FYI: There was indeed a 30 minute period on 2015-09-21 where it said ” during the administration of George W. Bush and Barrack Obama”, you’re not crazy. Though 2010 is the year it was discovered, the development is assumed to have been as early as 2005, it never said “developed in 2010”
Sherincall
Karma: 187
Are there any plans to make it available for download as a pdf/epub/mobi/txt/etc? Alternatively, would you mind if I created one?
package of common tasks you can use, such as DDoS
LOL
This is the Crazy Ideas thread, I left ethics and legality at the door.
I envision grieving gamers to be good customers. “You’re beating me at this game where reaction time is really important? I’ll spend some money to DDoS you so I can win!”
cost—you pay in your own CPU cycles/bandwidth.
reliability—obviously, the startup would have to earn the reputation for reliability, but there’s nothing inherently stopping it.
etc—AWS is a beast, relatively speaking, and this offers a lot of smaller PCs for a short amount of time. I can’t really think of a reason where that would be needed for computing, but as network relays it would be very useful. You could create your own custom Tor and deploy it on demand.
Yes, kinda like folding@home, just generalized and easy for everyone to use. Also, big advantage is the bandwidth usage (which would likely be a bigger selling point than CPU time).
As for the electricity cost.. The tokens would have to be worth more than what you spend on extra power. And there’s also the thing of “why don’t I just use my own PC for 2 days instead of 10 PCs for 5 hours each?”, to which the answer is go for it if you can. But you may have a problem where you just got the data and need it folded or whatever as soon as possible.
Again, I feel the bigger use case here is the network, which very low extra electrical bill. For compute, you can just rent EC2 or some other compute station in the cloud, but having hundreds of network nodes for short amounts of time is really hard to buy currently.
A botnet startup. People sign up for the service, and install an open source program on their computer. The program can:
Use their CPU cycles to perform arbitrary calculations.
Use their network bandwidth to relay arbitrary data.
Let the user add restrictions on when/how much it can do the above.
For every quantum of data transferred / calculated, the user earns a token. These tokens can then be used to buy bandwidth/cycles of other users on the network. You can also buy tokens for real money (including crypto-currency).
Any job that you choose to execute on the other users machines has to be somehow verified safe for those users (maybe the users have to be able to see the source before accepting, maybe the company has to authorize it, etc). The company also offers a package of common tasks you can use, such as DDoS, Tor/VPN relays, seedboxes, cryptocurrency mining and bruteforcing hashes/encryption/etc.
CIA’s The Definition of Some Estimative Expressions—what probabilities people assign to words such as “probably” and “unlikely”.
CIA actually has several of these articles around, like Biases in Estimating Probabilities. Click around for more.
In hindsight, it seems obvious that they should.
One player hasn’t checked the second game since the start. If you have joined, please log in so the game can proceed.
The second game has started early. I contacted the mods to extend the first phase in case someone does not check before the 1st.
(I’m playing only in the first game, but keeping an eye on this one)
Please make an account and PM me the username, and we’ll get the mods to do the swap.
I have contacted the mods to pause the game and ping the player through email. If that doesn’t work, we’ll look for a replacement. It’d be a shame to waste 2 days of press between other players.
The worth in points means relative to the pot in that game, in terms of supply centers owned.
So we all paid 5 points to enter (thus people starting with 100 have 95 left), and the “worth” is calculated based on our relative power in the game. The sum will always be 35+/-1 for rounding. Currently Russia has 6 points because they have 4 SCs while everyone else has 3. Once we conquer all neutral SCs, the worth will pretty much be equal to SC count.
Now that you understand it, you can safely ignore it since those actual values mean nothing for a game like this (a winner-takes-all, and everyone shares equally in a draw).
Maybe if someone drops out, or otherwise next time.
Well, the game is FCFS. I sent PMs to everyone who applied on the thread to give them a head start, but the password is public. There will also be a second game as soon as enough people express interest (I think 3 so far).
but I think playdiplomacy.com is a much better platform than webdiplomacy.net
Honestly, I chose webdiplomacy.net as I’m a regular there. I know it works, and the illegal orders protection is not that much of a bad thing really. The community is irrelevant in a private game, and I know I can easily get a hold of the mods if the need arises (e.g. if an unexpected pause is required)
Demanding a 90% reliability is WAY too low.
