GNU Chess vs Windows 7 Chess

Kinshul, Rajat and I were doing some random BC this morning. I got bored after a little while and starting playing chess vs Windows 7 programme. Then, Rajat suggested to match the wits of GNU chess and M$ chess. So, we decided to run M$ chess on kinshul’s system and GNU chess on mine. We generally have found that GNU chess easy level is unbeatable and M$ chess is easily beaten till lvl 6.

So, we first clashed GNU easy and M$ lvl 10 chess.Also, we decided to give M$ chess the first chance in all the matches as an advantage. M$ easily won the game in about 30 moves although it must be noted that GNU chess took less than 1s for each step and M$ took around 5s for each step. Unfortunately we did not store the movement steps of that match.

The next match-up took place after lunch in which M$ chess lvl 10 and GNU hard were the participants. In this match GNU hard kicked M$ lvl 10’s ass and the fate was decided by around 30 moves but M$ chess was able to drag the game to 56th step. Also, in this game GNU chess took about 3-4 s per step while M$ chess took around 25-30 s per step for most of the match. We came upon such moments where M$ chess had only king left to move and still took around 30s for the next step. A nice trick up GNU chess’s sleeve was that it used to run its program in the background even while the other player (M$ player in this case) thought. I had a 100% CPU usage throughout the match. I am unable to upload this match’s log as of now but will upload it as soon as possible.
Edit : The Game

PS 1: A nice observation from Rajat that a program which was written by some person in free time worked a lot better than one for which somebody was paid

PS 2: An awesome tag for this post would be to compare any two different ai-based implementations of a game(in which we could clash the two ai’s together). I tag sanrag, gaganpreet, kulbir saini for this.

Top Playlist

Tagged by gaganpreet. Have recently upgraded all library based players I have, so no statistics are available. Here are the songs which I have been listening to lately (not in any order) :

1. Iron Maiden – Blood brothers, Tears of the dragon.

2. Black Sabbath – N.I.B.

3. The Fray – How to save a life, She is, Over my head.

4. Dido – White Flag.

5. Kailash Kher -Teri Deewani.

6. Lucky Ali – Gori teri aankein kahe, Kabhi aisa lagta hai

I tag sanket, harsh bansal, harshj, srijan.

PS: Got selected for google summer internship

Raju’s Experiments with Satyam :P

Found this in Hindu Newspaper. Too good to resist

PS: Finally had my M$ interview after 4 frustrating postponements.

TV Shows this year

1. Prison Break :

I must admit this show benefits from having excellent writers. They have managed to keep the intensity of the show’s main theme for a little more than 3 years now. Though last season was a little below their level, they have managed to bounce back this year. In fact it could very well be the case that they used the previous season as a story developer. This season (till now) must come as their second best after the first one.

What makes the show exciting this year is the extra pace and excitement in addition to the original serious tone. Grouping the old enemies seems but natural, because they all think and work in the same basic way. Bringing Sarah back also doesn’t hurt . Alex and Michael are the best brain acts of the group at the moment. Also, this season seems to be a bit more about Alex than Michael with his son’s loss and resultant grudge against company. We can easily see the passion in his eyes, the same which was portrayed in Michael during the first season.

A must watch for anyone and everyone !!

2. HIMYM :

I feel that HIMYM has been on a downslide ever since the wonderful first season and this season just accelerates the downfall. The same one liners which make you go rofl in a good situation can make you pull your hair otherwise and unfortunately this season is a tale of the latter. Though Barney remains …. wait for it …. awesome as ever, it seems hard that he will be able to carry the show on his shoulders alone because this is a show about 5 friends and not him alone. Hence, I think that this show should be discontinued instead of continuing in the same vein.

3. Heroes :

Heroes seems to be in a rebuilding phase, recovering from the waverings of the second season. The story build is going along quite well but I don’t think that the writers are going to go beyond what they have already done in the first season. The show will then most probably be just an average one when it has a lot more scope.

Development of Gabriel is exciting and he seems to be poised over to take the role of the new main hero of Heroes. Suresh’s misdeeds seem more like filth rather than negative. Hiro again goes on a mission to be the hero, man he does have the fire to be a hero everytime .

I hope this show turns it around like prison break !!

4. Two and a Half men :

This show remains the same it was(in a good way), continuing with it’s pattern of short stories and daily routine of making us laugh. This season’s second episode was one of the most rib-cackling one I have seen as of yet.

A good and light watch.

