World Micro Championship - Jakarta
Chris Whittington
This is the latest participant list.
Notable is the Mchess has now joined.
Chris Whittington
PARTICIPANTS:
Some of those on the following list have not yet confirmed their
participation and this is noted where appropriate.
PROFESSIONALS (no free tickets)
-----------------------------------
CHESS SYSTEM TAL [To be confirmed]
Chris Whittington (England)
They would like information on the cost to them of hiring a Pentium
Pro 200 MHz computer in Jakarta, but please have a loan computer
available with CD-ROM drive and MS-DOS.
FRITZ
Frans Morsch (Holland), Mathias Feist & Matthias Wullenweber
(Germany)
Loan computer, must have at least 32 MB RAM.
M-CHESS PRO
Marty Hirsch (USA) & Sandro Necchi (Italy)
Loan computer, at least 32 MB RAM, Windows 95.
VIRTUAL CHESS 2
Marc-Francois Baudot & Jean-Christophe Weill (France)
Loan computer with 32 MB RAM and Windows NT, or Windows 95
or Windows 3.11.
AMATEUR PROGRAMS OFFERED FREE TICKETS
-------------------------------------
ARTHUR
Walter Ravenek (Holland)
Loan computer, if possible with 32 MB RAM.
BREAKTHROUGH II
Werner Koch (Germany)
Loan computer.
CENTAUR
Victor Vikhrev & Alexei Manjakhin (Russia)
Loan computer.
COMET
Ulrich Turke (Germany)
Loan computer with MS-DOS and DOS-extender.
CRAFTY
Bob Hyatt, Mike Byrne & Bert Gower (USA)
Hoping to bring their own computer but please have a loan computer
available with 64 MB RAM.
DARK THOUGHT
Peter Gillgasch, Markus Gille & Ernst Heinze (Germany)
[Gillgasch is no longer a member of this team.]
They are trying to organize a DEC Alpha or Sun UltraSparc but please
have a loan computer available with Linux and 2 GB RAM.
DIOGENES 2.0
Jorg Burwitz & Karsten Bauermeister (Germany)
Loan computer with Windows 95.
EUGEN-7
Eugenio Jimenez (Spain)
Loan computer with MS-DOS 6.20 or later.
FERRET
Bruce Moreland (USA)
Loan computer with 32 MB RAM and Windows NT.
FRANCESCA
Tom King (England)
Loan computer with MS-DOS 6.0 or later.
GANDALF X
Steen Surballe & Dan Wulff (Denmark)
Loan computer with Windows 95 or MS-DOS.
HEUREKA
Gerold Fischer (Germany)
Loan computer.
ISICHESS 2.5
Gerd Isenberg (Germany)
Loan computer with MS-DOS and mouse.
NIGHTMARE
Dr. Reinhold Gellner & Gaby von Rekowski (Germany)
Loan computer with MS-DOS 6.22 or Windows 95.
NIMZO-3
Chrilly Donninger & A.Kurp (Austria)
Loan computer with MS-DOS.
PATZER
Roland Pfister (Germany)
Loan computer with DOS.
SCHACH 3
Matthias Engelbach (Germany)
Loan computer with MS-DOS 6.0 or later.
SHREDDER
Stefan Meyer-Kahlen (Germany)
Loan computer with Windows 95.
THE TURK
Yngvi Bjornsson & Andreas Junghanns (Canada)
Loan computer with Linux.
XXXX 2.0
Martin Zentner (Germany)
Trying to bring own computer but please have loan computer available
with 2GB disk and DOS 32-bit.
ZEUS 3.1
Gerardo Castano (Spain)
Loan computer with 32 MB RAM if possible and MS_DOS 6.2 or
Windows 95.
AMATEUR PROGRAMS ON THE RESERVE LIST FOR FREE
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
TICKETS:
--------
INTERCHESS [To be confirmed]
Michael Borgstadt & Spomenka Grabusic (Germany)
Loan computer.
ANANSE
Walter Bannerman (Switzerland)
Loan computer with mouse. DOS 6.0 or later and Windows 95.
WOODPUSHER
John Hamlen (England)
Loan computer with DOS and Windows 3.1 (or 3.11)
GULLYDECKEL [To be confirmed]
Martin Borriss (Germany)
Loan computer with Linux 1.2.x or Linux 2.0.x and an xboard (3.4.x).
PROSPERO CHESS [To be confirmed]
Mike Oakes (England)
Loan computer with Windows NT or OS/2.
Chris Whittington
Chris Whittington <chr...@cpsoft.demon.co.uk> wrote:
>
>
>
> This is the latest participant list.
> Notable is the Mchess has now joined.
>
> Chris Whittington
>
> PARTICIPANTS:
>
> Some of those on the following list have not yet confirmed their
> participation and this is noted where appropriate.
>
> PROFESSIONALS (no free tickets)
> -----------------------------------
>
> CHESS SYSTEM TAL [To be confirmed]
> Chris Whittington (England)
>
> They would like information on the cost to them of hiring a Pentium
> Pro 200 MHz computer in Jakarta, but please have a loan computer
> available with CD-ROM drive and MS-DOS.
>
> FRITZ
> Frans Morsch (Holland), Mathias Feist & Matthias Wullenweber
> (Germany)
> Loan computer, must have at least 32 MB RAM.
>
> M-CHESS PRO
> Marty Hirsch (USA) & Sandro Necchi (Italy)
> Loan computer, at least 32 MB RAM, Windows 95.
>
But I have it on the good authority of someone close to the
Mchess programmer that MChess-pro is definitely *not*
a participant.
What is going on ?
Why does ICCA say Mchess is a participant, when close contacts
of Hirsch say he has written to ICCA saying he is *not* a
participant ?
Chris Whittington
Komputer Korner
Chris Whittington wrote:
>
> Chris Whittington <chr...@cpsoft.demon.co.uk> wrote:
> >
> >
It obviously doesn't look good if the defending champion doesn't show.
--
Komputer Korner
Chris Whittington
Komputer Korner <kor...@netcom.ca> wrote:
>
> Chris Whittington wrote:
> >
> > Chris Whittington <chr...@cpsoft.demon.co.uk> wrote:
> > >
> > >
>
>
> It obviously doesn't look good if the defending champion doesn't show.
A few days ago the ICCA promised the final list of competitors 'in
a few days'. Time will tell.
Chris Whittington
Don Fong
In article <84195067...@cpsoft.demon.co.uk>,
Chris Whittington <chr...@cpsoft.demon.co.uk> wrote:
>Komputer Korner <kor...@netcom.ca> wrote:
>> It obviously doesn't look good if the defending champion doesn't show.
>
>A few days ago the ICCA promised the final list of competitors 'in
>a few days'. Time will tell.
i'm betting he pulled out. if so, i congratulate him on
his decision, and i hope others will follow suit.
--
--- don fong ``i still want the peace dividend''
--
Chris Whittington
> > >
> > > Chris Whittington <chr...@cpsoft.demon.co.uk> wrote:
> > > >
> > > >
> >
> >
> > It obviously doesn't look good if the defending champion doesn't show.
>
> A few days ago the ICCA promised the final list of competitors 'in
> a few days'. Time will tell.
>
>
From an impeccable source:
*no* Mchess at Jakarta as a political protest against the regime.
Chris Whittington
Don Fong
In article <84203371...@cpsoft.demon.co.uk>,
Chris Whittington <chr...@cpsoft.demon.co.uk> wrote:
>From an impeccable source:
>*no* Mchess at Jakarta as a political protest against the regime.
hurray for Marty Hirsch! he has the most to lose by not going.
hopefully his decision will cause others to reconsider. even those
who do not care about human rights or democracy should realize that
under the circumstances the contest will be a sham.
Chris Whittington
df...@cse.ucsc.edu (Don Fong) wrote:
>
> In article <84203371...@cpsoft.demon.co.uk>,
> Chris Whittington <chr...@cpsoft.demon.co.uk> wrote:
> >From an impeccable source:
> >*no* Mchess at Jakarta as a political protest against the regime.
>
> hurray for Marty Hirsch! he has the most to lose by not going.
> hopefully his decision will cause others to reconsider. even those
> who do not care about human rights or democracy should realize that
> under the circumstances the contest will be a sham.
>
Apparently he applied at first, but then discovered that the
finance for the event was coming not from the university but from
the Indonesian government, and he reckoned that he did not want to be
a part of this government's attempts to 'buy' respectability.
Hence the withdrawal.
Chris Whittington
brucemo
Don Fong wrote:
>
> In article <84203371...@cpsoft.demon.co.uk>,
> Chris Whittington <chr...@cpsoft.demon.co.uk> wrote:
> >From an impeccable source:
> >*no* Mchess at Jakarta as a political protest against the regime.
>
> hurray for Marty Hirsch! he has the most to lose by not going.
> hopefully his decision will cause others to reconsider. even those
> who do not care about human rights or democracy should realize that
> under the circumstances the contest will be a sham.
He doesn't have the most to lose by not going. He won last year.
bruce
Don Fong
In article <323467...@nwlink.com>, brucemo <bru...@nwlink.com> wrote:
>Don Fong wrote:
>> hurray for Marty Hirsch! he has the most to lose by not going.
>> hopefully his decision will cause others to reconsider. even those
>> who do not care about human rights or democracy should realize that
>> under the circumstances the contest will be a sham.
>
>He doesn't have the most to lose by not going. He won last year.
i thought this required no explanation, but since you disagree,
i will explain my reasoning: Marty Hirsch now holds the WMCCC
title. by not going, he is guaranteed to forfeit it. that is the
highest award up for grabs at the WMCCC. therefore, Marty Hirsch has
the most to lose. obviously, the question of who has "the most to
lose" is somewhat subjective. i think my statement is perfectly defensible.
if you still disagree, then please tell me who has more to lose,
what it is that they will lose, and how that is greater than what
Marty Hirsch is giving up (the title).
brucemo
If you "retire" after winning a title, you retain a piece of that title in
many people's minds. An example is in your first quoted post above, in which
you label the tournament a sham because Hirsch is not going. If someone else,
for instance Fritz, makes significant improvements and has a great tournament,
you will say, "Well, MChess would have thrashed him." If Hirsch went, and
didn't win, you wouldn't be able to say this.
I doubt this is Hirsch's motive for not going, but I think it's obvious he
doesn't have more to lose by not going than anyone else does.
I am going to go to Jakarta, although for me this is a borderline case. I
think the ICCA should take care to assure the safety of the participants, and
I am not certain this has been done well enough in this case. Americans who
are travelling to Indonesia are doing so against the advice of the US State
Department. This is a decidedly unpleasant prospect.
bruce
Robert Hyatt
Don Fong (df...@cse.ucsc.edu) wrote:
: In article <323467...@nwlink.com>, brucemo <bru...@nwlink.com> wrote:
: >Don Fong wrote:
: >> hurray for Marty Hirsch! he has the most to lose by not going.
: >> hopefully his decision will cause others to reconsider. even those
: >> who do not care about human rights or democracy should realize that
: >> under the circumstances the contest will be a sham.
: >
: >He doesn't have the most to lose by not going. He won last year.
:
: i thought this required no explanation, but since you disagree,
: i will explain my reasoning: Marty Hirsch now holds the WMCCC
: title. by not going, he is guaranteed to forfeit it. that is the
: highest award up for grabs at the WMCCC. therefore, Marty Hirsch has
: the most to lose. obviously, the question of who has "the most to
: lose" is somewhat subjective. i think my statement is perfectly defensible.
: if you still disagree, then please tell me who has more to lose,
: what it is that they will lose, and how that is greater than what
: Marty Hirsch is giving up (the title).
: --
: --
While your logic is good, if you look back at the history of the WMCCC
events, it's been a regular practice for last year's winner to not show
up this year. The reason: they get another year of promo's because
they aren't exposed to the risk of losing. This is certainly not to
say this is why Marty's not going, but several times last year's winner
did not show up at the next tournament. It may or may not be in reference
to Indonesia's human rights. I'm not going because of scheduling conflicts
with a two week trip being a long time. However, Crafty's going to be there
because someone has volunteered to operate it there. There's a chance that
someone not going might be in protest to human rights atrocities, but there's
also a chance that it's something else entirely...
Don Fong
In article <32350B...@nwlink.com>, brucemo <bru...@nwlink.com> wrote:
>Don Fong wrote:
>> In article <323467...@nwlink.com>, brucemo <bru...@nwlink.com> wrote:
>> >Don Fong wrote:
>> >> hurray for Marty Hirsch! he has the most to lose by not going.
>> >> hopefully his decision will cause others to reconsider. even those
>> >> who do not care about human rights or democracy should realize that
>> >> under the circumstances the contest will be a sham.
>> >
>> >He doesn't have the most to lose by not going. He won last year.
>>
>> i thought this required no explanation, but since you disagree,
>> i will explain my reasoning: Marty Hirsch now holds the WMCCC
>> title. by not going, he is guaranteed to forfeit it. that is the
>> highest award up for grabs at the WMCCC. therefore, Marty Hirsch has
>> the most to lose. obviously, the question of who has "the most to
>> lose" is somewhat subjective. i think my statement is perfectly defensible.
>> if you still disagree, then please tell me who has more to lose,
>> what it is that they will lose, and how that is greater than what
>> Marty Hirsch is giving up (the title).
>
>many people's minds.
>An example is in your first quoted post above, in which
>you label the tournament a sham because Hirsch is not going.
not at all; i labelled it a sham "under the circumstances" which
include the non-participation of several others besides Hirsch.
>If someone else,
>for instance Fritz, makes significant improvements and has a great tournament,
>you will say, "Well, MChess would have thrashed him." If Hirsch went, and
>didn't win, you wouldn't be able to say this.
the actual title counts for more your supposed bits of people's
minds. MCP is a commercial program, and the title has promotional
value. Hirsch is forgoing that. his act of conscience means that he
definitely won't be able to advertise MCP as "winner of WMCCC 1996".
don't try to tell me that is without value.
>I doubt this is Hirsch's motive for not going, but I think it's obvious he
>doesn't have more to lose by not going than anyone else does.
again i ask: if you disagree that Marty Hirsch has the most to lose,
then answer me -who- has more to lose, -what- it is that they will lose,
and -how- it is more valuable than what Hirsch is giving up.
>I am going to go to Jakarta, although for me this is a borderline case. I
>think the ICCA should take care to assure the safety of the participants, and
>I am not certain this has been done well enough in this case. Americans who
>are travelling to Indonesia are doing so against the advice of the US State
>Department. This is a decidedly unpleasant prospect.
i hope you'll change your mind. if the "unpleasantness" isn't
sufficient, consider that whatever glory you might gain if you win
will be lessened by the fact that some of the strongest competitors
were absent. whatever honor you might gain will be tainted ("in many
people's minds") by the dishonor of having participated in a public
relations effort of a bloody dictatorship.
it isn't worth it.
Chris Whittington
brucemo <bru...@nwlink.com> wrote:
>
> Don Fong wrote:
> >
> > In article <323467...@nwlink.com>, brucemo <bru...@nwlink.com> wrote:
> > >Don Fong wrote:
> > >> hurray for Marty Hirsch! he has the most to lose by not going.
> > >> hopefully his decision will cause others to reconsider. even those
> > >> who do not care about human rights or democracy should realize that
> > >> under the circumstances the contest will be a sham.
> > >
> > >He doesn't have the most to lose by not going. He won last year.
