Processing Power to Chess Rating Ratio

50 here is what the Deep Thought team wrote about the relationship between search depth and chess strength in a 1989 article: The ascent of the brute-force chess machines back in the late 1970s made one thing crystal clear: there is a strong causal relationship between the search speed of a chess machine and its playing strength. In fact, it appeared from machine self-test games that every time a machine searches one extra ply, its rating increases by about 200-250 rating points. Since each...

 Idea Debt

Idea Debt is when you spend too much time picturing what a project is going to be like, too much time thinking about how awesome it will be to have this thing done and in the world, too much time imagining how cool you will look, how in demand you’ll be, how much money you’ll make. And way too little time actually making the thing. If… You tell 15 friends about your screenplay idea, but devote zero time in your week to facing the blank screen. You buy a domain name, spend weeks or mont...

 Close Reading: Emily Dickinson

Tell all the Truth but tell it slant— Success in Circuit lies Too bright for our infirm Delight The Truth's superb surprise As Lightning to the Children eased With explanation kind The Truth must dazzle gradually Or every man be blind— When we first discussed this text with the two teachers who were leading the project, Nealie Bourdon and Becky Campbell, they questioned our choice because they felt that the poem was too difficult for their students. We argued that we wanted to challeng...

 The Question of Methodology

The methodological question. In a previous book I gave a good deal of thought and analysis to the methodological importance f°r work in the human sciences of finding and formulating a first s t eP. a point of departure, a beginning principle.11 A major lesson I learned and tried to present was that there is no such thing as a merely given, or simply available, starting point: beginnings have to be made for each project in such a way as to enable what follows from them. Nowhere in my experien...

 Decline of Science in Media

A 2008 analysis by the Project for Excellence in Journalism found that if you tune for five hours' worth of cable news you will probably catch only one minute's coverage of science and technology—compared with ten minutes of "celebrity and entertainment," twelve minutes of "accidents and disasters," and "26 minutes or crime." As for newspapers, from 1989 to 2005 the number featuring weekly science or science-related sections shrank by nearly two-thirds, from ninety-five to thirty-four. Thes...

 L Peter Deutsch on Software as a Capital Asset Versus Exp...

The problem being the old saying in the business: "fast, cheap, good—pick any two." If you build things fast and I you have some way of building them inexpensively, it's very unlikely that they're going to be good. But this s|s school of thought says you shouldn't expect software to last. I think behind this perhaps is a mindset of software as expense vs. software as capital asset. I'm very much in the software-as-capital-asset school. When I was working at ParcPlace and Adele Goldberg was...

 Debate Principle: Assume good faith

Assuming good faith is a fundamental principle on Wikipedia. It is the assumption that editors' edits and comments are made in good faith. Most people try to help the project, not hurt it. If this were false, a project like Wikipedia would be doomed from the beginning. ...When doubt is cast on good faith, continue to assume good faith yourself where you can. Be civil and follow dispute resolution processes, rather than attacking editors or edit warring with them. If you wish to express doubts...

 Guard Your Knowledge Portfolio

You need to ensure that the knowledge in your portfolio is accurate and unswayed by either vendor or media hype. Beware of zealots who insist that their dogma provides the only answer--it may ore may not be applicable to you and your project.