A game

Not against a very strong opponent, but all but 3 of my moves were either the first or second moved recommended by Fritz (The three moves were 3.c3, 4.Bd3, and 9.a3 – the fact that I did not chose one of the main lines in the Sicilian account for the two first “deviations”. As a comparison, only half of the moves made by my opponent matched Fritz’ recommendations). I liked 16.Nb6 in particular, I doubt I’d have found that move a few years ago – back then I’d probably just have checked on e7 and contented myself with the fact that I would be up a pawn and have the bishop pair. The move I employed in the game is much stronger.

US – anonymous player, unrated blitz 3+0:

1. e4…c5,
2. Nf3…d6,
3. c3…Nf6,
4. Bd3…Nc6,
5. Bc2…e6,
6. d4…cxd4,
7. cxd4…Be7,
8. Nc3…0-0,
9. a3…a6,

10. 0-0…Re8,
11. Bf4…Qc7,
12. Rc1…Nh5,
13. Be3…d5?,
14. exd5…exd5,
15. Nxd5…Qd6

16. Nb6! …Nf6?,
17. Nxa8…Ng4,
18. Nb6…Nxe3,
19. fxe3…Bg4,
20. Nc4…Qf6,
21. Qd3…Bxf3??
22. Qxh7+

resigned, 1-0

Quote of the day

In the practical art of war, the best thing of all is to take the enemy’s country whole and intact; to
shatter and destroy it is not so good. So, too, it is better to recapture an army entire than to destroy it, to capture a regiment, a detachment or a company entire than to destroy them.

Hence to fight and conquer in all your battles is not supreme excellence; supreme excellence consists in breaking the enemy’s resistance without fighting.

…

From Lionel Giles’ translation of Sun Tzu’s The Art of War

(…yet another reason) Why chess is more complicated than you might think

Black to move. Is this position won for black?

It is. Here’s why. In a pawn vs. two knights endgame, the player with the knights has a theoretical win if he can block the pawn with a knight behind the Second Troitzky line. If black was to play Ne4, followed by Nc5, he would be able, with correct play, to win the game within the 50 move limit. A kibitzer confirmed this when the game was being played by plugging the position into a Nalimov Endgame Tablebase.

The position if from a game from the last round of this year’s Amber Chess Tournament. You can play the game here, choose round 11, then select game #4, between Wang Yue and Vishwanathan Anand. The game was a blindfold game – all the players had to look at when they were playing was an empty chess board without pieces on a computer screen – notice that the game nevertheless went on 85 moves. The player that had the black pieces is the current world champion; human players don’t get much stronger than this. He played 61…Kc5, and even if the position is perhaps still winnable, he didn’t find the win.

This is one of the many reasons why I object when people call chess “just another game”. It’s not.

Fiscal responsibility

(Click the image to view it in a higher resolution)

More here.

Reasonable Explanations for Atheism

i) Moral depravity

The history of the atheist community and various studies regarding the atheist community point to moral depravity being a causal factor for atheism. In addition, there is the historical matter of deceit being used in a major way to propagate atheism from the time of Charles Darwin onward. The Bible asserts that “The fool has said in his heart, ‘There is no God.’ They are corrupt, they have done abominable works, there is none that doeth good.” (Psalms 14:1 (KJV)). The biblical fool is said to be lacking in sound judgment and the biblical fool is also associated with moral depravity. For example, the biblical book of Proverbs states: “A wise man is cautious and turns away from evil, But a fool is arrogant and careless. A quick-tempered man acts foolishly, And a man of evil devices is hated. The naive inherit foolishness, But the sensible are crowned with knowledge.”(Proverbs 14:16-18 (NASB)). The book of Proverbs also has strong words regarding the depravity of biblical fools: “The desire accomplished is sweet to the soul: but [it is] abomination to fools to depart from evil.” (Proverbs 13:9 (KJV)). Regarding the deceitfulness of fools Proverbs states: “The wisdom of the sensible is to understand his way, But the foolishness of fools is deceit.” (Proverbs 14:8 (KJV)). Noted Bible commentator and clergyman Matthew Henry wrote regarding atheism: “A man that is endued with the powers of reason, by which he is capable of knowing, serving, glorifying, and enjoying his Maker, and yet lives without God in the world, is certainly the most despicable and the most miserable animal under the sun.”