> >
> > i thought this required no explanation, but since you disagree,
> > i will explain my reasoning: Marty Hirsch now holds the WMCCC
> > title. by not going, he is guaranteed to forfeit it. that is the
> > highest award up for grabs at the WMCCC. therefore, Marty Hirsch has
> > the most to lose. obviously, the question of who has "the most to
> > lose" is somewhat subjective. i think my statement is perfectly defensible.
> > if you still disagree, then please tell me who has more to lose,
> > what it is that they will lose, and how that is greater than what
> > Marty Hirsch is giving up (the title).
>
> If you "retire" after winning a title, you retain a piece of that title in
> you label the tournament a sham because Hirsch is not going. If someone else,
> you will say, "Well, MChess would have thrashed him." If Hirsch went, and
> didn't win, you wouldn't be able to say this.
>
> doesn't have more to lose by not going than anyone else does.
>
> think the ICCA should take care to assure the safety of the participants, and
> I am not certain this has been done well enough in this case. Americans who
> are travelling to Indonesia are doing so against the advice of the US State
> Department. This is a decidedly unpleasant prospect.
>
Are you aware that the funding for this tournament is direct from
Indonesian government, and not from the university as had been
assumed ?
Does this make any difference ?
Chris Whittington
brucemo
> MCP is a commercial program, and the title has promotional
> value. Hirsch is forgoing that. his act of conscience means that he
> definitely won't be able to advertise MCP as "winner of WMCCC 1996".
> don't try to tell me that is without value.
>
> >doesn't have more to lose by not going than anyone else does.
>
> then answer me -who- has more to lose, -what- it is that they will lose,
> and -how- it is more valuable than what Hirsch is giving up.
>
> >think the ICCA should take care to assure the safety of the participants, and
> >I am not certain this has been done well enough in this case. Americans who
> >are travelling to Indonesia are doing so against the advice of the US State
> >Department. This is a decidedly unpleasant prospect.
>
> sufficient, consider that whatever glory you might gain if you win
> will be lessened by the fact that some of the strongest competitors
> were absent. whatever honor you might gain will be tainted ("in many
> people's minds") by the dishonor of having participated in a public
> relations effort of a bloody dictatorship.
>
> it isn't worth it.
I don't want to get involved in a gigantic war involving 200-line posts, so I'm
going to limit my responses to future posts on this topic. I also severely edited
the above.
Winning the championship has value, of course, but it doesn't necessarily have MORE
value for Hirsch than it does for anyone else. It would be a great thing for Hirsch
if MChess were to have repeated as champion, but for example imagine what would
happen if Virtual Chess won, it would be a tremendous boon to them. Everyone has
their own reasons for going, which would be sacrificed if they chose to boycott,
it's silly to suggest that all of these reasons are somehow subordinate to the
chance to achieve something that you achieved last year.
It is tacky to try to suggest that other people sacrifice for your principles.
Write your own program, enter it, then noisily withdraw from the tournament if you
wish, but please don't try to cow me into doing it. I'm not happy with what I've
heard about the situation in Indonesia, but I do not choose to boycott this
tournament. I plan to bring up a few points with the ICCA officers who are present
in Jakarta, but I will be there to do it in person. If you want, you can attempt to
assign all sorts of dark motives to my wanting to participlate in this tournament,
but you might be surprised to find out that probably 25% of my interest in going is
that I want to buy Martin Zentner and a few other selected Germans a beer or two,
assuming they have beer in Indonesia.
bruce
Walter Ravenek
In article <84234759...@cpsoft.demon.co.uk>, Chris Whittington
<chr...@cpsoft.demon.co.uk> wrote:
> Are you aware that the funding for this tournament is direct from
> Indonesian government, and not from the university as had been
> assumed ?
>
> Does this make any difference ?
I am also one of the participants of the tournament. To me it does
make a difference if the funding is direct from the Indonesian
government. I have asked David Levy whether this is the case. He
replied:
"I was told that it is the University who is the sponsor and have
not heard anything to the contrary. I suspect that what you have
read comes indirectly from Marty Hirsch.
If you find any evidence to the contrary please let me know."
Can anyone shed some light on this issue?
Apart from the above, I think it is hard to make decide what to do.
There are many places in the world where one would wish things to
be different. Russia comes to mind (Chechenia), France (nuclear
testing), the United States (capitol punishment, social security),
and so on. I think we cannot avoid making dirty hands.
The question is where to draw a line. Funding by the government
might be a criterion.
Don C. Aldrich
On Tue, 10 Sep 1996 04:38:59 -0700, brucemo <bru...@nwlink.com>
wrote:
[snip]
>that I want to buy Martin Zentner and a few other selected Germans a beer or two,
>assuming they have beer in Indonesia.
>
>bruce
Isn't Indonesia Muslim?
==Dondo
If I'm so stupid, why ain't I rich?
Don Fong
In article <512cc1$j...@news-central.tiac.net>,
James Garner <da...@laraby.tiac.net> wrote:
|Don Fong (df...@cse.ucsc.edu) wrote:
|: i thought this required no explanation, but since you disagree,
|: i will explain my reasoning: Marty Hirsch now holds the WMCCC
|: title. by not going, he is guaranteed to forfeit it. that is the
|: the most to lose.
|
| No. If he goes and he loses, then he has indeed lost. If he does
|not go, because of "political considerations", then he gets to be able to
|continue to claim that he would have won had he gone.
[...]
|: if you still disagree, then please tell me who has more to lose,
|: what it is that they will lose, and how that is greater than what
|: Marty Hirsch is giving up (the title).
|
nice try. i asked 3 questions. you answered none of them.
Robert Hyatt
Walter Ravenek (rav...@chem.vu.nl) wrote:
: In article <84234759...@cpsoft.demon.co.uk>, Chris Whittington
Here's an alternative we can all agree on. (excepting Jakarta, maybe). How
about we all agree that the WMCCC event has outlived it's utility, and we
proceed to develop a methodology to host an internet WMCCC event. No travel,
no real expenses, other than every participant would need internet access.
In this day and time, this is not a serious problem it seems. We could claim
a couple of "channels" on the server, have someone (IM/GM) comment on the games
for all to hear, another channel for programmer's comments, and maybe even
have programs display analysis for all to see. It would be nice to even
*require* that analysis be displayed, such things as target time for a move,
and so forth, so that it would be very difficult for a human to influence a
program without someone noticing.
I think it would be fun, and with the right spirit, informative as well. We
could then make the tournament as long or short as we want, maybe speeding up
the games to make them more interesting to the spectators, and allowing a
double-round-robin for example so that "color" is not an issue.
I think the first issue has to be honesty, which can be handled if we make it
mandatory that each program display some minimum set of information before,
during, and after executing a search to make a move. After that, we need to
address "round-table discussions" so that we can chat, those that want can
discuss ideas, etc... Getting commentary would be quite easy. I've already
talked to Roman about doing this on chess.net and he's quite excited about the
prospect and even started talking about paying everyone's expenses to Boston
to do it on site as one option. I'd bet he could get us GM commentary on some
of the games, from himself, or the other GM's that are frequenting his new
chess server (Alex Ivanov, Kudrin, etc...). And I'll bet we could draw *huge*
crowds on the internet doing this.
Comments, criticisms, suggestions?
Bob
Robert Hyatt
Don Fong (df...@cse.ucsc.edu) wrote:
: In article <512cc1$j...@news-central.tiac.net>,
Here's a couple:
If Ed doesn't go, and Rebel 8 is the strongest of the current group
of programs, Ed loses the most, because he's not last years champion,
and won't be this year's either.
If Richard Lang doesn't go, he's not last years champion, won't be this
year's champion, and several have conjectured that Genius is not as strong
(v4.0 vs v3.0) as it once was, which makes it even worse to not go.
All Marty loses is the chance to defend his title this year. He can
justifiably say he didn't go because of the political situation in
Jakarta, and because he was clearly the best last year, that will tag
right along with Mchess Pro this year and he doesn't lose much at all.
As I've said before, it's been a relatively common occurrence for a
micro program to do well in an event, then not participate for a while
so that they get all the marketing milage they can from that strong
showing. Eventually the "memory of glory" fades, and they jump back
in to try for another year of basking in the sun.
The person that stands to lose the most is the person that has not won
in a couple of years, yet thinks he has made enough progress that he is
near the top of the heap, because he will never know, and will never be
able to prove it to his potential market. Since Marty won last year,
this group could include Rebel, Genius, Hiarcs, ChessMaster 5000 (my
favorite of this group so far, based on games I've watched) to name
a few.
Personally, I've been to many computer chess events, and they are *not*
high-profile any longer. In the '70 era we drew huge crowds, TV cameras,
and every major newspaper on the US. Now, we draw about 50 people to each
round, 49 of which are usually connected with one of the programs. I don't
see how Indonesia is going to gain much from this, nor how boycotting the
event will do anything but hurt an event that is really put on for the
programmers, with the chess-program-buying public benefitting by seeing just
how the programs do head-to-head, although for the life of me I can't see why
this is a selling point. I'd be more interested in how it performs against
strong humans, which is a different style of chess anyway.
So, to boycott or not to boycott? that is the question. And the answer is
about as important as "does a cat always land on its feet when it falls?"
Hardly any social significance to either answer. (maybe to the cat, of
course. :) )
Chris Whittington
> : >Don Fong wrote:
> : >> hurray for Marty Hirsch! he has the most to lose by not going.
> : >> hopefully his decision will cause others to reconsider. even those
> : >> who do not care about human rights or democracy should realize that
> : >> under the circumstances the contest will be a sham.
> : >
> : >He doesn't have the most to lose by not going. He won last year.
> : i thought this required no explanation, but since you disagree,
> : i will explain my reasoning: Marty Hirsch now holds the WMCCC
> : title. by not going, he is guaranteed to forfeit it. that is the
> : highest award up for grabs at the WMCCC. therefore, Marty Hirsch has
> : lose" is somewhat subjective. i think my statement is perfectly defensible.
> : what it is that they will lose, and how that is greater than what
> : Marty Hirsch is giving up (the title).
> :
> : --- don fong ``i still want the peace dividend''
> : --
>
> events, it's been a regular practice for last year's winner to not show
> up this year. The reason: they get another year of promo's because
> they aren't exposed to the risk of losing. This is certainly not to
> say this is why Marty's not going, but several times last year's winner
> did not show up at the next tournament. It may or may not be in reference
> to Indonesia's human rights. I'm not going because of scheduling conflicts
> with a two week trip being a long time. However, Crafty's going to be there
> because someone has volunteered to operate it there. There's a chance that
> someone not going might be in protest to human rights atrocities, but there's
> also a chance that it's something else entirely...
>
Yeah, there's always the chance that people tell lies, but
it might be better to give them the benefit of the doubt for
impuning their motives, no ?
Since a program can only participate with the permission of the
author, whether or mot Crafty plays is entirely up to you.
Chris Whittington
Robert Hyatt
Chris Whittington (chr...@cpsoft.demon.co.uk) wrote:
I didn't try to imply that *anyone* was lying. I was responding to the
query about "most to lose" and clearly if you look back at past history,
last years champion not showing up next year is not exactly a rare
occurrence. Reasons are unimportant. It was not a killer issue back
then, I doubt it will be now...
Don Fong
In article <323553...@nwlink.com>, brucemo <bru...@nwlink.com> wrote:
[...]
>It is tacky to try to suggest that other people sacrifice for your
>principles.
that would be tacky and futile. instead, i am trying to convince
people to sacrifice for their own principles.
>Write your own program, enter it, then noisily withdraw
>from the tournament if you wish, but please don't try to cow me into
>doing it.
take it easy, no one is trying to "cow" you. like, we're not
arresting your family, or holding a gun to your head, or subjecting
you to electric shock and burning you with cigarettes. after all,
this is just the internet, not indonesia. oops.
>I'm not happy with what I've heard about the situation in
>Indonesia, but I do not choose to boycott this tournament.
too bad. cause even if you "win", it will be a hollow victory.
>I plan to
>bring up a few points with the ICCA officers who are present in
>Jakarta, but I will be there to do it in person. If you want, you can
>attempt to assign all sorts of dark motives to my wanting to
>participlate in this tournament,
AFAIK no one attributed any dark motives to you. if they did,
i missed it. that nagging feeling may be your conscience, rather
than anything i said.
>but you might be surprised to find
>out that probably 25% of my interest in going is that I want to buy
>Martin Zentner and a few other selected Germans a beer or two,
>assuming they have beer in Indonesia.
OK, i'm surprised. i'm surprised that this is regarded as a
sufficient excuse (or even 25% of a sufficient excuse) to ignore
the genocide and torture, not to mention the state dept advisory.
and it's funny, i had heard that modern Germans were usually very
sensitive about such things (i mean, like genocide). is having
a few beers really more important than taking a stand for human rights?
brucemo
Don C. Aldrich wrote:
>
> On Tue, 10 Sep 1996 04:38:59 -0700, brucemo <bru...@nwlink.com>
> wrote:
> [snip]
> >that I want to buy Martin Zentner and a few other selected Germans a beer or two,
> >assuming they have beer in Indonesia.
> >
>
> Isn't Indonesia Muslim?
>
> ==Dondo
> If I'm so stupid, why ain't I rich?
This is why I said, "assuming they have beer in Indonesia". Not every Muslim country is
dry, I don't know about Indonesia. I don't particularly care either way.
bruce
brucemo
Robert Hyatt wrote:
>
> Here's an alternative we can all agree on. (excepting Jakarta, maybe). How
> about we all agree that the WMCCC event has outlived it's utility, and we
> proceed to develop a methodology to host an internet WMCCC event. No travel,
> no real expenses, other than every participant would need internet access.
> In this day and time, this is not a serious problem it seems. We could claim
> a couple of "channels" on the server, have someone (IM/GM) comment on the games
> for all to hear, another channel for programmer's comments, and maybe even
> have programs display analysis for all to see. It would be nice to even
> *require* that analysis be displayed, such things as target time for a move,
> and so forth, so that it would be very difficult for a human to influence a
> program without someone noticing.
I enjoy the travelling, I like meeting people in person. I'd probably take part in an internet
competition, but it's a little like running a 100-meter dash competition by having everyone
submit their times over the telephone, something gets lost due to the excessive convenience.
bruce
Randy Muller
Don Fong wrote:
>
> after all, this is just the internet, not indonesia. oops.
>
ROTFLBCOMN!!
(...Blowing Coke Out My Nose)
Peter W. Gillgasch
Robert Hyatt <hy...@crafty.cis.uab.edu> wrote:
> Walter Ravenek (rav...@chem.vu.nl) wrote:
[ snip ]
> : Apart from the above, I think it is hard to make decide what to do.
> : There are many places in the world where one would wish things to be
> : different. Russia comes to mind (Chechenia), France (nuclear testing),
> : the United States (capitol punishment, social security), and so on. I
> : think we cannot avoid making dirty hands.
Somewhat true, although nuclear testing is cool and if the Yanks
*really* want to decimate themselves then let 'em, they have voted for
it. Ooops. Did I really say that ? :-)
> : The question is where to draw a line. Funding by the government
> : might be a criterion.
Seriously, what is the difference between the government funding the
university funding the event and the government funding the event
directly ? I think all this stuff about 'where does the money come
from?' is utter nonsense.
If it a question about going or not going and the criterion is defined
on your *personal* point of view on simple philosophical / ethical
issues after informing yourself. Not by accounting.
> Here's an alternative we can all agree on. (excepting Jakarta, maybe).
> How about we all agree that the WMCCC event has outlived it's utility, and
> we proceed to develop a methodology to host an internet WMCCC event. No
> travel, no real expenses, other than every participant would need internet
> access.
