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Subject: Re: The good sides of CC!

Author: Rolf Tueschen

Date: 10:54:46 09/06/02

Go up one level in this thread


On September 06, 2002 at 12:45:46, Robert Hyatt wrote:

>On September 06, 2002 at 12:08:23, Rolf Tueschen wrote:
>
>>On September 06, 2002 at 11:35:29, Robert Hyatt wrote:
>>
>>>On September 06, 2002 at 09:57:09, Rolf Tueschen wrote:
>>>
>>>>On September 06, 2002 at 09:11:07, Vincent Diepeveen wrote:
>>>>
>>>>>Committing fraud, even falsifying (and not even remembering it
>>>>>for christ sake) the 2 most important tables
>>>>>  - total node counts
>>>>>  - time table
>>>>
>>>>Your terminology is out of order. But I won't play coach again. All I can say is
>>>>that your understanding of the basic fundaments in science is very weak.
>>>>Falsifying at least is not what you could ever prove for these tables. Let me
>>>>make a sarcastic comment. You are sinking deeper and deeper into the moor... If
>>>>you only could see that alone you'd never could come out of it. If you only
>>>>could pause and say, well, then just give me a straight explanation for what I
>>>>see, because I have no idea why something like that could happen. Then it could
>>>>be much easier. But now you are headlessly searching for always new variations
>>>>of the same accusation. And the irony is that the accusation is false! Did you
>>>>mumble the word? Ok, I'll try it a last time.
>>>>
>>>>>
>>>>>This in an official article, which is one of the things you have to
>>>>>try to do as a professor.
>>>>
>>>>JICCA is the journal of a private association. Official for CC but not official
>>>>in the sense that a member of a university had to fear something. In this case I
>>>>think the journal itself had more interest in the paper than Bob needed it for
>>>>his career. And keep in your memory that Bob's findings are by no means hurt by
>>>>your table question. The reason why it seems so difficult for you to understand
>>>>that is exactly the lack I described in your 'basics'. Vincent, you simply can't
>>>>judge here what is most important, important, less important and completely
>>>>uninteresting. To show you a difference. As you know I accused the DB2 team of
>>>>unscientific behaviour to Kasparov, who was their client so to speak. Such a
>>>>"pressure" put on your client will always hurt your results. So, normally you do
>>>>your best to keep a good relationship with all your clients. This is so basic,
>>>>that even in the contract with IBM, scientists should always secure this, if for
>>>>instance IBM had tried to urge them somehow. Then they should have said, that
>>>>this way the whole event would be destroyed. Hence after game two the whole
>>>>event was heavily biased. Of course from a limited (not very scientifical)
>>>>standpoint of the factual the result is a win for DB2. And that is how it's seen
>>>>among laymen.
>>>>
>>>>Here we have a completely different question. If you only could show that the
>>>>numbers Bob reported were completely out of range, then you had a good argument.
>>>>But here the stories behind the publication, the loss of the original data and
>>>>the callings from the journal itself let Bob make a little mistake. But not a
>>>>mistake which meant anything false or contrary to the original results. Can you
>>>>understand that? Ask further questions.
>>>>
>>>>
>>>>>So you show falsified results to the other
>>>>>scientists about your data.
>>>>
>>>>No. He didn't change the results but presented them. But the presentation was
>>>>not cheating the scientists or you! If you had understood what Bob had told you
>>>>by email and ICC conversation! How can you be so stubborn to realise the
>>>>possibility of misunderstanding on your side.
>>>>
>>>>
>>>>>
>>>>>If the only way of getting the tables is by inventing numbers yourself,
>>>>>then do not give the tables.
>>>>
>>>>But the found results were the core or the main cause of the interest of the
>>>>JOurnal!
>>>>
>>>>
>>>>>
>>>>>A result from the time table IS the speedup number, and not vice versa
>>>>>as you post here. You do not get a speedup number from heaven.
>>>>>
>>>>>You CALCULATE it based upon the search times.
>>>>>
>>>>>Automatic processes sometimes round off numbers, that is not the
>>>>>case here. So the conclusion is very obvious.
>>>>
>>>>I'm sure you'll get in detail answers on the technology questions, but I can
>>>>only hope that you can understand the different levels of importance. But a fast
>>>>understanding is required. You are very redundant actually.
>>>>
>>>>Rolf Tueschen
>>>
>>>
>>>Let me add a note about the term "referee".  I include two groups in that
>>>category.  I won't name names, but:
>>>
>>>1.  When I write something, I generally get a couple of outside folks to go
>>>over it first, with the idea that they are acting like referees to see if they
>>>see wording problems, inconsistent statements, data errors, and the like.  IE
>>>for the JICCA bitmap paper, I sent copies to several for comments before it made
>>>it to the icca and their referee process.
>>>
>>>2.  After submission, there is always a referee process, in general.  Some are
>>>good, some or not.  Some want no changes, some want lots of changes.  The most
>>>common referee complaint I get is about a missing reference or two, which does
>>>sometimes "identify" the referee of course, if you get my meaning. :)
>>>
