explain xkcd - User contributions [en]

2453: Excel Lambda

2021-04-22T13:16:45Z

141.101.105.96: /* Explanation */

{{comic
| number = 2453
| date = April 21, 2021
| title = Excel Lambda
| image = excel_lambda.png
| titletext = Extremely rude how Turing's later formulations of the halting problem called me out by name specifically.
}}

==Explanation==
{{incomplete|Created by a SPREADSHEET. What is a lambda function, what does it do, and has one just been added to excel? Can what Cueball suggest in reality be used like a Lambda function? A better link to lambda function on wikipedia is needed What is the meaning of Cueball's last statement? Another reference to a law/hypothesis about computing? Please mention here why this explanation isn't complete. Do NOT delete this tag too soon.}}

[[Cueball]] is computing and [[Ponytail]] has opinions that is reminiscent of the [[:Category:Code Quality|Code Quality series]], although not so harsh. Cueball has had lots of [[Category:Cueball Computer Problems|Computer Problems]], and this may be the road to another one, but it is not as such a problem for him yet.

The discussion begins because Ponytail finds out that Excel is adding a {{w|Anonymous_function|lambda function}} to their spreadsheet. And she is pleased with this, only to hear Cueball stating that he do not need this as uses a Turing machine on a giant block of columns...

A classical {{w|Turing machine}} uses an infinitely long strip of tape as its memory. The large column acts as the "tape".

Ponytail is convinced Cueball is "doing computing wrong". But he claims that all computing is equally wrong citing the {{w|Church-Turing_thesis|Church-Turing thesis}}, a hypothesis which says that a function can be computed by executing a series of instructions if and only if that function is computable by a Turing Machine. All ways of computing are therefor "equally wrong" since, according to this thesis, they can all be translated to a Turing Machine.

Ponytail then says that Turing would change his mind if he saw Cueball's spreadsheet (almost as if she was saying he would turn in his grave). Cueball's final statement is that Turing could ask him to stop, but would not be able to prove if he actually will stop.

In the title text the {{w|Halting problem|halting problem}} is mentioned. It is the problem of determining whether a given Turing Machine will halt. The problem has been shown to be undecidable, i.e., there exists no algorithm that computes whether an arbitrary Turing machine will halt or not. [[Randall]]/Cueball has been specifically mentioned in a later formulation of his halting problem, because of the way Randall has behaved. He finds this very rude. This is of course a joke, since Turing has been dead since 1954, long before Randall was born. But it would be crazy indeed, if a scientist became so mad at a person, that he would mention this person by name in his formulation of a serious problem.

Over-complicated spreadsheets were also mentioned in [[2180: Spreadsheets|Spreadsheets]]

==Transcript==
:[In a narrow panel, Ponytail is walking in from the left, looking down at her phone]
:Ponytail: Oh cool, Excel is adding a lambda function, so you can recursively define functions.

:[Ponytail, holding her phone to her side stands behind Cueball, who is sitting in an office chair with a hand on a laptop standing on his desk. He has turned around to face her, leaning with the other arm on the back of the chair.]
:Cueball: Seems unnecessary.
:Cueball: When I need to do arbitrary computation, I just add a giant block of columns to the side of my sheet and have a Turing machine traverse down it.

:[In a frame-less panel Ponytail is standing in he same position behind Cueball, who has resumed working on his laptop with both hands on the keyboard.]
:Ponytail: I think you're doing computing wrong.
:Cueball: The Church-Turing thesis says that all ways of computing are '''''equally''''' wrong.

:[Ponytail is still behind Cueball, who has a finger raised in the air, and the other hand is on the desk. Cueball's head has a visible sketch layer which has not been erased.]
:Ponytail: I think if Turing saw '''''your''''' spreadsheets, he'd change his mind.
:Cueball: He can ask me to stop making them, but not prove whether I will!