No fun, no talk, no beer, no masses of computer-illiterate chess
enthusiasts who want to buy a DEC Alpha program for their Pentium, no
picking on Richard, Frans and Johan [add your favourite here], no
sunlight once a year at someone else's expenses :-)
I am *strictly* against it. It would be as much fun as sending a disc to
Sweden. Really, it would kill those events.
AFAIK you haven't participated in any WMCCC yet otherwise you wouldn't
claim that it has "outlived it's utility". It is about 100x more fun
than the WCCC events [I cannot say anything about the ACM events since I
have never been there].
-- Peter
Don Fong
In article <5145me$v...@juniper.cis.uab.edu>,
Robert Hyatt <hy...@crafty.cis.uab.edu> wrote:
>Here's a couple:
>
>If Ed doesn't go, and Rebel 8 is the strongest of the current group
>of programs, Ed loses the most, because he's not last years champion,
>and won't be this year's either.
how can he "lose" what he doesn't have? whatever opportunity
you may think he is foregoing, Marty Hirsch is too. but in addition,
Hirsch is giving up the currently held title, which no other
player is doing or can do. you could argue that other players are
giving up "as much" as Marty Hirsch. but in order to falsify my
statement that he has the most to lose, you have to demonstrate
someone who has "more" to lose.
but it's only a side issue anyway. i salute every chess
programmer who will take a stand for human rights and democracy,
regardless of the comparative magnitude of his or her sacrifice.
and i would note that both of your proposed counter-examples are
are in fact not going. so regardless of whether their sacrifice is
greater, they evidently found it to be acceptable.
[...]
>Personally, I've been to many computer chess events, and they are *not*
>high-profile any longer. In the '70 era we drew huge crowds, TV cameras,
>and every major newspaper on the US. Now, we draw about 50 people to each
>round, 49 of which are usually connected with one of the programs. I don't
>see how Indonesia is going to gain much from this,
it's a moral issue to some people.
>nor how boycotting the
>event will do anything but hurt an event that is really put on for the
>programmers,
nor will it hurt them very much.
>with the chess-program-buying public benefitting by seeing just
>how the programs do head-to-head, although for the life of me I can't see why
>this is a selling point.
hey, if you understood those things you could probably
make big bucks in marketing, instead of being a college prof. (:-)
[...]
>So, to boycott or not to boycott? that is the question. And the answer is
>about as important as "does a cat always land on its feet when it falls?"
>Hardly any social significance to either answer. (maybe to the cat, of
>course. :) )
that applies to most any individual act or endeavor: there is
hardly any enduring significance most of what we do in life, considered
in isolation. and yet our collective actions summed over many people
and years, do have significance and will change the world for better
or worse. which side do you want to be on? IMHO that is the question.
suppose you can only make a small contribution for the better, will
you do it? if you don't, who will?
Robert Hyatt
Don Fong (df...@cse.ucsc.edu) wrote:
: In article <5145me$v...@juniper.cis.uab.edu>,
: Robert Hyatt <hy...@crafty.cis.uab.edu> wrote:
: >Here's a couple:
: >
: >If Ed doesn't go, and Rebel 8 is the strongest of the current group
: >of programs, Ed loses the most, because he's not last years champion,
: >and won't be this year's either.
:
: how can he "lose" what he doesn't have? whatever opportunity
: you may think he is foregoing, Marty Hirsch is too. but in addition,
: Hirsch is giving up the currently held title, which no other
: player is doing or can do. you could argue that other players are
: giving up "as much" as Marty Hirsch. but in order to falsify my
: statement that he has the most to lose, you have to demonstrate
: someone who has "more" to lose.
No. I just pointed out that the winner from one year has frequently
not participated the next year. In fact, they really have nothing to
gain, and a lot to lose, because if you win, and don't go, you don't
lose. Like it or not, it's happened. In fact, in the early 80's it
was *so* bad that a program would do well at one tournament of *any*
kind, and then would avoid playing anywhere for a year and live off the
"glossy image" they got at (say) the US Open, or from the CCR committee,
or from the WMCCC, etc.
My counter-example was an explanation of why this happens. You don't like
the example, tough. You don't like my explanation, tougher still. It's
happened, it's documented, so rant on. Doesn't change the facts one bit...
: but it's only a side issue anyway. i salute every chess
:
If you avoid every country that does something unethical, I suppose you are
going to put in for a place on Mir? (the russian space station)? Because
I can't imagine a single country on this planet that is always pure of heart
and pure of deed. I've visited Moscow (gross human right violations over the
years), France (testing nukes), Japan (killing whales, seals, you name it),
Germany (can you say East Berlin before the wall came down), the list goes
on. What does a computer chess tournament have to do with any of that?
I'd boycott the US just because our idiotic congress listened to morons and
have banned freon at *enormous* cost to the public. Of course, someone over-
looked that 99.96% of the chlorine that's attacking the ozone comes from the
oceans and salt water. Guess we're going to drain 'em next, or boycott until
they do? The WMCCC is an event for the *participants* more than anything
else. The host nation gets nothing, the government gets nothing, the organizer
gets nothing except maybe a little publicity in their name being cited in the
press notes that are remarkably quiet nowadays vis a vis comuputer chess.
In short, this is just another issue that belongs to the politicians. I agree
that the country's human rights record sucks with two straws, and that their
future record doesn't look any better, but if you think not playing in a
computer chess event is going to affect that one way or another, I have this
bridge that I'd like to get rid of...
Don Fong
In article <199609102103282911507@[194.121.104.138]>,
Peter W. Gillgasch <gil...@ilk.de> wrote:
>Somewhat true, although nuclear testing is cool and if the Yanks
>*really* want to decimate themselves then let 'em, they have voted for
>it. Ooops. Did I really say that ? :-)
FYI, "us yanks" did not vote for nuclear testing. if public
opinion polls can be believed, there is a solid majority against it.
[...]
>Seriously, what is the difference between the government funding the
>university funding the event and the government funding the event
>directly ? I think all this stuff about 'where does the money come
>from?' is utter nonsense.
really? does your country have a law against receiving stolen
goods? it's the same principle. one should not profit from crime,
even crime committed by others.
>If it a question about going or not going and the criterion is defined
>on your *personal* point of view on simple philosophical / ethical
>issues after informing yourself. Not by accounting.
accounting in the broad sense is an all encompassing
discipline. what where do you think the word "accountability"
comes from?
Robert Hyatt
Peter W. Gillgasch (gil...@ilk.de) wrote:
: Robert Hyatt <hy...@crafty.cis.uab.edu> wrote:
:
: > Walter Ravenek (rav...@chem.vu.nl) wrote:
:
: [ snip ]
:
: > : Apart from the above, I think it is hard to make decide what to do.
: > : There are many places in the world where one would wish things to be
: > : different. Russia comes to mind (Chechenia), France (nuclear testing),
: > : the United States (capitol punishment, social security), and so on. I
: > : think we cannot avoid making dirty hands.
: Somewhat true, although nuclear testing is cool and if the Yanks
: *really* want to decimate themselves then let 'em, they have voted for
: it. Ooops. Did I really say that ? :-)
: > : The question is where to draw a line. Funding by the government
: > : might be a criterion.
:
: Seriously, what is the difference between the government funding the
: university funding the event and the government funding the event
: directly ? I think all this stuff about 'where does the money come
: from?' is utter nonsense.
: If it a question about going or not going and the criterion is defined
: on your *personal* point of view on simple philosophical / ethical
: issues after informing yourself. Not by accounting.
: > Here's an alternative we can all agree on. (excepting Jakarta, maybe).
: > How about we all agree that the WMCCC event has outlived it's utility, and
: > we proceed to develop a methodology to host an internet WMCCC event. No
: > travel, no real expenses, other than every participant would need internet
: > access.
:
: No fun, no talk, no beer, no masses of computer-illiterate chess
: enthusiasts who want to buy a DEC Alpha program for their Pentium, no
: picking on Richard, Frans and Johan [add your favourite here], no
: sunlight once a year at someone else's expenses :-)
:
: I am *strictly* against it. It would be as much fun as sending a disc to
: Sweden. Really, it would kill those events.
:
: AFAIK you haven't participated in any WMCCC yet otherwise you wouldn't
: claim that it has "outlived it's utility". It is about 100x more fun
: than the WCCC events [I cannot say anything about the ACM events since I
: have never been there].
:
: -- Peter
Sorry. "outlived it's utility" was "tongue in cheek". I haven't been to one
yet, because until this year, I couldn't carry my machine. :) It typically
takes about $1,000,000 US bucks to install a cray computer, after you plunk
down your $60,000,000 to buy one.
However, an internet championship can be an interesting event, because everyone
is "there". I've never met Bruce Moreland personally, yet we've had dozens of
long conversations while watching Crafty vs Ferret on ICC, or we have group
discussions while a game is in progress. Not like personal visits of course,
but the price is right, and it can be made to work. However, I was serious
about Roman inquiring about hosting one of these events in Boston, and am
going to talk with him regularly about perhaps having a WMCCC event over here
next year for a change.
Bob
Don Fong
In article <5159bj$e...@juniper.cis.uab.edu>,
Robert Hyatt <hy...@crafty.cis.uab.edu> wrote:
>Don Fong (df...@cse.ucsc.edu) wrote:
>: how can he "lose" what he doesn't have? whatever opportunity
>: you may think he is foregoing, Marty Hirsch is too. but in addition,
>: Hirsch is giving up the currently held title, which no other
>: player is doing or can do. you could argue that other players are
>: giving up "as much" as Marty Hirsch. but in order to falsify my
>: statement that he has the most to lose, you have to demonstrate
>: someone who has "more" to lose.
>
>No. I just pointed out that the winner from one year has frequently
>not participated the next year. In fact, they really have nothing to
>gain, and a lot to lose, because if you win, and don't go, you don't
>lose. Like it or not, it's happened. In fact, in the early 80's it
>was *so* bad that a program would do well at one tournament of *any*
>kind, and then would avoid playing anywhere for a year and live off the
>"glossy image" they got at (say) the US Open, or from the CCR committee,
>or from the WMCCC, etc.
i'm sure Marty Hirsch knew when he made his decision that cynics
would try to impugn his motives. just add that to the cost of not going.
[...]
>If you avoid every country that does something unethical, I suppose you are
>going to put in for a place on Mir? (the russian space station)?
gee Bob with that kind of mind, you shoulda been a lawyer:
``Ladies and gentlemen of the jury, my client may have murdered
hundreds of thousands of innocent civilians, but hey, nobody's perfect.''
[...]
>I agree
>that the country's human rights record sucks with two straws, and that their
>future record doesn't look any better, but if you think not playing in a
>computer chess event is going to affect that one way or another, I have this
>bridge that I'd like to get rid of...
yes i do think it will have an effect. perhaps a small one,
but in chess we have the concept of "accumulation of small
advantages". when you do this patiently and persistently,
they can turn into a decisive advantage.
and Bob, when you crack jokes about the stupidity of boycotting
Jakarta, remember you are insulting Marty Hirsch, not Don Fong.
Don Fong
In article <5159bj$e...@juniper.cis.uab.edu>,
Robert Hyatt <hy...@crafty.cis.uab.edu> wrote:
>Of course, someone over-
>looked that 99.96% of the chlorine that's attacking the ozone comes from the
>oceans and salt water.
Bob, better stick to computer science. obviously atmospheric
science is not your forte.
Komputer Korner
Robert Hyatt wrote:
>
>
> Comments, criticisms, suggestions?
>
> Bob
This is a great idea, Bob, but we have to approach this from an
organizational framework. Why, because the results will be hyped up
so much that the competition has to be deemed fair and look fair and
be fair to all so that there can be no question of favourtism or
chicanery. Perhaps the ICCA should be approached after someone
lines up a sponsor. It should be easy to get a sponsor if the costs
are as low as you say.
--
Komputer Korner
Don Fong
In article <5159q6$e...@juniper.cis.uab.edu>,
Robert Hyatt <hy...@crafty.cis.uab.edu> wrote:
|Sorry. "outlived it's utility" was "tongue in cheek". I haven't been to one
|yet, because until this year, I couldn't carry my machine. :) It typically
|takes about $1,000,000 US bucks to install a cray computer, after you plunk
|down your $60,000,000 to buy one.
that's pushing the limits of what could be called a micro. 8-o
brucemo
Don Fong wrote:
>
> how can he "lose" what he doesn't have? whatever opportunity
> you may think he is foregoing, Marty Hirsch is too. but in addition,
> Hirsch is giving up the currently held title, which no other
> player is doing or can do. you could argue that other players are
> giving up "as much" as Marty Hirsch. but in order to falsify my
> statement that he has the most to lose, you have to demonstrate
> someone who has "more" to lose.
You keep saying this, but it doesn't make any sense. Your contention
that Hirsch has more to lose is wrong. Both Hyatt and I have pointed out
why, Hyatt a little more forcefully.
The contention Bob and I are making is that Hirsch has more to lose by
GOING than anyone else does. If he stays home he is "the 1995 champion,
who stayed home in 1996 as a matter of conscience". If he goes, and
doesn't repeat, he is "not the 1996 champion".
It's objectively in Hirsch's best interest to have as big a pall cast
over this year's tournament as is possible.
You can arrive at the point that EVERYONE has more to lose by not going
this year. I don't know what is in Hirsch's mind regarding all of this,
he probably isn't thinking of any of this stuff, it is likely that he
doesn't want to go to Indonesia because of the troubles in that country,
but the above is where I conclude that YOUR argument logically leads.
bruce
Dan Thies
In article <514j9l$t...@darkstar.ucsc.edu>, df...@cse.ucsc.edu (Don Fong) wrote:
>is having
>a few beers really more important than taking a stand for human rights?
Now don't be silly.
Dan
Dan Thies
>Here's an alternative we can all agree on. (excepting Jakarta, maybe). How
>about we all agree that the WMCCC event has outlived it's utility, and we
>proceed to develop a methodology to host an internet WMCCC event
[snip!]
>Comments, criticisms, suggestions?
>
>Bob
Bob:
I'm afraid I'd have to boycott any event held on the Internet, because it is
well known that the internet is little more than a sick den of digital
depravity, infested by pornographers, neo-nazis, and terrorists.
(removes tongue from cheek)
On the other hand, participation could be a lot higher, and you could skip
the flying around. I don't know where the fun would be - when I visited
at ACM a decade or so back there seemed to be a lot of social interaction
going on, which on FICS seems to be non-existent.
Dan
Dan Thies
>I am also one of the participants of the tournament. To me it does
>make a difference if the funding is direct from the Indonesian
>government. I have asked David Levy whether this is the case. He
>replied:
>"I was told that it is the University who is the sponsor and have
>not heard anything to the contrary. I suspect that what you have
>read comes indirectly from Marty Hirsch.
>If you find any evidence to the contrary please let me know."
>
>Can anyone shed some light on this issue?
I'll shed some light on it for you. Aside from a few very old, very
well-endowed institutions, all universities get at least some money
from their governments. What's the difference between getting
the funding direct from the government, and having it funneled
through a foundation or university?
Seems like a lot of people are just looking for what the boys at
State call "plausible deniability." Enjoy your one-way tickets.
Dan
Wolfgang Kuechle
Hi,
how many rounds will be played in Jakarta? Will we see another one of
those ridiculous 4 or 5 round swiss events? I mean in view of the nearly
equal strength of the top programs the winner of a 5 round swiss
tournament would most likely be determined by luck.
Kind regards,
Wolfgang Kuechle
brucemo
Don Fong wrote:
> OK, i'm surprised. i'm surprised that this is regarded as a
> sufficient excuse (or even 25% of a sufficient excuse) to ignore
> the genocide and torture, not to mention the state dept advisory.
