Recent submissions

Comment · 4 years ago
It's not the opposite either. Chess is a game of skill, poker is also a game of skill.

The difference is that chess is deterministic and poker is not. Chess skill means being able to forcefully convert a winning or drawing position. Poker skill means optimizing your chances of winning.

Not only is it possible to beat weaker opponents in chess by playing the best moves (contrary to your assertion), it happens all the time over the board. Weaker players are more likely to play moves that transforms the chess game from a win/draw to a draw/loss for them. There isn't a single human or engine alive that can consistently secure a draw against every opponent.

And it's possible for a poker player to mindlessly play the mathematically optimal move and still lose. Poker IS a game a chance, so they could just get unlucky.

Comment · 4 years ago
I think the author needs to come up with a different title because it's highly misleading.

The author's premises are also highly exaggerated. For starters, the game of chess has not stopped evolving, because our chess engines continue to get stronger and stronger. The strongest engines of today can crush the older engines from a few years ago. This goes to show that even the elite machines haven't completely figured out chess; the smarter engines are going to continue to push the chess meta forward. In that sense, chess creativity and intuition hasn't stalled. We've just reached the point of collective knowledge that only machines can improve on chess theory.

Second, it's not like GMs are playing bad or losing moves to bluff the opponent. In most opening positions, there are at least 3 or 4 moves that could be played to still maintain winning or drawing positions. When GMs pick "suboptimal lines", they're picking maybe the 3rd or 4th best option that's still objectively a good and viable move from an engine's POV. Nobody is playing bad or losing moves on purpose, that simply does not work in chess.

Comment · 4 years ago
I never said it was the most intuitive, just the most streamlined and most efficient. I'm having a hard time understanding why you think it's not the best organized. Most math courses are taught with a pretty straight forward approach: start with the axioms and definitions, prove the easy and auxiliary theorems that are easily derived from the axioms, prove the fundamental theorems that make the subject useful. In other words, the shortest path from the axioms to the important theorems. I don't see a way to make it more organized or compact, but I'm open to hear what you think is a more condensed or organized way to teach math.

And no, this is rarely the most intuitive or contextual way to learn math. Another analogy - a library doesn't sort their books by which ones were best reads or most influential, but by topic and author. Similarly, math curriculums are organized by a hierarchy of which theorems can prove the next theorem with no explanation of which ones are important. Organization doesn't always provide intuition.

Comment · 4 years ago
Math is presented in a way that's supposed to be organized, compact, and categorical. If we taught math the same way math was proven and discovered, it would be so slow and inefficient that we would still be covering linear algebra in post grad.

As an analogy: The 1,000th person to climb Mt. Everest takes a well defined path that has already been mapped out as the most efficient path to the top. If every single person had to go through the treachery of finding the dead ends, cliffs, crevices, and death traps that the first few climbers endured, it would be a journey only a few could accomplish.

Most people (computer scientists, engineers, chemists, physicists) using math only need to reach the top and see the view from the peak. The few climbers that are really dedicated to climbing (ie, the math researchers who reach the frontier of math) will naturally learn about the rest of the jagged, unmapped landscape as they climb harder and unconquered mountains.

Comment · 4 years ago
How to really multiply Roman numerals: convert them to Arabic numeral notation, multiply them (use a calculator or your favorite algorithm), and convert them back to Roman numerals.

It's very interesting to discuss this from a cultural or anthropological point of view. It doesn't seem very interesting from a mathematical POV. I'm disappointed that there's no mention of the history of Roman arithmetic or content related to actual Romans doing math.

I feel like anyone who is even asking the question "how can I do arithmetic with Roman numerals?" knows enough math to make this a trivial observation.

Comment · 4 years ago
It's a profitability issue, not a logistics issue. It would not be profitable to convert that natural to electricity if it was used for anything besides Bitcoin.

And worry not, this is benefiting you even if you don't like cryptocurrency:

"The firm estimates that bitcoin mining allows carbon dioxide-equivalent emissions to be reduced by over 60% compared to routine flaring."

Comment · 4 years ago
If you make a Bitcoin address, memorize the private key, and never write it down ever, then the only way for anyone to "reverse" transactions is to force you to physically say or write down the private key. This transaction finality seems to be orders of magnitude more final than a credit card transaction or a bank transaction.

So sure - it's technically reversible. But is this really a practical argument? It's like saying nobody is safe in public because you can be a victim of a terrorist attack any any moment. It's alarmist and practically wrong even if technically true.

Comment · 4 years ago
Thanks for your sacrifice, now I know what kind of tree hugging hippie Im talking to. The unfortunate reality of the world is that sacrificers like you have to live with resource gatherers like me. And your opinion about me, unfortunately for you, doesn't really impact my day to day life in any meaningful way.
Comment · 4 years ago
Would you go vegan to reduce your CO2 output, and does it make you a sociopath if you dont?
Comment · 4 years ago
Then you don't know what the definition of a sociopath is at all.
Comment · 4 years ago
Not a sociopath, just someone whose priorities are in the following order:

- my family

- my friends

- my country

- the rest of the world

I'm not going to restrict my own economic goals to save the planet at the expense of the things above.

Comment · 4 years ago
Not really:

- You cannot censor a Bitcoin transaction. You are talking about a completely unrelated issue and pretending this is an issue with Bitcoin.

- People in China are still mining Bitcoin and using crypto even with the ban. So it truly is global. Just like how drugs are global even though most countries have banned them: https://www.cnbc.com/2021/12/18/chinas-underground-bitcoin-m....

- Miners have tried to prevent changes to the Bitcoin and Ethereum protocol more than once and failed due to community consensus of the users. Miners don't get to decide which protocol is run, the users ultimately do. If the miners choose to mine an unpopular protocol, people can and will simply fork the chain to a more favorable protocol. This has happened plenty of times.

Comment · 4 years ago
Monero, Dash, Zcash, Beam Grin, are all completely private and anonymous. Nobody can see you using those blockchains.
Comment · 4 years ago
You know what? You're 100% right and I agree with you. I am wrong here. But still by your definition of logic, anyone can logically conclude it's a scam. Just make the assumption that people don't give out money for free, which is a valid assumption to make given most people's experience with the world.

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