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Official BBO Hijacked Thread Thread No, it's not about that

#4001 User is offline   Winstonm 

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Posted 2022-September-24, 07:34

Give it up for Albert Pujols who last night hit career home runs number 699 and 700, only the 4th player in history to hit 700 or more home runs.
"Injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere." Black Lives Matter. / "I need ammunition, not a ride." Zelensky
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#4002 User is offline   Winstonm 

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Posted 2022-September-24, 07:34

Give it up for Albert Pujols who last night hit career home runs number 699 and 700, only the 4th player in history to hit 700 or more home runs.
"Injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere." Black Lives Matter. / "I need ammunition, not a ride." Zelensky
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#4003 User is offline   pilowsky 

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Posted 2022-October-05, 19:51

The correct way to prepare and eat Surströmming.
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#4004 User is offline   Gilithin 

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Posted 2022-October-08, 09:10

Quote

The Goat and the Scapegoat (by Jonathan Rowson)
==========================
Once upon a time, not so long ago, there was a goat and a scapegoat​ in a field.

The goat was the Greatest Of All Time. He was admired and revered​ in his field, and known as a star in the sky to the world beyond​.

The scapegoat was different. He was younger, and ​an outsider. He was neither much liked nor trusted by the others in the field, who were mostly cows. The scapegoat was not known to the world beyond, though he longed to be, and soon would be, though not in the way he had hoped for.

The scapegoat worked hard to become stronger in battle. He was growing in confidence, almost an adult, waiting for his moment. One day, to the surprise of the cows, the scapegoat crept up on the goat while he was in the woods, and defeated him in battle. The battle featured kicks and bites and charges the like of which the cows were familiar with, but the goat said they were unusual. He later said he felt as if they came from another place, or even another kind of animal. The goat was very angry, and left the field of battle.

When the goat next saw the scapegoat it was a different kind of battle, and he took just one step into the field. And after the scapegoat took his second step, the goat did not copy, but left the field and slammed the gate. It was as if the goat wanted to say loud and clear to the world beyond that he never wanted to be with the scapegoat in the field again.

The goat carried on being the best, seemingly unperturbed. The scapegoat pleaded his case to the world beyond. He had not cheated against the goat he said. He admitted he had cheated twice before, but in a different way in a different place, and for that he was sorry. He even offered to have all his hair shaved off in front of all the cows to leave no doubt that he was hiding nothing. The cows were generally unimpressed, mooing in particularly baleful tones whenever the subject of the scapegoat came up.

Everyone waited to hear from the goat.

After several days of tense expectation, he passed a note to the blue bird, who flew around the world telling all who would listen what was on it, namely that cheating is an existential threat to the field. The goat’s uncharacteristic actions were justified, the world was told, because the scapegoat is a cheater and cheating in the field must stop.

The world waited to hear from the scapegoat, but he was not the one who spoke next. The goat is lucky to have a powerful friend, an elephant, who seemed eager to get involved.

The elephant is friendly and widely liked and enjoyed, but he is imperious too. Although he would not dare to try to milk the goat, he does like the cows in the field to be milked for tasty dairy products to feed his elephant calves. He cannot fulfill this desire himself, due to his lack of opposable thumbs and the insufficient agility of his trunk. The field therefore sometimes call the elephant by his nickname - CheeseNotCome - but sometimes they just call him ‘the elephant’.

Elephants never forget. He studied the scapegoat's prior battles on the field that the cows gave testimony to, going back more than five years. Then he used those records and placed them in front of some special new plants he’d found, looking for signals of movements in the plants to corroborate the goat's story for the world beyond. Remember, the elephant was not in the field when the scapegoat was alleged to have cheated the goat. Nonetheless somehow the elephant succeeded in making itself central to this story for the world beyond, attracting new fans and accruing more land in the process.

It’s fair to say that the world beyond was perplexed. Those outside the field are simply not aware that the battle no longer always takes place in the woods, and nor do we speak anymore of horses or castles. Since the field now exists in so many parts of the world beyond, we communicate our moves with the help of spiders who move them through vibrations in their webs, and they work really fast. The rapid vibrations create a kind of screen for us to see by indenting air or water. So now, when we can’t play in the woods, we see and imagine our battles in the lake or the sky, what we call the lakesky. The battle is still fundamentally about the woods, but millions of cows play in the lakesky every day. It is not widely known in the world beyond, but due to his recent agreement with the goat, the elephant controls the part of the lakesky that matters most for our battles.

The relationship between the elephant and the scapegoat was never straightforward but the main problem for the scapegoat is that the elephant did so much work for the goat that the world beyond forgot the origin of the story.

