I get the opposite conclusion. ZeroPly is being entirely clear in his statement and you folks seems to just be unable to understand plain english and what is obviously true. Playing to a draw in standard chess does not show who is better at standard chess. Unless someone wins more games of standard chess than the other there is no determination about standard chess. All we have learned is that Carlsen is way better at rapid. He's not arguing who should be champion - they have stated rules for that. He's just saying we have gained no information about who is better at standard chess. That seems to be unarguably obvious. There are no data points for decision making regarding standard chess. You really can't dispute this.

He is also saying that he wishes the world championship actually reflected who was better at standard chess. I would hope we would all wish that. I believe Carlson is the best in the world at standard chess, but I don't know it because of the stupid rapid chess tie breaker. Just like ZeroPly said its like using a 100m Dash as a tie breaker for a marathon. They are quite different sports even though they both involve running.

Championship - 5 games, no draws, longer times allow games to run 2-3 days even. The issue I think is constant draws. So the nightly news is just "another draw" The general public is just bored by 2 or 3 of these - much less 14 or whatever. The evening news could be X has attacked strongly and Y has constructed an unusual defense, pundits arguing about the current position and what each person can do next. LOTs of drama and stuff for folks to chew on. Constant draws are really only interesting to folks who are very inside chess. I love chess and the cognitive aspects behind it. I don't think shorter games are a solution. For me those are also interesting but different - seems like there is room for both. I think the short games would generate even less interesting for the general public. There is even less to think about and argue about. Its over before you can digest it.

I know there might be some issues with certain games where folks could move without repeating and without anyone winning. So you would have to have a way to end those. I'd propose if 1/2 the games end under whatever that rule is that the championship is declared open. Also, have to do something to keep the breaks in the evening from allowing computer analysis or even consultations with others.

The switch to speed chest of a tie breaker is just bonkers to me. Its really a quite different game. It just doesn't seem fair to me. I don't feel like I have any idea if Carlson is the better pure chess player after the last championship. I suspect he is and I would have liked to see him prove it instead of just stalling until he got to the different game he likes better.

I was so excited for another chess championship and I'm just bored now. Fight valiantly to the end or give up. As long as more than half the games end in draws the interest of the general public will be quite muted I expect. I'm pretty resigned to it just being another stall fest, for speed chess. Imagine if Carlson would loose his champion status if there were too many draws? Perhaps that is a better and easier to implement solution than I proposed above. Just a rule that if over 1/2 the games end in a draw than the match is over and the crown is declared open.

Yes. People can't seem to get that things taste different to different people. I hate peas. I've had so many people tell me, how can you not like peas, "you can't even taste them," I think they are being honest, but to me, peas have one of the strongest tastes of any food. It totally obliterates any other taste they are with. Accidentally getting a pea in a pot pie just yields an explosion of awfulness when it "pops". The awfulness is mostly from how strong the flavor is. Same kind of thing with lobster. Taste just like seawater to me. I've literally compared it, the flavor of a cup of seawater and lobster is pretty indistinguishable to me. My kids love lobster. So clearly they taste different to me than to others. From what I get from talking to people that like lobster, it seems to me it mainly tastes to them like whatever they dip it in.

On the other hand, I love Lagulvulin and Laphroaig Scotch Whisky. I wish there was a way to get the flavor that was not alcoholic, I'd drink it all the time. As it is a common drink for me is a thimble of one of those in a glass of sparkling water. Sodapop that actually tastes good!

It seems to me your are talking about something else than what other folks are. Lacking or having difficulty with social skills is different than being an ass. You can lack social skills without being egotistical and mean.

I came in here to say pretty much what you said. I went to graduate school (masters) in the field of AI in the late 80s and have recent returned to graduate school in the same field, so 30 years later. (Georgia Tech both times) I was shocked. I'm learning the same approaches to the problems. The biggest difference I'm seeing are that there are handy libraries to use so I don't have to code stuff from scratch unless the class requires it. I worked mostly in image understanding the first time. In one of my classes I was asked to implemented a system that was very similar to what I had done previously in Fortran. I dug out my old code and pulled from it when working on it. Both worked well but the old one took about 12 hours to analyze a scene, the new one was under a minute and it was in python. I'm on my sixth class and I have yet to see an algorithm or theory that is significantly different than 30 years ago. (I have all my old class notes and use them periodically) Its been kind of disappointing, since I was expecting to see new things that would advance my understanding of the problems. It is a lot more fun to do this stuff when you can analyze large volumes of data and see the results of your system without waiting for hours. You can actually see that the stuff works. I'm sure as I go on I'll see some more significant incremental changes but I've given up on expecting to see anything that will set my hair on fire.

Isn't identifying corner cases and extrapolating also pattern matching? Pretty much everything the brain does is ether data filtering or pattern matching it seems to me.

I just get a call from her about 5 minutes ago.

I have an issue with some of my old Thunderbird mail archives. They are infected with various viri (w32 swen.A, N32 Netsky.T, Trojan Zbot) The anti-virus software I've tried just wants to delete the entire file not clean it. Would like to clean the files without risking infection but haven't been able to find a way to clean an offline mail file. Any ideas? Thanks.

I bought toyota recently. The position of the cruise control resume makes it very easy to hit accidentally and it takes a very light touch that you might not even notice. I've hit it twice and had my car surge ahead in a way that was scary. Add in a miss of the hitting the brake pedal and you have what many of the folks are describing. Course the black boxes should show this.