Allow steroids

[SuneF]

I don't actually own any chessbase engines, I've never even played with Rybka except for the first free one.

Sure you don't. And I do own a singing frog.

It may surprise you to know that ICC/FICS & Winboard/Arena is a perfectly good alternative to all the costly Chessbase products.
Winboard has the added benefit that it is ultra fast for testing, supports commandline scripting and guess what, the UI doesn't utilize half a CPU which is kinda nice if you are trying to be somewhat serious about the testing.

But I will say this... if not for all the Hypocrit engines, Rybka would still be #1 with 100 points down to #2.

Speaking about "what ifs", if there was no Fruit, Vas would probably be a 40k$/year programmer in some software company today...

Well even "if", then two wrongs doesn't make a right so it doesn't support your case.
Secondly... the "if" seems rather big to me for various reason, which we won't go into here again...

[bob]

Where have I claimed that? It seems you confuseme with Vas, now...

Really?

my current opinions on this are:
* Rybka is a legal derivative of Fruit
* Ippolit is an illegal derivative of some later Rybka

So how would Vas be capable to improve derivative of his own Rybka (according to your opinion) for 60-70 Elo in 6 months, when he's not capable to improve his own Rybka for more than 40 Elo in 2 and a half year???
Could you tell us that Mr. Smart Chess Programmer?

This is easy to answer. The development of a chess engine is a somewhat asymptotic undertaking. Early improvement comes fast and furious. But as you get out on the tail of the hyperbola, they come slower. And slower. Diminishing return is not only an artifact of a computer chess program's increasing search depth...

[michiguel]

It was very clear I was replying to
"Cheating (and acceptance of cheating) are symptoms of the general dishonesty we find in society today. I find it rather disturbing."

General dishonest in society today is simply an oxymoron.
General dishonest is as old as a human race.
Putting it in line with racial segregation and fascism is just outrages, and so is you naive attempt to get away with it...

It is not a naive attempt of anything. I said what I said replyinga very specific comment, which was immediately above my line. MLK's quote is a deep philosophical comment that goes beyond segregation. But you have to abstract to see that. As Borges said, to think, is to "forget a difference, to abstract".

Now again, you think I am trying to get away with something; but actually, you are. You did not read carefully before and you just can't admit "oops, I missed that line". For that reason, you are making up this oxymoron about dishonesty in society (that is not an oxymoron, by the way). Even if this is an old problem, it does not invalidate what I said. Still, I knew someone who does not stop to read carefully could come up with some corny comment like "If i were an african-american...." You are not.

You are starting to be very predictable though, I and told you this already. I also said you were disappointing me at one point, because you are smart. You can be better than this, but apparently your main goal here does not go beyond being a pain in the ass. Conversation with you is completely unproductive because you do not come to exchange. You come to show off, annoy, insult, in the most arrogant way possible. I really do not understand why you do this. It is completely immature.

I stopped answering yous posts long ago, and I told you that. I made an exception this time and I probably made a mistake. Yes, I am not perfect like you are.

Miguel

[michiguel]

It did not matter much to the IOC that Ben Johnson ran the 100m dash faster than any human has ever done.

Nitpick: Faster than any human had ever done. Four men (Usain Bolt, Tyson Gay, Asafa Powell and Nesta Carter) have run faster now. Two more (Justin Gatlin and Tim Montgomery) also had faster times, but were later disqualified for doping offences.

They took away his gold medal and removed him from the ranking, and suspended him for his useful life! And there is very wide consensus that this was the right thing to do.

Of course it was. I find the example of Ben Johnson quite relevant to this discussion, because the supporters of derivative engines like to make the argument that the "authors" of the derivative engines must be very talented, because the derivatives are far stronger than the original. Perhaps some of them are indeed very talented, but so was Ben Johnson. Far more talented in his field, in fact, than any chess programmer in their field since Alan Turing. But extraordinary talent does not excuse cheating.

Moreover, starting with a strong, stable chess engine is an incomparably bigger advantage in computer chess than using steroids is in sprinting. Steroids don't turn average athletes into world-class sprinters. They may give you 0.1 seconds or so on the 100 meters, which could be enough to put you ahead of your rivals if you are already an elite sprinter, but it won't help you much if you're not already there. Using an existing top chess engine as the basis for your own program, on the other hand, allows you to jump directly into the world elite with no effort. It isn't equivalent to using steroids in sports. It's equivalent to magically swapping your body for Ben Johnson's body at his prime, and to start training for the 100 meters from there.