5. Gossip Girl :

GG also remains to be what it was : a world of Gossip and Girls. It’s characters are now in a shifting phase of their life from high school to college and so is the story. Nothing much changes apart from more interaction between Chuck and Dan. It will be exciting to see what the show becomes after the characters are placed in college.

Another good and light watch.

6. Big Bang Theory :

This show is all about the life of a group of highly qualified theoretical physicists, how they are not able to act as normal people because of their way of thinking. I like this show more than others because theoretical physics is something in which I was always interested and always wanted to become a scientist, but I am unfortunately not on that path . The highly technical, physics related one-liners make my day . Ofcourse, Sheldon is my favourite character for his innocence and knowledge. This season is as good as the first one, though the number of physics-related one liners is decreasing, which is very bad .

You will enjoy this show even if you don’t like physics much. A light watch.

I wanna play !!

Back again with a post on the night before the mid-sems. Never felt so uninterested in mid-sems before. Read a page for 15 min and still didn’t know what’s in it . This boredom might be because of the new found addiction towards a new game : dota. Started playing this game around a month back and I must say this is the mother of all strategy games I have played till now. There is so much scope for macro and micro strategy in it that even after playing for a month continuously I can’t tell with confidence that I am not a noob in this game . However, there is plenty of oppurtunity to improve as there are a lot of good n enthusiastic dota players in iiit at present. Right now I am at the verge of getting used to some tactics in this game which will surely change my beginnner status but  there are mid-sems at the wrong time !!! How I wish these exams are cancelled !!! 4 days without a multiplayer match is tortuous. Waiting for 15th October, 2008, 7 pm !!!! A game would have started by then surely (Exams end at 6:30 pm the same day)

Google search engine fooled

It seems on the occasion of launching a new product, Chrome Browser, Google has lost focus on it’s main product, Search Engine . The following pictures are self-explanatory :

The actual site :

Top IIIT Blogger’s Day Post’s

So, these are the top post’s according to me which have been written over the past two days (29th and 30th) as part of the IIIT Blogger’s day :

1. First time late… :

This has got to be the best post I have read in a long time. It has all the required elements : drama, action, dedication, hard work, direction and ofcourse narration. Unfortunately, the essence of this post cannot be captured by my simplistic writing and has to be read to understand it’s true value.

2. Under the boundless sky – II :

This came a close second according to me and is in continuation of the awesome literary posts written by the author. It also benefits from a strong narration. The accurate description of the trek, mountains and related feelings more than compensates for the missing photographs. This one is a must read too.

3. I admire the following posts equally for one or the other quality :

a. Three days with fluctuating internet :

It describes all the hardships faced by the admins in getting their daily job done. And as far as the end result goes, these poor admins may still not be able to achieve it at the end of the day (or in this case days) .

b. IIITbuzz – Network Problems :

This is a funny and witty comic which quite aptly displays the current internet situation in IIIT .

c. Philosophy, UG3 and a three point blah :

As the title says the post is breaken down in 3 parts. The first part provides quite an interesting point of view w.r.t. our goal in lives. I have been thinking along these lines for about a month now. The second part portrays the new misunderstanding in UG3 batch. And finally a three point mantra to wrap up the whole post. Quite clean and innovative.

d. Plight of the Indian Moon :

A post which brings our attention to a long forgotten jewel of Indian sports, Dhyan Chand. Though, I find the reason stated to give him a Bharat Ratna not substantial enough.

e. Proud to be a IIITian :

A fantastic poem with which every IIITian can connect. Must read for IIITian’s.

f. DON’t REALLY KNOW :

An accurate description of the love(or imfatuation ??) cycle of a boy/man. I would like to know how the author managed to write a small ‘t’ in the title while keeping all the other letters capital ?

PS1 : This sure is a better way to mass respond to posts. Also the authors are happy : Give them a link instead of a comment

PS2 : Should I expect some in return ?

PS3 : Listening to songs endlessly these days.

PS4 : A post on music players might follow soon.

PS5 : Nickelback’s How you remind me and Savin me are currently in the list of endlessly played songs.

PS6 : This is most probably the last post of the IIIT blogger’s day celebrations.

Amazing Cockpit Views

After a car , it is time for some cockpit views to leave you speechless.

