predict" such developments it is taken for real a lot more easily than if some renowned researcher predicted the opposite (or admitted that it's really an open question yet if such can be done). True, Google does a great job in presenting the user with what he most probably was looking for in the first place, but that is not an oracle they're employing there. Merely a really smart ranking algorithm with a lot of engineering effort by quite a few really smart people thrown in. Don't buy into the hype. --Sigi

Actually I was making an edit here when I was seeing that I was shifting into the "wrong mindset" myself: Technically, of course the second analogy is appropriate (TV in standby <-> Mobile "turned off"). Along these lines, "TV running" maps to "mobile phone turned on" not really mattering if you are making a call or not. --Sigi

Hmm, nowadays most pieces of electronic equipment are not completely turned off at anytime. "Turned off" means that the device is in standby mode (cf. TV sets that are still listening for the remote control when "off"). Now I think most people are actually aware of this since usually a standby indicator of some sorts is involved (lit red lamp or clock display). The mobile phone companies call it "standby" when the phone is actually properly turned on. This has nothing to do with the standby of household electronics people got accustomed to. So actually the correct analogy would be: TV set with power cord unplugged <-> Mobile phone with battery removed (or completely drained) -- the "real off". TV set in standby (red light still glowing) <-> Mobile phone turned on but not in "active" use. This is somewhat inexact because the phone in standby is still doing more work than a TV (or notebook computer) in standby. OR Mobile phone turned off (but reacting to soft button to turn it back on). Whatever you think is suited more to the general feel of users. TV running <-> Mobile phone in use (making calls, accessing the internet, etc.) Another point is that Hollywood movies don't exactly contribute to user education in that regard. The main thing that was bugging me when watching into the first series of "24" was that Jack Bauer always had perfect reception with that tiny earplug he was wearing (except for dramatic reasons when it became convenient for the script author to make him lose contact with the villain). Another baaaad example is the movie "Enemy of the State" (with Will Smith). Yuck. Still I think you are exaggerating when you are saying that most users don't know that there is another level of "turned off" with their phones. Why? Because as soon as the battery drains completely you will see that there is. So maybe many users stop thinking about it and sooner or later forget about the distinction. I for my part wasn't even aware that there could be confusion about this when making my original post. --Sigi

I really like that you don't get the feeling of dealing with a company but rather with some friends or fellow bridge players who want to do you and the game a good service. This is especially true if you also take part in the forums. Neither Fred nor Uday shy away from giving advice and openly voicing their opinion on all sorts of issues. They really keep in touch really well with the community. I also like that a continous effort to enhance BBO is being made. While I'm not completely happy with some things concerning the client, Fred is completely right when he says "well, at least we keep things going and continue to deliver". Adding to that, it is completely free and I believe them when they say that it will stay that way. --Sigi

I think one should rule everything out that requires Windows XP or heavy downloads. As nice at it would be to use .NET or Java, both require heavy downloads (very inconvenient for modem users). If you don't happen to have .NET installed (i.e. you don't have an updated Windows XP or any other OS) you are either locked out of using BBO without major hassles or at least required to make a ~22 MB download (takes hours on a slow modem link). Java doesn't come preinstalled with Windows either, unfortunately (it's not as big as .NET but it's a separate download in any case if the user doesn't happen to have it already). At least it comes for all major platforms and you really don't have to worry on compatibility here. I don't see at the moment where BBO could make sensible use of a graphic toolkit aimed at games. Just for drawing the cards you certainly would not need that. A good idea is to use scalable vector graphics for the cards, but the SVG libraries are lightweight and you can always cache bitmaps and redraw only when the user resizes the window. There are several cross-platform GUI toolkits such as Qt or WxWindows which don't have heavy hardware requirements and would make the client portable to other platforms such as MacOS or Linux. Nothing will be as fast on old machines as the current client, though, I guess. Here is my suggestion for the target platform (in terms of hardware performance): any machine that is running Firefox, IE 5, Opera 8 or any other recent web browser reasonably fast should be required to run BBO reasonably fast -- since one would assume that internet connected machines will have a browser installed and running anyway. --Sigi

The only one of my remarks to which this appropriately refers to is the one dealing with the complexity of an Internet connection (TCP). I maintain my position that it is easy to setup and maintain such a connection programmatically and using it for communication purposes with the server (specifically this is all I'm saying, not that there aren't indefinitely many ways to actually have it complicated). You've listed a fairly extensive list of "sore spots" regarding complexity and I couldn't hold myself back from commenting on it. Granted that it is irrelevant to refuting your original claim. I was not aware that the Bridge Master logic is actually included in the BBO client program. I would also go so far as to say that by implication the term "client program" should not refer to program logic completely unrelated to BBO. Along these lines most movie critics and literature reviewers should shut their mouths for good. Not having actually written something comparable in complexity to BBO does not necessarily preclude somebody from commenting on its technical merits. Someone might for example know about a certain toolkit or general approach that would apply nicely to BBO and you should be ready to take such advice serious (I'm sure you do BTW) even though said persons might not have written an internet game before. --Sigi

