This morning, Christian Freeling
resigned when playing against the program Lajkonik during the
Havannah Challenge 2012 and thus lost his
€ 1000 of the bet that he made that no program could defeat him in a
match of ten games. It was the third game he played against Lajkonik during
the challenge where the second game was declared invalid by the arbriter when
it was terminated due to a communication error. Game record with some comments (on Google+).
Today, Christian Freeling lost both games
of the challenge, bringing the final score to three lost games from the ten
games of the Havannah Challenge 2012. In the
morning, he lost again from the program Lajkonik during against which he played
a total of four games. Game record with comments and many variants (on Google+). In the afternoon,
he lost from the program Castro. Game record with comments and variants. Castro showed his strongest play
in this game. From the analyses of the game by Ton (one of the top Havannah
players), I understand that it is difficult to pinpoint the losing move of
Christian. Ton remarks that Christian played too defensive at the start of
the game. Both Castro and Lajkonik have become much stronger in the last
half year. The 1000 Euro will be divided amongst the winning programs. Maybe
in another five years, programs will beat humans consistently.
At 13:14, I bought the book 36 Zichten op de Alphatoren
by Diana Huijts
(ISBN:9789087520007) for € 29.99 from
bookshop Broekhuis. The book
contains 36 linocuts which have been coloured, which all contain
(sometimes very small) some part of the highest building in Enschede,
known as the Alpha tower. When I saw an exposition on September 22
in the bookshop, I thought it would be a nice idea to make a book
with those print. Later, I discovered that the reason for this
exposition was the presentation of the book.
In the documentary Matthew's laws it
shows how Matthew is counting the days of his life using a base-36 number
using the digits and the capital letters of the alphabet. His motivation
for doing this, is that he only needs three characters to represent each
day in his life. Because 0 and O look so similar, I would exclude the O
from the alphabet. Which would result in base-35. But why only remove the
O and not the other vowels? That would result in a base-31 number. 31 is
prime. If you use the digits and the consonants, then today, it will be
day MCP of my life when November 1, 1961 was day 0.
This afternoon, I saw a reflection of a rainbow
in the rear windshield of my car. Looking up into the sky I noticed the bow
almost straight up in the air. I realized that this could not be a rainbow.
At home, I concluded that it must have been Circumzenithal arc. Here on the right a part of one of the pictures that
I took.
At 12:00:40, I bought the book Gerard Reve, Kroniek van een schuldig leven. Deel 3
- De late jaren (1975-2006) by Nop Maas from bookshop Broekhuis for € 35.00. This is the third volume of the
biography of the Dutch author Gerard Reve. The publication of this books as been delayed by several
court cases, because the last partner of Reve did not agree with the content
of this biography.
I finished reading the book My Brain is Open:
The Mathematical Journeys of Paul Erdös by Bruce Schechter, which
I started reading on October 20. I really enjoyed reading this book about
Paul Erdös,
which I bought on January 22, 2011. It has
a good balance between mathematics and biography. The mathematics is dealt
with at not a too easy but not also too difficult level.
This months interesting links
2: Jeffrey Kegler: Marpa Parser, The God Proof, Kurt Gödel.
Friday, October 26, 2012