How to Live » games

And you thought computers are smart!

admin — Fri, 14 Sep 2007 03:04:00 +0000

I came across an interesting program called "Thinking Machine". It is a Java based Chess game – where you will see the actual moves considered by the Computer before it actually moves it. Even though, I dont know much about Chess, the animation is fascinating!

http://turbulence.org/spotlight/thinking/chess.html

Good, easy way to understand why Deep Blue was a BIGGEST challenge to Kasparov (By the way, I heard he has quit the game to enter in to Politics. God save Kasparov!)

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How long will it take get a REAL AI machine

admin — Wed, 12 Sep 2007 02:57:00 +0000

"Blondie24 tells the story of a computer that taught itself to play checkers far better than its creators ever could by using a program that emulated the basic principles of Darwinian evolution–random variation and natural selection– to discover on its own how to excel at the game."
-from the back cover of the book

Thanks to Hollywood movies, I need not tell you what is Artificial Intelligence other than that it is a simple thought that what if you can teach intelligence to machines (Thinking Machines!). Some people argue that Artificial Intelligence is a paradox (oxymoron?) whereas others still dream of creating a ‘Digital Einstein’ – who (or which?) can really ‘think’ and discover new wisdom!

‘Blondie24:Playing at the edge of AI‘ written by Chief Scientist, David Fogel, Ph.D is a good book which deals with a bottom-up approach application of AI. He argues that the famous ‘Deep Blue’, IBM computer which beat Grandmaster Gary Kasparov had no real intelligence embedded in it. The super computer ‘Deep Blue’ was created with a great collection of successful moves (there were over 4000 positions and 700000 grandmaster games including strategies from Gary Kasparov himself!), extra-ordinary processing speed (capable of evaluating 200,000,000 positions per second) just to defeat one person in the game. Well, after providing extensive cheat-sheets, Deep Blue lost its firs meet. Gary won by 4-2. After doing some homework, the IBM team managed to beat him again in 1997.

Well, what a real intelligent machine do, then. Like a child, learn a game on its own, beat a human grandmaster. David Fogel and Chellapillai Kumar (Yes, an Indian computer scientist) used ‘Evolutionary Algorithms’ and initiated a computer program to learn Checkers game. It works like a natural process of evolution (survival of fittest), where ‘best survives’ – offsprings which play well are taken and crossed to give birth to better players. This goes on and on ..till we get a best algorithm which can beat a human being.

I completely agree with the fact that "future of artificial intelligence lies . . . in programs that can automatically improve themselves over time–without the bias of human knowledge". This unbiased nature is very essential in exploring the space for life or finding a medicine for diseases (Sometimes, we human being always use our ‘prejudice’ and ‘common sense’ to delimit important facts).

Fascinating read!

If you want a detailed review, find here.

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Now, winning in a Computer Game is so easy. Use Cheat Engine

admin — Tue, 14 Aug 2007 00:53:00 +0000

For Game Addicts, winning is all that matter – by whatever means. There are lot of cheat codes, tweaks and secret keys available over the web for almost every game that lets you win easily. But, the problem with the cheat codes is that they don’t work on every machine, which is sad. Here, we offer a free solution to crack any of your favourite game. Take a look at this popular, open source, free software, named – "Cheat Engine" – that lets you to crack your games to your own advantage.

Cheat Engine lets you to access a game program with a hex memory searcher and editor to allow people to modify variables while programs are not running currently (when your game is not running). Now, you can look inside a game’s program and alter user variables such as number of lives, ammunition and increase them to your advantage. You can search for values input by the user and replace with a wide variety of options such as "Unknown Initial Value" and "Decreased Value" scans.

You can download Cheat Engine from http://www.cheatengine.org/

For more help on it’s usage and tips visit the Cheat Engine Forum.

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How Flickr has changed since 2004:Screenshots Timeline

admin — Sun, 08 Jul 2007 02:07:00 +0000

via thiru’s flickr stream

Flickr is a popular online photo sharing tool where you can upload photos, share with your friends, comment on photos or just sit back and browse photos. The real success lies in the community actions such as commenting on photos, favourite photos and messaging groups – they are missing in other online photo sharing tools.

The coolest way to browse flickr is through flickr explore – where a computer-based algorithm shows some of the best and finest images uploaded by flickr members. It lists the 500 top photos for each day of the year.

