Thursday, November 4, 2004

Stalemate was easy, but code duplication is a problem

Well implementing stalemate wound up being an easy task. It did uncover some interesting bugs that had been lingering around without detection. The test suite (44 tests strong) is doing its job magnificently! Lines of code is at 1163 with 637 of it test. All I have left to handle is three repeated positions and 50 moves without a pawn move or a piece captured. Then on to the hard part ;-) Remember my goal is to have this thing play decent chess (able to give me a game...not that hard these days ;-)

I guess I should say something about the election. Howard Fineman has an intelligent post mortem. The thoughts I take away from the election are simple: the news coverage was pathetic and this country is definitely of two minds.

The news coverage was bad because of their fear of predicting it wrong. Doesn't prediction always have a chance of being wrong? Funny thing is even Kerry admitted defeat before ANY news network had predicted Bush the winner. The closest were FOX and NBS with Bush at 269 electoral votes! Give me a break, it was over when Bush has a 140k lead in Ohio and the prediction of provisional ballots was at most 150k and Bushes lead in Nevada was ~3% with 99% of the vote in! Kerry new it, why couldn't any of the wimps that supposedly give us news tell us that plainly?

The second thought is about our country being of two minds. It isn't really political, meaning republican v Democrat (they simply change their platforms to meet the opinions of the masses). Gone are the days that the parties stand for anything. The two minds in America are secular and religious. The vast majority of urban population is secular and votes against anything religious. The vast majority of the rural population is religious and votes against anything secular. The parties have simply aligned themselves towards that. I think this issue is HUGE and will shape our future. I personally do not want a secular country, but I only get one vote ;-)

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