> and it's funny, i had heard that modern Germans were usually very
> a few beers really more important than taking a stand for human rights?
Yes.
Even if you are having the beers in the most innocent country in the world, you have now been
educated about the awful problems in Indonesia, and as a consequence it is immoral to actually drink
the beers, instead you should donate the cost of the beers to some group that is doing something
about what is going on in Indonesia, or better yet you should give up beer for life and use the
proceeds to fly there yourself and launch yourself in a non-violent human-wave attack against the
forces of oppression in that country. Perhaps you could even burn yourself alive in the streets of
Jakarta, it would probably make the press here, might generate a tremendous amount of interest and
sympathy, leading to international sanctions, and cause hundreds of people not to die. Go for it,
Don, it's immoral not to, what's one of you compared with hundreds of Indonesians.
bruce
Dan Kirkland
In article <513tcv$s...@juniper.cis.uab.edu>,
hy...@crafty.cis.uab.edu (Robert Hyatt) writes:
>Here's an alternative we can all agree on. (excepting Jakarta, maybe). How
>about we all agree that the WMCCC event has outlived it's utility, and we
>proceed to develop a methodology to host an internet WMCCC event. No travel,
>no real expenses, other than every participant would need internet access.
>In this day and time, this is not a serious problem it seems. We could claim
>a couple of "channels" on the server, have someone (IM/GM) comment on the games
>for all to hear, another channel for programmer's comments, and maybe even
>have programs display analysis for all to see. It would be nice to even
>*require* that analysis be displayed, such things as target time for a move,
>and so forth, so that it would be very difficult for a human to influence a
>program without someone noticing.
>I think it would be fun, and with the right spirit, informative as well. We
>could then make the tournament as long or short as we want, maybe speeding up
>the games to make them more interesting to the spectators, and allowing a
>double-round-robin for example so that "color" is not an issue.
>I think the first issue has to be honesty, which can be handled if we make it
>mandatory that each program display some minimum set of information before,
>during, and after executing a search to make a move. After that, we need to
>address "round-table discussions" so that we can chat, those that want can
>discuss ideas, etc... Getting commentary would be quite easy. I've already
>talked to Roman about doing this on chess.net and he's quite excited about the
>prospect and even started talking about paying everyone's expenses to Boston
>to do it on site as one option. I'd bet he could get us GM commentary on some
>of the games, from himself, or the other GM's that are frequenting his new
>chess server (Alex Ivanov, Kudrin, etc...). And I'll bet we could draw *huge*
>crowds on the internet doing this.
>Comments, criticisms, suggestions?
>Bob
Good idea, but...
Is it REALLY going to happen?
This kind of stuff usually gets a lot of people to say
okay, let's do it, then NOTHING HAPPENS!
So how to make it happen?
Well, first you will likely need some sort of committee...
I would suggest that everybody that is interested, and that
has a program to enter, send their name and email address to
Bob (hehe, gotcha!). Then when there are enough people, Bob
can post/email the list of names. And the people then on the
list can vote for a president and vice president and then you
will have a (temporary) committee.
I think a temporary committee to start. Then run some test
tournaments. This would help iron out many of the problems
that will come up. And it will give time for others to join
for something more permanent.
Okay people, don't just talk! DO SOMETHING! :)
dan
A.Mader
1. Set up a couple of computers, link them all with autoplayers.
2. Push a button, close the door.
3. Wait one week.
4. Look at the result of the tournament.
No problem to do this, but I think a championship is also a place where
programers can talk, discuss, build friendships and so on and so on...
A championship is the place with the highest "chessknowledge per
squaremeter" rate on the whole planet. I was there in Munich and I
enjoyed every day!
Best wishes
Andreas Mader
A.Mader
Don Fong wrote:
> hurray for Marty Hirsch! he has the most to lose by not going.
> hopefully his decision will cause others to reconsider. even those
> who do not care about human rights or democracy should realize that
> under the circumstances the contest will be a sham.
I don't get the point. Marty has nothing to lose!
1. - He has the title of 1995. He cannot lose this title.
2. - He cannot lose the 1996 title, because he never had it.
The only think he can lose is the reputation to be a world champion. If
you see it this way you are right...
Andreas Mader
Garby Leon
reductio ad absurdum
fallacious argument = unsound result
you sound a little defensive
or those violent images of people being ddestroyed in indonesia are
starting to bother you
Garby Leon
Newsgroups: rec.games.chess.computer
Subject: Re: World Micro Championship - Jakarta
References: <50q0jd$g...@darkstar.ucsc.edu>
<512cc1$j...@news-central.tiac.net> <512qn2$1...@darkstar.ucsc.edu>
<5145me$v...@juniper.cis.uab.edu> <5157qu$b...@darkstar.ucsc.edu>
<5159bj$e...@juniper.cis.uab.edu>
In <5159bj$e...@juniper.cis.uab.edu> hy...@crafty.cis.uab.edu (Robert
Hyatt) writes:
snip
>In short, this is just another issue that belongs to the politicians.
I agree that the country's human rights record sucks with two straws,
and that their future record doesn't look any better, but if you think
not playing in a computer chess event is going to affect that one way
or another, I have this bridge that I'd like to get rid of...
with all due respect
'sucks with two straws' doesn't quite get across the magnitude and
reality of what a massacre of human beings actually is
focussing international attention, and boycotts, on egregious violators
of human rights HAS been effective -- from the prohibition of South
African teams from the olympics and international soccer tournaments,
down to the boycotting of Arizona by professional football for its
pinhead former governor's take on the Martin Luther King federal
holiday.
One thing all tyrants like is an aura of respectability.
One thing they all hate is suffering the embarrassment which comes from
attention brought to their evil deeds
If you search internet websites for information on Indonesia (as i just
did), you find an overwhelming flood of pages promoting major
commercial interests and tourism
you find almost nothing on human rights violations
business as usual is a state ideology there -- since the ruling
families own so much of the country
disrupting its aura of respectability -- even in small ways -- is worth
doing, especially by focussing attention and refusing to participate
Robert Hyatt
Don Fong (df...@cse.ucsc.edu) wrote:
: In article <5159bj$e...@juniper.cis.uab.edu>,
: Robert Hyatt <hy...@crafty.cis.uab.edu> wrote:
: >Don Fong (df...@cse.ucsc.edu) wrote:
: >: how can he "lose" what he doesn't have? whatever opportunity
: >: you may think he is foregoing, Marty Hirsch is too. but in addition,
: >: Hirsch is giving up the currently held title, which no other
: >: player is doing or can do. you could argue that other players are
: >: giving up "as much" as Marty Hirsch. but in order to falsify my
: >: statement that he has the most to lose, you have to demonstrate
: >: someone who has "more" to lose.
: >
: >No. I just pointed out that the winner from one year has frequently
: >not participated the next year. In fact, they really have nothing to
: >gain, and a lot to lose, because if you win, and don't go, you don't
: >lose. Like it or not, it's happened. In fact, in the early 80's it
: >was *so* bad that a program would do well at one tournament of *any*
: >kind, and then would avoid playing anywhere for a year and live off the
: >"glossy image" they got at (say) the US Open, or from the CCR committee,
: >or from the WMCCC, etc.
: i'm sure Marty Hirsch knew when he made his decision that cynics
: would try to impugn his motives. just add that to the cost of not going.
OK, I'll go out on a long thin limb here. Why don't *you* go to Jakarta?
I'll try to incite the natives and have 'em waiting for you. Since you want
to continually put some sort of ulterior motive into my remarks. NOW READ
THIS: I did not "impugne" (note correct spelling) Marty's motives, I've
known him for many years. I simply pointed out that in many prior tournaments
the previous winner did not show up at the next event. It's *YOU* that want
to make this into an insult, rather than what I intended, which was a
refutation of your inane remark.
:
: [...]
: >If you avoid every country that does something unethical, I suppose you are
: >going to put in for a place on Mir? (the russian space station)?
:
: gee Bob with that kind of mind, you shoulda been a lawyer:
: ``Ladies and gentlemen of the jury, my client may have murdered
: hundreds of thousands of innocent civilians, but hey, nobody's perfect.''
:
And with that type of response, ... ah, never mind. Impossible to discuss
something logically with someone that wants to twist and turn everything...
: [...]
: >I agree
: >that the country's human rights record sucks with two straws, and that their
: >future record doesn't look any better, but if you think not playing in a
: >computer chess event is going to affect that one way or another, I have this
: >bridge that I'd like to get rid of...
:
: yes i do think it will have an effect. perhaps a small one,
: but in chess we have the concept of "accumulation of small
: advantages". when you do this patiently and persistently,
: they can turn into a decisive advantage.
:
: and Bob, when you crack jokes about the stupidity of boycotting
: Jakarta, remember you are insulting Marty Hirsch, not Don Fong.
No, I'm insulting Don Fong. Marty I know and have known for years, and, on
occasion, get a private e-mail from him. I assume he wants to avoid what
can be a brothel-like atmosphere here at times. In any case, like so many
other threads, this has degraded to a crusade by you, and you aren't going to
accept any counter-arguments. Everything goes over your head, and as a result,
you try to divert attention by this "Ooohhhh... you insulted Marty." In my
original post about prior champions not always returning the next year, I was
careful to explain that this was not uncommon. PERIOD. That it said *nothing*
about this year's tournament, other than Marty does not have a huge amount to
lose by not going since he won last year. Believe it or not, but don't twist
*my* words into something you label an insult. I'm sure Marty knows better.
Actually, you probably do too... maybe...
:
: --
Robert Hyatt
Don Fong (df...@cse.ucsc.edu) wrote:
: In article <5159bj$e...@juniper.cis.uab.edu>,
: Robert Hyatt <hy...@crafty.cis.uab.edu> wrote:
: >Of course, someone over-
: >looked that 99.96% of the chlorine that's attacking the ozone comes from the
: >oceans and salt water.
: Bob, better stick to computer science. obviously atmospheric
: science is not your forte.
Sure is. This is *common* knowledge. Sorry you've missed the occasional
reality check that scientists provide to counter the environmental whackos...
Go to the appropriate newsgroup and ask, then come back more informed. This
is well-known...
Robert Hyatt
Dan Thies (rt...@accessone.com) wrote:
: In article <513tcv$s...@juniper.cis.uab.edu>, hy...@crafty.cis.uab.edu (Robert Hyatt) wrote:
:
: >Here's an alternative we can all agree on. (excepting Jakarta, maybe). How
: >about we all agree that the WMCCC event has outlived it's utility, and we
: [snip!]
: >Comments, criticisms, suggestions?
: >
: >Bob
:
: Bob:
:
: I'm afraid I'd have to boycott any event held on the Internet, because it is
: well known that the internet is little more than a sick den of digital
: depravity, infested by pornographers, neo-nazis, and terrorists.
:
: (removes tongue from cheek)
:
: On the other hand, participation could be a lot higher, and you could skip
: the flying around. I don't know where the fun would be - when I visited
: at ACM a decade or so back there seemed to be a lot of social interaction
: going on, which on FICS seems to be non-existent.
:
: Dan
Forgot about that. Don would still be calling for a boycott, because of
1-900-dial-a-sex that uses the same phone system as most of the internet
connections. Guess we can't do this either... :)
Robert Hyatt
Wolfgang Kuechle (kue...@theochem.uni-stuttgart.de) wrote:
: Hi,
11 rounds, as nearly all WMCCC events have been for a long time.
Robert Hyatt
brucemo (bru...@nwlink.com) wrote:
: Don Fong wrote:
: > OK, i'm surprised. i'm surprised that this is regarded as a
: > sufficient excuse (or even 25% of a sufficient excuse) to ignore
: > the genocide and torture, not to mention the state dept advisory.
: > and it's funny, i had heard that modern Germans were usually very
: > sensitive about such things (i mean, like genocide). is having
: > a few beers really more important than taking a stand for human rights?
:
: Yes.
:
: Even if you are having the beers in the most innocent country in the world, you have now been
: educated about the awful problems in Indonesia, and as a consequence it is immoral to actually drink
: the beers, instead you should donate the cost of the beers to some group that is doing something
: about what is going on in Indonesia, or better yet you should give up beer for life and use the
: proceeds to fly there yourself and launch yourself in a non-violent human-wave attack against the
: forces of oppression in that country. Perhaps you could even burn yourself alive in the streets of
: Jakarta, it would probably make the press here, might generate a tremendous amount of interest and
: sympathy, leading to international sanctions, and cause hundreds of people not to die. Go for it,
: Don, it's immoral not to, what's one of you compared with hundreds of Indonesians.
:
: bruce
Give it up Bruce, in this case you are pissing in your beer, before you drink
it. Time for this argument to fade away, because *nothing* is getting resolved.
:)
Robert Hyatt
A.Mader (andrea...@siemens.at) wrote:
: Robert Hyatt wrote:
: > Here's an alternative we can all agree on. (excepting Jakarta, maybe). How
: > about we all agree that the WMCCC event has outlived it's utility, and we
: 2. Push a button, close the door.
: 3. Wait one week.
: 4. Look at the result of the tournament.
:
: No problem to do this, but I think a championship is also a place where
: programers can talk, discuss, build friendships and so on and so on...
: A championship is the place with the highest "chessknowledge per
: squaremeter" rate on the whole planet. I was there in Munich and I
: enjoyed every day!
:
: Best wishes
This can be approximated on a chess server, since we are already doing this
regularly. The games proceed automatically, other players comment on the
moves, the programmers discuss ideas, and observers can watch silently if
they want to watch but not chat. We *could* use video over the internet to
at least have slow-motion video of the programmers if someone wants to see
a face. Far from ideal, but better than nothing of course, and the whole
thing could be watched by everyone with net access...
Robert Hyatt
:
:
: Is it REALLY going to happen?
:
: This kind of stuff usually gets a lot of people to say
: okay, let's do it, then NOTHING HAPPENS!
:
: So how to make it happen?
:
: Well, first you will likely need some sort of committee...
:
: I would suggest that everybody that is interested, and that
: has a program to enter, send their name and email address to
: Bob (hehe, gotcha!). Then when there are enough people, Bob
: can post/email the list of names. And the people then on the
: list can vote for a president and vice president and then you
: will have a (temporary) committee.
:
: I think a temporary committee to start. Then run some test
: tournaments. This would help iron out many of the problems
: that will come up. And it will give time for others to join
: for something more permanent.
:
: Okay people, don't just talk! DO SOMETHING! :)
: dan
OK. Chris and I have already discussed this here, and he had basically the
same idea. I'll serve as the initial clearing-point for those interested,
and we can then set up an email network to discuss issues as well as the
possibility of having one over here with travel provided. I'd prefer to keep
the day-to-day communications off the newsgroup, but we can certainly provide
information as things happen...
Bob
Chris Whittington
Yeah, count me in.
My two pennies:
Its true that the face-to-face tournaments are worth doing.
Beer, talk, meeting etc. etc.
The only real downside is that some people have to travel 1000's
of kilometres, give up large amounts of time and money, get jet lag ....
Its probably true that Internet tourneys would be dull in
comparison. Its true that chat is possible. But chat is no
substitute for human contact.
Possible synthesis:
Make chess centres available in selected geographic locations.
If participants want to go there, then good.
In spectators want to go to the centre, then good; otherwise
they can watch on the net.
It could even generate a bit of nationalistic fervour: Dutch, Germans,
English, Americans and so on. Spectators like that.
Connect the centres via Internet.
Lone programmers from seriously far-flung places could get exempt and
play from their base.
Finally, why not stop the 'only the programmer can enter' rule.
Anybody can enter a program.