{{comic discussion}}

[[Category:Comics featuring Cueball]]
[[Category:Comics featuring Ponytail]]
[[Category:Comics featuring real people]]
[[Category:Computers]]
[[Category:Spreadsheets]]
[[Category:Programming]]

1002: Game AIs

2018-01-18T13:21:09Z

141.101.105.96: Add Category:Artificial Intelligence

{{comic
| number = 1002
| date = January 11, 2012
| title = Game AIs
| image = game_ais.png
| titletext = The top computer champion at Seven Minutes in Heaven is a Honda-built Realdoll, but to date it has been unable to outperform the human Seven Minutes in Heaven champion, Ken Jennings.
}}

==Explanation==
To understand the comic, you have to understand what the games are, so let's go (but first, the years in parenthesis in the comic are the year that the game was mastered by a computer):

===Solved===

: These games are considered "solved", meaning the ideal maneuver for each game state (Tic-Tac-Toe, Connect Four) or each of the limited starting positions (Checkers) has already been calculated. Computers aren't so much playing as they are recalculating the list of ideal maneuvers. The same could be said for the computer's human opponent, just at a slower pace.

*'''{{w|Tic-tac-toe}}''' or '''Noughts and Crosses''' in most of the rest of the British Commonwealth countries is a pencil-and-paper game for two players, X and O, who take turns marking the spaces in a 3×3 grid. This game nearly always ends in a tie, regardless of whether humans or computers play it, because the total number of positions is small.

*'''{{w|Nim}}''' is a mathematical game of strategy in which two players take turns removing objects from distinct heaps. On each turn, a player must remove at least one object, and may remove any number of objects provided they all come from the same heap.

*'''{{w|Ghost (game)|Ghost}}''' is a spoken word game in which players take turns adding letters to a growing word fragment. The loser is the first person who completes a valid word or who creates a fragment that cannot be the start of a word. Randall himself has written a perfect solution to Ghost, [https://blog.xkcd.com/2007/12/31/ghost/ which he posted on his blog]. Depending on the dictionary used, either the first player can always force a win, or the second player can.

*'''{{w|Connect Four}}''' (or '''Captain's Mistress''', '''Four Up''', '''Plot Four''', '''Find Four''', '''Fourplay''', '''Four in a Row''', '''Four in a Line''') is a two-player game in which the players first choose a color and then take turns dropping their colored discs from the top into a seven-column, six-row vertically-suspended grid.

*'''{{w|Gomoku}}''' (or '''Gobang''', '''Five in a Row''') is an abstract strategy board game. It is traditionally played with go pieces (black and white stones) on a go board (19x19 intersections); however, because once placed, pieces are not moved or removed from the board, gomoku may also be played as a paper and pencil game. This game is known in several countries under different names.
:Black plays first, and players alternate in placing a stone of their color on an empty intersection. The winner is the first player to get an unbroken row of five stones horizontally, vertically, or diagonally.

*'''{{w|Draughts|Checkers}}''' (in the United States, or '''draughts''' in the United Kingdom) is a group of strategy board games for two players which involve diagonal moves of uniform game pieces and mandatory captures by jumping over opponent pieces.

===Computers Beat Humans===

:The below games have not been "solved". Some of them may be solved some day, but the large number of possible moves has so far prevented this from being done. Others cannot be "solved" due to the influence of randomness or the existence of multiple "ideal" maneuvers for each position. That said, a computer's faster reaction time, higher degree of consistency in making the right decision, and reduced risk of user error make the computer objectively better than the human opponent in nearly all situations.

*'''{{w|Scrabble}}''' is a word game in which two to four players score points by forming words from individual lettered tiles on a gameboard marked with a 15-by-15 grid.

*'''{{w|Counter-Strike|CounterStrike}}''' most likely refers to the popular multiplayer shooter video game about terrorists and counter-terrorists. Counter-Strike is notorious for the large variety of cheating tools that have been made for it; a computer would have essentially perfect accuracy and reflexes, essentially making it the {{w|aimbot}} from hell. It is theoretically possible for a skilled player to beat an AI, but it would be ''extremely'' difficult to do so.

