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gralx commented on Magnus Carlsen to give up World Championship title   chess24.com/en/read/news/... · Posted by u/CawCawCaw
treis · 3 years ago
Sounds like an urban legend. Gin rummy has too much luck for someone to have a perfect record.
gralx · 3 years ago
The list of sound defeats is kind of a who's who from back in the day: Black, Hawk, Robison, Klein, Leo the Jap, Price, Stein.
gralx commented on Magnus Carlsen to give up World Championship title   chess24.com/en/read/news/... · Posted by u/CawCawCaw
SeanLuke · 3 years ago
It might be worth mentioning a famous abdication which caused a lot of consternation, albeit in another game. I love this story but may have gotten some details wrong.

Marion Tinsley was world checkers champion from 1955-1958, then took a break, then again from 1975-1991, when he resigned in protest (at age 64). He was utterly dominant; indeed it is hard to think of a competitor in all of history more dominant over his sport or game than Tinsley.

In 1990 Tinsley decided to play Chinook, the best checkers computer program in the world. Chinook had placed second at the US Nationals so it had the right to enter the world championships, but the US and British checkers federations refused to allow it.

So Tinsley resigned his title. Tinsley then played Chinook in an unofficial match (which he won).

This power play really stuck it to the federations: nobody wanted to be named the new world champion knowing Tinsley was fully capable of crushing them. Eventually everyone came to an agreement to let Tinsley be the "champion emeritus".

Tinsley played Chinook four years later, at age 68, still probably the best player in the world. But in the middle of the match he complained of stomach pains and withdrew after only six games (of 20), all drawn. Tinsley's pains were real: he later died of pancreatic cancer.

gralx · 3 years ago
> ... it is hard to think of a competitor in all of history more dominant over his sport or game than Tinsley.

I've got another one: famous hold 'em poker player Stu Ungar never lost a game of gin rummy. Utterly dominant.

gralx commented on Napoleon Was the Best General Ever, and the Math Proves It   towardsdatascience.com/na... · Posted by u/redman25
gralx · 3 years ago
Commenters excoriate the methadology. First thing I checked was for comparisons with Aleksandr Suvarov, who "never lost a single battle he commanded."¹ Glaringly absent from the exposition.

¹ https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alexander_Suvorov

gralx commented on Bitpanda said no mass layoffs, three weeks before axing one-third of staff   theblock.co/post/155398/n... · Posted by u/emirb
duxup · 3 years ago
I have worked at a place where the HR manager sent out an email “Why it’s a great time to be working at X Part 1”.

We laid off 20% of the staff and a few days later came “Why it’s a great time to be working at X Part 2”.

gralx · 3 years ago
The darkest Sesame Street skit I ever saw had a muppet jumping up and down on a manhole cover, gleefully repeating "99! 99! 99! ...". A second muppet shows up wondering what it's all about, and the first muppet concedes his spot. The second jumps up once, saying "Ninety---", the manhole cover slips out of place, and the muppet falls to its doom. The first resumes his jumping: "100! 100! 100!"
gralx commented on Linear Address Spaces: Unsafe at any speed   queue.acm.org/detail.cfm?... · Posted by u/g0xA52A2A
gralx · 3 years ago
Link didn't work for me. Direct link did:

https://dl.acm.org/doi/abs/10.1145/3534854

gralx commented on Cory Doctorow on unfair contracts for writers   pluralistic.net/2022/06/2... · Posted by u/worik
dalke · 3 years ago
"finally settled" appears to be a legal phrase. I'll quote from https://www.lawinsider.com/dictionary/finally-settled :

> finally settled means that all parties to the litigation shall have entered into a settlement agreement, that all relevant courts shall have approved the settlement, and that the terms of the settlement shall no longer be subject to appeal, or that such litigation shall have been dismissed with prejudice by a court of competent jurisdiction and such dismissal shall not be subject to appeal.

gralx · 3 years ago
Right! Didn't think to look it up as a term of art.

That means the missing information is temporal: the subsitution in point III narrows indemnity to only those claims which satisfy finally settled at the moment the contract binds.

gralx commented on Cory Doctorow on unfair contracts for writers   pluralistic.net/2022/06/2... · Posted by u/worik
gralx · 3 years ago
Does anyone know the meaning of "all finally settled claims" in point III?

> III. Blanket indemnities. I'm not wealthy, and my insurer won't cover claims that you settle without their consent. Asking me to indemnify you against "all claims" exposes me to the risk of bankruptcy – and still doesn't protect you. I change this to "all finally settled claims."

A claim not finally settled leaves nothing to indemnify against. I'm missing something here.

Edit: Maybe "I indemnify Publisher against all claims which at the time of contract signing are finally settled"?

u/gralx

KarmaCake day242November 18, 2017View Original