But no more than one entry per program.
If the programmer wants to enter, he gets precedence.
And even more finally, stop the divisive amateur/professional stuff
and the divisive some people pay $1000 and some people get in free
rule.
Chris Whittington
Don Fong
In article <32366F...@nwlink.com>, brucemo <bru...@nwlink.com> wrote:
>Don Fong wrote:
>> how can he "lose" what he doesn't have? whatever opportunity
>> you may think he is foregoing, Marty Hirsch is too. but in addition,
>> Hirsch is giving up the currently held title, which no other
>> player is doing or can do. you could argue that other players are
>> giving up "as much" as Marty Hirsch. but in order to falsify my
>> statement that he has the most to lose, you have to demonstrate
>> someone who has "more" to lose.
>
>that Hirsch has more to lose is wrong. Both Hyatt and I have pointed out
>why, Hyatt a little more forcefully.
and both your arguments are bogus, as i've pointed out.
i stated my opinion that Hirsch has the most to lose. you and
Hyatt have stated your opinion (and that's what it is, nothing more)
that he doesn't. your opinion might charitably be considered
equally valid as mine, but that does not mean mine is "wrong".
>The contention Bob and I are making is that Hirsch has more to lose by
>GOING than anyone else does. If he stays home he is "the 1995 champion,
>who stayed home in 1996 as a matter of conscience". If he goes, and
>doesn't repeat, he is "not the 1996 champion".
you conveniently forgot one of the possibilities: he is losing
the chance to "go, and win, and be the 1996 champion".
>It's objectively in Hirsch's best interest to have as big a pall cast
>over this year's tournament as is possible.
that doesn't sound very "objective" to me.
>You can arrive at the point that EVERYONE has more to lose by not going
>this year. I don't know what is in Hirsch's mind regarding all of this,
>he probably isn't thinking of any of this stuff, it is likely that he
>doesn't want to go to Indonesia because of the troubles in that country,
>but the above is where I conclude that YOUR argument logically leads.
huh? get some sleep Bruce. i never said anything like the above.
i'm afraid this relatively minor point is detracting from the main
issues. i don't understand why you and Hyatt are so intent on trashing
Hirsch, but i'd rather get back to the more important issues. let me
put it this way. i salute -any- chess programmer who takes a stand for
human rights, regardless of whether s/he has more at stake than Hirsch.
do you think -you- have more to lose than Hirsch?
Robert Hyatt
Chris Whittington (chr...@cpsoft.demon.co.uk) wrote:
I haven't followed the WMCCC event "procedures" in many years. If, as you've
said, the commercial vs non-commercial issue has been corrupted, and from what
you've said it certainly sounds wrong, it should change.
For the internet championship, I'd draw no lines at all, personally. No entry
fee of any kind, and your idea of each program entering sounds good, with the
author getting first choice. Would guarantee a genius, a fritz, an Mchess Pro,
a Crafty, a <you name it>, which would add something over past events with notable
programs missing (such as this year it seems.)
The "center" idea is doable. I'd suggest picking a single chess server
to run it on, and since Roman has shown interest, I'd personally start there,
and allow remote entries to come in direct via internet, with maybe a couple
of central sites if arrangements can be made and interest is high enough, but
with the games still played on *the* server where ever it might be.
Still think it will be fun, as I've enjoyed the reparte' in channel 64, as
well as what goes on when several dozen people observe Crafty vs some GM.
The discussions are lively, informative, and, when we get a GM into the
conversation, really interesting in that we rarely get a GM to say anything
at an ACM or WCCC event. In fact, we rarely get one to *attend*. :) Here,
it's simple...
Don Fong
In article <5169cl$r...@juniper.cis.uab.edu>,
Robert Hyatt <hy...@crafty.cis.uab.edu> wrote:
>Don Fong (df...@cse.ucsc.edu) wrote:
>: i'm sure Marty Hirsch knew when he made his decision that cynics
>: would try to impugn his motives. just add that to the cost of not going.
>NOW READ THIS: I did not "impugne" (note correct spelling) Marty's
>motives,
LOL!!! hey Bob, are you by any chance related to Dan Quayle? (:-) (:-)
Robert Hyatt
Don Fong (df...@cse.ucsc.edu) wrote:
: In article <32366F...@nwlink.com>, brucemo <bru...@nwlink.com> wrote:
: >Don Fong wrote:
: >> how can he "lose" what he doesn't have? whatever opportunity
: >> you may think he is foregoing, Marty Hirsch is too. but in addition,
: >> Hirsch is giving up the currently held title, which no other
: >> player is doing or can do. you could argue that other players are
: >> giving up "as much" as Marty Hirsch. but in order to falsify my
: >> statement that he has the most to lose, you have to demonstrate
: >> someone who has "more" to lose.
: >
: >You keep saying this, but it doesn't make any sense. Your contention
: >that Hirsch has more to lose is wrong. Both Hyatt and I have pointed out
: >why, Hyatt a little more forcefully.
:
: and both your arguments are bogus, as i've pointed out.
: i stated my opinion that Hirsch has the most to lose. you and
: Hyatt have stated your opinion (and that's what it is, nothing more)
: that he doesn't. your opinion might charitably be considered
: equally valid as mine, but that does not mean mine is "wrong".
However, either a lot of past winners are ignorant, or else your statement
is bogus, because they *did* elect to not play, and the reasons were *not*
political protests back then. It was simple *marketing*. They apparently
thought that they had more to lose by going than by not going, exactly as
Bruce, I, and others have pointed out. You don't want to believe it, that's
your right, because it's *all* opinion. However, if enough people do something,
I try to figure out just why. In this case, it's "well known."
:
: >The contention Bob and I are making is that Hirsch has more to lose by
: >GOING than anyone else does. If he stays home he is "the 1995 champion,
: >who stayed home in 1996 as a matter of conscience". If he goes, and
: >doesn't repeat, he is "not the 1996 champion".
:
: you conveniently forgot one of the possibilities: he is losing
: the chance to "go, and win, and be the 1996 champion".
Yes, but the chances are *very* low, and the luck factor is still quite
high. For *any* program to win, even if it's 100 rating points better
than all the rest, is still not something you'd want to bet the house
on. When you evaluate the risk, the potential gain, and the potential
loss, in reality the potential loss outweighs the potential gain. Were
I writing a commercial chess program, I'd expect my VP for sales to point
this out rather forcefully.
:
: >It's objectively in Hirsch's best interest to have as big a pall cast
: >over this year's tournament as is possible.
:
: that doesn't sound very "objective" to me.
:
: >You can arrive at the point that EVERYONE has more to lose by not going
: >this year. I don't know what is in Hirsch's mind regarding all of this,
: >he probably isn't thinking of any of this stuff, it is likely that he
: >doesn't want to go to Indonesia because of the troubles in that country,
: >but the above is where I conclude that YOUR argument logically leads.
:
: huh? get some sleep Bruce. i never said anything like the above.
:
: i'm afraid this relatively minor point is detracting from the main
: issues. i don't understand why you and Hyatt are so intent on trashing
: Hirsch, but i'd rather get back to the more important issues. let me
: put it this way. i salute -any- chess programmer who takes a stand for
: human rights, regardless of whether s/he has more at stake than Hirsch.
Jesus, what a moron. I guess it's pointless to point out one more time that
no one is trashing Marty. We've both simply explained why not going to any
computer chess tournament after winning the prior one is not uncommon. It
is *not* unethical to avoid competition and bask in last year's glory. That's
taught in Marketing 101. If Marty is not going in protest of the human rights
issues, so what? Neither Bruce nor I have said he's not going to dodge playing
and losing. We've clearly said that if he doesn't go, he's actually helping
his potential sales in the likely event that he doesn't win again. He may
well have the best program in the world, but winning a computer chess event
takes more than that alone, unfortunately. So, drop trying to make my comments
aspersions on Marty or his motives. They are *not*. I'm trying to explain
(apparently to a brick wall intellect) that his not going is *not* a big
sacrifice.
There *is* an issue here however, that I'll explain from a personal perspective.
In 1983, Cray Blitz won the world championship, and repeated in 1986. In 1987
Deep Thought came along and was clearly better, winning the ACM events until the
next World Championship in 1989. In 1989 I really didn't want to go to Alberta,
for many reasons, none political. I had just started work at UAB, I had just
finished my Ph.D. and was tired of parallel search and computer chess, I had to
pay my own way to Alberta, a non-trivial cost, make machine arrangements, etc.
In short, I knew we had virtually no chance of winning, because I knew how good
Deep Thought was. I elected to go *anyway* because I felt I owed that to Hsu
and the rest of the programs that were going. I went there, took my lumps, to
avoid any possible "DB won, but the big Cray wasn't there, so we'll never really
know..." I went, I lost, I graciously shook their hands when we resigned, and
I've kept right on playing and working at my own pace.
Personally, I believe that any prior year winner has a moral obligation to attend
to avoid this kind of "what if..." but if Marty feels strongly enough about the
situation over there, that's his choice to make. Knowing him, I assume he's
weighed the merits of going vs not, in the above context. I'll trust his
judgement there...
:
: do you think -you- have more to lose than Hirsch?
:
No, because *I'm* going... If I don't, I'll *never* have a chance to be the
WMCCC champion. He already has. Pretty simple, really, *if* you think about
it...
Chris Whittington
brucemo <bru...@nwlink.com> wrote:
>
> Don Fong wrote:
> >
> > how can he "lose" what he doesn't have? whatever opportunity
> > you may think he is foregoing, Marty Hirsch is too. but in addition,
> > Hirsch is giving up the currently held title, which no other
> > player is doing or can do. you could argue that other players are
> > giving up "as much" as Marty Hirsch. but in order to falsify my
> > statement that he has the most to lose, you have to demonstrate
> > someone who has "more" to lose.
>
> You keep saying this, but it doesn't make any sense. Your contention
> that Hirsch has more to lose is wrong. Both Hyatt and I have pointed out
> why, Hyatt a little more forcefully.
>
> GOING than anyone else does. If he stays home he is "the 1995 champion,
> who stayed home in 1996 as a matter of conscience". If he goes, and
> doesn't repeat, he is "not the 1996 champion".
>
> over this year's tournament as is possible.
>
> this year. I don't know what is in Hirsch's mind regarding all of this,
> he probably isn't thinking of any of this stuff, it is likely that he
> doesn't want to go to Indonesia because of the troubles in that country,
> but the above is where I conclude that YOUR argument logically leads.
>
If a graph of 'going to Jakarta' or 'chess tournament more important
than human rights' or some similar glib description of those going
or supporting it and some also glib description of those not going
against 'amount of knowledge in chess program' or 'belief in the
search way rather than the eval function way' got plotted;
would there be any correlation ...... ?
I think so. :)
Chris Whittington
Chris Whittington
Wolfgang Kuechle <kue...@theochem.uni-stuttgart.de> wrote:
>
> Hi,
>
> how many rounds will be played in Jakarta? Will we see another one of
> those ridiculous 4 or 5 round swiss events? I mean in view of the nearly
> equal strength of the top programs the winner of a 5 round swiss
> tournament would most likely be determined by luck.
>
> Kind regards,
> Wolfgang Kuechle
11
Chris Whittington
brucemo
Chris Whittington wrote:
> Finally, why not stop the 'only the programmer can enter' rule.
>
> Anybody can enter a program.
> But no more than one entry per program.
> If the programmer wants to enter, he gets precedence.
I'm adamently opposed to this. The owner of a program should get a say in what events they
compete in, and in what hardware/software configuration is used.
bruce
brucemo
Wolfgang Kuechle wrote:
>
> Hi,
>
> how many rounds will be played in Jakarta? Will we see another one of
> those ridiculous 4 or 5 round swiss events? I mean in view of the nearly
> equal strength of the top programs the winner of a 5 round swiss
> tournament would most likely be determined by luck.
>
> Kind regards,
> Wolfgang Kuechle
Last year's event (in Paderborn) was 11 rounds, partly in response to
general criticism of the 5-round format at the WCCC in Hong Kong.
bruce
Eric Hallsworth
In article <323667...@theochem.uni-stuttgart.de>, Wolfgang Kuechle
<kue...@theochem.uni-stuttgart.de> writes
>Hi,
>
>how many rounds will be played in Jakarta? Will we see another one of
>those ridiculous 4 or 5 round swiss events? I mean in view of the nearly
>equal strength of the top programs the winner of a 5 round swiss
>tournament would most likely be determined by luck.
More likely a four round all-play-all from the sound of things!?
--
Best wishes,
Eric Hallsworth, Computer Chess Magazine, The Red House,
46 High Street, Wilburton, Cambs CB6 3RA
Don C. Aldrich
On 11 Sep 1996 12:00:12 GMT, hy...@crafty.cis.uab.edu (Robert Hyatt)
wrote:
>
>: >Here's an alternative we can all agree on. (excepting Jakarta, maybe). How
>: >about we all agree that the WMCCC event has outlived it's utility, and we
>: >proceed to develop a methodology to host an internet WMCCC event
>: [snip!]
>: >Comments, criticisms, suggestions?
>: >
>: >Bob
As a non-participant but interested observer, this is a wonderful
idea. I am not sure why it has to *replace* the WMCC, unless the time
to do both is too prohibitive.
No, there would be no actual social interaction, but as anyone who has
attended an event on ICC or FICS knows, the virtual interaction can be
quite entertaining.
Couple of other thoughts...not that Intel has given on up on PCA, do
you think they might be interested in sponsoring something else?
Something like the Intel Micro Computer World Internet Championship?
Now, let's see, who else might be interested in getting involved in a
sponsorship way with an Internet chess/computer championship...Some
really big software company trying to make a mark on the net...
Another idea, to make it really newsworthy... throw in a couple of
humans. If you got a sponsor to pay some significant prizes, you
probably could get some top level GMs involved, and not for all that
much actually. Insofar as the actual cost of the event is virtually
nil, twenty or thirty grand from a sponsor could make it pretty
intriguing....
Just some random thoughts.
Best,
==Dondo
If I'm so stupid, why ain't I rich?
Don Fong
Bob, i have been arguing for people to stay away; it would make
no sense for me to go myself. Human Rights Watch, and others, have
called for a suspension of trade delegations visits and state visits.
however, you and Bruce Moreland have cut me to the quick with your
remarks that i'm not doing enough. therefore i will make an additional
donation to Amnesty International.
[...]
>: >If you avoid every country that does something unethical, I suppose you are
>: >going to put in for a place on Mir? (the russian space station)?
>:
>: gee Bob with that kind of mind, you shoulda been a lawyer:
>: ``Ladies and gentlemen of the jury, my client may have murdered
>: hundreds of thousands of innocent civilians, but hey, nobody's perfect.''
>
>And with that type of response, ... ah, never mind.
it is a true and fitting response. Suharto has murdered
hundreds of thousands of people. and you (among others) have argued
``but there is no country which has never done a wrong'', ie,
``nobody's perfect''. however, while it is probably true that
all countries have committed some wrong, it is not true (as you
implicitly assume) that all wrongs morally equivalent.
>Impossible to discuss
>something logically with someone that wants to twist and turn everything...
the irony is overwhelming... (:-)
[...]
>: >I agree
>: >that the country's human rights record sucks with two straws, and that their
>: >future record doesn't look any better, but if you think not playing in a
>: >computer chess event is going to affect that one way or another, I have this
>: >bridge that I'd like to get rid of...
[...]
>: and Bob, when you crack jokes about the stupidity of boycotting
>: Jakarta, remember you are insulting Marty Hirsch, not Don Fong.
>
>No, I'm insulting Don Fong.