This post lists some interesting facts on Flickr (with the help of Google News Archives) and the early screenshots of it’s homepage (courtesy of Internet Archive Wayback Machine). Check the the archives of flickr homepage here.

(Early days, April 2004)

(Early days, May2004)

Flickr has just celebrated its fourth birthday (Feb 2007), but it is widely known to the users as (arguably) the coolest web 2.0 application on the web.

(July 2004)

Flickr was founded by Stewart Butterfield (his flickr page) and Caterina Fake (her flickr page). Incidentally, they met through blogs (http://www.caterina.net/) and became life-partners.

(November 2004)

Flickr was born in Canada. It grew out of an online multi-player game named, ‘Game Never ending’ (shelved), that was being developed by LudiCorp. Fake and Butterfield’s company, Ludicorp, never did launch a game.

(March 2005)
Yahoo purchased Flickr in March 2005. Even at that time, it is was a small company managed by only 11 employees.

(January 2006)

Looking to buy a Digital Camera? Check Out The Camera Finder page on flickr that shows graphs that reflect the number of Flickr members who have uploaded at least one photo with a particular camera over the last year. See sample images, tech specs and how many others have purchased.

(throughout 2006 – same layout with different images)

As on 7th of July, Flickr hosts close to 75 million photos. How do you figure that number? Easy. Visit the Flickr Expore page and click on most recent uploads and click on the bottom-right photo (the last uploaded one), you will find a number something like 743708779 just divide that by 10 million (1 followed by 7 zeroes) you will get 74.4 million photos. Wow!

On an average (July 2007) about 1500 photos are being uploaded every minute.

(2007 – major change in layout)

In June 2007, the logo changed from ‘Flickr Gamma’ to “Flickr Loves You”.

According to Wikipedia, Yahoo is completely blocked in the United Arab Emirates and Chinese ISP’s have started blocking flickr since June 2007.

Yahoo is closing Yahoo photos in favour of flickr and provides options to easily move your photos to flickr.

Want to read more?

Birth of Flickr – USA Today – a good article covering the flickr history.

Caterina talks about the Early Days of Flickr – audio podcast on IT conversations.

Guess what has not changed all these years. Our love for Flickr!

How to get into Flickr Explore? (Revised)

Get Famous in Flickr: Killer tips for Flickr users

25 Useful scripts for Flickr users that make your more productive

How Flickr has changed since 2004:Screenshots Timeline

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How I built an Orkut Empire in 30 days?

admin — Thu, 24 May 2007 01:59:00 +0000

How do you use Orkut to build a successful network?

Why your friend requests get rejected but the same person accepts requests from others?

Whether you want life partners or business partners or looking for just friends in Orkut, there are some rules you have to follow.

This collection of tips have been provided by “Orkut Gurus” or “Orkut Poster Guys and Gals” who appear on the home page of Orkut.

1. Browse the communities.

I hate the spam group messages (I don’t advise to join communities!) but, it is an easy way to hunt for people who has similar interests like you.

And when you say, you are also interested in ‘Photography’ or ‘Martin Scorsese movies’ like me, it is hard to resist the urge to talk more about them. You can easily strike a conversation with common threads.

2. Fear NOT for scrapping.

Even when the profile says “Do not Scrap Me or Msg Me!” – Scrapping is your birthright.
Do NOT worry about how a person may think. Pass a genuine complement (other than, you look beautiful, i wanna be your friend, please etc).

Apart from scrapping a boring opening such as “Hi”, “Hi, I wanna be your friend!” or “Hi there!” – think outside the box. Have you ever seen the Orkut’s “Send Teaser” – lines?

Always, always, use names! “Hi Bob, hows your job hunt going?”, “Hey, Jenny, wonder if you have done with your exams” looks more personal than using a “Hows life going?” kind of blunt, pointless scraps.

3. Write a catchy Profile

Fill in all possible details. Be really funny (naughty but obscene). Update them often once in a month. Do not overuse adjectives to describe you (we wont believe you, anyway!).

4. Use your photo / video albums wisely

Now you can upload 12 photos (for privacy reasons keep them 640 by 480 max). Update them often. The videos are easy to update, when you watch something interesting on Youtube or Google video, just copy the link instantly and share it on your Orkut page.

4. Do NOT send friend requests

Yes. Do NOT add bluntly a new person as a friend (unless you know already). So, how do you add new friends. Easy. Just scrap and talk to them using scraps. Talk about common interests and things. A friend request will come soon.

