[MellySingsDoom]

And a good night to you too, Nefeli.

Ooh listen, Motorhead are on the radio right now.

[Pookie]

Originally Posted by Hip Priest

Pookie has to say sorry first I'm not saying sorry first because it wasn't my fault If Pookie says sorry and isn't mean to my mate Dave and doesn't stick his tongue out at me he can have a piece of my fudge.

Oh my God, and all because I hit the wrong smilie button!!!

I meant to use this one: .

Can I compromise and say sorry to you, but still be mean about your friend Dave?

And sorry to hear about your bad week. I hope your girlfriend is feeling better. If she's immobile at the moment, maybe she could join us on here? Actually strike that, I'd hate it if my girlfriend was on here, I'd have to stop making things up .

[Hip Priest]

She's not a big internet person, although I try to encourage her.

Thanks for the good wishes. Thanks to those bedside screen things they have in hospitals I've been able to show her the nice wishes on this and my other regular forum, which she was very pleased about.


Divers find lake's 'lost village'

A team of divers who set out to solve the mystery of the drowned village of Bowood in Wiltshire has found the remains of buildings under a lake.

The lake at Bowood House was created 250 years ago by 'Capability' Brown when legend has it a village was sacrificed to make way for the design.

Diver Jon Dodsworth, 28, said old maps showed a community called Manning's Hill where the lake now stands.

The team discovered stone walls and the remains of two cottages under the lake.

A document entitled Wiltshire Community History mentions Manning's Hill as one of several communities which existed near Bowood in the 18th Century.

It continues: "The entrance to the park at Manning's Hill was drowned by the lake."

Previous attempts to find the village included a dive by Bowood owner Lord Lansdowne, the 9th Marquis of Lansdowne, who donned his scuba gear 20 years ago. His attempt was unsuccessful.

After the recent find, he said: "I am thrilled that they appear to have found something in the Bowood lake and I congratulate them."

Mr Dodsworth, leader of the Calne Sub-Aqua Club, said: "There's always been rumours about a drowned village at Bowood - you hear about the church spire being seen in the summer when the water is low, although I've never spoken to anyone who has actually seen it.

"We pulled up stone with paint on it, and dry stone walls. It was localised rubble."

Dramatic centrepiece

Bowood House was built on the site of a hunting lodge in 1725 and has been the home of the Lansdowne family since 1754.

The first Marquis of Lansdowne, Prime Minister in 1782 and 1783, commissioned Brown to transform its 2,000 acres of gardens and wilderness into landscaped parklands during the 1760s.

It became one of Brown's finest works and the 45-acre lake - which he created from a pond after flooding a valley - was its dramatic centrepiece.

Mr Dodsworth said the use of sonar equipment during the three one-hour dives was crucial to the team's success, but that the group has no excavation equipment to investigate further.

[sonicl]

We've just been for a walk to the village to buy some eggs from the lady who keeps chickens, and there was a little yellow duckling on the duckpond, all cute and fluffy like in a childrens book. We're going back tomorrow with a camera, so expect to see pictures.

[Hip Priest]

Looking forward to it. We were watching this group recently, but the light on the photo isn't too good:

 

[vulva]

This won't really mean anything to anyone here, but I'm excited so I'm gonna blabber about it.
I was at work, and this dude comes in with his kids, him and I start talking it up, then he looks around some more. His kids are around 10 or so, then he finds something for his son. A Darkthrone wall flag. It's the one from The Cult Is Alive, which if you're not familiar with the album cover...

 

not your usual stuff for a ten year old...
So me and the dude keep talking, he then introduces himself to me as Justin Greaves. The name didn't really ring a bell. He then starts talking about the label he's on back in the UK, Rise Above. Turns out he's the drummer for Electric Wizard and used to be in Iron Monkey. He tells me about him touring with bands like SunnO)), Boris, Napalm Death and so on. He then informs me that he got to know these UK bands through his brother in law... Lee fucking Dorrian. Lee Dorrian was the original singer for Napalm Death (basically the grandfather of grind) and is now singing for Cathedral (one of my favourite bands ever).