The scapegoat committed transgressions in the lakesky in the past, no doubt. It’s not a small thing to cheat, in any context, and it’s only natural that the cows have doubts about you after that. But the question remains: did the scapegoat cheat when it defeated the goat in the woods?

That question is how this story began. It matters because none of the cows saw anything to suggest it actually happened, and none of the animals, or even the spiders, can fathom how it even might have happened. There are far-fetched stories, and minds boggle in the world beyond.

The goat said the scapegoat defeated him too easily, and that he was acting as if he need not apply any effort. The goat also expressed surprise, as others have, about how quickly the scapegoat became so strong. Yet the strongest part of these claims is that they came from the goat. We should of course respect the intuition of the goat, but given he was responding to a loss, we also have reason to doubt it.

As for the rest of the field, and the world beyond, it is wrong to assume that someone who was guilty before, elsewhere, in a somewhat different context, must always be guilty again. All animals know that while the presumption of innocence applies not to a person’s character in general, in perpetuity, it does apply to all acts allegedly committed in particular times and places, and that is the heart of the matter here.

The goat is keen to show leadership in the world on the matter of cheating in the field. But might he have been so keen that he failed to make a critical distinction?

Cheating in the lakesky in the past is not the same as cheating in the woods in the present. Perhaps he didn't care about that distinction, because it seems fussy, and he’s the goat. And he felt angry, and someone had to represent the wider problem, and the scapegoat looked like he would do that job well because he was known to be a cheat who had cheated in the field before. Maybe he’d just go away, and, with luck, the problem might start to go away with him.

But this is a morality tale.

The charge against the scapegoat is that he cheated, and that he lied about his cheating. There has yet to be a council of the cows, but the wisest cows already find it at least ‘likely’ that he did not cheat in the battle that matters most for this tale, and none of the animals, even the elephant, think he has cheated in the lakesky or the woods in the past two years. Strange though it sounds, the scapegoat might well be a guilty victim in this tale, rightly accused of past wrongdoing, but also the subject of unjustified harm in the present, with disproportionate effect.

The charge against the elephant is that he profiteered, muscling in on the story and using it as a case study to market his own platform and tool, while choosing not to highlight by name all the other lakesky cheats in the field, thereby misleading the world beyond that the scapegoat had done something particularly egregious. The elephant will say he cares deeply about the field, and was only trying to help. That might be true, but he may not realise that it is possible to be too powerful.

The charge against the goat is that he scapegoated to deal with his anger at losing a particular game, and projected his hatred of cheating in general onto a particular person. He may have done this unconsciously and in haste and then struggled to change course. He may have wanted to take the lead on cheating in the field with the best of intentions, and he may have genuinely suspected his opponent of cheating in the woods; but without evidence or rationale he was unwise and unkind to go public with a targeted attack. In effect, he demanded that the scapegoat should bear the burden of a wider systemic problem. When the goat makes a mistake, the goat remains the goat, and the mistake remains a mistake.

In his quiet moments alone by the hill side the scapegoat wonders if the goat really hates him. He regrets his skylake cheating, but oh my the thrill at the time. Those days are gone, he hopes. Surely his youthful cheating in skylake games for just a few berries will not forever haunt him? I am so strong now, he thinks, that I want to get back to fighting the goat in the woods.

There are many endings to this tale, but this is how one cow tells it.

A few days later, to everyone’s surprise, the goat invited the scapegoat to the elephant’s estate. They chewed grass together happily, forgave each other, had a few fast and friendly battles in the woods, and soon went back to the field to play.

Thereafter, the whole field became gently watchful and nobody ever cheated again.

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#4005 User is offline   pilowsky 

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Posted 2022-October-08, 15:26

So, do you think a goat can be a cheat in one field but then turn around and tell all the cows that the other field was all about grass so it doesn't matter?
Of course, when it comes to real food in a restaurant he always tucks in his napkin and eats with a knife and fork, so they should just go away because the eating speaks for itself.
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#4006 User is offline   y66 

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Posted 2022-October-18, 07:58

Colin Eberhardt, tech guy said:

Today I learnt that Internet of Things means a doorbell that is more complicated to setup than a laptop

If you lose all hope, you can always find it again -- Richard Ford in The Sportswriter
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#4007 User is offline   kenberg 

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Posted 2022-October-18, 08:27

Speaking as a cow, I hope that these goats and elephants can get their act together. Btw, I might be a cow for purposes of the story but my preferred pronouns are still he and him (and, of course, I and me).

