Author: Uri Blass
Date: 03:25:57 02/21/03
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On February 21, 2003 at 05:41:41, Rolf Tueschen wrote: >Some time ago I read in CCC one of the many telling messages about SSDF and its >technology. I don't like personal attacks and therefore I leave out concrete >names. > >Since I have published my critic against the presentation of a "number one" >people tried to defend the actual practice in SSDF. > >Here is one clear example for a terrible confusion: > >The argument goes like this: > >"You have number one in a lot of sports too. The person with most points at a >certain time is presented as number one (the digit). It's only one that receives >the gold-medal and it don't matter if (S)he wins with a thousand of a second or >a whole minute. It may be sad but true." > >Analysis: > >Although the argument is not totally corrret because I know cases where 2 Gold >Medals were awarded. But that is secondary here. I want to demonstrate why the >actual practice of SSDF is outrageously false and why in other sports this is >also respected! > >Demonstration: > >Perhaps some of you have seen swimming for instance. More than once I saw the >following happen. With electronic time measurement you define beforehand how >"exactly" the time should be taken for real. Say One thousands of a second. That >is the last digit. Earlier with hand-made measurings the last digit was one >tenth. Of course electronically it is more exact, but still this is not the end >of the possible line (1 thousands). But you define this as the end. If you have >equality then it makes NO sense to present a umber one. This should be clear. Even if you have one swimmer faster by 1/100 second you cannot claim that he is the best swimmer. Maybe the opponent had a bad day and the opponent is better. You only know that the winner won one game not that he is better. You need to do hundreds of competitions in order to decide who is number one and even in that case you cannot decide if the difference is small enough and the result may be that the swimmers will be so tired from the competitions that a third swimmmer can become number 1 inspite of the fact that the third swimmer has a lower potemtial. In the case of programs the target of the game is to get more elo at some date and not to prove that you are better. If one program is better even by 1 elo then it means that it won the game(it does not mean that it is better). Uri
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