5. Spend time reading other’s profiles

Everyone likes to be appreciated, so just give them what they need. Go through their profiles and interests and give a genuine complement on a thing that you like about the person. Be sincere.

6. Try to Choose diverse friends

Do NOT attempt to talk with people from the same community. There are plenty of communities available – even if you have no specific interests, you can find a range of communities based on country of birth, sunsign, name. Take part in the activities, participate in the community games.

7. Do not start asking personal questions right away.

Never ask personal questions such as love life, boy friend/ girl friend list etc. Just start talking about general things. At certain stage, after you have established a friendship bond, then you may ask (if you know they would tell you!). Respect privacy.

8. How do I keep them in my Orkut network?

Fill in as much information as possible. Now, in Orkut profile page, you can provide clickable weblinks – so, provide your Ziki , Flickr, Blog page (for god sake, do not give a dead blog’s address, please!) other social network pages such Facebook, Flixster, Digg, Delicious to give your friends where they can find you.

9. Find your old friends. Grow your network quickly.

You can search your past school, past work place, class mates groups in Orkut using proper keywords. When you find one old friend, you will find an old treasure of friends associated with them. I used such technique to uncover 100 friends in an hour or so.

10. Write testimonials.

Leaving aliens apart, everybody loves to hear what you think of them. Be creative in writing a testimonial. Get rid of overused adjectives such as caring, friendly, worrying, sexy etc. Just remember an anecdote, a story, an unforgettable event to describe your relationship with the person. You will love it and your friend will also love it. Hell, yes, they would certainly reward you with their best testimonial for you.

Your opinions are valuable. What do you think about these tips? If you have got any tips, add in comments section or email me.

Oh, I almost forgot, in case, if you want to talk to me in Orkut – this is my profile link.

P.S: Thanks to Anokh (link to orkut profile) who worked with me to collect a wonderful tips.

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Virtual Shopping

admin — Fri, 11 May 2007 23:45:00 +0000

We love 3D. Also, we love to go places where we never gone – at least with the help of a comp. Thats why computer games are so popular. The Mall plus – a 3D shopping mall provides a enriching, arm-chair experience to walk through a real shopping complex. This is the future of virtual shopping.

Actually, it is not a show piece. You can go in to a shop and make an actual purchase. The designs are great.

You need a broadband connection, if not you wont get a rich exp.

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Play Mini Games

admin — Wed, 02 May 2007 11:50:00 +0000

Miniclip – a collection of mini games online – just won the people’s choice award in the recent webby awards in the “Games Category”.

That tells you how addictive the site can turn you. try at your own risk. Majority of them are flash-based.

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241 fun things to to online!

admin — Sat, 07 Apr 2007 10:51:00 +0000

A to Z listing of fun things (blog posts) published so far in this blog. Click on a topic to know more!

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Poker for macs

admin — Thu, 05 Apr 2007 08:28:00 +0000

Ever played online poker games? There are plenty of poker sites where you can play the game online but most of them ask you to download a windows extension software to your PC.

For Mac users, this has been a trouble and only few mac online poker sites were well-known to mac users. Mac poker online is a web portal for providing exclusive information, tips, reviews and offers for online poker games available for mac users. It offers a forum for the mac poker players to discuss with each other. It provides extensive information on poker games, casinos and ongoing tournaments around the web.

Periodically, the site’s authors review every online poker game site in terms of its ease of use, design, payout rates and seven other features. Major sites so far reviewed were Partypoker, Pacific poker and Full Tilt poker. Maconline poker site offers exclusive bonuses and discounts for its readers on major poker game sites. This potentially gives exhaustive information about playing online poker games even if you are a windows user.

Poker for Macs: Mac Poker Online this is a sponsored post.

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101 fun things to do online

admin — Mon, 26 Feb 2007 14:02:00 +0000

We started a blog named, “1001 fun things to do online“, with an objective to post an activity to do online – linking to the best website, web service available to do that job. One activity, one web site, every day of the year until we reach the 1001 things.

Now, the count has crossed 240, but, here we present a first 100 things as a list of 101 fun things to do online for convenience. You can also find a web-page here.

Soon, we will post 250 fun things to do online!

0 How to live 99% on Internet?

1 Get Free Content

2 Save bookmarks

3 Organize photos

4 “No e-Mail, there?s only g-Mail”

5 Socialize with a purpose!

10 Break a weird music record..