randomnumber53

Ah, but it's only a thoughtcrime if you don't say it, and people call you an idiot for just thinking that.

> Before we move to CS for all, can we at least solve the problem of Computer Literacy for all!?

I see no reason that they can't be tackled concurrently!

I remember reading a review/summary/explanation of Primer that was written up--by necessity--in LaTeX.

Usually the grading scale is the same as is used in the iteration of the college class that the MOOC is based off of.

I'm a current HS senior who took a Theory of Computation class the year prior, and I got a few chapters into QCSD before realizing that I needed to learn some more about complexity theory before I read that book. I'm planning on trying again once the summer begins.

Now I'm about half-way through Godel, Esher, Bach, and I have to say that GEB and QCSD feel similar, with an overlap not only in theme but also in genre and style.

Silicon Valley, on the other hand, is great.

I am a mildly dyslexic. I have excellent reading comprehension, but I read about a standard deviation slower than the average reader.

Thus, I don't think I've ever read a book "only once," since in order to understand much of anything, I always end up reading each page paragraph, sentence, or word until I understand it before I progress.

Those dominate much of the thinking of a player in the 1200-1800 range, but become second nature after that point.

The first-move-advantage becomes increasingly relevant the higher the level of play, of course.

Yeah, but who shares URLs with their friends by speech these days? In fact, who really speaks?

I am also an expert player, and agree with most of what was said, but I do think I should point out that this player's style is not the only strategy ("My strategy is usually to throw lots of pieces at their king and hope they die or I can win some material"). Personally, I prefer more closed/quite games, so most of my thinking (even in the middle game) is about how to achieve a favorable endgame, and win from there.

EDIT: I dislike studying openings too, (I started playing 1. g3 to avoid theory while still getting into some fun positions)

I play chess "seriously" (expert level) and am about a gold/platinum league Starcraft II player, and the games do show a surprising amount of similarity. Both show the most variance in the midgame, begin in identical formations (where memorizing openings is common), and converge to endgames that have somewhat less variance than midgames.

This type of training game is more often used to practice a certain structure that arises from a specific opening, and thus is a type of practice used more towards the higher levels of play (International Master+).

The thing is, if two amateurs are playing, neither of whom deeply know openings, then the starting position (or 4-5 moves in) is essentially new territory, like what might arise for a Grandmaster 15-30 moves into the game. Does this make sense?

My favorite thing about the MITx MOOCs are that they have really well-designed, carefully-devised problem sets, which I think might be the most important factor of a great class.

That is still an issue, but it is better than purposefully weighting admissions toward applicants who can afford full tuition.

That's true. I actually read a study recently that talked about how every non-Ivy League university admits exactly one high-achieving person: YOU!

It is interesting that people are talking about the Ivies, not "elite colleges" in general. The article defines a high achiever as "anyone who gets a 29 or better on the ACT or a combined 1,300 on the SAT." At most elite schools (Ivies + MIT, Caltech, Stanford, etc.) a 30 ACT score would be rather below average.

Most colleges are moving towards need-blind admissions too, debunking the common complaint that they don't admit low-income students because they'd rather admit students who can pay.

It is also important to note that these types of policies are more common the more elite a university is.

Okay, but you could use that logic to claim (possibly validly, though I don't think so) that nobody should care about the Ivies because they only make up a fraction of schools (.08% times 5 = .4% of admissions, according to your data). This is not a sound argument, though, since very few of the 5 million students admitted to universities in the US would be competitive applicants at the Ivies. The pool of competitive applicants is much, much smaller.

"To address most of the responses below. I'm implying that even if all appropriate students applied for these programs, as the article suggests, it wouldn't make a difference because some tiny fraction of them would be admitted."

The article doesn't suggest that every student should apply, just that many academically qualified students are missing an opportunity to apply (even if that opportunity only results in a ~10% chance of acceptance, that's still a missed opportunity).

EDIT: Formatting.

It disappoints me that so many commentators on the NPR site infer from the title--"Why Many Smart, Low-Income Students Don't Apply To Elite Schools"--that the article is essentially bashing "big fancy private college[s]" for being overpriced and not-worth-it.

In contrary, it author/article is trying to find and explain why the above misconception exists.

And it seems as though the people this article would most help don't even read it.

If you don't actually believe the poster has that problem, why respond the way that you did? Doesn't that make your comment at least as terrible?

Just a heads up: The HN community tends to dislike jokes, especially jokes meant to do nothing more than make another laugh. In fact, I have found the HN community weighted towards discouraging humor even when it is used not only in a one-note joke, but also as an effort to further a discussion (as good satire should).

This naturally seems to stem from their conscious efforts to promote a 'serious'/on-topic culture and humor's nature as being subjective and often hard to detect.

I am a high school senior taking two college math courses, but to discourage this practice (which costs the school money) the school counts my grade as a 4.0 max in my GPA (AP classes are 5.0, regular are 4.0).

That summarizes the author's conclusion, not what he is trying to say.

"Better to read a poor book with alert resistance, than devour a good one in mindless adoration."

I have felt similarly. The mediocre, when analyzed deeply, can become more interesting than the interesting.

This comment is as far from true as the decision is far from trivial. That is to say, very far.

By far the second most common piece to promote to is a knight, simply because a knight moves in a way a queen cannot. In my 10 years of playing chess, I have probably seen about 5-10 tournament games where promoting to a knight is the correct choice.

Here is a FEN of an example where the only saving move for Black is to play 1...e1=N+: "8/8/8/8/8/3K4/R3p3/3k4 b - - 0 1"

You are right in that the only reason to ever promote to a bishop or rook is to avoid stalemate, yet there is only one practical example of such, here: "8/2P5/8/8/3r4/8/2K5/k7 w - - 0 1".

White must promote to a rook, since if they promote to a queen Black will play 1...Rc4+, forcing 2...Qxc4, which is stalemate. I cannot even find a practical example of when promoting to a bishop would the best choice.

One thing I have noticed from reading reviews and comments about the show is that there is little consensus about which episodes are the best. Many people (I being one of them), actually think episode 2, "Fifteen Million Merits" is the series best.

Personally, I love every episode, and I even think the "The Waldo Moment," which is by far the messiest episode, made some important points about the dangers of bad and lazy criticism.

This AV Club review of seasons 1 and 2 (http://www.avclub.com/review/black-mirror-is-a-brilliant-cal...), which contains fewer spoilers than the episodic reviews, really captures the goal and the value of the series as a whole (see: its title.)

I'd say some other things but want to refrain from spoiling anything. While I usually hate it when people care too much about spoilers (as you note, a work should still stand up upon re-watch), this show at some points relies on the viewer's lack of knowledge to create a tone/mood/point.

EDIT: Grammar.

Also, the reason it is 50 moves <em>without a pawn move or capture</em> is because both pawn moves and captures are irreversible.

In fact, the only irreversible move that doesn't reset the 50 move rule is castling (or losing the right to castle), as having the ability to castle technically changes the position.

I only watched one game, but it seems that:

1) Yes, most games will end in stalemate. 2) Most wins would occur when one side has enough passed paws such that they chance upon promoting to a few queens.

3) The random-promotion significantly lowers the chances for checkmate. Promotion to a queen is so common that many players who play online chess set paws to automatically promote to queens, so they don't waste the 2 or so seconds it takes to click the "Queen" button.

How is this different from an opening tree?