"Civil engineers planning the demolition of the 60-year-old Matilija Dam on the Ventura River are enjoying an unprecedented preview of where 163 million gallons of pent up water will flow, thanks to sophisticated new computer modeling techniques now being used for a series of dam removal projects planned throughout the United States."
Of course, the biggest (and most controversial) dam project in the world, China's Three Gorges has had all kinds of engineering, environmental and other technology.
NASA's Landsat satellites have been tracking it since construction began in 1994.
Beat your head against wall - version 2.0
"Chinook, in a slightly improved version, cannot ever lose (at checkers). Any opponent, human or computer, no matter how skilled, can at best achieve a draw...
But checkers — or draughts, as it is known in Britain — is the most complex game that has been solved to date, with some 500 billion billion possible board positions, compared with the 765 possibilities in tic-tac-toe.
Even with the advances in computers over the past two decades, it is still impossible, in practical terms, to compute moves for all 500 billion billion board positions. So, the researchers took the usual starting position and looked only at the positions that occurred during play."
New York Times
So, sure, try to figure out the positions that might, could still win. As the saying goes - it will feel good when you stop -)
July 20, 2007 in Industry Commentary | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBack (0)