*'''{{w|Beer pong}}''' (or '''Beirut''') is a drinking game in which players throw a ping pong ball across a table with the intent of landing the ball in a cup of beer on the other end.
:[https://youtu.be/HkhMCCOHFmM?t=30s Here's the video] of the University of Illinois robot mentioned in the comic.

*'''{{w|Reversi}}''' (marketed by Pressman under the trade name '''Othello''') is a board game involving abstract strategy and played by two players on a board with 8 rows and 8 columns and a set of distinct pieces for each side. Pieces typically are disks with a light and a dark face, each face belonging to one player. The player's goal is to have a majority of their colored pieces showing at the end of the game, turning over as many of their opponent's pieces as possible.

*'''{{w|Chess}}''' is a two-player board game played on a chessboard, a square-checkered board with 64 squares arranged in an eight-by-eight grid. Each player begins the game with sixteen pieces: one king, one queen, two rooks, two knights, two bishops, and eight pawns, each of these types of pieces moving differently.
:The note mentions "the first game to be won by a chess-playing computer against a reigning world champion under normal chess tournament conditions", in the {{w|Deep Blue versus Garry Kasparov}} match on February 10, 1996, and the [http://en.chessbase.com/post/bilbao-the-humans-strike-back Ponomariov vs Fritz] game in the Man vs Machine World Team Championship on November 21, 2005, considered the "last win by a human against top computer".

*'''{{w|Jeopardy!}}''' is an American quiz show featuring trivia in history, literature, the arts, pop culture, science, sports, geography, wordplay, and more. The show has a unique answer-and-question format in which contestants are presented with clues in the form of answers, and must phrase their responses in question form.
:Ken Jennings, mentioned in the title text, is a famous Jeopardy champion who was beaten by {{w|Watson (computer)|Watson}}, an IBM computer.

===Humans Beat Computers===

:The below games are incredibly difficult to "solve" due to the near-infinite number of possible positions. Computers built in the early 21st century would take years to calculate a single "ideal" move. Worse, the human opponent has the ability to "bluff"; that is, to make a bad move, thus baiting the computer into a trap. Complex algorithms have been devised to make moves in a reasonable timeframe, but so far they are all highly vulnerable to bluffing. As mentioned in the comic, focused research and development is working on refining these algorithms to play the games better.

*'''{{w|StarCraft}}''' is a military science fiction real-time strategy video game. The game revolves around three species fighting for dominance in a distant part of the Milky Way galaxy known as the Koprulu Sector: the Terrans, humans exiled from Earth skilled at adapting to any situation; the Zerg, a race of insectoid aliens in pursuit of genetic perfection, obsessed with assimilating other races; and the Protoss, a humanoid species with advanced technology and psionic abilities, attempting to preserve their civilization and strict philosophical way of living from the Zerg. While even average Starcraft players can defeat the AIs that originally shipped with the games, Starcraft has since been adopted as a standard benchmark for AI research, largely because of its excellent balance. Thanks to that attention, computers can now challenge some expert players, and the trend does not look promising for human players.

*'''{{w|Poker}}''' is a family of card games involving betting and individualistic play whereby the winner is determined by the ranks and combinations of their cards, some of which remain hidden until the end of the game. It is also, however, a game of deception and intimidation, the ubiquitous "poker face" being considered the most important part of the game. '''Update:''' In a 20-day poker tournament from January 11 to 31, 2017, the poker AI {{w|Libratus}} [https://www.theverge.com/2017/1/31/14451616/ai-libratus-beat-humans-poker-cmu-tournament won against four top-class human poker players].