I sometimes do feel a little sorry for Ben Johnson, though. He is always the example that is brought up, despite having competed in a period were steroid use was even more widespread than today. Nobody seems to remember that half of his rivals also got caught.

I suspect that it was institutionalized and in practice by each and every nation that participated in the olympics to some degree at least. Similarly, with American baseball, I think that steroids were nearly forced upon the players by the atmosphere that was prevalent. There is a report with some huge number of baseball players that got caught. I guess that the number of users would make it the tip of the iceberg.

Cheating (and acceptance of cheating) are symptoms of the general dishonesty we find in society today. I find it rather disturbing.

That's right. Acceptance of cheating is even worse than cheating.
Miguel

"History will have to record that the greatest tragedy of this period of social transition was not the strident clamor of the bad people, but the appalling silence of the good people."
Martin Luther King, Jr.

It is all BS by both of you. You are simply exploring a bad and incorrect Ben´s "steroids analogy".

I am not exploring any analogy.

If it was true then all the science is based on steroids, which is also a BS.

This does not even make sense.

Miguel

You support the thesis that the wheel should be invented again and again untill the end of times. Otherwise - which means using it as a discovery of previous generations -, would be a cheating or even worse: an acceptance of cheating.

What??

Miguel

[Milos]

It is not a naive attempt of anything. I said what I said replyinga very specific comment, which was immediately above my line. MLK's quote is a deep philosophical comment that goes beyond segregation. But you have to abstract to see that. As Borges said, to think, is to "forget a difference, to abstract".

It's not your comment, it's MLK's quote that is completely out of place and you know it. You put it there just to appear smart and in the same time try to show-off as morally superior to others.

[Milos]

The development of a chess engine is a somewhat asymptotic undertaking. Early improvement comes fast and furious. But as you get out on the tail of the hyperbola, they come slower. And slower. Diminishing return is not only an artifact of a computer chess program's increasing search depth...

Of course it is, but it also depends a lot on the phase in which the engine is - how "perfect" it is.
Some of the ppl here try to present as future development of the engine depends solely on the person developing it, which is anything but true.

[Dann Corbit]

It did not matter much to the IOC that Ben Johnson ran the 100m dash faster than any human has ever done.

Nitpick: Faster than any human had ever done. Four men (Usain Bolt, Tyson Gay, Asafa Powell and Nesta Carter) have run faster now. Two more (Justin Gatlin and Tim Montgomery) also had faster times, but were later disqualified for doping offences.

They took away his gold medal and removed him from the ranking, and suspended him for his useful life! And there is very wide consensus that this was the right thing to do.

Of course it was. I find the example of Ben Johnson quite relevant to this discussion, because the supporters of derivative engines like to make the argument that the "authors" of the derivative engines must be very talented, because the derivatives are far stronger than the original. Perhaps some of them are indeed very talented, but so was Ben Johnson. Far more talented in his field, in fact, than any chess programmer in their field since Alan Turing. But extraordinary talent does not excuse cheating.

Moreover, starting with a strong, stable chess engine is an incomparably bigger advantage in computer chess than using steroids is in sprinting. Steroids don't turn average athletes into world-class sprinters. They may give you 0.1 seconds or so on the 100 meters, which could be enough to put you ahead of your rivals if you are already an elite sprinter, but it won't help you much if you're not already there. Using an existing top chess engine as the basis for your own program, on the other hand, allows you to jump directly into the world elite with no effort. It isn't equivalent to using steroids in sports. It's equivalent to magically swapping your body for Ben Johnson's body at his prime, and to start training for the 100 meters from there.

I sometimes do feel a little sorry for Ben Johnson, though. He is always the example that is brought up, despite having competed in a period were steroid use was even more widespread than today. Nobody seems to remember that half of his rivals also got caught.

I suspect that it was institutionalized and in practice by each and every nation that participated in the olympics to some degree at least. Similarly, with American baseball, I think that steroids were nearly forced upon the players by the atmosphere that was prevalent. There is a report with some huge number of baseball players that got caught. I guess that the number of users would make it the tip of the iceberg.

Cheating (and acceptance of cheating) are symptoms of the general dishonesty we find in society today. I find it rather disturbing.

