131–140 of 352 posts
Earlier quoted context omitted.
This is increasingly common in domestic US full-price airlines. It makes sense, in a way - most folks have their own devices, and the airlines save money and weight and don't have to worry about future tech obsolescence - but still makes me a bit sad.
The thing I really wish domestic airlines would take away is reclining seats in economy. Nothing good comes from having them.
I wonder if they gave the chess bot X seconds of thinking time in an era when computers were slower? The way you set difficulty for turn based game ai is that you limit how far ahead the algorithm searches. If you set the lookahead based on compute time your difficulties will be way out of line if someone upgrades the CPU.
Getting more thinking time tends to give surprisingly small improvements to playing strength. For a classical alpha-beta search based engine, for a given ply (turn) you might have ~20 moves to consider each depth of the search tree. If you're trying to brute force search deeper, a 10x increase in compute time or power doesn't even let you search an extra ply. Elo gains for engines tend to come from better evaluation,…
Last time I flew Delta they no longer had this bot, which made me sad. One of my favorite parts of flying was getting absolutely crushed into a tiny cube by the airplane seat's easy chess bot, and then again by the airplane seat itself when the person in front of me reclines their seat.
> then again by the airplane seat itself when the person in front of me reclines their seat. This reminds me of the time I had my laptop open on the tilt-down tray and the very large man in the seat in front just repositioned his girth (not even reclining the seat) but it flexed the seat back enough that my laptop screen was momentarily caught between the tray below and recessed lip above and was almost crushed.
Though the ipad itself wasn't damaged, a couple of glasses didn't make it, and required the steward to try to brush up whatever fragments of glass they could.
I feel that airlines are a microcosm of "Do you care about who you actions might affect?" - similar to the "Do you return the cart to the corral" test at supermarkets - are you willing to put even the smallest bit of effort to significantly improve other people's experiences?
Not only is the delta chessbot bad (My low 1600s lichess-elo self can win handily every single time against any difficulty, white or black), but there's also a sequence of moves I found which deterministically causes the game to crash. I should probably record it next time I'm on a flight.
I'm 2100 rapid on lichess, 2050 blitz and bullet. I got destroyed every single time I played the easy mode version on Delta. It knew opening theory. It did not blunder a single time in the middle game. I never made it to an end game.
Last time I flew Delta they no longer had this bot, which made me sad. One of my favorite parts of flying was getting absolutely crushed into a tiny cube by the airplane seat's easy chess bot, and then again by the airplane seat itself when the person in front of me reclines their seat.
> when the person in front of me reclines their seat. As a reasonably tall person I have never reclined my seat and will forever consider anyone who does an asshole. The very fact that you can but don’t do something is the precise space where assholeness is defined.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
> when the person in front of me reclines their seat. As a reasonably tall person I have never reclined my seat and will forever consider anyone who does an asshole. The very fact that you can but don’t do something is the precise space where assholeness is defined.
I personally believe that the ideal situation is in fact everyone reclining their seat
You get woken up at your destination after they've taken you off the plane. It would be the closest thing you can get to teleportation.
Then the airline wouldn't have to fuss with preparing shitty food and coffee or deal with annoying passengers. A win for everyone!
Earlier quoted context omitted.
> when the person in front of me reclines their seat. As a reasonably tall person I have never reclined my seat and will forever consider anyone who does an asshole. The very fact that you can but don’t do something is the precise space where assholeness is defined.
I personally believe that the ideal situation is in fact everyone reclining their seat
I understand why she wanted to lean back. And yet, when she did, it freaking hurt. I'm around the 80th percentile in height in the US, and while my doctor says I could lose a few pounds, I wear a men's large shirt so I'm not exactly enormous. Even though they seat can technically recline, you cannot convince me that they're actually meant to.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
> when the person in front of me reclines their seat. As a reasonably tall person I have never reclined my seat and will forever consider anyone who does an asshole. The very fact that you can but don’t do something is the precise space where assholeness is defined.
I personally believe that the ideal situation is in fact everyone reclining their seat
Last time I flew Delta they no longer had this bot, which made me sad. One of my favorite parts of flying was getting absolutely crushed into a tiny cube by the airplane seat's easy chess bot, and then again by the airplane seat itself when the person in front of me reclines their seat.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
This is increasingly common in domestic US full-price airlines. It makes sense, in a way - most folks have their own devices, and the airlines save money and weight and don't have to worry about future tech obsolescence - but still makes me a bit sad.
The thing I really wish domestic airlines would take away is reclining seats in economy. Nothing good comes from having them.