Ewan's Corner

Posts Tagged ‘software’

A fascinating read via The New York Review of Books – The Chess Master and the Computer, by Gary Kasparov:

“Perhaps chess is the wrong game for the times. Poker is now everywhere, as amateurs dream of winning millions and being on television for playing a card game whose complexities can be detailed on a single piece of paper. But while chess is a 100 percent information game—both players are aware of all the data all the time—and therefore directly susceptible to computing power, poker has hidden cards and variable stakes, creating critical roles for chance, bluffing, and risk management.

These might seem to be aspects of poker based entirely on human psychology and therefore invulnerable to computer incursion. A machine can trivially calculate the odds of every hand, but what to make of an opponent with poor odds making a large bet? And yet the computers are advancing here as well. Jonathan Schaeffer, the inventor of the checkers-solving program, has moved on to poker and his digital players are performing better and better against strong humans—with obvious implications for online gambling sites.

Perhaps the current trend of many chess professionals taking up the more lucrative pastime of poker is not a wholly negative one. It may not be too late for humans to relearn how to take risks in order to innovate and thereby maintain the advanced lifestyles we enjoy. And if it takes a poker-playing supercomputer to remind us that we can’t enjoy the rewards without taking the risks, so be it. “

Some other interesting quotes:

· “By the mid-1990s the number of people with some experience of using computers was many orders of magnitude greater than in the 1960s. In the Kasparov defeat they recognized that here was a great triumph for programmers, but not one that may compete with the human intelligence that helps us to lead our lives.”

· “Today, for $50 you can buy a home PC program that will crush most grandmasters. In 2003, I played serious matches against two of these programs running on commercially available multiprocessor servers—and, of course, I was playing just one game at a time—and in both cases the score ended in a tie with a win apiece and several draws.”

· “Increasingly, a move isn’t good or bad because it looks that way or because it hasn’t been done that way before. It’s simply good if it works and bad if it doesn’t. Although we still require a strong measure of intuition and logic to play well, humans today are starting to play more like computers.”

· “Having a computer partner also meant never having to worry about making a tactical blunder. The computer could project the consequences of each move we considered, pointing out possible outcomes and countermoves we might otherwise have missed. With that taken care of for us, we could concentrate on strategic planning instead of spending so much time on calculations.”

· “Weak human + machine + better process was superior to a strong computer alone and, more remarkably, superior to a strong human + machine + inferior process.”

Now the happy owner of a BlackBerry Bold 9700, I’ve been running the latest formally released OS version 5.0.0.743 for over a week with no issues.

If you want to upgrade (give you something to play with while we all wait for OS 6 later this year), the procedure is as detailed in my previous post Upgrading Your BlackBerry Operating System, and is much faster on the 9700 (took around 40 minutes). You can grab version 743 from the Rogers Wireless BlackBerry download page:

Package Version: 5.0.0.1254
Consisting of:

Applications: 5.0.0.743
Software Platform: 5.1.0.165
File name: 9700M_PBr5.0.0_rel1254_PL5.1.0.165_A5.0.0.743_Rogers_Wireless_Inc.exe
File size: 133.47MB

Improvements:

1. Generally improved phone responsiveness (no more occasional lagging when switching between running apps, media/photo browser is *far* faster with large collections, even the bootup process after a reset is somewhat faster)
2. Browser performance noticeably improved (hotspot / wifi browser in particular)
3. Better battery life (I don’t have metrics, but it definitely seems significantly better)
4. GPS locks are faster (previously locks would take ages, or simply fail after a few minutes)

Changes / potential issues:

• The lock button no longer password locks the phone. Screen is turned off and keypad locked (from accidental presses, like standby) but not password locked as it was before. Not a biggie, since you can still easily lock the phone using the lock icon.
• Standby (via the top mute button) no longer works. However the lock button does pretty much the same thing now as far as I am concerned.
• AT&T users bitching that visual voicemail is broken (not supported locally by MTN so no loss for me).

Disclaimer: Standard disclaimer here, if you’re not comfortable upgrading your phone then don’t. Backup! One of the great things about a BB is the ease of backing up (and should something go wrong, restoring) the phone. This is a new OS version, so you may want to search forums and the like for other user experiences with it before you upgrade.

I own a BlackBerry Curve 8310 – one of the nicest phones I have ever used for an extended period, and the best by far when it comes to corporate email / calendar sync.

In the BlackBerry world, your service provider (MTN South Africa in my case) approves the version of OS and default application software available for your phone model – MTN currently only approve package version 4.5.0.52 (Applications: 4.5.0.37, Software Platform: 2.7.0.55) which was released around June 2008 and is quite buggy.

My phone was stable as long as I didn’t install any 3rd party apps (BerryBuzz which is highly recommended, GMail, Google Maps, Garmap for Mobile which is great and *free* for MTN users – go MTN, UberTwitter, Opera Mini…) but as soon as I did, it became horribly unstable – locking up at least once every 2 days and requiring a battery pull. Having to restart / reboot the phone is a real pain since the phone can take over 5 minutes to boot up / get back to a usable state.

Having an otherwise great phone with an unlimited data plan meant I *really* wanted to be able to install 3rd party apps. A little searching found that other network operators (O2 UK in this case) have approved a much more recent OS / apps version (for my 8310 at least) : package version: 4.5.0.174 (Applications: 4.5.0.124, Software Platform: 2.7.0.92).

Working around MTN’s silly restriction and updating my phone turned out to be easy – these steps are for my reference, and worked for me, but use them at your own risk. This procedure isn’t officially supported by BlackBerry or MTN, caveat emptor. I found the initial guide at blackberryrocks.com, an invaluable resource for all BB owners – and added a few steps and warnings of my own:

1. Download and install BlackBerry Desktop Manager if you don’t already have it (I recommend version 5 or later, especially for Windows 7)
2. Save a complete backup of your phone and data using Desktop Manager
3. Remove any media cards from your phone – failure to do so could mean the upgrade hanging (getting a solid red LED on “connecting to device firmware”).
4. Download the installable version of the OS/applications update.
   Warning: Make sure you download the correct update *for your phone model*, e.g. don’t download an update for the 8350 if you have an 8310. In my case, I downloaded filename “8310M_PBr4.5.0_rel174_PL2.7.0.92_A4.5.0.124_O2_UK.exe” (89.92MB) from the BlackBerry O2 download page.
5. Warning: If you sync with your office via BES, then you need to do the upgrade while connected to the BES via desktop manager – i.e. at work. If you don’t, auto-activation after the upgrade will likely not work, and your phone won’t sync until you manually activate it
6. Run / install the downloaded update
7. If you are installing an update from a different service provider (MTN vs O2 in my case), you need to delete “vendor.xml” in Program Files –> Common Files –> Research in Motion –> AppLoader
8. Run “Loader.exe” in the same AppLoader folder
9. Follow the prompts, set things as you choose, and I recommend allowing the Loader app to do its own backup before the upgrade.

Just be aware this is not a quick process… the upgrade and subsequent re-activation took several hours for me.
Worked for me. I now have a rock-solid crackberry.

Only in Perl.

use Acme::Don't;
don't {

# code here
# Note that the code in the don't block must be syntactically
#   valid Perl.
# This is an important feature:
#   you get the accelerated performance of not actually executing
#   the code, without sacrificing the security of compile-time
#   syntax checking.

} while condition();

# And, yes, in strict analogy to the semantics of Perl's magical
#   do...while, the don't...while block is unconditionally not
#   done once before the test. ;-)