That's right. Acceptance of cheating is even worse than cheating.
Miguel

"History will have to record that the greatest tragedy of this period of social transition was not the strident clamor of the bad people, but the appalling silence of the good people."
Martin Luther King, Jr.

It is all BS by both of you. You are simply exploring a bad and incorrect Ben´s "steroids analogy".

I am not exploring any analogy.

If it was true then all the science is based on steroids, which is also a BS.

This does not even make sense.

Miguel

You support the thesis that the wheel should be invented again and again untill the end of times. Otherwise - which means using it as a discovery of previous generations -, would be a cheating or even worse: an acceptance of cheating.

What??

Miguel

It's another way of putting forth the position:
"The ends justify the means."

IOW: "Here we have this nifty new, high powered chess engine. Who cares how it got here!"

Yet another paraphrasal:
"Cheating, lying, unethical progress is still progress. As long as I get to use it, who cares how it came about."

Tragically, some forms of education are actually a fool's errand for this reason:
(Proverbs 9:7-9) 7 He that is correcting the ridiculer is taking to himself dishonor, and he that is giving a reproof to someone wicked—a defect in him. 8 Do not reprove a ridiculer, that he may not hate you. Give a reproof to a wise person and he will love you. 9 Give to a wise person and he will become still wiser. Impart knowledge to someone righteous and he will increase in learning.

I find the above useful when someone corrects me. Even more so, this one:
(Ecclesiastes 7:9) 9 Do not hurry yourself in your spirit to become offended, for the taking of offense is what rests in the bosom of the stupid ones.

I think that those two pithy sayings tell us a lot about ourselves when interacting with others.

Sometimes, of course, it is simply irresistable, despite the valuable country saying, "You can't push a rope."

[slobo]

It did not matter much to the IOC that Ben Johnson ran the 100m dash faster than any human has ever done.

Nitpick: Faster than any human had ever done. Four men (Usain Bolt, Tyson Gay, Asafa Powell and Nesta Carter) have run faster now. Two more (Justin Gatlin and Tim Montgomery) also had faster times, but were later disqualified for doping offences.

They took away his gold medal and removed him from the ranking, and suspended him for his useful life! And there is very wide consensus that this was the right thing to do.

Of course it was. I find the example of Ben Johnson quite relevant to this discussion, because the supporters of derivative engines like to make the argument that the "authors" of the derivative engines must be very talented, because the derivatives are far stronger than the original. Perhaps some of them are indeed very talented, but so was Ben Johnson. Far more talented in his field, in fact, than any chess programmer in their field since Alan Turing. But extraordinary talent does not excuse cheating.

Moreover, starting with a strong, stable chess engine is an incomparably bigger advantage in computer chess than using steroids is in sprinting. Steroids don't turn average athletes into world-class sprinters. They may give you 0.1 seconds or so on the 100 meters, which could be enough to put you ahead of your rivals if you are already an elite sprinter, but it won't help you much if you're not already there. Using an existing top chess engine as the basis for your own program, on the other hand, allows you to jump directly into the world elite with no effort. It isn't equivalent to using steroids in sports. It's equivalent to magically swapping your body for Ben Johnson's body at his prime, and to start training for the 100 meters from there.

I sometimes do feel a little sorry for Ben Johnson, though. He is always the example that is brought up, despite having competed in a period were steroid use was even more widespread than today. Nobody seems to remember that half of his rivals also got caught.

I suspect that it was institutionalized and in practice by each and every nation that participated in the olympics to some degree at least. Similarly, with American baseball, I think that steroids were nearly forced upon the players by the atmosphere that was prevalent. There is a report with some huge number of baseball players that got caught. I guess that the number of users would make it the tip of the iceberg.

Cheating (and acceptance of cheating) are symptoms of the general dishonesty we find in society today. I find it rather disturbing.

That's right. Acceptance of cheating is even worse than cheating.
Miguel

"History will have to record that the greatest tragedy of this period of social transition was not the strident clamor of the bad people, but the appalling silence of the good people."
Martin Luther King, Jr.

It is all BS by both of you. You are simply exploring a bad and incorrect Ben´s "steroids analogy".

I am not exploring any analogy.

If it was true then all the science is based on steroids, which is also a BS.

This does not even make sense.

Miguel

You support the thesis that the wheel should be invented again and again untill the end of times. Otherwise - which means using it as a discovery of previous generations -, would be a cheating or even worse: an acceptance of cheating.

What??

