But before I go finally, tell me please in your view what was a reasonable interpretation of https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=21823201 I pretty well described how it came across to me, effectively that we're all in a surveillance society and if we aren't we soon will be like it or not. I can salvage nothing worthwhile from that poisonous nihilism.

Not exactly to address your point but they're a good way of tracking individuals so I always try to pay anonymously (cash) and never register it. I should probably buy a new one every few months but usually forget.

FYI anyway. Privacy aside it's a pretty decent system.

I dunno. Granted evaluation is key but so is branching, surely, as that is what generates new positions, and their complexity in evaluation as there are more factors to consider.

How does one 'look at "the best" 10-15 [positions]' without culling all the others first, however cheaply? I thought evaluation really was just tree searching (hence branching factor is crucial) with various weights (obviously this is traditional chess evaluation, not fancy NN stuff). I honestly am clueless.

> Gaining positional advantage at cost of anything other than pawn is probably not worth it

This kind of post makes me want to give up on HN. I have actually played it (albeit a very long time ago) and you are wrong. Please try it.

But even if true, and only a pawn dies, it drastically changes the nature of the game as a white pawn is a barrier to white pieces. Make that barrier permeable and the entire game changes.

> Taking your own pieces would be sub-optimal choice in every-case other then avoiding mate

Or inflicting mate, if you're blocked from that by your own piece. Or opening an attack that otherwise blocked. Or freeing pieces otherwise useless (bishops seem to get this badly, though maybe it's just me - I was never a great player). Any major piece otherwise trapped can now escape by taking any lesser piece of its own that's fenced it in.

It totally changes the game. Position is just as important as pieces, and maybe more at different times.

Really? Are you sure boeing is, given the cost-savings that not being insured would make (I mean the mgmt is clearly penny-pinchingly stupid enough).

But even if boeing is insured, you can bet your butt the insurers will have an explicit or implicit clause that voids the insurance on 'reasonable grounds', and they will argue (correctly) that knowingly producing flawed products (when it became evident at least) matches that getout perfectly.

Even if they lose the insurers will basically move into a courtroom, sleeping bags and all, to tie things up forever. It's cheaper than paying out.

My opinion anyway.

Regarding the camels, can you dig up a link, am curious. Thanks.

This always attracted me as a concept and seems well received, per link above.

It should increase the branching factor considerably, and complicate its evaluation - not saying good or bad, just is.

> you stress that you have "a perfectly open mind" and yet when people disagree you seem to take it extremely personally

I do not take it personally. I asked for evidence. Very little was forthcoming. I've an open mind to opinions backed up by evidence. Opinion without some basis is useless or worse. QV. anti-vaxxers, chem-trailers etc. Or do you support these people's views just because they opine so? Please answer this point specifically.

> 1) by relating experiences and impressions, 2) and listening to those of others with an open mind

1) may not be correct (plus my own impression that SO isn't terrible doesn't count?) and 2) I've a perfectly open mind, that's why I asked the question. I asked for evidence. That's a reasonable request.

> it can be very obnoxious to ... to keep things on track

I've experienced some of that, in a minor form. That people are having trouble showing much evidence is what I keep coming back to. It may be that you're asking higher level questions than I am.

> What I've just said is true...

That's useless to me or to this argument. I want evidence.

> few examples I have would link you to my SO account

well, OK, I can sympathise with that - to an extent.

> people might be reluctant to jump through the precise hoops you've laid out for them.

Garbage. What 'precise hoops'? I asked that those hard done by post some personal evidence, which is easily found (if it exists).

> reasonable people do not keep lists of examples like this

Per https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=21796919 you don't have to.

The lack of such delinquent SO examples here is telling.

Are these your questions, as I asked? Of course you can find such problems, that's not what I was asking. But let's go on.

As to your questions, the first has been closed, and quite correctly as it's too vague.

The 2nd is not closed, and has answers. Problem?

The 3rd is not closed, and has an answer (albeit downvoted unhelpfully as you note). But the answer's there.

Not your questions anyway, and 1 closed correctly and 2 still open and with answers.

I don't accept this as strong evidence of wrongdoing.

[0] edit: ahem, not that I'm in a position to accuse others of this at times.

Every time this comes up people will shout about how unfairly they've been treated, and sure I've seen questions closed when they shouldn't have been, but often they're closed because they're dups or just homework which could have been found with a dab of googling.

Odd that these complainers never seem to link to a question of theirs to show us an example.

So I'll present my challenge again, to the parent @kstenerud and anyone else, if you say it's happened to you, post a link so we can judge.

[1] One exception, did meet a gatekeeper on a wiki article I questioned, in the end we sorted it out civilly.

What's bollixed up your grammar file are the users who absolutely insist on not writing syntactically perfect programs every time.

Your 2nd example is still cleaner than writing a hand parser that does the same thing, surely? A slightly mucky DSL has got to be cleaner, clearer, shorter and so more maintainable than a handwritten equivalent, no?

What would you want the grammar language to look like that handled errors 'properly'?