*'''{{w|Arimaa}}''' is a two-player abstract strategy board game that can be played using the same equipment as chess. Arimaa was designed to be more difficult for artificial intelligences to play than chess. Arimaa was invented by Omar Syed, an Indian American computer engineer trained in artificial intelligence. Syed was inspired by Garry Kasparov's defeat at the hands of the chess computer Deep Blue to design a new game which could be played with a standard chess set, would be difficult for computers to play well, but would have rules simple enough for his then four-year-old son Aamir to understand. On April 18, 2015, a computer won [http://arimaa.com/arimaa/challenge/ the "Arimaa Challenge"], so this comic is now out of date with respect to Arimaa; it should move above ''Starcraft'' or ''Jeopardy!''.

*'''{{w|Go (game)|Go}}''' is an ancient board game for two players that originated in China more than 2,000 years ago. The game is noted for being rich in strategy despite its relatively simple rules. The game is played by two players who alternately place black and white stones on the vacant intersections (called "points") of a grid of 19×19 lines (beginners often play on smaller 9×9 and 13×13 boards). The object of the game is to use one's stones to control a larger amount of territory of the board than the opponent. That computers would soon beat humans was the subject in [[1263: Reassuring]]. '''Update:''' on March 15, 2016, Google's {{w|AlphaGo versus Lee Sedol|AlphaGo beat Lee Sedol}}, who was often seen as the dominant human player over the last decade, 4 games to 1 in a widely viewed match, and {{w|Computer Go}} was expected to become more dominant over time. In May 2017, Google's AI AlphaGo [http://www.irishtimes.com/business/technology/google-ai-becomes-world-s-top-ranking-go-player-1.3097756 defeated the world's top human Go player]. This was referenced three months later in [[1875: Computers vs Humans]].

*'''{{w|Snakes and Ladders}}''' (or '''Chutes and Ladders''') is an ancient Indian {{w|race game}}, where the moves are decided entirely by die rolls. A number of tiles are connected by pictures of ladders and snakes (or chutes) which makes the game piece jump forward or backward, respectively. Since the game is decided by pure chance, it occupies the limbo where a computer will always be ''exactly'' as likely to win as a human (indeed, Randall's arrow points at the dividing line between 'humans beat computers' and 'computers beat humans').

===Computers cannot compete===

*'''{{w|Mao (card game)|Mao}}''' (or '''Mau''') is a card game of the Shedding family, in which the aim is to get rid of all of the cards in hand without breaking certain unspoken rules. The game is from a subset of the Stops family, and is similar in structure to the card game Uno.
:The game forbids its players from explaining the rules, and new players are often told only "the only rule you may be told is this one." The ultimate goal of the game is to be the first player to get rid of all the cards in their hand. Computers would have a difficult time integrating into Mao either because they would know all the rules -- and thus be disqualified or simply ignored by the players -- or would need a complicated learning engine that quite simply doesn't exist.

*'''{{w|Seven minutes in heaven|Seven Minutes in Heaven}}''' is a teenagers' party game first recorded as being played in Cincinnati in the early 1950s. Two people are selected to go into a closet or other dark enclosed space and do whatever they like for seven minutes. Sexual activities are allowed; however kissing and making out are more common.
:As the game is focused on human interaction, there's not a whole lot a modern computer can ''do'' in the closet. It would need some kind of robotic body in order to interact with its human partner, and emotion engines that could feel pleasure and displeasure in order to make decisions. The title text claims that {{w|Honda|Honda Motor Company}} has invented a "{{w|RealDoll}}" (sex toy shaped like a mannequin) with rudimentary Seven Minutes in Heaven capabilities, but they pale in comparison to a human's.