ii) Rebellion

Atheism stems from a deliberate choice to ignore the reality of God’s existence

iii) Superficiality

Noted ex-atheist and psychologist Dr. Paul Vitz has stated that he had superficial reasons for becoming an atheist such as the desire to be accepted by his Stanford professors who were united in disbelief regarding God

iv) Error

Some argue that atheism partly stems from a failure to fairly and judiciously consider the facts

v) State churches

Rates of atheism are much higher in countries with a state sanctioned religion (such as many European countries), and lower in states without a sanctioned religion (such as the United States). Some argue this is because state churches become bloated, corrupt, and/or out of touch with the religious intuitions of the population, while churches independent of the state are leaner and more adaptable. It is important to distinguish “state-sanctioned churches,” where participation is voluntary, from “state-mandated churches” (such as Saudi Arabia) with much lower atheism rates because publicly admitted atheism is punishable by death

vi) Poor relationship with father

Some argue that a troubled/non-existent relationship with a father may influence one towards holding the position of atheism. Dr. Paul Vitz wrote a book entitled Faith of the Fatherless in which he points out that after studying the lives of more than a dozen leading atheists he found that a large majority of them had a father who was present but weak, present but abusive, or absent. Dr. Vitz also examined the lives of prominent theists who were contemporaneous to their atheist counterparts and from the same culture and in every instance these prominent theists had a good relationship with his father.[120] Dr. Vitz has also stated other common factors he observed in the leading atheists he profiled: they were all intelligent and arrogant.

vii) Division in religion

According to Francis Bacon, atheism is caused by “divisions in religion, if they be many; for any one main division addeth zeal to both sides, but many divisions introduce atheism”

viii) Learned times, peace, and prosperity

Francis Bacon argued that atheism was partly caused by “Learned times, specially with peace and prosperity; for troubles and adversities do more bow men’s minds to religion.” Jewish columnist Dennis Prager has stated that a causal factor of atheism is the “secular indoctrination of a generation.” Prager stated that “From elementary school through graduate school, only one way of looking at the world – the secular – is presented. The typical individual in the Western world receives as secular an indoctrination as the typical European received a religious one in the Middle Ages.” Atheists and secularists rarely point out that universities such as Harvard, Princeton, Oxford, Cambridge, and many others were founded by Christians

ix) Negative experiences with theists

x) Scientism

Science has in many ways become a new God.

…

They left out one or two, but overall they do sound quite “reasonable”, don’t they? Ok, maybe not viii (somebody might think the causality was reversed – that religion caused hardship instead of the other way around – can’t have that now, can we…) and ix (how could anyone have a negative experience with a son or daughter of God?), but the rest of them sound really smart and deep.

Here’s the link.

Quote of the day

If you regulated politicians’ economic promises like businesses’ they’d all be in jail.

Glenn Reynolds.

Æv!

Jeg har fået resultaterne fra den øjenscreening jeg fik foretaget for et stykke tid siden. Resultatet: Det kan nu for første gang ses på mine øjne, at jeg har diabetes. Efter 21 år uden forandringer, er de første nu dukket op. Selvom forandringerne er nogen alle (diabetikere) får, hvis de lever længe nok, og de er stærkt variable over tid og almentilstand (forbigående højt blodtryk eller højt blodsukker kan, som jeg har forstået det, have indflydelse på testresultaterne) og de således mest er at sammenligne med rynker, hvilket var den analogi, lægen brugte, da jeg fik forelagt resultaterne, er det lidt træls at få at vide, at man har fået sine første “rynker” som 23-årig.

Givet resultaterne af undersøgelsen vil Tilma godt have mig med i sit projekt. Jeg skal nok skrive mere herom løbende.

Uniqueness

I just got thinking about the answer to this question: How many factors do you need to include in your descripition of individual X, in order to separate an average individual from the rest of the human race (I ban the option of simply giving relevant x, y, z and t values here, they should be at least second order variables)? At first, I was thinking the answer must be somewhere between 10 and 20. Assume there are ~6.5 billion people. Assume every factor rules out 99%, and assume that the factors included in the description of the individual are independent. That would mean you’d need to include five factors to be sure you had the right person (these assumptions are of course ludicrous, as there’s ie. no way the factor distribution functions are independent. To get results that corresponded closely to real-life circumstances, you’d need to both define some factor distribution functions and deal with the massive overlaps using some very non-trivial mathematics from set theory. However, the fact that we know of the existence of multiple rare and non-independent uniqueness factors makes finding combinations of these easier, rather than the opposite. I take advantage of this in my own attempt below, which consists of one initial factor with very low population incidence (a) combined with two factors that are like (a) both rare on an absolute level and very unlikely to overlap with the initial factor).

Can you come up with a few sentences about yourself that make you a unique individual in the human race? My attempt would be the following. I assume I’m the only individual on earth that has:
a) read Lenin, en biografi, by Georg Moltved and
b) Read A concise history of the Russian Revolution, by Richard Pipes, and
c) read Relativity, by Albert Einstein.

I doubt anyone else has read this exact combination of books, even if I can’t know for sure. If those 3 factors are not enough, I’d probably add Aristotles’ Nicomachean Ethics and/or More’s Utopia – maybe I should throw in Growth of the International Economy 1820-2000, by Kenwood & Lougheed, just for the hell of it. If those factors aren’t enough, add the fact that I have type 1 diabetes and/or the fact that I’ve played Rachmaninoff’s Prelude in C sharp minor. If that still isn’t enough, add the fact that I know what Jensen’s inequality is, I know what autocorrelation is and I’m an atheist. The list shrinks very rapidly…

I know my take on this is very “knowledge-centric”, and of course there are other ways to do this. How about you? Why/how are you unique? I would find comments using my “book approach” very interesting, but other ideas/approaches are welcome as well. (as always, responses/comments in Danish are of course welcome too)

Irriterende…

Jeg hader bare, når journalister viderebringer oplysninger uden i øvrigt selv at foretage sig andet end at kopiere det, andre har skrevet for dem.