>>>But in any case, it is _not_ an adverserial relationship, it is more about
>>>making the paper clearer, more accurate, and, of course, almost _always_
>>>shorter.  :)  So the referees were not demanding that I add something.  And
>>>it wasn't a case of saying "hell no".  It is very much like working with an
>>>anonymous group that _really_ does want to make the article read as well as it
>>>can read.
>>>
>>>I do this regularly for conferences, journals (including the JICCA) and even
>>>chapters of books.  I never consider it my task to tear something apart.  Rather
>>>it is my task to try to help the author improve it.  I've done this for books
>>>I use in class, for example.
>>>
>>>I don't want to leave the impression that either journal or personal referees
>>>demanded something be added.  At worst they make "strong suggestions" that when
>>>looked at carefully, usually make some kind of sense.
>>>
>>>Yes, I have problems with Jaap as the editor.  He likes "colour".  I like
>>>"color".  I send him an article with "color" everywhere, the proof comes back
>>>with "colour" everywhere.  I change it and send it back.  :)  of course, he
>>>gets the last "cut" so I end up looking like a Brit when I am not.  :)  But
>>>we both laugh about that and go on.  (there are other things like "organisation"
>>>vs "organization" and the like, that drive me bananas also...)
>>>
>>>So this "data" issue is not a demand by them, nor a "I'll show 'em by producing
>>>it in an easy way" by me...  It turned into a matter of "how can I get there
>>>from here?"  and for nodes, there was no choice.  Probably for times there was
>>>no choice due to lost data logs, but that is not something I specifically recall
>>>although the data is convincing that it was the case.  In hindsight, a simple
>>>one page printout of all the test times would have solved this, although I am
>>>sure Vincent would have jumped right on the node issue since they _had_ to be
>>>extrapolated.  But then two of the three tables would have been more
>>>consistent.  However, my files (paper files) are huge.  I have hundreds of
>>>kopec test runs for Cray Blitz.  Thousands for my dissertation.  I just didn't
>>>think to print that simple one page summary out, and the rest is history.
>>>
>>>For the current "study" (since I will probably write up the current crafty
>>>SMP algorithm since it is not to difficult to understand and relatively easy
>>>to implement) I have already put the data files on a second machine.  Hopefully
>>>at least one person will download them so that we have a 3-way backup, in case
>>>this happens again.  :)  This was the first time I have had a massive data
>>>loss like that, and I plan on it being the last, since I now have my primary
>>>files (crafty, etc) on at least two different machines, one with raid-5 disk.
>>>It was very painful, and losing the DTS article data was insignificant compared
>>>to losing everything else.  Electronic copy of my dissertation paper itself,
>>>copies of other papers.  All the old cray blitz source code versions.  All the
>>>log files for every game we had played in an ACM or WCCC event since 1976.
>>>Old email.  Old test positions.  Most was totally irreplacable.   But it did
>>>teach me a valuable lesson...  you can't trust a backup...  :)
>>>
>>>For the endgame tables, I have multiple copies.  All the 3-4-5 piece files are
>>>on a set of CDs locked away in my office.  Another set is out of the US
>>>completely.  I plan on backing up all the 6 piece files onto DVD once I get
>>>this damned EIDE DVD writer to work under linux...  which requires SCSI
>>>emulation and a lot of other nonsense.
>>>
>>>It was unfortunate this caused such an uproar, mainly by one person.  But it
>>>did, and it can't be undone.  I don't see any "fraud" whatsoever, and while I
>>>wish (with hindsight) that we could have used real data, we couldn't, we didn't,
>>>and I can live with that...
>>>
>>>And I'll simply take more stringent safeguard actions in the future.  You notice
>>>that all the crafty-goes-deep data is still available.  As I have multiple
>>>copies saved away so that if this comes up there, we will have real data to
>>>fall back on...
>>>
>>>so I _do_ learn...  :)  I had already "learned" before this fiasco erupted.  :)
>>
>>
>>
>>Why Vincent can't be seen as the advocat's devil? I never read such a lively
>>discussion with so much technology involved, so that I could learn a lot.
>>
>>As to this spectacular loss of data, that is horrible. And I always thought that
>>making back-ups would be much easier for people like you, also in the view that
>>out of principle a linux machine does never crack...! Harha.
>
>Just to keep the linux story "clean".  This was a pure hardware head crash.
>In fact a multiple head crash, although the recovery group suspected one head
>disintegrated and the particles caused the others to do the same.  This
>scratched every platter and made recovery impossible.  Linux did help as it
>periodically tried to do seeks on the drive and that _really_ damaged the
>surface beyond repair.
>
>
>
>
>>
>>But even more important, let's be nostalgc for a moment, wasn't this damn year
>>1996 the year we first met? Now, if that could be a hidden signal somehow????
>>
>
>
>I know you were there for the jakarta discussions.  I thought you might have
>been there for the deep thought vs Fritz discussion as well, which was circa
>1995, but perhaps you were not.