And finally
*'''{{w|Calvin and Hobbes#Calvinball|Calvinball}}''' is a reference to the comic strip {{w|Calvin and Hobbes}} by {{w|Bill Watterson}}.
:Calvinball is a game played by Calvin and Hobbes as a rebellion against organized team sports; according to Hobbes, "No sport is less organized than Calvinball!" Calvinball was first introduced to the readers at the end of a 1990 storyline involving Calvin reluctantly joining recess baseball. It quickly became a staple of the comic afterwards.
:The only hint at the true creation of the game ironically comes from the last Calvinball strip, in which a game of football quickly devolves into a game of Calvinball. Calvin remarks that "sooner or later, all our games turn into Calvinball," suggesting a similar scenario that directly led to the creation of the sport. Calvin and Hobbes usually play by themselves, although in one storyline Rosalyn (Calvin's baby-sitter) plays in return for Calvin doing his homework, and plays very well once she realizes that the rules are made up on the spot.
:The only consistent rules state that Calvinball may never be played with the same rules twice, and you need to wear a mask, no questions asked. Scoring is also arbitrary, with Hobbes at times reporting scores of "Q to 12" and "oogy to boogy." The only recognizable sports Calvinball resembles are the ones it emulates (i.e., a cross between croquet, polo, badminton, capture the flag, and volleyball.)
::Long story short, the game is a manifestation of pure chaos and the human imagination, far beyond the meager capabilities of silicon and circuitry.

==Transcript==
:Difficulty of Various Games for Computers

:[A diagram. The left column describes various levels of skill for the most capable computers in decreasing performance against humans. The right side lists games in each particular section, in increasing game difficulty. There are labels denoting the hard and easy ends of the diagram.]

:'''Easy'''
:{| class="wikitable" style="background:white;" align="center"
| rowspan="6" | Solved Computers can play perfectly
| rowspan="4" | Solved for all possible positions
| Tic-tac-toe
|-
| Nim
|-
| Ghost (1989)
|-
| Connect Four (1995)
|-
| rowspan="2" | Solved for starting positions
| Gomoku
|-
| Checkers (2007)
|-
| rowspan="6" colspan="2" | Computers can beat top humans
| Scrabble
|-
| CounterStrike
|-
| Beer Pong (UIUC robot)
|-
| Reversi
|-
| Chess<div style="font-size:smaller; text-align:left;">
* February 10, 1996: First win by computer against top human
* November 21, 2005: Last win by human against top computer
</div>
|-
| Jeopardy
|-
| colspan="2" rowspan="5" | Computers still lose to top humans
(but focused R&D could change this)
| StarCraft
|-
| Poker
|-
| Arimaa
|-
| Go
|-
| rowspan="2" | Snakes and Ladders
|-
| colspan="2" rowspan="4" | Computers may ''never'' outplay humans
|-
| Mao
|-
| Seven Minutes in Heaven
|-
| Calvinball
|}
:'''Hard'''

{{comic discussion}}
[[Category:Charts]]
[[Category:Video games]]
[[Category:Chess]]
[[Category:Calvin and Hobbes]]
[[Category:Artificial Intelligence]]

Talk:1940: The Food Size Cycle

2018-01-11T21:31:45Z

141.101.105.96: Food portion sizes in the UK vs USA.

Does panini have a different meaning in the USA? In the UK, it basically means a sandwich made in a flattish rectangular roll, usually toasted (sometimes also the roll itself). They can be quite large; not necessarily smaller than sandwiches in general.[[Special:Contributions/141.101.76.16|141.101.76.16]] 16:44, 10 January 2018 (UTC)
:From my experience its the flatishness off panini that make them more comfortable to eat, but who knows maybe we're on the end of the panini cycle. [[Special:Contributions/162.158.74.9|162.158.74.9]] 23:43, 10 January 2018 (UTC)

Is it generally known that "panini" is the plural form of the Italian word "panino"? We don't say "burritos" or "taquitos" for one example, so why "panini"? [[User:Gearoid|Gearóid]] ([[User talk:Gearoid|talk]]) 07:46, 11 January 2018 (UTC)
: But we do say 'a biscotti'. Probably because when selling them you would advertise in the plural, and those not familiar with Italian linguistics would not know how to construct a singular from it, and so would simply use the word as it stands. As a result, of course, panini and biscotti are, through use, now correct ''english'' singulars.[[Special:Contributions/141.101.76.16|141.101.76.16]] 09:34, 11 January 2018 (UTC)