Det er eftermiddag. Jeg sidder og læser jp, og falder ved et tilfælde over den her artikel, om et nyt metastudie som linker BMI og overdødelighed. Jeg ved forskningen er delt på området, ved at sammenhængen mellem fedme og forhøjet mortalitet er veletableret, men at linket er svagere for “almindelig overvægt”, så jeg bliver nysgerrig. Læser artiklen. Den siger ikke så meget, vil gerne vide mere. Kigger efter kilder. Opdager de eneste links artiklen indeholder, er interne links til andre jp-artikler. Ingen eksterne links til studiet, og kun en af studiets formodentligt ganske mange bidragydere, Gary Whitlock, nævnes ved navn – åbenlyst fordi det er ham, der har udtalt sig til BBC-journalisten, som bragte den oprindelige historie, som jp’s artikel tilsyneladende ikke er ret meget andet end en oversættelse af, og som han ikke engang har haft energi til at linke til (selvom det kun tager mig 2 sekunder med google at finde artiklen).

Hvis jeg havde skrevet et blogindlæg om det pågældende studie, havde jeg linket til det sted, jeg havde fundet nyheden (BBC). Jeg havde derefter slået op på google scholar, hvis ikke den oprindelige artikel havde et direkte link (det har den ikke), fundet artiklen der og som minimum skimmet den, før jeg linkede til den i mit indlæg og fortalte om den. JP’s journalist, som får penge for det han gør, skriver bare af efter en engelsk kollega, han har tydeligvis hverken snakket med Gary Whitlock eller læst studiet (det er ikke engang online endnu på Lancet’s hjemmeside), og gider ikke engang linke til dem, der har. BBC-journalisten linker naturligvis ikke til studiet, eftersom han beskriver studiet, inden det overhovedet er publiceret. Hvorfor pokker gør han for øvrigt det? Trumfer nyhedsværdien af en sådan historie alt andet? Hvordan kan man forvente folk skal tage beskrivelsen af et studie alvorligt, når a) vedkommende som beskriver det, tydeligvis ikke selv har læst det (og/eller har nogen forudsætninger for at kunne læse og forstå det), og b) studiet ikke er tilgængeligt endnu, så kun forfatterne i realiteten ved, hvad der står i det? Hvorfor ikke vente til man faktisk kunne linke til studiet, og på den måde give folk en chance for at sætte sig ind i, hvilke forudsætninger m.v. der ligger til grund for analysen? Hvis man er så utålmodig, at man ikke kan vente med at fortælle om studiet til det faktisk er offentliggjort, hvorfor så ikke som minimum da lade artiklen indeholde et link til The Lancet, når man nu ved, at det vil være der, studiet vil kunne findes, når det ‘publiceres’?

De store bladhuse lever stadig primært af papiraviserne. Det er et af deres store problemer, for uden offentlig støtte er det ikke nemt at få den forretning til at løbe rundt. Men det er langtfra deres eneste problem.

Health and happiness in the US

Via Will Wilkinson, I came across this map:

Two remarks:

a) As Wilkinson demonstrates, there’s a positive correlation between income and wellbeing (Willkinson uses the words money and happiness, I’m not sure that’s correct given the way the data is defined).

b) The inter-state variation is relatively low; every single one of the states fit into an interval (from 61.2 to 69.2) that is less than a tenth the size of the scale used.

L’eau des collines

I’ve just been watching the duology Jean de Florette and Manon des Sources for the first time since my second year in high school. It’s a duology made by Claude Berri, after Marcel Pagnol’s novel(/s). I remember that back when I first watched it, when I had just seen the end of Manon des Sources, I had tears in my eyes and thought to myself that this had to be one of the best movies ever made. Then I saw a lot of other good movies, and basically forgot almost all about it, until the death of Claude Berri two months ago. Then I decided I had to see it again. This evening I did.

I didn’t remember the whole story well, only bits and pieces, and luckily I didn’t remember the ending. Therefore the emotional impact of the two movies was at least as big, if not bigger, than the first time I watched them.

My message is simple: Watch these two wonderful movies! You won’t regret it.

Muslims – USA vs EU

This is not a new idea, at least not to me, but I think this factor, when evaluating the relative merits of the US’ vs European immigration policies and results, must be somewhat overlooked in general if it’s the first time Razib thought about it (and thus – had not encountered the idea elsewhere before):

Here’s the link.

Hmm…

xkcd.

History repeats itself…

I was just in a bad mood and decided to take a dive into the collection of cartoons I have stored on my computer. This one is from 2002.