26 Mar 05 Sunny Jim

Former UK Labour Prime Minister Lord Callaghan, has died on the eve of his 93rd Birthday at his home in Sussex, England, just eleven days after the death of his wife, Audrey. He was probably best remembered for the “Winter of Discontent’ when garbage piled up in the streets in 1978, and ‘Green Goddess’ fire tenders operated by the Army were used, due to striking public service workers.

I actually met him once, at a function in Rochester Kent during the 1983 Election campaign.

25 Mar 05 Rock Paper Scissors

Rock Paper Scissors

Aside from the gesture recognition, it seems like this would bean easy game to learn. The logic is basically

• If rock: paper win, scissors lose
• If paper: scissors win, rock lose
• if scissors: rock win, paper lose

No variable amounts, just straight boolean logic. The next step up might be something like tic-tac-toe… where the machine could start to build some “educated” moves and techniques like blocking, etc.

Really, what is exciting is the spatial recognition. Given the actions, somebody is still telling it what is a win and what is a loss. Without it, learning would be simple enough, given your value and that of the opponent:

• Rock: Paper (lose)
• Rock: Scissors (win)
• Rock: Rock (tie)
• Paper: Paper (tie)
• Paper: Scissors (lose)
• Paper: Rock (win)
• Scissors: Paper (win)
• Scissors: Scissors (tie)
• Scissors: Rock (lose)