Ah, but what about the slider effect? Mini versions of (in this case burgers) to be served in a collective? --[[User:Thomcat|Thomcat]] ([[User talk:Thomcat|talk]]) 17:01, 10 January 2018 (UTC)

Related, perhaps, is the sizing issue. Some places sell medium, large, and extra large drinks. Note no small.
[[Special:Contributions/108.162.216.154|108.162.216.154]] 20:29, 10 January 2018 (UTC) Gene Wirchenko <genew@telus.net>
: And the 'regular' is what used to be the 'large'; the 'small', if it exists, is what used to be the 'regular' - to try to make you feel like you're short-changing yourself if you buy a normal sized one.[[Special:Contributions/141.101.76.16|141.101.76.16]] 09:27, 11 January 2018 (UTC)

The alt-text seems backwards: The way Randall's presented it, it looks like he's asserting that thick crusts get thinner, then the cycle repeats. This matches anecdotal evidence based upon the style favored by my local pizza shops over the years, but more research is needed. Thin crusts also tend to be cheaper to make, so... [[User:ProphetZarquon|ProphetZarquon]] ([[User talk:ProphetZarquon|talk]]) 21:08, 10 January 2018 (UTC)
: I don't think so - 'deep-dish' is listed first, as the one on the original track; 'thin crust' is then the one on the replacement track. The original pizzas, as imported from Italy, would have been thin crust. These then got thicker until they begat deep dish, and, indeed, beyond, with the ridiculous proliferation of stuffed and sandwich crusts. Then, as some people lost patience with this, there was a trend to re-introduce the thin crust (the replacement track).[[Special:Contributions/141.101.76.16|141.101.76.16]] 09:25, 11 January 2018 (UTC)

Portion inflation makes dietary information misleading. One would be hard pressed to find a muffin of the size used in nutrition information guides.
Recipe books show similar inflation, recipes as printed make larger amounts of food, but they are listed as feeding fewer people than they used to. [https://www.webmd.com/diet/features/7-expert-tricks-calorie-portion-control]
Analagous inflation can also be seen in clothes sizes. What used to be a size 8 is now labeled a size 4. Regular becomes "slim cut." [[Special:Contributions/172.68.189.127|172.68.189.127]] 00:01, 11 January 2018 (UTC)

Is the ratio between subsequent food size bifurcations consistent with the first Feigenbaum constant? [https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Feigenbaum_constants] [[User:Docstout|Docstout]] ([[User talk:Docstout|talk]]) 01:15, 11 January 2018 (UTC)

Does this remind anyone of a Hertzsprung–Russell diagram? [[User:Capncanuck|Capncanuck]] ([[User talk:Capncanuck|talk]]) 02:51, 11 January 2018 (UTC)

BTW, I find it amusing that this comic came out the next day after a report on [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shrinkflation shrinkflation] of Mondelez chocolates in Europe hit the news here ... --kavol, [[Special:Contributions/141.101.96.197|141.101.96.197]] 07:57, 11 January 2018 (UTC)

Is this phenomenon specific to the US? I don't really recognize it here in the Netherlands, but the US has a reputation of having giant versions of everything: food, cars, people (width mostly) & so on. Maybe specific to a "big is beautiful" cultural attitude? [[Special:Contributions/162.158.111.187|162.158.111.187]] 15:22, 11 January 2018 (UTC)
:This happens, albeit to a considerably lesser extend, in the UK. Here, the phenomenon is restricted primarily to American fast food restaurants. I've eaten in America and was able to get 6 meals from the left-over food from a single-portion meal at Pinky's Pupu Bar & Grill in Kailua, Hawai`i. [[Special:Contributions/141.101.105.96|141.101.105.96]] 21:31, 11 January 2018 (UTC)