No, unfortunately not. If I were, I surely had written pro DEEP THOUGHT. Because
the crash of electricity and the restart of the machines probably could have
done harm to DT. Is that a correct possibility / explanation? What we all know
about memory effects. Just a few weeks ago Thorsten Czub wrote a message in his
own forum about a game with the interesting incident that directly after the
book was left the prog played almost a tempo a stupid move. So I informed him
that I couldn't reproduce that on my machine but only letting search the one
position! Could it be that this was a comparable error in DT that caused the
wrong move or was it a weak book entry? Sorry, I know that this is the 100th
repetition.

But like that I had dozens of questions when I finally found the international
chess groups. First PC only in 1990 and 1996 first entry in the internet and a
few weeks later rgcc. Yes, I had bad luck when I entered directly the mammoth
threads about the politics of the Wch in Jakarta. There I wrote my second
English posting after a short question about some FRITZ4 data. Perhaps history
would have been different if I hadn't met so extreme political threads. Anyway
my main interest was not politics but CC because I had played chess against
machines and "wooden board computers" since early MEPHISTO version one. So that
was almost 16 years of CC based on games and the German journals.

The main reason for the late entry was the high costs. My first month in the net
cost me about US$ 450. Later I reduced it to 300 appr. Today you can have
flatrate for about 25. I remember how people, you too, couldn't believe that
Germany had such high prices for the net. The fun existed through the direct
communication. I always wrote online (!), and never first offline on text
programs, so for me all that was always primarily positive communication, also
if it went about negative contents. I was completely shocked that basic
questions on SSDF e.g., which I had for many years before, could be similar to
committing sacrilege. Perhaps you understand why then all became almost a
question of psychology. The perhaps "worst" decision I ever made was the
creation of the 22 y. old role model which caused much confusion on all sides,
me included, because I never was a good actor...  :)

If I read the language of the 30 y. old V. today I surely was as meek as a
lamb... :)

But throughout these years CC remained always my main hobby. And I hope that I
can enjoy many new adventures and discoveries in CC for the rest of my life. I
don't know if you knew how important CC is for all the old aged people who can't
join a club or something for reasons of time or some handicap. Chess servers are
a huge progress and live events are a plus enjoyment. Until I got the chess
boards I went to chess events. I saw Kasparov win his Junior title in Dortmund
1980 e.g. But without the analyses of a chess computer and the direct comparence
with the history of chess, watching a chess game can be a real annoyance and
physical tour de force. And if you play in a lower group you simply cannot
concentrate on the GM group's games. Today I can enjoy all the GM games live and
analyse with the support of the machine. This is real progress, thanks to you
guys in CC.

I wished that video connections could help more realistic human contacts. How
many years it could take to make the pictures run without the ridiculous Chaplin
like delays? Is it the internet bottle neck, the PC power or a principal disk
and cable problem?

But now these were the final questions for now! Not that you think it's trolling
time again. These are real questions that are important for me.
I will take part only in the expected thread about the pro and con of the new
matches of Kramnik and Co.


Rolf Tueschen


>
>
>
>
>
>
>>Since right into the most esoteric German CC newsgroup I am known for being
>>responsible for the, let's see that I get the record correct, the Atomic
>>fall-out on some islands of Hawaii, the decline of the shareholders values of
>>the new economy and the marriage of Judit Polgar, hope this will please famous
>>Mig. But, making kaputt whole disc systems would be new on my agenda. BTW if you
>>still have that broken disk, I saw some PR somewhere where people promissed to
>>give a disk a new life (the data to be exact) even if it were 4/5 burnt through
>>fire. Is that no option for you?
>
>
>Already tried, they said "no go"
>
>
>
>>
>>Thanks for all the time you spent these days on the beginner's questions. Many
>>here might have learned a lot. And thanks to invisible censors who had the class
>>to give the debate the necessary space. I for one have never felt the same joy
>>here in CC when I although a complete alien had the chance to see comparable to
>>a GM in a chess position what were the important points and why Vincent missed
>>his target by miles. In effect it's a good "proof" for the sense of
>>interdisciplinary cooperation. Therefore all your explanations were so
>>important. Interesting experiment this week here! Thanks Vincent too! :)
>>
>>
>>Rolf Tueschen
>
>
>Discussions can be fun.  Or they can be frustrating...  It depends on the
>topic, and the people participating...  :)



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