Bob, it is Marty Hirsch who is boycotting the event. if that
is a stupid thing to do (per your "bridge selling" remark above),
then it is Marty Hirsch who is being "stupid".
Don Fong
In article <5169gt$r...@juniper.cis.uab.edu>,>: In article <5159bj$e...@juniper.cis.uab.edu>,
>: Robert Hyatt <hy...@crafty.cis.uab.edu> wrote:
>: >Of course, someone over-
>: >looked that 99.96% of the chlorine that's attacking the ozone comes from the
>: >oceans and salt water.
>:
>: Bob, better stick to computer science. obviously atmospheric
>: science is not your forte.
>
>Sure is. This is *common* knowledge. Sorry you've missed the occasional
>reality check that scientists provide to counter the environmental whackos...
>
>Go to the appropriate newsgroup and ask, then come back more informed. This
>is well-known...
Bob, let me tell you a secret: a lot of well-known common
knowledge turns out to be false.
IMHO sci.environment is an appropriate newsgroup. go, read the
ozone depletion FAQ from that newsgroup. the ascii version can be
ftp-ed from rtfm.mit.edu, or you can visit
http://www.cis.ohio-state.edu/hypertext/faq/usenet/ozone-depletion/top.html
hint: if you're impatient, you can click on
"part II: stratospheric chlorine and bromine" then
"1.1) where does the chlorine in the stratosphere come from?"
but you will probably want to read the whole thing. it's fascinating.
and Bob, if you really believe that the CFC restrictions (which
are indeed costly) were instituted at the behest of "environmental whackos"
without listening to Scientists (with a capital s), then i'd say you
need a bit of a reality check yourself, not to mention a history lesson.
PS remember your blooper about DNA and proteins?
think twice when someone challenges you on matters
of scientific fact.
Don Fong
In article <5159q6$e...@juniper.cis.uab.edu>,
Robert Hyatt <hy...@crafty.cis.uab.edu> wrote:
>Sorry. "outlived it's utility" was "tongue in cheek". I haven't been to one
>yet, because until this year, I couldn't carry my machine. :) It typically
^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
>takes about $1,000,000 US bucks to install a cray computer, after you plunk
>down your $60,000,000 to buy one.
uh oh, Bob must have started eating his spinach.
Chris Long
In article <5157qu$b...@darkstar.ucsc.edu>, Don Fong <df...@cse.ucsc.edu> wrote:
>IMHO that is the question. suppose you can only make a small
>contribution for the better, will you do it? if you don't, who will?
You are assuming that boycotting Jakarta is a positive action, while
I believe it to be a negative one, both for the Timorese and for
computer chess.
--
Chris Long, Department of Statistics, Rutgers Univeristy
Score: 0, Diff: 1, clong killed by a Harvard Math Team on 1
Komputer Korner
Bob, these guys are doing it to you again. Getting your blood
pressure up. There are more important matters.
--
Komputer Korner
brucemo
Don Fong wrote:
>[snip]
> i don't understand why you and Hyatt are so intent on trashing
> Hirsch, but i'd rather get back to the more important issues. let me
> put it this way. i salute -any- chess programmer who takes a stand for
> human rights, regardless of whether s/he has more at stake than Hirsch.
I'm going to skip responding to the snipped-out portion of this, rather than
repeat myself. We're obviously going back and forth for no good reason.
I'm not trashing on Hirsch, nor is Hyatt. You've cheered for person X
because he is not going, and you've indicated that you think that person X
deserves an additional cheer because he has more to lose by not going than anyone
else does. My only expressed disagreement is with the last clause of this. I've
never met Hirsch, I have no reason to dislike him.
bruce
mcl...@prima.ruhr.de
snip...
>:
>: 1. Set up a couple of computers, link them all with autoplayers.
>: 2. Push a button, close the door.
>: 3. Wait one week.
>: 4. Look at the result of the tournament.
>:
>: No problem to do this, but I think a championship is also a place where
>: programers can talk, discuss, build friendships and so on and so on...
>: A championship is the place with the highest "chessknowledge per
>: squaremeter" rate on the whole planet. I was there in Munich and I
>: enjoyed every day!
>:
>: Best wishes
>
>This can be approximated on a chess server, since we are already doing this
>regularly. The games proceed automatically, other players comment on the
>moves, the programmers discuss ideas, and observers can watch silently if
>they want to watch but not chat. We *could* use video over the internet to
>at least have slow-motion video of the programmers if someone wants to see
>a face. Far from ideal, but better than nothing of course, and the whole
>thing could be watched by everyone with net access...
>
Now we have it!!!
This is what we need.
No ICCA will *organise* the next championship in
the next riot/war area of the world.
No cheating will be possible by HAVING NO SPECIAL RULES FOR THIS
SPECIAL CIRCUMSTANCES so that Levy or Van den Herik decide
by randomn what will happen next.
No idle roundabout, not many costs.
Video screen showing how Ossi Weiner colors from
white into green when Genius is again exchanging the
fianchetto-bishop because it does not know about
NOT DOING THIS.
Video screen in Chris when CSTal is underpromoting
into a bishop although it could have mated with a rook or
a queen.
Video screen with stereo sound when Marty HIrsch is playing
prokofievs piano concerto no.3.
Video screen on a dark dressed guy hurling his handcuffs
with a big shout: Got'you ! on a small, thin guy
called Czubix, protesting: I am a pazifist!!!
When does it start? Please try it!
One question: how do we get the nice smell of Cock de
Gorters pipe through the net?
Goran Grottling
Robert Hyatt wrote:
>While your logic is good, if you look back at the history of the WMCCC
>events, it's been a regular practice for last year's winner to not show
>up this year. The reason: they get another year of promo's because
>they aren't exposed to the risk of losing.
I wasn't aware of this. Richard Lang won the Micro Championship about ten years in a row with
his Geniusprogram from 1984. That must mean that he always participated the next year, ehhh? So
please give me some examples, when the winner didn't participate the next event! There must be
plenty which I have forgotten, since you wrote "regular practice". :)
My best regards,
Goran
Bill Newton
In article <516hr2$1...@darkstar.ucsc.edu>, Don Fong <df...@cse.ucsc.edu>
writes
>In article <5169cl$r...@juniper.cis.uab.edu>,
>Robert Hyatt <hy...@crafty.cis.uab.edu> wrote:
>>Don Fong (df...@cse.ucsc.edu) wrote:
>>: i'm sure Marty Hirsch knew when he made his decision that cynics
>>: would try to impugn his motives. just add that to the cost of not going.
>[...]
>>NOW READ THIS: I did not "impugne" (note correct spelling) Marty's
>>motives,
>
>LOL!!! hey Bob, are you by any chance related to Dan Quayle? (:-) (:-)
Now Now, Bob's no potatoe head. Maybe a little tired with all his
postings!! ;-)
--
Bill Newton
Robert Hyatt
Don Fong (df...@cse.ucsc.edu) wrote:
: In article <5169gt$r...@juniper.cis.uab.edu>,: >: In article <5159bj$e...@juniper.cis.uab.edu>,
: >: Robert Hyatt <hy...@crafty.cis.uab.edu> wrote:
: >: >Of course, someone over-
: >: >looked that 99.96% of the chlorine that's attacking the ozone comes from the
: >: >oceans and salt water.
: >:
: >: Bob, better stick to computer science. obviously atmospheric
: >: science is not your forte.
: >
: >Sure is. This is *common* knowledge. Sorry you've missed the occasional
: >reality check that scientists provide to counter the environmental whackos...
: >
: >Go to the appropriate newsgroup and ask, then come back more informed. This
: >is well-known...
:
: Bob, let me tell you a secret: a lot of well-known common
: knowledge turns out to be false.
: IMHO sci.environment is an appropriate newsgroup. go, read the
: ozone depletion FAQ from that newsgroup. the ascii version can be
: ftp-ed from rtfm.mit.edu, or you can visit
:
: http://www.cis.ohio-state.edu/hypertext/faq/usenet/ozone-depletion/top.html
:
: hint: if you're impatient, you can click on
: "part II: stratospheric chlorine and bromine" then
: "1.1) where does the chlorine in the stratosphere come from?"
: but you will probably want to read the whole thing. it's fascinating.
:
: and Bob, if you really believe that the CFC restrictions (which
: are indeed costly) were instituted at the behest of "environmental whackos"
: without listening to Scientists (with a capital s), then i'd say you
: need a bit of a reality check yourself, not to mention a history lesson.
There's just as many (if not more) scientists that believe that the CFC
"scare" is just that. However, this is the wrong newsgroup to argue that
point in, I've been following it in a couple of other newsgroups for years.
Your pointer above is just *one*. There are hundreds of other "non-liberal"
explanations for the ozone depletion. Give me a break... I believe it was
NASA that came up with the NaCl simulation that started this anti-thread...
Robert Hyatt
Bill Newton (not...@demon.co.uk) wrote:
: In article <516hr2$1...@darkstar.ucsc.edu>, Don Fong <df...@cse.ucsc.edu>
: writes
: >In article <5169cl$r...@juniper.cis.uab.edu>,: >>: i'm sure Marty Hirsch knew when he made his decision that cynics
: >>: would try to impugn his motives. just add that to the cost of not going.
: >[...]
: >>NOW READ THIS: I did not "impugne" (note correct spelling) Marty's
: >>motives,
: >
: >LOL!!! hey Bob, are you by any chance related to Dan Quayle? (:-) (:-)
:
: Now Now, Bob's no potatoe head. Maybe a little tired with all his
: postings!! ;-)
: --
: Bill Newton
Nope. I had a string that ended in n" and was wrong. When I fixed it, I
was sloppy and did a global substitute after I'd entered "impugn", when the
spell-checker found my error. I should have run spell again and this would
not have happened, but with only one error, and one fix, I "assumed".. :)
I later deleted the line with the error anyway, so it was all for naught...
Robert Hyatt
Don Fong (df...@cse.ucsc.edu) wrote:
: In article <5159q6$e...@juniper.cis.uab.edu>,
: Robert Hyatt <hy...@crafty.cis.uab.edu> wrote:
: >Sorry. "outlived it's utility" was "tongue in cheek". I haven't been to one
: >yet, because until this year, I couldn't carry my machine. :) It typically
: ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
: >takes about $1,000,000 US bucks to install a cray computer, after you plunk
: >down your $60,000,000 to buy one.
:
: uh oh, Bob must have started eating his spinach.
Nope, I'm now running on a Micro...
Chris Long
>Human Rights Watch, and others, have called for a suspension of trade
>delegations visits and state visits.
Such tactics have never worked in the past, and in my opinion you do
more harm than good by isolating them. The only real solutions as
I see it are business as usual, in mild situations, hoping that
they'll be enlightened from enough outside contact. In more serious
situations, you probably have a moral obligation to physically
intervene.
Robert Hyatt
Goran Grottling (goran.g...@mailbox.swipnet.se) wrote:
:
First, he didn't win 10 years in a row, and second Genius is pretty recent.
Mephisto was the name until the late 80's, not sure exactly when. Fidelity
won almost many as he did in the early 80's, but I'll see if I can dig up
the WMCCC crosstables from my files, since I didn't follow this very closely
not being a participant.
However, and this is the "biggee", the WMCCC was not the only thing going
back then. Almost every year, someone would enter 4 programs at the US
open, and if one did well, that program didn't compete anywhere for a while
so that result wouldn't be replaced by a worse one. I remember once where
Dave's program (Par Excellence back then if I recall correctly) produced a
2200+ performance rating, and then seeing Fidelity come out with an add that
made light of it because he didn't enter the next computer chess tournament.
Garby Leon
How many hundreds of thousands of deaths does it take before you get
'serious'?
If your interim response to this is 'business as usual' as a solution,
that says it all.
What would your opinion be if the tournament were to be held in
Baghdad?
I seem to recall that issue came up recently. Result: no chess in
Baghdad.
Perhaps you can justify the difference between holding a tournament in
Jakarta and Baghdad. Be my guest.
Chris Whittington
You didn't fool me, I knew you were a program all along :)
Chris Whittington
Chris Long
In article <519gv4$8...@dfw-ixnews5.ix.netcom.com>,
Garby Leon <ga...@ix.netcom.com> wrote:
>How many hundreds of thousands of deaths does it take before you get
>'serious'?
Hundreds of thousands is par for the course for our species. How many
Iraqis, for example, did the US kill during Desert Storm? There are
always alternatives.
>What would your opinion be if the tournament were to be held in
>Baghdad?
What problems do you have with Iraq?
>Perhaps you can justify the difference between holding a tournament in
>Jakarta and Baghdad. Be my guest.
There might be safety concerns in Iraq, since for some reason they
aren't overly fond of certain countries right now. Other than that,
I believe holding a tournament in either country would have a mild
beneficial effect.
--
Chris Long, Department of Statistics, Rutgers Univeristy
Score: 0, Diff: 1, clong killed by a Harvard Math Team on 1
brucemo
Chris Long wrote:
> There might be safety concerns in Iraq, since for some reason they
> aren't overly fond of certain countries right now. Other than that,
> I believe holding a tournament in either country would have a mild
> beneficial effect.
I would be somewhat concerned about getting a 2000 lb smart-bomb
dropped on me in Iraq, or getting hit by a cruise missile.
bruce
Chris Whittington
Wolfgang Kuechle <kue...@theochem.uni-stuttgart.de> wrote:
>
> Hi,
>
> how many rounds will be played in Jakarta? Will we see another one of
> those ridiculous 4 or 5 round swiss events? I mean in view of the nearly
> equal strength of the top programs the winner of a 5 round swiss
> tournament would most likely be determined by luck.
>
> Wolfgang Kuechle
Its 11 rounds for gentiles and 0 for jews.
Everybody still going ?
Bob ? Martin ? Bruce ?
You can win the Ayran tournament .......
World Micro Champion 1996 (Ayran section)
Chris Whittington
brucemo
Chris Whittington wrote:
> Its 11 rounds for gentiles and 0 for jews.
>
> Everybody still going ?
>
> Bob ? Martin ? Bruce ?
>
> You can win the Ayran tournament .......
>
> World Micro Champion 1996 (Ayran section)
Marsland's mail reads as if the Indonesian government would not allow the Israeli team to go.
This, and other circumstances surrounding this tournament concerned me, so I sent e-mail to
Tony Marsland, and had a subsequent telephone conversation with him.
It sounds as if most of the problem is that Israel and Indonesia don't have diplomatic
relations. This makes it hard for a national of one country to get a visa to visit the other
country. It sounds like something complicated and/or confused this process and things broke
down. This is considerably softer than what you can conclude after having read Marsland's
post, and doesn't justify the imflammatory tone of Whittington's post. Marsland was trying to
be brief and appears to have been too brief.
Chris, if you don't want to go, please just withdraw from the tournament, state your reason
here if you wish, then keep quiet, and let other people decide what to do on their own. I will
be very disappointed if the "Aryan" theme in your post is expanded upon in rather obvious ways
in the future. Also, your views regarding the ICCA have been made plain in here in the past,
so if you do attempt to get other people to join this boycott, please make it plain as to who
you are attempting to punish, Indonesia or the ICCA. If you want to pour gasoline on this and
start blowing air on it, please tell us honestly what you are trying to burn down.
I have not been told officially who the Israelis who are not attending are, but I know who they
are anyway. I have met one member of the team, and his wife, in person, and have had extensive
conversations with the other team member via the net. He sent me a present to give to my
daughter after she was born. I would have enjoyed seeing any or all of these folks in Jakarta,
regret that they aren't going, and look forward to seeing them next year and/or at other
events.