Note : Click to view the Magnified version of a Photo

1. A Saab JAS 39 Gripen fighter plane’s head-on view :


JAS 39 Gripen Head on view

Source

2. A Glider being towed over the Crystal Lake, Michigan :
   

   Glider being towed away

   Source

3. F-15 Eagle refuelling mid-air from a KC-135A Stratotanker :
   

   F15 Eagle refuelling from a KC-135A Stratotanker

   Source

4. Downview (?) from a Rolladen Schneider LS-4 :
   

   Rolladen Schneider LS 4

   Source

5. P-51 Mustang :
   

   P-51 Mustang

   Source

6. A Bell 407 view of a Suburb :
   

   Bell 407 view of a Suburb

   Source

7. A Diamond DA-40D Diamond Star TDI :
   

   Diamond DA-40D Diamond Star TDI

   Source

8. An Iberia Airbus A320 on the runway in the night sky :
   

   Iberia Airbus A320-214

   Source

9. Cockpit of the Airbus A320-211 :
   

   Cockpit of a Airbus A320-211

   Source

10. Cockpit of a Boeing 747-200 :
    

    Cockpit of a Boeing 747-200

    Source

11. Cockpit of the Giant Airbus A380 :
    

    Cockpit of a Airbus A380

    Source

12. And finally, view of a Space Shuttle in the Johnson Space Center, Houston, Texas :
    

    Space Shuttle

    Source

Note : Some information regarding the Aircraft could be wrong as name’s were not mentioned at all url’s.
PS : Any help to display these wonderful pictures in a better way will be appreciated.

Time Travel

Just read about the book “All You Zombies” and the apparent paradox it contains (thanks to Gaganpreet). In brief it’s story is :

A baby girl is admitted in an orphanage in 1945. In 1963, she falls in love with a man. An unfortunate series of events leave the woman pregnant and the man missing.In 1964, the woman gives birth to a baby who is kidnapped. Also, the doctors find out that the woman has both the sex organs and in order to save her are forced to remove her female organs. Thus, the woman now becomes a man. In 1970, he goes into a bar and tells the bar’s old bartender about his misery. The bartender offers to help him by taking him back in time and change his fate. So, the old bartender drops the man in 1963 and he himself goes in the year 1964. The man (in 1963) falls in love with a young orphaned woman and after a few weeks of dating makes her pregnant. In meantime(according to story line), the old bartender (in 1964) kidnaps the baby and takes her to 1945 and drops her in an orphanage and then picks up the man from 1963 and drops him in 1985 and recruits him in a special police force which fixes events in history. Finally, he comes back in 1970. The man (in 1985) lives a normal life till old age and travels back to 1970 later to think about his life and the apparent paradox. He is his own mother, father and child !!

The whole story can be read here. Though I am no time travel expert, here is what I think about the famous explanations for this paradox (If it is considered that this paradox can occur):

In the first case, no simple explanation can exist for this paradox. By simple I mean, existence of a single time line(or no parallel universe). A person cannot produce himself because it leads to the fact that he was created by thin air. Thus, we have created a whole new system without taking anything as input. This is in clear violation of the law of conservation of energy.

Also, we cannot use any energy he intakes during his lifetime (like food) to balance the initial energy because energy has to be supplied at the time of creation of an object. It cannot be loaned as in the case of money.

Now in the second theory, the concept of parallel universes is used. In this system, whenever an object travels in time a new parallel universe is created. It is different from the original one in terms of the effect caused by the time-traveling object. So, on analyzing we find that for parallel universes to exist multiple copies of the same object should be able to exist at a single time and space. However on closer inspection we can see that whenever an object travels in time he actually creates a copy himself, different from his original one. Thus, traveling in time actually creates some sort of clones of the concerned object. Though the objects may be similar in every characteristic, they are different entities and cannot be considered the same.

Thus, the aforesaid paradox is actually not a paradox at all but just a complexity caused by time traveling. This analysis also considers the case when parallel universes are formed only when an object wanders into a time and space where he has existed before.

However, the possibility of creation of parallel universes on the fly by time travel and traveling into the past is a concept to be tested by hardcore physicists, not by day-dreamers like me who have only an overview of this idea.

Ciao

Music :

Iron Maiden is the best band I have heard so far. Can listen to all its song in an infinite loop . My favorites are Blood Brothers, Tears of the Dragon, Aces High, Trooper and Revelations.

PS : AI handed me my worst grade ever

Write to your future self !!

Feeling bore as usual before the exams – no will to study, watched 2 seasons of kyle xy in past 3 days and watched 2nd season again today and as a result of all this I am totally bored now.Started stumbling (which I feel is only for people with time and no work ) and found this link.Boredom led me to try this too and there I was writing a mail to my future self.Though I am not going to reveal the mail’s contents here but I must admit it was quite fun sending a mail to your future and talking about your aims, thoughts and achievements. It feels like a very open talk because you are only one who know about this chat .
PS : Somebody should help me to motivate myself to study otherwise I am a goner !! .