Related to separate paper on using a different method for linear equation solving from a few weeks ago https://www.quantamagazine.org/new-algorithm-breaks-speed-li... seems likely if you can use a different method for solving linear equations, it may be that some matrix multiplication can also be improved using a different method.
Oh, memories. We built a custom arcade board based on SLI Voodoo1, mips r5k, and custom jpeg decompression in hardware to do Magic the Gathering: Armageddon. https://youtu.be/cci5l21aMss We wanted to run at highrez (640x480 vga) at 60hz with tons of animating sprites on screen and realized nothing had the fill rate we needed. Rather than changing the game design, we kept looking and met the 3Dfx team when they had barely taped out the Voodoo1. We gambled that SLI would work and started designing the hardware and adapting the game to an early alpha of Glide. We prototyped on SLI cards running on Windows NT and pentium pros. In parallel, Atari Ganes built Voodoo1-based hardware to replace Zoid. Mace and War shipped on that hardware.
Flying Cloud is a wonderful innovation story that connects to the larger story of Matthew Maury, who used US Navy datasets to transform how ships navigated. Gave a talk about this at the US Naval Academy a few years ago, build a bunch of visualizations since NOAA still hosts the data sets http://ondrejka.net/history/2014/02/28/maury.html
My dad was project photogrammetrist on Corona when he worked at Itek in the 60s. Lots of stories around focus and aiming challenges, since Corona was used to build maps of inaccessible regions of the world (e.g. Soviet Union ICMB sites). Focus targets gave high contrast, known images to detect what kind of focus problems were being encountered -- ranging from image smear from forward motion compensation failing or stretching the film; film sticking, stretching and/or lifting off of the focal plane; star camera inaccuracies; thermal distortion of camera, spacecraft, star camera, or film; etc. A few good books on Corona (https://www.cia.gov/library/publications/intelligence-histor...) and Itek (https://books.google.com/books/about/Spy_Capitalism.html) out there. Same teams worked on subsequent KH projects (Gambit, Hexagon/Big Bird/BMF), as well as Apollo and Viking camera systems.
Running under VMware skewed the first results. We have been hustling to get the code to version 0.1 and I didn't get a comparable test PC in time. We will be rerunning all the benchmarks soon without VMware.
As for using node.js, we're starting to test various communication channels -- websocket versus long poll techniques versus straight ajax etc -- and it's faster for us to be working in a single project as we bootstrap up the tech curve.
Keep the Flashblocker extension enabled it'll prevent the "missing plugins warning" with the added benefit of giving a visual indication that a webpage uses flash incase you'd like to switch to a different browser. With the plugin.default_plugin_disabled set to false I'd miss out on embedded youtube videos (I can't find a youtube html5 converter for firefox)
One of the key points about Gruber’s article is that he actually wants the situation you are trying to avoid. Basically, he wants to see how many of his websites will present HTML5 based content if the website detects a missing Flash install. ClickToFlash (not sure about Flashblocker) pretends to be Flash, as far as most browser detection scripting is concerned. Otherwise, it wouldn't know there is Flash to be defered in the first place.
This echoes the story of Eurisko, a genetic AI written by Stanford's Douglas Lenat to build Traveller "Trillion Credit Fleets." Eurisko destroyed the competition at the national championship 2 years in row.
In both cases, using the GA allowed a player to more comprehensively search the opportunity space created by the game designers than the designers did during design and play testing.
Really awesome stuff, though it sets up an intriguing arm's race between the game designers who can patch and Nerf elements to eliminate unbalanced strategies and the players who then explore the new rule set.
I've been looking for material about Eurisko. Other than this championship, there appears to be no credible documentation of any of Eurisko's reported achievements.
It might be super-duper, but the fact that he wouldn't let anyone else use it, and that those amazing feats have not been reproduced by others despite huge advances - might just mean that there's more myth to truth in the stories about Eurisko.
Adding to the mystery, I read the newyorker article (2009) linked from wikipedia on Eurisko, and it seems Lenat forgot the winning strategy Eurisko developed, or the first article is wrong.
"Eurisko, however, had judged that defense was more important than offense, that many cheap, invulnerable ships would outlast fleets consisting of a few high-priced, sophisticated vessels. There were ninety-six ships in Eurisko’s fleet, most of which were slow and clumsy because of their heavy armor" - 1984 article
"astronomical number of small ships like P.T. boats, with powerful weapons but absolutely no defense and no mobility, Lenat said. They just sat there. Basically, if they were hit once they would sink." - 2009 article
IIRC they didn't ban him - rather, they told him that if he kept competing they'd just cancel the competition. This was not out of spite, but because he was so dominant that it was discouraging the other players from even trying.
Probably, yes. Somewhat closed gaming groups can have fun with an imperfect game if everyone agrees not to abuse the holes in the rules. (After all, rules abuse does not necessarily lead to a more fun game.)
-According to Wikipedia, he reported just over $67,000 for just one year (not for his 370MM lifetime.)
Sorry to be nit-picky, maybe he is a bad guy, but what's the point of presenting facts when you're going to attempt to exaggerate and not put in due diligence?
In 2003, Second Life had US$->L$ purchases, user->user L$ exchanges, no path to covert back, and many users playing Texas Hold 'em and other games of chance using L$.
We even had a day in early 2004 where some unnamed wealthy individuals had a high stakes game of Texas Hold 'em which moved enough L$ around to distort our statistics.