After chewing on my cud for a while, it occurred to me that maybe we should forget about goats and elephants and look around for a good hippopotamus.
Ken
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#4008 User is offline   pilowsky 

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Posted 2022-October-18, 16:10

View Postkenberg, on 2022-October-18, 08:27, said:

Speaking as a cow, I hope that these goats and elephants can get their act together. Btw, I might be a cow for purposes of the story but my preferred pronouns are still he and him (and, of course, I and me).

After chewing on my cud for a while, it occurred to me that maybe we should forget about goats and elephants and look around for a good hippopotamus.


Well r/chess - which is an even more dangerous place than pescetom's bridge club - was unimpressed by Rowson.



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#4009 User is offline   kenberg 

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Posted 2022-October-18, 18:40

View Postpilowsky, on 2022-October-18, 16:10, said:

Well r/chess - which is an even more dangerous place than pescetom's bridge club - was unimpressed by Rowson.





This whole thing was and is over my head. Not that this keeps me from having an opinion.

The comment section of your cited source refers to Animal Farm, a book I read sixty-some years ago.

Yep, I am lost.

Lost, lost, and, well, lost.

Not for the first time.
Ken
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#4010 User is offline   pilowsky 

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Posted 2022-October-18, 20:20

View Postkenberg, on 2022-October-18, 18:40, said:

This whole thing was and is over my head. Not that this keeps me from having an opinion.

The comment section of your cited source refers to Animal Farm, a book I read sixty-some years ago.

Yep, I am lost.

Lost, lost, and, well, lost.

Not for the first time.


If you google Hans Niemann - Magnus Carlsen you'll be inundated with "hits".
Briefly, unlike Bridge where cheating is completely unknown - chess players fret constantly over the possibility that their opponents have access to the double-dummy (aka - Stockfish/Leela/Alphazero).
COVID (which is going to be blamed for everything for the next 50 years) created a perfect storm in the chess world because all play moved online.
A secondary factor in chess (in very sharp distinction to Bridge) is that the best players are commonly under. the age of 19 as opposed to Bridge where the median age is over 90.
Recently at the Sinquefield Cup - played in St Louis Mo. - (one of the most prestigious/richest) chess invitationals a very strong grandmaster (in chess being a grandmaster actually means something) by the name of Richard Rapport had to pull out at the last minute and was replaced by Hans Niemann (19 yo US GM - quite strong but untested).
Niemann was previously banned from chess.com (more than once) because of cheating - which he confessed to.

When Carlsen played him in STL Mo. Carlsen lost.
The next day Carlsen withdrew intimating in a now-famous tweet that Niemann may have cheated.
At which point Elon Musk tweeted that Niemann must have been getting signals from vibrating anal beads.
yadda yadda yadda
Endless arguments about whether or not cheating online matters vis a vis OTB.

Or to put it another way, if you discover that a weevil is eating your dough by falsely inflating the value of the bread, should he put in charge of running the world's largest economy?

Maybe we need to reopen a cheating thread?


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#4011 User is offline   Winstonm 

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Posted 2022-October-20, 06:55

This is so confusing. How will our our friends in the U.K. this year distinguish between the goose and the Truss?
"Injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere." Black Lives Matter. / "I need ammunition, not a ride." Zelensky
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#4012 User is offline   Cyberyeti 

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Posted 2022-October-20, 07:26

View PostWinstonm, on 2022-October-20, 06:55, said:

This is so confusing. How will our our friends in the U.K. this year distinguish between the goose and the Truss?


Not that confusing, exactly what anybody with any eye on the situation knew was going to happen. Similar issue to the Republicans (and Labour under Corbyn) the membership are much more rabid than the parliamentarians and can inflict a leader on them they can't live with.
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#4013 User is offline   pilowsky 

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Posted 2022-October-20, 15:04

And now Niemann has filed suit against the herd.
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#4014 User is offline   Gilithin 

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Posted 2022-October-20, 20:02

View Postpilowsky, on 2022-October-18, 20:20, said:

If you google Hans Niemann - Magnus Carlsen you'll be inundated with "hits".

Just to be clear for everyone, the online games where Niemann cheated are the chess equivalent of private games that he played when he was 16, not related to the governing body at all. There is a list around showing that well over 50 other active GMs have also cheated in such online play, many much more recent than Hans. Hans' FIDE-rated games have all been analysed and currently there is no evidence that he cheated in any of those at all, including the game that the player (Magnus Carlsen) that kicked this all off lost. There is also no evidence of his cheating in any game at all, even the private ones, in the last 2 years. In short, what the current evidence suggests is that Magnus looks like a really sore loser. Moreover, chess has some rather strict rules about dropping out of tournaments and refusing to play a specific opponent, in part as a reaction to Iranian and Lebanese players who refuse to compete against Israelis. So Carlsen's actions turn out to be a serious breach of the chess code of ethics. It will be interesting to see where this leads but unless more evidence comes forward, which seems unlikely, the person that FIDE ought to be sanctioning is Magnus. The trouble is that he is the biggest name in the game and FIDE might well decide to take the same approach to him as the UCI took with Lance back in the day - took big to be punished.