It is low, but not that low, because you are forgetting the 95% heads up. So, the player will miss every deadline with 0.1 * 0.05 == 0.005 (0.5%), which is okay. I think the 90% requirement is okay, but the 95% one should have been higher (and was originally)
It wouldn’t be in any way against the rules, but depending on how it is executed, it may be looked down on.
“Last game Sherincall stabbed everyone every chance he had. I’m not trusting him.” would be pretty valid, the person obviously isn’t trustworthy.
“Last game I trusted Sherincall and left all my centers open, and he stabbed me and soloed” would mean that you didn’t properly understand the game—We are all playing to win, and everyone should choose to win if the option is available.
“Last game Sherincall stabbed me, so now I’m just going to make life miserable for him this game” would mean that you’re not a particularly rational agent (a grudger bot?). That is looked down on because you will be a poor player if you stick to those principles. If you wont ally with me, I’ll ally with person X and attack you. And then people will probably not want to play with you again.
I estimate at least a week for it to start. Let’s put the tentative date at 1st of August.
Rules
This comment will explain the basic rules of the game. Reply to it with any questions relating to the rules themselves.
You can also read the rules on WikiBooks
The board initially looks like this.
You are randomly assigned a great European power. This is the only random element of the game. As you can see, the powers are not equal.
The map is divided into land and sea territories. These are traditionally abbreviated with 3 letters. The seas are uppercase (e.g. ION—Ionian Sea), while lands are written in lowercase (e.g. Bel—Belgium). Switzerland is unpassable. Some of the land territories contain Supply Centers, which are marked with a circle. There 36 of these. As soon as someone owns 18 (50%+1), they win the game. The SCs that are colored on the above map are a power’s Home Supply Centers. These have a special meaning for the power they originally belong to (for others, they are the same as neutral SCs).
There are two types of units: armies and fleets. The fleets can only occupy sea and coastal territories. Armies can only occupy land territories. A power can posses as many units as they own supply centers. All units are of equal strength.
A game year is consists of five phases, some of which may be skipped if there is nothing to be done:
1) Spring moves (AKA Diplomacy phase)
2) Spring retreats
3) Fall moves (AKA Diplomacy phase)
4) Fall retreats
5) Builds/Disbands
During a Moves/Diplomacy phase the players submit orders for every unit they own. Once all orders are submitted, they are evaluated simultaneously. There are 4 types of orders:
1) Hold—The unit does nothing, just holds its position.
This order is traditionally written as “A Ven Holds” (army in Venice holds) or “F BLA H” (fleet in Black Sea holds).
2) Move—The unit attempts to move to an adjacent territory.
This order is traditionally written as “A Ber-Mun” (army Berlin moves to Munich) or “F Lon-ENG” (fleet in London moves to the English Channel).
In a basic case where no other units attempt to move to a territory, the move succeeds, and in the next phase that unit is in the new territory. If a unit attempts to move to a territory occupied by another unit (friendly or not), that move will fail, unless the other unit moved out. If two units attempt to move to the same territory, neither move succeeds. This is known as a bounce. As an example, let’s assume there are units in Greece (Gre), Serbia (Ser) and Romania (Rum), while Bulgaria (Bul) is vacant.
A) A Ser-Bul, A Rum-Bul, A Gre-Bul; No moves succeed, everything remains as is entering the next phase.
B) A Ser Holds, A Gre-Ser, A Rum-Bul; Greece army doesn’t enter Serbia, Romanian army moves to Bulgaria.
C) A Ser-Bul, A Rum-Bul, A Gre-Ser; Serbia and Romania bounce in Bulgaria, meaning Serbia is not vacant. That means the Gre-Ser move fails as well, no one moves in the end.
D) A Ser-Gre, A Gre-Ser, A Rum-Ser; Serbia and Greece attack each other, nothing happens. Serbia is still occupied so Romania can’t move into it.
Note: It is possible for two armies (e.g. in Gre and Rum) to defend three territories (e.g. Gre,Bul,Rum) by bouncing themselves.
Note: When it comes to coastal territories (i.e. a land bordering a sea) that can be occupied by both armies and fleets, same rules apply to both.
Now the question is how to defeat an enemy unit. The third order type is:
3) Support—The unit helps another unit move/hold.
This order is traditionally written as “A Ser S Gre-Bul” (Army in Serbia supports the move to Bulgaria from Greece) or “A Rum S Bul Hold” (Army in Romania supports the Bulgarian unit’s hold).