Miguel

It's another way of putting forth the position:
"The ends justify the means."

IOW: "Here we have this nifty new, high powered chess engine. Who cares how it got here!"

Yet another paraphrasal:
"Cheating, lying, unethical progress is still progress. As long as I get to use it, who cares how it came about."

You should not be so harsh with Mr Rybka. He committed a big mistake in the past, but you are a Christian and should forgive him.

[Dann Corbit]

It did not matter much to the IOC that Ben Johnson ran the 100m dash faster than any human has ever done.

Nitpick: Faster than any human had ever done. Four men (Usain Bolt, Tyson Gay, Asafa Powell and Nesta Carter) have run faster now. Two more (Justin Gatlin and Tim Montgomery) also had faster times, but were later disqualified for doping offences.

They took away his gold medal and removed him from the ranking, and suspended him for his useful life! And there is very wide consensus that this was the right thing to do.

Of course it was. I find the example of Ben Johnson quite relevant to this discussion, because the supporters of derivative engines like to make the argument that the "authors" of the derivative engines must be very talented, because the derivatives are far stronger than the original. Perhaps some of them are indeed very talented, but so was Ben Johnson. Far more talented in his field, in fact, than any chess programmer in their field since Alan Turing. But extraordinary talent does not excuse cheating.

Moreover, starting with a strong, stable chess engine is an incomparably bigger advantage in computer chess than using steroids is in sprinting. Steroids don't turn average athletes into world-class sprinters. They may give you 0.1 seconds or so on the 100 meters, which could be enough to put you ahead of your rivals if you are already an elite sprinter, but it won't help you much if you're not already there. Using an existing top chess engine as the basis for your own program, on the other hand, allows you to jump directly into the world elite with no effort. It isn't equivalent to using steroids in sports. It's equivalent to magically swapping your body for Ben Johnson's body at his prime, and to start training for the 100 meters from there.

I sometimes do feel a little sorry for Ben Johnson, though. He is always the example that is brought up, despite having competed in a period were steroid use was even more widespread than today. Nobody seems to remember that half of his rivals also got caught.

I suspect that it was institutionalized and in practice by each and every nation that participated in the olympics to some degree at least. Similarly, with American baseball, I think that steroids were nearly forced upon the players by the atmosphere that was prevalent. There is a report with some huge number of baseball players that got caught. I guess that the number of users would make it the tip of the iceberg.

Cheating (and acceptance of cheating) are symptoms of the general dishonesty we find in society today. I find it rather disturbing.

That's right. Acceptance of cheating is even worse than cheating.
Miguel

"History will have to record that the greatest tragedy of this period of social transition was not the strident clamor of the bad people, but the appalling silence of the good people."
Martin Luther King, Jr.

It is all BS by both of you. You are simply exploring a bad and incorrect Ben´s "steroids analogy".

I am not exploring any analogy.

If it was true then all the science is based on steroids, which is also a BS.

This does not even make sense.

Miguel

You support the thesis that the wheel should be invented again and again untill the end of times. Otherwise - which means using it as a discovery of previous generations -, would be a cheating or even worse: an acceptance of cheating.

What??

Miguel

It's another way of putting forth the position:
"The ends justify the means."

IOW: "Here we have this nifty new, high powered chess engine. Who cares how it got here!"

Yet another paraphrasal:
"Cheating, lying, unethical progress is still progress. As long as I get to use it, who cares how it came about."

You should not be so harsh with Mr Rybka. He committed a big mistake in the past, but you are a Christian and should forgive him.

I form no judgements at all towards Mr. Vas Rajlich or Mr. Robert Houdart (or any of the others in particular like Jury O. and/or the 'decembrists', etc.). It is my opinion that evidence is incomplete that any one has engaged in wrongdoing. I am also not saying that they are innocent. I am saying that I am not in possession of all the facts and also that I am not an expert on software law.

In any case, none have committed any wrongs against me personally so far as I am aware, even if they have done something they should not have as far as software development goes.

[hgm]

I don't actually own any chessbase engines, I've never even played with Rybka except for the first free one.

Sure you don't. And I do own a singing frog.

You cannot imagine there are people that have no Chessbase products?

I never touched a Chessbase product in my life. I don't even have the free Rybka. The only commercial engine I have is Cyclone2009, because its author sent me a free copy for testing. But I have not much use for it, as it is way too strong, and trounces every other engine I have.