Anyway, the TL:DR version of the story in bridge terms is that Meckwell and the Nickell team accuse Lall's upstart juniors team (for those that remember that) at the US Trials of cheating without any evidence and people from inside and outside the bridge world pile into Justin and co because Meckwell could not possibly be wrong, leading to Justin, Josh and the others to be refused invites to most of the prestigious bridge events and become the butt end of thousands of internet jokes and general bullying. If anyone wants to add to that bullying here, I would hope that Barry would be quick to nip that in the bud and remove the offensive posts.
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#4015 User is offline   thepossum 

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Posted 2022-October-20, 22:06

Quote

in reply y66's quoted comment about the Internet of Things


It seems rather crazy to me that so many things apparently need a global (or at least routed) internet identifier

You know we used to be able to (rather strangely in my view) trust the uniqueness of MAC ids and the like
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#4016 User is offline   thepossum 

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Posted 2022-October-20, 22:13

View PostGilithin, on 2022-October-20, 20:02, said:

.... etc about allegaed cheating and whether its relevant to stuff that happens later (my paraphrase to be clear)


For me I would like to draw a parallel with all those who use rather dubious means to gain entry to any elite circle. Is it related or not. Is it forgiveable or not

I always find Animal Farm relevant to the world
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#4017 User is offline   pilowsky 

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Posted 2022-October-20, 23:05

View PostGilithin, on 2022-October-20, 20:02, said:

Just to be clear for everyone, the online games where Niemann cheated are the chess equivalent of private games that he played when he was 16, not related to the governing body at all.

Just to be clear Chess.com claims that Niemann cheated more than he admitted in the post-game interview. btw he's 19 y.o. atm so 16 is not that long ago.
Apparently nobody is asserting that HN cheated in a FIDE sanctioned tournament.
What MC seems to have asserted is that he does not have confidence in playing against someone that has confessed to cheating.

The phrase "private game" conjures up an image of 4 people who are probably drinking coffee and smoking big cigars.
This isn't the case. In the new-fangled age of the inter-thingy online games are considered important.







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#4018 User is offline   thepossum 

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Posted 2022-October-22, 03:17

Anyone else concerned about fascism in this world and its close ties to media it would appear

I feel very lonely

BS story after BS story to manipulate people. Does everyone really believe everything they read or watch. Maybe I'm biased by a social media and MSM lens

It's a variant on let them eat cake

I imagine people are still falling for the BS over Jan 6

The UK putting up with their rubbish. It's everywhere
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#4019 User is offline   kenberg 

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Posted 2022-October-23, 12:59

View Postthepossum, on 2022-October-22, 03:17, said:

Anyone else concerned about fascism in this world and its close ties to media it would appear

I feel very lonely

BS story after BS story to manipulate people. Does everyone really believe everything they read or watch. Maybe I'm biased by a social media and MSM lens

It's a variant on let them eat cake

I imagine people are still falling for the BS over Jan 6

The UK putting up with their rubbish. It's everywhere


I am not sure if this responds to what you are saying. Forget the news for a moment, suppose I tell you about what I have seen or experienced. I won't lie to you. Otoh, I have a viewpoint. I'll select the items I think are important, and my general view of life will probably be reflected in how I interpret what I saw. This is largely inevitable, even if we are attempting to tell it straight. And you are saying, and yep I agree, that often they are not trying all that hard to tell it straight.

So yes, Skepticism is warranted.

Still, there is a continuum, here as elsewhere. If you and I are talking, I will be making a serious effort to be clear and accurate, and I would expect the same of you. I would be open to a suggestion that maybe I rethink my interpretations. But we all know people who, at least on some subjects, are just out of reach.We listen a bit and then tell them we need to go.

Short version: I never thought of Walter Cronkite as "the most trusted man in America" but still you could do a lot worse.
Ken
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#4020 User is offline   pilowsky 

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Posted 2022-October-23, 14:58

View Postkenberg, on 2022-October-23, 12:59, said:

Short version: I never thought of Charles Cronkite as "the most trusted man in America" but still you could do a lot worse.


Was he related to Walter?
And does that explain why so many people think that it is what it is? Because, in the end "that's the way it is".
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