You forgot the punch line... --Sigi :-)

Believe me, I did consider the complexity of the program. I assume that we are talking about the client, thereby not taking into account many issues related to full client/server operation, efficiency and scalability of the protocol and the server implementation. These are tricky issues especially when not planning ahead and having no prior experience (now nobody blames you for not planning ahead to cater for 8000+ users, mind you). 100% something you don't want to implement yourself. Different product. If the third parties involved are not able to provide you with a reasonable C API I readily admit that it is a pain in the butt to interface with such applications through other means (if you have to use C). I don't know much about using the Internet Explorer component, it's supposed to be easy to use, but I wouldn't be surprised if the opposite was true. I'm not sure what I myself would do, probably use a lightweight HTML browser component that fits the special needs for my application (a huge amount of IE rendering capabilities are unused by BBO anyway). Well, I don't know how much low-level work you do in fact, but if it boils down to drawing the pixels mostly yourself I'd say, yes, that is a lot of work (not to say a lot of time rather spent elsewhere *duck*). It's definitely not easy to get point one right, but point two should be pretty straightforward. Then again, maybe it's a pain under Windows or used to be that way when you started working on BBO (under Windows 95 proper or Win NT presumably). I don't know for I have avoided Win32 successfully so far, but opening a TCP stream on both ends and sending/receiving your protocol over it shouldn't be the main challenge (or is it?). Yeah, very tricky. Mainly the point of designing a good protocol (which is obviously not easy). If it happens that you have to plug a lot of holes when the system grows this is obviously a source for quite a lot of code complexity... It is, but we are talking about a client for a card game including several general purpose libraries you apparently happened to have written in the process. I did not take that into account with my first reply. Let me finish by saying that I'm not suggesting that the BBO client is some trivial piece of undergraduate homework. It's not the Linux kernel either, however... --Sigi

Um, while I'm not one of these people I strongly assume the opposite. How convoluted must the BBO client's source have become over time so that you are making such a statement in all seriousness?? --Sigi

I'm patiently awaiting developments. Just please, please, PLEASE somebody make sure that this gets communicated ahead of time here. I'd be biting my hands of if I missed it :-). --Sigi

This only applies if the phone is turned on and logged into one (or more) cells of the network. If the phone is booked into the network, there is at least one cell (usually more) that is in contact with the phone. The network has certain information about signal strength of the phone so the provider can estimate how far the phone is removed from the cell(s) in question. If the phone is connected to at least three cells, signal triangulation can be done to locate the phone within a certain area. This won't be very exact though, since the perceived signal strength of the phone does not correspond perfectly with the distance to the cell (there are buildings, atmospherical disturbances and other irregularities involved). A reasonably accurate pinpointing of the phone is presently only possible if the phone receives GPS signals and transmits them back somehow. (GPS signals are coming from satellites in orbit and have to be decoded by special receivers on earth). NB this is not possible if the phone is turned off. It is especially hard (not to say impossible) to locate the phone when it is turned off, and I'm not expecting having to stand corrected in that regard... --Sigi

True for many real-world computer architectures. I always kind of doubted the usefulness of the extendable antennae of many cell phones (even more interesting to hear that from someone with inside knowledge). OTOH many phones had stub antennae that you could screw off the case which definitely reduced reception (I owned several such phones). AFAIK it took them a while to build the antenna into the case while keeping below the allowed thresholds for radio pollution of the user. Well, of course the phone is not completely turned off otherwise you couldn't turn it back on with a soft button as is and the built-in alarm clock would fail on you as well. However, to actually locate a phone it would either have to be: booked into a cell -> clearly not the case when turned off continously emitting a signal strong enough to be triangulated from a distance (space or cars with special equipment) Now, the energy necessary for option two would drain the phone empty in no time even if turned off. No, I'm not buying this. --Sigi

How come you are asking me and no one of the other posters who actually started writing about locating cell phones? But of course you are right, this is horribly off-topic and should be moved to the water-cooler. --Sigi

What are you doing if you are strong with both minors (ie. 5-5 with slam interest)? What were you doing playing your old treatment? Do you treat the better minor as a 6-card suit and ignore the other or is there any other treatment in your system? I'm asking because we are playing something very similar to your methods. --Sigi

If the phone is turned off, what is emitting the signal to be located (by whatever means necessary)? There is no way to locate a cell phone if it's turned off (for all currently applicable definitions for "turned off"). Claiming the contrary is spreading urban legends and conspiracy theories. --Sigi