A unit can offer support in any territory it could move to (e.g. Greece can’t support Ser-Rum, because it cannot move to Rum. But it can support Rum-Ser). A support order is only valid if the supported unit does the specified action (e.g. Support Hold is only possible if the unit does not move. It fails even if the unit tried to move, but that move failed).
If an army is attacking a territory with support from another army (army owners are irrelevant for order resolution), we say that the attack has strength 2. If there are two moves to a territory, the one with a higher strength succeeds. If an army attacks a territory with strength 3, and the territory occupied by another army that is supported by only one other (strength 2), the defending army is dislodged and must retreat. If the attacks are of the same strength, the same rules apply as shown in the above examples.
Note: If there are two attacks of strength 2 on a territory occupied by an unsupported army, the two attacks bounce, and the occupying army remains there.
Instead of supporting hold of an army, you can counter a support by attacking the supporting army. If an army is attacked (even with strength of just 1), it must defend itself and cannot support another battle. Thus an army in Albania can help an attack on Bulgaria by hitting Serbia or Greece to “cut” that support, even though it cannot support directly. This is known as tapping.
4) Convoy—A fleet can convoy an army across sea territories.
This order is traditionally written as “F ENG C Lon-Bre” (Fleet in the English Channel convoys from London to Brest). When paired with “A Lon-Bre”, it lets armies move across water. Armies can move across multiple water territories if there is a fleet in each one, and each fleet has the same order. The fleet owner is not relevant, only the order is.
A convoy can be disrupted in any fleet in the chain is dislodged (forced to retreat—convoys can’t be “cut”).
After the moves, comes the retreat phase. Any units that have been dislodged can retreat to any unoccupied territories adjacent to the territory they were dislodged from. If no such territories exist (or if the player so chooses instead) the units are disbanded.
Finally comes the builds phase. Any supply centers that have units occupying them change ownership to the player who’s units those are. Unoccupied SCs keep their ownership from the last turn. So, to conquer a SC, you must hold it at the end of the Fall phase. The spring phase doesn’t matter in this regard.
A player can have as many units as they own SCs. If they lost SCs this year, they choose which units to disband. If they gained SCs, they can build new units in one of their unoccupied home SCs. Fleets can, of course, only be built in coastal SCs.
Note: It is possible to have many SCs, but not have anywhere free to build if, for example, you had to defend your home centers, so they are still occupied. Or if you lost them.
Some special cases:
Bulgaria, Span and Saint Petersburg have distinct coasts (south and north). A fleet occupying one of those can only move to territories neighboring that coast. Thus, for example, a fleet in Spain’s north coast can only move to MAO, Portugal or Gascony, but not to Western Mediterranean or Marseilles. If a fleet can move to either coast, it can give support in the entire territory. Only one coast can be occupied at the same time.
Constantinopole and Kiel have channels running through them, so they don’t have coasts.
If two dislodged units retreat into a same area, both are disbanded.
Two units cannot exchange territories in one turn (A->B, B->A will bounce), but three can rotate (A->B, B->C, C->A). Fleets cannot exchange territories using coasts (it’s the same territory).
You can retreat into an enemy SC and take control of it that way. Always know where the opponent can retreat when attacking them.
Like Chess, Diplomacy has some standard openings, for each country. You can read about most of them here. It might be worth to check out the ones related to your country.
LessWrong Diplomacy Game 2015
Tangential:
a hardware warranty certainly shouldn’t be at risk from a software modification
While that would definitely be a good clause for the consumers, it’s not exactly right. I have personally caused hardware damage to multiple devices just by modifying the software. Plenty of ways to do it.
There’s also the case in which the device is bricked in such a way that it can’t be fixed even by the manufacturer, while the hardware itself is operating properly. Though, that would likely still count as a software problem.
Not sure if it has been tried before, but I don’t think your calculations are complete. For example:
There is a significant investment to actually make the ad. It needs to be done professionally, if you are hoping to attract large donations.
Assuming 1⁄500 viewers will donate $100 seems very optimistic. Maybe if it is targeted properly, but then you will have a really small number of viewers, not enough to justify the investment cost.
Willingness to donate is likely correlated with the use of an Ad Blocker (conclusion extrapolated from a small sample)
There may a be PR hit when you are associated with youtube ads
I’d think the better approach is to get more public figures to endorse the goal. Not necessarily the likes Musk and Gates, but lower profile youtube folk. Few examples off the top of my head: Wil Wheaton, Tim Minchin, ViHart, LinusTechTips, etc.
May be worthwhile to ask this on the Polling Thread.