The language of the future
Is this a joke? Sadly I fear it is not.
Keywords follow. Support vector machines. Kernel machines. SVMlight. Tree induction. Logistic Regression. Regularized logistic regression. Boost and AdaBoost.
Two relatively interesting events are happening right now. First, the FIDE World Chess Championship is winding up. In surprising turn of events, Rustam Kasimdzhanov defeated Veselin Topalov in a rapid game, winning the match and advancing to the finals. Topalov had previous won 9.5 points out of 10 (one draw) -- an amazing run. Kasimdzhanov (or Kasim as many people seem to call him) went on to take the lead in his match with England's Michael Adams. The games in WCC tournament seem to be more exciting than the Linares tournament (more people going for the win rather than being content with a draw, at least from this patzer's point of view).
The other interesting event happening is the World Computer Chess Championship. So far I've been very impressed by Junior's agressive style of play. While playing Diep in the third round, Junior ignores its queenside pawns and goes for the kill. If that was not just luck then the humans better watch out. Diep was crushed. Also, in round 4 vs. Crafty, Junior seems to think it is up 4 pawns after move 43. Perhaps it was overly optimistic at that point but it did go on to win the game.
The Chessbase site is a pretty good source for recent news (although their subtle self promotion is a little annoying). If you want to read about recent results and download PGN games, This Week in Chess is a good resource. Finally, if you want to view PGN files or analyze games, I recommend getting SCID. It's just as good as commerical programs and free to boot. Also, you can find lots of free WinBoard compatible engines to use with it.
After four years and one month, Quixote 1.0 is finally released. We probably should have released a non-beta version a long time ago. The MEMS Exchange has been using Quixote in a production environment for years. Linux Weekly News has also been using it for a long time. On the other hand, until recently we had been making incompatible changes to the framework. Incompatible changes will now have to wait until Quixote 2.
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