But I'm still going to go to this event. I think that Marsland and Levy have organized this
event as best they can, and I see no reason to attempt to disrupt the event by boycotting it,
especially at this late date. This punishes the ICCA and the other participants, and does
nothing substantial to the Indonesian government.
Regarding Marty Hirsch, I am sorry that he couldn't attend this year's event. I have nothing
but respect for decisions made according to conscience, which is what everything I have heard
leads me to believe happened in this case. I insinuate nothing else. I hope that he can
attend next year's event.
bruce
Shay Bushinsky
Hello fellow programmers,
On behalf of Amir Ban and myself (programmers of Junior) I would like
to thank those of you who
expressed their opinion against the banning of Junior from the Jakarta
tournament.
We can only confirm Mr. Tony Marsland's (ICCA) note that the banning of
Junior is on the basis of
political reasons (Indonesia not recognizing the state of Israel).
We were one of the first teams who wanted to play in these
championships but who soon found it impossible to participate indeed due
to the ICCA mistake
not to insist beforehand that the host country must accept all of the
ICCA elected teams.
As we gradually learn that many of the other teams will not participate
in this tournament,
we feel that another tournament must soon take place, giving all
parties a chance to
participate.
We view these tournaments as a vital instrument to the advance of
computer chess.
In our opinion, any 2 year delay means a new generation of programs
skipped.
We urge to hold another tournament as soon as possible and thus to
correct the Jakarta mistake.
Best Wishes,
-- Shay Bushinsky & Amir Ban,
Tel-Aviv, Israel
--
-------------------------------------
Name: Shay Bushinsky
E-mail: Shay Bushinsky <sh...@spl.co.il>
Voice: +972-3-5388-352
Fax: +972-3-5331-155
-------------------------------------
Dirk Frickenschmidt
brucemo <bru...@nwlink.com> schrieb im Beitrag
<323A6A...@nwlink.com>...
Hi Bruce,
respecting the ICCA does not necessarily mean to have respect for all of
their decisions.
Since I'm no insider, I don't know how they got the idea to play in
Indonesia.
But I must admit that I can hardly see any reason to place any major event
in the country of one of the lousiest non-democratic regimes of the world
today, hunting political opposition as well as christian belief, adding to
their anti-Jewish politics.
> It sounds as if most of the problem is that Israel and Indonesia don't
have diplomatic
> relations.
Isn't that a lot of euphemism?
To me most of the problem rather seems to be that positive events are
completely in the wrong place in countrys where human rights are not
respected at all and beliefs and national identity of certain others aren't
either.
The whole thing reminds me of the Beatles beeing naive enough to make a
tour in the land of the Marcos clan.
They soon had to notice that its never fun doing anything creative in
non-democratic zones where human rights of any kind aren't worth a bit.
>
> But I'm still going to go to this event.
I respect your decision, but it's hard for me to understand it after all
you know meanwhile. Or do you need some further information about the
Indonesian government from amnesty international or from the christian
churches?
I think that Marsland and Levy have organized this
> event as best they can, and I see no reason to attempt to disrupt the
event by boycotting it,
> especially at this late date. This punishes the ICCA and the other
participants, and does
> nothing substantial to the Indonesian government.
This is exacltly how anybody argued when participating in the 1936
Olympiad.
(To be shure: I compare the argument and not kinds and degrees of
dictatorship).
Sometimes the only question is if you are consequent regarding ethics or if
you are not.
yours Dirk
Chris Whittington
brucemo <bru...@nwlink.com> wrote:
>
> Chris Whittington wrote:
> > Its 11 rounds for gentiles and 0 for jews.
> >
> > Everybody still going ?
> >
> > Bob ? Martin ? Bruce ?
> >
> > You can win the Ayran tournament .......
> >
> > World Micro Champion 1996 (Ayran section)
>
Hmmm, arguing with you over this is not likely to be productive.
I watched the battle with Don Fong, and its clear that attacking
participants just stiffens their resolve and results in a hardening
of position.
However, I'm not just going to let this pass. What you do is
your affair, whether or not I disagree. But I don't intend
keeping quiet, nor to cease pointing at the morality of it.
>
> Marsland's mail reads as if the Indonesian government would not allow the Israeli team to go.
> This, and other circumstances surrounding this tournament concerned me, so I sent e-mail to
> Tony Marsland, and had a subsequent telephone conversation with him.
>
> It sounds as if most of the problem is that Israel and Indonesia don't have diplomatic
> relations. This makes it hard for a national of one country to get a visa to visit the other
> country. It sounds like something complicated and/or confused this process and things broke
> down. This is considerably softer than what you can conclude after having read Marsland's
> post, and doesn't justify the imflammatory tone of Whittington's post. Marsland was trying to
> be brief and appears to have been too brief.
Marsland's comments were:
'couldn't get an invite, let alone a warm welcome ....'
this sounds more than a simple 'diplomatic relations' problem.
And, anyway, Indonesia doesn't recognise Israel for just this sort
of reason, namely to make it difficult for Israelis/jews.
And, diplomatic relations, or no, they could have taken the
decision at governmental level to give a visa. Its a dictatorship,
they can do what they want. Yes visa, or no visa, there's no
parliament or court to answer to for them.
The rest of us were initially told that visas were required and
would we please deliver up our passport details; then, later, the
requirement was dropped, no need to give these details, it would
all be ok on arrival. Not if you're an Israeli though, it seems.
First the islamic countries make it difficult for Israel/Israelis.
Really they'ld like to make it difficult for jews in general, but
they don't dare, since this would mean offending the great satan
itself. *if* nobody protests their sanctions against Israel, they
will go to the next step - namely sanctions against jews in general.
Sounds far-fetched ? So did Hitler in 1933. History teaches us it's
necessary to make a stand.
>
> Chris, if you don't want to go, please just withdraw from the tournament, state your reason
> here if you wish,
Done it.
> then keep quiet,
No way.
> and let other people decide what to do on their own.
Of course. You are free.
> I will
> be very disappointed if the "Aryan" theme in your post is expanded upon in rather obvious ways
> in the future.
Well, I'm very sorry, but that's just tough.
> Also, your views regarding the ICCA have been made plain in here in the past,
> so if you do attempt to get other people to join this boycott, please make it plain as to who
> you are attempting to punish, Indonesia or the ICCA. If you want to pour gasoline on this and
> start blowing air on it, please tell us honestly what you are trying to burn down.
>
This is not a punishment issue.
Nor is it an 'ICCA' issue in the sense you imply.
At a very simple school-kid level:
If all my class get invited to a party, but, one member isn't invited
because of some nasty hang-up of the inviter, then I promote that
we all don't go.
Whatever the others decide I wouldn't go anyway.
For me that's a simple morality from childhood.
In this case, we're adults, we know our history. We know that
probably the world's worst case of genocide grew out of 'banning' jews.
Many people stood on one side and let it happen.
You know the results.
I grew up in a WWII refugee area in London, poles, jews, germans,
czechs. I've seen the number tattoos on the arms of jews who
survived Auschwitsch. I have german friends who have had family
members incarcerated in Dachau.
It is true that I would like to see the WMCCC/ICCA organised differently
and I'm not bothered about pointing out inconsistencies or whatever
in the ICCA position on various matters; but this particular issue
of discrimination surpasses all that. For me, I'ld like to
be in Indonesia, Chess System Tal has a reasonable chance to perform
well, the food is well spiced and to my liking, it saddens me to
not go; and the issue of their internal repression was not enough
for me to pull out, alone, as a token gesture.
But when they (Indonesian government) say who can and can't attend
the tournament - then I say that's no open tourney - that's unfair
- that's unreasonable - that's got an unpleasant historical precedent
- the tourney is wholly devalued - I'm out.
So, please, don't try and suggest that I have a hidden agenda. In this
case it is quite open. I don't like direct discrimination, and
I certainly won't participate in something organised on such a basis,
and I reserve the right to argue with anybody supporting such events.
And I still take the view that it is wrong that you are going.
And I'll carry on expressing it as necessary.
'no man is an Island unto himself
all are part of the continent, the maine,
don't ask for whom the bell tolls
it tolls for thee' - John Donne 1600 and something or other
> I have not been told officially who the Israelis who are not attending are, but I know who they
> are anyway. I have met one member of the team, and his wife, in person, and have had extensive
> conversations with the other team member via the net. He sent me a present to give to my
> daughter after she was born. I would have enjoyed seeing any or all of these folks in Jakarta,
> regret that they aren't going, and look forward to seeing them next year and/or at other
> events.
>
> But I'm still going to go to this event. I think that Marsland and Levy have organized this
> event as best they can, and I see no reason to attempt to disrupt the event by boycotting it,
> especially at this late date.
Well, here we differ. I see plenty reasons. And since you've had
plenty of time, the 'time is late' argument is after the event.
> This punishes the ICCA and the other participants, and does
> nothing substantial to the Indonesian government.
>
You could probably have said something similar in Germany in 1936, in
South Africa until recently, in Iraq, in <name your own state>;
but there comes a time when markers have to be laid done. Lines over
which you won't tread have to be drawn.
And this stuff can't just be left to governments; it has also to
be done at a personal and individual level. Example again Germany:
the nazis couldn't have made the progress they did if thay had been
stymied by the populace - only most members of the populace (in so
far as they disagreed) said 'I'll do nothing, it won't make any
difference, it will cause suffering elsewhere' etc. Much what you're
saying, really.
It seems to me that you are going because you really want to go.
Maybe you can win the tournament.
Maybe you can drink some beers.
Maybe there are some other plus-es for you.
No doubt you concede there are negatives; but, question: what
would the Indonesian government have to do before the negatives
outweighed the positives and caused you to blink ?
Or is Bruce Moreland an island, and Indonesia can do what it wants,
makes no difference, just as long as you're okay ?
I realise this is quite personal and tough, and that you may take
serious offence. That's okay, feel free.
Chris Whittington
Don Fong
In article <323A6A...@nwlink.com>, brucemo <bru...@nwlink.com> wrote:
>Chris Whittington wrote:
>> Its 11 rounds for gentiles and 0 for jews.
>Marsland's mail reads as if the Indonesian government would not allow
>the Israeli team to go.
it is difficult to draw any other conclusion.
>This, and other circumstances surrounding this
>tournament concerned me, so I sent e-mail to Tony Marsland, and had a
>subsequent telephone conversation with him.
>
>It sounds as if most of the problem is that Israel and Indonesia don't
>have diplomatic relations. This makes it hard for a national of one
>country to get a visa to visit the other country. It sounds like
>something complicated and/or confused this process and things broke
>down.
that is a wholly uninformative and unsatisfactory non-explanation.
>This is considerably softer than what you can conclude after
>having read Marsland's post, and doesn't justify the imflammatory tone
>of Whittington's post.
it's double-talk that doesn't change things one way or the other.
>Marsland was trying to be brief and appears to have been too brief.
yes, i would have appreciated an additional sentence or two,
such as ``We find this discrimination unacceptable and are seeking
alternative bids.''
>Chris, if you don't want to go, please just withdraw from the
>tournament, state your reason here if you wish, then keep quiet,
Bruce, it is your choice whether you wish to continue contributing
to the debate; but it is not your choice whether Chris continues to
contribute. i personally hope both of you will continue.
>and let other people decide what to do on their own.
is anyone forcing you to read his posts? or is he using
bribery, intimidation, or brainwashing, that prevents people from
making up their own minds? no? gee,,, then maybe you should
let Chris decide on his own whether to continue posting, and
let other people decide on their own whether to read his postings. (:-)
>I will be very
>disappointed if the "Aryan" theme in your post is expanded upon in
>rather obvious ways in the future.
i personally have mixed feelings about Chris's rhetoric. to me
it seems odd that the exclusion of 2 Israelis causes more outrage
than the deaths of hundreds of thousands of Timorese. however, to
me -either- of these issues would be sufficient moral grounds for
boycotting the event.
to use your words, i don't think we know enough about the
circumstances to say whether his rhetoric is justified. and i
believe he is doing the best he can to reach a fair decision.
>Also, your views regarding the ICCA
>have been made plain in here in the past, so if you do attempt to get
>other people to join this boycott, please make it plain as to who you
>are attempting to punish, Indonesia or the ICCA. If you want to pour
>gasoline on this and start blowing air on it, please tell us honestly
>what you are trying to burn down.
IMHO he has shown tremendous forbearance toward ICCA in this thread.
>I have not been told officially who the Israelis who are not attending
>are, but I know who they are anyway. I have met one member of the team,
>and his wife, in person, and have had extensive conversations with the
>other team member via the net. He sent me a present to give to my
>daughter after she was born. I would have enjoyed seeing any or all of
>these folks in Jakarta, regret that they aren't going, and look forward
>to seeing them next year and/or at other events.
instead of regretting their absence, why not act to ensure
their presence?
>But I'm still going to go to this event. I think that Marsland and Levy
>have organized this event as best they can, and I see no reason to
>attempt to disrupt the event by boycotting it, especially at this late
>date.
it is not too late to find another site. it will happen if
enough participants demand it.
>This punishes the ICCA and the other participants, and does
>nothing substantial to the Indonesian government.
funny, you say that the boycott "punishes" ICCA --- but how is
that any worse than the "punishment" the Israeli team experienced
by being excluded by the Indonesian govt?
>Regarding Marty Hirsch, I am sorry that he couldn't attend this year's
>event. I have nothing but respect for decisions made according to
>conscience, which is what everything I have heard leads me to believe
>happened in this case. I insinuate nothing else. I hope that he can
>attend next year's event.
i hope he will be able to attend -this- year's event ---
somewhere other than Jakarta. you can help make it happen.
--
--- don fong ``i still want the peace dividend''
--
Tim Smith
Dirk Frickenschmidt <di...@jimknopf.wupper.de> wrote:
>Since I'm no insider, I don't know how they got the idea to play in
>Indonesia.
They got the idea to play in Indonesia because no other place submitted
a bid that met their financial requirements.
--Tim Smith
Robert Hyatt
Tim Smith (t...@coho.halcyon.com) wrote:
Actually, according to what Tony posted, they got the idea to play there
because *nobody else* submitted a bid, period...
peter.karlsson
Don Fong wrote:
>
> In article <84203371...@cpsoft.demon.co.uk>,
> Chris Whittington <chr...@cpsoft.demon.co.uk> wrote:
> >From an impeccable source:
> >*no* Mchess at Jakarta as a political protest against the regime.
>
> hurray for Marty Hirsch! he has the most to lose by not going.
> hopefully his decision will cause others to reconsider. even those
> who do not care about human rights or democracy should realize that
> under the circumstances the contest will be a sham.
>
> --
> --- don fong ``i still want the peace dividend''
> --
The fact that there is so much debate on this issue is, regardless of
which way the debate is heading, very pleasant to note. I think many of
the posters to this group would be classified as "chess-nerds" with no
real-world contact. Wouldn't that be a mistake!
/Peter Karlsson
Dan Kirkland
In article <51gcmh$b...@darkstar.ucsc.edu>,
df...@cse.ucsc.edu (Don Fong) writes:
[everything deleted...]
I'm sorry Don, but it is getting increasingly easy to skip
your posts. Reading you saying the same thing over and over
is very yuk. (It's like Chris and his attacks against speed.)
Please, I am not taking sides in this. I just don't like
seeing the same thing over and over. We have all already
seen it! We know where you stand!
dan
Moritz Berger
In my opinion, I might be worse from a certain point of view to have a
discussion about the WMCCC and the genocide in East Timor (it's a little
bit more than just "oppression" of "some" kind and is _not_ comparable to
the US anti-drug laws) and to accomplish no cancellation of the WMCCC
than to have no discussion about it at all (long sentence, short
statement).
