gwern's Profile

You read R J Lipton's blog?? This is very strange.

Given what you've said, I'm assuming your background is in statistics, which is no further from theoretical physics than theoretical computer science. How is it you have trouble with Greg Egan and follow GLL, which is even more technical? I'm starting a PhD in theoretical CS this fall and I don't understand their posts sometimes.

I agree with you, karuta is an probably easier sport than tennis, which is why it is not professionally played. But you're drawing the line at an arbitrary place and saying this belongs in the same class as Tic-Tac-Toe.

I seriously doubt anybody's going to come up with an efficiently computable strategy for chess which allows White to always win, given how it's at least PSPACE-complete. (I can be a computer science nerd and say that in the absence of such, chess as it is played is also trivial because it relies only on heuristics and processing power - if a player is actually going to brute force at each stage. Then the only meaningful sports would be ones in which players are expected to come up with algorithms on the spot and the best algorithm wins - that is, programming competitions.)

Anyway, at the end of the day, I suspect several sports anime are popular not because viewers are interested in that sport in particular, but because they can possibly identify with the protagonists in terms of liking *something* and striving towards it. In Chihayafuru's case this is easy to do because the characters have more depth than most shounen sports. Also, the fact that they are into an obscure sport which people constantly don't take seriously, but they decide to do it anyway can be seen as admirable (yes clearly you don't think it should be taken seriously, but there are people who are willing to ignore that).

To be clearer, my question was how does this make karuta different from some sport like tennis, which also relies on physical abilities which are somewhat inherent and somewhat acquired by training. Granted the level of training required may be different in the two cases, but it's the same principle. In fact I'd go so far as to say karuta requires more strategy than tennis, though obviously way less than say chess.

And I'm sorry for being pedantic but Tic-Tac-Toe and lottery analogies aren't appropriate. Tic-Tac-Toe is a trivial sport not because it only involves reflexes, but because it allows the first player to always win.

Thanks for the suggestion, I'll check it out.

I'd like to ask you something about your Chihayafuru review though, because it wasn't clear to me and I do really like that show. Did you mean to say that you think karuta is worse than the average sport? If so, in what way? Personally I don't really like any sport, but I thought the show presents karuta in a reasonably interesting way - at least enough to keep me invested in it for the characters' sake, and the characters are the main reason I like the show.

I'm not familiar with Gene Wolfe, actually. Is he someone you'd recommend? I looked him up and apparently his work has strong religious themes? I'm not terribly fond of that.

Have you checked out Greg Egan's website? He has abundant resources on the science behind almost all his works. I think Orthogonal is the most well-documented in fact. Personally, I didn't think this was the most inaccessible of his works, though it is the most ambitious. But I studied physics, so.

Egan does maintain that he need not tone down the scientific content of his books in order to interest people, and that the scientific content itself should be interesting enough. An idealistic view, perhaps, but it does make his work rewarding for someone willing to put in the effort.

You're the first person I've seen online who's into anime and Greg Egan. While I completely disagreed with your Chihayafuru review and thought you mentioning Clockwork Rocket in there was pretty irrelevant, it made me happy. I'm a big fan of the Orthogonal series.

Putting the word fuck doesn't mean that you, a random person on the internet, is really getting under my skin. It's more so an accent on the point that I'm trying to make, that being I think that you are an idiot. Also my argument isn't so feeble to rest on the definition of the word mediocre. You state that it was average most of the way through until it got worse. Assuming that worse than average is no longer average, than it would only be logical for you to rate it lower than average, yet here you are giving the show a rating you yourself described as average.

You state that it is worse than average and then give it a score in which you view as average. Are you fucking stupid? This deserves less than a 7, I will give it a 7. 7 = average. This movie =less than average, this movie = average. I cannot think of any other ways to pound this elementary concept into you exceptionally thick fucking skull.

Here is your exact words copied and pasted: "I could have maybe tolerated all the rest of it and considered it mediocre but still watchable far down the list after the Ghibli movies, _Wolf Children_, etc, but that choice of ending is a final kick in the nuts and insult to everyone who watches it. "

No you did not point out at least two good points and you state that you would have thought it was just average but then the ending was even worse. Go read your own review. Thanks for accusing me of projection though.

You literally did not point out a single good fucking element. You stated that the entirety was slightly below average and unoriginal and the ending only made it worse. You failed to name one positive. If you fail to do so people will think that you don't believe there are any, and a show that has NO positives deserves a 1. Also if it was inferior and below average than why did you give it a score that you consider to be the average. You are beginning to contradict yourself. "7 is average" "This show is below average so a 7 perfectly conveys my feelings"

Guess your an easy critic then. Maybe it sin't that you don't make full use because of communication and more so because of optimism. Perhaps I'm just more likely to give a show a 2? One last question then: don't you think it would be easier to convey a feeling of complete disappointment in a show by giving it a 2 rather than giving it a 7? If the issue is accurately communicating a feeling of sheer disgust for a particular thing, wouldn't rating it the lowest score possible be the most effective? It seems a bit like giving a perfect show a 7 and arguing that it is conveying your message better only because it falls on to a 7-10 scale. Seems a bit silly and ineffective.

That is a completely false dichotomy. You know damn well that there is a huge difference between the relationship of a 1-10 scale and 1-100% to a 1-10 and an IQ test. An IQ test nearly as simple and does make use of lower percentiles. And if this is the case that only a 7-10 scale is needed then why not just use 1-4 system? In addition, you have yet to explain why other people systems of rating on this site effects your thought process. I'm still curious why you're so adverse to the idea of making full use of a 1-10. Most people tend to have the assumption that 5 is average. I tend to believe that 4 is average due to the current state of the industry. Would you say that most shows airing this season are about a 7?

So because everyone else is stupid and can't manage to accurately rate anything, which you acknowledge, you have to rate things in a ridiculous way? So 70% of your 1-10 scale means horrible. Could you imagine if you missed every question on a test (that is equivocal to you saying the movie did nothing correct) and you got 0 out of 20 and your teacher gave you a 70%? You would think that was absolutely absurd; and then you asking about it prompted the response, "Well everyone else does it". Would you want to be operated on by a doctor who got through school under these conditions? Of course not. So why does you giving a movie which you view to have absolutely no redeeming qualities and you consider far below average a 7 make any fucking sense? It is not a rating scale that is logical or dependable in any way.