Well, he then mentions that his brother's gonna be visiting here soon, and that he'll shoot me an email when he gets here. So I'll get to meet Lee, one of my favourite singers out there... I'm excited

[jon boy]

ITservices are a bunch of incompetent fools.

[sonicl]

Originally Posted by jon boy

it services are a bunch of incompetent fools.

Yes.

[Hip Priest]

I wish Radio Five Live would get rid of Darren Gough.

[jico.]

i take a lot of things,but...

people suck.
people that make noises while they're eating suck even more.
people that make noises while they're eating and make a scene just because someone tells them to shut their mouths suck even more.

irritating... disgusting... noises.

[SynthethicalY]

Originally Posted by jico.

i take a lot of things,but...

people suck.
people that make noises while they're eating suck even more.
people that make noises while they're eating and make a scene just because someone tells them to shut their mouths suck even more.

irritating... disgusting... noises.

What about sonic noises?

[jico.]

i'm talking about high-pitched grease drones.

[Disgruntled Youth]

Da Bears!!!

[SynthethicalY]

Pinché güey... que? no me llámo... Que linda vidá no creés? Oh creo que estoy loco.

[Hip Priest]

Checkers 'solved' after years of number crunching

* 19:00 19 July 2007
* NewScientist.com news service
* Justin Mullins



The ancient game of checkers (or draughts) has been pronounced dead. The game was killed by the publication of a mathematical proof showing that draughts always results in a draw when neither player makes a mistake. For computer-game aficionados, the game is now "solved".

Draughts is merely the latest in a steady stream of games to have been solved using computers, following games such as Connect Four, which was solved more than 10 years ago.

The computer proof took Jonathan Schaeffer, a computer-games expert at the University of Alberta in Canada, 18 years to complete and is one of the longest running computations in history.

Draughts is played on an 8 x 8 chequered board with 16 pieces. This leads to 1020 different possible board positions. A player's pieces capture the opponent's by jumping over them until all are removed. Large numbers of pieces are quickly removed from play towards the end of a game.

Endgame database

The crucial part of Schaeffer's computer proof involved playing out every possible endgame involving fewer than 10 pieces. The result is an endgame database of 39 trillion positions. By contrast, there are only 19 different opening moves in draughts. Schaeffer's proof shows that each of these leads to a draw in the endgame database, providing neither player makes a mistake.

Schaeffer was able to get his result by searching only a subset of board positions rather than all of them, since some of them can be considered equivalent. He carried out a mere 1014 calculations to complete the proof in under two decades. "This pushes the envelope as far as artificial intelligence is concerned," he says.

At its peak, Schaeffer had 200 desktop computers working on the problem full time, although in later years he reduced this to 50 or so. "The problem is such that if I made a mistake 10 years ago, all the work from then on would be wrong," says Schaeffer. "So I've been fanatical about checking for errors."

Schaeffer believes the techniques he has developed could be applied to many real-world problems. He gives the example of scheduling the time and work required to build a complex machine such as the space shuttle. "With these techniques, you could optimise the use of your resources to build the shuttle for the least time or cost," he says.

Inevitable result

Schaeffer has also released an updated version of a draughts-playing programme called Chinook. In the 1990s, this program failed to beat the then world champion Marion Tinsley, who is widely regarded as the greatest Checkers player ever. Before his death, in 1995, Tinsley lost only 9 games in a 45-year playing career.

"I think Tinsley would be wistful about the proof," says Schaeffer.

The revamped Chinook, which is available online, cannot now be beaten. "The best result you can get is a draw," he admits.

David Levy, president of the International Computer Games Association in London, UK, says he isn't planning to play against Chinook. "There would be a certain inevitability about the result."

Journal reference: Science (DOI: 10.1126/science.1144079)

[jon boy]

one of my friends has seriously lost the plot and i think really needs to be taken to a psychiatric hospital.

[Hip Priest]

"Train people to be honest"? If the BBC really wish to 'train people to be honest' then they could start by sacking the people who are dishonest. No doubt some of my license fee will soon be going on Veracity Issue Management Workshops, or some such nonsense.

[jon boy]

when jon boy was younger he pushed his sister out of a tree house hurting her ankle. jon boy is reminded of this whenever he see's his sister.

 

[sonicl]