Author: Albert Silver
Date: 08:56:11 06/07/01
Go up one level in this thread
On June 06, 2001 at 21:27:48, Fernando Villegas wrote:
In essense, I agree with you Fernando. Writing about hash tables or any
technical aspects of the program that require further explanations, should be
avoided. This isn't Chess Life, nor ChessBits, nor some other area-specific
vehicle. It is the International Herald Tribune. Burgess's writing on the whole
was very entertaining, and quite cute. However, getting the most significant
announced fact wrong (DF trounced DB) is not to be overlooked. I know you tend
to be tolerant about these mass journalism 'bourdes', but this is not the
lightest of them, and frankly, I strongly suspect that a certain 3 letter
company will not let it pass quietly.
IBM uses Deep Blue until today as a constant part of its marketing ("the new
XYZ3trillion server is exactly 25,433 times faster than the one Deep Blue ran on
when it reduced Gary Kasparov to dust"). I would be very surprised if they'd let
someone make fictitious claims that their 200 million position/second baby had
been trounced by a 6 million position/second PC program. It isn't just that
their program is claimed to be second best, but that their 2 meter Goliath was
humiliated by a 6 centimeter tall dwarf.
There is another aspect I didn't like about the article, but I admit it is a
more subtle point. The problem is that while passing on an impression of
complete informality and friendliness, the overall conclusion is that PC
programs are pretty much unbeatable, even with the aid of world class advisers
(Kasparov, Polgar, Keene), and that a user can expect to be humiliated even if
they have 4 times the thinking time and an extra knight right from move 1. While
that may speak positively in favour of the choice of Fritz as Kramnik's
opponent, I don't think that will have the general public rushing out to buy
chess programs.
Albert
>Chris:
>Yes, of course, some info too, but the degree of it depends of the issue, the
>importance it has, etc. Clearly Burgess does not think computer chess deserves
>some much attention and care with technical aspects of any kind more than that
>he offered. Besides he must think in what readers want to read. The journalist
>is not writting for an specific public, but for a mass public where all kind of
>expertisse or lack of it pay the cent to get the newspaper. Average reader gives
> a shit about chess computers and so if you ever are going to interest him about
>something of this field, it will be trough the sort of thing Burgess wrote. I
>would consider Burgess not a talented man, as clearly he is, but a pedant and an
>idiot if he ever was going to write about hash tables to that public.
>In fact, that's the kind of mistakes beginners journalist makes: they try to
>"teach"; they try to deliver too much. So they bore everybody but himself and
>two geeks.
>So a last point: journalism is not about writting about what you really know,
>but to write to people that does not know and have no reasons to know. So you
>give them the little drop you can and you have.
>What else?
>Fernando
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