If there hadn't been a discussion about human rights "issues" - the WMCCC
would just have been "business as usual", nobody (except the
participants) would have remembered that it had taken place in Indonesia.
Now that there has been a discussion about the ethical side of this
tournament, some people say: I don't mind, it's (hopefully) not me who's
being killed, so what. By doing this, they are not just neutral and not
involved in the mass-murdering politics of the Indonesian government.
They clearly say: "LET THEM CONTINUE TO KILL PEOPLE - I DON'T MIND". They
actually become supporters of the Indonesian government, because they
give an example to the world of how to "just don't mind" about criminal
governments. They will not be able to say: I didn't know about it. They
knew and they didn't change their minds.
They show to the rest of the world: It doesn't matter if innocent people
get killed, let's look away and find out which chess program wins a 11
rounds tournament. There have even been serious questions about how many
rounds this tournament would have! They real question would have been:
How many people will get murdered while this tournament takes place? Ten?
Hundred? Thousands????
The very sad thing indeed is how less the case of the suffering of the
East Timorese people has been publicized in our mass media. No daily news
about it on CNN, no in-depth-coverage in the print media (like about
Bosnia or Iraq). Every few weeks a little piece of information here and
there, some statistics about the casualties, some cries for help via
Amnesty International.
They don't have oil, they don't have nuclear weapons, there not located
in a strategically interesting region like Europe - they will just soon
have a WMCCC.
My message to Bob and Bruce and all others is: Please don't go! Please
take a stand against the Indonesian government and for human rights! Your
decision makes a difference _to me and many others_. It will be noticed,
might even be a piece of news concerning Indonesia that shows that even
Chess-computer-freaks (like me ;-)) are able to act responsible and that
there is a limit of what a dictatorship can do. Do the right thing!
Check-mate the Indonesian government.
Just my 0.001$ piece of thought.
Yours,
Moritz
P.S.: Feel free to add to this the fact of the of not giving the Jewish
participants visa and not letting them participate in the tournament.
Simon Read
Re: Ideas for internet microcomputer chess championship
I'm not entering a program, but probably I will be in a year or
two, (just watch me!) so may I suggest a few criteria:
I like GM tournament time controls: 3 minutes per move. I guess
I would choose 30 180 as the chess server time controls.
I would definitely like a shot at the top programs, and I
would probably like to play every program, but would probably
be happy to play fewer games if the event started getting too long.
It would be nice to play each opponent once as white and once
as black. I think this is somewhat more important than being
able to play absolutely everybody's program.
Simon
Robert Hyatt
Moritz Berger (ber...@athene.informatik.uni-bonn.de) wrote:
: In my opinion, I might be worse from a certain point of view to have a
: discussion about the WMCCC and the genocide in East Timor (it's a little
: bit more than just "oppression" of "some" kind and is _not_ comparable to
: the US anti-drug laws) and to accomplish no cancellation of the WMCCC
: than to have no discussion about it at all (long sentence, short
: statement).
:
: If there hadn't been a discussion about human rights "issues" - the WMCCC
: would just have been "business as usual", nobody (except the
: participants) would have remembered that it had taken place in Indonesia.
:
: Now that there has been a discussion about the ethical side of this
: tournament, some people say: I don't mind, it's (hopefully) not me who's
: being killed, so what. By doing this, they are not just neutral and not
: involved in the mass-murdering politics of the Indonesian government.
: They clearly say: "LET THEM CONTINUE TO KILL PEOPLE - I DON'T MIND". They
: actually become supporters of the Indonesian government, because they
: give an example to the world of how to "just don't mind" about criminal
: governments. They will not be able to say: I didn't know about it. They
: knew and they didn't change their minds.
:
: They show to the rest of the world: It doesn't matter if innocent people
: get killed, let's look away and find out which chess program wins a 11
: rounds tournament. There have even been serious questions about how many
: rounds this tournament would have! They real question would have been:
: How many people will get murdered while this tournament takes place? Ten?
: Hundred? Thousands????
Approximately the same number that would be killed in this time-frame even
if the tournament was not held, maybe?
:
: The very sad thing indeed is how less the case of the suffering of the
: East Timorese people has been publicized in our mass media. No daily news
: about it on CNN, no in-depth-coverage in the print media (like about
: Bosnia or Iraq). Every few weeks a little piece of information here and
: there, some statistics about the casualties, some cries for help via
: Amnesty International.
I don't disagree at all, any more than I liked what I saw in China a
few years back when students got killed, any more than what I saw at
Kent State in the US when students got killed by national guardsmen,
any more than... <you fill in the blank.> However, I still attended
the ACM computer chess events. A boycott didn't make sense then and
doesn't (to me) make any sense now. The only ones hurt are the group
of programmers that are going if things are aborted.
:
: They don't have oil, they don't have nuclear weapons, there not located
: in a strategically interesting region like Europe - they will just soon
: have a WMCCC.
:
: My message to Bob and Bruce and all others is: Please don't go! Please
: take a stand against the Indonesian government and for human rights! Your
: decision makes a difference _to me and many others_. It will be noticed,
: might even be a piece of news concerning Indonesia that shows that even
: Chess-computer-freaks (like me ;-)) are able to act responsible and that
: there is a limit of what a dictatorship can do. Do the right thing!
: Check-mate the Indonesian government.
:
: Just my 0.001$ piece of thought.
:
: Yours,
:
: Moritz
:
I respect everyone's opinion here on this subject. However, after reading
Tony's statement that Bruce posted, and which I also received from Tony this
morning, I don't believe that Junior was "banned". I believe that they
decided to simply not attend. If they felt insulted because they can't get
a VISA through Israel, I don't blame them. If they felt like they weren't
welcome, I don't blame them. However, I've travelled abroad quite a bit
and I've been to several places where I felt I wasn't wanted also. I made
my own decision whether I'd go back or not without trying to suggest that
others should also avoid those particular "spots."
If my not going would save one life, I'd stay home in a heartbeat, but that
does not seem to be the case. If my staying home would somehow make Shay and
company feel better, I wouldn't, any more than I'd expect them to stay home to
make me feel better. However, this is a computer chess tournament, not a
political forum, not a peace summit, not anything other than a few unknown
people getting together to let their programs slug it out to see which plays
the best. No great leaders, no great politicians, just chess programmers
having a good time.
From the ICCA's perspective, I don't see how they could cancel the event
without someone having to cough up a fortune. For example, the tickets are
non-refundable special fares. Who eats them? Not the university hosting the
event because they have a contract. I suspect you could find lots of
countries that would not allow certain nationals in. I don't think the
ICCA can make that a contractural requirement either, because a university
is *not* going to be able to bind a government in a legal agreement that is
contrary to national policy. There's a cart, and there's a horse, and the
government is the horse, not the cart.
Robert Hyatt
Simon Read (s.r...@cranfield.ac.uk) wrote:
: Re: Ideas for internet microcomputer chess championship
That's the advantage to an internet event, "length" is immaterial,
especially if you have an automatic interface. I'd love a double
round-robin but if 50 people enter, we're talking 4 months... :)
However, there are two ways to go, faster time control, say 60 60, with
two games per pair of programs, or something longer, still trying for
round robin. If we get enough entries, we'd have to do a Swiss most
likely, but at least a long Swiss, not 4 rounds...
Bob
Chris Whittington
>
> we
>
er, there's a 'we' already ?
who is the 'we' ?
is there a committee ?
what, what ?
> get enough entries, we'd have to do a Swiss most
> likely, but at least a long Swiss, not 4 rounds...
>
Good idea.
Chris Whittington
> Bob
>
Garby Leon
Current News from Indonesia
July and August
The international media has been full of reports on the current unrest.
Major events (as of August 3) appear to be:
8/7/96The President of the Indonesian centre for Labour Struggles -
Dita Indah Sari - was arrested during a gathering of 20,000 strikers in
the East Javan city of Surabaya. Coen Hussein Pontoh from the National
Peasants Union and Mohammed Shaleh from Students in Solidarity with
Democracy in Indonesia were also arrested. They are still being held.
27/7/96 Forceable ejection of members of the Indonesian democratic
party (PDI) from their offices. 47 - 100 people are reported killed.
The PDI says at least 158 people are still unaccounted for.
There are reports of over 200 arrests during the rioting that followed
the attacks. The Surabaya and Jakarta offices of the Peoples democratic
party(PRD), were occupied by military personnel.
1/8/96The chair of the workers for Prosperity trade union (SBSI) -
Mr.Mokhtar Pakpahan, arrested and charged with subversion.
2/8/96 5 members of the Yogyakarta branch and 2 from the
Tangerang-Jakarta branch of the PRD arrested. Suharto approves a
summons for interrogation against Megawati Sukarnoputri and other
PDI members of Parliament.
last update: 30/8/96
more details from/comments to: east.timo...@grelb.src.gla.ac.uk
Current News from East Timor and
Indonesia
On this page is information that has come to the group's attention
recently. It comes from a number of sources, e-mails, newspaper's etc.
Current News from East Timor
News from 30/8/96 to 6/9/96
Buenos Aires Herald
President Menem was urged by Timorese and the Indonesian oppostion to
ask President Suharto about human rights abuses during his two day
visit to Argentina. (26-27 August) The visit ended with a statement
that the two leaders had agreed to closer economic ties.
News from 23/8/96 to 30/8/96
Diario de Noticias.
A document seized by the Resistance from Indonesian security shows
that the security forces acknowledge the continued unrest in East
Timor. The document originated from military command 164, a group of
detectives and investigating agents. According to the Timorese
resistance the members of such groups are often Timorese colaborators,
recruited by the Indonesian army from the ranks of the unemployed. In
1995 the Commander of the special forces deliberately set out to
recruit Timorese for such groups and he planned to recruit over
3000 Timorese this year. Of the three thousand, five hundred were to be
sent to Java and Bali to keep an eye on the activities of East Timorese
Students. (Reported on the 6/8/96)
Portugese diplomat Luis Barreira has denounced Indonesia's failure
to honour undertakings in East Timor at the 48th meeting of the United
Nations Human Rights Committee in Geneva.
He claimed that the visit of commisioners and two special envoys
to East Timor could have been successful if the Indonesian government
had acted on their reccomendations but they have not yet done so. He
mentioned specifically the failure of Indonesia to facilitate access to
humanitarian organisations and to release political prisoners.
At the same meeting, a Timorese, Robert Seixas, spoke on behalf of
the International Federation for Christian Action to Abolish torture.
He asked for a special commitee to be sent to East Timor to investigate
human rights abuses. He also spoke about his own experiences. He had
been tortured following his arrest in East Timor in 1993. He had also
seen the victims of torture on many occassions when prior to this he
had worked as a nurse in East Timor. (Reported on 10/10/96)
News from 16/8/96 to 23/8/96
Tapol.
Eight East Timorese broke into the French Embassy on Friday the
16th of August. They flew to Portugal on Sunday the 17th.
An Indonesian Colonel has stated that Indonesian troops captured 5
"members of Fretelin" Four men and one women, her baby was also taken
into custody with her.
Two East Timorese tried to gain asylum by breaking into the
Japanese embassy on 20/08/96, but fled when confronted by the
Indonesian security officials.
Australian Press
The Uniting church in Australia has criticised (15/8/96) the
decision of the Australian government to reclassify East Timorese
refugees as Portugese Nationals. It is believed that this
reclassification is an attempt to deny asylum to the 1,300 refugees
currently in Australia.
Diaris de Notcimas
Two reports were published in Sydney (6/8/96) by CNRM (East
Timorese resistance group) detailing increased repression in East
Timor. The aim of this new wave of repression, according to the East
Timorese resistance, is to break up the underground networks and thus
destoy any "patriotic awaremess"
The reports list a number of human rights abuses, including an
increase in detentions. The market place in Same has been used to hold
prisoners. There are allegations of torture of detainees and a number
of those detained have subsequently disappeared.
East Timor Human Rights Campaign (Australia)
Nivio Sarmento was released after seven days in detention. He was
tortured during his time in prison. He has to report to the police
three times every week.
News from 3/8/96 to 16/8/96
East Timor Human Rights Campaign in Australia
Nivio Sarmento, 27, was arrested on 23rd of July at his home in
Dili. He was arrested by the Special Intelligence unit and detained at
police headquarters. He has previously been arrested when he tried to
enter a foreign embassy in Jakarta earlier this year and was then
forcibly returned to East Timor. The reasons for his current arrest are
not known. The human rights centre believe his arrest may be part of a
systematic plan to arrest East Timorese youth opposed to the
occupation. 165 East Timorese youth were arrested in the wake of riots
in Bacau on June 10 and 11. The fate of all 165 is still unknown.
Tapol
A number of countries have allied themselves with the EU Council
of Minister's Common position on East Timor: The PACOS countries -
Bulgaria, Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania, Hungary, Poland Romania, Slovak
Republic, Czech Republic, Cyprus, Malta. The EFTA Countries - Norway,
Lichtenstein, Ireland
ICRC News 9/8/96 Shortly after the riots in Bacau, the ICRC
visited 80 of the missing Timorese youth in prison. One was seriously
ill and was taken to hospital.
The New Zealand Herald.
(5/7/96)Following the publication of the Sherman report (The
recent report into the killings of the jounalists at Balibo in 1975),
Mr Haigh, a former Australian diplomat maintains that the Australian
team that investigated the killings in 1975/76 had evidence which
pointed to Indonesian involvement but that this information was never
publicised. And that as long ago as the 1980's there was information
available which suggested that the Indonesian army had shot the
journalists. (The Indonesian government still maintains that they were
caught in crossfire) Mr Haigh argues that western governments turned a
blind eye to the invasion, preferring an Indonesian invasion to a
Chinese or Russian takeover.
The West Australian.
(6/7/96)An Indonesian academic, now in Newcastle, has criticised
the Sherman report for failing to interview two Generals who he argues
have valuable information about the attack.
Publico. Lisbon.
(31/7/96)An official of the Indonesian army has been found stabbed
with his throat cut in a village near Dile. East Timorese resistance
reports that over 100 Timorese have been arrested and many more have
fled to the hills. A timorese deputy (member of the ruling party)
reports that there are rumours the incident was sparked off by the rape
of a timorese girl. He blamed rising tension on the Indonesian
Democratic party who he maintains operate in Dili.
--- Have a nice trip
Simon Read
CW: Chris Whittington <chr...@cpsoft.demon.co.uk>
CW>
CW> 'no man is an Island unto himself
CW> all are part of the continent, the maine,
CW> don't ask for whom the bell tolls
CW> it tolls for thee' - John Donne 1600 and something or other
CW>
-->
I think there's an "each man's death diminishes me"
in there somewhere.
possibly "No man is an island, sufficient unto himself,
all are part of the continent, the maine,
Each man's death diminishes me;
Seek not to know for whom the bell tolls:
It tolls for thee."
Simon
Chris Whittington
Simon Read <s.r...@cranfield.ac.uk> wrote:
>
> CW: Chris Whittington <chr...@cpsoft.demon.co.uk>
> CW>
> CW> 'no man is an Island unto himself
> CW> all are part of the continent, the maine,
> CW> don't ask for whom the bell tolls
> CW> it tolls for thee' - John Donne 1600 and something or other
> CW>
> -->
> I think there's an "each man's death diminishes me"
> in there somewhere.
>
> possibly "No man is an island, sufficient unto himself,
> Seek not to know for whom the bell tolls:
> It tolls for thee."
>
> Simon
>
Yes, you're right, and even more to the point.
Chris Whittington